KRISTI NOEM OR LARRY HOGAN: ON THE WHOLE I'D RATHER BE IN SOUTH DAKOTA -- COVID POLICE STATE VI

            This is a governor that the leftist media like -- at least as long as he follows the left's bidding on the coercive Coronavirus lockdown.  
                                       

Maryland's Covid-obsessed Governor Hogan:  Jabba without the charm       

     He is Larry Hogan, a porcine, left-leaning RINO Republican, with all the constitutional sensibilities of Jabba the Hut.  Nonetheless, he passes the only test the political and media left consider really important at this moment of history:   He has imposed, maintained, and expanded a crude, totalitarian lockdown on the liberty of his state’s citizens in the name of copycat Corona Conformity.

     (As this post is drafted, Gov. Hogan has announced a blueprint for gradually "re-opening" Maryland in three stages -- if, but only if, the rate of Covid hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care units both trend downward for at least 14 days.  Putting aside that Maryland's extremely harsh restrictions should not have been imposed in the first place, it very much remains to be seen whether, and to what extent, Hogan will actually authorize the "liberation"of Maryland from its Covid containment -- the proof will only be in the actual pudding.)

          This is a governor that the leftist media loathe.  
                                                 

      South Dakota's intrepid and sensible Governor Kristi Noem  


     She is Kristi Noem, a slim, lovely, intelligent female who would be the media's very model of a modern, independent, and assertive woman -- if she did not fail the above-noted Corona Conformity test (and if, of course, she were not a conservative Republican).  Not only has she refused to retain or extend the soul-crushing personal and commercial lockdowns that most other governors have slavishly imposed, but she simply declined to impose any lockdown on South Dakota in the first place.  

     Instead, she has placed her trust in the people of South Dakota to act responsibly in protecting themselves and each other against the Covid-19 contagion, rather than imposing the totalitarian stay-at-home orders imposed elsewhere.

     As Governor Noem explained in an interview with Laura Ingraham: "I believe in our freedoms and liberties. . . . What I've seen across the country is so many people give up their liberties for just a little bit of security, and they don't have to do that. . . .  If a leader will take too much power in a time of crisis, that is how we lose our country." 

     Completely crushing her critics' charges that her refusal to lock down her state is irresponsible and unsafe, Noem's South Dakota has actually resisted Covid-19 more successfully than all but three other states.  As of this writing, there have been only eleven total Covid-caused deaths in South Dakota; only Alaska and Wyoming have less.  And South Dakota has experienced lower per capita deaths from Covid-19 than all but three states (Alaska, Wyoming, and insular Hawaii).

     In comparison, Hogan's strict lockdown state of Maryland has experienced a reported 910 Covid-caused deaths, with a per capita rate of 150.5 such deaths per million population.  Compared to South Dakota's 11 total Covid deaths at a rate of only 11.3 per million population!  Even taking into account Maryland's obviously greater population density and proximity to other Covid-19 centers, the enormity of South Dakota's superior resistance to the Covid contagion gives the lie to the left's spurious attacks on Governor Noem's sound and sensible policy.

     To paraphrase comedian W.C. Fields' notorious putdown of Philadelphia in the Covid context, "On the whole, I'd rather be in South Dakota."  

     Not only has Governor Noem's steady leadership protected her citizens' constitutional freedoms, it has done so even while establishing an astonishingly effective record of avoiding the Covid ravages experienced by lockdown states like Maryland, Michigan, New York, and New Jersey.

                                                             * * *

            The presidential election campaign has already gone too far for either party to change horses at this stage.  The democrats are stuck with the dementia-addled Joseph Biden, and the Republicans are irrevocably committed to the re-election of Donald Trump.  

            Like Obiwan Kenobi, Trump is presently “our only hope” to defeat the utterly disastrous prospect of prolonged totalitarian democrat rule in this country.  If a Democrat wins in 2020, along with a Democrat congress, there can be no doubt that they will so distort and corrupt the nation’s election process to make a Republican return to power flatly impossible in the foreseeable future.  Under these dire circumstances, Republicans have no feasible alternative to strongly, even ferociously, supporting Mr Trump's re-election.

            

             Were it not for the clear impracticability of a viable Republican alternative, however, events of the past week would give even longstanding, die-hard Trump supporters a degree of cause for concern.

            

            Trump’s continued commitment to the oppressive Covid policies and pronouncements of Dr. Fauci and Scarf-Lady Birx have been deeply concerning to Covid Lockdown skeptics like me.  Nonetheless, political and practical realities force one to concede that the President has little room to maneouver away from those tunnel-visioned Corona conformists. Removing or severely censuring either of them would surely result in another harsh media and political firestorm that the President simply does not need right now.

            

             Far less excusable, however, was Trump’s recent gratuitous condemnation of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s admirable decision to re-open Georgia to some degree of commercial and social freedom from oppressive Covid-19 constraints.  Trump, after all, had effectively encouraged actions like Governor Kemp's with a series of tweets urging the "liberation" of various states chafing under the constraints of Covid-19 lockdowns.

           As the cynical French diplomat Talleyrand would have put it, Trump’s attack on Kemp was "worse than a crime; it was a blunder."  It gained him absolutely no credit with his implacable democrat and media opponents; indeed, odious vice-presidential aspirant Stacey Abrams immediately bellowed that Trump deserved "zero credit" for his rebuke of Governor Kemp (who, incidentally, defeated Abrams in the Ga. governor's race).  Meanwhile,Trump's repudiation of Kemp's entirely reasonable action  has infuriated, or at least severely disappointed, many of his strongest supporters.    

            Were it not for the obvious impracticability of opening up the GOP presidential selection process at this late stage -- let alone doing so when there is an incumbent Republican President with a seemingly unshakeable base -- at least some disappointed Trump loyalists might start contemplating the heretofore unthinkable:  An appealing, attractive political alternative to Mr. Trump.  And the conservative Republican leader who most readily fills that bill right now is none other than Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota.

     Addendum:  Further corroborating the wisdom and popularity of Governor Kristi Noem's freedom-respecting management of the Covid-19 crisis, the article and video at the link show the people of South Dakota expressing their support and affection for their attractive governor in a tribute caravan at the capital.  The nation sorely needs more sensible and constitutionally sensitive leaders like Gov. Noem in this troublesome time.

     Addendum 2:  The following excerpt from a Powerline article of May 7 ("Coronavirus in Five States") confirms the great effectiveness of Governor Kristi Noem's measured and constitutionally sensitive handling of the Covid-19 crisis; she managed to maintain South Dakota's lowest-in-the-nation unemployment rate, even while keeping Covid cases and deaths to a minimum:

          "So, as Isaac pointed out, Governor Tim Walz has achieved the exacta of misery: Minnesota has both the highest unemployment rate and the highest COVID death rate in its region. South Dakota, on the other hand, has both the lowest unemployment and the lowest death rate. Minnesota’s per capita COVID death rate is 2 1/2 times that of South Dakota. An observer afflicted with common sense might infer that shutdown orders are a poor idea, and compliment Governor Noem on her successful policy. Rest assured, though, that no member of the national or local press corps will succumb to such logical thinking, even for a moment."  [emphasis added]

RIGHTEOUS RALLY IN RICHMOND -- COVID POLICE STATE V

     SR joined a large caravan of spirited, freedom-loving Virginians today to protest the unconstitutional COVID-19 lockdown orders imposed by the Commonwealth's utterly undistinguished gerbil of a governor (Northam by name) in a "drive-around" rally at the Capitol Square in Richmond.  As Jumping Jack Flash might say, it was a "gas, gas, gas."

     The mainstream media (i.e., the propaganda arm of the democrat party) will downplay the size and intensity of this energetic rally, but the excellent photos of the event captured by the Richmond Times Dispatch (at the link) provide colorful graphic evidence of the rally's extent and quality.  Since this was mostly a "drive-around" rally, predominantly confined to people in their cars, only an overhead helicopter photo would capture its full extent.  But SR can personally attest it was enough to tie downtown Richmond into knots, and the sound of rebellious horn-honking reverberated throughout the Capitol Square.  

                                                  

Legions of motorized protesters descend on Richmond to Reject COVID tyranny
                                                     Alexa Welch Edlund, Richmond Times Dispatch
       
     In short, the rally reflected a powerful surge of resistance to the disproportionate Covid-containment restrictions imposed on the people of Virginia by its feckless governor.

     It should be stressed here that it is the draconian scope of the state lockdown orders themselves that relegate Covid Coercion protesters to their cars, rather than assembling on foot in parks, malls, or capitol grounds.  

     Parking lots are largely closed (also by decree), so that it is almost impossible for large numbers of out-of-town protesters to leave their cars to walk to a central protest site.  Even if they did, they would then be subject to arrest for violating the 6-foot-separation social distancing rules, which Northam has purported to establish as a legal requirement by fiat.  Not to mention the fact that asserting First Amendment rights is not considered an "essential activity" that is exempted from the governor's obscene "stay at home" (or, worse, "shelter-in-place") rules.

     A more fiendish scheme for suppressing the First Amendment right of assembly to petition for redress of grievances would be difficult to imagine.  But here we are.

     Notwithstanding the feisty and enthusiastic protests in Richmond today, and elsewhere, the grim reality seems to be that the majority of Americans -- at least Americans who do not reside in our great Heartland, such as in South Dakota -- remain sheepishly submissive to the grotesquely coercive diktats imposed by thuggish governors in the majority of states.  Various polls indicate that only a small minority of principled Americans believe that the coercive, unconstitutional restrictions imposed in most states have gone too far.  Even if one discounts the specific accuracy of such polls -- and SR certainly does -- the silent and uncomplaining submission to these unprecedented impositions by apparently most Americans is utterly depressing and ominous.

                                                  

  Patrick Henry would not understand surrendering liberty to reduce a virus risk.


     A populace prepared to meekly and sheepishly accept (1) a ban on leaving their homes to visit friends, sweethearts, or even non-immediate family members; (2) a forced closure of all businesses save those deemed "essential" by feckless governors who lack all competence to make such a determination; (3) an arbitrary prohibition against going to the beach, swimming in a lake or ocean, or playing basketball, baseball, or any other sport; or (4) a ban on any gatherings of more than ten people, whether for a wedding, funeral, baptism, or graduation ceremony -- such a populace shamefully profanes the heritage of hard-earned liberty left to them by their historical betters.  

     Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, and Washington himself could only shake their heads in profound dismay at the readiness of so many of today's Americans to sell their birthright of freedom.  They have surrendered the precious constitutional liberties purchased with the risk and blood of patriots and warriors solely to reduce the risk that a novel virus will claim a moderately greater number of fatalities than are claimed annually by seasonal flu.

     Fortunately, more of these moribund Americans are awakening each day to the realization that the loss of liberty and livelihood demanded by the government in exchange for an uncertain reduction of an equally uncertain health risk is a very bad bargain.  In the weeks to come, we can hope that millions of aroused and angry citizens will join the vanguard of protesters who have surfaced in Richmond, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to demand the restoration of their constitutional and economic freedoms.

"When I Was Seventeen" It Was a Very Bad Year -- COVID Police State IV

                              When I was Seventeen
                                         It was a very good year
                                         It was a very good year for small town girls
                                         And soft summer nights
                                         We'd hide from the lights.

                                                           Ervin Drake, "It Was a Very Good Year"

     Frank Sinatra's soulful rendition of this timeless classic reminds anyone with a pulse of what it was like to experience the special moments of young romance "when we were seventeen."  Dates, sports events, parties, proms, and just socializing after school (or during school for that matter) were all part of those vibrant, exhilarating teenage years that can never be duplicated.  Once it's passed, you can never fully recapture it, "like time in a bottle."

     But sadly, 2020 has not been "a very good year" for today's 17-year-olds -- or for any of our young people for that matter.  Instead, it has been utterly awful.  And they will never get it back.

         17 was a "very good year" back then -- but not so much now                             
     Thanks, grown-ups.  Thanks, governors.  Creeps.

     Overnight, and by the arbitrary decree of insipid, soulless  governors who cannot see beyond a distorted corona virus projection chart, the Springtime of their young lives has been simply cancelled.

     Whether in high school or college, today's gals and guys have been summarily -- and irrevocably -- deprived of that special spring semester of the year, and all the irreplaceable experiences that come with it.

     Instead of throwing frisbees or holding hands on the quad, they are crouching in front of a computer screen, at home alone, trying gamely to stay awake as they absorb the tedium of sterile on-line education.  

     As for holding hands:  What only yesterday was a timeless rite of springtime romance is now a criminal misdemeanor under the "social distancing" rules imposed by the pretentious governors.  The mind boggles at what punishments these same governors would like to inflict upon those wayward youths with the audacity to engage in more adventurous sexual contact, like latter-day Woodstock Aquarians.  The rack comes to mind.

                                                  

            Social Distance Violators in the Orwellian Age of Covid-19

     Instead of dressing up to join their best gal or guy for the Senior or Junior Prom, today's youngsters are drowning in the insufferable boredom of day-to-day domestic confinement with their equally bored parents and siblings.  Even a small dancing party with friends is now verboten, on at least three counts.  It would violate (1) social-distancing rules; (2) the ban against any gatherings of over 10 people; and (3) the grimly Draconian stay-at-home rules against merely visiting friends.

     Courtship has been effectively declared illegal under the stay-at-home and social distancing rules.  These rules adamantly prohibit visiting anyone other than family or someone in need of special help or support.  That does not include a romantic partner, or even a fiance.  It was easier for Romeo to reach Juliet by fighting off the Capulets and climbing over her balcony than for a suitor of the Covid Age even to get near his sweetheart.

     Young love and romance have thus been relegated to the barren wasteland of "non-essential activities" that remain prohibited unless and until the governors decide that the risk of  COVID-19 has been nullified to their complete satisfaction.  Which could be next year, or beyond.  Until then, lads and lassies must keep their dismal distance and romance remains on a hard hold.

     If this sounds like some dystopian nightmare out of Orwell or Huxley, it should.  Because it is.

     The Covid-19 virus has not been demonstrated to inflict harms exceeding those of a bad seasonal flu by any orders of magnitude.  Although it appears likely to equal or modestly exceed the 61,000 U.S. deaths attributed to the 2017-18 seasonal flu, there was essentially no political, governmental, media, or societal reaction or mass response to that flu or its spread.  

     Yet the comparable Covid-19 has generated a degree of mass, lunatic hysteria and irrational overreaction that is utterly unprecedented in American history.  Not even the fleetingly crazed response to Orson Welles' radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" in 1938 approximates the insanely disproportionate societal and governmental reaction to the corona virus threat.

     As Jefferson Airplane foretold in the oddly prophetic White Rabbit,  we have reached the point "when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead."

     Should an entire generation of millions of young people be deprived of the most precious, irretrievable experiences of their lives so that clueless political poltroons can claim they went "all out" to minimize the risk (not the probability!) that aged, infirm retirees, already "playing with house money" (including yours truly, except for the "infirm" part) might contract Covid-19 and possibly succumb?

     The answer is plainly "No!"  Any reasonable elderly person with a grain of decency and proportion will recognize that an entire generation of youngsters should not be deprived of the best years of their lives so that the oldsters can stretch a few more months out of the worst of theirs.  After all, we are "playing with house money."  The kids aren't.
    

     

     

COVID POLICE STATE III: "THE SILENCE OF THE LAWYERS" AMID CONSTITUTIONAL COLLAPSE

     Throughout America, an undistinguished lot of Babbitt-like governors have exploited the COVID-19 panic to impose unprecedented police-state restrictions upon a largely docile and groveling populace (excluding you and I, dear rebellious reader).  

     Never has such enormous power been exercised over so many by such small and mediocre men and women.     

     The Draconian "rules" recently imposed by the feckless Governor Northam of Virginia -- who only months ago narrowly escaped ignominious removal from office for posing in creepy black-face photos -- are typical of these pullulating coercive atrocities.

     The edicts come under the obnoxious rubric of "stay-at-home" orders (hereafter "SAH's").  By mere executive fiat, Northam has decreed that Virginia citizens cannot leave their homes except to purchase food or supplies; go to those designated places of work that are still "allowed" to remain open; or to exercise in permitted areas (e.g., running or bike paths, but not, e.g., soccer fields or basketball courts).  The callow mediocrities who pass as governors in most of our states have done essentially the same.

     These SAH rules follow other decrees which, among other things, mandate "social distancing" and prohibit gatherings of more than ten (10) people.  They at least "permit" families of more than ten to remain together, for now.  Mormons must be uttering deep sighs of relief.

     Is it necessary for SR to explain that these imperious COVID-based decrees violate precious constitutional rights that our Founding Fathers risked all to establish, and which generations of brave servicemen have risked their lives to preserve?

                                                

  America's Lawyers:  Silent as Lambs in the face of constitutional collapse

     Most notably and clearly, the governors' orders violate the First Amendment guarantees of Free Exercise of Religion and Freedom of Peaceable Assembly; the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment protections against the deprivation of liberty or property without due process of law; and the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against the taking of private property without just compensation.

     These state and local edicts violate the Free Exercise Clause, for example, through their ban against gatherings of more than ten people, as well as by other provisions that effectively force churches to close.  For example, a simple Catholic mass on Sunday, with one priest, two altar boys, a few attendant nuns, and a tiny congregation of, say, six parishioners would plainly violate the Virginia order and those of many other states, counties, and cities.  These innocent religious congregants could be prosecuted and imprisoned for up to a year in prison, simply for attending a mass in compliance with Catholic doctrine and liturgy.

     There is no doubt that this result violates the Free Exercise Clause on its face.  The only question, discussed below, is whether the violation can be justified under the constitutional standards governing the fairly extensive (but not limitless) leeway given governments to take necessary measures to protect the public health.

     (Parenthetically, the fact that many or most religious authorities have slavishly endorsed these government restrictions as fully justified tells us more about the weakness of their own religious convictions than it does about the validity of the restrictions.  There was a time when religious ministers and adherents actually considered the observation of their religious tenets more important than merely minimizing the risk of catching a virus or flu.  Not so now.)

     There is also the prospect that these orders violate Due Process, as recently illustrated by a reported incident in Connecticut.  Under various SAH orders, people cannot go out to visit others unless the visitees are family members.  In the case of an elderly woman confined to her old age home, with no living relatives to visit her, this is the functional equivalent of state-imposed solitary confinement, without due process.  When it was pointed out that the applicable SAH order would prevent the woman's only close friend from visiting her, the governor apparently relented in the face of the friend's argument that the lady's due process rights had been violated by what amounted to de facto solitary confinement.

     The comprehensive closures of many thousands of businesses as "non-essential" also present serious due process and takings concerns.  Countless companies have been designated for arbitrary closure without the slightest demonstration of the underlying rationale, let alone a due process hearing.  Any third-rate official who happens to be a governor can now shut down your business by fiat, and deprive you of your living and the use of your property, without so much as a pretense of rational justification.  If this does not raise a genuine constitutional claim, warranting at least a judicial or administrative hearing, we are all in serious trouble.

     But Virginia's and other states' rules most explicitly and literally violate the First Amendment right of assembly, which forbids both the federal and state governments (the latter via the 14th Amendment's "incorporation" effect) from "abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for redress of grievances."

     There is, again, no question that a government edict broadly forbidding assemblies of more than ten people on its face violates the Assembly Clause.  As previously noted by SR, these edicts would have prohibited the gathering of the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia to declare independence.  The only question is whether the judicial precedents upholding broad government authority to impose quarantines and similar restrictions to protect the public health are sufficient to sustain the Draconian SAH edicts imposed by governors on the basis of the COVID-19 crisis.

     As with other First Amendment rights, restrictions on freedom of assembly can only be justified if they are "narrowly tailored" to further a "compelling government interest" (this principle is so well established by so many cases that citation is unnecessary).

     SR will stipulate arguendo that the compelling interest standard is satisfied here, although automatically conceding this point could create dangerous precedent.  While the need to combat the troubling expansion of COVID-19 cases and deaths seems obviously compelling -- at least in heavily infected states like New York, if not in low-impact states like Wyoming -- the same can be said with regard to the annual seasonal virus, such as the one that claimed about 61,000 lives in the 2017-18 season.  In other words, the fact that there will always be a contagious and dangerous flu or virus for the government to contain means that the government will always be able to invoke a compelling government interest, without more.

     But the really critical issue for the sweeping SAH edicts' constitutionality is whether they are narrowly tailored to further the object of containing and defeating the COVID contagion.  This is a difficult issue on which reasonable medical, policy, and legal minds can differ.

     To SR's thinking, a blanket ban on gatherings (indoors or outside) above ten people is overly broad; regardless, it hardly seems "narrowly tailored." For example, a gathering of 15 healthy high school youngsters to discuss and organize their concerns and opposition regarding the termination of their senior academic year and their last chance to participate in their chosen sports would be banned by the Virginia rules -- even if held in the open air, under social distancing guidelines.  Any public health danger posed by such an assembly would be minimal at worse, yet it would constitute a core exercise of First Amendment rights.

     Further, the constitutional vulnerability of the 10-person gathering limit and other oppressive SAH restrictions is even more evident in those states that have adopted them on the basis of the more severe problems in other states rather than their own experience.  States like Hawaii (3 deaths), Montana (6 deaths), and Idaho (9) have imposed totalitarian SAH's and gathering limits that can only be based on the panic caused by higher death totals in states like New York (2,935) rather than on the magnitude of COVID's impact in their own states.  

     The death tolls in the named states and others are miniscule in comparison to the routine annual death tolls resulting from the seasonal flu, yet neither those states nor any others found the latter to be a compelling interest justifying Draconian public health restrictions on constitutional rights.  The less the magnitude of the COVID-19 impact, the more narrowly the government restrictions should be tailored.  The mindless governors' reflexive adoption of  "one-size-fits-all" SAH edicts, regardless of extreme variations in the severity of the threat between states, seems patently incompatible with a contention that they are "narrowly tailored."

     It cannot be stressed too forcibly:  comparison of the virtually non-existent government response to the seasonal flu in, e.g., 2017-18 (61,00 deaths, averaging over 450/day) to the insanely excessive, economically suicidal over-reaction to COVID-19 (7,000 deaths so far, with Summer around the corner) strongly indicates that the state-ordered SAH's and other restrictions in response to COVID-19 are not narrowly tailored to respond to a public health threat that has not yet been shown to be decisively greater than seasonal flu.

     Despite the obvious constitutional concerns posed by the Draconian SAH's and similar decrees, America's legal establishment and so-called civil liberties bar have been conspicuously silent in the face of this unprecedented assault on liberty.  SR has diligently searched internet web sites for articles or reports reflecting the concerns and questions of the American Bar regarding the coercive COVID-19 regime, but has largely come up dry.  Only a few libertarian gadflys, like FOX News legal commentator Andrew Napolitano, appear to raise the constitutional concerns outlined above.

     The paucity of outrage or objection from the legal and civil liberties establishments tells us more about their utter hypocrisy and political corruption than it does about the constitutional concerns that are so obviously presented here.

     America's lawyers have had little difficulty in finding or inventing novel or "creative" constitutional arguments to protect the interests of nefarious criminals and terrorists, even when those arguments have no foundation in the constitutional text and little support in judicial precedent.  They fiercely defend the most malicious murders against the death penalty with "inventive" arguments that fly in the face of the Eighth Amendments' text and previously settled precedents.  They have fashioned radical arguments that fly in the face of constitutional and military history to defend the murderous terrorists of the September 11 attacks, with the result that some of the worst of them, like Kalid Sheikh Mohammed, have yet to even face trial for their epochal crimes (KSM's trial is now set for Jan. 11, 2021 -- 20 years after his terrorist crimes).

     Yet when it comes to the enforced confinement of at least two-thirds of America's population, without so much as predicate deliberations or findings, let alone a due process hearing, the American legal and civil rights establishments are nowhere to be found.  Perhaps if the confined populations were more heavily populated with suspected murderers or terrorists the American bar would engage the case.

     In the face of American history's most wide-ranging restriction of personal liberty by unfettered government fiat, the Silence of the Lawyers is deafening.  Histories tyrants, from Caligula to Henry VIII to Stalin, would be proud of them.





     

COVID POLICE STATE -- PART II

              SR's previous post outlined our initial resistance  to the patently disproportionate and unreasoned government response to the COVID virus.  With so many atrocities and misjudgments littering the landscape with economic and social disaster, it is impractical to encapsulate all objections and rebuttals to this governmental, political, and media malfeasance in a single blog-post.  Consequently, we will attempt to address this multiplicity of COVID issues seriatim, highlighting those items that seem most critical as we descend into what we hope is a temporary totalitarian nightmare.

                                                       

           The Heroes of World War II Weren't into Social Distancing

                Dr. Fauci's Concession that COVID is like Seasonal Flu.  COVID skeptics like SR have heretofore regarded the President's COVID adviser and resident expert Dr. Anthony Fauci as rather alarmist and pessimistic, at least in comparison to the President's sound emphasis that "the cure may be worse than the disease."  Now, however, Dr. Fauci has apparently joined those of us who have stressed that the coronavirus is similar in severity to the seasonal flu.  In an article published in the respected New England Journal of Medicine on March 26, Dr. Fauci and two reputable co-authors state as follows (emphasis added): 

                    "[T]he currently reported case fatality rate [for COVID-19] is approximately 2%.  In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of symptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively."

Fauci et al, New England Journal of Medicine, March 26, 2020.

                This strengthens the view that the most extreme government measures employed against COVID-19 are based upon hysteria rather than reason.  Since the seasonal flu has never generated anything resembling the coercive measures presently employed against COVID-19, the government's wildly extreme reaction to the latter appears to be patently disproportionate.

                ZERO COVID deaths in Japan on March 26, 2020 (despite rejecting extreme measures).  Japan was originally identified as a prime candidate for very severe COVID-19 impact, owing in part to the arrival of large numbers of infected passengers from the heavily infected cruise ship, Diamond Princess.  Notwithstanding this concern, Japan has not heretofore resorted to the type of extreme coercive restraints on freedom that have been followed in the U.S. and elsewhere (Japan did close its schools, but is preparing to re-open them now).  Despite its more temperate approach to quarantine and social distancing mandates, Japan has experienced only a modest number of COVID cases and, in several recent days, apparently zero deaths.  According to the most recently posted data, Japan has experienced 1,693 total COVID cases, and 52 total deaths (compared to, e.g., about 17,000 cases and 1028 deaths in the smaller-populated UK).  Japan has managed this relatively successful containment even though it is among the most densely populated nations in the world, and population density is a primary factor for COVID contagion and mortality.  Japan's experience indicates that the harsh police state measures adapted in many U.S. states and cities are not necessary for a reasonable COVID containment policy.

                Cuomo and the Fraudulent Death Card.  The COVID-Control extremists flatly reject the application of cost-benefit analysis to the coercive, totalitarian measures they impose (like closing schools and businesses and imposing obscene "shelter in place" dictates) to purportedly control the spread of the coronavirus.  They are fully prepared to ruin the nation's economy and quality of life if the ruination will prevent the death of a single 80-year-old dotard from COVID-19 (even though he is apt to die from something else next year).  Lest any reader consider this insensitive, SR is himself 75-years old, and fully prepared to waive any claim to the government's solicitous "protection." 

                New York's obnoxious hereditary governor, Andrew Cuomo, expressed that irrational viewpoint as follows in his brainless dismissal of any economic objections to oppressive COVID coercion (from Reason, March 24, 2020):

                "We're not going to put a dollar figure on human life," said Cuomo (D), who last Friday announced that "we're all in quarantine now" while ordering all "nonessential" businesses to close. The goal, he explained, is to "save lives, period, whatever it costs."  In other words, Cuomo declares that cost/benefit analysis is inapplicable to the adoption of any policy that purports to minimize loss of life.

                Continuing his maudlin, melodramatic demagogy, Cuomo intoned:  "My mother is not expendable, and your mother is not expendable, and our brothers and sisters are not expendable," Cuomo said when asked about "conservatives" who have noted the heavy burdens imposed by sweeping restrictions on movement, business operations, and work. "And we're not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable." 

                With rhetorical violins droning in the background, Cuomo portrayed rational cost considerations in the following melodramatic vein:  "We'll just sacrifice old people; they're old people anyway. And the old get left behind….We're going to move on, and if you can't keep up, well, you just fall by the wayside of life." He described the consideration of the economic and social costs of extreme COVID containment measures  as "some modern, Darwinian theory of natural selection." 

                Cuomo is, plainly put, a mawkish, melodramatic jackass.  We are lucky he was nowhere near the controls when Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower made the decisions which won World War II, but at the known cost of untold legions of lives.  Cuomo would have cancelled D-Day, in order to "save lives, period, whatever it costs."

                As one of the "old people" who Cuomo purported to protect, my response to him is:  "Shove it, you irrational jackass, and speak for yourself.  Elderly people with any brains and any guts do not expect the younger generation to forfeit their claim to economic, social, educational, and recreational opportunities merely to reduce our risk of catching, and possibly succumbing to, the COVID virus." 

              There are many times when some unspecified loss of life, or more accurately the risk of such, is an inescapable cost of achieving the greater good, and this is one of them.  In the long run, millions of lives will be ruined and even lost due to the obvious adverse consequences of COVID coercion and quarantine.  Further, millions of youngsters have now forfeited the most momentous experiences of their young lives due to the shortsighted stupidity of their elders in cancelling the concluding months of an academic year – high school or college.

                The shutdown of businesses, commerce, travel, athletics, and ordinary economic activity in the name of COVID Containment has already reduced to ruin an economy that was booming on all fronts and obliterated the investments of millions of ordinary Americans.  Equally, the shutting of schools and the attendant confinement of millions of healthy, energetic youngsters to their homes is a social, recreational, educational, and morale disaster of immeasurable dimensions. 

                Already, literally millions of American youngsters have been deprived of that once in a lifetime opportunity to compete as a senior in the basketball, lacrosse, track, swimming, or baseball championships or playoffs for which they have spent years in preparation. They will never recover this golden opportunity of their youth.  And all because of the government's, the media's, and the politicians' hysterical overreaction to a so-called virus epidemic that, with each day, resembles ever more closely the seasonal flu that is noticed by no one but the vaccination makers.

                The Media and the Left Root for the Virus and Resist a Cure.  The media and political left's furious resistance to the prospect of a readily available cure for COVID-19 removes any doubt that they view this crisis as their supreme opportunity to defeat President Trump and seize power in a leftist coup.

                The President has properly called attention to the prospect that chloroquine, or hydroxychloroquine, may prove an effective cure to COVID-19.  Since the President's duly qualified statements,  physicians and scientists in China, Norway, Australia, France, Italy and elsewhere have confirmed tests and treatments demonstrating the efficacy of chloroquine (especially in combination with the well-known anti-cold Z-pac).  

                 With each day, the evidence that chloroquine is a good cure for COVID-19 becomes more persuasive.  And the media and political left's adamant and steadfast rejection of this stunningly positive development conclusively confirms what SR and others have recognized all along – the political left, the democrats, and their media allies resolutely reject the prospect that the COVID crisis will be reduced, contained, or resolved  before the presidential election in November.

                The media and political left are actively rooting against the success of the chloroquine cure because they want the COVID crisis to persist, undermine the economy, and assure the defeat of President Trump next November.  On this issue in particular, they have conclusively proven themselves to be the enemies of the people.

AMERICA'S DYSTOPIAN COVID POLICE STATE: PART I

               SR has heretofore refrained from posting on the ubiquitous coronavirus or COVID-19 (hereafter CV19) crisis, and the utterly unprecedented police state excesses imposed in its name.  Our reticence was not rooted in lack of interest or ideas on the subject, but rather on the reverse:  The moment one appalling idiocy of the CV19 gestapo drove us to the keyboard in furious outrage, it would immediately be superseded by a still more incredible totalitarian atrocity that rendered the previous topic of subordinate urgency. 

                So much COVID Lunacy, and so little time.

 Assembly for Declaration of Independence:  Illegal Gathering under COVID Rules

                For example, yesterday's news was that the crass and clueless Governor of Virginia had extended the temporary closure of the State's public schools to at least a complete closure for the entire academic year.  He imposed this ruthless totalitarian dictat even though there was not the least justification for such a premature announcement at this time, other than to engage in the crude one-upsmanship of COVID extremism that the nation's governors are currently playing. 

                The reported 14 CV19-caused deaths in Virginia barely approaches the annual toll of the ordinary seasonal flu (or one month's murders in Baltimore), yet the notion of closing the schools based on the seasonal flu would surely have been met with unanimous and well-deserved popular derision.  Yet relegating Virginia's youngsters to long months of educational, recreational, athletic, and social deprivation in order to reduce the potential CVD risks for aged retirees (like me) – who are already "playing with house money" anyway --  is accepted by today's feckless sheeple without a murmur of dissent.  

               The concept of cost-benefit analysis  is apparently beyond the ken of today's nanny-state tyrants, let alone their cowering constituents.  The crude COVID-based closure of the schools now sets the precedent for similar draconian measures in the future, justified by similar threats, like the recurring seasonal flu itself.  When it is pointed out next year that the seasonal flu is apt to cause illness and deaths comparable to this years corona virus, how will the government justify avoiding the kind of extreme measures it has adopted against COVID-19?

                But today we learned of a bizarre new expansion of the COVID Police State that not even George Orwell, in his wildest and darkest imaginings, would have contemplated.  The Mayor of Chicago (one Lori Lightfoot) -- who lacks the cognitive powers to manage a neighborhood garage sale let alone the welfare of the nation's third largest city -- has darkly declared that lengthy walks, runs, or bike rides are now criminal acts under the COVID Regime, and perpetrators are subject to citations, fines, and even arrest by the Stassi that once passed for the Chicago Police.  Since this dangerous mayor's crude declarations do not require embellishment to portray their grotesque excess, let them speak for themselves (foxnews.com, March 26, 2020; emphasis added):

                “Be smart,” Lightfoot said Wednesday, according to  CBS Chicago. “Not only will our police be deployed to shut them down if you are not abiding by these orders, we will be forced to shut down the parks and lakefront.”

                Lightfoot went on to announce that spending long periods of time outside or in playgrounds is not allowed.

                “You cannot go on long bike rides. Playgrounds are shut down,” she said. “You must abide by the order. Outside is for a brief respite, not for 5Ks.”

                She added: “I can’t emphasize enough that we abide [by] the rules.”

                "This is an order that’s enforceable by law," she reportedly said. "We’re going to give you an admonition. And if you don’t turn right away and head home then you’re going to get a citation.   And if worse, yeah, we will take you into custody."

                She added: "I hope that it doesn’t come to that, I hope that I don’t have to shut down the lake front, shut down all the parks, but I will."

  

                If this police state madness does not drive the reader to furious resistance to the COVID madness, it is hard to imagine what will.  A crude, uncultured, power-mad mayor of a dysfunctional American city dictates to American citizens that they may not take a hike, run, or bike ride unless they restrict it to an approved brevity that is not specified – in short, the police have full leeway to arrest any walker, runner, or cyclist at their unfettered discretion.  

                Welcome to the totalitarian dystopia of COVID America.  Where venturing outside your home is limited to the "brief respite" allowed by the government.

                And the same civil libertarians who howl in outrage at the slightest government interference with the violent protests of Antifa anarchists are now grotesquely silent in the face of the most comprehensive police state restraints on the rights of ordinary citizens since the founding of the Republic.

                Merely for starters, the widely adopted and spreading state COVID-based prohibitions of gatherings in excess of ten people blatantly and indisputably violate the Constitution's prohibition of any infringement of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  U.S. Const., Amend I.  

                In COVID America, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and the rest could not legally have gathered in Philadelphia to declare independence.

                This is the opening salvo in Splashing Rocks' protest against the extreme Police State measures that have been adopted by federal, state, and local governments in grotesque overreaction to the COVID-19 virus -- a passing disease that is little more than a variant of the seasonal flu in terms of its threat to the public health.  In order to "get the ball rolling," SR will end this post here, but will enumerate in subsequent posts the totalitarian atrocities and stupidities that have been imposed – and, worse yet, docilely accepted by a cowed and emasculated citizenry.

ROGER MARIS, 1961, AND THE GAPING HOLE IN THE HALL OF FAME

           The summer of 1961 was arguably the most riveting and exciting season in baseball history.

            That was the year when the incomparable New York Yankee outfield duo of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris staged a season-long duel in pursuit of baseball's most illustrious and sacrosanct record:  Babe Ruth's legendary 60 home run standard, set in 1927.

            I well remember rushing to the newsstand each morning that summer to get the daily paper and check the sports page to see whether Maris, Mantle, or both had homered the day before.  Needless to say, there were no sports websites in 1961, and during the summers back then active teenage boys like me (I was 16 at the time) had little time or inclination to find what little TV sports news there might have been.  So I bought more newspapers that summer than I ever did in my life – just to keep track of Mantle and Maris.  Millions of American youngsters (and adults) did likewise.  It was a special and unique season.

            As the season progressed, and the two Yankee superstars drew nearer and nearer to Ruth's record, reports of their home run progress even moved from the sports page to the front page in some papers.  As they say about the Masters golf tournament today, it was "a season like no other."  Even inveterate Yankee-haters followed the daily heroics of the M&M Boys as they pursued the Immortal Babe.

                                                                 

                     Maris and Mantle:  The Home Run Heroes of 1961

            But there was also something of a dark element to the Great Race for Ruth's record.  For unfathomable reasons, much of the sports media, and many fans as well, somehow resented Roger Maris's role in this heroic home run derby.  He was a relative newcomer to the Yankees (he had only joined them from Kansas City A's in 1960) and was viewed by many Yank fans as something of an interloper.  Mickey Mantle, on the other hand, was already a well-established and well-beloved pin-stripe icon, with an appealing, "aw shucks" personality.  Mantle was the decided favorite of most fans and reporters to break Ruth's record – if anyone did, that is.

            Maris, on the other hand, was a painfully shy and quiet North Dakotan who went about his baseball business with dedication and determination, but little charm or charisma.  In today's media environment, he would be the star who somehow never gets the endorsements.  He had won the American League MVP award just the year before (he won it again in 1961), but that somehow seemed to be quickly forgotten.  If any star ever needed a shrewd PR agent, it was Roger Maris.  But he was not the type to care about such frivolity. 

            In 1961, the MLB season had been expanded from 154 games (as it had been in Ruth's era) to 162.  Consequently, baseball traditionalists and other crank sportswriters objected that if Ruth's record were not broken before the 155^th game of the season, it would be somehow illegitimate.  Indeed, many traditionalists resented both Mantle's and Maris's challenge to Ruth's record no matter how it was done.  

            Of course, the advantage of the slightly longer season was probably offset by the more daunting challenge of modern pitching, especially the factor of facing well-rested relievers, rather than arm-tired starters, in the late innings of a game.  Another challenge to the modern sluggers was the added visual difficulty of hitting in night games.  But taking everything into account, it is fair to say that neither Ruth's era nor Maris and Mantle's enjoyed a decided advantage.  In short, the challenge to Ruth's great record in 1961 was a fair one (unlike the later steroid-enhanced home-run records of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds).

            As the season drew to a close, Maris gradually drew away from Mantle in the home run race.  Mantle's pursuit of the record had been handicapped by a late season hip infection, leaving Maris effectively in sole pursuit of the Babe (Mantle ended up with a still remarkable 54 homers). 

            As Maris came closer and closer to the record with each pressure-packed homer – 55, then 56, then 57, and so on -- the relentless daily focus on his progress expanded from sports reporters to the general media.  Reporters continually surrounded him, demanding interviews.  The daily stress became so intense that Maris reportedly started to shed hair in clumps – which the closely crewcut North Dakotan could ill afford.

            Notwithstanding the pressure, Maris continued to pile up the homers and the RBI's (he led the American League in both categories that year) and led the Yankees to another AL Championship and subsequent World Series victory.  Even aside from this home run record, it was an extraordinary season by any standard.

                                                          

           Even the President shared in the season's excitement:  Maris signing a baseball for JFK at the White House.

            On the last day of the season, October 1, 1961, under unimaginable pressure and hostile scrutiny, Maris cracked his 61^st homer of the season -- a trademark rocket to the right field stands against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.  He had broken baseball's most illustrious and revered record – and many embittered die-hard reporters and myopic bystanders would never forgive him for his fabulous achievement. 

            But millions of kids like me (and grown up kids as well) broke out into euphoric cheers as we listened to the announcer's call of No. 61 on our scratchy radios.  Against all odds and opposition, Roger Maris had broken baseball's most illustrious record.  It was a truly iconic moment in American sports history, as captured on the front page of the New York Mirror's Souvenir "Home-Run Edition" (reproduced below).

                                                   

                             How many Hall-of-Famers made a moment like this?

            Despite the media naysayers, Maris was duly recognized in 1961 not only for his immortal record but for an extraordinary overall season by any standard.  He was awarded his second consecutive American League MVP award and, beyond that, he was honored with the Hickock Belt as the top professional athlete of the year.  For that one great season, no one towered over the American sports scene like Roger Maris.

            The remainder of Maris's relatively short career was somewhat anti-climactic, at least for the great slugger who had broken baseball's greatest record.  Nonetheless, he earned World Series rings with the Yankees in 1961 and 1962, and again with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1967.  His star performance for the Cards in their '67 Series victory (where he hit .385 and had 7 RBI's) is rarely remembered, mainly because it was so starkly overshadowed by his exploits as a Yankee Slugger.  

            Despite what could fairly be considered the greatest single-season exploit in baseball history – achieved without the aid of artificial stimulants and in the face of relentless media hostility – Roger Maris remains excluded from MLB's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  This is a gross travesty, and should be rectified by the HOF's Era Committee by proposing Maris's well-deserved, if belated, admission.

           

            The only plausible justification for Roger Maris's continued exclusion from the HOF is the relative brevity of his career and, particularly, his career as a top-flight star.  But that lame objection is forcefully overwhelmed not only by the singular and historical nature of his remarkable 1961 season, but also by the extremely great overall achievements of his peak years:  Two MVP awards; three World Series Championship Rings; seven times selected for the All-Star game; two-time AL RBI leader; and Gold Glove award for 1960.  Roger Maris, simply speaking, was a great all-around player – and a winner to boot.  

            Moreover, the singularity of Roger Maris's home run record in 1961 is that it still stands today as the American League home run record.  Think of that.  Babe Ruth's immortal record had stood for an impressive 34 years when Maris broke it; yet Maris's AL record still stands today, after 59 years!

            Career longevity and career statistical landmarks (like 400 homers, 2,500 hits, or a lifetime .300 batting average) are surely legitimate criteria for the Hall of Fame, but they are not the sine qua non.  An iconic, illustrious feat such as Maris's home run record, coupled with the genuine greatness of his peak seasons and his Three-Ring record as an indisputable winner, more than offset the fact that this great player's career was only about 11 years long.

            The continued exclusion of Roger Maris from the Hall of Fame is an inexcusable embarrassment to that otherwise admirable institution.  It is based on myopic, unreasonable, and biased mindsets that have long since outlived any justification.  The saturnine North Dakotan, who generated what was probably the most riveting and fascinating season in baseball history, should be admitted to Cooperstown at the next opportunity.