by Joseph A. Morris, J.D.
Operatives in Ralph Nader’s decades-old network of leftist organizations made clear in letters to the editor published in two major newspapers last Friday core themes that advocates of big government want to stress as lessons of the current pandemic.
(1) “Defeating the virus” is “the only goal” humanity should have.
These exact words were written by Abraham Scarr, the Director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, in a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune. All other goals — freedom, faith, family, justice, prosperity, education, art, charity, and even attention to other health needs — must be subordinated to “defeating the virus”.
Naturally, if “defeating the virus” is “the only goal” then surrender of all liberty and autonomy to the instrumentality at the vanguard of “defeating the virus” — government, controlled not by popular will but by politicians in office who need be accountable only to the evolving guesses and predictions of “scientists” — necessarily follows.
Habituating Americans to subordinating everything else to one goal selected by people in power is good training for ensuring on-going docility and subordination once (in a year or two, when vaccines, testing, and pervasive tracing are finally available and universally deployed?) the current pandemic (a crisis too good to be wasted) can safely be declared over.
(2) “Public agencies are the engines of innovation.”
These exact words were written by Zain Rizvi of Public Citizen, in a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal. Government — not private enterprises, individual inventors and scientists, the market, or anyone else — is the fount of progress and good ideas in general.
These exact words were written by Zain Rizvi of Public Citizen, in a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal. Government — not private enterprises, individual inventors and scientists, the market, or anyone else — is the fount of progress and good ideas in general.
Note the lesson: If a government subsidy or a tax credit comes anywhere near any project, and any good comes of the project, the apostles of caesar will demand that government be worshipped and thanked for all of it.
Watch for both of these themes, or memes, to be propounded endlessly by the advocates of statism and dirigisme in the weeks and months to come.
Both letters are linked and set forth below.
JOSEPH A. MORRIS
Morris & De La Rosa
6171 North Sheridan Road
No. 312
Chicago, Illinois 60660
U.S.A.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Friday, May 8, 2020
Section 1, Page 17, Column 4
Letters: Defeating the coronavirus is the goal
I was disappointed to read the editorial criticizing Gov. J.B. Pritzker for “moving the goal posts” in his plans to defeat the coronavirus (“We have been patient. But Pritzker is moving the goal posts,” May 7). The editorial board presents “containing” the virus as a more achievable goal, without articulating how a plan to do so would differ from the governor’s.
Of course, defeating the virus is the goal. Defeating the virus has to be the only goal. Containing the virus is what we must do until we can defeat it, most likely with a vaccine, which most experts say is at least a year away. According to various public health guidelines for governors who are charting phased reopenings, such as those from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, a state should ease restrictions only when it has built the public health infrastructure necessary to manage the increased risk inherent in doing so.
Containing the virus means having the ability to perform much more testing, contact tracing and supported isolation, and sufficient hospital capacity and protective equipment for health care workers to treat all patients safely. The only responsible way to ease restrictions more quickly is to build the necessary public health infrastructure.
For that, the federal government must coordinate a robust national initiative to increase testing capacity and the production of protective equipment to keep health professionals and other front-line workers safe. We must defeat the virus. And we will by following the best available public health expertise, not by ignoring it.
— Abraham Scarr, director, Illinois PIRG, Chicago
Source:
Print: Section 1, Page 17, Column 4
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, May 8, 2020.
Section A, Page 14, Column 4.
Taxpayers Had a Role in the Development of Remdesivir
Remdesivir has benefited from public funding at every turn.
In lavishing praise on the pharmaceutical industry, the editorial board overlooks a crucial author in the story of remdesivir: the taxpayer (“Drug Innovation to the Rescue,” May 2). Remdesivir has benefited from public funding at every turn. Federal scientists first helped discover its potential against Ebola. Then, the National Institutes of Health funded university researchers to study its effects against coronaviruses. Now national governments are running Covid-19 clinical trials. The U.S. government has spent at least $70 million developing the drug. In total, the federal government is spending billions advancing Covid-19 treatments and vaccines.
Public agencies are the engines of innovation. Without taxpayer investment, remdesivir would likely be languishing in a corporate lab somewhere. We took the risk. If it proves safe and effective, we should not have to pay twice for the reward.
Zain Rizvi
Public Citizen
Washington
Source:
Print: Section A, Page 14, Column 4
