Pandemic Panic!

The incompetence of the Trump administration will undoubtedly result in the deaths of thousands of Americans. No surprise there. However, let’s take a look at why people should not be panicking.

1.  Although it has been estimated that perhaps as many as 100 million Americans might contract the virus; it is also estimated that most of them will not suffer major medical consequences.

2.  Children tend to be somewhat more resistant to this particular coronavirus than the rest of us. They are less likely to contract it. If they do contract it, unless they are medically fragile, they are unlikely to suffer anything more than flu like symptoms. In other words, this particular disease is less threatening to children than most.  Of course you should take all precautions to insure that your children do not become ill, but if they do, it is less a danger to them then it is to older people.

3.  Even if the maximum number of Americans become infected, the death rate is expected to be only about 3.4%. That is much higher than the usual flu death rate and is very serious. However, it is not the sort of plague you see on television and movies. The end of the human race is not nigh. Civilization will not collapse. This is not the Spanish flu of 1918.

4.  Those few who  are at serious risk are those are in one of two categories. They are either disadvantaged with a compromised immune system or they are elderly. I am both.  Yet I’m not panicking.

Finally, let me observe that that the biggest problem you can expect to have with toilet paper and water is what to do with the huge stacks of them you have squirreled away in your garage. I can understand the hand sanitizer situation, but even that’s ridiculous. Washing your hands is much more effective as a method for preventing the spread of the virus.  There is no known shortage of soap or running water in sinks at this time. The CDC does not expect there to be a shortage of either.  However it wouldn’t surprise me if sinks and soap  start disappearing from hardware stores and grocery store shelves. That would make as much sense as the toilet paper/water thing.

This is bad, yes. Still, this is not a disaster. I suspect people are more likely to injure themselves fighting over stocks of toilet paper and water than they are to actually be damaged by the disease itself. So as the Scriptures ought to say, but regrettably don’t, panic not lest ye should be panicked.

Watch Out! He’s Sane!

https://quillette.com/2020/03/03/trailblazing-pete-buttigieg-revealed-the-extent-of-progressive-homophobia/

I cannot help but recall a time decades ago when the gay pride parades were so highly controversial. A gay couple complained that these weren’t gay pride parades.  These were bondage and S&M pride parades. They were a couple like Buttigiegs.  Moderate, normative Americans.

The Woking Brain Dead continue their efforts to do to the Democratic Party what the immortal minority did to the Republicans.

I can’t help but note one problem I have with the articles; its assumption that progressives equal social justice warriors. The two are not even vaguely synonymous.

What? Me Worry?

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4856339/voters-100000000-project

Nearly 100 million eligible voters did not vote in the last presidential election!  100 million!  No wonder democracy is dying in America.  It is dying of neglect.

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."  — Pericles, unconfirmed.

What he definitely did say:

“We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.”

(Pericles commenting the participation of Athenian citizens in politics, as quoted in Models of Democracy (2006) by David Held, Stanford University Press, p. 14. Book II, chapter 40.)

If you can’t bother to vote, either you don’t belong in America, or America no longer deserves to exist.

The American revolution was not anti taxes (according to none other than George Washington), it was a rebellion against being governed without representation. Many have died to protect that concept since the 1770s.The majority of potential American voters today are clearly declaring that those deaths were in vain and that the American Revolution was pointless.

Or to put it another way,   “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” — John Stuart Mill, 1867.

Herd Mentality

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livemint.com/news/india/donald-trump-in-india-live-updates-namaste-donald-trump-melania-ivanka-trump-narendra-modi-news/amp-11582522512237.html

> To my great friend Prime Minister Modi - Thank you for this wonderful visit," wrote Trump and signed the message. <

Who is Trump’s  great friend?

He’s the head of a political party which, when it was founded, declared openly that  it greatly admired Adolf Hitler for his efforts to promote racial purity.  Of course the purity they meant is the Hindu ethnic, religious, and racial purity of India.

Currently his administration is refusing to knowledge the citizenship of anyone who is a Muslim. It doesn’t matter how long their families have lived in India, even if it’s been for hundreds of years.  If they’re Muslim they are not recognized to be Indian and therefore are assumed to be illegal aliens who may be immediately arrested and eventually deported.

Business insider reports that:

• This month, India passed a sweeping law that creates a path for citizenship for religious minorities - except for Muslims.

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party are experiencing a backlash beyond what they expected. Weekslong mass protests have led to 21 deaths in clashes with the police so far.
• Analysts say India is tiring of Modi's autocratic style and failed economic policies.

No wonder Trump loves Modi so much. Modi seeks racial purity, spreads dissent throughout his nation, encourages violence which leaves his own citizens dead in the streets, is an autocrat, has failed economic policies, and seeks to strip citizenship from and imprison Muslims. Does any of this sound familiar?

Blindsight

https://quillette.com/2020/02/11/my-former-life-as-a-radical/

This article exemplifies a situation I find so often true when dealing with conservatives.  The criticism of left wing extremism is accurate and effective. Yet somehow the author doesn’t seem to notice that right wing extremists fit exactly the same pattern. In fact, it’s hard to even imagine this article applying to right wing radicals. It’s almost as if there is no such thing as right wing radicals.  Perhaps, in the mind of the author, there isn’t.

> The neuroscientist-cum-philosopher Sam Harris once remarked that “the true horror of religion” is that it “allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions what only lunatics could believe on their own.” And as Voltaire warned us, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Radical ideology has a similar effect—it inspires and justifies immoral actions. 

...As Mark Twain said, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” <

And to a right wing radical, all radicals look left wing.

Scarecrow Needs Brains?

My friend made the following post that I made the following response.

C:  Dems are mad at Trump for “abusing” his pardon power.

Total Presidential pardons/sentence commutations: Carter: 566 Reagan: 406 H.W Bush: 77 Cigar Bill: 459 George W: 200 Obama: 1,927 Trump: 26 Please, by all means, educate me on abuse of power.

Me:  Yes it is abuse of power. You have set up a strawman and easily knocked him down. The argument was never about the president making pardons, isn’t that bad? The question is quite different.  No one criticizes him for making pardons. It’s the way he made the pardons and the reasons for those pardons.

How were his pardons different?  The process bypassed the formal procedures used by past presidents and was driven instead by friendship, fame, personal empathy and a shared sense of persecution. 

 Many of the pardons announced Tuesday were advocated by well-heeled friends of the president,

Here’s your education. The other presidents followed procedures including seeking recommendations and advice from the Justice Department before acting. Trump acted on the basis of money, power, and friendship. If that looks exactly the same to you as what the other presidents did there is no hope for educating you.

As the Scriptures ought to say: None are so blind as those who will not see; none are so deaf so those who will not hear; and none are so gullible as those who will not think.

Me:  Let me add some more thoughts.

Your argument is logically identical to the following. A man is arrested and sent to prison for driving drunk and killing three pedestrians in a hit-and-run accident as a result. You like him so you respond,  “Hey what about all those other people were driving? They were driving and even drove more miles than he did.  Why they are allowed to do it and he isn’t?”

The answer is that they weren’t drunk, didn’t kill anyone, and didn’t leave the scene of the accident.

The New Normal

  From a Facebook post from a friend.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-airport-inhumanity-20170206-story.html

C:  [The men and women who reportedly handcuffed small children and the elderly, separated a child from his mother and held others without food for 20 hours, are undoubtedly "ordinary" people. What I mean by that, is that these are, in normal circumstances, people who likely treat their neighbors and co-workers with kindness and do not intentionally seek to harm others. That is chilling, as it is a reminder that authoritarians have no trouble finding the people they need to carry out their acts of cruelty. They do not need special monsters; they can issue orders to otherwise unexceptional people who will carry them out dutifully.]

Slavery. Trail of Tears. Wounded Knee. Jim Crow laws. The KKK. The Chinese Exclusion Act. Japanese-American Internment. Segregation. Our history is full of examples of how deadly and racist we can become when White Supremacists are in charge. Now we have children being separated from their parents. Detained immigrants dying in our care. And a White Nationalist who would be king. We need to take back our country from White Nationalists. It's 2020 - Vote Blue!

Me:  A problem I have discussed quite often.  The problem of the so-called Good Germans.  The problem was discussed many times after World War II. How could good decent people do horrible, unspeakable, indecent things? How could Good Germans commit atrocities?  

There many answers. The most basic ones are fitting social expectations, obeying the law (even if the law itself is horrible and evil), just doing your job, trusting authority, and being afraid to be the one who stands up.

And then there  are true believers. Those who are convinced if their own moral righteousness, superiority, and the absolute unquestionable perfection of their beliefs. Always remember what was said by Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities”.