Governor Cooper's office has put together
a Twitter thread that is reasonable, cautiously optimistic but straightforward about the risks. I'm trying to be patient with this process, which I think is overly cautious but which is clearly well-intentioned. Let us hope it goes smoothly.
3 comments:
It'd be all right, too, if, rather than Cooper's ghoulish emphasis on body count, he also talked about recoveries. In Texas, for instance, we've had 1,006 deaths...and 18,440 recoveries as of mid-day today. Other States, of those reporting recoveries, are running at least 2:1, often much better, in recovery-death ratios.
Eric Hines
I'm interpreting Cooper less as being ghoulish and more as feeling a personal responsibility for these deaths. He's doing his best. We disagree, he and I, about the constitutionality of some of his actions as well as the right pace for re-opening. But I am doing my best to remember that he never had a chance to think this through; he's dealing with an overwhelming crisis without a fixed set of principles. (Or as AVI/Aristotle might say, he was never trained in how to deal with this kind of epidemic/pandemic in a way that was both constitutional and maximally effective).
I see Cooper in the context of a mendacious press and Progressive-Democrats who focus on corpse production, Wuhan Virus destruction, and Progressive-Democrat efforts to do further damage by using panic mongering about the Wuhan Virus in doing their best to keep our economy and our local economies from operating while expanding spending--FDR-esque in Schumer's latest phrase, never minding the economic and political damage Roosevelt's actions inflicted--and de Blasio's flat out announcement that the Bill of Rights doesn't matter in the face of his Wuhan Virus control needs, all while carefully ignoring recovery efforts and recoveries.
As to Cooper's lack of a fixed set of principles, that's his conscious, deliberate choice to be unprepared, as it is for any of us who are similarly devoid of principles. One set that would have stood him in good stead in the fluid environment of the present situation's onset is Dan Crenshaw's advice simply to be still. I have no sympathy for Cooper on that choice. If he wants to be a leader of men, he must prepare himself so to do. And if one man can do that, there are no excuses for any other not to do that, for all that it might be harder or easier for others to do.
(And, yes, there are other lessons in Crenshaw's book that I don't take to heart.)
Eric Hines
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