WATCH: Rod Meloni, of WDIV-TV, reports from Lansing, Michigan, where protesters in cars and on foot show opposition against the state's stay-at-home order.— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 15, 2020
"A lot of people feeling like their liberty has been infringed upon."https://t.co/6rNgiD1dKu
There were some weird scenes in Lansing this Wednesday as a caravan against Governor Whitmer's stay-at-home order descended to protest on the grounds that they feel their rights are being infringed. There were some open-carry folks and some Confederate-flag waving folks and some people did even have masks (because there's a virus going around, you know) and they honked at mostly-empty government buildings (because many state employees are working at home) and they blocked the entrance of a local hospital and held up some ambulances. It was observed that the overall impression was something like that of a Trump rally; indeed, there were several Trump signs to be seen.
Similar protests have been engaged in Idaho, in Ohio, and in Kentucky. It's a bit reminiscent of Tea Party rallies (remember when those were a thing?), which were largely against government regulations and especially when those regulations had to do with health care, during the Obama Administration.
As with evangelical church gatherings in defiance of local stay-at-home orders, there's a lot of talk about rights, but little talk of responsibility. I feel like a good discussion could be had (probably one that needs more depth than I can manage in a blog post) about how to exercise one's rights responsibly (the sort of thing that often comes up in, for example, 1st and 2nd amendment discussions). There should be some room for discussion, but these protests seem to be taking part partially in an aura of denial of the point of the stay-at-home directives (the actual lethal pathogen wreaking havoc on lives, businesses and the health care system). They seem to operate from President Trump's early claims that the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic was overstated by the media as a kind of hoax. (Something Trump himself has now pulled back on.)
It's very hard to have a conversation about responsibility when one side fails to acknowledge the actual threat. There are, worldwide, over 2 million cases of a fast-spreading contagion that has now killed over 100k people, with the US as the most afflicted nation, with well over 600k cases and at least 30k deaths. We clearly are not able to go back to business as usual at the moment, even if some commerce (with regards to essential manufacturing of household goods like paper products and sanitary/cleaning agents, medical supplies, etc. and food) must continue. There are many points along the continuum between "right now" and "when we are ready".
We're seeing that states that have resisted stay-at-home orders are now experiencing hotspots. A public health crisis can't go unaddressed. The point of government is to protect the common welfare. For states that have gained a modicum of control over their rates of infections (hard to really state affirmatively with respects to our current inefficient level of testing) and hospitalizations, there is a real need not to open things up too soon, and recreate the poor trendlines. There is a responsibility, a duty, to not fuck things up.
On one hand, regarding the protesters, it's easy to develop the attitude that it's really on them if they want to irresponsibly gather amongst themselves and hotbox each others lung funk. Epidemiologically, it's another thing to consider where they go from their protest, to their homes, their churches, their local grocery stores, and what risk their interactions pose to others (which is a logical consideration they might not be making, but responsible people would). It's necessary to iterate that for every person who says "Open up the economy", there is someone who very likely will be a victim of that decision. Someone's neighbor. Someone's family member. Someone dies. Someone else has impaired heart or lung function for life. Those who so easily want to urge us back to full economic participation seem to place those potential victims on an island of exile--the island of the immunocompromised, disabled or elderly, a zone of otherness within the US body politic. I can't. They are us. They are me, you, and anyone you love. We just don't know who is truly vulnerable, and that's the very reason we need to think it all over and listen to experts. There is no "other". There are only human beings, here.
And I also understand part of the desire to get right back to business as usual stems from the advice of people who are all too happy to "suffer" some human losses ground down in the wheels of commerce, etc. Like the talking heads on Fox News (folks like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham need to be told that simply being pathological does not make one a pathologist). Despite their "whataboutery" regarding people who die with COVID-19 who have comorbidities and maaaaayyyyybe they really died of asthma, obesity, or heart disease, let's be real about the total excess mortality--people who are dying of all kinds of things because of the toll COVID-19 is taking on our health care system. The death toll we talk about from the virus is basically the visible part of the iceberg.
I respect people's freedoms. But human actions don't occur in a vacuum.
3 comments:
The current "excuse" is that it only kills people who have comorbidities, not healthy people; the data shows that this "theory" is utter bullshit but it buys into their attitude that anything bad that happens in another's life is somehow their fault. I see it in my RW evangelical sister, a retired nurse who blames every lifestyle disease as a moral failing (this started with AIDS, and now includes type 2 diabetes, obesity, etc). I've also seen where the fact it is disproportionately killing people of color is being celebrated by the farthest edges of white supremacy, so you just know this is going to bleed into the RW fever swamps and then into Cletus-land, and probably already has. I'm willing to bet that part of these protests has some aspect of "let it spread, it only kills the weak and nonwhite".
No More Mister Nice blog shows today that these protests in MY were organized by a group funded by the DeVos family. He noted that the protests were on the same day, and except for Idaho, are all in red states with a D governor. Hmmm...
If these protesters, and other hate-filled, brainless, lemming-like MAGAts (followers of tRUMPleTHINSKIN), thought that by being outsise, and breaking safe-distancing rules would infect only Democrats/liberals/progressives, some of them would be happy to die of the disease if they thought they could take a few of us with them.
This is not hyperbole.
They believe that God and Jesus would forgive them, because left-leaning people are in league with Satan.
These are some very sick puppies!
Apparently to astro-turf protests were funded by Betsy DeVos. Which makes her much much moreof a threat to our nation. She must be removed from power. She needs to go back to sitting on her yachts and stop damaging our nation.
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