I'm struck by the similarities between the 'rona science justifying lockdowns and the whole Global Warming scare. Consider:
- Both rely on unreliable model projections to scare the population. The climate models have been junk for a long time and even the "gold standard" science in the IPCC Assessment Reports shows that the models do not track reality. About Civid: remember the models that showed 2M people would die? Remember how amateurish the model was? But both climate and virus models got big headlines which galvanized policy makers into action.
- Both rely on dodgy data. The Climate data have been fiddled for years and years, to the point that we simply can't tell whether the planet is warming or not. The same with the virus data: first it was deaths from Covid-19, then it was deaths with Covid-19 which added a whole lot more to the death toll (most notoriously a death from a motorcycle accident), and now all the talk is about the number of cases (not the number of deaths) because that's the only number that's going up. Deaths are way, way down and so using a different measuring stick is the only way to keep the scare going.
- Research funding comes from the Government and so there is a bias towards research producing "useful" results - useful to the Government, that is. We've known about the buckets of government funding going towards climate research for a decade or more; there isn't good summary data on Covid funding but we have plenty of anecdotes: field hospitals set up in cities with infection clusters, hospital ships sent various places, virus vaccine funding spread to the four winds, heavy focus on CDC (want to bet what their budget request for next year looks like)?
- Claims that people differing from the "approved" public policy choices are "Science Deniers".
As I said, the similarities are striking, and do not raise the credibility of people arguing for continued lockdowns. More on that later.
10 comments:
Agreed.
Keeping people living in fear seems to be a strategy to exert more power over them and diminish freedoms, I would say.
As far as I've seen, few sources list the positivity fraction of the population, and none list the positive tests with active illness.
Like the environment, it’s no longer a scientific issue. It’s a political one that makes great cover for striking out at your enemies.
The left uses Global warming and Covid as deflections to keep people from seeing what they are doing policy and legislatively. By keeping the people distracted they do not see the fabric of the nation being torn to shreds along with the constant growth of a bureaucrat class that will eventually overwhelm all aspects of life in this nation.
The founders would be very unhappy with these developments and this is why the democrats want to do away with such pesky things as the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
I should never get into political discussions with co-workers, but...
After a while, our discussion descended into whether ANY elected official has the power or authority to restrict Constitutional rights "in the public interest".
I argued that there are NO circumstances - including nuclear war - where the government has the power to restrict Constitutional rights, because once you set a precedent that "these times require it" you have achieved the "Franklin Constant": "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".
He argued that Covid was "special" and that we needed to shut down everything to prevent people from dying. He also argued that, if another coronavirus showed up next year, he'd be willing to shut down the country again.
To which I said: "YOU are a tyrant. You're willing to destroy lives and businesses because of YOUR fears. Why don't you lock YOURSELF up in your own home and leave the rest of us alone?"
... crickets ...
"I'm willing to take a chance and let my immune system do its job. Why aren't YOU willing to take a chance and let YOUR immune system do its job?"
... crickets ...
We ended up laughing about a fly disrupting the VP debate - and how the fly was gaining more attention than what was said - and left with smiles.
He knew - even before this - that I'm a Constitutional "originalist" and believe that if the Constitution doesn't grant the Federal government a certain power, that power descends to the States and then to the People (10A).
The Constitution is silent on marriage (Obergefell) and on medical procedures of any kind (Doe). Hence, any SCOTUS rulings on the subject are ridiculous: without a Constitutional basis, those issues are non-justiciable at a federal level, just as gerrymandering is non-justiciable at a state level.
Nowhere - NOWHERE - does the Constitution say "except when people get sick".
I managed to get him to say that he would fully violate Constitutional principles and protections because of HIS fear of a disease.
I'm pretty sure I know how he's voting on 11/3.
A good executive recognizes that there are many other constraints besides just the scientific or engineering ones. There are legal, economic, political and emotional constraints as well. It doesn't do you much good to propose a solution solely based upon scientific reasons that no one will adopt due to other considerations.
This is especially true when the scientists involved have a credibility problem. Assessing and mitigating risk is all about trade-offs. A good executive, especially a Governor or President, will weigh those trade-offs and look for the solution that provides the most good for the most people. All is never a realistic option.
The left will do anything, lie in any way, to keep the chaos going to keep the illiterate minions stirred up.
@Eagle
We lost that fight with Lincoln, if not Adams.
Continued lockdowns, per se, as any policy but sheer lunacy was past its freshness date some months back, and we said so.
We're also past the point where fiat decrees should be listened to as anything but unconstitutional nonsense. An emergency that is perpetual, isn't one. The time has long since come for legislative votes, ballot referendums, and actual laws, with all the due process checks and balances that entails, to return its hand to the rudder of state.
But talk turkey: the models showing 2M people would die posited doing nothing whatsoever, with 100% viral penetration of societies. Once one interferes in any experiment mid-way, you've changed the math, rather obviously, which was the whole point.
People crying because 2M of their friends and neighbors didn't die are - at best - simpletons and ghouls, in equal measure.
Even the wingnuts at WHO have guesstimated a mere 10% penetration, and for most of the U.S., we're at mere fractions of even that.
Only places like NYFC were overachievers.
And while the host of shenanigans going on - and they undeniably are - are going on in a perfect storm of conjoined "Get Trump" + "expand socialism" + "government grant money chummed in the water" frenzy, none of those things nor all of them combined makes the virus a hoax nor the fuzzy kitten the plethora of wingnuts at the other end of the spectrum are frothing to make it either.
Your own efforts that disclosed the notable moon-rocket-like spike of actual deaths in NYFC at the height of the outbreak there last spring even proved it was every bit as bad as claimed, in some times and places.
And the dearth of penetration to most of the country conversely means that those exact places have the greatest herd of still-vulnerable potential victims just waiting for their turn to prove it.
But we haven't been doing magic tricks in ERs.
Hand washing, and disinfectants of all stripes (including sunlight) kill this thing deader than canned tuna in short order, and simple masks (which protect others from you by limiting the reach of your cough and sneeze particles, while protecting you from nothing in particular) and minimal distancing do, indeed, minimize and prevent the propagation of this, exactly as we saw with our lying eyes in Italy, NYFC, and elsewhere in early stages.
There has been a horrendous amount of leftists trying their damnedest not to let this crisis go to waste, but that's not at all the same thing as pretending it's "just the flu, bro" either.
Avoiding the lunatics at both ends of the spectrum is therefore always a prudent course.
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