These days I am not very excited about politics. I still see the issues as extremely important, but I don’t have any genuine Conservatives running locally that I can support.
I still support the Republican Party, but the Republican Party is not doing anything meaningful. They are just waiting for disgust with President Barack Obama and anyone they can associate with him to win the election for them. It is hard to generate enthusiasm for a political party that is so fearful of standing for and fighting for anything.
To illustrate, let’s consider the following. Here is an email I got from Delegate Bob Marshall on Wednesday.
Marshall, Black and Berg Request Travel Ban from
Ebola Prevalent AreasDear Friends,
Yesterday Senator Dick Black, Delegate Mark Berg, MD and I sent a letter to Governor Terry McAuliffe urging him to seek travel bans similar to those that have been implemented in thirteen African nations which have banned travel from Ebola prevalent areas to their countries.
We urged Governor McAuliffe to use the police powers of Virginia to protect our citizens and residents from exposure to Ebola even if it means a timely court challenge against passenger airlines or the federal government if they continue to permit entry into Virginia of passengers flying from Ebola affected areas. We also asked him to take similar measures to protect our seaports. We reminded him that similar Government travel restrictions were used to limit Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
Please check out the letter and contact Governor Terry McAuliffe to urge him to:
Use your gubernatorial powers to protect me and the other residents of Virginia from exposure to Ebola. Please take the necessary steps to ban travel from the affected nations to Virginia, both through our airports and through our seaports.
Thank you for your help!
Sincerely,
Delegate Bob Marshall
Three members of our General Assembly wrote and signed a letter. Just three.
Will our Democrat governor do anything? Probably not. McAuliffe fights for taxes, special privileges for victim groups, and big spending, but he does not seem much interested in protecting our God-given rights.
What is astonishing is why our leaders have not imposed travel restrictions to protect themselves and their own families? Do they think themselves somehow immune from the plagues that afflict the rest of humanity. It seems that is the case, but we should know better.
I wonder if we live too much in an unreal world. Do we regard real life as something akin to reality TV? I doubt we are so foolish. Nevertheless, we have a tendency to regard death as too distant to touch us.
I remember reading a story about Union soldiers, their first brush with combat during the Civil War. When they came fire, ambushed, they just stood there too startled to move. What was running through their minds? Was it disbelief that someone could actually shoot at them? Only after they got over the shock of seeing the bodies falling around them did the remainder seek cover.
The Union soldiers were young; they had never experienced combat or been under fire. They had not been trained to react appropriately, and they had no time to react. What is our excuse? Contained in a backward region of distant Africa, the Ebola epidemic has been going on for months, growing.
Do we have an irrational sense of invulnerability? What will happen if Ebola starts to spread here? When we realize we too can suffer the same plagues that afflict the rest of humanity, will we panic or will we turn to God? Will we repent for our foolish hubris? How many of us have to die before that happens?
Good, informative post. Thanks for sharing
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Thank you.
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you are quite welcome, Tom.
May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob bless you and yours always.
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Quite welcome as always, Tom. God bless.
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I don’t know whether state governments are wimpy, but it certainly appears that Marshall and his two buddies are really running for the hills. This is the voice of panic.
I wonder what constitutional scholar Marshall’s theory is as to how a Governor of Virginia could essentially withdraw the Commonwealth from the commerce of the United States. It’s clear that state health authorities have some degree of authority over things like plague ships (there are some old (like 175 years) cases on this. But there’s no way that a state or municipality could simply ban commerce or passengers from, say, West Africa in the current situation.
Aside from legalities, there seems to be fairly robust opinions from epidemiologists that travel bans tend to make things worse, not better. I’m sure Mr. Marshall has studied these things closely and will soon apprise us of why his epidemiological knowledge is superior to theirs.
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It is easier to keep out a plague if we don’t impose travel restrictions? I agree that at some epidemiologists are saying stupid things. However, whether quarantines work is not that difficult to determine. Quarantines have worked in the past, and they still seem to be working.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/16/African-Nations-Containing-Ebola-with-Closed-Borders-as-Obama-Refuses-to-Institute-Travel-Ban
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With whom are you agreeing that epidemiologists are saying stupid things? Mr. Marshall? Why would we listen to a politician over people who have studied these types of events over the entirety of their professional lives? We are currently using quarantines. The issue is whether, given current facts about the outbreak in Africa, it is prudent or effective to impose a state or municipal travel ban on international commerce, even assuming states or localities had such powers.
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You see a few press reports, and you think the experts all agree? 🙄
Read the http://www.breitbart.com article I linked to in my first reply. What works is what works.
Regardless of what the experts are saying, politicians make the decision. The experts just make recommendations, and we don’t hear from all of them. The new media filters what it reports to serve its own agenda.
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What is the media’s interest in a widespread Ebola outbreak? I would think there would be unanimity that less is more when it comes to infectious diseases with high mortality rates.
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One would think so. Nevertheless, I think it far easier to argue we the people behave irrationally than it is to argue that we behave rationally. So if you want to take up the cause of arguing that man is a perfectly rational creature, you will have my sympathy, but not my support.
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