Latest installment in Obama’s failure to protect: states should halt the quarantine
Ten days ago I wrote a post about one of the most salient characteristics of the Obama administration: the failure to protect.
It’s happened time and again: the lack of security in Benghazi. The complete pullout from Iraq. The porous border with Mexico. The lawsuit against the state of Arizona for trying to enforce the protection the White House refuses to institute. The failure to impose visa restrictions on nationals from Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea during the ebola epidemic that’s been raging there for many months.
And now we have this:
The Obama administration has been pushing the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse their decision ordering all medical workers returning from West Africa who had contact with Ebola patients to be quarantined, an administration official said.
But on Sunday both governors, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey, stood by their decision, saying that the federal guidelines did not go far enough.
And although Christie’s a Republican, Cuomo is a Democrat. More:
Federal officials made it clear that they do not agree with the governors about the need or effectiveness of a total quarantine for health care workers, though they were careful not to directly criticize the governors themselves.
A senior administration official, who did not want to be identified in order to discuss private conversations with state officials on the issue, called the decision by the governors “uncoordinated, very hurried, an immediate reaction to the New York City case that doesn’t comport with science.”
But the science on this one isn’t settled, although they like to imply it is.
Of course, the lawyers are getting into it, too. Kaci Hickox, a nurse recently returned from treating ebola patients in Sierra Leone, has been complaining about her treatment under quarantine:
Ms. Hickox has retained a well-known civil rights lawyer, Norman Siegel, to challenge the quarantine order and get her out of isolation. In an interview on Sunday, he said the order “raised substantial civil liberties issues.”
“The policy infringes on Kaci Hickox’s constitutional liberty interests,” he said. “The policy is overly broad as applied to Ms. Hickox and we are preparing to challenge it on her behalf.”
Articles about Hickox—who seems petulant and arrogant to me, from what I’ve read—keep mentioning she’s had negative tests for ebola. I hope that Hickox herself doesn’t think that has much meaning at this point—because it doesn’t have much meaning at this point. She should know that, since she’s a nurse:
The virus builds up in the body as patients get sicker. In fact, people in the early stages of Ebola infection often test negative for the virus, because there’s not very much in their blood.
If that weren’t true there would be no need for a 21-day quarantine; the only quarantine necessary would be one long enough to do a blood test and get results back. However, because of the possibility of false negatives (or rather, premature negatives), quarantines sometimes must be imposed.
I think the chances of Ms. Hickox having ebola are extremely slim. But she seems more interested in the public health of patients in Africa than in keeping the disease from spreading in her own country. I would think a nurse might understand that quarantine under these circumstances is not too much to ask. Yes, the quarantine conditions should be made better—she’s the first, and the accommodations sounded makeshift. But that doesn’t mean there’s no need for the quarantine itself.
But, why now? Why was there no hue and cry to quarantine returning medics during earlier epidemics? I believe there were two main reasons for that. The first was that those epidemics were much smaller then the present one, and since no cases happened to arrive here, we were much less aware of the possibilities of its happening. Now we realize it is all too possible. The second is that in previous epidemics fewer health care workers got the disease. One of the shocking hallmarks of the present epidemic is that many of those who have sickened and even died of ebola have been among the biggest experts in the field, people whom we can assume were highly experienced and taking all the precautions necessary.
And yet quite a few have died. Even before Thomas Duncan arrived here, it already had become clear there was something different about this epidemic. Perhaps the virus had mutated and become more easily transmitted. Perhaps the hazmat suits medical staff wore were no longer as effective for that reason. Whatever was going on, we needed to be ultra-careful until we figured out what that difference might be and resolved it.
Well, we haven’t figured it out, and we haven’t resolved it. Instead, authorities initially said that those who got the disease in the West (the two Dallas nurses and the Spanish nurse’s aide) weren’t careful enough; after all, the protocols can’t be at fault. But of course they can—and that’s where a quarantine of returning health care workers comes in. It’s only prudent, until we know more.
“But she seems more interested in the public health of patients in Africa than in keeping the disease from spreading in her own country.”
Yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head with that statement. She does come across as s self-important “do-gooder” who thinks she is better than the rest of us first-worlders.
And, I know I am sounding like a broken record on this; but, that doctor who came down with Ebola did more harm than folks outside the New York area realize. While it is most likely true that he wasn’t a threat while going about town while in self-quarantine he was still out and about in public, riding on subways, taking cabs, eating in restaurants, etc. basically treating his “quarantine” as a mini-vacation.
The NY & NJ governors, while not stating so, are reacting to the actions of that doctor and the nurse who was “self-monitoring” and, yet, flew to another state.
This is, indeed, a tricky situation – how to protect the public while not trampling on individual rights.
Coordinated attack by MSM per marching orders from new Ebola Tsar (Propaganda Minister)? Quarantine is too close to defending border which POTUS wants to halt at all costs. Ironic, a progressive governor of NY is being thrown under the bus for not bowing to the wishes of this admin, when his own political future rides on showing his constituents he can protect them from policies he trumpeted until they interfered with his own self-preservation.
Charles:
Self-monitoring and self-quarantine are not the same.
As I understand it, in ebola the first means you take your temp twice a day. If it goes up, you stay home, and report it. The second means you stay home for a certain number of days.
Spencer was under the first, according to what I’ve read.
Barry’s stance on the ebola epidemic is leading me to believe that he positively wants to see it spread back to America.
In so many words, he wants all of America to be like the Indonesia he knew in his youth.
He does NOT want America to be a beacon on a hill.
He’s some sort of ‘political-flat-worlder’, someone who takes egalitarianism to the nation-state level.
Hence, his giving the PLA and Hamas a piece of the American pie — under his pen.
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It strikes me that west Africa has a VERY significant Muslim population. This factor would merely amplify Barry’s desire.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/obamas-ring-there-is-no-god-but-allah/
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And who can forget that R. Wright’s ‘church’ — Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), in Chicago — was as rousing as a Munich beer hall with racial sentiments.
Black Liberation Theology is as twisted as any racially antagonistic creed known to history.
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After all of Axelrod’s emissions, it’s high time to give them their sobriquet:
“Triumph of the Swill.”
Obama must be worried about the example of states exercising their rights. Where will that lead? To his marginalization?
NY and NJ have taken the lead in instituting a quarantine. IL may be next. That makes me wonder what Perry’s priorities are. Why is he following not leading?
If you read the New Yorker magazine article, Spencer’s and Hickox’s hubris is especially troubling. But, it is not so surprising when recalling the missteps of the last few weeks by the medical community.
I don’t much care what health care workers coming back from the African hot zone think of being quarantined. No one in America outside of them has committed to the risk of getting Ebola and dying a horrible death.
Now there is no reason that quarantine conditions can’t be upgraded but quarantine is the only reasonable response to people coming from the hot zone, since flight restrictions have been rejected under multicultural rules of engagement.
As Harold said.
We are subjected to so many soothing words from experts; but, apparently the Nobility in the Political-Medical Complex do not comprehend that which is intuitively obvious to the Commoner. If this virus is allowed to get loose into the population at large, no one can predict the consequences; no one can assure us that it can be controlled before it wreaks havoc. Therefore, it is imperative that it be isolated–either at the source or, failing that, at our doorstep. National authorities have proven unwilling, or unable to take the necessary actions.
I applaud the Governors. The Governor of any state that serves as a gateway for travelers from Ebola affected countries is morally obligated to take similar steps–given the failures at the national level.
Don’t get too excited: this will be, at least in New York, a fake, political “quarantine.”
Because Gov. Andrew Cuomo (dumb as a doorknob) has hastened to clarify, on tonight’s NY newscasts, that they’ll still be allowed to have visits from friends and family members.
It’s all lies and buncombe, all the way down.
I don’t know if Christie has made that same decision; we’ll see.
@Steve
Texas isn’t involved as West Africans now must enter the US through only 5 airports: JFK, Newark, O’Hare, Atlanta and Dulles.
Again,
incompetence is the hiding place of the malevolent.
The military was sent over there with four hours of training “to” bring it back since we wouldn’t allow one of our defenders to die in a lonely place. He’s hoping that it is as bad as it sounds.
And arguing against a quarantine is a gate that he’s trying to open for one purpose. Listen again to the reasons for not quarantining: it will ruin their economies, they will be discriminated against and it will inhibit their ability to travel. They all make sense don’t they?
It’s supposed to lay us low (stinking colonialists.)
Is it a failure to protect as you state, or intentional disregard? How long will we let this man use good intentions as a subterfuge for evil actions?
One is reminded of Hannah Arendt’s classic “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” –
He [Eichmann] was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché. [My fellow Americans…now let me be perfectly clear…ad nauseam]
The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely to think from the standpoint of somebody else. [In Obama’s case his inability to think without a teleprompter]
The trick Himmler used to assuage his conscience was to make himself a victim in his own mind. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!
The similarity to Obama is startling. He is the abused. He is the victim, always.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/10/is-obama-locked-in-victim-mentality/
No more excuses. I submit, he is the epitome of the banality of evil.
Chuck:
I believe the failure to protect is definitely intentional.
It is not incompetence or oversight. The question is: what is the motivation? I dealt with that question in the previous post I linked to in this post, and I’ll quote myself:
I believe it’s “some or all of the above.”
As for the banality of evil, I don’t believe evil is banal. Here is a piece I wrote on that topic.
Neo, thank you for the clarifications, and your thoughtful essay link from 2007. As work permits, I’ll have to read through your archives.
Social justice. If they are suffering in Africa, it’s only fair that we should suffer here too. There should not be people and places with the privilege and means to insulate themselves from the misery.
Chuck: “How long will we let this man…..?”
Unfortunately, 815 long days more.
Since they have yet to prove that the sun will come up tomorrow, its not a real fact…
She should know that, since she’s a nurse:
Nurses are the worst for thinking they know more than the doctors…
The second is that in previous epidemics fewer health care workers got the disease.
The way we found out about the disease in the beginning was a Belgian nurse who had died. I’m not sure it’s that fewer health care workers got the disease % wise, we would have to look at the numbers.
Health care workers have always been hit, it’s just that this epidemic is so big there are larger numbers, more well known individuals and it has spread to the west. I suspect it’s simply a function of the greater risk, due to more patients but I’m willing to be proven wrong with data.
It interests me that these people won’t apply the same Precautionary Principle to quarantining Ebola health workers for 21 days that they wish to apply to the infinitely-more-improbable risks associated with Climate Change/Global Warming.
How and why can CDC and NIH be so comfortable taking these risks? And they’re not merely “comfortable”; they’re adamant that we take them!
More “rhetorical questions”, I guess. But the “It’s the Southern border issue, stupid!” explanation that I see everywhere doesn’t convince me or make much sense.
Quarantines have been proven to be effective for hundreds — if not thousands — of years. Why spit in the eye of that accumulated wisdom? What purpose is being served? Is their almost-religious belief in technocracy/expert-ocracy behind this? Simple hubris? Something else? Forgive me if I don’t place much trust in their cargo-cult worship of “Science!” No ethical scientist or physician would be willing to conduct this kind of experiment on human subjects.
Well that was that! Under pressure Gov. Cuomo appears to cave on quarantine.
“Facing fierce resistance from the White House and medical experts to a strict new mandatory quarantine policy, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday night that medical workers who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa but did not show symptoms of the disease would be allowed to remain at home and would receive compensation for lost income.
Oh, and according to Reuters, a 5 yr. old who just returned from Guinea to US on Saturday was rushed to the hospital on Sunday with a 103F and vomiting. Hopefully, for him it is something else and not Ebola.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/nyregion/ebola-quarantine.html?_r=1
Listen again to the reasons for not quarantining: …..it will ruin their economies, ……”
AND play Russian Roulette with ours. Yet, our utopianist global elites will demand it be on our dime. I am actually okay with picking up the tab if they can stop it in W Africa, and I think we are in the best position to push back in a coordinated and timely manner.
I am all to aware of the human tragedy, but what about the economic costs. Who is going to have that liability domestically? Consider how many people just one nurse, going about her business, impacted in our highly mobile and intertwined culture. While I don’t know anyone that is terrified or hysterical, I do know of people who are postponing trips and activities.
Insurance companies are already making noises that they don’t intend to be left holding the bag. Bumping up against this harsh “reality” may do a bit toward constraining the HUBRIS. Certainly our nurse with the “hero complex” won’t consider herself to be responsible.
Perhaps the real end game is for the U.N. to be the beacon on the hill, directing the rest of the world, eventually on a shared footing of equal misery. After all, why should a garbage collector in the U.S. make more money than a surgeon in Cuba?
Biowarfare mutation requires the combination of various disease vectors in one single patient, so that nature can naturally combine strains and benefits.
America is their bio lab for the destruction of humanity. They will then breed a New Humanity, one that believes it is free, while being a slave. 95% of Democrats are already being bred there.
“Since they have yet to prove that the sun will come up tomorrow, its not a real fact…” Artfldgr
Pet peeve here. Newton’s Laws of Motion mathematically prove that the sun will ‘come up’ tomorrow (optical illusion, the sun doesn’t actually ‘rise) and will continue to do so as long as the earth revolves around the sun. Absent a close passage or collision with another star or perhaps (uncertain) if the sun went supernova, there is no observable phenomena that could or can prevent the earth from revolving around the sun.
Some things are certain. The force of gravity for instance. The sun ‘rising’ tomorrow is another.
Correction; technically, it’s not the revolving around the sun that causes the appearance that the sun ‘comes up’ every morning but rather the earth revolving on its axis. The same principle however applies.
On the other hand, I’ve yet to read an explanation as to why some planets revolve and others do not. But I know of no phenomena that could stop the earth’s rotation.
Personally, I don’t think Obama actually wants an Ebola epidemic in this country it’s just that he doesn’t care very much one way or the other. In other words, protecting us is a very low priority. Since he does fight for his priorities, he will fight tooth and nail to block programs that would protect us.
For awhile people blamed the healthcare workers of carelessness, but that argument is wearing thin. Somehow the protocols have failed. One hypothesis on why health care workers are becoming ill even with full precautions is because they are contracting it outside the Ebola wards. The Africans who don’t have Ebola still need care, and that is where the breakdown may be happening since Ebola symptoms are often not very specific.
My cousin has an African friend who lives in Liberia. She tells him that when she takes a taxi, it is usually very crowded with strangers. She assures him she is safe because they don’t allow people who are obviously ill into the taxi. Supposedly, casual contact with people who are not severely ill will not transmit Ebola, but who believes that?
There does seem to be more concern for African Ebola patients than for protecting Americans.
One peculiar argument the administration is making is that the only way to deal with the Ebola problem is to eliminate it in Africa. How do they propose to do that? Ebola has been present in Africa for decades and it has a natural reservoir or safe harbor in Africa’s animal populations. It is far from certain which species are involved. We no longer have the political will to eliminate mosquitoes so I don’t have much hope for a plan to destroy the fruit bat habitat (one species involved) to eliminate Ebola. Of course none of our dunce reporters has thought to ask anyone in the administration how they plan on sponging Ebola from its hideouts in Africa’s fauna.
Quarantine was seen as well within the reserved and police powers of the states, under almost any interpretation of federalism.
But of course federalism, or any other vestigial barrier to a centralized, directive, and redistributive access to and control over your life and interests, is precisely what the people we tend to call modern liberals are against.
Modern liberals do constitute within the human species a different – and antithetical – moral or mental subtype. The quicker “we” (or non-collectivists in general) recognize it, the quicker we can all leave behind all the tiresome and pointless expressions of uncomprehending outrage when they impertinently put their goddamned faces in your face, demand shared risk and distributed costs regardless of behavior, and refuse to back off or even pretend to abide by any contractual rules.
After all, the rules that limit their unrestricted access to you, are not in their interest.
By the way, I found that essay on “what women want”, their desire to be desired; interesting, provocative, and convincing in many respects.
There ought to be some term other than “masochism” to describe the tendency of so many people on the left to seek psychological satisfaction through some kind of actual victimhood.
I’m not just talking of a “victim class” wealth transfer gambit here, I’m referring to people who actually are looking for causes to sacrifice themselves to, and who get a kind of existential validation though becoming diseased, or harmed, or in unreasonably risking it, themselves.
As I have mentioned before, I have had a number of social occasion conversations with certain doctors, who with a couple or more drinks in them, began talking about their doing of good in Africa in what were vague terms implying some kind of secular expiation of their “sins”. As they were completely irreligious and extremely “liberal”, I have no idea what “sins’ they were trying to balance out. Maybe the crime of just being alive and successful. Though as far as I know one or two were quite indifferent to or had bad relations with, their parents.
Haidt claims to have found through his research, that the most ardent liberals seem to love “humanity” more than their own families.
Whatever it is, these people have psychological issues that are playing out in politics.
The Joints Chief of Staff recommended a MANDATORY quarantine to Sec Hagel. WHY?? Why are they going against the Doctors in the oval office???
Lea:
That’s why I write “fewer” rather than “a lower percentage.”
My guess is that it is a higher percentage of workers this time, but I couldn’t find anything that said whether that was correct or false. What I do know is that the stricken workers this time include some of the most well-known experts in the field. That seems very very different.
Here is a ink to the article about soldiers being quarantined in Italy for 21 days.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ebola-outbreak-u-s-soldiers-returning-from-liberia-placed-in-isolation-in-italy/
To be fair, with around one million aliens illegally entering America annually, the value of a quarantine is largely diminished. With Obama dispersing them throughout the nation, he can neither logically nor practically care for American and partisan/personal interests simultaneously.
The Leftist death cult derives from a kind of Christian heretical notion that original sin is white man’s burden.
Thus it is a racial superiority philosophy first, foremost, and always.
Normally people who have pride in their superiority, work hard to demonstrate it in some kind of political, religious, or military accomplishment. The Left only allows political solutions, so politics becomes their religious dogma and Church.
Expiating political sins, is thus similar to a person going to Catholic confession, doing the penance, and being absolved of guilt.
Leftists hate Christians and fear them not so much because of the belief that religion breeds ignorance and low humanity, but because any kind of ceremony that hints that people are under the power of alien gods upsets a Leftist’s weak faith in their political original sin.
Their family situation is merely the breeding ground for zombies and weak minds. In this world it is not necessary to believe in Church or State, you can be a true atheist or agnostic. But a true atheist/agnostic requires some kind of stubborn individual will, something that zombies and political livestock lack. If they could stand on their own two feet alone, without god, they wouldn’t need global warming salvation or political absolution of their sins.
“The complete pullout from Iraq.”
Plus, then ignoring clear signs and early indicators of the ISIS problem growing out of Syria in 2012-2013 when we could have addressed it effectively at an earlier stage.
Much the same with the Libyan regime change. Just ignoring the problem.
The demonstration bombs don’t do anything because Hussein O makes sure the targets don’t die.
DNW Says:
October 27th, 2014 at 12:00 pm
“As I have mentioned before, I have had a number of social occasion conversations with certain doctors, who with a couple or more drinks in them, began talking about their doing of good in Africa in what were vague terms implying some kind of secular expiation of their “sins”. As they were completely irreligious and extremely “liberal”, I have no idea what “sins’ they were trying to balance out. Maybe the crime of just being alive and successful. Though as far as I know one or two were quite indifferent to or had bad relations with, their parents.
Haidt claims to have found through his research, that the most ardent liberals seem to love “humanity” more than their own families.
Whatever it is, these people have psychological issues that are playing out in politics.”
This impulse must be an ancient one, for Jesus Christ made the point that distant charities can not compensate for bad behavior/ injuries/ committed to ones families or neighbors.
If there is one tick I’ve noticed for petty villains I have known, it’s their compensation mechanism: charities towards the far horizon or the distant soul — always pulling a profile/ performance for the near observer.
Based upon their narcissism, both the NY doctor and the NJ nurse must have a trail of sins, as touchy-feely souls are so prone to. (Special consideration for me, not thee…)
It is not sin that follows them, but guilt. relentless, un ending, un-atonable, unobtainable, guilt.
They can never be saved by their own grace or actions, and they know it. So they rely on demons like the Demoncrats or child rapists like the Leftists to give them salvation.
The sin of not even being able to recognize their own guilt, compounds the issue. They have obtained sin because they refused to obtain their own guilt.
And in that sense, it becomes no longer in reach of atonement. They do not wish to atone for their mistakes, they wish to sacrifice another human to make their own problems go away. And in the doing, they have damned their soul forever, especially in the care of the Left’s demon cult.