COVID-19 “No Risk Nation”: This Is Not Who We Are

 

I have a profound memory just after 9/11 of a Muslim imam in Britain being quoted as telling the West we would be changed: Either you grant us our speech and religious liberty and we will use it to destroy you, or you will deny us our speech and religious liberty and become something you do not want to be.

It seems to me that the COVID-19 epidemic and the Progressive-inspired responses represent the same challenge. Anyone other than a progressive (or a scared spitless person) understands that the response to the epidemic is a risk management problem. How do you minimize your total losses — direct losses in terms of life and health to the disease and indirect losses in terms of life and health from the alternative responses to the disease?

Progressives are pushing a “no risk” solution, which of course is not “no risk.” It goes like this: Do whatever it takes to ensure that no one dies; OK someone died, but let’s now do whatever it takes so that no one else dies; OK someone else died, but now do whatever it takes so that no others die; (wash, rinse, repeat). This maximizes, not minimizes, total losses. And yet it is being sold as the way to minimize loss. It sounds like a wonderful aspiration: we all work together to keep us all alive. But in practice, it is the best way to assure that more people die — if not as a direct loss to the disease, then as an indirect loss due to the response to the disease.

When we listen to our health officials at the local, state, and federal level we need to ask ourselves is their response really good risk management? Are they explaining their approach in a way that addresses both direct and indirect loss? If not, why not? To whose advantage would it be to win the battle but lose the war? The one bucking for near term promotion due to claimed “battle valor” and the one seeking more funding for their part of the war.

When you read critiques of President Trump’s performance in the epidemic you have to ask yourself is the criticism fair if you take a risk management approach to the epidemic, or only if you take a “no risk” approach to the epidemic? This lens changes everything. If you have the risk management approach you focus on overall national health now and in the future, if you take a “no risk” approach you focus only on the spread of infection. If you have a risk management approach you see Sweden and South Dakota as success stories. If you focus on “no risk” you lauded California’s, Texas’, and Florida’s earlier epidemic accounting and despair on its later growth in cases.

On the recent Ricochet podcast “London Calling,” Toby and Delingpole reminded me of Orwell’s statement in 1984 that the ‘Proles’ will save us.

Here is the full quote:

‘If there is hope,’ wrote Winston, ‘it lies in the proles.’

If there was hope, it MUST lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflexion of the voice, at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength. would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning.

We must rise up and shake ourselves. It is who we are.

[Links to all my COVID-19 posts can be found here.]

Published in General
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 19 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    There is a saying that “the masses” are invented by their leaders. I forget who said that.  A mass of not yet united nor yet motivated people who should share a common interest but don’t seem to act like it remains a purely theoretical entity unless somebody knows how to activate some common driving force.

    That yet-to-be-mobilized mass could include parents who can’t send their kids to school, people who cannot work, and/or who will lose homes or businesses, people who suspect that lockdowns, masks, and distancing were all eyewash imposed to create the impression of Doing Something About It, people who will soon lose friends and loved ones to untreated illness other than COVID or lose others who go under with despair or even suicide and people who could not visit or bury elderly loved ones.

    We are constantly asked to sacrifice trillions and economic freedom to achieve minuscule reductions in CO2 to prevent a bogus theoretical catastrophe.  We are paying through the nose to supposedly combat a pandemic as if it were the only issue in our lives and now we are subject to demands to destroy life, government, freedoms, rationality and society as we know it to defeat mythical “systemic racism.”

    What is it with lefties that the whole concept of risk assessment is suppressed in favor of BS crisis narratives.  Over and over.

    • #1
  2. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Part of the problem, as defined by Sir Humphrey, is that politicians (and much of their constituency) mistake activity for accomplishment. Hence the need to continue to try to “do something” even when you’ve done all it is reasonable to do.

    And that leads, not to just moving the goal posts, but to mounting them on a race car and driving in circles as fast as you can. 

    • #2
  3. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    It’s difficult to imagine all these different groups that @oldbathos mentions as realizing they have common cause and could be so powerful if they came together. Now that would be an awesome response!

    • #3
  4. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    I have to cross-post this from @OccupantCDN: https://ricochet.com/members/occupantcdn/activity/1935901/. Tom Woods really puts the wood to the Karens and the absurdity of diminishing our lives to lengthen them.

    • #4
  5. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    What is really bothering me is that the private sector has been managing the risks and liabilities brilliantly. That’s the only reason the American public has survived this ordeal. 

    Why does the government not admit that it needs help and seek advice from the private sector? Such conversations would illuminate for the government the impediments to our functioning normally that it is needlessly creating. 

    • #5
  6. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    Rodin: critiques of President Trump’s performance in the epidemic

    Trump should fire Fauci, Birx, and Redfield.  He needs a new Covid19 task force with honest doctors, public health officials, economists, statisticians/modelers, and technologists.  He is responsible for horrible leadership we suffer under. 

    • #6
  7. Weeping Inactive
    Weeping
    @Weeping

    Rodin (View Comment):

    I have to cross-post this from @OccupantCDN: https://ricochet.com/members/occupantcdn/activity/1935901/. Tom Woods really puts the wood to the Karens and the absurdity of diminishing our lives to lengthen them.

    I don’t know about anyone else, but your link takes me to a blank page.

    • #7
  8. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Oh, Rodin, Rodin, Rodin, when will you see the light?

    Did you know that 20 people a year die from hydroxychloroquine?

    Yet before I became enlightened and woke, I thought it might be a good idea for us to be allowed to have HCQ as a prophylactic and also if we do test positive for COVID, as a remedy.

    Then after talking to some progressives, I have seen the light.

    Is it not better to die from COVID than to have to risk being one of twenty people who die from a drug some greedy somebody is making 20 bucks a treatment from?

    Plus if a person dies from COVID, there is the added advantage that their family won’t be allowed to have a funeral, so think of the money that family then saves!

    • #8
  9. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Rodin: critiques of President Trump’s performance in the epidemic

    Trump should fire Fauci, Birx, and Redfield. He needs a new Covid19 task force with honest doctors, public health officials, economists, statisticians/modelers, and technologists. He is responsible for horrible leadership we suffer under.

    Trump already issued an Executive Order back in September 2019, implementing a fast track vaccine program. So he is merely someone playing good cop, bad cop as far as the Fauci, Birx and Redfield crowd.

    He is currently tossing billions of dollars of tax payer money into the vaccine solution, if Breitbart can be believed. This is a solution that Gates referred to as “final.”

    • #9
  10. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Weeping (View Comment):

    Rodin (View Comment):

    I have to cross-post this from @OccupantCDN: https://ricochet.com/members/occupantcdn/activity/1935901/. Tom Woods really puts the wood to the Karens and the absurdity of diminishing our lives to lengthen them.

    I don’t know about anyone else, but your link takes me to a blank page.

    Here is the original YouTube video:

     

    • #10
  11. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    MarciN (View Comment):

    What is really bothering me is that the private sector has been managing the risks and liabilities brilliantly. That’s the only reason the American public has survived this ordeal.

    Why does the government not admit that it needs help and seek advice from the private sector? SNIP

    The government is getting advice from the “private sector.” Once you understand that our agencies are tacked to the gills with people who were executives at Merck, at Pfizer, and dozens of other private firms, a clear picture emerges. The revolving door between industry and agency heads has been on going for decades.

    Now if you actually mean, by your using  the terms “the  private sector” and you are referring to private economic analysts, or the new “media” whose photo is below, then that is something entirely different. The totally independent econ analysts and doctors who are approaching the COVID situation from an actual awareness of what is going on have solutions. But those solutions do not benefit Moderna or Bill Gates’ Syndicate.

    Remember that Gates has influenced every single facet of this crisis. Fauci is his proxy. Johns Hopkins is basically owned by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, whose monies came to JH in the form of 1.2 billions  worth  of dollars of donations.

    And Media Matters is also  very influenced by Gates Big Bucks. This is the corporation which saw to it that  Del Bigtree was removed from Facebook; a Gates proxy “non profit” and “independent news org” saw to Bigtree’s removal.

    Indie economic analysts who are saying “look to Sweden”  have intelligence & decent results on their side. After all,  the difference in fatality rates between how the Swedes  remained an open society, and our fatality rates, especially when you look to totally locked down NYC, are actually in Sweden’s favor.

    That  is especially true if a person examines Dr Bastiat’s recent post on his being informed by a medical association that Americans have already lost 350,000 deaths to such results of COVID hysteria as postponing needed medical procedures, including diabetics made too afraid of leaving their home to get their insulin, needles and test strips. Additionally there are deaths due to depression & fear, such as heart attacks, strokes, suicide & re-addiction of newly sober alcohol and drug using individuals. (The Mises Institute speaker whose video is now posted in one of the replies also talks about this.)

    The “Frontline Doctors” who were forced to announce the encouraging results of their use of HCQ on the steps of the Capital Building rather than in front of Congress are proposing that Fauci, Brix and Trump’s various health panels & commissions start to implement the use of this remedy.  All we need to do is examine how in Japan, a nation of 126 mil people, they have had a bit over 1,000 deaths to understand that there are remedies. (Although Japan uses favipiravir.)

    • #11
  12. JosePluma Coolidge
    JosePluma
    @JosePluma

    Either you grant us our speech and religious liberty and we will use it to destroy you, or you will deny us our speech and religious liberty and become something you do not want to be.

    The problem with this is that we’ll also have the freedom to criticize and lampoon your religion, a liberty not available in any of the cesspits under the thrall of the Religion of Peace Submission. 

    • #12
  13. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Rodin: Anyone other than a progressive (or a scared spitless person) understands that the response to the epidemic is a risk management problem.

    I think that (a) you’re confusing the response to the problem with the problem, and (b) this confusion leads to still greater fallacies in what follows.

    • #13
  14. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    But in practice, it is the best way to assure that more people die — if not as a direct loss to the disease, then as an indirect loss due to the response to the disease.

    From our local paper:

    https://www.winchesterstar.com/winchester_star/local-overdoses-on-record-setting-pace/article_e493596b-0b6c-5f77-815a-b16dff013a7c.html

    • #14
  15. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Rodin: critiques of President Trump’s performance in the epidemic

    Trump should fire Fauci, Birx, and Redfield. He needs a new Covid19 task force with honest doctors, public health officials, economists, statisticians/modelers, and technologists. He is responsible for horrible leadership we suffer under.

    Yes. And Pence is a faux leader, as he was while governor. Good suit, great hair, no leadership.

    • #15
  16. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    OldPhil (View Comment):

    But in practice, it is the best way to assure that more people die — if not as a direct loss to the disease, then as an indirect loss due to the response to the disease.

    From our local paper:

    https://www.winchesterstar.com/winchester_star/local-overdoses-on-record-setting-pace/article_e493596b-0b6c-5f77-815a-b16dff013a7c.html

    These deaths are all on Fauci, Birx, and Redfield.

    • #16
  17. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    MarciN (View Comment):
    What is really bothering me is that the private sector has been managing the risks and liabilities brilliantly. That’s the only reason the American public has survived this ordeal.

    Maybe.  I think the private sector has done a better job than the government, but they too are overreacting, just not as badly.

    They’re scared of being sued after this is over.

    And any kudos they get over Covid, are more than made up by how woke they’ve been acting over the riots.  Chances are if an employee gets cancelled on social media, they’ll also get fired.

    No, the private sector has been a very mixed bag during this time.

    • #17
  18. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    EJHill (View Comment):

    Part of the problem, as defined by Sir Humphrey, is that politicians (and much of their constituency) mistake activity for accomplishment. Hence the need to continue to try to “do something” even when you’ve done all it is reasonable to do.

    And that leads, not to just moving the goal posts, but to mounting them on a race car and driving in circles as fast as you can.

    1:  Something must be done.

    2:  [This] is something.

    3.  Therefore, it must be done.

     

    • #18
  19. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    EJHill (View Comment):

    Part of the problem, as defined by Sir Humphrey, is that politicians (and much of their constituency) mistake activity for accomplishment. Hence the need to continue to try to “do something” even when you’ve done all it is reasonable to do.

    And that leads, not to just moving the goal posts, but to mounting them on a race car and driving in circles as fast as you can.

    1: Something must be done.

    2: [This] is something.

    3. Therefore, it must be done.

     

    Point Number Four: When it becomes obvious that the activity we substituted for an effective solution is not working now and never will, we are told we must continue, as a way to honor those who made the sacrifices before.

    Also, somewhere along the way, many people would oppose the solution, except once money is tossed into the equation, common sense goes away.

    We are told in California our “forest management” or ineffective techniques thereof are the reason for the massive wildfires. Half the people in my county used to discuss the real cause, that is, the noticeable fleets of planes in the sky whenever it appeared we might get a massive rainfall. But once money was offered to cut down brush and trees, people shut up about the real problem, as they suddenly were making 18 bucks an hour doing something. This  was much more money than they had been making at Carl Jr’s.

    It will be the same with our “New Normal.” Once it is apparent some semi-employed individual can become a contact tracer, they will put aside their skepticism over the “killer COVID” and join in with the government, Bill Gates and Dr Fauci, who they will be ridiculing right up to the moment when they will get their first paycheck.

    • #19
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.