Eric Metaxas tells Dennis Prager that COVID lockdowns are economically disastrous and unconstitutional, comparing the government overreach to the Reichstag fire. He points to humanitarian crises in India and argues that Trump was pressured into lockdowns to avoid political blame.
Eric Metaxas' latest book, by the way, is terrific. It's Seven More Men. It's so important to read about great figures, my friends. And, you know, it's so clear to me, every age, it's just a repeat. A handful of people stand out for courage and most people follow the herd. It is the situation on earth at this time. Let me ask you, I don't know if I talked to you about this, Italy, so What is your take? I mean, you're in the middle of New York, you're at the new term epicenter. Do you agree with people like me and Victor Davis Hanson and Heather MacDonald, who also lives in New York, that a lot of places should not be on lockdown?
Of course I do. Look, it's ridiculous on a number of levels. It's ridiculous just because it's flat-out stupid stupid. It's just dumb. You're not saving lives, you're not doing anything, you're not doing anything except harming the economy, number one. Number two, it's either unconstitutional or troublingly possibly unconstitutional. You have to educate the people about what you can educate them on, but at some point, we are free. You know, if I want to jump in front of a bus and kill myself, there might be laws against it, but the point is, people are going to do what they want to do. You cannot force people, you know, not to run out in traffic And I think that if people have enough information, most people are going to make the right decision. I— clearly, we're at a point, Dennis, you know, even 2 weeks ago when we spoke, it was a different point, but we're at a point now where I think most people understand the situation well enough to understand how to deal with it. And this is a classic case of the Reichstag fire. You know, we have an opportunity, a crisis, we can grab more power for the government, and everybody has to shut up. I mean, this is a classic case, and I really do think I think that it's a moment in our history where we're going to look back at how we dealt with this. You know, I think it was brilliant of the president to throw it in the governor's laps so that we can have this kind of argument, you know, like have a family argument. Everybody gets to argue about it and talk about it rather than have it imposed from on high like Roe v. Wade or, you know, same-sex marriage. This is the kind of thing we ought to be having this conversation, but I think common sense will prevail. It's just going to take more time than it should.
Eric, I called it today the greatest human error in human history. Obviously there have been greater evils. I mean, you know, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, you know, Gulag. I'm not talking about evil. I'm just talking about error, right? This is the greatest international error in human history in my opinion.
I think you're probably right because there's nothing that has been globally global like this, and there's nothing where everybody has fallen in line. We haven't had the situation set up where this was even possible. You know, we didn't have the global culture. Now, do you agree? I had on my radio program last week Diana West, who said she felt Trump was tricked into this.
He wasn't tricked. He was, for the first time in his presidency, intimidated. Because if he didn't go lockdown in the beginning, which he clearly was opposed to, Every death in America would have been ascribed to Donald Trump, every single one.
Right.
Look, to give you an idea, I use the example, Eric, of India. 1 billion, 100 million people, 800 deaths. Why are they on lockdown when far more people are gonna starve to death in India than will die from the coronavirus as a result of the lockdown?
I mean, more people will starve in a week in India. Then yes, that's right, unbelievable.
It, it, so, uh, the world seems to be governed by, by media. Uh, I, I don't, I don't know what else to say.
Now you're— now we're getting to the big issue, Dennis. This is why you and I do what we do, because we, we didn't used to be here. My theory, I've talked about this for decades, is that the, the rise of the media culture has been over the last 5, 6 decades. In other words, values were transmitted mostly locally around the world, including in the US, but something happened with the rise of the media culture.
Okay, hold it there. That's really important. I love that point, from local transmission to this.
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