Moderates United

I’m trying to plan a trip in August, and am dumbstruck by the rules in some States. I just looked up New Mexico. They requires a 14 day quarantine or the duration of your stay, whichever is shorter. That is on the official website. Ponder that.

This for a disease which presents almost no risk to anyone who is not at serious risk of dying from the flu or something else each and every year, and which maxes out WITH those people at .4 percent, or 4 people in a thousand who CONTRACT it. One third of people seem to be immune, and nearly everyone who is healthy can get it without EVEN KNOWING IT.

The response, not the disease, is putting millions of good people and good families out of business for no substantive, no justifiable reason. If I am being a bit monotone on this, it is because the lives of literally most of the people on the ENTIRE PLANET are being disrupted, for a disease that is not dangerous for most of us.

Consider that countries where bubonic plague, leprosy, malaria, Dengue fever, and other diseases long conquered in the developing world are endemic, are destroying their agricultural sectors with idiotic restrictions that will cause mass misery and death by slow starvation.

If the idiocy, imbecility and utter reckless destructiveness of this plague of government is not the first thing you think about in the morning, you are either clueless or a better person than me. I admit both as honest possibilities.

It hit me this morning that I have been thinking about this whole thing wrong, or at least incompletely

Consider that we have a flu epidemic (epidemic being defined as more than 7% of deaths from a given and I guess new/transient cause, with the alternative being that we are in a cardiovascular disease epidemic continually) every year.  20-80-000 people die.  20% or so of the country gets the flu, despite mass vaccinations.

We are told “herd immunity” is 60-70% of the population getting the given disease and developing immunity.  But we stop most years at 20% with the flu.  Why?

From what I’m reading, about 52% of Americans get the flu vaccine each year.  And most years, the vaccine is about 50% effective: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/effectiveness-studies.htm

That means about 25% (half of half of Americans) of Americans are thought to get immunity from the vaccine.  25 plus 20 is 45%.  That leaves a gap of at least 15-30%.

Here is my suggestion: a healthy immune system conveys de facto immunity, particularly to types of viruses and bacterias to which the person has been exposed before.

At some point in our lives, all of us have been exposed to a flu virus.  It is inevitable.  Personally, I have had the flu once, but only once, and during one of the most stressful periods of my life (sales job for a brutal, fundamentally irrational, continually changing large American corporation, in which their own policies literally made it impossible for me to meet my goals with any amount of effort).  I don’t get flu vaccines.  Why would I?  I don’t get the flu.

In the Navy ships of America, France, and maybe some others, they found that even on close sustained exposure to symptomatic carriers of COVID-19 about a third of the people never contracted it.

Here is the thing; we are all exposed to bacteria and viruses every second of every day.  They are in the air, on every surface, on our skin, in our bodies.  But we don’t get sick most of the time.  Why?  Healthy immune systems.

And with regard to coronaviruses specifically, we have all been exposed to the first four on the list continually all our lives.  There is no reason to think most of us don’t start with a bit of immunity on first exposure.

So to the list of every total of people who have had a given disease and recovered, you have to add all those who have HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEMS.  Let us say this is, on the low side, one third of all Americans, particularly the young.

That means from DAY ONE 115 million Americans have de facto Herd Immunity to all but the most virulent bugs, and COVID-19 is clearly not one of those.  It may be worse than most flus, but not by much.

And consider in this regard too the seeming close connection between World War 1 and the Spanish Flu.  Why were our soldiers called Dough Boys?  Because they lived on donuts.  They were malnourished, and then stuck in ships at sea for long periods of time where they got little fresh air or exercise.

State-side, the war effort probably brought on nutritional (food) shortages, such that immune boosting staples like meat were in shorter supply than normal.

The net effect of all of this was to diminish the natural number of people who would have contributed to our national Herd Immunity, such that THAT YEAR an extraordinary number of people died.  It hasn’t happened since.  Why?  We’ve never been that malnourished since.

This, at least, is a tenable hypothesis.

And I will add that it is is disgusting and infuriating to me to watch people like Dr. Fauci crap all over the notions of professional diligence and competence.  I don’t know if he is on the make as Judy Mikovits alleges  but that he has acted incompetently, unprofessionally, and seemingly with no regard AT ALL for the effects of the lockdowns is obvious.

His unwarranted and indefensible opposition to HCQ alone should disqualify him from his office and respect from anyone who doesn’t have a financial investment in his work.

Why am I not reading what I just wrote in a number of places?  Why are we not seeing the “professionals” recommending sun, exercise, play, Vitamin D, and inflammation reducing diets?

In my view, this lockdown is one of the largest crimes ever perpetrated on the WORLD, at least outside of wartime.  It is literally a peacetime war on freedom, prosperity, and public health.

It occurs to me to comment that anyone who wants to defend the continuation of this lockdown when the epidemic–defined as 7% of death from a given cause–has been over for more than a month, is really forced to privilege potential future evils over present, real, and ubiquitous ones.  They say that what MIGHT happen is vastly more important than what IS happening.

And self evidently, most of them make this process easy for themselves by IGNORING present evils, including the risk of 125 million people starving to death.  To put it mildly, that is a LOT of people, a lot of pain, a lot of misery, and something that HONEST people who feel honest compassion should be deeply worried about.

That most Democrats could not care less, well, we’ve been over this road, haven’t we?  The outlines are clear enough.

Here is an example of the sort of general summation that makes me happy: if we cannot achieve Herd Immunity naturally, then no vaccine is possible.

Vaccines only work if exposure causes immunity lasting long enough to get through at least a given period. But if exposure leads to endogenous immunity, then the vaccines is not formally needed, and particularly not for diseases which are not that dangerous for most people, which is the case with COVID-19.

A vaccine would be for the elderly, and would only be more use than harm if it were proven safe through prolonged and honest testing, not the rabbit race we can expect from all the labs dashing through every sort of traditional restraint in the hope of cashing in on trillions of dollars.

The best way out of this whole thing is to do nothing. Let everyone under 55 back to work tomorrow, with no masks and no social distancing. Keep a certain capacity in the hospitals open for overflow, but otherwise restart all normal work.

One month, or at most two or so, and we’re done. We should have done this back in April, but as I’ve said, a lot of people are ENJOYING the misery of the world.

And to be clear, I see cowards and fools in every direction. Trump is an exception, but he is one of the only ones. I don’t expect anyone to have this courage. But it is the right path. I would bet my own life on it without hesitation, and would be quite willing to get injected with this thing tomorrow.

If we cannot achieve Herd Immunity, then no vaccine is possible.

Now that appeals to my sensibilities.  That is the sort of summation I love.

For those who claim “we don’t know if illness conveys immunity yet” point out that there is no reason to think this is true–those who have once had it do not seem to have it twice, and CERTAINLY they develop antibodies, which have been measured and studied, and which cause the end of the illness.

But IF illness does not convey immunity, THEN no vaccine can be developed either.

In general, this argument seems to be used by those who want this shutdown to last forever, as a means of arguing against the obvious case I have made often for pursuing Herd Immunity at full speed, damn the torpedoes.  They say we need to wait for a vaccine.

Well, a vaccine can’t be developed for a disease against which no lasting immunity can be built.  Period.  Full Stop.  This is HOW IT WORKS.  You inject a dead version of the bacteria or in this case virus (how does that even work?  Viruses are not even technically alive to begin with; perhaps this is one of the major technical problems: how to kill something that isn’t alive to begin with), and the body develops an immune response without being subjected to the full disease.

As I’ve said, I think injecting this virus, rather than inhaling it, may well accomplish the same thing.  I’m the only one saying this, but that’s nothing new.

It is astonishing to me how many people more or less openly are hoping for an open ended continuation of this economic and psychological devastation, which is causing an absolutely inconceivable amount of pain, anger, hardship, and grief.  125 MILLION people are at risk of starvation, and it is safe to assume some percentage of them will slide over that precipice, absent major aid efforts, from nations which have made themselves less secure food-wise with these idiotic lockdowns.

Wake up.  We are being led by terroristic demons who feed on our pain.

That is only mild hyperbole.  Actually, I’m not even sure I meant that as an exaggeration.  Certainly, they are in no hurry to ease the suffering they are inflicting.  That much is painfully obvious.  They seek out reasons to continue, as does their media.  They are not looking for hope, for cures, or for good news.  Not in the least.

Should anyone really need to know anything else?

It occurred to that literal scenario I just described is well within the realm of possibility. I literally believe there are heterosexual males out there who could be bullied into accepting unwanted anal sex simply by accusing the of “homophobia” if they refuse. Never mind their boundaries. Never mind what they want. Never mind the trauma of submitting to something you didn’t choose.

Some time ago I read that in college Bill Ayers made his girlfriend have sex with a black friend/associate/acquaintance of his. It was not quite a rape as I recall her describing it, but not quite not a rape either. That, by the then-standards. Today, almost certainly. She was treated as chattel property for political reasons, and using political rationalizations. Not to have had sex with him would have made her racist, even if she was deeply uncomfortable with the situation, not in the mood, not attracted to the man, and profoundly resentful that her lover could be such a sociopathic asshole.

The path to political hell is paved with reflexive good manners.

A culture war is a war. It is an effort by one determined group of people to undermine all the givens, all the assumptions, all the habits of the culture it is invading, conquering, and colonizing.

You can’t wage a culture war with good manners. Our opponents USE our good manners against us, to always push just a little more, just a little further, until in 2020 we have Mitt Romney, Target, Joel Osteen and many others supporting a group which SAYS it is Marxist, which ADMITS it wa founded by “trained Marxists”, and which wants to destroy our Constitutional protections in pursuit of a fascist tyranny vastly worse than that of King George.

I have commented on Fabianism from time to time. Another take might be “a nihilistic creed seeking to over turn and confuse all historically rooted culture using the usually correct assumption that most people are not assholes, and that even those who are do not want to be PERCEIVED as assholes.”

How did so much of Corporate America flip into bad ideas that will destroy the lives of most Americans if implemented?

Good manners. They do t want to rock the boat. So if you tell them they are bad people if they do t let you fuck them up the ass, well, off come the pants and Ben Dover makes his appearance.

Trump is not as asshole. But he is not afraid of being called one. This makes a huge difference.

With some people there is and can be no negotiation. The time to stop appeasement is NOW, since yesterday is taken.

Take being called an asshole, by assholes, as a badge of honor. It means you are not being their useful little bitch.

Legally, I’m ignorant.  I can’t speak intelligently about this.

But in principle, it seems to me that all Emergency Authority granted to any Executive anywhere, from the United States President, to all our Governors, to all our Mayors and Sheriffs, ought to be have a time limit.  An expiration date.

Yes, you can react forcefully and quickly to something which requires it.  But after thirty days, it expires without express legislative authorization and empowerment.

This whole pandemic has exposed a serious and perhaps one day fatal flaw in our system.  Hitler was not elected Supreme Dictator.  He had all sorts of controls on him when he was first made Chancellor.  Paul Hindenburg was his boss, among other things, or so I recall.  Hitler needed the Reichstag to authorize most of his actions.

But then (as most believe) he set fire to the Reichstag, blamed internal enemies of the State, and arrogated to himself emergency powers.  He may have even described them as temporary at the time.  I don’t recall.  Just give me this, and I’ll fix all your problems, he no doubt said.

10-12 years later (I forget the exact dates), Berlin was in flames, and another generation of German men was dead.

I don’t know the remedy.  It may vary State to State.  But we all need to plug this leak while we still can.  Far too many governors have shown far too much sexual excitement at their newfound ability to play S&M games with us.

And in that regard, aren’t you just CURIOUS why Andrew Cuomo has his nipples pierced?  Do you think any of us really want to know that back story?   I don’t.  But I do.  You know the drill.  You’re a rubbernecker too.

Our Framers knew human beings are prone to depravity and ill will.  They knew the worst among us tend to be the ones most interested in power.  But we need leaders.  Their negotiated solution was power, but power with limits: legal limits, time limits, and spacial limits.

The people who say “it is all worth it if we can save even one life” are willing to sacrifice 10 hidden lives to save one visible and reportable life.

There is no goodness there.