Musing about the Nicki Minaj/COVID vaccine kerfuffle, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds writes:
So for the record, I’m not particularly concerned with the safety of the vaccines. The Insta-Daughter even took part in one of the clinical trials. But I am particularly concerned with the government-fostered bullying and intimidation aimed at anyone who doesn’t follow the party line. If Nicki Minaj can give them some heartburn over that, it’s well-deserved heartburn. And really — if you want people to believe you, don’t send Jen Psaki.
The real failure — and I’ve warned about it since the beginning — is that our “public health” establishment has been so obviously corrupt and politicized that people who would have trusted it a decade or two ago now don’t. And the reason they don’t is that it’s been so obviously corrupt and politicized as to be untrustworthy.
That sense of untrustworthiness is the sort of impression that won’t go away once you’ve acquired it. Last night, for instance, Twitter was host to much rending of garments over Democrat Governor Dan McKee’s very, very mild softening of his mandate that healthcare workers receive the COVID-19 vaccine or be fired. When I asked the tweeters — reporters, left-wing politicians, ostensibly regular folks concerned about their own safety — what they thought (or whether they asked) about natural immunity, not a single one responded. It’s as if they’ve decided that’s kook talk.
That attitude is simply bizarre. Whether reading published reports or doing the math yourself, the conclusion is that natural immunity is preferable to vaccine immunity, yet the people making decisions in Rhode Island (including decisions about what counts as news) are acting as if it doesn’t exist.
If they touched on the topic and concluded natural immunity isn’t relevant, I’d disagree, but at least there would be argument. The complete silence is downright disturbing. It’s difficult to resist the feeling of being gaslit. Or maybe in their deep need to feel they have the proper opinions (you know, “I believe in science”), the insiders are the ones who’ve been gaslit.
Wherever the natural-immunity piece disappears from the puzzle, though, it’s beginning to feel a lot like the fight over same-sex marriage, which continues to prove to have been a test case that opened the floodgates. The trick was simply to ignore opposing arguments and characterize those who resisted the radical change as unthinking bigots. Same thing here.
In both cases, the issue isn’t the issue. Power is the issue. The Left wants to fully establish the principle that government can force people to do things with even the flimsiest of justifications, so everybody must be vaccinated against a virus that is not very deadly for most people even if the science says that they are already immune. Period. Other options simply don’t exist.
Featured image by Muhd Asyraaf on Unsplash.
[Open full post]
The story of Canadian plumber Noah Fladager, as related by Louise Bevan in The Epoch Times, illustrates exactly the ideal around which public policy should be formed:
A young plumber, and father, who quit a secure job to go solo is celebrating the fruits of his labor. Not only does he now employ others, but he’s also just landed the biggest plumbing contract of his career so far.
Finding that the typical entry-level job wasn’t going to suffice for the family that he and his wife wanted, Fladager chose to apprentice in plumbing rather than go to college. After a few years, his family encouraged him to stick with the security of payroll employment, but he struck out on his own. It was a lot of work, but his company continues to grow. This is the sort of story for which progressive policies don’t account, as they put everybody in categories of “employer” and “employee,” as if they’re different species.
Years ago, I showed how long it takes for a person who spots an opportunity in plumbing to get a real start. With just a mildly less severe regulatory regime, I found that Massachusetts could produce twice as many master, journeyman, and apprentice plumbers over 12 years.
A few years later, I compared Rhode Island with Massachusetts when it came to the creation and survival of new businesses. My conclusion was that Rhode Islanders start a lot of businesses (probably because it’s difficult to find work, otherwise), but flounder when they try to expand and the regulations kick in.
All of this is the opposite of what we should want. It ought to be easy for employees to go out and compete with their employers. This will not only keep down prices, but it will put pressure on employers to make employees happy and also allow our state to adjust to changing market forces as people can seize opportunities and adjust to challenges quickly as they emerge.
Naturally, this doesn’t create as many opportunities for insiders to cash in on others’ activities or for progressives to try their hands at social engineering, which is what creates the mutually beneficial dynamic whereby insiders abuse the people and progressives make gains by promising to save and protect them. Adding valves to the economy gives them more ways to control the flow of resources.
On the plus side, though, in a freer society, everybody else would benefit and live more-prosperous and more-rewarding lives.
Featured image by Sigmund on Unsplash.
[Open full post]
From Peter Malbin on Newsmax:
A study published in the British medical journal The Lancet found that 39% of young adults reported feeling uncertain about having children, given the state of the environment and the added carbon footprint brought by having children.
The Lancet polled about 10,000 older teenagers and young adults to ascertain how climate change is affecting mental health, and found that the majority were “very” or “extremely” worried about the effects of rising global temperatures.
Putting the legitimacy of climate alarmism, specifically, aside, this finding indicates that 39% of young adults don’t have a framework for understanding the value of children and, for that matter, the meaning of life… at least the meaning of human life.
That’s not a healthy trait in a species.
[Open full post]
It’s weird how American progressives can tolerate no conservative policies in other American states to accommodate a different level of respect for human life, greater acknowledgment of natural and traditional qualities of genders, and more reverence for religious freedom, but news like this is apparently not an issue:
The Taliban terrorist group has ordered the majority of women employed in Kabul’s city government to exit the workforce and remain at home, the interim mayor of Afghanistan’s capital announced on Sept 19.
During his first press briefing since being appointed by the Taliban, interim Kabul Mayor Hamdullah Namony said that women must remain at home regardless of their employment status, pending a further decision.
It’s almost as if their stated principles and self-professed enhanced empathy for distant people is a bunch of politically motivated baloney.
[Open full post]
During our weekly political segment, yesterday, John DePetro raised questions about the fact that the Rhode Island Republican Party does not yet have a candidate to announce for the upcoming gubernatorial race. Chairwoman Sue Cienki has said an announcement is expected soon, but John raises a good point. There are no obvious candidates, which means a lot more work building name recognition and personal support, and that’s the sort of thing that a truly motivated candidate would already have begun.
The off-season election to replace progressive Democrat state senator from Providence Gayle Goldin is instructive. Steph Machado of WPRI reports that it took a last-minute email for Providence Republicans to find somebody willing to jump in. One suspects something similar has been the case for the state GOP.
As a traditionalist conservative, I incline toward the belief that there are expectations that people should just fulfill unless they can explain why the expectation exists and why not fulfilling it in a particular case is the better call, but we have to be honest about resources and tradeoffs. If a major political party doesn’t have a candidate in a race, it can’t capitalize on unexpected developments in public opinion or opposition self-immolation. More significantly, the absence sends a signal, and it’s one our local news media will rush to amplify.
On the other hand, putting up one sacrificial lamb after another sends a signal, too, and exhausts your resources. It also sows an expectation for loss, which will require even more work to reverse in the future.
Republicans in the Ocean State have to conduct a deep discussion about these things. They need an honest understanding of “here’s where we are, here are our goals, and here’s what we can realistically accomplish.” The preliminary answers I’d offer are: you occupy a structure with a crumbling foundation as people give up and leave, repairing that problem has to be your top priority by a huge margin, and your resources (both material and human) are not such that you can do much more than address that single problem.
One structural challenge for Republicans is that progressives like politics and activism, whereas conservatives do other things for fun and fulfillment. It is more difficult, therefore, for the GOP to build its internal community through activism. Rather, the activism must flow from a community formed for other reasons. It has to be fun to be an active Republican, and the Republican base doesn’t find regular protests and political activity as inherently fun as the Democrat base does. (Add to this, of course, that the Democrats in Rhode Island have much more to offer by way of career paths and other opportunities for those who get involved.) The Rhode Island Right therefore needs something more than regular angry protests or fundraisers that are mere excuses to donate money to a campaign.
Social gatherings are where people start thinking about being candidates, and the community feel draws people to become involved.
Unfortunately, building communities is hard work, which means looking for helpful opportunities. We’re seeing a burst of home schooling, for example, which is creating a natural community with a high need for places to socialize its children and a huge amount of motivation to target local races. It may be that filling that sort of need is a better use of limited time and money than organizing behind a state-office candidate who didn’t really want to run in the first place.
[Open full post]
As Glenn Reynolds points out on Instapundit:
Yes, we’re told it’s a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” but the unvaccinated are disproportionately black. They’re disproportionately in hospitals and ICUs, and they’re disproportionately dying, and they’re disproportionately affected by the Democrats’ playing politics with antibody treatments.
And, of course, they’re disproportionately affected by Democrat-backed vaccine-passport requirements.
If you’re curious, this nationally valid observation is true in Rhode Island, too. As of this writing, about 56% of white Rhode Islanders are fully vaccinated, along with 52% of Hispanics. Black Rhode Islanders, however, are only vaccinated at a rate of 48%.
[Open full post]
Although skepticism about Frank Luntz is certainly justified, and although one might worry that the governor gets his news from CNN, it’s encouraging to read that Dan McKee is thinking in these terms:
As McKee spokesman Matt Sheaff tells the story: The governor heard Luntz on CNN “talking about … work he was doing with the Biden administration and polling he was doing on vaccinations, especially in conservative areas of the country.
“He was talking about some strategies … ‘how do we talk to them’ ” — the unvaccinated — ” ‘in a way that they don’t feel attacked’.”
The task at hand calls for convincing, not cudgeling. In keeping with that approach, we read the following:
“The difference this year is that kids are vaccinated, so while teams are not being quarantined as much,” [R.I. Interscholastic League Director Michael] Lunney said. “The most important thing is if you’re vaccinated and you’re not symptomatic, you will not have to quarantine.”
Understandably, Democrats across the country have a difficult position on which to balance. The more vaccination allows a return to life, the more people will be vaccinated (although public health and elected officials have undermined a good deal of their credibility on that claim). However, for political expediency against their opposition, and because a big portion of their base just wants the comfort of knowing government can impose restrictions, Democrats find themselves on the side of fear.
There’s something performative about it all. I volunteered to work a concession stand at Gillette Stadium on Saturday night (where a pro soccer game had a surprisingly large audience), and the masks were few and far between, even on unvaccinated children. Most people understand that they have tools (masks, vaccines, and self isolation) if their tolerance for risk is unusually low. Life can resume.
Indeed, the mystery is why Democrats are refusing to give on some obvious fronts to begin allaying fear. Namely:
- Add people with natural immunity to the mix, which will put the number of people still at risk in a very different light.
- Begin large-scale testing so people (and public health officials) have a real sense of their risks, and make the vaccines available right there when they get their results. The moment they learn they don’t have immunity is a particularly opportune time to give people the option to inoculate themselves.
- Rather than pile on parents’ anxieties with worry about having to make a decision about injecting their very small children with the vaccine, shift the target onto them. One suspects that non-vaccinated parents are likely to be anti-mask parents, and the COVID fear with children is not that they will be greatly harmed, themselves, but that they’ll pass the bug along. So, emphasize that vaccination of adults in the household eases concern about children in the classroom, and set the children free.
Set us all free. Individuals have the tools to all but ensure that they will not suffer greatly from COVID-19, and adults have a right to bear their own risks. Somewhere between 70 and 90% of all Rhode Islanders (including children) have vaccine or natural immunity, at this point. The rest can make their own decisions.
Featured image of Governor Dan McKee being vaccinated from the governor’s website.
[Open full post]
It would be difficult to argue against welcoming an Amazon distribution center in Johnston. That’s a lot of money that will flow into Rhode Island and one of its municipalities.
There’s even an important and encouraging observation to be made about the fact that it will be in Johnston, with its conservative-Democrat mayor, Joe Polisena. An electorate that would elect such chief executive — as opposed to a place like Providence, that may without notice elect a socialist — is a sign of stability and reasonableness to a massive company planning an investment of tens of millions of dollars over decades.
The concern is this: Amazon is going to immediately be a major player (read, “special interest”) in Rhode Island politics. The other special interests (unions, Democrats, environmentalists) will all make out alright, no doubt, but the average person and small businesses are going to find themselves being ushered a little more toward the back of the bus.
[Open full post]
A story in Not the Bee about a teachers union seminar about handling “nice white parents” comes out of Pennsylvania, but one can be sure that Rhode Island unions are talking about how to “limit the power” of “parent groups.”
This should be broadly scandalous, which may indicate that most unions across the country have been smart enough not to publish fliers about such things. As the Washington Examiner tweets, “no other race or ethnic group is subjected to such a curriculum and government-endorsed demonization.”
[Open full post]
On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- Advice for parents suing over masks
- Misplaced homeless camp cleanup reactions
- Elorza out of the governor race
- Magaziner in it
- The RIGOP’s lag in candidate announcement
- Amazon’s ripples in Johnston
Featured image by Curology on Unsplash.
[Open full post]