Hello and happy quarantine! I've been on extended Spring break, and my classes restart in earnest next week, though I have gotten some (read: not enough) school work done this week.
I do not intend to return to school. I've come to accept that at
least for me, this situation won't stop feeling surreal until it's over.
I'm just glad that I'm not sick or suddenly out of work. I wonder what your school is doing.
Allow me to do something that some have found difficult in the last week.
Fuck the Chinese Communist Party. And fuck President Trump. This should
be easy, but alas! The only folks I've seen distributing blame
appropriately are the old #nevertrump folks I follow. I followed a ton of
immunologists and virologists to get accurate information, but I've
been mass-unfollowing them as they get in on the whole “blaming China is
racist” routine. Everyone who says that knows that it's BS and says it
anyway, and I have zero patience for it. Nobody is saying that this is
the fault of the ethnically Chinese. I've actually seen more antisemitism than anti-Asian sentiment. Sarah Leah Whitson, former director of the “Human Rights” Watch and Quincy Institute “scholar,” literally lamented a dearth of Jewish blood.
We're pissed that the Commies have this much power, and we want to
rethink our relationship with evil regimes. These people are just
regurgitating CCP propaganda. Part of me wants to link to all the evidence that China is at fault, but I'd start and never stop. Just never forget that these filthy fucking wet markets China has refused to shut down also caused SARS. President Nixon was wrong to let the party thrive. Read this statement from the CCP
announcing that they are expelling all WSJ, NYT, and WaPo reporters
from the country including Hong Kong while accusing the United States of suppressing freedom of the press. It's sick and unprecedented, and why the fuck are we trusting numbers from China again? Yeah, China says things are getting better. Do you believe them?
But yes, President Trump is also trash. He spent weeks ignoring his own health experts and pretending everything would be fine, and then he freaks out and just says a bunch of bullshit, which kinda is his M.O. The response from the federal government has been unacceptable. And again, I could start linking to everything,
but I'd be here all day all over again! “We did a really good job in
closing China early, then we celebrated by taking a break and doing
virtually nothing for a while.” The coronavirus corpses could literally
reanimate and eat everybody, and the President would still be talking
about how he did such a good job closing the border. This is a President
who's spent three years bullshitting, fostering excellent economic
growth as he George Lewises through his White House duties—well-documented here in the New York Times—and
now it's all falling apart for him, and I can't say I'm shocked. In
sum, I'm upset. God bless Dr. Fauci, the only guy I'm really trusting
right now. In this video, you can feel his pain when President Trump calls the State Department the “Deep State Department.”
Brooklyn, and not just Brooklyn, is rightfully concerned about COVID-19 infections in jails and prisons, and so has declared the fucking purge where they're just no longer arresting people. Some of
the crimes they're no longer worried about shouldn't be crimes in the
first place. Others, like burglary, are more distressing. Now's the
perfect time to decriminalize looting. Maybe this pandemic will be the
impetus we need to get petty laws off the books, make our jails safer,
and do some long-overdue criminal justice reform, but probably not. L.A. County is releasing inmates onto the street. The Mayor of Baltimore has publicly begged residents to stop shooting each other so that hospital bed can be used for COVID-19 patients.
“For those of you who want to continue to shoot and kill people of this city, we’re not going to tolerate it”
But there's nothing I can do about except stay
home and order takeout like a real American hero. It's just like
Normandy. Honestly, while I'm disappointed to say the least with the
powers that be, I'm really proud of the people, who overall are doing a great job. It's easy to focus on the dumb-asses Spring Breaking and Disney World-ing, but most people, so far as I can tell, are taking the threat very seriously and trying to support people who need help right now. And there's been beautiful things to see. Everybody has seen people singing out of the windows in Italy. For my part, I'll add this wonderful video of New Yorkers watching a lesbian wedding happening in the street as the officiant yells from the fifth floor.
I just hope that people understand that we might be in for the long hall and not give up on this way of life in a week if it needs to continue. Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote an excellent piece on the ethical mandate to follow social distancing guides. It's important that we “overreact” and remember the paradox of preparation. People are freaking out over San Francisco's perhaps nonnideally-implemented shelter-in-place order, but I'm not sure it's such a bad move. I did have the pleasure of hearing Mark Steyn, guest hosting for Rush Limbaugh, blame San Francisco's “overreaction” on the gays as my mom blasts EIB on the radio most days, though. I have faith that the testing situation will improve as private industry has been unleashed on the issue, as it should have been from the start. South Korea, which was far less restrictive on the private sector's response is now seeing open infection rates fall. There's been some meme-ing “everyone's a libertarian during a pandemic” to which my answer is “well, yeah, kinda.”
But
that “kinda” is important. It's why I'm not actually a libertarian
despite being “fiscally conservative, socially liberal,” whatever that
means. We do need governments to combat these kinds of things. We need effective governments actually concerned with protecting the rights of the people and controlling externalities which threaten our liberty. Our coronavirus response is not a matter of individual choice. The choices of some impact the safety of
others. This is a collective issue. This is, in theory, why government
exists. And so this is the rare instance where I don't want the
government to fuck off. I want it to do the one thing it's supposed to
be good for. And the government should be enabling the private sector to
solve these problems. But the solutions also involve externalities.
Right now, people are being forbidden from participating in the market
by the government. Their livelihoods have been taken from them by force.
And even those of us who can still work are
affected by what the government is rightfully doing by force. That's why
I was thrilled to see Senator Romney propose a cash relief bill to which I will henceforth refer as “Romneybucks” that would give cash directly to the people.
This is so much better and so much more affordable than the routine bailouts of
big industry, particularly after 2008. It's recognition from the right
that the people are the real stakeholders in a free economy, not those
who have enough centralized wealth to lobby Congress. There's been empty
talk about “making people whole” in this crisis. Well, this is how it's
done. And it looks like it's definitely going to happen, albeit not
exactly how I'd hoped. $1000 per person. $500 for children.
However, it appears that there will be means testing and that the poor
will receive a phase-in plan (read: less money). It's bullshit. It's
much more efficient not to means test. It minimizes the money that gets
lost in bureaucracy and gives it directly to the people. That was the
whole idea behind Andrew Yang's plan. It's more ethical not to means
test since the government's restrictions are impacting everyone. Using
numbers from 2018 to decide whether people are in need now is
unreliable. Many were alright then and in crisis now. Money in the
economy is better than money in the government. Nevertheless, I'm glad
that this is happening.
But what a weird week for Andrew Yang.
He dropped out in February to see cash distributions in March from
Republicans. Despite the fact that I still don't actually agree with him
on most issues, I'm glad that Yang ran his campaign because I'm not
sure that this would be happening without him. Regardless of his involvement in the next administration, I think that this will cement Yang's relevance for some time.
You know it's a wild week when it takes me this long to even mention state primaries and debates. But there were both this week. This week started with a two-man debate that nobody watched, neither at the isolated debate stage or at home. I, of course, watched.
I
won't spend too long on the debate because it obviously doesn't matter,
but damn did Joe Biden stink up the joint. He was really feisty and
kept hitting Senator Sanders way harder than necessary with very weak
points. He was so aggressive, it made me wish he could just be “Sleepy
Joe” again. He also kept outright lying for no reason to which Senator Sanders responded with the line “Go to the YouTube,” which his campaign has embraced as a hashtag.
During the debate, this ad aired staring esteemed intellectual atheist Ron Reagan promoting freedom from religion. It's very funny.
Then,
on Tuesday, Arizona, Florida, and Illinois voted while Ohio delayed its
primary. Joe Biden swept. Senator Sanders is done. It appears Senator
Sanders struggled to appeal to the urban, rural, and suburban parts of Florida.
I
had predicted that Senator Sanders was going to run to the Convention,
but the pandemic might change that plan. He hasn't officially dropped
out, but his campaign has all but deactivated, and not just their
in-person meetings. They've suspended all their Facebook ads, and at the moment, he's “assessing” his chances.
It's a tragic end for his campaign, and even during this crisis the
wailing has been palpable. Dipshit CNN correspondent Manu Raju prodded Senator Sanders with the big question trying to get a rise out of
him. And a rise he got. Senator Sanders responded, “I'm dealing with a
fucking global crisis... I'm trying to do my best to make sure that we
don't have an economic meltdown and that people don't die. Is that
enough for you to keep me busy for today.” Raju posted this on Twitter
and thousands of liberals are cheering at this display of
Senator Sanders grave incivility and poor temperament. Sorry, I don't
like Senator Sanders's politics one bit, but I don't trust anyone who
reads that quote and likes Senator Sanders less and not more.
The wailing was only amplified when at long last, Congresswoman Gabbard, my favorite political supervillain, suspended her campaign and endorsed Joe Robinette Biden. Of
course, this is a reasonable move on it's face. Congresswoman Gabbard
was on Senator Sanders's 2016 campaign, but she set out to shake things
up this time, but promised to endorse the nominee, something she did not
do in 2016. When, like Yang, she saw that Senator Sanders had no
chance, she endorsed the presumptive nominee. But Congresswoman Gabbard
just doesn't work like that. She isn't a rational person. She's a
principled force of unbridled malevolence. And
she hates Joe Biden. So this move is mind-melting. I don't want to say
too much about it because I am confident that more information will
arise soon. But, Senator Sanders, when Congresswoman Gabbard drops out
and endorses Biden, your time has come.
Now for some miscellaneous garbage.
Mike Huckabee posted a shocking tweet recommending people stick corn on the cob up their assholes in lieu of toilet paper during the “shortage.” I am not joking.
MatPat of Game Theory (remember that?) posted a comically insensitive video targeted to children about which video game characters would die from COVID-19. He's gotten a ton of shit for it and has gone radio silent. Would Waluigi survive 9/11? Would Sonic survive Pearl Harbor?
I
am fascinated by Kenneth Copeland, a televangelist worth 760 million
dollars. He's the most interesting megachurch leader by far. Of
course he's horrible. That's a given. It's his absolute supervillain
demeanor that makes it. He radiates bad vibes. When I watch him spread disinformation about COVID-19 in this video,
I can't get mad. I just get sucked in. I want to understand what it
feels like to see him as anything other than evil. Reading the comments
on this thing is frightening. I could watch this man all day long, and
from time to time I have.
And that's all I got.
I don't blame you if you didn't make it down here, but I hope you did,
and I hope I hear from you. Social distancing is a bitch. Here's hoping
that somehow things don't get even crazier next week.
Thanks,
Jacob Morris
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