Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Live Unfree or Die
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (RINO) has shut down the Granite State. He has issued a “Stay at Home” order effective March 27, at 11:59 p.m., through May 4. The NH Attorney General has issued a memorandum to law enforcement in the state advising them that they can arrest and charge people for violating the governor’s emergency orders.
I emailed my town’s chief of police to ask him if he was going to arrest me for leaving my house. He said no. But there are also state troopers (one who lives down the road from me) and sheriff’s deputies around as well.
Our state motto is, absurdly, “Live Free or Die.”
Published in General
How does this work?
Can’t get on a plane? No train? Highway blockade?
I don’t understand. Please help me.
Our governor announced people who do not obey the police’s instructions to disperse will be jailed and fined $1000 for committing a criminal act. Sounds like tyranny to me . . .
Wait. The Live Free or Die state has state-run liquor stores??
How disappointing.
When we moved from western New York state to Texas in 2018 I wanted to put a sign on our New York licensed car that we were not from in or near New York City.
Tyranny is all in the context. In this context it’s not tyranny. This is not the act of a governor usurping power for his personal gain or to serve a particular political ideology. A clear emergency exists and these social distancing rules are rationally related to the preservation of an institution which is absolutely essential to individual and collective health. The people making the rules are relatively local, subject to elections, and relying on local experts and are themselves subject to the same restrictions. This simply does not fit the definition of tyranny.
Rhode Island police are going door to door looking for cars with NY plates.
I do not think that is at all obvious, although I’ll accept it may end up being true in terms of the mortality rate. Given the fact that we actually don’t know the denominator, that is how many people actually have Covid, it’s impossible at the moment to say whether it’s worse than the flu.
I have no idea whether that’s true or not. It may be true for some areas of the country and not in others, and also may depend on the year. The CDC says between 38,000,000 to 54,000,000 Americans have had the flu this season (2019-2020) with 400,000 to 730,000 hospitalizations, and 24,000 to 62,000 deaths.
I read something yesterday that Italy’s hospitals are usually above 90% capacity from the flu each winter. I can’t find it again so I can’t say whether it’s true or not, but let’s assume it’s possible.
Here’s an article in the Independent from January, 2018, stating that hospitals in England were at 99% capacity over the Christmas period with a 67% rise in one week in flu cases:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-winter-pressure-flu-season-capacity-patients-corridors-a-e-vaccine-a8136231.html
Here’s an article in TIME, also from January, 2018:
Did you know that in the 2017-2018 season, the CDC estimates that 61,000 Americans died from the flu? In 2018-2019, the estimate is 34,000 deaths.
I think one way of determining how uniquely bad Covid was will be at some future point to look at the number of over all deaths and see if it’s out of the “ordinary.” That is, in a “normal” period (month, quarter, half year, year) how many people usually die in a given location (city, state, region, country) on average? If that number goes up, maybe that can be attributed to Covid. If it doesn’t, maybe Covid simply killed people who unfortunately would have died anyway from pneumonia or the flu.
I disagree that it’s all in the context. I agree with your point about cutting some slack for state and local officials to do things we’d never want the feds to do, and that they might need to do more things in an emergency. But all tyrannies get started with emergency measures during perceived emergencies. Maybe there have been exceptions, but I can’t think of any offhand. So while I wouldn’t call this act tyranny myself, it’s how you get ready for tyranny, even if that’s the farthest thing from the mind of the perps who are enacting these emergency measures. So I’m going to defend people who use the word tyranny, even if they’re using it a little loosely. There is a lot of loose talk about collective health, too.
Using NYC as an example to question the underlying suppositions, they “normally” experience (on average) something like 1,000-1,400 deaths A WEEK in the city. Based on that there haven’t been reports that morgues are otherwise unable to deal with that number of bodies from all sources (natural, accident, murder, suicide, illness, etc.) I assume that means that bodies come in, are processed somehow and then are retrieved by families for burial unless they are removed from a hospital directly to a funeral home. I do not believe the current position that the City’s morgues are overwhelmed. Unless no one is claiming their relatives? I haven’t heard that funeral homes are Lao overwhelmed?
My point is that it is already worse than the flu, no matter how the comparison ultimately shakes out, if for no other reason than the timing – the corona virus striking so many so hard in such a short time span.
So far, it appears that if as many people get Covid 19 as get the flu, the number of dead from Covid will be much higher. I realize “we don’t know the denominator,” but we don’t really know it for the flu either, as massive numbers of people get the flu who are never tested for it.
I fervently hope this is all an overreaction, but so far that doesn’t look like the case. Although some of the more extreme predictions look thankfully unlikely, everything is proceeding more or less as many of the experts sounding the alarm said it would.
I disagree. Even if it is the right thing to do (and I don’t think so), the way it is done is tryannical and sets the stage for a politician who is in it for personal gain, power, glory – you name it – to do similar things in an epidemic.
And I do think the governor is usurping power for some reason, maybe not the ones you cited . . .
I saw hyperventilating reporting about a refrigerator truck being sent to a hospital in NYC this week for the dead bodies. But I have no idea whether that is “normal” or not. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t maybe that would be a relevant thing to include in a “news” report.
I would agree that it’s worse than the flu in the sense that our collective reaction to the Chinese coronavirus is way beyond anything we’ve ever seen with the flu, even though (so far) the flu kills more people each year.
I saw one story claiming researchers have discovered (or esitmated) almost 50% of people with the Kung Flu experience no symptoms. If this is the case, the virus has already spread in general, and all we are doing is uncovering new cases now that we know what to look for.
However, the actions taken will get the credit for halting the spread, so watch for a nationwide lockdown every time a Chinese peasant dies of some unknown ailment . . .
A judge in my county has released a violent felon from jail because he might get covid.
The governor has exempted local governments from the Right to Know law.
he has al just shut down hotels and other lodging accommodations, including Airbnb, etc
They better hurry if they want to maximize the tyranny they can get out of this crisis. Austria and Denmark are loosening up their restrictions, and are planning to get the schools restarted. The window for government aggression may soon be closing.
https://www.insidesources.com/sununu-release-of-violent-offender-over-coronavirus-concerns-very-alarming/