I left a comment on this post, King Solomon Blog, Eating the Fruit of Own Devices? (rudymartinka.com). Even though both that post and my comment are a bit depressing, you may find both that post and my comment interesting.
Should we be depressed? No. Jesus overcame the world a couple of thousand years ago. Moreover, there are still people out there who still retain the capacity to think and believe in something beyond whatever a man can do. Check out Let’s Celebrate Judge Walker (insanitybytes2.wordpress.com).
Whenever something bad happens, of course we have to do our best to straighten out the mess and get on with our lives. We also need to learn from our experience. So, think! Are you sitting at home, frustrated, with nothing to do? Then, THINK! Why did this happen? How could we have avoided it? What do we need to change?
In a few weeks the Coronavirus (COVID-19) will be part of our history, our past.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana (from here)
Never before have we shut down our economy just to deal with a disease. Was it the right thing to do? The Trump administration can probably justify what they did initially because they did not know how lethal the virus was. However, some people want to continue the shutdown, and that is nuts! If we know who is contagious, who has already had the disease, and who because of age and/or a medical condition could be seriously harmed by the disease, we don’t need to quarantine everybody. We just need to quarantine a few people.
Unfortunately, some busybodies see opportunities in the troubles of others. To increase their own power, to implement an agenda that they could not otherwise implement, these busybodies seize powers they have no business having. We need to put those busybodies in their place. We need to remember our nation’s history. Our nation’s founders gave us the Constitution. We need to use the powers that document gives us to shut down the schemes of those power mad busybodies.
Citizen Tom 
Doug,
You stated, “Trump has had 3.5 years to fix what Obama briefed his incoming administration on our national shortcomings in the event of a pandemic…. not to mention all the other warnings along the way.”
Sad.
He was starting to bring manufacturing back to the USA so that 90 percent of all medical supplies made in China would not have become the main major medical shortage that could have lessened the number of infected in both hospitals and business suntil the Trump Haters voted the House of Reps to the control of your Nancy Pelosi.
Sad
Regards and goodwill blogging.
To begin with, you just don’t wake up one day.. or become president… and decide to bring manufacturing back to America. It doesn’t work that way.
Doug,
But that is what happened when the USA manufactures outsourced manufacturing to China and every other country.
It was fairly easy because of guys like Obama who said the USA is now a service economy and that manufacturing will never return to the USA because we are high tech and don’t want low tech jobs anymore.
Obama never had any manufacturing or business experience like Trump. But Obama had lots of people who believed him and voted for Nancy Pelosi and company because they hated Trump and if Obama said we are a service economy, he just had to be right and anyone who said otherwise was wishing for the good old days..
Now everybody is wishing for the good old days when they could buy a N(5 mask and not pay exbororate prices if they find one available…
Regards and goodwill blogging.
@Doug
Actually, it does. Government can make it so costly to operate in this country that businesses leave.
There is much talk about China’s cheap labor, but I think there evidence that the Chinese were buying influence in this country. They were certainly getting away with forcing the Americans who relocated to China trade secrets.
As much as possible we need to reduce our dependence on the Chinese Communists.
Tom
Thanks for the link.
I hope you are right than in a few weeks it will be history. Frankly, in my opinion, unless a cure to treat is found, we are going to see a lot of people wearing masks, especially old guys like me, for a while.
And the sooner we start manufacturing N95 masks in the millions in the USA, the less people will contract coronavirus.
In Elmhurst Hospital in Illinois, everyone must now wear masks to enter the buildings after having their temperatures taken at the door with a mouth thermometer before being allowed to enter.
Might be the best way for every business to emulate until an effective drug is developed, and made available in the millions.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
@scatterwisdom
I suspect the masks and the absence of handshakes will remain. The thermometers will probably be replaced with automation.
Busybodies now??
I know it’s a common desire among the Conservative Right Wing to need an enemy to focus their rage on and deflect blame.. but “busybodies”? I dunno how we even begin to define that label.
Look…
1. The economy totally depends on the public’s will to want to engage in it. That means just “flipping it on” as Fauci put it means absolutely nothing if there’s too much fear to even go out and mix with others.. whether it’s shopping to buy or going to work to manufacture. The “economy” is not simply some mysterious entity that makes life for all of us that we can direct one way or the other. Buying and selling creates an economy… or without the buying and selling, can stop an economy… and if it continues for a length of time can indeed destroy a nation’s way of life.
2. In spite of all the Constitutionalists who want to believe in states rights as in the days of the Founding Fathers… the reality is that our entire economy… the purchasing power of the people, does indeed dictate how we live as a nation. Our economy over the many, many decades has made our population mobile to the extent that there’s far less impetus for differing states laws (other than in the ways to punish lawbreakers)… and our economy is so intertwined between the states that there is less defined “state economy” that isn’t attached in some form to the national economy. Our economy rests not by the buying and selling only what a single state produces. I have no idea what some idea to slowly “bring back to life” regions of the country is supposed to accomplish when the entire country is part of the process. Our economy is more inter-state and less intra-state.
3. To even imagine applying your concept that we somehow isolate/quarantine those who have gotten and those at risk to get, requires complete and total testing across the board… constantly… repetitively. As of right now.. testing has hardly caused a ripple because we have little or no testing being done, much less proper reporting of the results. Talk about trampling on Constitutional rights….. many
Trump has had 3.5 years to fix what Obama briefed his incoming administration on our national shortcomings in the event of a pandemic…. not to mention all the other warnings along the way.
4. Let’s assume for the moment Trump had kept the economy going. The factories and meat packing plants demonstrate this very well. Now they are reporting 25-50% workers being infected. You think much of that would keep the national economy afloat? In fact, there would likely be far more numbers inundating the health systems than now given no social distancing and stay-at-home declarations. This is the EXACT reason the usual Conservatives’ protestations that “it ain’t that bad” garbage about when they use comparisons to deaths from auto accidents or other flues, and fail to consider that a person has a choice to go driving their car inside an unknowns of the predictability of other drivers, or the “other” flues have vaccines or are not as contagious to the entire population.
5. This is a national emergency that Trump proclaimed, which means certain actions can, and likely should be taken, if not simply considered, in order to save the country… that may defy the Constitution for a period of time. That’s the entire idea of exercising presidential authority.. having the where-with-all to understand leadership and how to lead a nation through it by using extreme measures for short periods of time. Like this nonsense that freedom of religion assures hundreds of people can gather in a church to worship during a national emergency and in defiance of a governor’s proclamation… and infect others in the community.
6. ..and, no, in a few weeks this will not be a thing of the past, Tom. Even if some divine intervention were to occur to suppress the virus, the economy isn’t going to be “fixed” anytime soon. Doesn’t mean I don’t hope that you’re right… just means I know enough to be far more wary and cautious.
@Doug
My guess is that we will start reopening the economy in May. The pain of the economic shutdown already outweighs the harm caused by the virus. governor of Texas is already taking
Interesting.. a Christian finally placed a value on human lives.
@Doug
I have been using the term busybody for some time => https://citizentom.com/2008/05/07/busybodyism/
The first thing I did is define the term.
You are bringing up topics I did not even mention, apparently just to criticize Trump, and I need an enemy?
1. The reason Trump is putting together an economic council is because he knows restarting the economy involves more than flipping it on.
2. Here you are just being silly. We solve any problem by breaking it into part. You body is composed of parts that work together. That doesn’t stop doctors from specializing and treating just one part of it. You got a broken toe? Would you like a body cast?
3. Finally get around to blaming Trump directly. I will admit we need to get the testing revved up, and that is still being done.
4. You don’t want to eat? Like it or not we cannot send everyone home. Therefore, we have to work harder to minimize disease transfer in factories. We cannot shut everything down.
5. If people are staying in their cars, what is the problem?
6. This too will pass.
@Doug
Blogging with a phone is not worth the trouble. Will reply latter.
Stay healthy and wear a mask so that there will be a “later”.
Thanks Tom for the slight kick in the pants cause the black dog was really nipping at my heels today