theamericanconservative | People and governments always invoke the safety and security
of the majority when they are taking away rights for “our own good,”
just like the Patriot Act did. It’s an old playbook, joined in this
century by our First Amendment nannies on social media, who
electronically block
efforts to organize. If you’re screeching about how rights don’t matter
when lives are at stake, you’ve got company. The KKK used that argument
to block black people from marching, claiming it was a safety issue.
Yet California will no longer issue permits for anti-lockdown protests at any state properties, including the Capitol.
Agree?
Just remember what you’re saying now about these redneck inbred gun
nuts the next time someone claims a march permit can’t be issued in the
interest of public safety to a group you support. It’s the same thing,
rights are rights. Because you know what else can spread rapidly if
“left unchecked?” Tyranny. Justice Louis Brandeis held
free speech is not an abstract virtue but a key element of a democratic
society. He ruled even speech likely to result in “violence or in
destruction of property is not enough to justify its suppression.” In
braver times when Americans challenged the safety vs. liberty argument, the Supreme Court consistently ruled in favor of free speech, reminding us democracy comes with risk. But that was another world ago, before we measured human worth in RTs.
There is science
which should be informing decisions. But while claiming a small rally
in Denver will cost lives, or Florida will kill people by opening its
beaches, the same voices remain silent as NYC keeps its subway running
24/7. The public beach versus public transportation debate came as a new study
showed that NYC’s “multitentacled subway system was a major
disseminator—if not the principal transmission vehicle—of coronavirus
infection,” seeding the virus throughout the city. Without a
superspreader like the subway it can be contained locally. It is tragic
when the virus rips through a nursing home or meatpacking plant (it is a
virus after all, it will go viral), but all of those together barely
touch a week’s body count in New York. Shut down mass transport.
We can put most people back to work with limited risk; the protesters are right. The virus kills a very specific patient. About half the dead are over age 65. Less than one percent of deaths are under age 44. Almost 94
percent of the dead in any age group had serious underlying medical
issues (about half had hypertension and/or were obese, a third had lung
problems). The death toll in NY/NJ under total lockdown: over 27,000.
Death toll in much more densely populated Tokyo with “smart” lockdown:
98.
About 22
percent of New Yorkers already have the virus antibody and thus
expected immunity. One logical implication of this—that large numbers
already have or had the virus, and that it is harmless to them—is simply
ignored. Quarantine/social distancing should be for those most
vulnerable so we can stop wrecking all of society with cruder measures.
Hospitals should separate patients by age. No need to keep kids from
school, especially if that means isolating them inside a
multigenerational household. Let them wear soggy paper masks to class,
even tin foil on their heads, if it makes things easier. Online classes are lame and America doesn’t need a new generation dumber than the current one.
The
New York-New Jersey area, with roughly half the dead for the entire
nation, practices full-on social distancing while Georgia was one of the
last states to implement a weaker stay-at-home policy. Yet as Georgia
re-opens, the NY/NJ death count is over 27,000. Georgia is 892. NYC alone continues adding around 500 bodies to the pile every day, even with its bowling alleys closed.
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