Resist The Authoritarian Response To The Coronavirus

[All Along The Watchtower]

From March 5, so ancient history now - but still relevant. Always relevant.

It’s clear that epidemics of this magnitude require a dedicated response, and at least some of the controls that China put in place have likely saved lives. What’s less clear, though, is which ones actually moved the needle, and which ones — like censoring coronavirus posts on the popular social messaging app WeChat — may have inadvertently caused more cases to go undetected.

While perhaps meant to defuse global panic, the praise from the international body allowed the Chinese government to sidestep mounting criticisms of delays, censorship, and the detention of doctors who publicly voiced concerns about the epidemic. And with the number of cases still growing — roughly 93,000 cases and over 3,100 deaths globally so far — some experts are starting to question the effectiveness of blanket curfews and police-enforced quarantine zones.

But it’s not just China’s extreme responses to the COVID-19 epidemic that are under scrutiny. Much closer to home, experts are recognizing that one of the most dangerous symptoms of any epidemic — be it real or fabricated — is fear. Ricky Bluthenthal, associate dean of social justice at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, works just a few miles east of LA’s Skid Row, though he is often found in the neighborhood meeting with frontline workers and residents who are homeless. From his vantage point, the single biggest impact of the flea-borne typhus outbreak has been a ratcheting up of fear of people who are homeless. That, in turn, has provided the city government with broad impunity to achieve long-standing security and beautification goals.

Bluthenthal sees a direct link between epidemic fear and widespread public acceptance of policies that would otherwise be recognized as nakedly authoritarian. “It’s kind of a disaster. We just keep digging the ditch deeper by making people more vulnerable and disrupting their lives,” he said.

What’s clear, though, is that far from the exception, China’s muscular response is a prime example of how governments tend toward authoritarianism in the face of an epidemic. As the COVID-19 epidemic continues to spread, our ability to recognize the line between effective public health and all-out repression will continue to be tested. With COVID-19 now spreading to every continent except Antarctica, we can start to compare different governmental responses to the virus and tease out which components — even those as basic but effective as calls for people to consistently wash their hands — can help stem the epidemic, and which — like threats of severe punishment — might make things worse.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danwerb/esist-the-authoritarian-response-to-coronavirus

[All Along The Watchtower]

Ignoring the inane strawman that is the third paragraph of the quoted post below, I’d just like to draw attention to the almost cute naïveté of the bolded:

We listen to scientists. PERIOD.

If scientists are urging temporary authoritarian measures, we TEMPORARILY adopt them.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Lot of people in this thread refusing to engage with the argument and shouting down dissent, even calling those of us who rightly worry about the massive opportunity the coronavirus pandemic creates for more authoritarian measures around the world “not caring if people die.” Amazing.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I'm guessing this a result of a strong lack of faith in government, since I've seen few Europeans worry about temporary measures leading to the permanent suspension of democracy, same with gun control policies. Anyway, I'm hanging out at the international Covid thread, things are much less alarmist and more factual over there at least.

Is it a specifically European thing to smugly pat yourself on the back for not being like those Ugly Americans with their ideological stubbornness, or is it just a case-by-case basis?

You’d think that Europeans would be more worried about antidemocratic trends and opportunities for state repression, considering much of the past (spectacularly so in certain decades of the last century) and trends in certain countries in the present.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I'm guessing this a result of a strong lack of faith in government, since I've seen few Europeans worry about temporary measures leading to the permanent suspension of democracy, same with gun control policies. Anyway, I'm hanging out at the international Covid thread, things are much less alarmist and more factual over there at least.

Is it a specifically European thing to smugly pat yourself on the back for not being like those Ugly Americans ...?

Well, obviously, yes.

You’d think that Europeans would be more worried about antidemocratic trends and opportunities for state repression, considering much of the past (spectacularly so in certain decades of the last century) and trends in certain countries in the present.

But lots of European countries also have, at least as part of their national mythologies, experiences of real backs-to-the-wall emergencies. In a number of cases instances where authoritarian measures were implemented to address these, and then removed afterwards without doing any medium or long term damage to the quality of democracy or civil liberties.

I guess a big part of the difference I perceive is that America does not have a flexible political system, by design, and we are both obsessed with precedent but also wary of state power, with important (and dangerous) caveats:

The most trusted public institutions in the US today are the military and law enforcement.

The Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces is Donald Trump, and the guy in charge of federal law enforcement is William Barr. The former is a dictator by temperament and the latter is as maximalist on presidential power as Dick Cheney, if not more so. There is no simple remedy for any of this in our conservative, norms-reliant common-law system, and the effects on our political culture and society will be incalculable. Can you understand where I’m coming from here?

[All Along The Watchtower]

These are the types of enlightened individuals who would claim “FDR is a fascist” or “Lincoln is destroying our Democracy”.
This is a war, full stop.
Certain liberties need to be suspended.

Settle down there, General Patton.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Lot of dumb sh**t in this thread but I'll hone in on two frustrating things:

- Is anybody in this thread actually going to bat for the CA bans? Even in most of these cases (outside of SF) the "shutdown" still allows people to go outside.

In general the hysterical arguments in this thread are people probably talking past each other because they think they're fighting an ideological battle rather than a practical one (shocker). I don't think anybody is actually arguing about absolutes; they're arguing about where the line should be as if they were arguing about absolutes.

- People who are downplaying the virus because so few people are infected right now... do you realize how exponential growth works? Like, at all? You are aware that we're in the early stages of infection and testing, and that if trends continue, the number of infected people and deaths will get much larger, right?

Very good post.

And I regret that this thread has turned into...what it has become. I'm not going to lock it...yet.

[All Along The Watchtower]

You all being total nutjobs on your 18 month total lockdown is going to push a lot of people towards voting for Trump who wouldn't otherwise

[All Along The Watchtower]

Perhaps the most disturbing development has been the slobbering over China's response to the pandemic, as if a lying, authoritarian government with no respect for human rights were in any way preferable to our own.

The stuff that I'm hearing on NPR, CNN and other media outlets is unbelievable. In a few years, we're going to look back on it with disbelief. The Chinese Communist Party is in the midst of a global propaganda campaign and they are acting as its mouthpiece.

To be clear: China's response to the pandemic is in no way an exemplar. They have not even been transparent enough to distinguish truth from fiction. Anyone telling you otherwise is at best an unwitting stooge.

By all means, order takeout from your local Chinese place and do what you can to silence any knee-jerk racism. But it shouldn't be hard to see what the larger threat is right now.

^^^^

Thank you.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Yeah I’m telling you guys: political leaders, pundits, all of the instant Coronavirus experts are lying to you and/or don’t know what they’re talking about.

It’s scary how many people will accept fascistic actions as long as people they trust tell them that it’s the right thing to do. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take the Coronavirus seriously (it’s alarming and we don’t have a handle on it and the effects on the economy, society, etc. will be lasting); what I’m saying is that don’t so willingly surrender your rights to people who are NOT interested in combating the coronavirus epidemic so much as using as an opportunity to take people’s freedoms away.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I wish we had an “authoritarian” response ten days ago when this was posted. Looks like freedom doesn’t cure Covid-19, who knew?

What are you even talking about?

[All Along The Watchtower]

I gotta say, I am genuinely sympathetic to Fuzzy’s concerns and frustrations. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I don’t doubt his sincerity and he brings up important points that liberals and leftists would be wise to take seriously. It’s much easier to demonize or caricature someone like him as a Trump-loving religious hypocrite (what self-professed religious person *isn’t* a hypocrite at some level? Not a convincing takedown) than to seriously engage with his concerns. Unfortunately too many on this forum are perfectly comfortable with merely doing the former. At best, it’s just intellectual laziness.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Also, my OP was and still is directed toward liberals in both the common American usage and the broadest philosophical sense. The pandemic is a world-historic crisis, yes, but it’s also a world-historic test of core liberal principles at a time when governments, corporations, public health authorities, and other powerful bureaucratic organizations are demanding unprecedented submission and sacrifice from ordinary people in the name of the common good.

At a time in which liberalism is under attack around the world from increasingly repressive autocracies, from both ostensible allies of the US like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to adversarial peer powers like Russia and (most frighteningly) China, to countries like Hungary and Turkey; to, as liberals will be the first to tell you, Donald Trump and the Republican Party in general and right-wing extremists in general at home, and yes, the more extreme elements among BLM, Antifa, and the emerging Far Left, you would think that liberals would be standing up for, well, liberalism.

If you’re willing to sacrifice your ostensible “liberal democratic values” to a bunch of unelected technocrats with authoritarian tendencies who are standing in for hapless and incompetent political “leaders”, then I question your level of commitment to either liberalism or democracy.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I can’t help but laugh at all the crap I have been seeing on this seriously ridiculous bubble of 20-40 year old guys who feel super oppressed and want to victimize themselves as much as possible.

Many people cannot stand other things in life, and yet they do it because that is how life is. Same with masks. They don’t like it, well that’s honestly too bad. Unless it’s because of a sensory issue or some extremely severe breathing issue, then I have trouble giving a flip. As we speak, dozens of people have died of starvation and preventable disease. If we don’t care about that, why should we care that some angry Atlas user feels mildly uncomfortable? Let’s put this crap into perspective.

And just so Atlas knows I’m speaking from experience, our university has a mask mandate literally everywhere outside your room. Guess what? People do it and they do fine.
Heck, the majority of people outside are wearing them (even though the mandate obviously doesn’t apply there) Clearly not this horrible experience that I am hearing Atlas users moan about.
Now the exception I will give is when doing exercise/physically strenuous tasks. If your job requires a lot of that, I empathize a lot more, because that actually is uncomfortable (not the worst thing, but not fun.
Also mask type matters. If it’s just a surgical…well I can’t help but have trouble refraining from eye rolling. If you are complaining about that…bless you. If it’s a cloth, you’re just screwing yourself because those are more uncomfortable and less effective. If it’s a full N-95, yeah then you actually have experienced discomfort from masks.
Personally I wear a mask (a KN95, which almost is like a lighter N-95) literally everytime out of my dorm for convenience (I’m a forgetful person, I will not remember to put it on if I take it off) That can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 12 hours. Oh well. Still barely noticeable unless you are actively trying to notice it, and if that’s your biggest issue in life, that means you should be thankful.

As for when this will end, that’s the problem. That question is symbolic of everything wrong with our outlook. We don’t know when Covid will improve. I thought you people would be smart enough to understand this, but clearly that was too generous.
Unless you have a working crystal ball…we won’t know until is about to happen and that is the reality of life. I could give guesses, but if those are wrong I know they will be used against me anyways. Probably soon, but I can’t tell you all for sure. For all we know, the virus mutates and turns into a super deadly plague with high infectivity, a seven month incubation period, and a fifty percent death rate. That’s obviously extreme, but the point should be understood. You’re not going to get a precise answer because we are human. It’s astounding how we expect scientists to be gods and have all the answers, and yet won’t even listen to the advice they do have.

Anyways I don’t support mask mandates simply because they aren’t enforceable at this point, but I do see it as a moral issue. I would consider not wearing a mask to be a violation of ethics and morally akin to watching a murder in front of you and doing nothing about it. You don’t have to agree with my values, but that is how I see most of Atlas. The types of people who would rather watch a little girl get beat to death rather than inconvenience themselves by taking the time to call the police at the very least.

tl;dr

[All Along The Watchtower]

Also, I deeply resent the change in thread title. "Low-IQ MAGA supporters" - how old are you, 12?