Chaos in Michigan as drivers swarm Michigan capital to protest Gov. Nit- Whitmer's stay home order
Hundreds of cars, trucks and SUVs descended on Michigan’s state capital Wednesday afternoon as part of a noisy protest against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s social-distancing restrictions that critics say have gone too far.Dubbed “Operation Gridlock” and organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, the protest did just that – creating bumper-to-bumper traffic throughout downtown Lansing as demonstrators blasted their horns, waved Americans flags and hoisted placards deriding Whitmer’s orders and demanding that she reopen the state’s economy.
The lockdown measures are meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, but Whitmer has gone further than some other governors -- and the backlash in Michigan is among the most heated in the country.
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Comments (29)
FEAR UBER ALLES
Those inhuman measures are around the same as Spain has endured for the last month and frankly we shouldn't have bothered, we went from 2 thousand cases at the start of lockdown to, hmm, let me see, oh okay 178 thousand cases today, obviously it doesn't work anyway.
The US had 1 thousand cases on the same day we started lockdown. Any of the thousand left or is it all sorted and back to business as usual?
The only concern you might have is that if it ever does get a grip there won't be enough conservative voters left to stop a democratic victory in the election. That would be a little ironic. Maybe it is a democratic plot
Might we see folks get SO fed up with SAH that they'll actively contract the virus to acquire the resulting immunity?
A sort of DIY vaccination, one might say.
There is precedent.
"Back in the day", if kids hadn't gotten Chicken Pox by a certain age, parents would intentionally infect their kids so they'd get the immunity.
Parents would take out classified ads for an active case of chicken pox to get their kids infected.
Mark Twain recounts doing it as a kid when a dread plague was killing folks in Hannibal, Missouri.
From his essay -- "The Turning Point In My Life." ...
"Everyone in town was concerned and anxiously sought information on my condition. But I disappointed them and survived."
Michigan has a population of Ten million people.
Approximately 1% have been tested.
28,059 people have tested positive.
1,921 have died.
153 died today.
166 died yesterday.
1,058 new cases were confirmed today.
This is (I think) the second day we've been at approximately 1,000 new confirmed cases after about a week of 1,500 to 2,000 new confirmed cases per day. The lock down started about three weeks ago on March 24.
7% of of those who have tested positive are dead.
That was much the motivation for young Mark Twain wanting to catch a deadly plague, Palm.
Get the disease & either acquire immunity to it or die trying.
Getting the disease becomes a Roll Of The Dice.
When enough folks get so fed up with Lockdown that they're willing to Roll The Dice, they'll, as you phrased it, kill the quarantine.
Some of them will win the roll of the dice -- recover & acquire immunity.
Others will then be emboldened to take the gamble.
But, as is suggested in another blog, the notion that Lockdown can be dragged out for YEARS is patently ridiculous.
That CAN'T HAPPEN.
Maybe, it could be time for them to see what other countres are doing and having good results, rather than claiming to have all the answers and saying nothing works.
28,059 people have tested positive.
1,921 have died.
153 died today.
166 died yesterday.
1,058 new cases were confirmed today.
This is (I think) the second day we've been at approximately 1,000 new confirmed cases after about a week of 1,500 to 2,000 new confirmed cases per day. The lock down started about three weeks ago on March 24.
7% of of those who have tested positive are dead.
Apparently, the idiots in the gridlock protest don't care if more people die.
It's ridiculous to even Suggest it.
The Michigan events demonstrate folks' unwillingness (inability?) to tolerate it for Weeks, let alone Years!
Folks Will take the covid gamble which i described in my response to Palm's comment LONG before then -- Get the immunity or die trying.
To use Palm's phrase, they'll kill the quarantine - even if they risk getting killed doing so.
Honestly --
I'm amazed Harvard allowed it's name/credibility to be associated with such foolishness.
Now ... about the Holy Grail vaccine that's gonna save us.
Vaccines are not without risks -- some have proven more troublesome than the diseases they're meant to prevent.
Developing a vaccine in the midst of a pandemic necessarily puts a premium on making such a vaccine available asap -- which Could motivate fast tracking at the expense of rigorous testing for both effectiveness and safety.
Folks getting the vaccine, especially early on, may well be the "lab animals" on which the vaccine will be tested.
Pharmaceutical companies would not be deterred by possible liability suits from rushing a hugely lucrative but marginally tested vaccine to market.
U.S. law explicitly shields manufacturers of vaccines from such legal action.
Would I get a Covid vaccine? I don't know.
Would I be among the FIRST to get a Covid vaccine? NO!!
Cast your peepers on THIS ...
USGS DUMPS Gates/CDC/WHO Covid Contagion Predictive Model & will be using Actual Data.
Lockdown may be eased by Early May ...
Might we see folks get SO fed up with SAH that they'll actively contract the virus to acquire the resulting immunity?
A sort of DIY vaccination, one might say.
YES!
By Definition -- Those who get covid & survive will have been Selected by a Natural process!!
That's NATURAL Selection.
Holing up for up to two years & hoping
we could mostly eliminate the virus. If a vaccine gives good results, it might be sooner.
If we can get more testing done (for both virus & antibodies), some recovered people could escape a lockdown.
But, things like the protest and other ridiculous efforts are making the lockdown time longer.
There's a lot of variables. We see social distancing & mask wearing bringing the curve down. That's a good thing. This is not the time to destroy what does work.
If anything, it's time to crank it up a notch TEMPORARILY to bring that curve down quicker and more completely.
Survival of the fittest sounds like a good way to end this mess.
Become the leader your team needs, you go first..
The 1st 5 1/2 minutes explains it well ...
Since the book’s publication, further research has supported the referenced increase in feelings of self-worth, with one nationwide data set showing twice as many American college students answering the majority of questions in a narcissistic direction in 2009 compared with in 1982. This was based on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) test, the most widely used metric on the subject in social psychology. Similar conclusions were shown in research that 59% of American college freshmen rated themselves above average in intellectual self-confidence in 2014, compared with 39% in 1966. And, generational increase in symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) was pointed to in earlier research from the National Institutes of Health.
At extremes, narcissism undermines institutions that underpin a strong society, with links to shallow values, less intellectual interest and value on hard work, aggression and relationship complications, and lack of empathy and concern for others. When we consider political or economic dilemmas, we should not avoid discussion of the role that cultural factors and social psychology might have.
A multi-generational change
In the aftermath of the Second World War, a rare consensus within America emerged, the result of existential crises in the form of the World War and looming Cold War. In an era when the United States’ hegemony was unchallenged in the West, a type of groupthink existed within the nation’s borders—the ‘Greatest Generation’ emphasized conformity and discouraged individuality. This was supported by earlier shared struggles and the decline of class differences during the Great Depression and war era. This post-war era of togetherness saw unprecedented economic stability and trust in the state as the steward of the people. The nation backed global reciprocity, exemplified during the founding of the United Nations, Bretton Woods institutions and Marshall Plan.
Authors Twenge and Campbell trace the earliest roots in narcissism back to the 1950s. The Baby Boomers were the first generation to grow up in a post-war era of greater consumer plenitude and less existential hardship. As the Baby Boomers came of age in the 1960s and 70s, the grey society of the post-war consensus had begun to vanish in favor of a more individualistic focus on self-expression and self-identity.
The problem is that this change in the narrative furthered henceforth. It became pronounced enough by the 1970s that Tom Wolfe in 1976 titled this “The ‘Me’ Decade”. The cohorts that were raised in the 70s and 80s—Generations X and Y—continued this trend: to the extent that one study comparing teenagers found that while only 12% of those aged 14-16 in the early 1950s agreed with the statement “I am an important person”, 77% of boys and more than 80% of girls of the same cohort by 1989 agreed with it. This evolution has accelerated since the 1990s and 2000s, with the rise of the internet and social media influencing the social milieu of the Millennials and Generation Z.
Many of the extant crises in the United States can be traced to some extent to such cultural factors and entitled behavior. The racial and ideological tensions, and consequential partisanship in Washington—which supported the election of Donald J. Trump, have been exacerbated by the self-focused and competitive behavior of separate interest groups in society and politics, with not enough of the requisite empathy to reassess the world from one another’s vantage points. The financial crisis can be explained in part by the narcissistic behaviors of bankers and consumers alike—creating a “time-delay trap” of near-term greed over long-term logic. America’s trade deficit has been exacerbated by debt-financed “conspicuous consumption”—goods purchased to elevate one’s status in front of others, rather than out of necessity. And the crisis of confidence in government can be ascribed in part to the philosophical “hunkering down” and focus on self-sufficiency, rather than on mutual dependence.
Solutions to the dilemma?
It’s critical to recall that across time there’s no single cultural norm for a nation, but rather that the behaviors and customs of a society evolve and change drastically as the experiences and personalities of that nation alter. There are significant contrasts between the America of today and that of the immediate post-war era—whether we recall this or not. In this, not only will the America of tomorrow look different as future generations come, but we ourselves will continue to readapt and change.
Methods to address narcissism are not simple, however, even if society is malleable. During times of economic growth and stability, narcissism tends to grow. This is due to how success and prosperity impacts people, how that then filters to more accommodating parenting norms, and how we’re affected by urbanization and changes to smaller family sizes. Conversely, economic hardship and economic down-cycles tend to support group-minded, non-self-centered people, by enforcing modesty and hard work. In that, there may be both an inherent cyclical dynamic between business cycles and narcissism, and a structural dynamic between economic development and narcissism—with too much societal hubris only correctable in the end through a form of economic or national crisis.
A crisis around the world
The issue has not been isolated to the United States. Rather, the evolution of narcissism has advanced around corners of the world.
In China, there’s been an economic revolution experienced within the span of half a lifetime—with hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty since 1980 and living standards transformed and modernized. But, with the economic miracle has come the sudden upheaval in former collectivistic norms. The rise of the ‘Little Emperors’ and ‘Precious Snowflakes’ is now evident in younger generations that have grown up in only-child households amongst growing economic abundance. Research notes the role of sociodemographic factors in this increase in narcissism. In the decades ahead, societal, political and economic dilemmas could manifest, if such trends in China advance absent pushback.