It still amazes me that I actually thought in March 2020 that the US and South Korea would travel similar pandemic trajectories

South Korea is an open society. It's not a lie like China.

Just look at this outcome. 

We are so pathetic.

Here's the 2020 herd immunity paraprosdokian I thought I would never hear but did

We have to infect the entire population with the coronavirus in order to save it from the COVID-19 disease.

A few voices are actually saying this right now, mostly on "conservative" talk radio. You know who I mean.

England was going to pursue this policy until they realized just how many people would have to die.

Consider what this would mean in the US.

Let's take the South Korean mortality rate, which right now is 1.7% after 6 weeks with no new cases reported today (the US is currently at 2.7% after 4 weeks). Say half the population gets exposed because we give up, go back to work and carry on: 165 million get exposed @ 1.7% means 2.8 million deaths.

Mark Levin was poo-poohing such a catastrophe on his show tonight, like it's not even a possibility, as he rattled off the deaths annually from our wars, heart disease, cancer, etc.

He's wrong. They're all wrong. America is a wide open sitting duck for this disease, which spreads like a cold but kills like the flu. We have the most cases in the world already, by far, 276,965. Flu doesn't spread the way coronavirus does. Not everyone gets the flu. 30 million flu cases is typical, with 30,000 deaths, that's it, in a completely free and open society. But everyone gets a cold. Everyone. And that's the problem. A high morbidity rate.

Fortunately 3/4 of those surveyed think stopping this coronavirus is job one, not saving the economy.

Yes, this will be catastrophic for the economy. It already is. But we've had economic catastrophe before and we know how to rebuild.

The important thing right now is for the government to rescue people, not companies, and buy us some time so that the people actually saving us in the hospitals aren't overwhelmed and succumb. Without Americans there will be no America.

Conserve that. 

We've had facts vs. alternative facts, but now Nancy Pelosi introduces "classified facts"

Which, since we're never going to be allowed to see them, mean only some people have the true but secret knowledge, right?

So we're supposed to just trust authority, you know, like her.

Nancy Pelosi is Exhibit A for the enemy in The Open Society and Its Enemies, but there are twenty-five more letters in the alphabet, and hardly enough.

Pelosi, quoted here:

"What they're putting forth is a total misrepresentation. It is false," Pelosi told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "In order to refute it, you'd have to tell the facts, and the facts are classified."

Pace Karl Popper, The Open Society Has Become The Enemy.

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance."

We don't make sure foreigners visiting our country legally actually leave, as reported here:

The Senate is discussing an overhaul that would require the government to track foreigners who overstay their visas. The problem is the U.S. currently doesn't have a reliable system for doing this. ...

Talk of illegal immigration often conjures images of people sneaking across the U.S. border from Mexico, but an estimated 40% or more of those now illegally in the U.S. entered with a valid visa. ...

In 2011, there were 159 million nonimmigrant visits to the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security. More than three-quarters were for pleasure. But millions also involved business travelers, temporary workers and students.

TSA Represents Danger to America, Says Roger Cohen

Roger Cohen for The New York Times says a word here on behalf of the Fourth Amendment, and seems to see in Homeland Security and the TSA an incipient threat to our American way of life:

The unfettered growth of the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA represent a greater long-term threat to the prosperity, character and wellbeing of the United States than a few madmen in the valleys of Waziristan or the voids of Yemen.

America is a nation of openness, boldness and risk-taking. Close this nation, cow it, constrict it and you unravel its magic.

There are now about 400 full-body scanners, set to grow to 1,000 next year.


The trouble is, Roger Cohen has commented half-approvingly (here) that the large-scale targeted killings of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been "more eloquent than words," killings made possible by the use of predator drones, which, before long, Homeland Security and the TSA might very well use here at home to invade the privacy of the American people as surely as do these scanners.

Consider that the very same predator drone used by the military was already tested out of Fort Drum over northern New York in the summer of 2009 to evaluate its utility to law enforcement, according to this story. Not a year later five such drones are on active duty flying missions over America's southern and northern borders for US Customs and Border Control, as reported here by TheHill.com. The technology for drones has advanced so rapidly that their size is down to 3' in diameter and they are virtually silent, meaning they are becoming increasingly attractive to law enforcement. Three examples of law enforcement use of drones in 2006 and 2007 have been discussed here at The Rutherford Institute. Obama has been described as "in love" with the things.

The airport scanners represent only one element of the new national security state Obama and his surveillance enthusiasts Janet Napolitano and John Pistole want to erect in America. They are equally eager to install thousands of cameras all over the country, and they are funding them. Security check points are going to spring up everywhere if they get their way.

We'll see how eloquent people think all this is when the government comes looking for Roger Cohen and other American citizens with a complete portfolio of your movements and associations in hand, matched to your naked image.