While a few courageous governors have refused to order lockdowns or massive business closures, most Americans remain locked in what appears to be a giant Milgram experiment testing how far they are willing to go down an increasingly irrational path, egged on by authority figures whose unconstitutional dictates need not be followed.
Whatever the causes of this uncharacteristic bit of non-litigiousness, Americans should know that ample legal precedents suggest that most shelter in place orders are unlawful and unconstitutional.
How do we know what we know, when the coronavirus crisis has shown that even “hard” science does not easily discern Truth from Error? Data can be “massaged” by removing “outliers,” putting in “lags,” smoothing in different ways, and on and on. The distortions do not have to be deliberate to be a major problem.
Politicians, including the President, try to adjust expectations about what a “good” or “bad” outcome would look like. If the outcome is bad and lots of people die they can always come out with the “good thing we did something or this would have been much worse” excuse.
The real problem is the loss of what Bill White called America’s Fiscal Constitution, a set of borrowing and budget rules first developed by Alexander Hamilton, America’s first Treasury Secretary. The idea was that the federal government should keep a lot of “dry powder” so that it could borrow to fight wars, purchase territory, and…
The existence of such insurance would help to quell fears by allowing underinsured households the opportunity to protect their incomes.
Unless our neighbors break into our houses and cough in our faces, what they do is their business, not ours. Our business is to do what we think best for ourselves and our families.
If America retains Social Security while simultaneously turning over healthcare for all to the government, the government’s incentives will change somewhat, becoming more Logan’s Run-like.
All leaders, not just generals, tend to fight the last “war.” All readers of Hayek know why: they feel compelled to promulgate a response but lack sufficient information to make optimal decisions.
Yes, healthcare is much more important than fast food, which is exactly why we need to deregulate it and do so now before COVID-20, or some other contagious calamity, strikes.