HELP US REACH OUR GOAL!
[waiting name=”Declaration Countdown”]
Hurry! You have until midnight, Thursday, April 23rd to SIGN this Declaration to tell Gov. Polis it’s time to get back to living!
Governor Polis,
WE THE PEOPLE of Colorado hereby declare it time for you to re-open the State!
Based on initial reports, we complied with your stay-at-home order to “flatten the curve”.
But now, we understand who is truly at risk and how to safely interact in public together.
We have won the battle of flattening the curve, and We the People demand freedom immediately to maintain our social, economic, and spiritual strength for the long haul.
The people of Colorado are smart, capable, and committed to protecting each other.
It’s time you started trusting them!
Signed,
Dear Friends:
Please join me as several thousand other Colorado citizens have already done in signing this declaration to re-open Colorado now. Also, pass this on to other concerned citizens. We will present this declaration to the governor this Friday, April 24, so there is only a little time left to give this declaration a powerful voice for freedom and common sense.
Earlier this week the governor said he was loosening some of the orders, but look more carefully and in reality what he did was extend most of the orders well into May. Now we are supposed to feel grateful that some of his dictates have been loosened in this extended order.
Could it be that the protests and citizen complaints are making a difference? We think so and that is why we at Colorado Freedom Force are putting this last big push to find more Colorado citizens who want to join in our demand to let Colorado get back to work, and live our lives as we know best how to do.
Some are saying that we need to give the shutdown another few weeks, essentially taking us through May before everyone can get back to work. They contend that all of the trillions of dollars of Federal government subsidies will protect our economy and we need this additional time to hold the virus back.
I strongly disagree for two fundamental reasons.
First, concerning the epidemic:
Back in February we were told there would be exponentially accelerating cases that would overwhelm the medical system. Either because of faulty models, effective social distancing, or a combination of both, the worst case scenarios in Colorado never happened. What we are seeing is new hospital admissions have been diminishing for the last two weeks. Hospitals and emergency rooms have been more empty than overwhelmed. The “curve” that has been so much discussed has been flattened and effective treatments to help many recover are being found. We as individual citizens are social distancing and will continue to be careful, with or without the governor’s orders to shut down the state.
The only actual cure we will ever have is immunity from the virus, which inevitably means more people will get this highly contagious disease, regardless of the shutdown orders. The best numbers we have show it is a dangerous virus, but within the range of a serious influenza. If we continue the shut down for several more weeks, it will not make the virus go away, it will only extend the time until there is sufficient immunity to stop the epidemic.
Preliminary results released last Friday from a Stanford study of Santa Clara, California confirms the mortality rate is in fact about that of a bad flu bug. The study showed that the actual number of persons who had already contracted COVID-19 was 50-85 times the “official” known, tested infection rate. Factoring in this data yields a mortality rate in the range of one tenth of one percent.
Second, concerning the impact this is having on the rest of our culture:
We are dismantling our economic systems. It is more than just high unemployment (which is a big problem). If this shutdown continues through May I expect something more like a depression.
A depression is where people die for lack of basic things like adequate food, proper housing, shortages of just about everything, lack of basic medical supplies, etc.. What we are toying with is not just inconvenience, we could be sacrificing our culture and our people for years to come.
Another few weeks will geometrically escalate what is already developing into the deepest recession in our lifetime. It takes more than money to keep an economy afloat. It takes production and that has largely been removed from the economy for the last several weeks. Supply chains are already stressed. Try ordering stuff from Amazon, it is taking several weeks for delivery.
A few more weeks and we risk production and supply chains breaking. Businesses are stressed. A few more weeks and many will be out of business. That will take years to rebuild. At the beginning of the shutdown panic buying kicked in for toilet paper, sanitizers and some food staples. Due to the diversity and resiliency of our supply systems that smoothed out, but continue the shutdown for a few more weeks and as the tens of thousands of products that are still available start to dwindle, panic buying may take over in earnest.
But we will have squandered our robust economic capacity and recovery will be that much further out of our reach. The longer we wait the worse it will get.
The alternative that I am seeking is simple: let the people decide what works best for themselves. The vast majority will chose to continue to social distance and protect those most at risk. But at the same time businesses can start to rebuild. Churches can assemble (as each sees appropriate), people can begin to be productive again and life can start to return to a somewhat more normal pace.
That is why I am asking Colorado citizens to join me in signing this declaration to Governor Polis: It is time to re-open Colorado.
Kevin Lundberg
Former Colorado State Senator
