Fear the walking dead..?

America, and presumably most of the industrialized world is locked down because of the risk of covid-19. It's been just about 40 days since most states imposed restrictions. Much global commerce has come to a halt and as you might predict, as resources begin to become more limited, people are beginning to turn on one another like rats in a cage or fledglings in a nest. Human society is a product of the natural world and nature is nothing if not Darwinian. 

Yonder come the Zombies

It's natural for people to panic in the face of losing their jobs, unpaid rent, empty store shelves. I would have thought it would take a bit longer than five weeks, but it seems that's about the limit of the patience of a large portion of America's citizens. The greatest generation this is not. People are beginning to protest government's limitations on commercial and personal activities, though the protests seem to be more politically opportunistic than genuine. Let's just say there are a lot of red hats in the crowds.

Covid-19 stats for the DC area 04/25/2020

Many of us, a majority according to the polls, support the limitations imposed primarily by governors across the country (the federal government stages daily dog and pony shows, but doesn't seem to actually have a national public health policy of any consequence - other than maybe injecting people with Lysol or somehow irradiating them with UV rays). But clearly, concern for the health and well being of our fellow citizens is not the highest priority for all of us...

I have tried over the years to keep an open mind and respect the views of people with whom I disagree, but despite my best efforts it is getting substantially more difficult. I understand there's a significant part of our population who feel increasingly left out of our nation's natural evolution, or nature's evolution for that matter. I sympathize. Who wouldn't want to be a white man in the immediate post-war era, even though it was always a myth? Who wouldn't want to live in some Archie Bunker America that certainly never existed wherein everybody was happy and prosperous and free?

Oh, that's what's wrong with you - you're a Nazi...

What the hell's wrong with you, White Man?

There's always been a nostalgia for a mythical past and I get that. I suppose our founders' choice to base our entire nation's government and official architecture on an idyllic vision of ancient Athens fits that description. But something there is about the conservative mind that seems to make it particularly prone to the kind of self-delusion and reality-free fantasy of some Dick and Jane world that if it existed, only did so on the backs of minorities and women who, trust me, were not enjoying it nearly so much.

Once you've abandoned facts as the basis of history, I guess it's only natural to create a fictional now in which Nancy Pelosi conspires with Chinese scientists working in a North Carolina lab to unleash a virus that may be deadly (or harmless) in order to destroy capitalism and enslave the American people. But at least the disease can be cured by shining sunlight inside our bodies and/or injecting them with disinfectant.

Look, if to maintain your worldview you have to disbelieve observable fact, distrust all authority and internalize all manner of laughable conspiracy theories, there's something wrong with your world view. Democracy is always a battle of ideas. It should be hard fought to force us to grapple with a range of issues and possible solutions. But it shouldn't be a battle over whether or not objective truth is real.