I forgot to mention earlier that tomorrow, June 13, is World Gin Day.
I’ll need an extra bottle or two of Sipsmith, methinks, so it’s off to Ye Olde Liqueure Shoppe I go.
Month: June 2020
Fiddling Time?
As NYFC seems to be about to crash and burn, and given that the situation seems to be echoing in other large, similarly-Democrat-governed cities and states around the country, it raises rather an interesting discussion point.
Should the federal government even get involved? (That explains the hidden Nero reference in the title, by the way.)
In the first instance, we all know that as a federal republic, the states have a great deal of autonomy when it comes to various policy initiatives and experiments — the famed laboratories of democracy of which USSC Judge Louis Brandeis once spoke. Logically speaking (I know, I know), should a state like New York have no problem with abolishing the NYPD, should it not be regarded as such an experiment? Ditto Seattle, where Pantifa seems to have created an enclave within the city and declared it a Soviet collective or something. In both cases, the attitude of these states’ respective governors is best characterized by a “boys will be boys” laissez-faire response.
My question is: in the absence of any state action, is there a compelling reason for the federal government to step in and end such experiments?
I’m not sure there is. And yes, there’s a certain degree of Schadenfreude involved, in that I know that this foolishness will end in tears; but at the same time, I also have a kind of Let Africa Sink attitude towards the whole thing — as long as when the cities implode, the federal government is not expected to be part of either the deconstruction of said stupidity, nor the mini-Marshall Plan that will be required to rebuild the fools’ paradises.
The question arising from the above, therefore, is: as the nation’s economy has greatly decentralized away from the large urban centers, are cities still that important to our country? Strip away the romantic public relations veneer, and I think we can find that they aren’t.
Take Wall Street, for example. With the growth of the Internet and the ability to conduct stock trades remotely, i.e. away from the actual floor of the NYSE, I can think of no compelling reason why the stock exchange should occupy any real estate at all. The importance of New York as a financial center is not what it was, say, in the 20th century, and if the Wuhan virus has taught us anything, it is the degree to which the Internet has taken away the need for such centralization.
I know, it sucks for those fools wealthy people who plonked down $5 million for that 2BD 2BA condo on the Upper West Side, and who would have to pull up the drawbridges against hordes of rampaging looters every night; but quite frankly, I don’t think there’s going to be a great deal of sympathy for these people in the population at large — even though The Donald is one of those same people. (His hotels, for one thing, are going to go under in such a scenario, but the vagaries of fortune of overpriced urban real estate investments are not, as a rule, the concern of suburbanites and country folk in Ohio, Missouri or Utah.)
So, to quote a one-time quasi-revolutionary: “You say you want a revolution?” Go ahead, have fun. Just don’t expect taxpayers from Texas, South Dakota or Arizona to bail you out when it all goes pear-shaped; because while you’re screwing around with anarcho-socialist communes (which have always — always — failed in the past), we Deplorables in Flyover Country will be too busy making America great again to have the time or money to waste on helping you out. And contrary to your expectations, American greatness does not depend solely on places like Seattle or NYFC anymore.
Caption Competition #130
Your suggestions in Comments.
Ain’t Gonna Happen
Of all the do-gooder organizations out there, the American Cancer Society ranks up near the top on my personal Pain-In-The-Ass Scale — and I say this as someone who has lost one wife to cancer, and am currently married to a cancer survivor.
The problem is that the ACS is always quick to warn (i.e. scold) people about the risks of getting cancer, when as any fule kno, Joe Jackson had it right: Everything Gives You Cancer. It’s the likelihood thereof that needs to be judged if one needs to modify one’s behavior.
So bullshit like this doesn’t help the cause at all:
New guidelines on cancer prevention recommend cutting out alcohol completely
Wait, what? But the details can be found somewhat further down the page:
In the United States, the ACS estimates that alcohol use accounts for about 6 percent of all cancers and 4 percent of all cancer deaths.
Right; so I have to give up something which gives me untold pleasure, makes good times with friends even better, and dulls the pain of everyday life — because there’s a 4% chance it may cause me to die from cancer: me, with no family history of cancer, who has never smoked nor worked with cancer-bearing substances of any kind?
And it gets worse:
“Alcohol use is one of the most important preventable risk factors for cancer, along with tobacco use and excess body weight,” according to the ACS.
Other significant changes included more physical activity and eating less processed and red meat — although the ACS also now recommends completely cutting processed and red meat from one’s diet, as well as sugar-sweetened beverages and “highly processed foods and refined grain products.”
Cut out biltong too? For a 4% risk?
As Glenn Reynolds says: I’ll take my chances. Or as Oliver Reed once said:
Rocks And Hard Places
One of the problems with having a Bill of Rights and the Constitutional freedoms thereof is that as with all absolutes, there are times when compromises have to be made, even if temporarily. We’re all familiar with the doleful example of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater (anyone remember those?), and I will reluctantly concede that the right to keep and bear arms should not necessarily include the possession of tactical nuclear devices.
The recent lockdown has given us a few more examples. I know that various Democratic elected officials have used the occasion of a purported pandemic to indulge their inner Mussolini, but ignore that for a moment while we ponder the big picture.
The best example of a situation requiring a temporary freeze on a Constitutional right is that of religion, where church services were banned (amazingly, not for Muslims but that’s a discussion for another time) because it is completely logical to suppose that it may not be in the public interest to have hundreds of people crammed into a single room, breathing all over each other and touching hands, etc.
And of course, the First Amendment’s rights to peaceable assembly and practice of religion would both stand against prohibition of said services. At the same time, however, the potential risk of wholesale infection would seem to support such a Constitutional abridgement — provided that it was temporary, of course. (And the stupid politicians did themselves no favors by even banning the congregation of worshippers in the churches’ parking lots, which is so stupid a ban that it defies both logic and commonsense, but that’s politicians for ya.)
On the one hand, therefore, it is a perfectly-natural impulse of people to seek comfort where they can during a time of disaster. My own take is that people need to be realistic about this kind of thing — God isn’t going to punish you for not going to church in times of an epidemic or pandemic — but at the same time I understand and indeed sympathize with people for having that urgent need for the solace of religious congregation. All religions are inconvenient, behavior-wise, and this is just one manifestation thereof.
On the other hand, the society requires a sensible public policy to prevent mass infection. (In the case of the Wuhan virus, the dangers may have been overstated, but that too is a discussion for another time. For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that the pandemic was going to be as dreadful as first thought.) Had governors (at all levels) done nothing to try to prevent the rapid spread of infection, for fear of running afoul of Constitutional infringement, they would have been excoriated (and rightfully so) for their negligence and disinterest in the welfare of their citizens. (Hardcore libertarians, take note.)
The problem with accommodation of said Constitutional abridgements and infringements is that there is always the risk that said governors will not only take things too far (right now, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer’s ears should be aflame let alone burning), but will use the opportunity to increase still further the State’s power over the populace — which they have done, almost without exception.
That still doesn’t negate the fact that occasionally, hard choices have to be made; and it’s all very well to say things like “We will allow our rights to be infringed, but only temporarily” because in the case of communicable disease or other illness, there is always going to be the question of “How long is temporary?” At what point is it safe to say, “Okay, as you were” when the risks of pandemic are, almost by definition, unknowable?
It’s a tough question, but on the whole I think that we managed to dodge this bullet better than the Europeans and Brits have. (The foul “track and trace” proposals as proposed by the various politicians Over There will never fly Over Here, and thankfully so.) The exceptions — where we were screwed by the governors — are primarily to be found in states governed by people for whom power is the sine qua non of political existence (unsurprisingly, the socialists like Cuomo, Whitmer and Newsom being the best / worst examples thereof).
I think that the lessons we have learned on this topic should be both memorized and debated long and hard, and I hope this post can serve as a starting point.
Fair Warning
At over six years old (240 years in computer age, apparently), my laptop is showing signs of age — it’s slower than I am, more reluctant to work than the average Minneapolis looter, and falls over more often than the late Ted Kennedy at an open bar function.
Ditto, incidentally, my Logitech mouse, which is of the same vintage, and has developed the annoying habit of occasionally double-clicking when only one click is requested.
Tech Support II just clucked his tongue sorrowfully at my tale of woe, and metaphorically speaking adopted the tones of a doctor talking about a terminally-ill patient. Clearly, there is Nothing To Be Done.
So at some point today, I’m going over to Ye Olde Compooter Shoppe, and will buy replacements for both the above appliances, something I’ve been putting off for over a year because poverty. Now, like the man forced to choose between death by drowning or by a long fall to the concrete, I have no real choice left.
There may be only one post tomorrow while I grapple with the tiresome details of transferring all my stuff from the old hard drive to the new one, while deleting the megatons of unnecessary garbage which seems to infest all new PCs these days.
Bear with me in this trying time. I hate this shit.
All contributions to help defray said expense will be gratefully received (see the PayPal link over on the right hand side of the page, or paper to the Sooper-Seekrit mailing address).
Update: it appears as though my laptop’s memory chip has fallen over, and this particular Dell model doesn’t seem to allow for easy replacement thereof — assuming that’s indeed the problem. Anyway, I ordered a new laptop — and many MANY thanks for all your contributions to the cause. It should only get here in a week’s time, so posting will be light until then.
Please bear with me in these trying times.