> N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
Yes, our government has been incompetent all around. That's a bad thing.
If the country can't gear up production of masks to fight a pandemic, why am I supposed to believe we could do anything of meaning competently? I know I'm a lot less impressed with our military's readiness if we ever get into a real war than I was a year ago. We've shown we're very good at throwing money at fraudsters and very little about actually producing things we need ourselves.
We also seem to care very little about over a million deaths, if we go with something like a 0.5% fatality rate. Puts the reaction to 9/11 and the whole "how dare you disrespect our troops" racist reaction to athletes protesting into perspective...
I don't understand the people who go from "wow, we've handled this badly" to "we might as well never try anything again," though.
That should be the motivation to start paying more attention, from local politics all the way up, not give up.
> Yes, our government has been incompetent all around.
I don't agree. This is not incompetence. It is malice. The government absolutely could be responding far better, and doing much of the same things every other western democracy is doing. A popular political position in this country is to prove that we need less gov't by making sure it appears incompetent. Combined with the similar political need to believe the virus is a hoax means we get zero federal response.
I wouldn't argue with that much when looking at federal government (judicial branch excluded), but state and local governments have been varied in their responses, and most have been far from malice. In Chicago, my local alderman has been reactive to events (including non-covid matters, like storm damage) and informative about public services (especially with testing sites). Helpful and without cynicism.
I believe that national politics gets an undue spotlight, and that local government (in particular) does not receive the attention warranted.
The federal government doesn't seem to feel that same restraint when it comes to sending federal police into Portland to do community-level police work. And they are certainly more than happy to dictate many other aspects of our lives using whatever levers they have available. So why is it suddenly now that they can't provide any help in a pandemic because it's the States' responsibility?
>>The federal government doesn't seem to feel that same restraint when it comes to sending federal police into Portland to do community-level police work
While I disagree with the strategy and execution it is completely dishonest to say they were sent "to do community-level police work", they were sent to protect Federal Property after the City and State Governments failed to provide any protection for said property in the face of riots.
Again if it were me I would have just abandoned the building, and take with it all federal money letting Portland burn setting up a new Federal Courthouse (and giving the money that comes with it) to a new city in the region that would welcome the economic output of such a venue.
>>And they are certainly more than happy to dictate many other aspects of our lives using whatever levers they have available.
2 wrongs do not make a right... As a libertarian I advocate for the reduction in Federal power all the time at every level. It seems however Democrats only complain about federal power when a Republican is in charge, and Republicans only complain about Federal Power when a Democrat is in charge. Democrats and Republicans alike have transferred HUGE amounts of power from the Legislative to the Executive which enabled both Obama and now Trump to use that federal power in ways many people disagree with
They may wish that the local police were more successful at suppressing the violence, but that doesn't make it their responsibility to deal with the rioters. And why did they feel the need to meet the Portland protesters with violence but not the guys who occupied federal property out in Eastern Oregon? Politics, perhaps?
> 2 wrongs do not make a right
Sure. However, promoting the general welfare of people in the US by supporting pandemic response is a good bit less bad than creating arbitrary new regulations and laws that criminalize behavior which is really a local concern.
> We also seem to care very little about over a million deaths, if we go with something like a 0.5% fatality rate. Puts the reaction to 9/11 and the whole "how dare you disrespect our troops" racist reaction to athletes protesting into perspective...
That is something to ponder. What does this say about us as a people? "Hey, we must retaliate, they attacked us!!" vs "Hell no I will not do one simple thing to protect others when we are all under attack from a virus." Hrm.
A few bad apples spoil the bunch. A society made up of people that tolerate 20% of their own to be antisocial super spreaders is rotten to the core, even if the majority behaves responsibly.
There's an analogy to US police forces there, too. And to US politicians.
I find it kind of odd that there appears to be a huge overlap between the following two groups of people:
People that say government can or should impose/strongly-suggest/mandate mask wearing to protect overall population. Essentially the pro-mask wearing individuals.
Individuals that believe that we need end-to-end encryption, and that we can't have government watching our emails, tracking our movements, doing facial recognition, profiling, etc to stop violence.
In both cases, one could argue, the solutions being pushed-back against can effectively stop their respective problems. E.g. large scale big-brother surveillance of all individuals could effectively reduce crime to near zero. Just as 100% large scale government lockdowns/SIP and mask-orders can stop the spread of an epidemic.
Obviously I'm generalizing to try draw a comparison and point out the hypocrisy. Both of the problems require a suspension of some set of rights for "the greater good", yet we somehow balk at one (surveillance, facial recognition, centralized DBs, etc) whilst applauding and being offended when people question the other (mask wearing, SIP laws, social distancing, etc).
It's probably time that we decide as a society what we want instead of incessantly debating back and forth with contradictory requirements and expectations we impose on our governments.
Governments spying on their people has been happening for decades and there is little evidence of any significant benefit for society, while the potential for abuse is obviously huge.
By comparison wearing masks to slow down infection rates of viruses/diseases that spread via nose/mouth secretions has centuries of evidence backing it up and the government doesn't really gain anything by enforcing the use of masks in places like supermarkets. Maybe it can artificially increase demand to benefit some mask manufacturers but that's it.
I'll agree it's not a perfect analogy. But if you want to press me on a potential abuse of a government-mandated and punishable order of wearing masks: Abuse of power by corrupt government officials that can use this extra and easily-fakeable "offense" in order to punish individuals that they don't like. Or what about the negative social aspect of creating laws that have neighbors secretly reporting each-other for this? Or the potential for child-traffickers to gag + hide the gag with a mask while they're busy engaging in trafficking?
If you sit long enough you can come up with a potential abuse for any government law or idea. Just as is done with mass-surveillance. What we don't do is sit down and come up with extraordinary ways and means for us to use powerful tools/ideas/solutions such as surveillance in a responsible and safeguarded manner that is not exploitable by bad individuals in government, or bad governments themselves.
Yes, our government has been incompetent all around. That's a bad thing.
If the country can't gear up production of masks to fight a pandemic, why am I supposed to believe we could do anything of meaning competently? I know I'm a lot less impressed with our military's readiness if we ever get into a real war than I was a year ago. We've shown we're very good at throwing money at fraudsters and very little about actually producing things we need ourselves.
We also seem to care very little about over a million deaths, if we go with something like a 0.5% fatality rate. Puts the reaction to 9/11 and the whole "how dare you disrespect our troops" racist reaction to athletes protesting into perspective...
I don't understand the people who go from "wow, we've handled this badly" to "we might as well never try anything again," though.
That should be the motivation to start paying more attention, from local politics all the way up, not give up.