IS THE CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) A GIGANTIC HOAX?

Well, it’s strange how Sweden, who just recently they derided as one of those failed socialist welfare states is now the darling of far Right Wing punditry. I agree completely that Sweden (and most of the Northern European countries) are as Socialist as either side thinks. That’s because there are very few true socialist countries in the world, just as there are very few true libertarian countries in the world. That’s because both true socialist countries and true libertarian countries are on their way to or are already failed states. As I’ve said before, all deterministic closed loop ideologies at either extreme fail over time, usually a fairly short time. Even China’s until recently very successful form of socialism is mixed, and the Moist Communism is seen by everyone, even the Party elite itself, with sentimentalist reverence rather than as something to be actually workable own the real markets.

Most of the northern European countries, particularly Scandinavia, are a unique mix of welfare state type social safety nets for labor, the promotion of highly competitive and adaptive capitalism for their entrepreneurial capital markets, and a government system that promotes them both and uses the money gotten by latter to pay for the former.

We have unique cultural and demographic circumstances in the US that make it hard for us to copy the Scandinavian model, nor do I think we should. But I think that we could learn some things from Northern Europe. And then as good Americans have always done, adapt and improve the good and get rid of the bad so that we come up with something more dynamic and unique to America, our demographics and our values. Or we can continuously have the same stupid stagnating argument about individual rights versus social responsibility, as if those two things could be mutually exclusive in an increasingly small and globalized world where either a virus or a good idea spreads around the planet faster than a wild fire.

I don’t think you know what you are talking about, but I’m not against your idea because of any ideological agenda. To you who have spent your life on the government dole, our economy and labor issues are just ideological parlor games – I have actually lived it. But you are a very moral and smart guy, you know one of those elites that you don’t trust, so your solutions are probably more worthy of listening than mine – unlike you, I don’t even claim to have any big plan to save the world. But you need to fill in a lot of blanks if you really want to claim that it is “a plan”.

Because of our ages, you and I are in the cross hairs of this virus. However, we also unfortunately have, especially among the poor and people of color, many younger vulnerable people. Sweden has social safety nets that have made people generally more healthy at all socio-economic levels. Their vulnerable citizens don’t have to worry about starving if they need to isolate themselves. They don’t have to worry about crippling hospital bills if they get sick and seek treatment early. If they do get sick, they will continue to receive income even if they can no longer work.

By comparison, more people now are unemployed in America than perhaps ever, and thus many of those that had insurance have lost it. In America, like you said, for many if they don’t work, they can’t feed and shelter themselves and their families, whether they are in the vulnerable population or not, whether they get very sick or they just get moderately sick. That means they have to go to work, expose themselves and expose others. Until you get the magical herd immunity (which actually requires worldwide herd immunity to work), how do we actually isolate the old and vulnerable if they have to go to the same grocery stores and barber shops, the same nursing homes with forks who are infected and not wearing masks? If government does not pay for, organize and regulate these protections, do you really think that it will be done through a massive wave of voluntary good will? Right . . . I got some swamp in Mississippi to sell you.

Finally, I don’t expect perfection in any government plan in this world. I recognize that we are dealing with something unique both medically and economically (a “novel” virus) so I recognize that any plan will be fraught with unintended consequences, no matter how well done. Regardless, one would hope that the intention of plan would be morally compassionate and so designed to reduce suffering and harm, but also that any plan’s probabilities of success will be based upon the best science available.

Unfortunately, to work any plan also requires leadership at the top, both for our country and for the entire world. With this incompetent, sociopathic, narcissistic, divisive and morally corrupt President, we simply do not have that sort of leadership at this time. I’d love to have Trump prove me wrong Polls show that the country (and perhaps even the world) has never been more united in common resolve, and we are basically dying to have someone inspire us to new levels of common unity of purpose and yes, Christian love. But Trump never actually leads – he just blames, scapegoats and divides. I’m afraid that we will have to do most of this without him and in spite of him in the states and wait for someone better to replace him. BTW, so far, surprisingly, I think my Republican Governor is doing a decent job. It could be better, but it’s is worlds better than Trump.

“So Sweden allows people to make their own decisions, and our governors force people to stop working and won’t let them go back to work? Glad you don’t expect perfect government, but I think you just illustrated why we need less.”

So you now see the Swedish welfare state as your model for allowing people to make their own decisions. Cool!

So months ago, Trump took the virus seriously (but was saying and doing the opposite) and he encouraged the Democrats to shut down the economy which they didn’t want to do, but Trump was wrong and the virus isn’t really serious so we destroyed our economy and put everyone out of work for no reason so now Trump wants to reopen the economy but Democrats want to keep the government shut down because they like the economy destroyed because they are “statists” (apparently your new fav word because Sweden, who you agree with but don’t want to talk about because you’ve never been there has a working welfare state) and Democrats prefer the dystopia of a badly working state over your model of a non-state (which I can only assume is a failed state because you give no actual example of this magical Ayn Rand paradise perhaps because no one has ever been there) and although the Democrats are following the Trump administration’s own plan for opening the economies of their states better than many of the Republican Governors (except the Republican Governors who are following Trump’s pandemic policy because they are secret Democrats), they will ultimately be proven wrong for following the Trump administration’s policy and the Republican Governors who did not follow Trump’s policy and opened early will not have outbreaks of death and overrun hospitals and Trump will somehow come out as a hero in all this for having a policy that Republicans ignored because he both actively encouraged his policy and actively discouraged his own policy because he saw this crisis coming from the beginning, and isn’t somehow acting erratically and divisively, but China and WHO and the Democrats are somehow to blame, and then triumphant over himself Trump appoints the coronavirus to be the the head of the CDC and Ebola gets to run the WHO, and once all their Boomer grandparents are dead, a younger brave new world becomes your Randian (nonstatist?) state of Christian love and Utopia? That about some it up?