Alternatives to Quarantine
Joe Rogan has come out and said it's time to end the lockdowns:
The vast majority of people that are going to get this ... it's not going to be fatal," added Rogan. "We have to figure out how to protect the people that are high risk, but to quarantine the whole country, it just seems like maybe it was a good move to do initially, but we can't sustain that, so now, we have to figure out how to move forward.
I agree with all that. "Like maybe it was a good move to do initially . . . We have to figure out how to move forward."
At this point, we need to shift quickly from government forcing people to social distance to government helping people social distance. A list of samples:
1. A law that prohibits non-consensual close-talking. Of course, this might kill Biden's campaign, but we need to stomp out the close-talkers once and for all.
2. Related: A law that prohibits one dude from walking up to another dude and giving him a massage or otherwise touching him. That's some weird stuff. I used to see it all the time, but it has decreased over the years.
3. And heck, why not: A law that makes it assault to touch anyone, period, without their explicit or tacit consent. When I'm at the restaurant, I don't want someone walking up next to me and putting his hand on my shoulders while he talks to my group. That happens all the time and, though I appreciate the well-meaning sense of friendship it is meant to convey, it turns my spine into a steel rod of awkwardness.
4. Face mask machine dispensaries scattered throughout communities, especially in front of big box stores. It colleges can give out free condoms, surely we can make it cheap and easy to get face masks. I'd propose tax credits to the companies that make and distribute the machines. If the government does it, each machine will cost ten million dollars.
5. Permanently modify the Open Meeting Acts to permit remote meetings. I'm guessing those laws were passed in an era when Americans seemed obsessed with meetings: more meetings, all the time. The more people in attendance, the better, so they last longer. Now that we have Netflix and Hulu, people value their time more.
6. Implement the COVID warning system I proposed last week.
7. Huge federal grants and tax credits to small food growers who sell in small open-air farmers markets (my own form of rent-seeking . . . snicker).
8. PSAs: "Friends don't let friends eat bats." "Friends don't let friends support a repressive top-down government that is built on lies and deceit, no matter what the NBA says." "If you're standing within six feet of me, you're, um, sexually imbalanced." You know, stuff like that.
Trust me, none of these proposals sit well with my libertarian leanings, but frick, they're downright anarchical compared to the government over-reach we've been witnessing over the past six weeks. Many of the proposals are mere expansions of the assault laws that are already on the books that might, on their own (with court interpretation) expand to include such things as Biden talking. The others exert limited government control.
