Obama, Ebola and 'The Black Death'

The developed world lives within a comfortable myth that technology can isolate us from nature.

This is reinforced every time we flick the switch near the door and a dark room lights up at night. Food is transported daily to local stores in plentiful quantities, and if we can't afford to buy it, the state buys it for us. And if we are in a life-threatening accident while driving to the supermarket, an ambulance will carry us to the nearest emergency room, where the finest medical care will be delivered, irrespective of our ability to pay for it.

Harsh diseases like polio and smallpox have been all but eliminated, or live quarantined lives inside of a few inescapable laboratories. Academia, the federal government and pharmaceutical laboratories are filled with the best and brightest minds the world has to offer, so, of course, any communicable disease outbreak would be short lived.

Given this myth, it is tempting to say that a serious Ebola outbreak is impossible in the developed world. And this might be true, were it not for one unknowable element in the equation: People – the people infected in the outbreak, and the people charged with controlling the outbreak.

People don't follow the rules of computer models. They think for themselves, across a wide range of circumstances, and act according to sometimes individualized ideas about outcomes, which may or may not be backed up by experience and evidence. And let's not forget emotion, either.

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Additionally, people may act for personal gain or for the greater good in any given situation. Indeed, few of us know beforehand exactly how we would react when faced with an almost certainly life-ending disease like Ebola.

Finally, panic causes to people to act in irrational ways that may not be in anyone's best interest, including their own. Take Mr. Obama, for instance. He is now faced with an election cycle that is likely to sink even his imagined accomplishments down into the Potomac muck. Furthermore, it may imprison him in the fishbowl of Washington, D.C., for another two years before he can beat a retreat with even imagined dignity.

Legacy panic may already have set in. Everyone wants to be well-thought of, especially by those who supported them. Unfortunately, the time to consider whether some of the needed responses in the world during one individual's two presidential terms might possibly be "above his pay grade" was before that individual was elected. Now it is too late. Now all of America, and indeed much of the rest of the world, gets to partake of whatever decisions this individual's deep character flaws under immense pressure allow him to make.

The outcome is not likely to be good. Despite our modern myths, humanity does not control nature. We may think we're ready for prime time, but most of us still run from tornadoes and hurricanes rather than standing defiantly in their path and shaking our fists at them.

Any nation that allows its political class to become infested with policy hacks and personal power brokers deserves exactly what it gets. America is no exception. Across the spectrum of the military, policing, administrative law-making government agencies and academia, the competent have been weeded out, replaced by "yes men and women" who have advanced by taking credit for other people's work (akin to spending other people's money).

Such are the people now responsible for controlling the outbreak of a highly infectious disease for which there is no cure. Normal containment methods have been abandoned with the advent of AIDS and other political diseases.

Here's what an uncontrollable outbreak looks like:

"Most historians are willing to agree that the Black Death killed between 30-45% of the population between 1348-50."

"The Arrival – The Black Death entered south-western England in summer 1348 and by all accounts struck Bristol with shocking force.

"'In this year, 1348, in Melcombe in the county of Dorset, a little before the feast of St. John the Baptist, two ships, one of them from Bristol, came alongside. One of the sailors had brought with him from Gascony the seeds of the terrible pestilence, and through him the men of that town of Melcombe were the first in England to be infected.'" – Grey Friar's Chronicle, Lynn

Both quotes are from the article, "Black Death," by Dr. Mike Ibeji, 2011.

You might want to grab a copy before it's gone.

"Armageddon Story: Reconnaissance" – it's how judgment begins. God provides the judgment service for both Christians and non-Christians. That's why both should read this book.

Media wishing to interview Craige McMillan, please contact [email protected].