Some folks, on multiple threads, apparently think I somehow missed Robert L. Gore's most recent essay.
Au contraire, mes amis.
RLG is a bright guy, and writes well and thoughtfully, better than me without question, and most days and times, but this example is none of those things. Sorry, but I said that out loud.
Tantrum and screed is not reasoned polemic, kids.
As if I didn't post a response to this two days ago, elsewhere.
"Objection: Assumes facts not in evidence, i.e. that a temporary quarantine will become a decades-long boondoggle.
Reductio ad absurdum Fallacy, 20 yard penalty and loss of possession.
And I observe FTR that people crying about something that’s not yet three weeks old as though it will go on endlessly are children who were never spanked, sent to bed without their supper, or told to wait for any form of gratification.
Most of us grew out of that phase of “right now is forever” tantruming somewhere around 1st grade, though the “this minute is forever” argument is sometimes heard as late as adolescence:
."
{FTR: "I'll never get off this planet" transitions to
lightspeed to Alderaan in about 30 minutes of
cinema time. QED
I don't pick examples randomly.}
RLG's personal response to that engendered a further response from me:
"You figure that stay-at-home declarations now for a current pandemic, which is knocking off upwards of 1K persons/day here, and more each day, will automagically become as open-ended and everlasting as the Patriot Act because…why, exactly?
Because that’s what we did in [2009], when Obozo had Swine Flu to pin this on?
Because Wilson did that with Spanish Flu in 1918?
Because of all the other presidents that declared perpetual martial law in every outbreak of bubonic plague in the U.S. before antibiotics?
And all those other times that happened too: smallpox, cholera, typhus, yellow fever, malaria, mumps, measles, polio?
Wait…none of that ever happened…??
Not even once???
So, what’s changed in the last 12 or 102 or 245 years to make you think we’d go for that now, since we didn’t then, ever?
I think one of these things is not like the other, not least of which because at a non-infinite point in time, probably within this calendar year (and perhaps much earlier), people would not and will not sit home and starve, or politely await handouts from the unquestioned benificence of Uncle Government, let alone do so in perpetuity, despite the current pandemic, and will express their further displeasure rather more kinetically than verbally.
You evidently disagree, or think that such response is a trifling thing.
I’m educable.
Please, show your work.
Particularly when 8 states are still under no such order, and some of them have been under one for less than 3 days.
I’ve been telling people since January this was going to be worse than “just the flu”, and the lunatards here are still in denial with people dropping in NYFC every 5 minutes, and I’m the Chicken Little; but you’ve got us giving up the republic hand over fist forever in less time than William Henry Harrison served as POTUS, on your say-so, and that’s revealed truth for the ages?
{Bonus for readers here:
 |
| Common Core grads: POTUS for precisely 31 days. You could look it up.™ Also one of my favorite presidents, for the same reason. |
You’ve written some good stuff, but I don’t think you could make that fly with a genie and a magic carpet."
-----
Have at it, in case my responses to RLG weren't clear enough.
Comments are open.
Anyone opening from the 5-year-old's complaint that "Now is forever" will be on the first course of the menu, labeled "appetizers".
The weapons of choice in this duel will be flammenwerfers, at 10 paces.
Asbestos underpants are cheerfully recommended.
No prisoners will be taken.
Zero fucks will be given.
If you cannot point to the time a U.S. president declared endless martial law in response to a disease outbreak in your opening salvo, best you stay home, and not saddle up for this Children's Crusade.
Never ╪ Now.
Now ╪ Forever.
Cleverly, the English language solved these difficult logical concepts by having different words for each of them.
Consult a dictionary in case this wasn't made clear to you in the normal scope of your K-12 educational experiences.
26 comments:
I haven't read the comments. My only point is that the vast majority of government drones, advisors, grifters and contractors are democrats and/or closet socialists.
I know beyond a doubt that eventually the quarantine will be lifted. For now it's a very good thing.
I'm just not convinced that said Democrat Socialist leaders will willingly relinquish their newly minted authority. I think it's even odds that some examples will need to be publicly displayed from lampposts before our constitutionally freedoms are restored. I'm basing my opinion (and that's all it is) on human nature and history. Nah, I don't trust the government.
Nor do I.
And assembling some members of government to ropes and lampposts is a feature, not a bug, and acknowledged as such by U.S. presidents going back centuries.
If this is the catalyst for some of that, pour encourager les autres, so much the better.
The quarantines will be lifted.
There are many ways to do that.
All I'm arguing for is to try the smarter ways, instead of just going to the bog-stupidest ones, from the get-go.
Just once, if only for the novelty of the approach, let's do it right, so we don't have to do it over, and so we don't kill people from sheer stupidity (something government does better than anyone, left to their own best instincts).
OK back from cleaning guns.
The point of previous comments was that the people making decisions are making them by virtue of having won a popularity contest. As stated, they are another level of stupid (Cuomo) and to a lesser extent Wolf, Whitmer, Newsom. They are in panic mode because they know this has blown up in their faces and have to do something because mass death. My position is that experts have knowledge in a narrow field and look at every solution through that lens. This puts blinders on them as to the possible outcomes of their recommended responses to said problem. Some doctors are suggesting a 12 to 18 month lockdown. (Quarantine is what you do to sick people. House arrest is for everyone else.) I'm saying that a more measured approach, taking into account the possibly devastating consequences to people's livelihoods should have been considered.
Governors are the ones taking extreme unconstitutional measures right now. That worries me more that the Feds.
On a personal note, my brother-in-law is living in an assisted living facility. They have everyone effectively in solitary confinement. They get their meds, meals and therapy, but cannot visit even with each other. It is taking a huge psychological toll on them, not being allowed to socialize. And no one is positive either. Any suggestions on helping them stay positive are appreciated.
Should have said keep their spirits up.
@KDKong
The point of previous comments was that the people making decisions are making them by virtue of having won a popularity contest. As stated, they are another level of stupid (Cuomo) and to a lesser extent Wolf, Whitmer, Newsom. They are in panic mode because they know this has blown up in their faces and have to do something because mass death.
Agreed.
My position is that experts have knowledge in a narrow field and look at every solution through that lens. This puts blinders on them as to the possible outcomes of their recommended responses to said problem. Some doctors are suggesting a 12 to 18 month lockdown.
Some doctors advocating that are idiot savants. That does not, therefore, make them automagically ALL doctors, nor anything else.
That's a fallacy, and when you respond to it as if it were truth you're listening to a dog-whistle that only you hear. It's neither helpful nor sane.
(Quarantine is what you do to sick people. House arrest is for everyone else.)
False. Nice try, but bone up.
Quarantine is for anyone suspected of any possibility of disease. Lacking both adequate, let alone rapid, testing to prove the contrary, that's currently 330M of your friends and neighbors. Get over it. You're arguing contra-reality.
I'm saying that a more measured approach, taking into account the possibly devastating consequences to people's livelihoods should have been considered. It was. There was no other option available. It's a big shit sandwich, and we've all got to take a bite.
When rapid testing becomes available and widespread, we can start to meter cleared people back into free circulation.
people that cannot grasp that reality and patiently deal with it without squawking about it is just crows and magpies in need of a good Daisy Red Ryder dose of STFU-and-fly-off therapy, and it should sting.
I want America opened up too, but not just to do this all over again in a month or two.
There are plenty of wrong ways to do this, and a very few right ones.
Stop listening to stupid people's solutions, and stop basing your responses on the biggest assholes in charge, unless they're your assholes.
If the latter, vote the motherfuckers out of a job.
I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure there's an election coming up later this year.
Governors are the ones taking extreme unconstitutional measures right now. That worries me more that the Feds.
They're not unconstitutional. Thinking otherwise is your first mistake.
None of your rights are unlimited. None. Of. Them. Never have been.
Neither are any of government's delegated powers. We don't have kings by divine right, nor citizens with the same status.
So, you just found out that public health emergencies give your governor powers not normally utilized?
You should either have paid more attention in civics class, or else, when this is over, go back and slap the shit outta your high school government teacher.
Neither of those will change anything about what your governor can and cannot do under declared emergencies.
But at least you'll know who to blame for your misinformed status.
Best wishes on your BIL and his current situation. Maybe you could have a chat with ADS about his plan to make that the de facto status for millions more, in perpetuity. He evidently wasn't aware that was the grenade he was juggling.
Aesop:
I see a few problems with the scenario I gather your advocating. To avoid my becoming "a permanent COVID Jail shut-in forever," we'd need either effective medical measures---which, ADS, does not include merely enough hospital capacity so that if I develop a serious case, I have a chance with a very bad, no good at all except you don't always die ventilator---effective containment/suppression.
I wonder if we could pull the latter off, but enough time with the nation being locked down could provide the political will. But the ruling class would have to give up a great deal of what they consider to be invaluable.
We'd have to quarantine the nation; the powers that be are still full throttle on importing another 85,000 H-1B workers (the Americans they're replacing don't vote for Trump, he's always been "Intel yes, Infosys no"), and only stopped H-2B unskilled labor a bit when people got upset.
Those who are being let in for agriculture are not getting screened for real, not even a 14 day quarantine, in the original sense of the word except for the length. So, yeah, anyone entering the country would have to first submit to an at least 2 week quarantine, like how Great Britain keeps itself rabies free.
We'd have to lock down 7,500 miles of land borders, or why the Taiwan and South Korea examples aren't entirely useful for us. The southern one would require North-South Korea level permanent anti-personal and anti-vehicle mines in my opinion. Or give ICE license to be true death squads.
We'd have to keep the lock down going not just to the "flatten the curve" level, but the community transmission level, right? That would require turning the screws awfully tight. And then our public health infrastructure would have to do its job, but now having the testing tools of flaky RT-PCR and antibody tests, and by then a bunch of unpalatable measures like 24x7 monitoring of people's locations. And we'd have to get a lot more strict about people following quarantine periods, PRC/South Korea level at minimum?? And we'd have to do this with our Diversity Is Our Strength population.
We'd also have to do serious things about areas that are not performing. Like depopulate NYC if we can't quarantine it, "Civilization is the art of permitting large numbers of people to live in close proximity without dying like flies," and I'm not sure all of NYC is physically capable of that with COVID-19.
Sooner or later they'd want to start jetting around again, especially if the option of convalescent serum therapy becomes an option, which looks likely.
Our ruling class would have to give up on a lot of it's tastes for how the country should run, like public transit (see above paragraph), and hatred of plastic bags (I doubt all localities are going to follow SF), etc.
I suppose we could turn this around and create SARS-CoV-2 free reservations.
Well, per Wikiquote someone other than Churchill said, "Americans will always do the right thing — after exhausting all the alternatives."
Nits:
How's that HIV vaccine coming along?
It's only been, what 40 years and counting?
Retroviruses are a particularly hard target, their mutation rates are so high. Coronaviruses are on the opposite end of the scale, being unique among RNA viruses in having a proofreading system. One that attacks and hides out from the immune system? Extra hard, it would seem.
Ebola only took...what...43 years?
When did the developed world get deadly serious about creating one?
That said, we've never finished creating a coronavirus vaccine. We've continued with MERS-CoV, which is still with us, but never killing more than 500 people/year, and hadn't finished any yet. So while I'm ignorantly optimistic, I agree we can't depend on this. Nor on any antiviral, the history of them is overall disappointing, except for AIDS, which is again a special case.
@TWBT
Coronaviruses are easier?
What about rhinoviruses?
So...where's my common cold vaccine?
And the developed world still took 5 years, from 2104-2019, before they got the still-experimental rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine.
And no one's going to need a 14 day quarantine when you have a 5-minute-positive/13-minute negative POC test for Kung Flu already being distributed.
We just need 350M of them, and 10-20M or so testing machines &tc.
That obviates the need for most of the rest of what you laid out, other than draconian border security.
Which I'm fine with.
Let's start with a 40-year legal immigration moratorium, chain gang summary point-of-apprehension sentencing for illegals, and mandatory health screening for all persons exiting here from international flights.
Be still, my beating heart.
I'm looking for the down side.
Coronaviruses are easier?
What about rhinoviruses?
So...where's my common cold vaccine?
As RNA viruses that aren't coronaviruses, they're going to mutate at higher rates. There's a lot of serologically different strains, per Wikipedia three species with 160 types. And, you know, their very low CFR, so even trying hard to make a vaccine to something perhaps inside them is a low priority, but per Wikipedia a couple of their proteins are highly conserved, so some work has been done one this, 90 have been sequenced.
And the developed world still took 5 years, from 2104-2019, before they got the still-experimental rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine.
Again, a low priority to the developed world.
But we're not disagreeing that we don't know if or when we'll have a vaccine.
Taking that thought further, I'm wondering if we won't be able to get serious in the way either of us is thinking unless and until 1.5 to 2 years has passed without our being able to develop a safe and effective vaccine. And what if we can only develop one that's not so safe....
And no one's going to need a 14 day quarantine when you have a 5-minute-positive/13-minute negative POC test for Kung Flu already being distributed.
Here I have my own serious scientific doubts. To the extent sampling is a major problem with the current RT-PCR tests, a POC test without a different method isn't an 100% solution. Antibody tests I've read tend to be 96% sensitive, you'll get 4% false positives from them due to the messiness of the human immune system.
We just need 350M of them, and 10-20M or so testing machines &tc.
Yikes to the latter! Which suggests putting more effort into the tests; again, hard trade-offs.
'zackly.
I just want them to try something smart, rather than just push the "Too Hard" button, in order to skip to something tragically stupid.
Everybody's so busy and fixated on deciding between shit sandwich and shit stew, nobody's picking the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
Pointlessly dumb.
Another benefit would be run up the federal tab to quadrillions in debt to keep the economy barely alive.
When we come out on the other side of this, give the national debt a really big haircut. Yes a lot of investors are gonna have to learn to code and a lot of retirees get the shaft. China and a lot of other countries holding our debt get a screwing. Kind of like the screwing they gave our middle class.
Debt repudiation will happen. It has to. There is no way this country can repay the national debt. Not without crushing people with an unsustainable tax burden.
TPTB will resist as long as they can because they're rich bastards who stand to lose a whole lot from the economic reset. They'll tinker around the edges to look they're taking the problem seriously but the goal is to keep the con going as long as possible.
But what cannot continue will not continue.
ADS where pray tell did you figure out there were "Low Risk" people for this COVID19? Did some internet "hero" spray that nonsense into your mouth sir?
We *still* have very little solid facts about this man made virus (bio-weapon)except for all these "instant" internet experts spew.
It IS KILLING the Young as well as those apparently "Disposable" Oldsters with Co-morbidities. It IS placing a lot of folks into the hospital system and Overwhelming it.
Look around where people are protecting themselves the numbers are LOW, where STUPID Folks *Still* ride the Subway (NYC) and have a Mardi Gras during a known pandemic......Huge difference.
Go ride the NYC Subways HERO, post twatter pics of your doing this for a week and maybe your not "High Risk".
There ain't no PB&J regarding this situation. And shit sandwich or stew was the name of the horse that got out of the barn back in the fall.
This is (your definition) S3 situation... Either way the economy is hosed. The economy was doomed when LBJ declared war on poverty. The economy has been dead for years it just hasn't fallen over yet.
The medical side of the equation is FUBAR... Due in large part to financial shenanigans carried out by the following: insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid, and the desire for immortality on someone else's dime.
Most people fear death, for a variety of reasons, none of which hold water. It's not the dying that matters, it's how you're living. If a person lives life well, they'll not fear death.
My qualifications about fearing death are: I perform live box electrical work. I'm an arborist. 100' up on a rope with a chainsaw. At the end of the branches. I don't have a lot of friends but the ones I have know beyond a doubt I love them. I refuse to own others peoples problems. I've been around the world courtesy of the army. Swam in 3 different oceans. Skied on 2 continents. I've been homeless and owned a house in the mountains with a million dollar view. I've eaten at some of the best restaurants. I still remember when I got my meal from the dumpster behind the bakery. Live love & laugh. When it's dying time, my friends and family might have a body and a memorial. Depends on how I go. Most of the problem is that people are trying to hang onto something that isn't really their's.
"Who by worrying can add a cubit to their stature?"
Hoping and praying you get through this alive. If ya don't, well I'll sure miss your ascerbic writing style.
This whole thing is a lot like clearing briers and poison ivy. There just ain't no good way to grab it that doesn't hurt ya somehow. Hurt now or hurt later or hurt now and later!
Entirely off topic, but interesting. Harrison died 31 days after inauguration. His VP (Tyler) took over as POTUS even though the Constitution only said he should assume the powers of POTUS.
Cool John Tyler fact #1: Constitutional Amendment 25 should be called the "John Tyler Memorial Amendment". Just sayin'.
Cool John Tyler fact #2: His grandkids are still alive. And Tyler was POTUS in 1840 or so.
I've been very disappointed in the number of close friends in my liberty circle who believe, "Government is using this to control us and take away our rights THEREFORE this virus must be a hoax." I keep trying to get them to understand that government is engaging in tyranny AND the pandemic is a real threat. They're not mutually exclusive. Why would anyone assume they are?
Unfortunately, the people saying we should go to church, go shopping, etc. are indirectly advocating for big government, because most people know that covidiots telling everyone to ignore the social distancing warnings are getting more people killed. People tend to side with not being killed.
I completely understand that government and its complicit media lie 24/7 so we've been conditioned to assume that everything they say is a lie, but every now and then, the slanted truth works in their interest, and those are the most dangerous times of all.
I hate that this fundamental difference has divided people and turned us against each other. There was already too much of that in this country. I've been social distancing long before the government finally said we should do that, but in the last two weeks after being unable to convince friends that the virus is a deadly threat, I'm now social distancing in my email as well.
Once again I am curious about people who come to sites like this who are suddenly so concerned about keeping everything just the way it is. The economy. There was an economy before FRNs and there will be one after. But this very well could be the thing that kills .gov and the rising police state that goes with it. It has stopped state sponsored taxpayer indoc centers, at least temporarily. Let it burn. Those with sense and will can rebuild on the other side and a lot of bad ideas will die in the flames. Yes it will be nasty, yes there will be many deaths, but we were headed there sooner or later anyway. It very well could be the reset. But I find most come to places like this to bitch and LARP. When the moment shows up the chains of their slavery suddenly feel comfortable, just like ancient Israel in the OT. Wanted to go back and be slaves and be fed rather than be free.
Not my work.
But interesting nonetheless...
https://politicalmoonshine.com/2020/04/03/robust-evidence-mounting-that-covid-19-is-another-9-11-globalist-false-flag-political-construct-the-evidence-is-everywhere-for-those-willing-to-examine-it/
@Liberty4Ever
Well said.
Airplanes were grounded after 9/11. Are they still grounded? How long did we have to "fight against gov't control" to get them back in the air?
There will be things we'll have to walk back after this, but liberty advocates will have no audience and no credibility to do so by beating the "quarantine is tyranny" drum now.
There will be things we'll have to walk back after this, but liberty advocates will have no audience and no credibility to do so by beating the "quarantine is tyranny" drum now.
By demonstrating they're stone cold sociopaths along with many others on the Right, they're completely discrediting themselves and their movement. Both will be a tremendous liability when it comes time to "walk back after this." The Left and middle will be able to point at examples like Charles of VA and truthfully say, these people can never be allowed back in society.
Brad "Hunter Wallace" Griffin has been thinking and writing about this a lot, way beyond the "liberty advocates" who are only a part of this debacle. Here's his major essay putting it all together, "Coronavirus Has Utterly Discredited The Right."
Ending graphs, its very blackpilled:
The Right is never going to live this down now.
This is what we get for electing a moron reality television show host as president who surrounded himself with idiots, grifters, donors and cronies. They are really going to die on the hill of insisting SARS is the common flu.
SARS version 2.0, of course. But SARS 1.0 itself was damned bad, Officially over 8,000 cases with a Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 11%, 774 dead, and we of course don't believe the CCP's statistics, they're truly by comparison a model of transparency today.... See for example how Canada's sacred government monopoly hospital system caused massive spread and deaths in Toronto and Ontario from failing basic infectious disease control, over 250 cases, 73 deaths (the later for Canada as a whole, but I think SARS was largely or entirely there for them). Second worse after Taiwan, not counting the PRC.
Now we have a coronavirus that we're pretty sure is much less lethal, but fantastically more contagious. Some of the latest estimates double the guess of its basic reproduction number, AKA R0, and I now see the Wikipedia range goes beyond that, it's 3.8–8.9. 3.8 is quite enough for catastrophe, that means without mitigation, against a naive population, each case on average will infect 3.8 other people. 8.9? Tell me NYC doesn't show us that's possible, but hopefully it's not quite that bad. By comparison SARS was estimated to be 2-5, and was dominated by superspreaders.
Aesop, I come to this blog for your ruthless common sense.
I have cited you for family, who have asked me about WuFlu, as a source of information and analysis.
OTOH, Yes, planes are in flight, and as well, yes, "Patriot Act" usurpations persist.
So, in my view, it is BOTH "WuFlu is bad, but can be mitigated", as well as "jackboots gonna jackboot. WuFlu may provide them a pretext to facestomp".
'zackly, Reltney.
Assuming one or the other is recockulous. And they are not mutually exclusive.
*I* don't like stay-at-homes.
I also don't want to be in a position where I'm suddenly faced with 25 [patients a night, and ten of them on vents, and hospital manglement decides that's safe care, and it's on me, at risk of my practice license, to suck it up. So I can live with temporarily people being told to keep their happy asses at home, instead.
Does that make every fucktard with a badge suddenly sensible and reasonable?
Hell no.
"hospital manglement decides that's safe care, and it's on me, at risk of my practice license, to suck it up."
THAT! I'm a laid off midlevel, and one of the locums agencies with whom I've worked in the past, is dangling a job in the covid tank, at roughly double my hourly rate pre lay off.
I'm concerned with the same sort of issue you just outlined (and, not dissimilar from the issue that occasioned my departure from nursing).
I'm attempting to assure that there's language that, should I find myself in that sort of trap, that I am paid $1,000/hour, for that entire shift.
My last one. Because, once I trot my happy ass OTD, ain't never coming back.
(my issue was three RNs for night shift in an urban 16 bed ED, AND that same crew providing "rapid response" in house, AND! providing the code team. For some reason, I foresaw problems with that.)
Late to the party for varying reasons. I'm concerned about governmental overreach + public panic = a loss of liberty for a myriad of reasons. General distrust, combined with time in the 'Corps and travel to far off lands where they're nowhere near as free as we are. Add to that that I had an in depth conversation with DW's mom. She was born and raised in a country in South America and lives with DW and I here in the States. Couple of things that she brought up that were related to the above. All related to human nature, so no real ability to show my work other than through casual comparison/similarity. In other words, my opinion and conjecture at best. Read on at your leisure or disregard, no offense taken either way. Simply discussion subject fodder for those inclined. Sorry for the length in advance.
Will preface by stating that I'm not a member of the tinfoil hat brigade. I'd consider myself truth oriented regardless. Spent time as an operator and within the greater IC, so I'm a fan of what we can confirm (and just as often that which we can't confirm) being a directional indicator.
1) Pre- Socialism takeover in Chile, there were a litany of folks that quick-time marched through the halls (versus our long slow march) and arrived in positions of power, JIT as it would conveniently turn out. Led to some cronyism (ok, a lot) along with decision-making processes that were in line with about 50% of the population's thoughts. While that's not the exact case here, you have the entrenched doing their damned best to stay put throughout whatever happens in perpetuity, which is equally bad in my opinion. That lust for continued power is exacerbating a bad situation today. Rahm Emanuel's crisis quote comes to mind. I'm all for term limits on Congress; that's the extent of my hopium indulgence. Feels good to think about, but I know it'll never happen.
2) Cronyism was rampant under Allende. She had a touch of PTSD when we went for our usual run to the supermarket and saw the bare shelves when people here were collectively shitting themselves and making a run on asswipe etc. Her quip to me when she recovered was, "Son, this is too familiar. How much of the stuff that's missing is going to TPTB or connected folks?" Again, those in positions of power will continue to abuse the system to their benefit, whether we win or lose, they always win, or so it would seem. MIL stated that in order to shop, you had to have a JAP card. She can't remember what the acronym stood for, but it more or less meant that you had to be a "member-in-good-standing" with the Allende Government. No JAP card = no going to the socialist stores = having to hit up the black market and get face-raped for basic necessities. The transition to that was similar to what we have going on in Vermont with the local .gov telling folks that they can't sell "non-essential items" to limit draw to the stores. No, it's not nationalization in VT; a few short steps to get there though. Again, color me paranoid, but enough similarity that it can't be ruled out long term.
3) Prior to the aborted coup attempt happened in June of '73, people were pretty strongly divided along political/ideological lines. You had the conservative/anti-communist folks on one side and the committed socialist/communist folks on the other. She observed that what she's seeing escalating here in the States over the past few years is along those ideological lines and with a similar amount of vitriol that was present in Chile in 70's and beyond. Doesn't suggest a coup here; suggests that we're ripe for it. TPTB definitely see that and may be clamping down harder than usual to minimize the possibility. Again, conspiracy-like conjecture, but enough there that it's eerie.
cont'd
Cont'd from above:
4) Allende's overthrow by Pinochet in late '73 saw some major sweeping reforms, through the standard pendulum action and associated violence. Street skirmishes were the norm for a while. One of the things that was instantly instituted was a national curfew to limit movement and help quash resistance. MIL quipped that some of the restrictions here in the states are again, similar to the Pinochet dictatorship's restrictions. After enough people "disappeared" (good thing or bad, I'm indifferent to), those curfews were lifted. Pinochet promised to put a cop on every street corner and did just that, also contributing to the curfew being lifted. Again, a way of cowing a population that may or may not agree with Pinochet's installation as a dictator. They were walked back, eventually, but traded for a less invasive form of control. Can/will the same thing happen here? I believe in my heart of hearts that what's ongoing now is a socialist/communist's wet dream. I think that by hook or by crook ways will be found to retain some of the control that TPTB are enjoying at the moment. Recent reading suggests that there are those in favor of a "medical passport" to allow "free transit." Pretty ominous overall, and a massive curtailing of liberty if it were to happen, not saying it will, but the collective hysteria and allowing of our liberty to be yanked wholesale doesn't bode well for the home team.
So, what are our options? I'm aghast at the COVIDIOTS and the "Flu bros'" general attitude toward this thing; simultaneously, having spent time in a CBRN role, I reject the wholesale easing of restrictions. I think that we're in between a rock and a hard place; I will say that historically speaking, once the Government assumes a power, it's few and far-between that it's returned to the population, hence my concern that we've thrown out the baby with the bath water and the new normal will see that control state at these tighter levels.
Hoping someone smarter than I am (pretty much everyone) can provide perspective on this. Confirmation bias on my or mom's part? Completely feasible. I'd like to think not, but hey, if you see it, call me out on it. Either way, something is "off" and it's palpable, but that could just be the voices in my head.
The planes might as well be grounded at this point...
Well, as usual you are right on the money. As for me and my family, we have a "provident living" life style, after all, "if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear". We are tucked away in the mountains of Utah, and are able to produce our own food and water. For us, this is a vacation. We get to stay home and get stuff done.
Last week we planted wheat (an ancient variety) and barley (a hull-less variety that is easier to harvest). This week it's rye, then potatoes and some of the earlier vegetables. This year is different, though, because we want to have extra to SHARE with the neighbors. Isolation for us is a treat. Our library is full of books and our hearts are full of joy. The week before last, we planted rye for a neighbor.
Read Leviticus 15:1-15, and find out that we have known how to handle this kind of situation for thousands of years, e.g., isolate and wash your hands. So, just do as Raconteur Report advises, and get busy with something positive while you keep your head down.
As a former scientist, I assume FOR PLANNING PURPOSES that (1) this bug is an engineered virus (even though it clearly is not a weapon) and that it's release is a ghastly laboratory accident (being somewhat familiar with the Chinese pharmaceutical industry, I am not surprised), (2) that R0 is in the neighborhood of 6, and (3) that the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for my age/co-morbidity group is in the neighborhood of 6% or more (for those who don't do math, that's worse that “just the flu”). I plan how my family responds based on these three estimates; and do whatever I can to preclude catching this disease.
Do whatever you have to do to NOT get this.
As for giving up liberty; these colors do not run.
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