It was the leaders who allowed the destruction of their own cities

The New Neo Posted on by

Knowingly. But after all, those same leaders – mayors and city council members – were chosen to check off certain identity boxes, as well as for their leftist ideology. DAs were chosen in an Orwellian manner: for their propensity to negate the system they were elected to supposedly follow.

The mayor and council members didn’t need to know how to run a city. That wasn’t the point. And when push came to shove, they didn’t even defend the very first principle of a city: to protect it and its citizens.

One of the earliest posts I wrote post-Floyd was on June 1, entitled: “Restoring order is a top priority, or should be.” Should be, but wasn’t:

We hardly needed any more proof that our society is in terrible trouble. But we’ve gotten it in the failure of government authorities to restore order in riot-torn cities a timely fashion. That’s one of the most basic functions of government, and too many people have lost either the will to do it or the skill to do it.

That loss of will can be a result of leftist ideology (including the cultivation of guilt in those with “privilege”) or of cowardice, although I suppose the two are not mutually exclusive. But civil society requires that people feel a sense of basic safety in their homes, their workplaces, and their property, or it descends into chaos because there never will be enough police to ensure safety in an environment in which those things are not generally respected.

That used to be a universally accepted truth. Not so much anymore.

However, I assumed naively that even leftist mayors wanted to have a tax base and to not preside over an enormous murder rate. Over time, I thought that they would have to do more to restore a sense of safety, before their cities were damaged in a way that would harm all their citizens.

For the most part, I assumed wrong. They’ve only acted when their backs were to the wall, and in very tepid and temporary fashion.

This article from August 14th focuses on Chicago, but it also describes a lot of other Democratic cities wracked by violence:

The sacking of Chicago’s North Side was more than a tactical failure. For months, key officials—the state’s attorney responsible for prosecution, the mayor, and the governor—have failed to condemn criminals sufficiently or act with necessary force against such violence. They have contributed to a culture of impunity that tolerates mobs and hoodlums…

The state and city’s ineffective leaders are all the product of a progressive ruling elite that promoted them beyond their competence because they helped advance political goals…

Given their backgrounds, it’s no surprise that the trio of Foxx, Lightfoot, and Pritzker has done nothing to halt the state and city’s decline.

They have also failed to sustain the first condition of civilization: order under law. One feels almost nostalgic for the days when Chicago was run by a Democratic political machine that at least understood this cardinal principle of statecraft.

This article describes the larger process of infiltration of institutions by the left:

…[The] “long march through the institutions” implicitly acknowledges a reality of civil society that is much neglected today. Society in the West has historically been governed not by a single central authority. Rather it takes shape through a fluid symbiosis of multiple self-governing institutions, which include municipalities, churches, guilds, universities, and various voluntary associations…

The strategic goal of the left-wing radicals as far as these institutions are concerned is simply “the seizure of power,” i.e., the occupation of the crucial positions of authority and determination of their policies by fellow-believers, followers and sympathizers. The partial autonomy vis-a-vis the state and the economy enjoyed by these institutions, on the basis of certain fundamental rights such as the freedom of research, teaching, expression and belief, all of which have been won through long struggles, is the point of entry through which power can be gained.

The revolutionaries’ purpose is to transfer the decisive means of exercising power out of the hands of the system’s most capable trustees or, even more easily, out of the hands of those custodians who, as Kenneth Minogue observed in “How Civilizations Fall,” had already sold the pass to its foes. Julien Benda lodged a similar complaint against the cultural stewards of the 1920s for abandoning their posts in favor of lending intellectual and moral support to political passions centered on race, class, and nationality.

This happened in education and in the press. But it has also happened in Democrat-controlled city governments in particular, at all levels. It is also happening among the Democrats in Congress and in fact, is evident in the new younger leadership of the Democratic Party as a whole (Joe Biden is only a shadow leader).

Once a critical mass of leftists has been reached, it’s game over for all those hard-won liberties.

Hydroxychloroquine begins to claw its way back?

The New Neo Posted on by

Quietly, quietly:

This past week Minnesota became the second state to reject regulations that effectively ban the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine for use by COVID-19 patients.

The decision, which comes two weeks after the Ohio Board of Pharmacy reversed an effective ban of its own, was rightfully praised by local health care advocates. “We are pleased that Governor [Tim] Walz lifted his March 27 Executive Order 20-23 restrictions on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine,” said Twila Brase, president of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom.

The reversal by Walz, a first-term Democrat, clears the way for doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine, a drug commonly used to treat malaria and other conditions but one the FDA has declined to recommend for COVID-19 treatment…

…Walz has been mum on why he rescinded his order. There’s been no announcement or new stories. Local lawmakers told me they had no idea Walz had reversed course.

Speaking of announcements and/or news stories, I’ve been trying for a while to figure out which states ban the drug for COVID use and which states don’t. I suspect that almost all states ban it, which I think is a terrible decision (I’ve discussed the drug and the research many times). But the details of who, where, and when are surprisingly difficult to come by.

Perhaps I shouldn’t say it’s surprising. Hydroxychloroquine use has been incredibly politicized, for the purpose of putting Trump down. If someone such as Walz decides to allow the drug to be used for COVID, that might actually lead to some people drawing the conclusion that Trump’s not such an evil moron after all. Can’t have that.

Did anyone watch the virtual Democratic Convention?

The New Neo Posted on by

If so, you have a greater propensity for masochism than I do.

I’m already on record many times as saying I don’t like political speeches. So why would I want to subject myself to a parade of pre-recorded statements from the likes of John Kasich and Michelle Obama, among others? I have been happy to not have them in the news every day anymore. And I’m especially happy that the many predictions that Michelle would either be the VP nominee or the presidential nominee turned out to be wrong, because if that had been the case I think the Democrats would have had an even greater chance of winning than they do now, to fulfill the dream of still another wonderful Obama term.

Reading a few excerpts from Michelle’s speech was more than enough for me:

In prerecorded remarks, Obama stressed the “awesome power of the presidency,” while saying the job “requires clear-headed judgment, a mastery of complex and competing issues, a moral compass and an ability to listen.”

She added: “Whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consultation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division and a total and utter lack of empathy.”

“Clear-headed judgment” – Obama? “Mastery of complex and competing issues” – Obama? “Moral compass” – Obama? But “division” was Obama’s middle name, and still is.

Empathy is not a big deal for me in a president, although most people might disagree. But for the record, I think Trump has displayed quite a bit of empathy for those who suffer, particularly in inner cities.

I doubt this convention or these speeches will change a single vote one way or the other.

Reginald Denny redux?: BLM supporters beat man in Portland

The New Neo Posted on by

If you’re as old as I am, you understand the Reginald Denny reference – one of the most horrific and widely-covered moments of the deadly Rodney King riots in 1992:

Reginald Oliver Denny (born 1953) is a white former construction truck driver who was pulled from his truck and severely beaten during the 1992 Los Angeles riots by a group of Black men who came to be known as the “L.A. Four”. The attack was captured on video by a news helicopter, and broadcast live on U.S. national television.

Four other Black L.A. residents who had been witnessing the attack on live television came to Denny’s aid, placing him back in his truck, in which one of the rescuers drove him to the hospital. Denny suffered a fractured skull and impairment of his speech and ability to walk, for which he underwent years of rehabilitative therapy.

Note that the incident involved a man originally driving a truck, the video was captured by newspeopole and broadcast widely, and several other black people in the neighborhood heroically rescued Denny. In addition, the “L.A. Four” were tried for the crime and although they were convicted they got light sentences.

Which bring us to the present, and this incident, which happened in Portland last night (see also this.)

I haven’t seen the man’s name reported yet, but the story is that he was aiding a trans woman that the group was robbing and/or beating up, then the crowd turned on him, then he got into his truck and tried to drive away but had a minor accident, then the crowd dragged him from the car and he and his wife were beaten. There’s more; read the links.

These days, as opposed to when Denny was beaten, there are plenty of cell phones to record the proceedings; no need to rely on news helicopters. Reports are also that the identity of the main aggressor has been discovered, as in the Denny case. The victim is reported to still be unconscious and hospitalized.

Oh, and the beating has barely been covered by the MSM, except for the right such as the NY Post, and the British Daily Mail. That’s a huge difference from 1992. The only non-right MSM article I can find is this one in the WaPo, which emphasizes the rioters’ charges that the man supposedly tried to run people down with his vehicle, and leaves out the antecedent that he was aiding the trans woman who was being attacked before he got into his truck and drove away.

It’s also interesting to see the comments at the WaPo, which are not (at least, the ones I read) in favor of the rioters. Here’s one of them:

This isnt even close to what happened. BLM/ANTIFA were beating and robbing a transgendered woman. The man in the truck was attempting to help her when the crowd turned on him. He attempted to leave as several of the rioters tried stopping him. He drove off and at least one of the rioters who was trying to get into his truck fell over. The driver eventually hit a tree and rioters pulled him from his car.. it was then that they beat him into unconsciousness. Keese Love is the person who delivered the kick that put the man in the hospital.

Another difference between now and 1992 is that the leftist DA of Portland may not charge the perps here, if they are considered to be politically sympathetic.

[NOTE: This is a very recent story and it may involve the usual fogginess and rumor, with changing facts. So I’m adding this disclaimer that subsequent details may emerge that change the story considerably in either direction.]

Mollie Hemingway describes how the MSM Russiagate-coverage sausage is made

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s not pretty. But for the most part it’s been extraordinarily effective at covering up the worst scandal in American history, so that a great many people have no idea what happened or why it matters:

A New York Times reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for his role perpetrating the Russia collusion hoax was tasked with framing the news that a former top FBI lawyer was to plead guilty to deliberately fabricating evidence against a Donald Trump campaign affiliate targeted in the Russia probe. The resulting article is a case study in how to write propaganda.

Adam Goldman broke, and cushioned, the news that former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was to plead guilty to fabricating evidence in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application to spy on Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page.His job was to present the news as something other than an indictment of the FBI’s handling of the Russia collusion hoax, to signal to other media that they should move on from the story as quickly as possible, and to hide his own newspaper’s multi-year participation in the Russia collusion hoax. One intelligence source described it as an “insult” to his intelligence and “beyond Pravda,” a reference to the official newspaper of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Here’s how Goldman did it.

Please read the whole thing.

I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again: do not make the mistake of thinking writers in the MSM such as Goldman are stupid. Nor are they uninformed. They are propagandists, and they are very good at what they do.

Readers of Pravda tended to know that the paper was the mouthpiece of the Soviet leadership and that it was a purveyor of lies. But I contend that most readers of the NY Times do not know that their paper is writing propaganda rather than news – or rather, through cherry-picking and omission and clever wordsmithing, innuendos and only sometimes using outright lies – turning the bare bones of the news into utterly convincing propaganda for the garden-variety self-designated intellectual who reads the Times and considers it a great source of information.

In that way, the Times writers (and many others in the MSM) are far better than their counterparts in Pravda: more subtle, more clever, more hidden, and ultimately more convincing to way too many people.

The politicization of hydroxychloroquine

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a comprehensive article on the subject. I think it’s especially good in its critique of the claim that randomized control trials are the best and only valid standard for medical research, particularly with a disease such as COVID.

An excerpt about how the media used and misused the studies that seemed to be indicating that the drug had bad effects:

On April 21, the American Veteran’s Administration released a study, funded by the National Institute of Health. The authors pointed out that this was not a randomized clinical trial, there was not a “group matched design,” and it was not peer reviewed. It was a retrospective analysis of patients who did and did not get HCQ, in all U.S. Veterans medical centers until April…

They reported that 158 patients got standard management (neither HCL or Azithromycin), 97 patients received HCQ, and 113 patients received a combo of HCQ and Azithromycin. They followed these patients and found that of those who got standard care, 11% died, of those who got HCQ, 28% died, and of those who got HCQ and Azithromycin, 22% died.

In other words, one would be forgiven for thinking that the people who got HCQ were much more likely to die, according to this study—if the groups that got HCQ and those who didn’t were similar.

But wait: “[H]ydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be prescribed to patients with more severe disease, as assessed by baseline ventilatory status and metabolic and hematologic parameters,” wrote the authors (emphasis is mine). The point should be clear: The HCQ patients were sicker and were more likely to get the drug as a last resort—just the thing Raoult had warned against. It was given too late to work.

This same limitation—conducting a study where doctors were more likely to give HCQ to sicker patients and then comparing how they did with the less sick group that didn’t get it—would be repeated in several studies over the next months.

You’ve heard of cherry-picking evidence or results, when advocating for an argument, or product or invention. What followed was a torrent of what could best be called “rotten cherry picking”—media, politicos, and rivals, scouring the internet for any sign that HCZ would kill masses of people.

I had already been following the research on hydroxychloroquine from the start, even before Trump expressed optimism about it and the media decided that such encouraging news at the hands of Trump could not be allowed to stand. I later read that VA study described above in real time, and it immediately – and I mean immediately – struck me that it was so deeply flawed as to be meaningless. All it really signified was that already-very-sick COVID patients tend to die more often than those who were not already at death’s door. Duuuhhh! How obvious to anyone with even a grade-school understanding (or what used to be grade-school understanding; I suppose it isn’t anymore) of the scientific method.

And yet – and yet – I rarely if ever saw a single MSM article mention that little detail. It was not only frustrating, it was infuriating to see the important omission and watch the eager and nearly-gleeful MSM and Democrats push the story that people given the drug were being tremendously harmed by it. I saw this sort of thing happen over and over and over again: studies that used the wrong dose, or the wrong drug, or who gave it at the wrong time, to the wrong population, and every one was reported on with omissions about those facts by those who wanted to discredit the drug.

Medical research – or any research with human subjects – is difficult to do for a host of reasons. Some research is extremely poorly designed or even fraudulent, but more of it just suffers from the obstacles inherent in all such efforts. But the reporting on COVID and drugs (or any and every angle on COVID) has become so extraordinarily politicized that it is unreliable, and one has to read the research without the MSM middleman to come to any valid conclusions at all. What’s more, most people seem to lack either the desire to do that and/or the time or the ability. And that’s what the MSM counts on.

The result is that their bias has probably cost many lives at the same time they pretend to be righteously saving them. Nice job, folks.

[ADDENDUM: See also this.]

Well, Kamala, it depends on what the meaning of the word “debate” is

The New Neo Posted on by

First, take a look at how Kamala Harris explained her attack on Biden during the Democratic debates in light of her now accepting the VP spot on his ticket:

Ha ha ha. So funny I forgot to laugh, as my brother used to say around 1958.

Harris’ approach doesn’t need to be convincing for the people inclined to vote for her, of course. All they care about is that Trump is the personification of evil.

However, what Kamala does here is of interest to me. It hinges in part on the definition of the word “debate,” a designation that has long troubled me as applied to the “debates” during a campaign year. They are opportunities for a series of short sound bites and often have little to do with logic. They do not resemble, for example, the debate competitions in schools in which competitors are usually assigned the sides for which they must argue. Debate in that sense is a game or sport where students learn how to speak persuasively for any side rather than to express their own views:

The subject of the dispute is often prearranged so you may find yourself having to support opinions with which you do not normally agree…

It is an excellent way of improving speaking skills and is particularly helpful in providing experience in developing a convincing argument. Those of you who are forced to argue against your natural point of view realize that arguments, like coins, always have at least two sides.

But campaign debates are quite different. They are billed as an opportunity for candidates to present their views and plans to the American people, as well as to criticize those of their opponents. For a candidate, the point of such debates is – supposedly – to inform the people what you think, who you are, and what you plan to do as president (Kamala was running for president at the time she criticized Biden). And yet here she is saying that no, it’s a game and a sport in which you adopt positions for strategic and competitive reasons, and it’s perfectly okay if those positions are fake.

It’s a debate, stoopid! Like in school!

And that actually does sum up Kamala Harris rather perfectly, which is also interesting. In her attempt to cover up and make excuses for herself, she reveals herself as an ambitious and shameless opportunist with zero principles to which she will stick other than that of ambition. Now, ambition is certainly a characteristic of all who would be president. And politicians often change their minds, although it helps to have a bit more time between one point of view and its opposite. But we like to think that there’s some sort of steady political principle involved, too. However, Harris and Biden (or what’s left of him) are marked by their extreme lack of principle, which makes them perfect for the election of 2020.

I don’t think this knowledge about Harris (or Biden, for that matter) will hurt her support among Democrats. I think they believe it’s a feature, not a bug. Both Biden and Harris are whatever the voters imagine them to be, and of course their most salient characteristic is that neither is Trump. And if they are elected, they will do whatever the far left tells them to do. And for a large number of people who plan to vote for them, that is also a feature and not a bug.

Telegraph Road: what happened to America

The New Neo Posted on by

Mark Knopfler is British. But “Telegraph Road” is his song about the history of America – in particular, the city of Detroit, but certainly more than that:

A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness
He built a cabin and a winter store
And he plowed up the ground by the cold lake shore
And the other travelers came walking down the track
And they never went further, no, they never went back
Then came the churches then came the schools
Then came the lawyers then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road

Then came the mines – then came the ore
Then there was the hard times then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside…

Here’s the young Knopfler singing and playing the song with his band Dire Straits on tour during its heyday, 1983. There are some especially poignant parts for me right now, in particular the passage from 8:18 to 8:27 in which Knopfler sings:

I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t want to see it again…
…all of these signs saying sorry but we’re closed…

In years past I’d sing along with the song, thinking of the riots of the 60s and 70s, and when I got to the line “I don’t want to see it again!” I’d sing that even louder than the rest. Now, of course – I have seen it again, only now I don’t think “desperation” is as good a characterization of the motive for most of today’s arsonists, looters, and rioters – unless you consider being fed lies, and being part of a culture that has lost much of its guidance and morality, leads to a different sort of desperation.

Perhaps it does.

Anyway, here’s Knopfler and the group in 1983:

And speaking of poignant, here’s Knopfler performing the same song over thirty years later, in 2015. The voice is a lot more gruff and shaky, and the words less distinct, but the guitar is still crystal clear and ringingly sweet (two guitars actually, he changes guitars at around 5:12):

The left, mail-in voting, and the new PostOfficeGate meme

The New Neo Posted on by

We will be hearing more about this. And Obama has had a large hand in spreading it, as Andrea Widburg points out.

But if you want to talk about it now, this is the place.

Sometimes I wonder – does the left have any valid, truthful ways to attack Trump? Surely some are available; he’s not perfect. But the Big Lie is so much more effective, and so much more creative.

A liberal for Trump: the process of political change

The New Neo Posted on by

Quite a few people have recommended this piece by a changer named Keri Smith who now supports Trump. It’s worth reading. Here’s an excerpt:

I still cried the night Trump won. Because I still believed the things I was told to believe about him, without forming my own opinion. Social Justice Warriors do a lot of that. But it became really important for me to figure out why he won, because I wanted to prevent it from happening again in 2020. So I started leaving my carefully cultivated echochamber. I started seeking out other points of view, and actually *listening* to why people voted for him, instead of projecting and telling them what the media had told me were their reasons. I started meeting Trump voters, most of whom did not fit the stereotype I’d been sold.

Regular readers here know that I’m especially interested in the process of political change. I’m also convinced that there are important differences between those who end up changing and those who don’t, and those differences are not merely informational in terms of sources of news, although that has its place. The distinctions are also personality-driven.

There are certain statements in that quote that I see as especially important in Smith’s story. The first step was that she wanted to figure out something on her own, and not just to read what other people had to say about it. Although her motive was initially anti-Trump – she wanted to prevent a repeat – nevertheless she had enough independence of mind even at the outset to seek answers for herself.

The second important step in her story is how she chose to look for those answers: by leaving her echo chamber and seeking out other points of view. That’s somewhat unusual too; I’ve found that few people want to hear opposing views, and those who do are somewhat different from those who don’t.

The third step Smith took was that she decided to listen to the people to whom she spoke, not just with a view to countering and rejecting and fighting what they said, but to hear them with an open mind. I have no idea what propels a person to do this, but I believe it is a personality trait that is fairly rare in the entire population but especially rare among liberals and the left.

Smith adds, later in her essay:

…[L]et me say a word about others like me who are a part of #WalkAway, and those I’ve been blessed to get to know in the past year or so — nobody willingly subjects themselves to social ostracism, to name-calling and insults, to risk of losing their job, to risk of losing their family’s safety — without GOOD reason. And that reason is a pursuit of truth.

That sums it up nicely. The costs are high, but to some people the desire to pursue truth rather than to just accept the group’s word for it drives them in a way that is not shared by all or even by most. I don’t know what causes that difference. But I have certainly observed it.

Liberty: a time for choosing

The New Neo Posted on by

This is from commenter “Erisguy”:

When liberty dies in the hearts of a people, no court, no law, no constitution can save it. And by now a majority of “Americans”…wish only [for] their side to rule unhindered by law, evidence, reason, morality, custom, tradition.

Imagining themselves oppressed because the government doesn’t pay for their abortion, contraceptives, and sex changes; because the government can’t cure their transmissible diseases; because the government lets them hear voices they don’t want heard, they will bring about oppressions not seen on this continent since the Aztecs.

I used to think the thirst for liberty was more universal and more basic than I now think it is. Oh, I never thought it was everywhere, and I always thought it had to be nurtured and encouraged in order to flourish. But I thought that a lot of people – maybe even most? – had a sort of innate hunger for it. And I thought that in particular in the US, with its history and its self-selected immigrant population in the past that valued liberty more than those who stayed behind, we had an even larger proportion of people to whom liberty meant not just something, but a great great deal.

After all, when I was growing up, we used to learn about Patrick Henry saying “Give me liberty or give me death.” I doubt children learn anything about him now except that he was an evil white man.

What happened? One thing that happened was the failure to teach the value and tradition of liberty as well as to live it – and not just a failure to teach it, but the growth and spread of the teaching of the left, which is antithetical to liberty. Of course, liberty includes freedom of speech, and therefore we don’t shut down the teachings of the left. But the right allowed the Gramscian march, particularly through our educational system, and the left achieved total domination there without the right fighting back powerfully enough to counter what was happening:

Reagan knew over fifty years ago what the danger was:

Actually, the Founders knew the same principles about two hundred and fifty years ago. They may not have known all the details, but they understand the concepts and the dangers.

And the following quote is the nightmare vision of Dostoevsky, as expressed in The Grand Inquisitor portion of The Brothers Karamazov. The Grand Inquisitor is here addressing Jesus, who has come back to earth. Alhough the Inquisitor is a man of the Church, he is not in favor of what he believes Jesus offers to humankind, which is free will. Instead, the Inquisitor proposes to enslave people, and he tells Jesus how he will go about doing it.

I’ve divided it into paragraphs that are not there in the original, the better to clarify what’s being said [my emphasis added]:

Command that these stones be made bread–and mankind will run after Thee, obedient and grateful like a herd of cattle. But even then it will be ever diffident and trembling, lest Thou should take away Thy hand, and they lose thereby their bread! Thou didst refuse to accept the offer for fear of depriving men of their free choice; for where is there freedom of choice where men are bribed with bread? Man shall not live by bread alone– was Thine answer. Thou knewest not, it seems, that it was precisely in the name of that earthly bread that the terrestrial spirit would one day rise against, struggle with, and finally conquer Thee…

Knowest Thou not that, but a few centuries hence, and the whole of mankind will have proclaimed in its wisdom and through its mouthpiece, Science, that there is no more crime, hence no more sin on earth, but only hungry people? “Feed us first and then command us to be virtuous!” will be the words written upon the banner lifted against Thee–a banner which shall destroy Thy Church to its very foundations, and in the place of Thy Temple shall raise once more the terrible Tower of Babel…

…It is then that we will finish building their tower for them. For they alone who feed them shall finish it, and we shall feed them in Thy name, and lying to them that it is in that name. Oh, never, never, will they learn to feed themselves without our help! No science will ever give them bread so long as they remain free, so long as they refuse to lay that freedom at our feet, and say: “Enslave, but feed us!” That day must come when men will understand that freedom and daily bread enough to satisfy all are unthinkable and can never be had together, as men will never be able to fairly divide the two among themselves. And they will also learn that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, miserable nonentities born wicked and rebellious. Thou has promised to them the bread of life, the bread of heaven; but I ask Thee again, can that bread ever equal in the sight of the weak and the vicious, the ever ungrateful human race, their daily bread on earth? And even supposing that thousands and tens of thousands follow Thee in the name of, and for the sake of, Thy heavenly bread, what will become of the millions and hundreds of millions of human beings too weak to scorn the earthly for the sake of Thy heavenly bread?…In our sight and for our purpose the weak and the lowly are the more dear to us. True, they are vicious and rebellious, but we will force them into obedience, and it is they who will admire us the most. They will regard us as gods, and feel grateful to those who have consented to lead the masses and bear their burden of freedom by ruling over them–so terrible will that freedom at last appear to men!

The Brothers Karamazov first appeared in 1880, and Dostoevsky died just a few months later. That sounds like a long time ago, but it’s really not that long in the scheme of things (for example, three of my four grandparents were born before then).

I first encountered “The Grand Inquisitor” in the 60s, when we read it in high school. I didn’t fully understand it at the time (not that I fully understand it even now), but it gripped me with a memorable power, and I understood it well enough to be frightened by it, to get the gist of it, and to consider it important.

A lot of years have passed since then, and it only seems more important now. It always was equally important, of course – as Reagan makes clear. But sometimes it seems more urgent. It certainly does now.

[NOTE: The “Grand Inquisitor part of this post appeared in an earlier form here. The title of the present post comes from the title of a famous speech of Ronald Reagan’s in 1964.]

Biden: Hey, let’s make every day Halloween, nationwide!

The New Neo Posted on by

Outside.

Yes, he’s proposing mandatory mask-wearing outside.

The story:

“Every single American should be wearing a mask when they’re outside for the next three months, at a minimum. Every governor should mandate — every governor should mandate mandatory mask wearing,” Biden said, adding that experts advised it could save over 40,000 lives over the same time span.

“It’s not about your rights,” Biden said, seeming to speak directly to Americans who have complained that compulsory mask wearing is a violation of their personal freedom. “It’s about your responsibilities as an American.”

It’s not about your rights. They are dispensable. And this “40,000” figure is just some epidemiologists’ projection, based on very little knowledge – like so much of what has been going on since this winter and the early predictions and recommendations regarding the pandemic.

And then there’s this [emphasis mine]:

The one thing we do know, these masks make a gigantic difference. I would insist that everybody in public be wearing that mask,” the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee said in an interview with the CBS Pittsburgh affiliate KDKA on Thursday.

Not only do we not know that “these masks make a gigantic difference” – especially if worn outside in settings where people are not close together – but it’s almost humorous that Biden is saying that it’s the one thing we know. I guess there’s nothing else we know?

More:

Asked if he would use his federal leverage to mandate the wearing of masks, the former vice president said, “Yes, I would from an executive standpoint. Yes, I would.”

Whatever could go wrong? He’s not talking about a suggestion or a recommendation, as has already been made, but an order. Supposedly enforceable.

In addition to the anti-liberty aspects of Biden’s statements, the science isn’t what you might call “settled.” What type of mask? All masks are not created equal. As in that article I just linked, masks are evaluated for droplet blockage in controlled situations, not for real-world transmissions under the particular sorts of conditions Biden is specifying – at least, I have searched but been unable to find a thing about it.

What I did find was this sort of article, which is from a month ago and attempts to evaluate mask-wearing. It relies on statistical evaluations of various public health measures such as mandatory mask-wearing and tries to figure out how each one affected transmission of the virus pre-mandate and post-mandate back in April and May. The mandatory mask-wearing mentioned in the article involves use by employees in businesses where they must face the public (supermarkets and other stores, for example), not outdoor use by ordinary citizens [emphasis added]:

The question of whether wearing masks in public place should be mandatory or not has been one of the most contested policy issues with health authorities of different countries providing contradiction recommendations. Reviewing evidence, Greenhalgh et al.(2020) recognize that there is no randomized controlled trial evidence for the effectiveness of face masks, but they state “indirect evidence exists to support the argument for the public wearing masks in theCovid-19 pandemic.” Howard et al. (2020) also review available medical evidence and conclude that “mask wearing reduces the transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infectious droplets in both laboratory and clinical contexts.”

…To the best of our knowledge, our paper is the first empirical study that shows the effectiveness of mask mandates on reducing the spread of Covid-19 by analyzing the US state-level data. This finding corroborates and is complementary to the medical observational evidence in Howard et al. (2020). Analyzing mitigation measures in New York, Wuhan, and Italy, Zhang et al. (2020b) conclude that mandatory face coverings substantially reduced infections. Abaluck et al. (2020) find that the growth rates of cases and of deaths in countries with pre-existing norms that sick people should wear masks are lower by 8 to 10% than those rates in countries with no pre-existing mask norms…

The estimates indicate that mandatory face masks for employees reduce the growth rate of infections and deaths by 8-15 percent, while holding behavior constant. This suggests that requiring masks for employees in public-facing businesses may be an effective preventive measure.

The paper is heavy with math and attempts to separate out one factor from another. I have no way to evaluate the math, but I do know that so much of this sort of research has either been wrong or unverifiable, with results disagreeing from study to study and country to country and state to state. I’m not criticizing these particular researchers – the problems are inherent in trying to isolate these factors and their effects.

In fact, mask-wearing may indeed reduce infection. Of maybe not. But I’ve not seen a study that even attempts to evaluate whether mandatory outdoor mask-wearing has any effect at all.

But even more important are two other questions: at what cost, and by whose order? Locking us all inside our homes indefinitely would reduce all sorts of risks, and yet impose others. And the cost to liberty, as well as the incredible increase in governmental power and therefore tyranny, is so great as to be counterproductive except extremely short-term and in the most dire of circumstances. COVID is not that situation.

Biden – or whichever leftists are “advising” him – is advocating dangerous and alarming policies, all of which go to restrict the liberty of ordinary Americans. And a lot of people seem to think that’s just fine – when Democrats do it.

[NOTE: By the way, note that Biden is only saying to wear masks outside for the next three months. What happens in three months? The election. And rest assured that every single American COVID death till then (and all the ones before, come to think of it) will be laid at Trump’s feet by the left and by Biden as scripted.]