Never Waste A Crisis – Libertarian Edition

I pointed out with a bit of mindly tart surprise last month that California, after voting in lock step with the statist agenda for the past thirty years, had rediscovered the virtues of federalism via the current public health crisis, and the (to progressives) greater crisis of Hillary losing the election.

That was a tad sarcastic – but as José Niño at the Mises Institute points out, after quite a few policians romping and playing in power like Scrooge McDuck bathing in his coin vault…:

Amusingly, the COVID-19 saga has been host to some of the most flagrant political posturing in recent memory. Early in March (which feels like eons ago in today’s frenetic media cycle) New York City mayor de Blasio was telling people to go to the movies and have fun. Now, he’s done a complete 180, shutting down most private businesses and even calling for the nationalization of certain industries and begging the federal government for military aid to combat the epidemic.

…there’ve been some object lessons show, and learned, on the value of federalism coming out of this crisis:

We are indeed living in the strangest of times when LA Times columnists are expressing sentiments that better belong in a passage of Human Action. The jury is still out on whether this is merely oppositional posturing from the Left, but any kind of conversation entailing the restoration of federalism is a welcome surprise.

The “authorized” right can generally be counted on to disappoint its constituents who genuinely believe in small government principles. To their credit, there have been some bright spots on their side in the present pandemic. States like Texas have gone out of their way to declare gun stores essential businesses and to deregulate several parts of its economy at a time where bureaucracy is impeding various vital economic functions.

Elected officials like State Representative Matt Gurtler in Georgia have raised the stakes by floating a proposal that would allow law-abiding Georgians to concealed carry anywhere. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem projected a stark contrast in her relatively lax approach to handling the pandemic. Jeff Deist used her example as the basis for several pragmatic measures that state governments can take to reopen their economies without throwing civil liberties into the wood chipper. No doubt there is much work to be done, but we can find glimmering signs of promise every now and then.

The example I like to use – after Katrina, gun rights groups noticed the speed at which Louisiana and New Orleans’ layers of incompetent Democrat governments turned to confiscating the firearms of law-abiding citizens. In 2015, Minnesota’s gun rights groups pushed a law in Minnesota barring the state from confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens under states of emergency, or shutting down gun stores before every other store in the state was closed. The bills passed, with bipartisan majorities in both chambers powerful enough to scare Governor Dayton’s handlers away from telling him to sign a veto.

We – the good guys – need to do that with every other civil right.

Starting in November.

51 thoughts on “Never Waste A Crisis – Libertarian Edition

  1. Hold your water, boss.

    It seems in the rush to re-assert their sovereignty, some states have been going a bridge too far. [From the PiPress]

    More than 11 million people have been tested in the U.S. for COVID-19, all with the assurance that their private medical information would remain protected and undisclosed.
    Yet, public officials in at least two-thirds of states are sharing the addresses of people who tested positive with first responders — from police officers to firefighters to EMTs. An Associated Press review found that at least 10 of those states also share the patients’ names.

    WTF? They’re adding to our dossiers? I sure hope someone is looking out for the privacy rights of American citizens. Let’s dive into it further.

    First responders argue the information is vital to helping them take extra precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the coronavirus.

    But civil liberty and community activists have expressed concerns of potential profiling in African-American and Hispanic communities that already have an uneasy relationship with law enforcement. Some envision the data being forwarded to immigration officials.

    So, the only problem is, people that are already hiding from the law that are worried their cover might be blown if they get bat flu. Wipipul can stfu.

    But lo! Perhaps we can take a lesson here. If we measure laws and regulations leftist state Generalissimos may be planning to use bat flu to introduce, perhaps all we need do to shut them down is point out the danger further that bigoted, government intrusion will pose to little brown Guatamexidorian peasants and the Negro jogging community.

  2. Well, this outta shake up Emperors Wally! Seems that Senator Vanilla Fluff has gone off the reservation. It’s being reported that she admitted that HCQ saved her husband’s life after he got the virus. She must be mistaken though, because according to the media, Dr. Quack Fauci and every medical person being paid by the left, that drug not only doesn’t work, but it’s dangerous and can kill you. That is, if you’re not using it to treat malaria or lupus.

  3. We already do this. See Governor Walz’ Executive Order 20-34, issued April 10th.

  4. Super ironic to see super “Christian” right-winger Lori Laughlin change her plea and admit she behaved exactly how so many conservatives behave, contemptuous of rules, thinking their privilege allows them to corrupt the system, and lacking faith in their own ability (or that of their kid’s) to win out.

    When she was on Full House, like many I thought she was pretty, but seeing and hearing her off-state it rapidly became apparent she was a condescending jerk, one who was holier than thou, but like so many, with feet of clay. I don’t rejoice in her fall, but I do laugh at the rampant hypocrisy of those who claim that all will be right with the world if we just adopt (white) “family values”, while they privately don’t believe those values matter and don’t believe anyone else does either.

    She’s the poster child of a Donald Trump world, nepotistic, corrupt as a $3 bill, incapable of accepting that other people, not them of course, but others, have integrity, work within the rules (a concept they can’t conceive of), and believe that who you know shouldn’t matter more than the talent you bring. As this President sews corrupt, unqualified lick-spittles all over the government, people whose only redeeming quality (to Trump) is that they fawn over him and are willing to lie, cheat and steal to protect him and bring about his financial or political success.

    So, I ask you, who exactly is draining any swamp? More than that, since you don’t think the government can ever be anything but a swamp (nor does Trump), why are you so profoundly naïve’ that you think he’d even think to try? He doesn’t believe it’s possible any more than did Lori Laughlin think her children could succeed on their own. So, he perverts that government, for he thinks no one else will do anything else. He has cheapened and coarsened our discourse, just as Laughlin cheapened her children’s accomplishments and self-worth.

    So as you ponder whether keeping the state closed (in part) to save lives, 36,000 of which could have been saved had we acted merely A WEEK earlier, and fling poo and wring your over-anxious, clammy hands about California, which has been FAR more successful per capita, than have states like Georgia, ponder for a minute what your hypocrisy looks like to the outside. Trump is losing BADLY, very badly on this issue, and your shrill response, outside your echo chamber is selling badly as you ask people to sacrifice the lives of loved ones so that you can go to your favorite pub and bitch about how unfair life is, how it’s not your fault, and how, like Laughlin, you are the personal accountability champion. Yeah. Yep. You sure are.

  5. Are other folks confused by Paddyboys’ response as well? First I thought it was a copy/paste troll he was presumably depositing on all his regular blogs, but as I read it, he seemed to tailor it to this post semi-specifically. With that in mind, I am now just concerned about his mental well being and hope he has parents or a support group whom communicate with him daily. He isn’t cracked yet, but appears close.

  6. The way this will naturally and organically work out is that, if the governors decide to impose a “lock down” again, their tyrannical impulses will be checked by common sense. If 80% of deaths are occurring in nursing homes, well, social distancing, masks, and shutting down barber shops ain’t gonna help with that.

  7. Is there anything more amusing than a reprobate on liquor day?

    Somebody is gonna wake up with one hell of a headache this morning.

  8. And that someone is me.

    Paddyboy – not sure if I need to respond, since you don’t seem to be big on dialog. But I’m with MP; I don’t know who Lori Loughlin is. I mean, yeah – she was a TV star 25 years ago, but other than that, she’s famous these days for paying off a school to get her daughter into the paper chase – because a big part of our society conflates “credentials” with “merit”. Now I have no real need to politicize this story (or care about it) but there is one part of our society that does rag on the other part of society for their lack of deference to credentials. But that’s a whole different discsusion.

    So – is your comment about corruption, or about re-opening the state, or…?

    those who claim that all will be right with the world if we just adopt (white) “family values”,

    Never much cared for the term “Familly Values” – there are lots of families and lots of values out there. I prefer the values of Western Civilization, thanks.

    wring your over-anxious, clammy hands

    Whaaaaaa?

    about California, which has been FAR more successful per capita, than have states like Georgia, ponder for a minute what your hypocrisy looks like to the outside.

    a) I don’t think “hypocrisy” means what you think it means.

    b) California’s numbers, in terms of cases and deaths per million, are better than Georgia’s (which are comparable to MInnesota’s by the way!). Which are in turn vastly better than New York’s (since you wanted to talk about corruption and hypocrisy) or Michigan’s (whose governor has enacted a police state that must be making people on your side envious). There’s also a case to be made that California’s numbers are better because they’re on their second wave.

    But just like all the “progs” who pointed to Kansas as a failure of conservative economics while steeering the conversation away from the Dakotas, the Carolinas, Wisconsin and the rest of the rural west, pointing to Georgia is a terrible place to start.

    Let’s try the Dakotas, neither of which had a draconian shut down (SD had no shutdown at all), both of which are mostly open today.

    Deaths per million (because that’s not subject to testing):
    NY: 1,491
    CA: 93
    GA: 170
    FL: 102 (Another favorite “prog” kick toy)
    MI: 516
    ND: 68
    SD: 57

    Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
    Numbers as of Saturday.

    So – we see that while death rates and lockdowns are not (to be charitable) correlated, we DO see a strong correlation between high-density, “blue” societies and contagion.

    So yeah, let’s talk about Lori Loughlin, shall we?

    Since you’re not big on dialog in the comments section, I’ll likely be making this a post next week.

  9. Paddy boy : Lori Laughlin’s mistake was not breeding with a Kennedy. Then all of her kids would’ve been accepted at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley etc etc etc.

  10. Pad,

    Also – in case you missed it, the subject of this thread is “Blue” America’s sudden embrace of federalism. Which is fascinating ,since up until the present, every time a conservative ped Federalism or the 9th and 10th Amendments, progs would retort “HAH! THAT MENES U WANT TEH SLAVERERY!”.

    I mean, I’d have thought progs would have figured it out after 2016. But no.

    Bonus question, Pad: since Blue governors like Newsome have reversed course on the virtues of federalism, are they “hypocrites?”

  11. So glad we win so much we’re tired of winning.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/23/world/pandemic-world-order-trump-intl/index.html

    Yep. Oh, and for those of you pedantic tiny member readers who think I care about your cackling over some typo or misspelling, know I don’t read your responses so, in fact, I don’t care. Mitch’s penchant for knowing sophistry is so much more intellectually violative, I have to wonder whether you’re simply blind or fools, or both. In short, Mitch is smart enough to know the right is troweling out BS, you clearly, are not. So glad you keep winning, so glad, as the US slips into second place on the world stage due to Fearless Leader’s unfailingly stupid leadership.

  12. Aaaand another threadjack.

    Mitch is smart enough to know the right is troweling out BS

    So – you’re telling me what I really know?

    The term in vogue for that this days is “gaslighting”.

    And the ad hominem re my commenters – who, it needs to be said, include a couple lawyers, several engineers, at least one MD, and quite a few other people who’ve had to exhibit a lack of stupidity in fact and life – is just that; a logical fallacy and a deflection.

    Care to talk about the Left’s embrace of Federalism?

    By the way, Pad – this subject, and likely as not your comments, are going to be subjects on my show today. I invite you to join in!

  13. Mitch-
    Hawaii had a moderately strict lock down, and an enforceable quarantine on new arrivals (since we are an island state). Hawaii is as blue as blue can be.
    Deaths per million? Around 8.
    As far as I can tell, nearly all the deaths have come to people with heavily compromising pre-existing conditions. Some who were infected were already in the hospital and caught it from a visitor.
    As far as I can tell by the description of the few outbreaks (that is, looking at positive tests, not deaths), it tends to spread among small groups of people who spend significant time together in close quarters.
    Hawaii’s lockdown was moderately strict on paper, but from what I saw on the ground few people paid attention to the “necessary travel only” rules. I know that I did not. Traffic on the highways was lower than normal for a few days after the stay-at-home order was issued, but quickly returned to pre-dictate levels.

  14. From the CNN story teh little Peevee linked to:

    “The extent of the divide became clear on Tuesday during a vote at the World Health Organization annual assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, backing Europe’s conciliatory approach to China relating to an investigation into the outbreak.”

    Reprobate leftists like little Peevee and his ilk are thrilled when America’s enemies are emboldened. They, and their anti-American media partners have been actively supporting the Chinese Communists at every opportunity during the pandemic they created.

    The prospect of a national economic meltdown has them in orgasmic throes of extacy. I bet teh little Peevee wanked himself raw while reading that celebratory story.

    The only bright spot in all of this is most of the casualties have been taking place in leftist cesspools. The NY reprobate party will certianly have its paws full, trying to keep their deceased supporters on the voting rolls until November.

  15. Here’s a little parting bit of advice for teh little Peevee and his pals:

    你自己去他妈的

    And I mean that in the very best way, little fella.

  16. Teh Peevee never reads comments, I know because he says so and he never lies (snicker). But since he’s such a fan of #Winning, I thought I’d pass along this bit of joy to brighten his gin soaked day.

    “Largest yet: $1.3 billion contract for border wall awarded
    JAMES MACPHERSON AND ASTRID GALVAN | ASSOCIATED PRESS
    7:14 p.m. EDT May 20, 2020
    A North Dakota construction company favored by President Donald Trump has received the largest contract to date to build a section of Trump’s signature wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

    Howyoulikethemapples? Drumpf is paving the border in #Winning!

    Oh, and last we forget, Drumpf has started sending Guatamexidorians back to their homes again….accelerated pace, so I understand. He’s good like that.

  17. Yea, Paddywhacker doesn’t acknowledge that Felicity Huffman is a big DemocRAT donor and in fact, Loughlin’s husband Mossimo did contribute to a Dem candidate.
    There were 50 people total that were involved in the college admissions scandal and there were actually more donations to DemocRATs. But, I’m sure that numb nuts won’t let facts get in the way.

  18. I don’t know who Felicity Huffman or Lori Loughlin are.
    If they were important, I would know who they are. So no need to look them up.
    Lefties are easily programmed. They go to HuffPo or the NY Times websites & swallow everything they read whole. They never examine what they read critically. The important thing for them is to divide humanity into good people and bad people and make certain they are on the side of the good. Websites like HuffPo make that easy: if you agree with we publish, you are on the side of goodness and light, no need to examine what we publish to see if it is true or is ideological propaganda.
    Here are this AM’s headlines at HuffPo:

    STUDY: WHITE SUPREMACIST GROUPS ‘THRIVING’ ON FB

    Man Serving 18 Years On Marijuana Charges Just Died In Federal Prison COVID-19 Outbreak

    Clergy Say Trump’s Push To Open Churches Contradicts Jesus’ Teaching To Love Neighbors

    Fox News’ Judge Napolitano Says Trump Has No Power To Override Governors On Churches

    None of this is news. It is all opinion pieces. The story about FB is a press release by a far-left anti first amendment political group.
    The story about the guy who died in prison of covid-19, while serving a sentence on marijuana charges, had plead guilty of trafficking over a ton of marijuana. It was his third conviction on drug-related charges.
    The story about clergy saying Trump is disobeying Jesus features far-left, radical, “social mission” democrats who apparently believe homosexuality is not a sin, but gathering to worship God is a sin. This is, shall we say, a minority of church-goers.
    And of course Napolitano is a #nevertrumper who reflexively takes the opposite side of Trump on issue.

  19. Damn that Gov. of North Dakota, obviously a RINO

    Pad, I’ve met you. I know you’re a smart person, and not especially illogical in real life.

    So forget for a moment that that’s yet another thread jack. Let’s run with that for a moment.

    Have you actually read this blog? I”m a huge Doug Burgum fan. He’s running one of the most effective Covid responses in the nation. The state’s testing rate is TRIPLE Minnesota’s – on a fraction of the budget. The death rate per capita in North Dakota is about 40% what it is in Minnesota, and the economy is doing much better – I mean, Fargo has been eating Moorhead alive for decades, but now it’s getting really serious. He may be defending masks – as do I, under certain circumstances – but he’s run a much, much smarter response in general than any Democrat governor.

    Burgum’s an interesting guy. He’s married to a high school classmate of mine (the former Kathy Helgaas). My dad met the governor at a funeral (for one of Dad’s old students, and Kathy’s old neighbors); he’s so impressed, Burgum may become the first Republican my dad’s voted for since Ike. It’ll be the first politician my dad and I have agreed on since the early eighties. Think about that for a while.

    RINO? Enh. People in my native NoDak are a pragmatic lot – it’s one of our main virtues. But Burgum has led a Republican surge that has left too few Dem/NPL’s in office to staff all their committee assignments (one of them, Sen. Grabinger, a high school classmate of Kathy’s and mine), is one of like two Senate NPL/Dems not in Fargo or Grand Forks. But he’s one of those Democrats with an “A” from the NRA, so you’d have chased him out of office long ago).

    But it’s interesting to see you coming to Burgum’s defense. He’s the kind of pol you’d never rally to defend under any other circumstances; a self-made billionaire, a Reagan conservative, someone who achieved everything he needed to in the world of business and is bringing that expertise to what has become in many ways America’s most successful state. He’s run the state according to very solid, Reaganite principles. So he’s a mask proponent? Who TflamingF cares?

    I wish we had him in MN. Hell, I wish he were governor of a bigger state so he’d be a contender for President in 2024. In a just world, he’d be a short lister.

    And you’d have known that, Pad, if you’d have asked a question instead of led with the strawman.

  20. Yea, Paddywhacker doesn’t acknowledge that Felicity Huffman is a big DemocRAT donor and in fact, Loughlin’s husband Mossimo did contribute to a Dem candidate.

    Wait, what? A Hollywood condo pink who’s so hypnotized by credentialism she cheated to get her slapnut offspring a more upmarket degree?

    Shocking.

  21. I keep waiting for someone to point to real, peer reviewed research that wearing a mask under ordinary social circumstances reduces the spread of covid-19. I think that I will wait forever, because the science simply is not there.
    Mask wearing has become a fetish.
    No one has ever seen the actual covid-19 virus. Its size is about 0.12u, or 120 nanometers. Our eyes cut out on the blue end of the spectrum at a wavelength of about 380 nanometers. At a width of ~50 microns, a fine human hair is four hundred times wider than the diameter of the covid-19 virus. We can measure the virus, model its shape, and use electron microscopes to create images of what the virus would look like if we could see it, but we are unable to actually see it or touch it.
    When people can’t see or touch a thing, their imaginations go to work. They personify it. In their imaginations, it becomes a thing that they can see and touch, and they treat this thing that exists only in their imagination as though it were real. We imagine the spiky golf ball of the coronavirus getting caught up in the tangle of fibers that make up a cloth mask and not passing through it. In fact the virus exists outside the human body in droplets of water we exhale, or sneeze, or cough. It can live outside the body only for as long as the water droplet, a few microns in size, can shield it. Warm, moist cloth is like a petri dish. When you exhale through it, you spray thousand or millions of tiny droplets through the mask and into the air. When you inhale through a mask, you filter the clean outside air through a warm, damp piece of fabric that contains an unknown number of viruses.
    That, doubtless, is the reason why so much research shows that mask wearing is not an effective defense against spreading or contracting a flu virus.

  22. MP, I’ve observed that for many reprobate leftists, a maskie is the pussy hat for 2020. But in our vast country, there’s room for empty heads of all types.

    The Pinterest “masks” thread has 45,000 followers. Cool, hip maskies for every event.

    I’d bet my next paycheck that not one of among those 45,000 is someone either you or I would ever have a beer with.

    As you’ve noted, the diameter of a corona virus is less than .2 microns. Even medical grade procedure maskies have a weave a thousand times that large.

    If you’re wearing a maskie because you think it will protect you from bat flu, you are not invited to my BBQ tomorrow. If you’re wearing one to be cool, well, it depends on how cool I judge your maskie to be.

  23. However, I find that I need a sauce mop, so teh little Peevee IS invited.

  24. Paddy reminds me of a cousin, honor student, national merit scholarship winner, MENSA qualified, earned her PhD and worked in an American Embassy overseas for years before coming back to teach college. I admit it: she’s smarter than I am.

    But she’s reflexively Liberal, supports Democrats even while decrying the results of their policies; hates Conservatives and Republicans for all the talking point reasons even while living a conservative personal lifestyle.

    I lost her as a Facebook friend when I asked: What’s the point of having all those brains if you’re not going to use them?

  25. I am willing to be convinced that wearing a cloth mask will slow the spread of covid-19, but I want data, not anecdotes, and not “just so” stories.

  26. Joe, history is replete with intelligent people that suffer from mental deficiencies. Beneath the top layer of power hungry string pullers, most of whom are more ruthless than intelligent, the reprobate party is full of them.

  27. Well, MP, if maximum velocity of a sneeze is 10 mph (or 4.5 m/s), a coronavirus molecule, traveling through a channel 1,000 times it’s size, might be so unlucky as to crash into the fabric, reducing it’s forward momentum, “slowing” to 3-4 miles per hour. Or perhaps, given millions of molecules, the cloth would have the same effect on a sneezed mass of molecules as road construction has on Hwy. 169 heading north out of the Cities on a Friday afternoon in the summer. That would slow the virus considerably, but would also ensure that it was really crabby when it got to its destination.

  28. Been looking for this graph for a while:
    https://datausa.io/coronavirus
    Look at deaths per 100,000 by state. The curves all look the same, regardless of lock down state. Look at the mobility graph below it. No correlation between mobility and covid-19 deaths in a state.

  29. MP;
    Even Dr. Quack Fauci is changing his tune, again, on masks. In the beginning, he and that corrupt head of WHO, said that we didn’t need to worry about the virus getting to the U.S. Then, masks?! You don’t need no stinking masks! Back to wear masks and close down the country. Now, he’s back to stating what most of the more rational of us, including a lot of doctors, scientists and already knew; closing the country was a bad idea and the masks don’t really work.
    And funny, there is a picture of washed up has been actress and liberat loud mouth Alyssa Milano going around, wearing a knitted mask.

  30. Was watching the wreath laying ceremony at Arlington on Fox. The anchors remained silent for 15 minutes while it unfolded.

    Switched over to MSNBC…They were dragging Drumpf for golfing yesterday, and speculating on who would be wearing maskies today.

    Its about what I expected, along the lines of dimwit D_K disrespecting JD’s family tragedy.

    These people are scum.

  31. You’re darn right Trump should be scrutinized over golfing, most especially during these current times and on this particular weekend.

    This is the man who criticized Obama for golfing, this is the man who said if he was president he would not have time to golf.  We have lost count of how many and how much it’s cost the taxpayers. People dying too loudly can really put you off your short game.

    This is the man who has not acknowledged the pain and agony of American lives lost to COVID-19. This is the man who wants all churches open in America but did not attend a church service yesterday.

    The contrast between the words and behavior of top officials of the past with Trump couldn’t be greater on a national celebration of service.

    I never imagined a major health crisis could be so blatantly politicized, but I clearly underestimated the depths of US polarization.

  32. If there’s anything more heartwarming than watching a fat piglet roll and frolic in its own, liquid shit, it’s watching one frolic in it’s stymates shit..

    Frolic, D_K…frolic.

  33. Apparently now we are getting comments that are cut-n-pasted from random TDS websites.

  34. Cut-and-pasted from the foulest cesspools on the planet, MP.

    And last we forget, the men who bled rivers of blood earned the swine the right to grovel as low as they wish.

    Although I doubt any of the guys that stormed the beaches of Normandy, took Mt. Surabachi, froze in the Chosin valley, sweated in the jungles of Vietnam or fought house to house in Fallujah could have imagined how low 1/2 of the country would fall.

  35. Chopper,
    As a Vietnam vet, I know exactly how low they would fall. Some of the same jack asses that spit on and insulted us, for a war that their side was responsible for, are now government droogs.

  36. Emery,
    Pound sand you hypocrite!
    The black messiah Barackus Obamanus I played golf during the Swine flu pandemic, but the media thought that was great. Idiot!

  37. A commenter at Althouse’s blog mentioned the following points he missed from an LA Times article investigating the difference between the number of covid-19 deaths in LA versus SF.
    I second everyone of his complaints. Good grief, how can I be a good citizen, a co-ruler of this nation, if the damn media does not understand its job?

    1. 3 Days delay between Bay Area and LA Closing did not make a huge amount of difference.
    2. No mention of how over 50% of deaths have been in nursing homes.
    3. No mention of how many infections were in institutional settings, such as Prisons and Nursing Homes
    4. No mention of how the MTA has decreased number of buses, due to less bus riders.
    5. No mention of where are being getting infected.
    6. No mention of demographics of which areas are most heavily infected in LA county
    7. No mention of R Factor, and how increased number of infections is due to testing increasing 400% in last 4 weeks.
    8. No explanation on why SF has so few cases
    9. No mention of Coronavirus in homeless
    10. No mention of impact of masks
    11. No mention of demographics of mask usage, and impact on infection rates. A comment mentioned crowds outside a section 8 building, wearing no masks.
    12. No comparison between NYC and LA on death rates
    13. Claim of high higher density just does not make sense in LA. We are not like NYC, much less SF.
    14. No mention of CA policy, at least for first 15 days, of requiring Coronavirus tested positive patients to be admitted to nursing homes. I am not sure if the policy is still in place, or if there are incentives for a nursing home to admit Coronavirus patients.


  38. Night Writer on May 24, 2020 at 6:56 pm said:

    Well, MP, if maximum velocity of a sneeze is 10 mph (or 4.5 m/s), a coronavirus molecule, traveling through a channel 1,000 times it’s size, might be so unlucky as to crash into the fabric, reducing it’s forward momentum, “slowing” to 3-4 miles per hour.
    . . .

    The critical part is that masks make it more difficult to breathe. Your lungs & diaphragm have to work harder. The thing that keeps us all alive is the carboxylic cycle (or citrus acid cycle), where waste from the use of oxygen in cells is turned into carboxylic acid, then into CO2, and is exchanged in the lungs for fresh air. Wearing a mask inhibits this exchange. Wearing a cloth mask is okay for most people (but uncomfortable), but is hazardous for some people.
    If nature would have intended us to wear masks, we would have evolved masks.

  39. If you don’t like masks — then you’re really not gonna like a ventilator.

  40. Except not only is there really little evidence that common cloth masks provide much more than token protection against virus absorption, but in fact surgical staff don’t wear them to protect themselves; they wear them to protect others from germs they cough up.

    And that’s a valid thing – if someone’s infected and has no symptoms, wearing a mask can prevent spread – by keeping it in, not out.

  41. Perhaps I missed it, but MP’s comment above, “I am willing to be convinced that wearing a cloth mask will slow the spread of covid-19, but I want data, not anecdotes, and not “just so” stories” still stands.

    If you, Mitch, want to believe that wearing a mask for an extended period of time (getting it good and wet and clogged with all sorts of germs so as to provide them a nice launching pad) does anything other than, as NW wrote, make the germs cranky when they reach their destination, well, you keep plucking that chicken.

    It’s an effing totem, like a rabbit’s foot. Or the newest pu55y hat.

  42. Nitwits don’t read the text of links they pass around the cesspool.

    At this time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved any type of surgical mask specifically for protection against the COVID-19 virus

    They’re virtually worthless; the CDC said as much before there was trillions of Drumpfbux to be had.

    Dimwit D_K tipped his hand, although he is too stupid to realize it.

    Wearing a mask isn’t as much about protecting yourself as it is protecting those around you

    Of course it is. It’s a signal telling other leftist dimwits you care…like pussy hats.

    Personally, I refuse to wear a mask as much to keep dimwits at 6’away from me as I won’t because they’re worthless.

  43. The Mayo clinic piece Emery links to is not data, it is advice given without a single citation. This is the closest it comes to making a verifiable, repeatable claim about cloth face masks:
    . . . countries that required face masks, testing, isolation and social distancing early in the pandemic seem to have had some success slowing the disease’s spread.
    Which is folklore, not science.

  44. That the entire regime of business closures, social distancing by decree, and mandatory mask wearing “seem to have had some success slowing the disease’s spread” is a pretty shitty reason to deny Americans their civil rights.

  45. “Seems” “some” “may”…these weasel words are the mark of Sciencism. They allow sciencists to make ridiculous, unsuplortable statements of fact to dupe the low IQ rank and file while allowing them a plausible deniability when smarter people point out the failures.

  46. Fauci says the covid-19 death count is “almost certainly wrong.”
    So if the number is right or wrong, Fauci has called it.
    Nice work when you can get it.

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