The Founding Fathers and Covid (yes, there is a connection).

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Is the right so sure the Founding Fathers would be on their side in the matter of Covid?

That's completely different! Don't you know that the Founders were infallible? Plus they weren't forcing people to wear masks specifically so it's totally not comparable.
Remember: Much as "when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", so too "when the Founders do it, that means that it is not anti-American"

Yes, they are; but so what?  Mere sincerity of belief will never truly validate their claim (except in their own minds).

Something like the Dunning-Kruger effect may be affecting them, but I could be wrong.

I think the founding fathers would have left it up to the individual states. I don't think the individual states back then would have acted as crazy as they are now.

Your examples come from wartime (and before the Constitution was even drafted). I can fully see a military general not wanting his troops to get sick. The Boston incident was just one city, which had been occupied by the British for over a year. That smallpox vaccination was part of the "reconstruction" of Boston.

And this corona virus doesn't remotely compare to smallpox. Apples and oranges.

They tried the “individualistic state approach” within the Articles of Confederation. That did not work. Hence, the Constitution.

The pandemic inevitably spreads between states. One state's action or inaction with regard to the pandemic will affect the pandemic's spread in other states. It cannot be left entirely to the states, because it then leaves the states no recourse when neighboring states' inadequate response to the virus affects their own citizens. Therefore, it falls to the federal government to act as mediator and coordinator of inter-state pandemic mitigation efforts.
The states that don't like that seem to mainly be the ones who want to bury their heads in the sand so they can act like the pandemic does not need a serious response because they are worried about adversely affecting 'the economy'. The non-measures proposed by such states would get people killed in their states and others, and would do greater long term damage to their economies and others'.

Not "individualistic approach." With the constitution, certain powers are Federal only, the rest left up to the states. They didn't want a collection of independent nations (Articles), nor did they want a centralized national government. Matter of fact, even today most of the restrictions are done at the state (and even local level). Wait, aren't you the guy from Queens? We've had this discussion, I think.

In this current scenario, we have an unelected Federal official who seems to be the unquestioned lord and master for justifying lock-downs, which in turn has given states and local authorities a blank check to impose restrictions as they varyingly see fit. I don't think the Founding Fathers would have taken a national approach (as we haven't really truly done today), but they'd be wary of one unelected official giving directives like this.

On the contrary. The lock-down has been state's rights gone nuts, and it's the Federal government's responsibility not to allow tyrant chieftans to operate at the state/local level. The measures themselves may very well be doing more harm than good, as economies are being destroyed, and people are dying from other things.

2020 saw more suicides, drug overdoeses, and reports of domestic abuse than any other year on record. Some small businesses may never come back. And yet, hardly anyone has died directly from Corona. It's not the bubonic plague or ebola, but local tyrants have destroyed society and liberty over it.

Well, the coronavirus doesn't give a damn about what some dead dudes more than 200 years ago thought, did or contemplated.

And the coronavirus isn't someone you can drag to court for violating your constitutional rights. It doesn't care about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution or the Federalist Papers.

To the coronavirus, the US is just a landmass (and part of a larger landmass) with a size of 3.7 million square miles and with 331 million potential human hosts for the virus to infect and spread in.

Correct. We can't take it to court. By the same token, we cannot legislate it out of existence. But, here we are, legislating and destroying the economy nonetheless.

The trouble with leaving it mostly to the states is the us-against-them attitude that it can create, as opposed to maintaining the common good. Trump had tried to fan the flames of state vs state with his talk about how if the blue states were taken out of the equation, then Covid didn't look that bad.

The states have only had to take the steps that they have because of an inadequate federal response from republicans.
Not sure how many times I'm going to have to say this but: the economy would be doing even worse if we had not taken the anti-pandemic measures we have. Hundreds of thousands of more people dead does not a strong economy make. Businesses would not be able to stay in business if their whole staff becomes infected. People will voluntarily choose not to go to businesses that downplay the seriousness of the virus. Except for those who act like it's no big deal--who will increase the spread and damage the economy further.


Some small businesses may never come back. 350,000 American lives will never come back. How many lives is one small business worth?



I'm guessing this quatsch about people dying "directly" is part of the familiar narrative meant to downplay the impact of the virus by suggesting that they aren't "real" covid deaths if the person had a pre-existing health risk. Did they die after contracting corona? Did they die from complications from corona? Did they die because corona aggravated an illness or disorder they already had? Then they died of corona--whether we want to act like "indirect" deaths are or are not cause for concern.

You can say it as often as you like. In truth, if Corona were the bubonic plague, if people were dropping dead left and right and bodies piling up in the streets, then a lockdown or lack-thereof would make no difference. We'd be in a de facto lockdown anyway, as nobody would want to go out and about. Businesses would go under simply because half the people were sick or dead, and the others afraid to leave their houses.

In this scenario, people are being forced to keep their businesses closed. And what businesses are forced to remain closed seem to vary jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Yet, for a virus that's so deadly, most people don't even know they have it until they get tested for it. If not for the lockdowns, most people would have no natural inclination to alter normal life. This is not the Black Death by any means.

Not sure how many times I have to say it. It’s like a scale. Balance. COVID-19 can be deadly in its own right. Prolonged unnatural lockdowns are equally as deadly and destructive. How many thousands of lives have been lost not because of COVID, but because of the lockdowns? You conveniently ignored the rise in suicides, drug overdoses, domestic abuse. Also, people with other, unrelated health problems have been denied potential life-saving medical services, because ‘we’re in an epidemic.’

Last edited by ezbzbfcg2 on 03 Jan 2021, 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if people at high risk of dying from complications of the common flu have been incorrectly reported as being COVID-19 deaths. We'll never know how many people have died from this disease. Scarier is how many people will die because of this prolonged mass hysteria.