Mainers have heard their fair share of cockamamie stories, hair-brained schemes and far-fetched ideas, but never have so many silly notions been exposed for the outright lies they are than during the coronavirus pandemic.

John Balentine, a former managing editor for the Lakes Region Weekly, lives in Windham.

There have been so many untruths advanced by the liberal mainstream media and the Democratic Party for so many decades now, it’s become hard to distinguish truth from propaganda. In the next two installments of Here’s Something, we’ll explore a few of the longtime liberal lies the pandemic has exposed.

First, how many times have liberals told us plastic bags are evil and bad for our health and the environment? Well, there’s nothing like molecules of spikey-tipped COVID-19 to scare liberals straight regarding the health benefits of single-use plastic shopping bags.

Of course, conservatives and anyone with common sense have been lamenting the plastic bag bans imposed by state and local governments. Single-use plastic shopping bags don’t harbor bacteria, unlike reusable bags, and therefore are healthier, which is why the bag bans have been lifted for the time being. Here’s hoping the bag bans disappear forever.

Second, liberals have enthusiastically promoted communal living and the so-called sharing economy. Think ride sharing, buses, subways and large tenement buildings with thousands of inhabitants packed in like sardines.

Fashionable millennials have espoused the sharing of everything, and while they may save money doing so, the recent pandemic proves that sometimes it’s better to stay apart and avoid shared transit and living situations.

This idea of common-sense separation and self-sufficiency is buoyed by a recent MIT study that found New York City’s mass transit system is a major reason why so many New Yorkers have contracted coronavirus.

So, the next time liberals criticize urban sprawl and country living where each house has some buffering acreage, remind them of 2020.

Third, how many times have you heard, especially by Democratic Socialists during the recent presidential campaign, that “health care is a right”?

The virus has made clear that you can’t force someone to provide health care as if it’s somehow our right to be attended to when we’re sick. Therefore since you can’t force someone to take care of you – especially if that person may contract a disease you have – health care is a privilege, not a right.

If health care were indeed a right, caregivers would be considered slaves, not heroes for the voluntary service they bravely provide in the face of danger.

Fourth, Democrats have always claimed to be for the little guy. If there’s one image of these pandemic times to remember forever, it should be of Democrat House Speaker Nancy Antionette Pelosi showing late-night talk show host James Corden her $24,000 SubZero refrigerator chock full of $13-per-pint gourmet ice cream.

Also remember the social media posts of liberal maven Madonna as she complained about being quarantined while taking a bath full of floating rose petals. Professional Democrats such as Pelosi and the Hollywood elite are out of touch. They claim to be for the little guy, but their riches and arrogance blind them to the commoners’ plight.

Stay tuned next week for more cockamamie ideas that the pandemic has exposed as liberal lies.