A common observation is that, when confronted with even what should be convincing evidence contrary to a strongly held belief, especially a long-held one, most people will “double down” on their original belief. While this is true across the political spectrum, in my opinion, this effect is stronger on the left because of their solid belief in their own good intentions vs what they see as the “selfish” or even “evil” belief system of those to their right. The right understands that “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
The left judges on intentions that they believe they “know”. The right judges on results. So for the left, people with bad intentions are always wrong, even if what they did is objectively good. People with good intentions are always right, even if what they did is objectively bad. Of course your intentions are determined by how closely you follow leftist orthodoxy. It’s the only way to explain things like their reaction to an amazingly weak sexual allegation against Kavanaugh versus a much stronger one against Biden.
The smallest book in the world is the list of Liberal Programs that actually work. The largest book in the world is the book which lists the excuses of Liberals of why their programs did not work.
The biggest problem isn’t just that liberal programs don’t work—it’s that the programs make the problems far worse than they would be without them. They cost a fortune and make the problem worse, but they continue forever.
To me, conservatism means above all skepticism–about grand plans to build utopia, and also about speculative projections of impending disaster. Lefties are always peddling both of these, because that’s how they gain power. We’re supposed to bat them down with reason and cool resolve. Too many on our side failed. Maybe to some extent also Trump, although I think he might have been committing political suicide if he’d not gone along at least to some extent, in light of all the hysteria, including from his own team.
You are very reasonable. I appreciate it. So much irrationality! I’ve been very disappointed by so many people’s willingness to panic. But I see a couple silver linings, one of which is our current experiment in federalism. Now we can observe 50 laboratories to try out varying degrees of Liberty vs. tyranny. Lockdown vs pandemic. Nice to see the Liberty-minded states getting good results. And crazy to see the Dem governors and their authoritarian tendencies! Their constituents seem to be getting fed up. I predict more defections from the Left. This could redound to Trump’s, and Liberty’s, advantage. Another house-cleaning. I’ve been saying it for the last few years: With every episode of Leftist freakout, a few more people leave their side.
The idiotic “experts” will be totally unrepentant and brazenly declare millions would have DIED without their “expert” warnings.
When all the drama is past we should have a national discussion about what is referred to as out “unalienable rights”. The term requires some explaining to a lot of elected officials.
The shutdowns have proven to be disastrous both for saving lives and for fueling the panic. Trying to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed should have ended the lockdowns once hospitals started laying people off. The fact that the lockdowns took on “mission creep” is the surest sign that the WuFlu became a virus too-good-to waste, benefiting the socialists of all parties. The problem with the insane Howard Hughes-style virus suppression strategies is that people need to eat. Howard Hughes had a billion dollars or so, along with elaborate procedures for his underlings to follow to get the food he needed. Most of the Non-essential Deplorables don’t have many underlings and hardly any of them have a billion dollars–all they have is twelve hundred. Thus the flu spreads even to those “locked down.” Thus minimal or no “spikes” after lockdowns are eased.
Not knocking Taiwan’s excellent record in dealing with the Wuhan Pneumonia (as it is referred to here in Taiwan), but, Taiwan was also very fortunate in that (i) the Chinese, in a petty attempt to punish Taiwan for exercising its democracy and holding presidential elections last year, prohibited Chinese tourists from visiting Taiwan, (ii) Taiwan is an island with essentially only one international airport of entry, thus making tracking and quarantine measures relatively simple, (iii) Chinese is the language and thus Taiwanese were watching and understanding reports coming from China very early on, giving careful attention to reports from Taiwanese business persons and Chinese civilians on the ground there and being skeptical of official CCP reports. Of course, there are also the advantages here that taiwanese people were receptive to the idea of wearing masks (and masks have been available throughout) and Taiwanese people are generally not nearly as heavy as Americans, so, escape many of the problems associated with being overweight. Unfortunately, the incidence of lung cancer is quite high in Taiwan, and the population density is also very high. Taiwan had little choice but to close the island to nearly all visitors and to implement the measures that it did. Taiwan has as of yesterday (17 May), gone 35 days with no community spread and 10 days with no new imported infections. The vast majority of Taiwan’s infections are imported. Total cases = 440. Imported cases = 349. Local community spread = 55. 7 deaths. 395 cases of recuperation.
And now the battle begins , the Real Battle for the History of this Debacle /The Great Mistake. On the one hand will be the Heroic Governors making Hard Choices assisted by Science and The Experts. On the other will be the economic train wreck which will be blamed on !!Trump!! and knuckle dragging Deniers , And worstest is that whatever might have been learned will be buried in the finger pointing the retribution and the I told You Sos . That and the data ( deaths and co-morbidities ) is already corrupted and worthless. So it was all for nothing , GD Nothing
1. We do not know how the virus is transmitted. The assumption it was spread by aerosol or respiratory droplets was based on the original concern that the virus was leading to pneumonia, types of which are disease spread by respiratory droplets (from coughs and wheezes.) But we no longer hear about pneumonia, just as we no longer hear about treating patients with ventilators: it was incorrect.
If instead the likely transmission route is on surfaces and then into eyes, nose, throat, then there is far more chance of transmission at home or in hospital, where you touch the same door knob, toilet handle, keyboard and cell phone as other infected people. In that case, the emphasis on handwashing and staying home when sick and huge emphasis on wiping down surfaces and cleaning in stores is enough to prevent transmission except at home/in hospital.
2. We don’t know how much viral load is needed to get sick. If you need to come into close personal contact with sick people for hours to have enough viral load to get sick, again, hospitals and home and other tight quarters over hours are the sources. Shopping, state parks, beaches, even restaurants and movies don’t involve close contact with people (other than the ones you already lived with.) With workplaces closed, no one is in close quarters differently than they were under lockdown.
3. Wuhan flu makes very few sick, so the only reason for giant numbers of sick with wuhan flu was because they had comorbidities, including with influenza like illnesses. They were sick enough to be ill and already hospitalised (and contracted in hospital or ltcf) or already had flu, and also got covid testing. But now that flu is gone, healthy people may have covid but have no reason to get tested.
4. many of us are already immune because we were never susceptible or we got infected before lockdown anyway.
Law of Markets 