Resist The Authoritarian Response To The Coronavirus

[John Dule]

I don't usually say things like this, but those of you decrying the "authoritarian" response are nuts.

Constant vigilance must be maintained if liberty is to be preserved.

[John Dule]

We were also told that the purpose of all these lockdowns was to "flatten the curve".  That was accomplished long ago.  Now, the goalposts have been moved.

Fuzzy, what the hell do you think you're talking about? The curve never flattened. Every day now we're seeing record-breaking numbers of cases and deaths. No one has moved any goalposts; it's just that the reflexively anti-intellectual elements of American society have refused to take the proper precautions and now we are all paying the price for their behavior. If we shut down the schools when we were seeing a few dozen cases per day, why do you think we should reopen everything now that we're seeing a few thousand per day?

[John Dule]

Low death rates.

Okay, so the death rates are lower. But at the same time, a much larger proportion of the population is getting sick. To put this in perspective, a virus with a 100% death rate that only infects 10,000 people is much more preferable to a virus with a 1% death rate that infects 100 million people. The danger of the Coronavirus is in its rate of infection, not in its rate of death. Really, this is just a meaningless statistic at a point when millions of people are contracting the virus.

Minimal probablity of children transmitting COVID-19 to teachers, according to scientists.

Uh, I don't think that teachers are really the primary concern here. Little kids are germ buckets; they spew snot everywhere and they insist on touching, licking, and sniffing every surface they come into contact with. On the opposite end of the spectrum, college and high school kids have some of the most active social lives in the country, and their activities are likely to create major hotspots for the virus (incidentally, one appeared in the frat house area of Berkeley at the outset of this pandemic). Are you really going to tell parents in this country not to worry because "There's a minimal probability that children will transmit COVID-19 to their teachers?" Give me a freaking break.

The fact that everyone is OK with what protesters have been doing in the streets.

The proper cost to public officials that have said nothing (or even condoned) the protesting in the streets should be a total loss of credibility on the COVID-19 issue.  They don't deserve credibility; not with such a nakedly political double standard.  Honestly, how dare they lecture law-abiding people on this when they said nothing about the coronavirus to the Mobs in the streets?

Well, I'm not okay with it. And even if I was okay with protesters breaking quarantine to loot and virtue-signal, that wouldn't matter. What's done is done. Playing with whataboutisms is just about the lamest possible argument you could put forth right now. You are way too hung up on the culture war. The pandemic is not related to your personal political vendettas in the slightest.

[John Dule]

So I should just shut up and accept the hypocrisy and injustice?  Is that what you're saying?

People who maintain America are lectured to.  People who have attempted to destroy our cities are given not just empathy, but praise.  "Peaceful Protesters" (who are not the bulk of people in the streets) that have been disregarding all pandemic protocols to virtue signal get to spread the virus with impunity and are praised as "courageous" by public officials.  And law abiding churchgoers are told they can't do what lawbreaking and quarantine-breaking protesters and rioters are praised for.

Why should I just sit here and take that?  Really, why?  Because it's for the greater good?

If Trump is reelected, I will note that, in no small part, our leaders chose to sing the virtue of criminals in the streets while lying about their actual behavior, while lambasting people who are pulling their weight (or being prevented from doing so due to pandemic ridiculousness) and obeying the law.  They chose to enforce quarantines on law-abiding citizens, but not on criminal rioters.

My contempt for the protester grows with every measure taken against law abiding citizens that they have been excused from.

By definition, if you violate quarantine you are not a "law-abiding citizen." You can say whatever you like to justify breaking the law-- I might even be sympathetic to some of those arguments-- but the fact remains nonetheless.

I think we all implicitly understand that government officials have given a pass to protesters because they consider it necessary to give those people an outlet for their pent-up anger and frustration. Essentially the protesters threw a hissyfit and the government let them wear themselves out until they got tired. The logistics of arresting every single one of those people were prohibitively costly and authoritarian. And as much as I'd like to lock up vandals who destroy people's private property, it's nearly impossible to determine guilt in a mob. As far as I'm concerned, they are all culpable. But again, arresting an entire mob is no easy task.

Similarly, if you want to strongarm the government into letting you... uh... go to church, be my guest. You're already free to attend socially distanced services outdoors, and you can pray whenever you want, but if you really need to be in the special building, that's what you should do. Get a couple million of your fellow Christians, make signs, and start marching in the streets. Then maybe you'll win the right to sit in a poorly ventilated room with a couple hundred other people, all breathing the same air, in the middle of a pandemic. Honestly Fuzzy, if that's what you want, then that is Darwin Award material-- and at that point you should be allowed to go.

[John Dule]

I believe you have, but that's not good enough.  When you are asking people to risk their entire livelihoods by locking down while abortion clinics and pot dispensaries stay open, that's just not good enough.  It's you favoring who you agree with.

To be fair, abortion clinics are providing necessary medical services that must be performed within a specific time frame, and pot dispensaries can deliver to people's homes. It's not quite the same as something like a hair salon or a restaurant, both of which provide non-essential services which require people to sit indoors for long stretches of time. So there are arguments for keeping both of those services open that don't factor in political positions on the types of services they provide.