Looking back: how Obama used race in a way that’s become very familiar

The New Neo Posted on by

I was searching for something on the blog yesterday and accidentally came across an old post of mine about Obama that I started reading out of curiosity. I decided to re-post it today, because it demonstrates how Obama introduced so many of the ideas about race that have become prominent and commonplace in public discourse now, but which back then were more unusual to those who weren’t immersed in the academy.

The original post appeared almost exactly eight years ago, and it was entitled, “Obama: those who think I’m exceeding my authority as president and becoming a tyrant…”. And then the first sentence in the body of the post was this:

…are racists calling me uppity.

What follows here is the rest of that original post from eight years ago, plus an added new paragraph at the end. Continue reading →

Scientists must not be questioned or challenged by those on the right

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: Ace.]

It’s come to this:

A scientific journal article authored by Professor Peter Hotez, a frequent guest on corporate media networks, called to “extend federal hate-crime protections” for scientists facing criticism from alleged “far-right extremists,” including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci.

Here’s a link to Hotez’s article so you can read it yourself. A few quotes:

A band of ultraconservative members of the US Congress and other public officials with far-right leanings are waging organized and seemingly well-coordinated attacks against prominent US biological scientists. In parallel, conservative news outlets repeatedly and purposefully promote disinformation designed to portray key American scientists as enemies. As a consequence, many of us receive threats via email and on social media, while some are stalked at home, to create an unprecedented culture of antiscience intimidation.

Note the use of the word “attacks.” But what he mentions is criticism, disagreement, and some of the cancel culture and doxxing techniques pioneered by the left and only sometimes (and far less frequently) used by the far right. As far as I know, no one has actually been attacked, nor does he allege that anyone has. And if someone is really being stalked there are already laws about that, and remedies.

On the other hand, portraying a scientist as an enemy is perfectly legal. Also, this particular guy certainly does seem to be the enemy of freedom of thought and freedom of expression, by the evidence of the essay. The left says that words are violence and I suppose this guy agrees.

More from Hotez:

Over the spring and summer of 2021, four major incidents stand out. First, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) introduced house bill 2316. The “Fire Fauci Act” called for halting payment of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s salary as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and auditing his digital correspondence and financial transactions. Green’s follow-up press conference on 21 June 2021 included 13 Republican House supporters or co-sponsors, possibly the largest congressional delegation in modern times to single out and attempt to humiliate a prominent American scientist.

Also in June, the Republicans organized a House Select Subcommittee on the origins of COVID-19 with the presumption that it was ignited by gain-of-function genetic engineering research from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Despite evidence pointing to spillover from a viral infection in bats to additional mammals and ultimately humans accounting for previous coronavirus epidemics, the hearings took on a sinister tone, pointing fingers at virologists both in the US and China. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), stated that Dr. Fauci was “afraid of something” and falsely claimed that he was covering up the engineering of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

He seems to think that if his august self says something is a false claim that makes it so. But here he is the one ignoring a host of evidence that contradicts what he’s saying about the possible lab origins of COVID. This form of argument seems – among other things – unworthy of an actual scientist.

There’s much more in his essay. He goes on to overtly discuss politics and makes it clear that he stands firmly in the camp of the Democrats. Hortez makes analogies such as this: “under Stalin, the study of genetics and relativity physics were treated as dangerous western theories, and potentially in conflict with official social philosophies of state.” That’s an interesting analogy, since it is actually he who is the one advocating that no disagreement be allowed with the Approved State Science in the US at this time – the science with which he is allied.

More:

In summary, the aggression against science and scientists in America arises from three sources: 1) Far-right members of the US Congress, 2) the conservative news outlets and 3) a group of thought leaders who provide intellectual underpinnings to fuel the first two elements …

For researchers working in the pandemic response to continue to do so effectively, we seek help in halting the aggression. This is essential not only for our personal safety or national security, but also the reality that attacking science and scientists will both promote illness and cause loss of life.

There it is again – criticism as dangerous aggression that must be stopped, with the pandemic used as an excuse for such suppression. Again, if someone is actually violating a law by death threats and illegal stalking activities, there are already laws that can be activated against that person. But Hotez wants more:

We should look at expanded protection mechanisms for scientists currently targeted by far-right extremism in the United States. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) has introduced a bill known as the Scientific Integrity Act of 2021 (H.R. 849) to protect US Government scientists from political interference, but this needs to be extended for scientists at private research universities and institutes. Still another possibility is to extend federal hate-crime protections.

One of the interesting things about this article, in addition to Hotez’s anti-free-speech tendencies, is his idea that anti-science and anti-vax sentiment comes only from the right, which it certainly does not.

And what hate crimes is he talking about? Perhaps he’s thinking of laws in Canada and Europe that criminalize hate speech? Such laws don’t exist in the US – yet. Hate crimes in the US must involve an actual crime other than mere speech.

He closes with this (again with the “aggression”):

We must take steps to protect our scientists and take swift and positive action to counter the growing wave of far-right antiscience aggression. Not taking action is a tacit endorsement, and a guarantee that the integrity and productivity of science in the United States will be eroded or lose ground.

I would say the integrity and productivity of science in the US has already lost ground – particularly its integrity, in part due to thinking such as Hotez’s. And here I once thought that scientists welcomed discussion, criticism, and dissent, and relished the opportunity to prove their cases with facts and logic. I guess I’m behind the times.

The eviction moratorium: Biden pretends the courts don’t matter and he can do what he wants

The New Neo Posted on by

Ah, but it’s Trump who’s the tyrannical authoritarian.

Not good old Joe.

From Jonathan Turley:

I was astonished by the remarks of President Joe Biden on his support for extending the eviction moratorium, which was found to be unconstitutional by lower courts. It was later preserved by a divided Supreme Court despite the view of a majority that it was unconstitutional. It was saved from being struck down merely by the fact that it was expiring. President Biden acknowledged that his legal experts overwhelmingly told him that any extension would violate the Constitution. However, he then said it was worth extending the moratorium because it would take time for a court to intervene and, in the interim, they could rush out money to renters despite the lack of constitutional authority to do so.

In other words: we can get away with it for now.

Turley goes on to point out that “Kavanaugh made clear in his opinion that he would vote against any extension as unconstitutional.” But as SCOTUS has now learned, a pre-emptive warning like that doesn’t work very well because it’s a toothless threat – it has to be followed through on later if the other branches of government decide to ignore it. Then there’s always another Joe’s (Stalin, that is, although the story may be apocryphal) question: How many divisions does the Pope have?” In this case, how many divisions does SCOTUS have?

More from Turley:

President Biden’s position not only dismisses constitutional protections but disregards his own presidential obligations…

Yet, imagine if a Republican president announced that he was told that an order on drilling or subsidizing a religious organization was unconstitutional but would use litigation to get the money out before a court could intervene. The hue and cry in the media and from law schools would be deafening.

Biden came to office declaring a return to the “rule of law” but has actually racked up an impressive array of court losses. Now he is treating a presumptively unconstitutional act as a purely tactical consideration to allow the spending of federal funds. That is not exactly what he pledged before he declared “so help me God” on January 20th.

Not exactly. Actually, not at all. But my guess is that most Democratic voters don’t care about that sort of little detail, if they consider the cause just and the president is a Democrat.

Children and the Delta variant

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the few – very few – blessings connected with COVID so far has been that for the most part children have not had bad cases, and very few deaths. Our children and grandchildren are precious beyond description, and we would do almost anything to protect them if we could.

At present children under twelve are unvaccinated for two reasons. The first is the general mildness of the illness in children, and the second is that the vaccine is relatively untested in children. Those two things change the risk/benefit ratio for vaccination for young children, at least for now.

But lately the Delta variant has reared its ugly head. As commenter TommyJay states:

The latest push seems to be that children are much more at risk with Delta. At risk of infection. or risk being spreaders, or risk of getting really sick? Would you trust their answer if they gave one?

An example of what he’s talking about can be seen in this NBC News article, for example, which is headlined in a large font: “As delta variant spreads, medical experts warn of risk to young children.” That headline alone is enough to frighten a parent or grandparent.

The subtitle goes like this: “A Covid vaccine has not yet been authorized for children under the age of 12, putting them among the unvaccinated who are at risk of infection.” That’s certainly true, although obvious and not necessarily all that meaningful if the infections tend to be similar to the infections caused in children by the previous variants.

In the second paragraph of the article it says: “As of July 8, more than 4 million children had been diagnosed with Covid-19, representing 14.2 percent of all cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.” Is that different than the percentage of cases in children prior to Delta? And of course, one would expect the percentage of children among cases to go up compared to pre-vaccine times, because children represent a large percentage of the unvaccinated and the unvaccinated are apparently more vulnerable.

The article goes on to say:

At least 335 children, ages 17 and younger, have died from Covid-19, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although serious complications in kids remain extremely rare. But increasing cases among children, including severe ones, are expected as the delta variant spreads and with no Covid vaccine authorized for children under the age of 12.

That paragraph fails to mention that of the children who died, virtually all had significant pre-existing conditions.

More:

“Last year, for example, you would have to give a child a really high infectious dose to make them sick, but with the virus that’s more contagious, even what would be an insignificant exposure could get them sick,” said Dr. Carlos Oliveira, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor and assistant professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine.

I’d love to know on what that statement is based. I’d also like to know what Dr. Oliveira means by “sick” – does he mean an asymptomatic positive test or sick enough to feel sick? The article doesn’t say.

Children have gotten COVID right from the start of the pandemic, mostly with mild symptoms. For example, take a look at this article which studies cases in the spring and summer of 2020, way before there was any vaccine. The title is: “Continued proportional age shift of confirmed positive COVID-19 incidence over time to children and young adults: Washington State March—August 2020.” Here’s an excerpt from the abstract:

After the peak (March 22, 2020), incidence declined in older age groups and increased among age 0–19 and 20–39 age groups from 20% to 40% of total cases by April 19 and 50% by May 3. During this time testing expanded with more testing among older age groups and less testing among younger age groups while case positivity shifted young. Percent positive cases age 0-19/20-39 years through August 2020 increased to a consistent average of 60% [age 0–19 increased to 19% (N = 10257), age 20–39 increased to 42% (N = 30215)].

If Washington cases are any indication, that’s an even higher percentage of young children among diagnosed COVID cases than we are seeing now.

Back to that NBC article, which finally comes out with this:

Still, there is no evidence that children are more susceptible to the delta variant of the virus than others who are unvaccinated or that it causes more severe illness.

Dr. Sean O’Leary, vice chair of the committee on infectious diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said “it is more contagious in kids just like it’s more contagious in other unvaccinated individuals, but it’s not more contagious in kids than other unvaccinated individuals.”

None of this really deals with whether this variant causes more serious cases in children than other variants do. Apparently the answer is that they don’t know:

Dr. Jennifer Lighter, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at NYU Langone Health, said the delta variant, while it is “certainly more contagious,” doesn’t appear to be more dangerous to children than other variants…Versalovic also said, “We have no firm evidence that the disease severity in children and adolescents is any different with the delta variant.”

They have “no firm evidence.” Do they have any evidence of it? Isn’t that something we need to know? Surely they have some figures that bear on that, such as the ratio of hospitalized cases in children vs. diagnosed cases in children, pre-Delta and post-Delta. But I’ve been unable to find any such figures.

This really doesn’t engender a lot more trust in medical authorities than we had a few months ago, and most of us feel less trust than we did pre-COVID. TommyJay’s final question was, “Would you trust their answer if they gave one?”

Open thread 8/4/21

The New Neo Posted on by

The world’s most charming dancer in a short excerpt from her most exquisite role, Giselle.

She’s a peasant who has a weak heart. She thinks she’s just met the love of her life. But he’s actually a nobleman in peasant disguise, and he’s going to betray her.

But that hasn’t happened yet. So she’s dancing in all her innocence, transported by joy:

If you want to see the whole film, it’s here. The director got a little carried away at times with fancy camera angles, but it’s a precious and wonderful filmed record.

Biden says Governor Cuomo should resign

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “TJ.”]

That was quick:

“I think he should resign,” Biden said of his longtime Democratic ally.

Biden spoke hours after Cuomo proclaimed his innocence and issued a counter-report with photos of Biden and other elected officials hugging women.

“Look, I’m not going to flyspeck this. I’m sure there are some embraces that were totally innocent. But apparently the attorney general decided there were things that weren’t,” Biden said when a reporter asked about Cuomo using his own conduct as a defense.

Due process, anyone?

Boy, the Democrats must really want to be rid of Cuomo. If he resigns, it also eliminates the messy process of trying to impeach him, and the whole issue (as well as the nursing home issue) goes away.

And then of course there’s this:

Biden himself has faced allegations of making women feel uncomfortable with unwanted touching and he has denied a sexual assault allegation from former Senate aide Tara Reade.

Maybe Kamala should demand that Biden resign.

The linked article has also said that Harris is one of the few higher-ups who hasn’t demanded that Cuomo resign. Of course, her own sexual/political history vis a vis Willie Brown is what one might call interesting, but I’ve never heard that she’s been accused of sexual harassment by anyone.

Regarding Cuomo, I think the fat lady is singing scales in the wings.

Objectifying men; objectifying women

The New Neo Posted on by

I found this at Instapundit:

It indicates that although gaping at and admiring male athletes’ bodies is perfectly okay, doing the same to women athletes’ bodies isn’t. That’s in line with the left’s new puritanism. But it’s also a denial of the sexual reality of human beings, which is that we are attracted to the way beautiful bodies look (depending, of course, on the standards of beauty in a particular society). And another part of that reality is that men are more visual creatures than women. To try to stop this impulse, even in the relatively harmless form it takes here, is to discourage sexuality itself, which is not a purely lofty and entirely spiritual impulse, although in its highest form (love) it partakes of those things.

This doesn’t mean that women are immune to the way men look. It matters, but it’s usually not definitive (not that it’s all that matters when men evaluate women, either). I remember, for example, being asked out by an extraordinarily handsome man in college. I spent the entire date listening to him talk and thinking over and over, “Please say something witty or funny or interesting so I can go out with you again!” He never did, and that was the end of that attraction for me. On the other hand, when I met my husband-to-be I was immediately smitten with two things at once: the way he looked and how entertainingly funny he was. He turned out to have many other sterling characteristics of the non-physical variety, but it certainly didn’t hurt that he looked good.

There’s no need to apologize for it. We’re not all attracted to the same thing or even the same looks, but for most of us – male or female or whatever other sexes are listed these days – looks enter into it. That’s reality, folks. But the left wants to alter reality as it suits them. Be careful what you wish for; it may have unintended consequences.

NOTE: In the comments at that Instapundit link, I found this ad, which I’d never seen before but which amuses me greatly. I don’t know how old it is:

The harm done to children by the school lockdown

The New Neo Posted on by

The long-term closing of schools and the substitution of remote learning was one of the worst decisions of many bad decisions made during the lockdown. There’s now a study that attempts to measure some of the effects:

The study, from the consulting firm McKinsey, shows how school shutdowns and lockdowns set back millions of American students—and hurt the poorest and most vulnerable families hardest. It reiterates how prolonged school closures, instigated by overly cautious politicians at the behest of intransigent teachers’ unions, may have set back an entire generation of American children.

The report itself can be found here. I haven’t read it yet, but this is from the article I linked above:

Worst of all, these results may underestimate the true impact of COVID on learning loss, because of the types of data used. McKinsey notes that the Curriculum Associates testing results only come from in-school assessments. In other words, the study cannot capture districts, or students, that did not return to in-person learning last spring—and who likely face the greatest educational setbacks due to their prolonged time away from the classroom…

The learning losses, chronic absenteeism, and dropouts of the past 16 months will have a profound impact on the economy when the “COVID generation” enters the workforce. McKinsey estimates a potential loss to American GDP of $128 billion to $188 billion each year due to the learning gaps caused by the pandemic.

The long-term closing of schools in many districts was probably one of the single worst decisions of the COVID pandemic reaction, not just because of the effects – easy to have predicted, and that includes the emotional repercussions – but also because it was known almost from the start that children were among the least vulnerable as well as least likely to spread the illness to others. But that didn’t stop the COVID authorities.

To those in charge, though, their goal wasn’t to protect children. It probably wasn’t even to protect teachers. It was to placate the teachers’ unions, among the biggest supporters of the Democratic Party and Democrat politicians. In addition, the fact that it would disproportionately hurt poor and minority students – that is, what we now call students of color – is no problem for the Democrats, either. They have repeatedly shown they are more than willing to sacrifice children of that demographic to the will of the influential unions by jettisoning charter schools, one of the most promising avenues for minority children to become successful.

As for the influence of the lockdown of schools on the future American workforce, the left doesn’t believe in such quaint notions as “merit,” either, so it’s all good.

Andrew Cuomo “credibly” accused of sexual harassment in the workplace

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember back when Andrew Cuomo was going to save the Democratic Party by stepping in as a presidential candidate? I remember quite a bit of chatter about it way back in 2020 when his star seemed to be rising and the other candidates seemed highly flawed, even to the Democrats.

Well, what goes up sometimes must come down, and since that time Cuomo has fallen on some hard and critical times. Someone or some group has decided he is on the outs, and now there’s this:

An investigation found that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women in and out of state government and worked to retaliate against one of his accusers, New York’s attorney general announced Tuesday in a finding that quickly renewed calls for the Democrat’s resignation or impeachment.

Cuomo remained defiant Tuesday following the investigation’s findings, saying that “the facts are much different than what has been portrayed” and appearing to reject calls to resign.

The nearly five-month investigation found that Cuomo’s administration was a “hostile work nvironment” and was “rife with fear and intimidation.” The probe, conducted by two outside lawyers, involved interviews with 179 people including Cuomo’s accusers, current and former administration employees and the governor himself.

Employment lawyer Anne Clark, who led the probe with former U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, said they found 11 accusers to be credible, noting the allegations were corroborated to varying degrees, including by other witnesses and contemporaneous text messages.

I tend to be skeptical about the word “credible” in contexts such as these, but sometimes accusations really are credible. If there are witnesses and contemporaneous texts, that lends more credence to the accusations, although it doesn’t make them true although it makes them much more likely to be true.

What are the allegations? Basically, it boils down to the idea that Cuomo is what we used to call a creep. He seems to have specialized in behavior that he might have called “playful” but with a not-especially-subtle sexual charge. For example:

The report also included an allegation from a woman who worked for an energy company who said Cuomo touched her inappropriately at an event. The woman said Cuomo ran his fingers across the lettering on her shirt, reading the name of her company aloud. Then he leaned in and said: “I’m going to say I see a spider on your shoulder,” and brushed his hand in between her shoulder and breasts, the report said…

Cuomo faced multiple allegations last winter that he inappropriately touched and sexually harassed women who worked with him or who he met at public events. One aide in his office said he groped her breast.

Another, Lindsey Boylan, said Cuomo kissed her on the lips after a meeting in his office and “would go out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs.”

After Boylan first made her allegations public in December, the Cuomo administration undercut her story by releasing personnel memos to media outlets revealing that Boylan resigned after she was confronted about complaints she belittled and yelled at her staff.

Boylan has said those records “were leaked to the media in an effort to smear me.”

Other aides have said that the governor asked them unwelcome personal questions about sex and dating. One former aide, Charlotte Bennett, said Cuomo asked if she was open to sex with an older man.

The article isn’t too clear about what the women did or said about it at the time. Cuomo has apparently admitted some of this:

In an 11-hour interview with investigators last month, Cuomo admitted to certain behavior while denying other allegations, investigators said. For example, Clark said, he conceded asking Bennett whether she had been involved with older men and said he may have kissed the state trooper at an event but denied touching her.

Asked about an allegation that he grabbed a woman’s breast at the executive mansion, according to the report, Cuomo responded: “I would have to lose my mind to do such a thing” to a woman he hardly knew with multiple staff members around..

New York has a very strict law about this, It seems from the following description that the definition of sexual harassment lies in the reaction of the complainent:

New York state regulations say sexual harassment includes unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature — from unwanted flirtation to sexual jokes — that creates an offensive work environment, regardless of a perpetrator’s intent.

And then there’s this:

Cuomo championed a landmark 2019 state law that made it easier for sexual harassment victims to prove their case in court. Alleged victims no longer have to meet the high bar of proving sexual harassment is “severe and pervasive.”

I refuse to make a prediction about whether Cuomo will survive in the political sense. He seems to have had at least nine political lives so far. But I think he finally may have used up his last one.

COVID overview Part II: liberty and risk

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: Part I can be found here.]

If someone – say, Howard Hughes (to take one obvious example) – wants to become an eccentric isolate in an attempt to protect himself against disease or other mishap, I may think he’s misguided or even crazy. But it’s his right to live that way. However, if he began to demand that other people live that way, and if he tried to enforce that, then he would be a tyrant.

The current politicians and health officials who have been setting up the COVID rules are saying that they are necessary to protect us. Protect us from what? Measures that might be justified for some titanic plague that is about to kill half the population are not necessarily justified for COVID. But where should the line be drawn? I recall that in the early days of COVID some politicians were saying “one death is too many!”, which is compassionate-sounding but if actually carried out would put us all in Hughes-like isolation, with society grinding to a halt.

But isn’t that not so very far from what actually happened, and for way too long? And did the measures really help at all? It’s not at all clear that they did, and even if they did help somewhat, many many people believe the price was way too high. Very early in the COVID pandemic – mid-March of 2020 – I wrote a post on the subject. I think it holds up pretty well for the most part. Here are a few excerpts:

I grew up, as the somewhat-older author of this essay “Say Your Prayers and Take Your Chances: Remembering the 1957 Asian flu pandemic” did, in an era when nearly all children got a series of diseases that are now mostly distant memories. The vast majority of us survived quite nicely, unlike in previous eras:

“Before the Modern Revolution child mortality was very high in all societies that we have knowledge of – a quarter of all children died in the first year of life, almost half died before reaching the end of puberty.”

Royalty was not immune; look at the record of the children of Peter the Great, for example. It’s horrific. It’s also one of many reasons people tried to have as many children as possible, although a lot of women died in childbirth or shortly after. Another terrible risk that was common in prior eras.

It was much much better when I was growing up. But still, in a few short years and while I was a toddler I had measles, mumps, German measles (is that racist?), and chicken pox, and that’s just what I remember. Polio was rather common, too, although a vaccine was developed when I was in grade school; I remember what a big big deal that was, and what a hero Salk was considered to be.

My only cousin had measles encephalitis when I was about two, and died a few years later of complications from it. I remember his death very very well, and his disabilities too. That’s the sort of thing that makes a deep impression on a child. My mother told me later that, when I had contracted measles not all that long after my cousin had them, she sweated it out because the risks were very clear to her. Another couple who were good friends of my parents had lost a child from measles even before I was born, and I heard about that periodically, too.

No one had to impress on me the seriousness of measles. I knew. And polio? We saw the photos of all those kids in the iron lungs, and we saw children walking around with braces on their legs.

But that personal knowledge is gone, along with those diseases and many others…It’s a wonderful thing that the incidence of most of those diseases has been remarkably reduced. Wonderful, fabulous, a great reduction in human suffering. But there’s been a cost, too, and it’s the increasing fragility of our psyches’ ability to withstand and endure even the prospect of an increase in disease and mortality that mirrors what my generation experienced.

[Why didn’t we close down more during the 1957 Asian flu pandemic?]…[W]e would have had to have closed down shop indefinitely. There were so many illnesses around all the time that there was no way to escape. You might say we were fatalistic, you might say we were resigned, you might say we were stupid, you might say we assumed the risk, or you might say we understood that the drawbacks of that sort of reaction were immense as well.

Of course, I wasn’t around in 1918. I wasn’t around when smallpox and tuberculosis or the Black Death killed far far more of the people on earth than any of the plagues of my lifetime have come close to killing. I cannot even imagine how terrible those things were; I don’t even want to imagine. And I doubt that people took them in stride at all. And I think a good part of the dread and fear now is that in the back of our minds – or for some people, even the front of our minds – we know that such catastrophes are still possible. Human beings know they are intensely vulnerable.

But COVID-19 is not shaping up to be that sort of event, and there’s no reason to think it will be. However, although many measures are prudent – handwashing, increased testing, hospital preparedness, some measure of social distancing at least for a while – the degree of fear I see and hear is far greater than anything I can recall in my lifetime around a medical event.

And now I’ll add a couple of things to that previous post. The first is that COVID was already heavily politicized even back in March of 2020 when I wrote it. But COVID went on to become politicized even beyond what I had expected or perceived at the time.

The second is that the whipping up of fear has continued longer than I imagined it would. I actually thought that a few months after Biden was inaugurated the authorities would be declaring COVID vanquished by Biden and company. But that hasn’t happened, and in fact things are clamping down again.

Which brings us back to the idea that the whole thing has been too valuable politically (I listed some reasons why in Part I) – although going on and on could backfire and perhaps is even already backfiring. But still, it’s already served a political purpose. Over the course of the COVID pandemic enormous numbers of people have already become more risk-averse and more comfortable with all sorts of restrictions that would have seemed like way much too much only a couple of years ago. This obviously serves the political needs of the left.

Liberty has been one of the casualties of the pandemic.