Category: too much government

The Saddest Thanksgiving

We are social animals. We need human interaction, not just interaction with our “screens.”

So, no wonder suicide is a rising problem during the lockdowns.

Jon Miltimore, writing at FEE, focuses on one country known for its suicide-tolerant culture: Japan. “Suicide Claimed More Lives in October Than 10 Months of COVID-19 in Japan, Report Shows.” Though the island nation had seen lowering levels of suicides for years, the lockdowns to prevent the spread of the Wuhan contagion have apparently reversed the trend.

“The 2,153 suicides reported last month are about 600 more than the previous year, CBS reports, with the largest gains coming in women, who saw an 80 percent surge in suicide,” Miltimore informs.

Though these United States do not publish timely stats, reports from specific locales suggest that suicide is rising in America, too.

And this is not surprising.

If one were to “follow the science” — or sciences, in this case sociology, social psychology, etc. — one would have predicted such an effect. The “social distancing” model for pandemic mitigation is the perfect recipe for inducing suicidal ideations in social animals like ourselves.

Most at-risk are those with depression problems already, orother social trauma — or “merely” have trouble making friends. Government-mandated distancing just makes it harder for those who really need to make connections, but have trouble doing so.

Add on the holidays — a traditional time for familial bonding and social conviviality, but really tough for those alienated from same — and we are in for a bumpy sociality crisis.

Lockdowns are anti-social. This holiday season, reasonable, usually-healthy people might want to reach out, repeatedly (if only “virtually”), to those who need what many states now prohibit: human contact.

For humanity’s sake. For our friends’ sake.

This is Common Sense. Paul Jacob.

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general freedom Tenth Amendment federalism too much government

Feds Not Wanted

For those arguing for drug reform for decades, Oregon’s successful ballot measures 109 and 110 are hugely hopeful signs in sensible drug policy.

They may, however, prove better signs of a general trend beyond just drug policy.*

The best reason to oppose drug prohibitions is not to maximize our freedom but to inculcate a culture of responsibility while getting government out of the business of interfering in our lives.

And while Measure 109 is about psilocybin mushrooms, what it actually does is establish a government board to set up a regulatory system to distribute and license possession of consumable psilocybins.

May work out great. It may also turn out very badly.

As one would expect from this sort of government program.

Measure 110, which also passed on Tuesday, made “personal non-commercial possession of a controlled substance no more than a Class E violation (max fine of $100 fine) and establishing a drug addiction treatment and recovery program funded in part by the state’s marijuana tax revenue and state prison savings.”

Both are very “liberal” programs, based on notions of state aid and government program-building rather than traditional, more “conservative” prohibit-and-punish models. Both the old and the new approaches skirt around personal responsibility.

What the measures show, though, is that Oregonians are effectively defying federal laws on “controlled substances.” The new approach is very old: federalist, more about local rather than national control.

As such, it shows the current tide turning away from making a federal case out of everything.

The next President of These United States, and both houses of Congress, should take notice.

On drugs, they are not only not needed. They are not wanted.

Apply that to health care in general, I say.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* These Oregon measures were the only two “hard drug” ballot measures this year. There were quite a few marijuana ballot measures around the country. All passed.

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too much government

For a New Normalcy

Covid, virus, epidemic, test, government

Science writer Ronald Bailey argues that the best path to “a New Normal” can be found by rolling out home COVID-19 tests. But notes they are illegal.

Bailey’s November piece in Reason magazine informs us that “biotech startup E25Bio, diagnostics maker OraSure, and the 3M Co., are working on and could quickly deploy rapid at-home COVID-19 diagnostic tests.”

These tests work, he says, “by detecting, within minutes, the presence of coronavirus proteins using specific antibodies embedded on a paper test strip coated with nasal swab samples or saliva. Somewhat like at-home pregnancy tests, the antigen tests change color or reveal lines if COVID-19 proteins are recognized.”

So why not go ahead with these antigen tests? Well, the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t allow it. Bailey quotes a Harvard epidemiologist: “Until the regulatory landscape changes, those companies have no reason to bring a product to market.”

Regulatory blocking and kludge are just one reason this is not possible.

But if you — or for that matter, Mr. Bailey — think that this problem can just be solved with a Trumpian executive order or a quick legislative fix, there are reasons for doubt.

Our whole system is government-rigged. And, as Ludwig von Mises made clear in Bureaucracy, clunky slowness is not just a bug of such systems. It’s the feature.

And it’s a bad feature.

It’s why many of us oppose regulation by bureaucracy and prefer a rule of law and competition within markets to supply the regulation that businesses need.

Which suggests to me that the best way back to normalcy is not through a quick government fix but by nixing government fixes more broadly.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo by Marco Verch

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too much government

The Really Slow Fast COVID-19 Test

Post author By Editor
Post date October 7, 2020
2 Comments on The Really Slow Fast COVID-19 Test

A rapid test for COVID-19 that you could perform in homes, workplaces, and classrooms would be less accurate than the best slower tests. But even somewhat accurate fast tests would help many to cope with the disease more effectively.

If necessary, asymptomatic persons who test positive could be retested by another method while staying isolated. If test-takers have already exhibited COVID-like symptoms (but also bad-cold-like symptoms), a quick positive result means that they could more quickly start appropriate treatment.

An easy, rapid test would be a godsend in situations where it is advisable for people to be retested continually.

In late August, Abbott Labs announced that production of a credit-card-sized, “$5, 15-minute, easy-to-use” test is being increased “to 50 million tests a month.” The U.S. has approved its mass-scale use.

Hooray! Another positive development in efforts to cope with a scourge that is not the Black Death but not just-the-flu either.

Not so fast.

Great as far as it goes, but as FEE writer James Anthony notes, this is only one approval of one test produced by one company. And the test can be performed only at “point-of-care” sites able to flourish special regulatory approval. So not at every workplace, classroom, or home.

Yet, according to Abbott, the test delivers results “in just 15 minutes with no instrumentation.”

Sounds like mere lay persons like you and me would have to . . . follow instructions.

Like governments should follow ours … and get out of the way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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too much government

How Quickly Can California Be Destroyed?

Post author By Redactor
Post date October 2, 2020
No Comments on How Quickly Can California Be Destroyed?

It’s hard to destroy a state. Or rather, the advanced industrial economy of a state.

Mud slides, eco-policy-abetted wildfires, exploding taxes and spending and regulations, riots, pandemics — such things go only so far. After the latest holocausts and catastrophes abate (if they do), survivors can still soldier on. Mow the lawn, say hello to neighbors, hop in the car to get to work, and so forth.

Is there a solution? Yes! Pile on the calamities thicker, faster, harder. While people are still reeling from one natural disaster or lunatic policy decision, slug them again!

California Governor Gavin Newsom is taking this lesson to heart, bless him. He has signed an order banning production of emission-emitting cars and light trucks by 2035, in hopes of eliminating “sales of internal combustion engines.”

He also wants lawmakers to get cracking on banning fracking. No point helping to produce abundant means of combustion if you’re outlawing combustion.

Alas, though Newsom’s heart is in the right place, he’s still somewhat pandering to friends of civilization and transportation. If gas be so wicked, turn off the spigot ipso pronto. Well, maybe in a month or two to give people a chance to practice their walking. Then shutter all carbon-emitting factories that make all the cars, including electric cars.

If the key to life is paying fealty to environmentalist pieties immunized from cogent analysis, we must end industry ASAP. Stopping plastic straws and internal combustion isn’t enough.

Sock it to ’em!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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