Posted on 03/17/2020 5:27:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
This virus thing has gotten crazy. San Francisco ... closed down due to the coronavirus' spread?! A whole American city on hold? And other localities set for like privations?
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders' contemporaries may remember (as I do, being one of them) a Gregory Peck/Ava Gardner movie from 1960: "On the Beach." Following a nuclear war, an unharmed American sub ventures to San Francisco for a look. There is only stillness; no one is in sight. No one.
It gives one the willies to contemplate the shutdowns that government officials, here and abroad, are implementing or contemplating: so extended, so complete as to invite ridicule. Few seem to regard them as ridiculous. That, too, gives one the willies. We are entering an age nobody imagined just weeks ago. We do not know what lies at the end of the tunnel when the light is switched back on.
There is little good in predictions. I suspect, even so, we are in for a massive mental reorientation as a nation, as a people. You don't go through things like the shutdown of normal daily life without rethinking basic premises.
Reorientation could be good for us, or it could be bad. I prefer, on the whole, half-full to half-empty glassware. How might we end up better? Rising above the hatred and hostility, the malice and power-grabbing, of the past half century -- I could go for that if it happened. Modifying the conditions responsible for that hatred and hostility -- that would be good, too. Downsizing our politics and putting life in better perspective. It would make of America a different, perhaps a better, place.
The presidential candidates, in their Sunday night debate, lacked anything useful to say about the sickness and the already unfolding national shutdown -- likely because, as politicians generally do, they were looking at the short run and the bottom line.
We have had enough (it seems to me) of short-running and bottom-lining. We need to think on what we're about as a people and on the legitimate uses of liberty. It would be a change all right. It might even make easier the healing of life when COVID-19 is gone.
The human condition -- including the human medical condition -- is tied up in the eternal questions: How shall I live, and how should I strive to die? No act of Congress or Supreme Court decision is likely to answer such questions.
Which is not for one minute to say politicians don't matter. It's to say they aren't Mr. and Ms. Fix-its -- a point American society, against all expectations in our politically obsessed moment, could be starting at last to wrestle with. We have more and more in the last 100 years neglected the big issues of life -- decency and duty; honor and faith; loyalty; self-respect; seriousness of purpose and intention. We hardly give them a second thought. We want to know what CNBC and Fox have to say. We want to see the polls.
There is no dispensing with government orders and orderings of one kind and another. It's where we are. "Will we stay where we are?" is the question. Maybe not. What if, on the other side of the school closures and the hand-washings and the social distancing, we begin to miraculously traffic in the really big issues: seeing how the venom and partisanship and hatreds and impeachment trials of recent years have left us scared and distrustful, unlikely to be appeased by jobs programs or Fed liquidity injections?
I think the American people, without knowing it, may be shopping for a moral center -- a way of confronting and dealing with the big questions of life. We might experience, God knows, a revival of interest in God. The real questions of life, as Americans used to understand, are religious in nature. That was before the rise of the "Nones" -- the no-religion-for-me folk, more concerned with personal satisfactions than with the particulars of the truly good life.
Somehow, our latest habits and modes of thought have let us down. We flag and flail in consequence of once-unimaginable disorders our present way of life failed to prevent. Time for some new thoughts, some new approaches? Maybe so, I truly think -- which may be the most anyone can say with any certainty at this black but light-tinged moment.
My hope is that the American People may have gotten a bellyful of government over this thing. I intend to let them know.
As long as the homeless population of San Francisco of 10,000 is wandering around, congregating wherever they want, San Francisco is NOT locked down.
Los Angeles has even more homeless.
Look at the bright side. Urban retards are always hardest hit.
It’s funny. Where do homeless people go when the are told they have to “go home”?
Restaurants Friday here in Ft Worth were practically empty. If these shut downs goes a couple of weeks and stops this thing I am okay with it. We have an easy life really good for most, this needs to happen at times to keep things in perspective. The Lord works in mysterious ways and He may be sending us all a message.
What’d they do with the homeless?
Send’em to the Soylent factory?
Private industry has gotten as silly as government these days.
In the last 48 hours I’ve received about two dozen different e-mails from clients and vendors. They’re all auto-generated mass mailings, and they all say the same thing:
1. We are deeply concerned about our customers and employees.
2. We our doing our best to cope with this crisis.
3. Please take these measures to protect yourself: etc., etc.
I’m sorry, people ... but it’s reached the point of absurdity when I have my bank, my office supply vendor, and my accountant telling me to wash my hands thoroughly and stay at least six feet away from others.
I’m in rural TN and nothing much has really changed here. People that can are working from home but no factory shutdowns. Some store shelves are a little more bare than normal but we have what we need. Some restaurants are down in dine-in customers but not closed. People in stores are keeping a buggy’s length between them but nobody is mass panicked like in the big cities. Rural communities have always been more “socially distanced”.
Ironically, the only free people in the U.S. are the homeless. They do what they want, where they want.
Heck, if I was stuck with Ava Gardner I would pray for a long quarantine.
Yeah. Imagine how crazy people would act if they ever found out that the flu is killing 10 times more people than the CVD virus!
We are much better off now than with previous plagues. We actually know the real cause and have the tools at hand to wage battle against the virus. With the Spanish Influenza science knew about bacteria but had to learn the hard way about viruses.
The hysterics, secondary to our now maternalistic society, are insufferable. I’m going to practice information distancing for about a week or so...
The new word is Panicdemic.
They're to be in their dumpsters by 8 p.m.
Even the largest viruses are to small to be seen with mere optical microscopes. Wasn't until the invention of electron scanning devices that allowed for the discovery.
Ah, but who better than an accountant to crunch the numbers and tell us that WE"RE ALL GOING TO DIE! EXPONENTIAL FUNCTION! EXPONENTIAL FUNCTION!
And you'd get one too.
Even the police are reluctant to mess with the homeless.
Owning a car or a house can be a hassle.
While you probably won’t get arrested, they will likely fine you $150-$300, and what are you going to do?
They’ve got your address and if you own a car and a house you likely have a few extra bucks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.