Corono-Observations

We’ve completed week 7 of “shelter in place” and it hasn’t been a waste of time.  We’ve actually learned a lot over the past several weeks.  It is in hardship and crisis that people do reveal themselves and some things become more apparent.

·        The city of Wuhan is also where most of the fentanyl is produced.  The same city that gave birth to COVID19 and is killing many of our elderly continues to produce the opioid that is killing our kids.  The response from the Chinese Communist Party makes it clear that it really doesn’t care.

·        We have seen our local leaders contract a disease worse than COVID19-Maduro-itis. Marduro-itis is a disease marked by obsessive control and rule making, that you yourself do not feel obliged to comply with.  New York mayor De Blasio goes to the gym but no one else does.  Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot gets her hair coiffed because she is “the face of the city.” Virginia governor Ralph Northam goes off to his seaside house, while other Virginians remain under house arrest.  J.B. Pritzker demands shelter in place yet dodges questions whether he is slipping off to his Florida home.  Maduro-itis conveys privileges than the commoners do not have.

·        The Founders were right about a number of issues.  People will abuse their power and we’ve seen the pandemic open the door to a plethora of abuses from Michigan governor Whitmer banning people from buying plant seeds to cops arresting moms at playgrounds and harassing old people on beaches.  We’ve seen protesters arrested in stark violation of their Constitutional freedom of assembly. They were also correct about federalism.  In deciding how to handle the pandemic, different solutions are appropriate for different regions. What works for South Dakota won’t work for New York.  Further, we get to experiment.  We can see how Georgia’s approach to relaxing shelter at home works before we apply it nationwide.  Yes, it all looks a little chaotic, but it is a better approach than a one size fits all approach.

·        In Illinois, state and municipal workers won’t miss a paycheck, and will get scheduled raises, yet private sector workers are being laid off by the hundreds of thousands.  Yet when they return to work, Pritzker will demand that they pay more out of their earnings to pay for the pay and benefits of those that didn’t suffer any economic harm.

·        We have seen Jews and Christians threatened.  New York mayor De Blasio threatened to close some churches permanently and threatened Jews with arrest if they did not comply with social distancing.  Church members were ticketed at one church even though it was a drive-in.  Yet, in a suburb of Minneapolis, a Muslim call to prayer blared over a loudspeaker.

·        After decades of trade with China, and assuming that China would eventually liberalize, we need to begin to ask ourselves if China is beginning to look more like us, or are we beginning to look more like China.  Suspension of civil liberties, surveillance through drones, imploring neighbors to snitch on each other starts to look more like authoritarian Communist practices than the liberal West society that we have taken for granted.

Still, there are reasons to be optimistic.

·        Economist Randy Kroszner and several other commentators have noted that we have pulled together in large part.  There has been an outpouring of people willing to help other people.  The medical profession in particular has been courageous and hardworking.  We are probably a more closely knit society than the media and politics would lead us to believe.  It is important that politicians (especially on the left) and the media profit handsomely by keeping us divided.

·        We are learning the limitations of measurements and models.  The CDC just revised its estimate of deaths by COVID19 downward by nearly 50% from 70,000 to 37,000.  This spotlight on modeling and measurement limitations will have a profound effect on policymakers that are advocating draconian measures to combat climate change.  The logical question that they cannot answer is why we would expect the climate change modelers to do any better.

·        Hopefully, this experience will sober us up to other existential threats, like EMP (electromagnetic pulse).  I believe it has, as President Trump already issued an executive order hardening the electrical grid.

·        Our relationship with China will now be more realistic.  We see the Chinese regime as it is, not as we would like it to be.  The reality is that it has changed little since Tiananmen Square, although the West continued to pretend it didn’t happen.

·        We are adapting.  I am especially impressed with our educational and cultural institutions’ ability to shift to online activities.  It’s not perfect by any means but museums, opera houses, symphonies, zoos and the like were able to pivot quickly to offer programming online.  Remote learning likewise is not perfect, but we are able to continue to educate our youth without too much disruption. 

·        My first gut reaction to the lockdown was, “Gee, if you wanted to control an unruly population, this is a wonderful way to do it.”  I was at first shocked at how meek and compliant we were. But there has now been enough rebellion against arbitrary and silly rules that it gives me hope that the American spirit lives on.