This Needs Fixin'

I really don’t want to have to talk about this every damn day.

Really.

But this is starting to get out of hand.

Apparently the poor pandemic-awareness amongst the current crop of protesters is giving the CHP an excuse to cease issuing protest permits in Sacramento.

See: CHP temporarily bans rallies due to coronavirus.

(I’m gonna just ignore the problem with why people are getting permits to hold protests in the first place, and why the hell CHP is empowered to deny them; that’s stupid and bad, but will have to be a topic for another day.)

Today, I’m talking about personal responsibility instead.

Last month, at the beginning of all this, I wrote:

A free State can only function with an educated and informed citizenry who are capable of making these decisions for themselves, and in this situation the educated and informed decision is to follow the best science available.

Don’t Get Comfortable: Quarantine, Evacuation, And Curfew

The idea there being that, if you want to keep the State from making decision for the citizenry then the citizens must be capable of making decisions for themselves. This requires that they have the thinking skills and information necessary to make good decisions.

Otherwise, in order to have a good outcome the State must to step in and decide for them.

So, are these protesters being a good example of “an educated and informed citizenry who are capable of making these decisions for themselves”?

No, no they are not.

They are, bluntly, being a danger to themselves and others.

They could be doing this properly:

• at least 10′ between attendees
• everyone masked
• no touching

But no, they’re out in public with no protection getting all up in each others’ business.

During a quite contagious pandemic.

Way to make dissent look stupid, folks.

You are making the case that the State must have to power to decide these things for you.

Because what you’re actually demonstrating is that that you cannot be trusted to choose for yourself.

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