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Why Are Senseless Policies Arbitrarily Imposed Amid Corona Crisis?
Apr 18, 2020 / Written by: Gary Isbell
Capitalizing on a crisis to expand authority is not a new phenomenon. Good emergency policies need to be implemented for the sake of the common good. However, these measures can get out of hand and lead to the encroachment on personal liberties and rights.
All too often temporary emergency measures become permanent. Overreaching policies can extinguish spiritual, social and economic life. Expanding authority must be prudent and temperate lest the cure becomes worse than the disease.
In times of chaos, strong emergency measures suspending normal rights are sometimes needed to keep order. However, the minute these measures are not needed, they should be immediately lifted. The sure sign of a leftist, nanny state mentality is when dictatorial powers are retained.
Abuse of Authority is Appearing at Every Level of Government
Many are complaining about measures that show signs of abuse. For example, Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) is not allowing residents to visit friends and relatives, or to stay in their second homes or vacation rentals inside the state, with few exceptions. These private properties generally have little to do with public interaction.
The Agency of Commerce and Community Development in Vermont is asking retailers such as Walmart, Costco and Target to prohibit the sales of nonessential merchandise. Such items include clothes, consumer electronics, furniture, home and garden and paint. Currently, the entire state of Vermont has less than 800 cases of infection and two-dozen deaths. It is difficult to see what good could be realized by these prohibitions.
In Brighton, Colorado, police arrested and handcuffed Matthew Mooney in front of his wife and 6-year-old daughter for playing ball in an empty park. There was a sign that allowed groups of 4 to use the park. This overreaction by the police is symptomatic of an overzealous controlling mindset that only instills panic and fear.1
Mayor Greg Fischer (D), of Louisville, Kentucky criminalized a Holy Thursday drive –in church service held in a parking lot. On-Fire Christian Church stated that they had followed the rules of physical distancing, and parishioners stayed in their cars during the service. Despite their compliance, Kentucky State Troopers recorded license plate numbers and placed quarantine notices on parishioners' windshields intimidating those who broke no laws. A judge later ruled in the church’s favor.2
Judge Clay Jenkins (D) from Dallas County, Texas tweeted “Do you know of any smoke shop, craft store or other non-essential business (not covered by @CISAgov ) ignoring my #SaferAtHome order and putting profits over public health in your area? Report on DallasCountyCovid.org so we can shut them down ASAP.”3
Such posts damage the spirit of community by encouraging neighbors to turn against each another. The incident quickly set off a firestorm of responses and ultimately resulted in the Dallas County Commissioners’ overturning Jenkins’ unilateral decision by allowing many small businesses to reopen while respecting physical distancing.
Imposing Technology to Control Society
Another area of concern is the use of technology to control society. There are proposals to use mobile phone location tracking to identify those exposed to, or infected with the coronavirus. Once a measure like this is in place for health reasons, it can easily be exploited for political purposes to obliterate people’s privacy and rights. Communist China already uses this type of control.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in use in countries like Russia and China. Russian facial recognition systems are currently employed to identify those who are breaking quarantine while China has installed thermal scanners to identify and refuse entry to people with fevers at its train stations, regardless of cause.
According The Wall Street Journal, the company, Clearview AI, has begun talks with governments proposing the use of its facial recognition software to track people infected with the coronavirus. This software is very efficient in identifying individuals and their movements.
It also lends itself to something called algorithmic policing, which is the use of data applied to computer algorithms where police are encouraged to take action through the “prediction of crimes.” This is precisely the reason why police powers are constrained through measures such as warrants and probable cause.
If Communist countries are already using authoritarian actions and technology to control their subjects, it is frightening to envision how these measures could be abused in the hands of leftist socialist politicians in the U.S. Their implementation under the pretext of health could later segue to violating human rights.
Understanding the Disease Is Fundamental to Making Wise Decisions
The key to making wise decisions lies in having the right data. In the case of the coronavirus, that means two figures, a numerator and denominator. The numerator reflects how many people die from a disease. The denominator indicates how many people become infected with it in a random cross selection of the population. Divide the numerator by the denominator and the result is the percentage of people who will die from a disease.
A team from the University of Bonn, Germany tested a random sampling of 1,000 people to determine how many had antibodies from the coronavirus. Fourteen percent possessed them, and two percent were already infected. When considering the overlap between the two groups, they concluded that 15 percent of the population had been infected. The vast majority of those who contracted the virus experience little or no symptoms. They also possessed antibodies that give the holder immunity from the disease.
The German study, and others like it, have suggested that lockdown is the wrong approach because those who are exposed through the natural rates of exposure, allow a society to achieve what is called herd immunity, a condition in which most develop immunity and thus prevent the additional spread of the virus on a large scale.
In addition, the denominator must include only those proven to be infected through testing, not assumed to be infected because of symptoms. It must represent a random selection of a population just as was done in Bonn and other places not simply a hot-spot such as New York City, and then the projected fatality rate goes down dramatically. Many scientists believe the honest and accurate rate will be close to that of the seasonal flu.
The questions to be asked are simple: Can the safe treatment of COVID-19 be done without provoking an economic collapse? Can this treatment be done without taking away American’s rights and freedoms? Must so much debt be incurred to treat the illness and its consequences? Until these and other vital questions are answered through accurate data applied honestly, our policymakers are erring with draconian measures that are most likely doing more harm than good. Ironically, we hear liberals cry, “if one life could be saved, this would all be worth it,” while keeping abortion clinics open!
There is no future for a country in which citizens are not allowed to go to Mass, receive the sacraments, work for a living and have social interaction. The measures inflicted by uninformed policymakers are bankrupting the nation both spiritually and financially while setting the stage for a bleak future. Under the guise of protecting our physical health, America is looking more and more like Wuhan, China.
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