I gotta Right!

The Constitution of the United States of America is pretty clear, considering that we have been arguing over what it means, amending it to suit the whims of the moment and filing endless lawsuits to force an interpretation that fits our particular goals since the day after it was enacted.  It all seems to boil down to one thing:  People have a Constitutional Right to be stupid.

We have a right to peaceably assemble in our multitudes, either in Church or in the town square, at a bar or a concert, or a sporting contest, and we tend to get a bit testy when someone suggests that it might be in our own best interests to stay home and avoid those multitudes, because some of them are contagious.

We have a right to do a lot of things, no matter that those things are bad ideas or might cause us injury or otherwise bad outcomes. We have a right to buy and own a handgun, whether we take the time to learn how to use and maintain it properly or be trained in all aspects of when, how and why to use it for what it was designed, or not.  For the most part, those who feel the need to strap their AR-15s across their chests and parade in front of the Capitol are living proof of this idea.

We have a right to go to school, but not necessarily to pass. We have a right to cross the street, but we give that up at busy intersections with crosswalks and lights, because we know that following the procedure greatly increases our chances of survival out on the streets. We have a right to not step out in front of a moving train, but we mostly shun that behavior unless we are heavily drugged or despondent, but most everyone would agree that it would be stupid to do such a thing.

So why is it so hard to accept the idea that we should stay home until this Coronavirus problem is under control? We have heard over and over from experts on the level of Dr. Fauci on down how dangerous this virus is, and how little we know about how it works and how to cure the disease it causes, so why are so many people shouting from the rooftops, demanding their right to be stupid?

Part of the issue, it seems, is that our economic system leaves much of the lower section of the working class with no options. Either you work, and eat, and have a roof over your head, or you don’t. If your work is hands on, you can’t do it from home.

The funny thing is, if you’re one of those workers whose wages stop the minute you can’t work anymore, the profit that your employer earns from your efforts also stops the minute you’re not there to do it.  Extrapolate this from the lowest burger flipper at McStarches to the highest level of employment, and it is easy to see why the Ruling Class, from their climate-controlled purified ivory towers, are so eager to get the rest of the proletariat back on the job.  The Mayor of Seattle just gave up her paycheck, along with a bunch of football coaches with nobody to coach.  The longer this goes on, the more people will see the rock and the hard place getting closer.

But the problem is we still don’t know how many of us are infected.  This is because we still do not have enough test kits to test everybody.  It is just as important to know who is not infected as who is. And when we do, we still do not have a vaccine or a proven treatment. This also tells me that most of the ones who are bad mouthing the Public Health people are either paid trolls or obviously conflicted financially, like a preacher desperate to get the butts back in the pews because her Cadillac payment is due.  Either that, or they’re stupid, which explains Fox News, for the most part.

So this means, for everyone out there demanding the right to go back to work, that the Powers That Be have decided that we are going to be the guinea pigs in this little experiment.  See how many will die, and how many will get sick, then if it gets worse we clamp down on them again, and if it doesn’t we don’t.  We are the expendable elements in this test.  Look around as you go back to work and see how many high level executives continue to work from home, and how many Senators.

And that’s the thing:  Those of us who can, the retired ones with pensions coming in every month can afford to be smart and stay home for at least a couple more weeks after the all-clear has sounded.  Let the young ones and the dumb ones and the poor ones who have no choice go out and test the waters for us and see how it goes.  We are the ones who are mostly in the high-risk group, anyway, so a little extra caution is reasonable.

We also have a Constitutional Right to sit on our asses at home. It should be obvious to most of us that any of our public officials who are telling us to do that are working in our best interests, and those who are taking the opposite tack are not. :-{)}

Quarantine

Quarantine

I drove through White Center today, like I have done so many times before.  The streets were empty, but the sidewalks were full.  I came through on the main drag, past all the boarded up shop fronts, the closed taverns, and the empty parking stalls on both sides.  Waiting at the light at Roxbury, I saw a young man sitting on the curb outside the empty bank, all folded in on himself in a way that can only mean a major rush on heroin.  I passed on, did an illegal youie at a four-way stop and backed in to a stall outside the smoke shop, which was boarded up, but open.  I noticed as I backed in a young man advancing up the sidewalk with a peculiar dancing gait, with a look on his face as if he was so blissed out on whatever he ate that his joy could not be contained in just a smile.  He went into the shop next door as I stepped into the smoke shop for a pouch of American Spirit and some papers.  I was on an errand of mercy for a shut in with vices.  They quickly ejected him and he wandered off back down the street, full of bliss but without purpose..

As I drove through town, I realized one thing.  When the Coronavirus Quarantine hit, everybody who had a home went there and stayed.  Who is left on the streets are the people who have nowhere else  to go, and I’m here to tell you there are a lot more of them when all of “us” are out of the picture.  The parking lots along 15^th Ave, the bus stops and the alleys are busy today.  There is a line outside the food bank.

On the other side of town, there is a line to get into Costco.  Since everyone stands six feet apart, the line stretches from the entrance out to the far exit from the parking lot.  The difference is in the clothes.  The people in line at Costco are clean and well-dressed.  The people on the streets of White Center, and Burien, and Renton, and Kent, and anywhere else you want to look are scruffy and dirty, wearing the clothes they slept in last night, maybe on that bus stop bench.

Since I like to stay off the freeway, I take the back roads through the neighborhoods on the way home.  I see them, and I thank my lucky stars, and I scan the faces for one of my old childhood buddies.  I grew up in White Center.  Smack took a lot of them.  The ones that lived didn’t go far.

When the full realization of the damage done by a virus to our world sets in, there is a strong chance we will not be able to get back to where things were before.  It’s going to take time, and effort, and collective energy.

There is also a chance we could fall apart badly and take everyone back to the ‘30s for a while.  Or back to the Stone Age. One thing that is made clear by this crisis is that many people are living right on the edge, where one false move or missed payment will put them out on the street with everyone else, to prey or be preyed upon.  This is what income inequality means at street level.

But there is also a chance, just maybe, that we could learn our lesson from the last few years and band together with our fellow American Citizens and put this country back on track towards a progressive vision of fairness and equality that up to now has only been talked about.  We need to get it done.  It will take all of us working together.  :-{)}