College ain’t what it used to be. Supposedly because of a virus that for most college students is less of a threat to their lives than riding in a car, students at college campuses this fall will be subjected to dystopian controls from required mask wearing and “social distancing” to surveillance via contact tracing and health monitoring.
In a Friday Reason article by Zuri Davis, Davis discusses a conversation she had the day before with Libertarian Party presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen. It was interesting to see Davis recount in the article that Jorgensen expressed approval of mask mandates for government buildings.
America is moving up the ranks of the Bloomberg Misery Index, an index in which being number one means being the worst. Last year, America came in 50th. This year, America jumped to 25th among 60 economies compared based on their estimated price growth and joblessness, both of which are seen as big economic contributors to misery.
Across much of America, people are masked by mandate and large events are shut down by decree. But, in South Dakota, things are different. You can be mask-free in the state that has avoided most of the coronavirus crackdown imposed in much of the rest of America. And, if you ride a motorcycle, you can ride and congregate freely with hundreds of thousands of bikers. The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally starts Friday.
People in New York City have been subjected to one of the most repressive coronavirus crackdowns in America. Included have been months-long forced closure of many businesses and extreme limitations placed on businesses that have been allowed to resume some operations during incremental scaling back of closure orders. Such government actions have decimated businesses in the city. A Sunday report by Lauren Thomas at CNBC illustrates the continuing economic destruction by describing vacancies and bankruptcies, along with a large drop in rents sought, in 16 major retail corridors of the Manhattan borough of the city.
The plummeting economy has come hand-in-hand with plummeting respect for liberty, with people in New York City having been prohibited from doing many of the things, in addition to operating or working at businesses, that people have long considered basic to living — doing daily activities outside home without wearing a mask, attending religious services, meeting friends at a bar for a beer, and taking children to a playground, for example.
Coronavirus policy at the national, state, and local levels has been largely characterized by the abandonment of common sense as governments have imposed a new array of draconian measures on the people in response to an infectious disease that is not a particularly greater danger than others that have been dealt with in regular course over the decades.
In this environment, it was refreshing to hear Ron Paul, the former Republican United Sates House of Representatives member from Texas and long-time doctor, present in a Monday interview with host Stuart Varney at Fox Business some of the common sense approach that could have instead been employed in America in reaction to coronavirus.
Wearing a mask at a store or other place where doing so is required of customers or visitors, or where there seems to be pressure either from the venue operators or the surrounding mask-wearers to do so, can be uncomfortable, even sickening. This can especially be the case for older and less healthy individuals for whom walking around while shopping can be a physical activity approaching or as strenuous as a younger, healthier person running a mile. The younger, healthier person can run a mile alright, but consider him trying to do so with his face and nose covered. He will surely run slower or be more exhausted in his masked mile run.
“Rep. Louie Gohmert, who often went without a mask, tests positive for the coronavirus.” That is the headline for a Wednesday NBC article regarding United States House of Representatives member Louie Gohmert (R-TX) having tested positive for coronavirus. Similar headlines seeking to make a connection between Gohmert’s test result and Gohmert not wearing a mask were used throughout much of the media. For example, headlines read “Louie Gohmert, who refused to wear a mask, tests positive for coronavirus” at Politico and “Texas Republican Rep. Gohmert Tests Positive For Coronavirus After Rebuffing Masks” at National Public Radio.
Suppose Gohmert often did not wear a belt when he went about his daily activities. Then, media could alternatively publish articles about his coronavirus test results with headlines like “Rep. Louie Gohmert, who often went without a belt, tests positive for the coronavirus.” Mentioning Gohmert’s belt-wearing tendency would be just as relevant to the matter as is mentioning his mask-wearing tendency. As with wearing masks, there is no clear evidence that wearing belts on net helps prevent people from being infected with coronavirus.
This week, video of a Washington, DC press conference of doctors was racking up millions of views. In the Monday press conference, several doctors of the group America’s Frontline Doctors challenged much of the party line that has been pushed for months by many people in media and government about coronavirus and how it should be dealt with medically and politically.
If you would like the United States government to legalize marijuana soon, I have some good news and some bad news for you.