Can we admit the shutdown was a mistake?

Is it reasonable to ask people to keep these two thoughts in their heads at the same time?

1. Shutting down the country was probably the best decision at the time, given what we knew then. The stats we had in February were truly frightening, and the experts were telling us a million people could die.

2. Knowing what we know now, it was a mistake. The virus is not as deadly as we thought, and — with 20-20 hindsight — we can come up with several plans that would have been better.

Are people intellectually capable of that kind of thinking? Or has outrage culture, Trump Derangement Syndrome, “Trump can do no wrong” syndrome, etc., robbed us of that ability?

The inner circle

There’s a common theme in life and art of the “inner circle.” That is, among the people who seem to be in charge, there’s an inner group of the people who are really in charge. (Although sometimes the people who are really in charge are hidden in the background.) C.S. Lewis speaks of the inner circle at the university in That Hideous Strength.

To get into that group you have to show your loyalty to a particular mindset, and sometimes there’s a price for entry. Sometimes that price involves giving the group the ability to blackmail you.

You hear about that sort of thing in gangs, where you have to go commit some crime before you can enter, or get to advance to a certain level in the gang. The concept was also explicit in the NXIVM cult, where women had to give “collateral” to join a special group. The collateral was stuff they could use to bribe you with.

There are tons of examples of this sort of thing, and I’ve heard some real-life examples that are scary.

If this happens with law firms and cults and gangs and such, is it more likely or less likely that it happens with more consequential organizations — like governments, big corporations, or maybe even governments and big corporations?

I’m not sure what to make of it. You have the Harvey Weinsteins and Jeffrey Epsteins of the world, who seem to show that powerful people are complicit in very awful things. And while it would be nice to believe that there are institutions to uncover such crooked behavior (the media, law enforcement), we know that often they are complicit. (Think of the Rotherham scandal.)

What’s your opinion of these kinds of stories?

The Divine Right of Kings

P&C drink and review 1634 Ale from Brewer’s Alley, a historic Maryland ale, then discuss kingship, and the divine right of kings.

The show starts with a Ben Franklin Players production about Charles II, then the boys riff off of that into issues about kings, succession, and what God has to do with it.

Pigweed reviews some of the historic issues surrounding Charles II and his succession, and how issues of competence didn’t matter as much as blood lineage and other weird things that don’t make much sense to modern people.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Pigweed and Crowhill celebrate mothers and Mother’s Day.

Mothers are nice to have around. They’re comforting and nurturing, and especially necessary for little children. From the moment a child is conceived, the child has a deep biological connection to mother. The child grows up hearing mother’s heartbeat, her voice, and literally living off her body.

As the child grows, his emotional control is regulated by the mother. He learns what to be scared of and what to trust by watching how mom reacts.

But unfortunately, motherhood has been politicized. Women are taught that being a mother is not a noble pursuit. They have to put career first, marriage and family maybe later. Children should be rushed off to daycare so women can become another cog in the industrial machine.