The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(08-15-2020, 02:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-15-2020, 10:54 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The deaths are heavily American. It is our problem now. Some State governors did a good job of meeting the disease, but our President got in the way. China closed off the afflicted area, but Trump made the response largely a state option. The private sector, both for-profit and not-for profit (in the latter, such includes the Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations) met their tasks well. The NHL and NBA ended their seasons early. Lessons from other countries were good warnings. Religious processions were particularly infamous for spreading the virus because those often attract sick people. Such explains Italy and Iran... it is telling that Saudi Arabia cancelled the Hajj. 

There have been spreader events such as some megachurch services in which the hack pastor tells people that God is enough to save people from the virus, protests against the lockdowns, funerals, and even a Trump rally (most infamously in Tulsa. Herman Cain got infected there and eventually died). Most recent of dumb events to attend was the big motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. You can be sure that there will be nothing of the kind in Sturgis, Michigan, which typically has events that piggyback on that one. Let's put it this way... if you will be in the market for a good late-model Harley-Davidson motorcycle in a few months, plenty will be available at unusually modest prices because their owners went to the big motorcycle convention. Worse, they will have transmitted COVID-19 to people who had nothing to do with the big motorcycle rally.  

It's well past time to blame the People's Republic of China. We were doing much wrong before COVID-19 struck, fostering an economic order that seems to maximize economic inequality on behalf of elites as arrogant as feudal lords of the late-medieval and early-modern era authorizing news media to sell out to commercial interests while pretending to be objective purveyors of information, debasing public K-12 education into training for dead-end jobs in which seemingly only people with borderline retardation could be happy. The super-rich seemingly have no responsibility unless they kill (Phil Specter) or rape (Weinstein, Epstein, and Cosby, which is not a law firm), and the rest of us are responsible to the super-rich. 

We were told that the key to prosperity was that if we would suffer for the elites through lower wages, higher rents, more monopolization, easier availability of propaganda on behalf of pure plutocracy, and support of the political lackeys of the Master Class, then we too would prosper. If Robert Heinlein related that the proper image of the Soviet Union was of a drunk, the proper image of America might now be a homeless person. A trend that began about forty years ago has reached its preposterous conclusion -- and great tragedy.

We aren't like China or the European nations or the other Asian nations or the Latino and Hispanic nations or the Middle Eastern nations. You seem to be upset that Trump stuck with the American way and delegated authority to the states vs the Chinese way. Once again, you tell me your not communist but show me that you're open to the communist way when at risk. Well, we're different than you. We prefer the American way and are willing to accept risk and accept some losses to keep Americans working and keep the American system functioning as Democrats do what Democrats do during election years which is mainly placing their needs above everyone else's and not caring about people who don't support them politically. Well, they're shooting themselves in foot without knowing/realizing their shooting themselves in the foot.

A President has great power to enforce public policy on clear and present dangers. COVID-19 may not quite be at the same level of clear and present danger as nuke-bearing ICBM's in a sneak attack, but a more decisive response was due. The money-grubbing NBA and NHL curtailed highly-profitable seasons, which should have been an indicator of the perception of danger. 

170,000 losses is a huge quantity for keeping an economy moving. We ordinarily have a huge toll of death from vehicle collisions (many with pedestrians), and we have done much to reduce that by re-engineering roads, mandating safety features on cars, and enforcing traffic laws. The "cat at the mouse-hole" approach to speeding  is obvious to a non-speeder, barely visible to someone at the speed limit, and not at all visible to the speeder... but the cop sees the speeder. I've seen it at work. I have also noticed rigid police presence at drinking places. The local cops have stars for DUI busts in my town.  I have seen state troopers at the state line greeting people with a radar gun on holidays... a trooper is up ahead a few miles ready to make a stop. Some states have red-light cameras.   

If the deaths from COVID-19 were war deaths, then they would involve the third-worst death toll involving Americans from war, behind only the American Civil War and World War II. Generals getting such a toll in combat while getting at best a costly stalemate would be cashiered. OK, it is a respiratory infection and not a shooting war... but people are dead nonetheless. 

If I were President I would treat COVID-19 with all the seriousness of a war. I would be calling upon Congress to raise the federal gas tax for the duration, but allow it to be rebated to people who can show that their travel is essential. That would keep people in compliance with stay-at-home orders. I would be promoting contests for the best anti-COVID-19 posters and videos. I would seek to have people hate that virus like Americans hated Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini in the last war... and more recently Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Hey -- it's a virus! I would be pushing video-conferencing and culture. 

It is a bad time, but one of the most important skills anyone can learn is the knack for making the best out of a bad situation. Maybe this is the best chance that you will ever have of reading Moby Dick... and maybe you can take up some craft that you thought you might be good at. 

I certainly would defer to the experts in medicine and public health. Figure that some people have specialized training that I lack. Donald Trump has the Dunning-Kruger effect, the dangerous position that with a little knowledge he thinks that he knows more than do the experts. As Lincoln said about all the armchair strategists during the Civil War, that if American generals could be as good as that, then the war would already be over. Anyone (let us say a six-year-old great-niece of "Father Abram") can make a firm, resolute gesture suggesting a troop movement on a map. It's obviously not that simple other than in over-simplified retrospect. 

I would laud free-market solutions to getting compliance. I am surprised that funeral homes did not offer masks that say such things as 

MASK IT OR CASKET

Smith-Jones Funeral Home
Indianola, Texas (zip code)

(512) 555-DEAD

(Indianola, Texas is a ghost town)

I would set an example. I would go out with a face mask if at all. I would not be holding political rallies at which the virus could spread. If stopping a deadly virus isn't worth losing an election about, then what is?