We Need Less Virtue Signaling

From Clarice Feldman;

There is no collective guilt or collective innocence.  All Americans of every race are privileged by a system designed to procure and secure equal rights for all. It is a system based on a refutation of collective guilt or innocence. We are individuals united only when we acknowledge that each of us is responsible for our own conduct. Period. Whites and blacks. We all matter and are all entitled to the great privilege of liberty.

Read the whole thing.

Alexander Hamilton’s Instructions

This is from Alexander Hamilton’s instructions to the captains of the Revenue Cutter Service which is the predecessor of the US Coast Guard. I think this is timeless advice.

”They will always keep in mind that their countrymen are freemen, and, as such, are impatient of everything that bears the least mark of a domineering spirit. They will, therefore, refrain, with the most guarded circumspection, from whatever has the semblance of haughtiness, rudeness, or insult.”

Bananas

Irish Democracy

I've seen a lot of discussion about the perspective of this photo. Regardless of angle or telephoto or distance; there were a lot of people out on the beach Saturday. In Virginia the Governor said we were only allowed to be on the beach to fish or get exercise. No swimming, no sitting, no sunbathing, no surfing. I think that's the takeaway from the picture. These people looked at the situation and told Richmond to "pack sand".  We will be responsible for ourselves.

It will be interesting to see what Northam's reaction will be during his press conference today. Does he chastise people like he did earlier last month or does he not acknowledge that it happened? Stay tuned.

Letter to the Virginia Press

I have been very impressed with the Coronavirus in One State series written by Powerline’s Scott Johnson. It has made me search for the same diligence in the Virginia press. Unfortunately, I haven’t found it. I finally ended up writing two of the reporters at The Daily Press/Virginian Pilot (they are both owned by the same company) asking them about it. Here’s what I wrote;

Dear [Reporters],

I am writing you since you are listed on the byline for the last two reports in The Daily Press covering reported COVID19 deaths in the Commonwealth. I am concerned with a lack of granularity in the information that’s being reported. We have the number of deaths. Twelve reported today and 15 yesterday. What I haven’t seen reported is the demographics of who is dying. We don’t know if those who have died are terminally ill patients or 20-year-olds struck down in their prime. Below is an excerpt from a report today by Scott Johnson of Powerline. He’s been covering the response in Minnesota.

“[Minnesota] reported 20 new deaths that they attributed to the virus, bringing the total to 578. Sixteen of the 20 new deaths occurred among residents of long-term care facilities [LTC], bringing the total of LTC deaths attributed to the virus to 464 and keeping the share of all such deaths at slightly in excess of 80 percent. The median age of all decedents remains 83.

“The state authorities do not regularly update us on the share of deaths attributable to residents of long-term facilities and those with significant underlying conditions. When asked recently, Infectious Diseases Division Director Kris Ehresmann provided the answer to two decimal places: 99.24 percent…” https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/coronavirus-in-one-state-36.php

This is the level of detail that I wish we had in Virginia.

1. How many of the new deaths occurred in LTC facilities? 
2. The median age of those who have died.
3. Deaths attributable to LTC residents and those with significant underlying conditions.

I went on the Virginia Department of Health website today and tried to get those three numbers. The best that I can do is find the number of deaths associated with outbreaks in LTC. I have to assume that all the LTC deaths occurred in an outbreak. If so, then 57% of all deaths occurred in LTC (503 out of 880). I cannot determine median age. The VDH only breaks the ages down by decades. Using that information, it comes out to 75% of all deaths occurred in those 70 and older.

The third statistic is not available at all. Last week, I emailed the VDH and asked about it. Lauren Yerkes told me that they do not have information on underlying conditions. Why don’t they have that information? I feel that it is vital for that to be reported. 

We are currently experiencing an economic shutdown mandated by Richmond. We are under a stay at home order until early June. We need to know the full picture of whom this virus is the greatest threat. We need to hear Richmond justify exactly why this is necessary. We need more than just vague apocalyptic predictions used to scare us into complying. We need the press to ask the uncomfortable questions to our elected leaders who are imposing these restrictions.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Letter to My State Senator

 I decided to write a letter to my state senator and delegate.  I mailed it yesterday so obviously, no reply has been received.  If I do get a reply, I'll be sure to post it.

Dear Senator,

I am writing to you about my concerns on the emergency powers given to the Governor of Virginia as spelled out in §44-146.7 of the Code of Virginia.  While I recognize the need for emergency powers, I feel that there needs to be a check on them.  Some would argue that the courts are that check.  Historically, they have been loath to intervene during an emergency.  That may be a pragmatic attitude when the stated emergency is of a short duration and limited to a small geographic area. That is not the case now.  We have an unprecedented emergency order that all but shuts down the economic activity across the Commonwealth. 

I have read the code section cited by the Governor.  My intention was to try and find the limiting principles in the law.  I did not see any.  I was shocked to see that there is no time limit set for an emergency declaration.  I was also dismayed to see that the General Assembly has no role.  This is a terrible combination: 

1. A law that gives the governor broadly defined powers with no time limit. 
2. A legislature cut out of the process beyond simply being notified. 
3. A judiciary that can only act when petitioned by a legal filing.

It is clear that the General Assembly will need to confront the unprecedented exercise and growth of executive authority as defined in the Emergency Services and Disaster Law.  I respectfully would like to submit to you that a time limit be placed on all emergency declarations.  If the Governor wishes to extend the order, he must take it to the General Assembly for approval by a super-majority.  A super-majority may seem like a high bar but if the emergency is such that an extension is crucial, then it is a reasonable standard.  It would also give a higher chance of being a bipartisan agreement.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.   This is a crucial debate about future emergency responses, civil liberties, the general power of government, and checks on that power.  I would like to hear your thoughts on this issue.

UPDATE: I did receive a reply.

Real Life

I have noticed in the past several weeks the surprise by some at what it takes to run our day-to-day lives. The stunning obliviousness as to how the things that we depend on are made and transported to us. “We must shut down the interstate rest areas,” some central planner exclaimed. Only to be shocked by the fact that truck drivers have to use the bathroom. I’m sure that planner, if he had ever been to a rest area, looked at the semis parked there with a type of resignation that he must mingle with the hoi polloi in a sub-standard bathroom since there wasn’t an exit nearby. It never occurring to him that every item he packed for his trip had originally traveled in a semi to get to him.
This same blindness infects the discussion of what is an essential business. “We must have protein,” the planners decide. The packing plants need to remain open. But just like they have no idea of what it takes to create a pencil, they have no idea of what’s essential beyond the slaughterhouse itself. The packing plant is essential, it must be cleaned. Are the companies that sell the water hoses, mops, rags, etc. essential as well?
I’d like to think that this is a relatively new phenomenon but as King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun”. Who can argue with the wisdom of Solomon? The Polish author Stanislaw Lem saw it as well. I just finished reading Hospital of the Transfiguration. It was written by Lem in the 1940’s and is set in 1943 Poland. I’d like to share the following passage with you. This is the set up; Stefan is a young doctor who was out for a walk when a bad storm rolled in. He was offered shelter at an electrical substation by the manager, Woch. While there, he watched Woch and his team expertly manage a crisis in the grid caused by the storm.

Of all the people who used to come to [Stefan’s] father’s workshop when he was a child, it was the workers who interested him most-the machinists, locksmiths, and electricians who made various parts to order. He had been intimidated by them-they were so different from everyone he knew. They were always patient, listening to his father with silent attention, looking at the blueprints carefully, almost respectfully. But beneath the cautious politeness lay something closed and hard.
Stefan noticed that although his father liked to go on and on at the dinner table about people he had met, he never mentioned the workers as if they, in contrast to the lawyers, engineers, and merchants, had no personality. Stefan had the illusion then that their life -“real life,” as he called it-was shrouded in mystery. For some time he racked his brains over the puzzle of that “real life,” before finally concluding that the idea was foolish.
Now, lying awake in the darkness, the memory surfaced. There had been some sense in that boyish dreaming after all: there was a real life for people like Woch!
Where Uncle Ksawery propounded atheism, … his father invented, and Stefan read philosophy and talked … for months on end to recognize “real life”-that life was out there maintaining their world, shouldering it like Atlas, as inconspicuous as the ground beneath their feet. But no, he was mythologizing, because something like a mutual exchange of services went on: Anzelm knew about architecture, … he and Ksawery treated the sick. Stefan suddenly realized that nothing would really change if all of them disappeared. Whereas without Woch and others like him, the world could not go on.
He rolled over, and some obscure impulse made him turn on the nightstand lamp. It was nothing, of course, but the light struck him as a symbol, a sign that Woch was on the job. The yellow light filling the impersonal room was somehow soothing; it ensured freedom for all tasks and thought. As long as it shined, it was possible to fantasize about worlds beyond the existing one.
… he noticed an open book on the table-Lord Jim, which he had been reading. He flicked the switch and darkness surrounded him again. In a quick leap of association, he wondered whether Woch would ever read that book, but the idea was so ludicrous that he smiled in the gloom. Woch would never pick up such a book; he had no need to sail the oceans with Lord Jim. He would look on Conrad with contempt for solving on paper problems that he himself solved in reality.

Darker than Black

With all the slings and arrows being launched and endured lately, I keep thinking about this quote.

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything -- God and our friends and ourselves included -- as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity