Author: Crowhill Report

People sometimes speak of the 50 United States as “laboratories of democracy.” The idea is that different states can do things their own way, and the other states can watch and see what works the best.

I like the concept, but I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that actually happens. States do different things, but I’m not sure they learn from one another. (People rarely learn from somebody else’s example, unfortunately.)

Something similar is going on right now with coronavirus response. Different countries are responding differently, sometimes because of a strategic decision, sometimes because of circumstances beyond their control.

Belarus is apparently doing nothing.

Sweden has taken a different course, sheltering those at high risk, but allowing most of life to continue normally.

Some U.S. states are starting to open back up. (Here’s a list.) The cretins in the media are caricaturing this in all kinds of horrible ways, but especially when the state has a Republican governor. And, of course, the Swedes don’t get the same treatment, because they’re “democratic socialists” or … something. (It doesn’t matter. Idiotic American reporters can’t be expected to know the details. They just know, deep down, that Europeans are more enlightened than we are, while Republican governors are evil monsters.)

What continues to get lost in all these discussions is the goal of the shut down.

It was not to stop total infections, or even total deaths.

The intent was to “flatten the curve.” The area under the curve — that is, the number of people infected, hospitalized, and killed — might be the same in either case. The point was to keep us from overwhelming the health care system. Which was a perfectly reasonable goal.

Somehow we’ve lost sight of that.

The people who have especially lost site of that are the little Napoleons who are issuing idiotic orders. It does almost nothing to flatten the curve if you prevent people from buying spinach seeds, or if you send cops to round up people who are jogging on the beach, or playing at a park, or sitting in their cars in a church parking lot. These idiots prove the old rule that power corrupts.

This paranoid and over-bearing response treats the virus like some sort of zombie apocalypse germ, where one more infection might be the tipping point to total annihilation.

It seems that the public perception has changed from “slow the burn” to “I want to stay safe in my bunker until the Evil Thing is over and I can come out again.”

It’s not like that. At all. What we’re trying to do is slow things down. That’s it.

The response is getting a little too close to madness, in my opinion. We can’t all stay locked in our houses until it’s safe, because it’s never going to be safe. At best it’s going to be many months before we have a vaccine, and we may never have one.

But … that’s a tangent. My real point is that different countries (and states), taking their own approach to this mess, will give us the data we need to move forward.

How much worse will Sweden be than Norway? How about Belarus vs. Poland? Or Colorado vs. Kansas.

Wouldn’t it be nice if people were paying attention to that, rather than whether the president really said to inject bleach?

This morning I was listening to a “My fake history” episode in which Sebastian (the host) mentioned a quote attributed to Ghandi (which he might not have said). The exchange went like this.

Reporter: What do you think of western civilization?
Ghandi: It sounds like a good idea.

This made me think about levels of education.

Un-educated: never heard of the quote or of Ghandi.

Somewhat educated: has heard of Ghandi and the quote, but didn’t know it was Ghandi who said it.

Educated: Knows the quote is from Ghandi.

Very educated: Knows the quote is attributed to Ghandi, but that he probably didn’t say it.

And then you have another perspective altogether, which goes beyond the pedantic details. I might simply call this version “Jordan Peterson.” Viz., the important question is why the quote resonates, and why it was attributed to Ghandi in the first place.

I like that perspective, except that it can go too far, e.g., when people think that the truth or falsity of a claim doesn’t matter. All that matters is the analysis.

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review Pigweed’s delicious homebrewed sour beer, then discuss bumper stickers.

Every day, each of us projects an image to the world — how we want the world to perceive who we are, what we like, and so on. We do it in our clothes, the magazines and books we buy, the way we cut our hair, and …. in these weird stickers we put on the backs of our vehicles.

P&C analyze a few interesting bumper stickers and discuss what image the person is trying to project. Or at least how we interpret it.

“Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign!”

The Five Man Electric Band didn’t like being told what to do and not to do. And while those weird hippie folk might have gone a bit far, it’s very American to resist orders from the government.

However, in the last 30 years or so, we’ve seen more and more executive orders, and now they’re flying fast and furious. Wear a mask. Don’t by seeds for your garden. Don’t take your kids to the park. Don’t go for a private run on the beach.

How are we going to restrain this?

There are crisis situations where we need the public to act a certain way. But does that have to be an order? Can’t we appeal to people and ask them to act responsibly?

Also, it seems un-American to give one person power without giving someone else the power to hold them in check. We seem to have missed that part.

Pigweed and Crowhill discuss.

The Wuhan Virus Is Finally Awakening Europe To China’s Imperialism

Why does it take a 2×4 to the side of the head before our genius experts realize things like this?

I’ve never read The Vision of the Anointed, but from what I’ve heard, it rips the mask off the pretensions of the elite.

Obviously we have to rely on experts in many areas of our lives. Doctors, dentists, engineers, mechanics, plumbers, etc. But there’s a kind of so-called expert who isn’t expert at all.