Trial by Jury
Another traditional liberty that is under immediate threat is the right to a speedy trial by jury. A friend in New Orleans sent this order from the courts suspending all jury trials, effective immediately:
Presumably if you're not interested in a jury trial you can ask for a bench trial; otherwise, you're just to sit in jail indefinitely, at increased risk of infection since you can't get away from anyone who might be sick.
In Athens, Georgia, the local sheriff's office is getting calls that follow this script:
Presumably if you're not interested in a jury trial you can ask for a bench trial; otherwise, you're just to sit in jail indefinitely, at increased risk of infection since you can't get away from anyone who might be sick.
In Athens, Georgia, the local sheriff's office is getting calls that follow this script:
"Hi, My name is _____ may I speak to either the Sheriff or Deputy Sheriff? Thank you, I am calling to express my concerns about the jail as a local liability putting us all at increased risk if we do not take necessary precautions in the wake of COVID-19. Please begin the immediate release of all bondable pre-trial inmates and all inmates with less than 60 days remaining in their sentence. Additionally, cease new bookings in order to eliminate the risk of someone carrying the virus from exposing the jail population and your staff to the virus. Lastly, please publicize the jail's COVID-19 Response Plan When can the community plan to see this critical information? Thank you in advance for your swift response during these dangerous times."Indefinite suspension of trial by jury does seem like a clear violation of the 6th Amendment. If I were a lawyer with clients in that jail, I would be protesting that the courts ought to dismiss charges against my clients rather than engage in a systemic violation of basic rights. But again, the courts are likely to try to find a way to read this as constitutional.
Libertarians in foxholes
We're amassing enough data to fuel a decade's worth of research on what kinds of government intervention helps and what kind hurts. It's almost as if we needed to figure out the proper role of government before we decide how big it needs to be in each context.
The incomparable Richard Fernandez
Did you know there was a debate last night? Jonah Goldberg wishes they'd let the two B's carry on while feeding pigeons from park benches.
Even in fabled Atlantis, the night the ocean engulfed itThe last commenter on the thread notes that capitalism in a crisis functions about as well as socialism on a random Tuesday.
The drowning still cried out for their gender quotas.
Outlaw Country
Uh-oh. Headline: "Nashville Business Owners Defy Mayor and Remain Open! – Say Order to Close Bars and Restaurants on Broadway Is UNCONSTITUTIONAL."
It probably would have been better to avoid this stress test. The courts are likely to try to find some way to declare it constitutional, given that public health is so neatly concerned with it. But it's done now. Is it constitutional for the US government to deny what are usually ordinary basic liberties, given the presence of a pandemic that is also epidemic? How far do emergency powers go in voiding constitutional liberties?
That's going to be an interesting set of questions. It'll be an interesting set of answers, too.
It probably would have been better to avoid this stress test. The courts are likely to try to find some way to declare it constitutional, given that public health is so neatly concerned with it. But it's done now. Is it constitutional for the US government to deny what are usually ordinary basic liberties, given the presence of a pandemic that is also epidemic? How far do emergency powers go in voiding constitutional liberties?
That's going to be an interesting set of questions. It'll be an interesting set of answers, too.
Crisis Can Cut Through the Propaganda, Sometimes
So we all know people have been stocking up on, of all things, toilet paper in many areas. Of course also many other things, first among them dry goods, OTC meds, and of course soap and cleaning products (including Everclear). Some people, seeing the lack of preparedness among their neighbors, and how easily they are spooked into panic, have suddenly come to see the wisdom of perhaps owning a firearm- just in case.
He's going to be a bit disappointed to discover that there is a 10-day waiting period in California. I suspect gun rights support is going to grow as a result of all this, even here in deep blue Los Angeles. At least, one hopes.
Guns were also a popular item among panic-driven shoppers on Saturday.At Martin B. Retting Gun Shop in Culver City, a line of prospective customers stretched outside the door. Inside, they were shoulder to shoulder, waiting up to five hours for service. A fast-food truck was taking orders at the curb.The managers of the store declined to comment. It was a rare windfall of business for the store, but some people got tired of waiting and left empty handed.Among them was a medical doctor who would give only his first name, Ray. He said he’d come to buy his first gun.“I want to buy a handgun, I think they call it a Glock, but I’m not sure,” he said. “I have a house and a family, and they’ll need protection if things get worse.”“The fear,” he added, “is that civil services will break down.”
He's going to be a bit disappointed to discover that there is a 10-day waiting period in California. I suspect gun rights support is going to grow as a result of all this, even here in deep blue Los Angeles. At least, one hopes.
A Propos Odes and Totalitarianism
Ian Miles Cheong tweeted this tidbit a few hours ago:
Chinese authorities are finally opening the sealed apartments. There are countless dead.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1239100397597253633
The video is a bit...serious.
Cheong got his stuff from Jennifer Zeng, a New York blogger who seems to be an emigre from the Republic of China.
If this is even remotely typical of those sealed apartments, Zeng's characterization of the CPC as Evil is a gross understatement.
Eric Hines
Chinese authorities are finally opening the sealed apartments. There are countless dead.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1239100397597253633
The video is a bit...serious.
Cheong got his stuff from Jennifer Zeng, a New York blogger who seems to be an emigre from the Republic of China.
If this is even remotely typical of those sealed apartments, Zeng's characterization of the CPC as Evil is a gross understatement.
Eric Hines
Pandemics and the Vikings
Why not tie two of our current interests together? Here is a brief historic survey of Viking encounters (and near misses) with grand-scale historic disease.
Ode to Totalitarianism
An associate professor of music wants you to know how much safer he felt in China.
In fact the United States has managed, without a central authority -- in spite of the failures of our central government's ossified bureaucracies -- to lock itself down nearly as effectively as China. Schools and universities are canceling classes or shifting to online models for a while; sports leagues are forgoing millions in revenue to shut down their games. Nobody's making us do it, but we've done it anyway.
It does require more of us as citizens. I spent a lot of last week contacting government officials to urge appropriate action. And you can't just call the Federal elected officials: the real decisions are being made at the local and state level right now. Our local school board fought tooth and nail to avoid closing, as did the state department of education. As of yesterday afternoon they reaffirmed their intent to resume classes Monday morning, though the admitted that no one would be required to come given that the governor has declared a state of emergency. Finally, today, they gave in and canceled classes for the rest of the month.
Now we've got other problems, and we'll have to each do our part to get through it. But we are getting through it, and we are doing it ourselves, like free men and women.
Before you decide that a totalitarian central government is the way to make you feel safe, too, you should reflect on what they're doing to the people they don't like.
Maybe you're safer being free, too. Although I suppose an associate professor of music who was willing to speak well of the regime might have a high social credit score, you never can be sure what your masters will decide to dislike. The Cultural Revolution came for all sorts of intellectuals, just as it is now the Muslim minority that is being sent to the chopping block.
In China, the obligation to isolate felt shared and the public changed their habits almost immediately. Sterilization, cleanliness and social distancing were prioritized by everyone at all times. Rightly or wrongly, the Chinese state’s heavy-handed approach seemed to work.What's with the scare quotes around "rights"? Was the intention to suggest that many things we think of as rights aren't really, like the 'right' to go out to eat at a restaurant? Or was the intent to suggest that freedom of movement, independence, protections from having the government seize your property, these sorts of things aren't really rights? The piece is ambiguous.
In contrast, individual liberty is the engine that drives American exceptionalism. There are certainly valid questions about how much of it to sacrifice in the name of the public good, but our laissez-faire attitude, prioritization of personal freedom and utter lack of government leadership have left Americans confused and exposed.
Particularly troubling has been the extent to which it has felt like high-risk residents such as ourselves have had to shoulder the burden for stopping the spread of the disease by being the only ones to go into isolation. There are lessons to be learned from the Chinese people if not its leadership, including that everybody must accept their own responsibility, vulnerability and complicity — sacrificing “rights” for the collective good — or many of us will die.
In fact the United States has managed, without a central authority -- in spite of the failures of our central government's ossified bureaucracies -- to lock itself down nearly as effectively as China. Schools and universities are canceling classes or shifting to online models for a while; sports leagues are forgoing millions in revenue to shut down their games. Nobody's making us do it, but we've done it anyway.
It does require more of us as citizens. I spent a lot of last week contacting government officials to urge appropriate action. And you can't just call the Federal elected officials: the real decisions are being made at the local and state level right now. Our local school board fought tooth and nail to avoid closing, as did the state department of education. As of yesterday afternoon they reaffirmed their intent to resume classes Monday morning, though the admitted that no one would be required to come given that the governor has declared a state of emergency. Finally, today, they gave in and canceled classes for the rest of the month.
Now we've got other problems, and we'll have to each do our part to get through it. But we are getting through it, and we are doing it ourselves, like free men and women.
Before you decide that a totalitarian central government is the way to make you feel safe, too, you should reflect on what they're doing to the people they don't like.
Maybe you're safer being free, too. Although I suppose an associate professor of music who was willing to speak well of the regime might have a high social credit score, you never can be sure what your masters will decide to dislike. The Cultural Revolution came for all sorts of intellectuals, just as it is now the Muslim minority that is being sent to the chopping block.
What was their job again?
As we sort through the simultaneous complaints that the President is an autocratic tyrant who's failing to take personal control of enough important American institutions, I turn again to Doc Zero (a/k/a John Hayward):
I also wouldn't fault Trump too much for being surprised to learn the system actually has roadblocks that make quick and effective epidemic response difficult. Would you think, upon succeeding the president in charge during the H1N1 epidemic, that would be the case?
The fascinating thing about the Democrats' "Trump cut CDC funding" lie is that none of them bothered to actually READ the unimplemented White House budget proposal in question. It talked about CDC getting distracted from its core mission by excessive staff and bureaucratic creep.
Everything I've seen so far buttresses that analysis. There really is no excuse for a gigantic government swimming in money, bursting with personnel, and top-heavy with management to be paralyzed unless the chief executive comes in and micro-manages every agency.
Red Flags in Maryland
A police shooting.
A Maryland man who was shot and killed by a police officer was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, an attorney for the 21-year-old man’s family said Friday. The man's girlfriend was also wounded....
The warrant that police obtained to search the Potomac home Lemp shared with his parents and 19-year-old brother doesn’t mention any “imminent threat” to law enforcement or the public, Lemp’s relatives said in a statement released Friday by their lawyers. Nobody in the house that morning had a criminal record, the statement adds.
"Exiled for the good of the realm"
I don't know about you guys, but I haven't had that much success getting useful diagnoses out of doctors, other than in really obscure cases requiring specialized tests. No matter how many doctors roll their eyes at "Dr. Google," most diagnoses occur at home. This flow-chart may be helpful:
It might be better to organize it differently, though. The main thing is whether there's fever or not, but evidently fever tends to appear with a suite of other symptoms: cough, fatigue, and prostration (but apparently not sneezing or a runny nose). If you're in this suite, the big difference between novel coronavirus and ordinary flu is said to be a distinct shortness of breath. Presumably this means the subjective feeling that accompanies a low pulse-ox, something I've experienced only once but won't soon forget.
If there's no fever, but you're sneezing and your nose is running, you probably have either allergies (especially if your eyes itch but your chest is OK) or a cold (especially if your chest is "uncomfortable" but your eyes don't itch).
I remain uncertain whether I've ever had the true flu. What do you call it when there's a little fever but not a lot, some weakness but not a huge amount, and a stuffy nose that turns into a moderate cough that goes on for a week or more? Is that what they mean by "mild chest discomfort"? Maybe all I've ever had were common colds. Maybe I don't need to know, since there's no useful way to treat either them or the flu, and my immune system is going to do its thing regardless of the state of my conscious knowledge. You treat the symptoms if possible, rest, and wait it out. This is the first time I can remember particularly needing to care, since putting what may be an ordinary seasonal cold or flu into the "coronavirus" category would mean a lot more urgency about either quarantine or--nightmare scenario--pushing the panic button and heading to an ER or ICU for respiratory support.
We're self-quarantining anyway, or at least socially isolating. It's the only useful way I know to do my part to keep the spread down, either to "flatten curve" in order to lessen the acute strain on medical facilities, or if possible to bring R0 under 1.0 so as to contain the spread completely.
My husband has just brought my attention to a much-needed distinction made by someone called "Ciaran's Artisanal ****posting": self-isolation is boring and clinical, suggesting that you're following the orders of a government, and a sure way for no one to notice your effort. Being "exiled for the good of the realm," however, is mysterious and sexy and will lead everyone to wonder what you did to deserve it.
It might be better to organize it differently, though. The main thing is whether there's fever or not, but evidently fever tends to appear with a suite of other symptoms: cough, fatigue, and prostration (but apparently not sneezing or a runny nose). If you're in this suite, the big difference between novel coronavirus and ordinary flu is said to be a distinct shortness of breath. Presumably this means the subjective feeling that accompanies a low pulse-ox, something I've experienced only once but won't soon forget.
If there's no fever, but you're sneezing and your nose is running, you probably have either allergies (especially if your eyes itch but your chest is OK) or a cold (especially if your chest is "uncomfortable" but your eyes don't itch).
I remain uncertain whether I've ever had the true flu. What do you call it when there's a little fever but not a lot, some weakness but not a huge amount, and a stuffy nose that turns into a moderate cough that goes on for a week or more? Is that what they mean by "mild chest discomfort"? Maybe all I've ever had were common colds. Maybe I don't need to know, since there's no useful way to treat either them or the flu, and my immune system is going to do its thing regardless of the state of my conscious knowledge. You treat the symptoms if possible, rest, and wait it out. This is the first time I can remember particularly needing to care, since putting what may be an ordinary seasonal cold or flu into the "coronavirus" category would mean a lot more urgency about either quarantine or--nightmare scenario--pushing the panic button and heading to an ER or ICU for respiratory support.
We're self-quarantining anyway, or at least socially isolating. It's the only useful way I know to do my part to keep the spread down, either to "flatten curve" in order to lessen the acute strain on medical facilities, or if possible to bring R0 under 1.0 so as to contain the spread completely.
My husband has just brought my attention to a much-needed distinction made by someone called "Ciaran's Artisanal ****posting": self-isolation is boring and clinical, suggesting that you're following the orders of a government, and a sure way for no one to notice your effort. Being "exiled for the good of the realm," however, is mysterious and sexy and will lead everyone to wonder what you did to deserve it.
Isolation Diary 2
So far I'm only doing these on the days when I break isolation. Today I went down to town for what I think will be the last time for a very long time. I've managed to arrange for everyone else on the property to stop having reasons to leave, but for one more trip, until the state of emergency is lifted or we run out of food. We have lots of food. Tomorrow I'll bottle up a few gallons of mead and get another batch started, so alcohol won't be a problem for a long time either.
In principle we could ride out two months here. In practice, I'll probably ride out when the weather is nice. One can hardly get sick on a motorcycle, as long as riding in the clean air is all one does. If we run short of anything I can make limited stops to pick up what we need and put it in the saddlebags, washing my hands immediately after leaving any stores with soap and bottled water.
The novel I'm editing is better than I remembered. It's really pretty good. I am removing a lot of commas, and smoothing some dialogue -- it wasn't bad before, but it sounded like the Medieval sources rather than like anything anyone would know how to hear today. Still, I'm pretty happy with it. I'll never write anything this good again; academic training has killed the instinct for beauty that I once possessed.
Ah, well. Perhaps 'killed' is too strong. There will be a lot of time for meditation in the coming weeks. Maybe I can recover something of what I once had.
In principle we could ride out two months here. In practice, I'll probably ride out when the weather is nice. One can hardly get sick on a motorcycle, as long as riding in the clean air is all one does. If we run short of anything I can make limited stops to pick up what we need and put it in the saddlebags, washing my hands immediately after leaving any stores with soap and bottled water.
The novel I'm editing is better than I remembered. It's really pretty good. I am removing a lot of commas, and smoothing some dialogue -- it wasn't bad before, but it sounded like the Medieval sources rather than like anything anyone would know how to hear today. Still, I'm pretty happy with it. I'll never write anything this good again; academic training has killed the instinct for beauty that I once possessed.
Ah, well. Perhaps 'killed' is too strong. There will be a lot of time for meditation in the coming weeks. Maybe I can recover something of what I once had.
A Series of Implausible Arguments
Robert Fisk is still around, it turns out.
"The Saudi royal family appear unaware of the dangers of settling scores among themselves."
I would guess there are no better experts in the world on the subject than the Saudi royal family, but carry on dude.
"The Saudi royal family appear unaware of the dangers of settling scores among themselves."
I would guess there are no better experts in the world on the subject than the Saudi royal family, but carry on dude.
Daytona Bike Week Canceled
Really everything is likely to be canceled that can be, but you know it's serious when Daytona cancels.
Some appropriate music.
Some appropriate music.
Killing An Admiral From Time to Time
Apropos of the last post, and because it happens to be the anniversary, a sea story.
ON MARCH 14, 1757, Royal Navy Vice Admiral John Byng boarded his flagship HMS Monarch for what would be the last time.We live in a softer age, for now.
As the 52-year-old officer waited on the quarterdeck in the company of nine marine guards, instructions were passed to all the men-of-war at anchor nearby in Spithead to dispatch their officers to the 74-gun ship of the line to witness the spectacle that had been planned.
As the clock struck twelve, a captain by the name of John Montagu stepped forward from the small crowd that had assembled on the Monarch to inform Byng that it was time — the admiral’s execution was at hand....
Upon learning of the execution, the French writer, philosopher and playwright Voltaire satirically wrote that the British needed to occasionally execute an admiral from time to time, “in order to encourage the others.”
Although his comments were written as a form of mockery, surprisingly, the observation was entirely accurate. Byng’s role in the Minorca fiasco led to what was darkly termed in the Royal Navy the “Byng Principle,” which meant that “nothing is to be undertaken where there is risk or danger.”
This sardonic term served as a cautionary reminder to naval officers of the sort of conduct that should be avoided in battle. And just or not, Byng’s death was to instill in them an aggressive fighting spirit that would succeed in turning the war in favour of Britain.
When This Is Over, We Hang the Bureaucrats
After problems arose with the C.D.C.’s test, officials could have switched to using successful tests that other countries were already using. But the officials refused to do so, essentially because it would have required changing bureaucratic procedures.So what can we replace the CDC with that is not a bureaucracy, or at least not a government bureaucracy?
The federal government could also have eased regulations on American hospitals and laboratories, to allow them to create and manufacture their own tests, as Melissa Miller of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine told The Washington Post. But federal officials did not do so for weeks. The Times’s Sheri Fink and Mike Baker reported this week about a Seattle lab with a promising test that was blocked by “existing regulations and red tape” while “other countries ramped up much earlier and faster.”
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