Tag Archives: ethics

Micromanagement

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California’s Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has published a list of activities he deems permissible for Californians to engage in while they’re outdoors.

Specific activities, carefully enumerated. Not principles of (social distancing) behaviors, particular behaviors.

Activities Newsom will allow [scroll down to Outdoor recreation] include

  • badminton—singles, mind you, doubles are too many
  • BMX biking—but not just pedaling around neighborhood
  • gardening—again, singles. Your kids or spouse aren’t allowed to help
  • car-washing—here, too, no spousal or kid help. And if it’s a kid chore, he’s on his own
  • tree climbing—unspecified as to whether a boost up is allowed
  • picnics (with your stay-home household members only)—but these persons aren’t allowed to participate with you in any of the above. Go figure
  • throwing a football, kicking a soccer ball (not in groups)—apparently you have to go get your own football or soccer ball after you’ve thrown/kicked it. Or maybe you’re allowed to get your dog to fetch

The list goes on. Throwing a baseball or a frisbee isn’t enumerated, so those likely are barred. Newsom claims his list is non-exhaustive, but it’s entirely too detailed and picayune to believe that it’s not nearly so.

This is the sort of micromanagement that demonstrates both the incredible insecurity of the micromanager and his tyrannical tendencies.

This is not the freedom and personal responsibility that Californians used to have.

Conspiracy Theorist in Chief

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That’s Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden, as he showed with this claim about President Donald Trump.

Mark my words, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held[.]

That’s of a piece with his predecessor CTIC candidate, Hillary Clinton, who insisted that Trump would never concede the election when he loses to Clinton in 2016. Which she has then proceeded to do functionally, her concession speech on the morning after the election notwithstanding. Which her understudy, Stacey Abrams, still absolutely refuses to do after she lost the Georgia governor race two years ago.

There are a few things wrong with Biden’s irrationality here. For one thing, Trump has no reason to want to delay the election; he’s well satisfied—as are many political experts, and not only those on his campaign team—that he’ll win in anything from a close election to a landslide.

The Biden conspiracy, too, is demonstrably false, as any junior high schooler knows, and most grade schoolers. Trump can’t delay the election. Its date is fixed by law as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Congress would have to change the date, which is to say each house of Congress would have to agree with each other to change the date and then on the new date to be chosen. And then Congress would have to get the President to agree or to muster a veto override vote. In each house separately.

Electors, chosen by the States and the ones who actually will elect the President and Vice President, meet the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December to hold their election. That’s another date set by law and not changeable except by the above, by design slow and cumbersome, process.

Regardless of any of that, there’s no practical reason to delay the election. Our Constitution fixes a President’s term of office end as 20 January. Full stop. Pesky law provides for the succession to the presidency if the President cannot serve—which Trump could not, if he’s not reelected, which he could not be if there’s no election before that 20 January.

With conspiracy-mongering, Biden provides another demonstration of his unfitness for office.

Rates

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The Wall Street Journal had a piece Sunday that talked about the plans of nations around Earth are forming “to reopen parts of daily life.” I’m more interested in the…slant…made plain in the WSJ‘s subheadline:

Nearly 54,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US, as calls for more federal aid to states continue to grow

The focus is made even more obvious in the body of the article; these are a couple of examples:

Nearly 2,000 people died from Covid-19 in the US on Saturday, bringing the death toll to almost 54,000….

And

In Israel, where nearly 200 people have died from Covid-19, many stores and beauty salons were authorized to reopen….

How many people have recovered from the Wuhan Virus in the US? How many people have recovered from the Wuhan Virus in Israel? Such clarifying data are carefully omitted. Maybe that’s because those data might contradict the narrative.

Even the graphic near the end of the article focuses on deaths while carefully ignoring the recovereds.

Nor is there mention of the quite low mortality rates and how those rates are declining further as more is learned about components of the numerators of those rates, components like the numbers who were infected but asymptomatic or who were infected but sufficiently mildly so that they didn’t see a doctor or saw one, but were sent home with only mild, ordinary treatments.

What a Concept

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A legal, permanent resident immigrant with a prior criminal record, has been ordered deported, and the Supreme Court has upheld the deportation order.  Because it’s the law.

Writing for the Court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh had this [emphasis added]:

Removal of a lawful permanent resident from the United States is a wrenching process, especially in light of the consequences for family members. Removal is particularly difficult when it involves someone such as Barton who has spent most of his life in the United States. Congress made a choice, however, to authorize removal of noncitizens—even lawful permanent residents—who have committed certain serious crimes. And Congress also made a choice to categorically preclude cancellation of removal for noncitizens who have substantial criminal records. Congress may of course amend the law at any time. In the meantime, the Court is constrained to apply the law as enacted by Congress.

The law does matter. At least to some of us.

Unsurprisingly, the four liberal Justices, voted against the Court’s ruling. Which is entirely consistent with their view that laws don’t matter when they’re in the way of the Justices’ personal views of social needs.

The case is Barton v Barr, and it can be read here.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has been busily releasing prison inmates, ostensibly to protect them from Wuhan Virus infections burgeoning in his city’s prisons. Many of those released have been violent felons, suitably sentenced for the violence associated with their crimes—but, hey, equality, amiright? No prisoner left behind.

Those violent felons have been busily committing violent crimes since their release.

…at least 50 newly released individuals have already been rearrested, and in some cases set free a second time.

De Blasio is surprised that violent criminals are resorting to violence again.

I think it’s unconscionable just on a human level that folks were shown mercy, and this is what some them have done[.]

No, what’s surprising is that someone as intelligent as a de Blasio would expect genteel behavior from violent criminals.