Tweet [1]
In a new interview with Reason‘s Robby Soave, Fauci opines that covid restrictions back in 2020 should have been “much, much more stringent.” [2] (DBx: Fauci again proves that he has the heart, soul, and mind of a dangerous fanatic. He focuses obsessively on one goal; all other considerations are ignored or treated with disdain. And he has no qualms about using as much coercion as is necessary to further as much as possible his lone goal. When someone attaches value only to one goal, that someone experiences – and can see – no meaningful costs, for even the tiniest further movement toward the full attainment of that goal is by presumption worth whatever that movement costs. No such fanatic should possess any power or influence.)
If only we had had Shanghai style drones on our streets reminding people to control their ‘desire for freedom’ while people run out of food, locked into their apartments. Then the laptop class could have had zero covid. At least we should have died trying.
In response to Fauci’s astonishing assertion [4] that he didn’t recommend locking anything down, Jay Bhattacharya tweets [5]:
Somehow I don’t think this blatant attempt to revise history is going to work. Dr. Lockdown owns the school closures and their attendant collateral harms. He would do better to offer an abject apology to those hurt by his policies.
Eli Klein tweets [6]: (HT Jay Bhattacharya [7])
Those who follow me know my strong advocacy for open schools and intimate knowledge of this subject. I promise you, Fauci is an extended school closures villain. If he was actually pushing for open schools, much of the world would be in a better situation. He’s just such a liar.
Here’s the abstract of a new paper by Shamik Dasgupta [8]:
This article argues that extended school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic were a moral catastrophe. It focuses on closures in the United States of America and discusses their effect on the pandemic (or lack thereof), their harmful effects on children, and other morally relevant factors. It concludes by discussing how these closures came to pass and suggests that the root cause was structural, not individual: the relevant decision-makers were working in an institutional setting that stacked the deck heavily in favor of extended closures.
Favorably responding to the above paper by Dasgupta, Vinay Prasad tweets [9]:
This article is absolutely correct. Not only was it wrong, and harmful, it was a moral catastrophe. Many of us saw this, and were shouting it from the rooftops.
Universities were scared to host debates on this issue. Advocates for marginalized kids were on the wrong side of it
Matthew Lesh writes about “[t]he rise and fall of Jacinda Ardern.” [10] A slice:
The borders will not fully reopen until the end of this month. Until recently, even many citizens were not allowed back into the country, a policy which tore families apart and left Kiwis destitute overseas. In one shocking case, a New Zealand journalist was forced to turn to the Taliban for sanctuary to deliver her baby after struggling to get home. For all that pain, the Covid reckoning has now arrived. An upsurge in cases has led to one of the highest daily death rates in the world and the reintroduction of restrictions, including a mask mandate and isolation requirements. It’s a gloomy turn of events for a country that is still unprepared to live with the virus.
The broader consequences of a nation closing itself off for such an extended period should not be brushed aside. Draconian pandemic policies turned the country inward and fearful of outsiders, scaring away immigrants and damaging trade relations. This is an about-turn for a country that achieved immense economic prosperity by being open to the world in recent decades.
Paul Schwennesen decries the “administrative despotism exemplified by zoning laws.” [11]
GMU Econ alum Dominic Pino reports on the reduced construction of oil tankers [12]. A slice:
Those global [environmental] standards also involve reducing the speed of oceangoing vessels [13], in an effort to save fuel and reduce emissions. As ships go slower, expected profits to decline because ships will be able to complete fewer trips in a given amount of time than they used to.
A new oil tanker is very expensive, and the time horizon that companies use when making purchasing decisions is decades long. With some Western leaders essentially signaling that they plan to use government power to end the petroleum industry in its current form over the next few decades, industry executives are likely hesitant to make long-term investment decisions.
Eric Bazail-Eimil explains how Trump’s tariffs on Chinese chemical products backfired [14].
Tyler Syck warns us of the dangers lurking in “national conservatism.” [15] Two slices:
This approach fundamentally misunderstands the point of the American constitutional arrangement. The framers of our constitution well understood that a nation of our size and diversity had little hope of agreeing upon what constitutes immorality or dissolution. This is liberalism’s chief insight, that after centuries of violent fighting over religion and morality it is better if most of these issues are left to individuals and the communities to which they belong. The constitution takes this vital truth and makes it the centerpiece of our political order. It leaves to the states and to individuals the ability to decide how to live their lives, and in so doing makes possible the flourishing of a great many different forms of religion and morality. As Dennis Hale and Marc Landy have summarized in their moving defense [16] of liberalism: “The genius of liberalism is that where it does not provide answers, it creates the space in which citizens can come up with answers of their own. This is why it’s called self-government, after all—the citizens will govern their selves first, and then govern their community.” As the founders well understood, when we insist upon national answers to hotly contested moral issues we end up with perpetual political war. Such a state of affairs is useful for partisan agitators but is not conducive to a healthy and peaceful society, which after all is what the national conservatives claim they wish to establish.
…..
The heart of the national conservative statement of principles is not simply a hatred of left-liberalism but of liberalism broadly understood. In making this claim they seem to have forgotten that America is a liberal nation with a liberal constitution. Those who do understand this fact make the contradictory argument that we must overturn and destroy the current American regime in order to save it. To accept the national conservative framing of the issues and the solutions they proscribe is to accept the destruction of the Constitution. In the end, it is to accept the destruction of what makes America great.