Personally, I favor the solution in which we lived in an alternate universe where we had a competent president, one who recognized the problem in January and prepared for it. And then didn't play partisan games with distributing the aid.


 

"The obvious objection to this approach is that it's unfair to the poor, and that this inequity is particularly wrong in a crisis that involves life or death."

I'm kind of unclear about how it's supposed to be unfair, when the person getting the product is paying for it, and nobody who could pay is being denied it. Bourgeoisie morality, (The sort of morality the world runs on, when it actually does run...) says that fair is that you get what you paid for, and pay for what you got.

Is it fairer somehow that people who could pay for the treatment that would save their lives be denied it, and die, in order to save the lives of people who wouldn't be paying for it? How is the medical system, which has no magical source of unlimited wealth, supposed to function on that basis? By making the wealthy pay for the treatment they're, hypothetically, to be denied? Charity financed by robbery?

It is indeed best that there just be enough ventilators. How is this to be achieved, if not by people paying for them? In the long run, the conflict you posit is false. Allocating medical services on the basis of who's paying for them is HOW you maximize the amount of medical services available.
 

The world runs on the principle that humanity will not deny basic things to those in need, even if they cannot pay for them. The five year old will get medical care as will elderly. Others will too, even if they must provide something in return. Still, even a workhouse will only get just so much from a person. They still would get certain basics.

How equitable this is varies, but the "no pay, you die" principle tends to be rejected as well. A major sentiment of the Trump party surely thinks so, basing it on religious sentiments. But, secular policy also rejects that blunt monetary rule. Thus, hospitals provide basic care, by law, even if one is unable to pay.

This is not "robbery" since it is the basic authorized understanding of how society operates. The people authorized the laws in place by their representatives. They also support it generally.

And, it is far from evident that only providing medical services to those who are paying maximizes medical services. If a society as a whole thrives on fairness, basic needs being fulfilled can be advanced by it. Not providing basics causes societal unrest, so it is useful to the haves. And, people as a whole "pay" in a variety of ways even if they do not have the money now to pay for ventilators or medical services if they are hit by a car.
 

Mark going with fantasy again.

Anyway, the problem would still exist in some form, just less harshly.
 

"The world runs on the principle that humanity will not deny basic things to those in need, even if they cannot pay for them."

As well it should. But this isn't "fairness", it is charity, and charity is a deviation from fairness, not fairness itself.

Charity has to have limits where scarcity prevails. When there's not enough of something to go around, it needs to go first to those who can pay for it, because things have costs, and those costs ultimately need to be paid.

You feed the beggar if there's enough food available, but you don't starve the person who can pay for their meal to feed the beggar, because it costs to produce food, and the beggar isn't paying for it to be produced. If you feed starve the person who'd pay the farmer, to feed the beggar, the farmer goes hungry, too, and you get less food available.

Charity is what you do when you have extra, not what you do when you have a shortage.
 

I'm kind of unclear about how it's supposed to be unfair, when the person getting the product is paying for it, and nobody who could pay is being denied it.

Part of the problem with this principle is that many contribute enormously to society without paying much attention to the accumulation of wealth. Think: artists, teachers, care givers may find themselves providing extraordinary value to others without much thought about needing to pay for the scarce resource. Would we be better off had they all gone into finance?

Another part of the problem with this principle is that many are denied the opportunity to create a sufficiently prosperous career by accidents of birth and environment. A child growing up with a dark skin is taught early to keep out of the way, and that might not be enough. Considering that wealth accrues from real property ownership, and African-Americans long faced both legal and illegal strictures barring them from such ownership, it is not surprising that we still have an underclass facing racial discrimination that can't afford ventilators.

Or, just go with Presidential candidate Ron Paul's forum audience when he was faced with a question about the impoverished person outside the ER: "Let him die! Let him die!" Is this the world that Brett prefers? It would seem so.

Finally, regarding ventilators, it appears that the ability to pay for a ventilator will not be enough. We either have price fixing and tragic decision-making, or am auction, and you best be in finance. There is some similarity here to the recently exposed college admissions scandal, which got a lot of bad press, because we don't approve of auctioning off college placement. But in the old days (the 19th century gilded age, say), we would have, in effect, auctioned off ventilator use.
 

Brett's solution, shorter paradigm: fancy trial lawyers get the ventilators, and legal aid lawyers do not.
 

Fairness is just treatment, so ultimately, we have to set ground rules before we determine what is fair and what deviates from it.

Let's move back to what was said. You spoke of what "morality" the world ran on. The morality the world runs on thinks it is "unfair" for people to be denied certain necessities. It is not voluntary charity. Certain things are deemed social obligations. This is agreed upon. It is not "robbery."

You also said this which again is far from clear:

"Allocating medical services on the basis of who's paying for them is HOW you maximize the amount of medical services available."

Your remarks were general enough not to be only applicable to the special case of a very limited amount of something. But, even there, society does not think it "fair" to merely rest on the vagaries of who has money to pay. Such a system would cause society problems for one thing. It is also seen as immoral.
 

"Certain things are deemed social obligations. This is agreed upon. It is not "robbery.""

Agreed on by who? If it's not voluntary, obviously not everybody.

"But, even there, society does not think it "fair" to"

"Society" doesn't think, period. People think. Saying "society" thinks this or that, or has decided this or that, is just a way of obscuring that some people have decided, and others will have to live with that decision.
 

Important post. There is another method, or sub- method rather ( used in the military sometimes):

Some would volunteer simply and give up for saving others. Older one, would give up for letting young live. And vice versa sometimes. Not too many would do it. Getting informed consent, also problematic. But, the advantage of such heroic cases, once published, is that it does build solidarity. Inducing others, to merciful attitude generally speaking. Inspirational simply.

By the way:

" Trump orders General Motors to make ventilators under Defense Production Act"

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/trump-orders-general-motors-to-make-ventilators-under-defense-production-act.html

Thanks
 

"Saying "society" thinks this or that, or has decided this or that, is just a way of obscuring that some people have decided, and others will have to live with that decision."

Society decides whether or not to implement your "principle" too. God didn't make that call, nor did Mother Nature. It's a human choice either way.
 

"Society decides whether or not to implement your "principle" too. God didn't make that call, nor did Mother Nature. It's a human choice either way."

My point is that "society" doesn't decide squat. Ever. Talking about "society" deciding things is just a mechanism for hiding who's actually making the decision, and pretending that we all made it thanks to all being part of "society".

To paraphrase, "Government is just the name we give to the things some of us chose to do to others of us."

Some people have ventilators. Other people want them. Where the heck does this fuzzy "society" enter into any of this? It's just a cover for some third group butting in and telling the people with the ventilators what they can do with them.
 

Gerard: 1. The Market. We usually use prices to allocate scarce resources. Wealthy individuals or hospitals or states would then get the most ventilators. The obvious objection to this approach is that it's unfair to the poor, and that this inequity is particularly wrong in a crisis that involves life or death.

Ventilators are not consumer goods, they are capital machinery.

In a free market, manufacturers will sell as many ventilators as demanded and medical providers buy the number of ventilators they need to meet foreseeable demand. Government run hospitals will ration their purchases to a government budget rather than demand and generally have fewer such machines.

When the hospital experiences an unusually high demand, they employ triage protocols to most efficiently use the ventilators they possess until more can be purchased. Unless you own the hospital and thus the machine, you are unlikely to get priority merely because you are wealthy.

In a situation of ongoing increased demand, free market manufacturers have the flexibility to meet the demand within the minimum possible time. Reportedly, the US market place will be flooded with ventilators within a couple months. Bureaucracy run government manufacturer turnaround time is generally measured in years.

Once again, free markets remain the best means of efficiently allocating scarce resources.
 

I'm kind of unclear about how it's supposed to be unfair, when the person getting the product is paying for it, and nobody who could pay is being denied it.


This is a bit circular, because it assumes price is exogenous to the process. When lots of people suddenly want ventilators the price goes up, obviously, and someone who could pay, one way or another, under normal circumstances suddenly can't. So the billionaire who wants one or two at home, just in case, takes precedence over the struggling rural hospital. This, some people think, is fair and just, because it maximizes total surplus. I'm not among them.



 

byomtov: So the billionaire who wants one or two at home, just in case, takes precedence over the struggling rural hospital. This, some people think, is fair and just, because it maximizes total surplus. I'm not among them.

In a continental market serving the demand created by an illness killing a minuscule 6 people per million, billionaire demand making up maybe 0.01% of that demand will not amount to anything worth noting.
 

"My point is that "society" doesn't decide squat."

All human interactions are decided by society and ONLY by society. There's no such thing as an individual isolated and apart from everyone and everything else. Anything else is either myth (God) or laws of nature. Your example is a human interaction and therefore the morality of it is determined by society.

Use of the term "society" doesn't mean that the decision is universal. It means that a majority made it.
 

When the hospital experiences an unusually high demand, they employ triage protocols to most efficiently use the ventilators they possess until more can be purchased. Unless you own the hospital and thus the machine, you are unlikely to get priority merely because you are wealthy.

So it's really not the free market working at all, at least within the hospital. If it were, then wealthy patients could pay up to get priority. All you're doing is shifting the allocation decision to the hospital.

Once again, free markets remain the best means of efficiently allocating scarce resources.

This depends entirely on how you measure efficiency.
 

In keeping with an effort to remain lurking, and only to report egregious mathematical errors, we interrupt this thread to report that the deaths per million is now at 12, not 6 as Bart blathered. And is headed for several hundred, if the projections from the WH (which are obviously flavored heavily with wishful thinking) are correct.

 

Agreed on by who? If it's not voluntary, obviously not everybody.

You can have special meanings of words but words like "robbery" tends to mean illegal taking of funds. But, society by agreement, including representative democracy and other means typically used to determine things, agreed that there are certain basic obligations. 330 million people don't "agree" on things here.

"Society" doesn't think, period. People think. Saying "society" thinks this or that, or has decided this or that, is just a way of obscuring that some people have decided, and others will have to live with that decision.

People live in society. You spoke of the "world running" -- people aren't atomistic individuals in said world. They live in societal groupings. They aren't lone actors. They form societies who work things out and agree to things. It is unclear what is being obscured here. Yes, everyone doesn't get to do whatever they want.

"Government is just the name we give to the things some of us chose to do to others of us."

I don't know who "we" are here but this is a dubious definition. A few friends agree to something and being a member of the friendship includes following the basic rules. I guess you can say this is "governing" but using language as it is usually used, that is not really what "governing" generally means.

Some people have ventilators. Other people want them. Where the heck does this fuzzy "society" enter into any of this? It's just a cover for some third group butting in and telling the people with the ventilators what they can do with them.

Because yet again society, the world itself, always did not just allot basic necessities merely by who has money. People join together to advance their basic needs and in return each person is given certain basics. This includes society passing laws that if you are hit by a car, you don't just die on the road if you can't pay. Or, if you are a mother with kids without money, money itself isn't the only reason to deny you a ventilator over a millionaire. There is not "butting in."

The people already decided that this is not how the society will operate. The "world runs" that way. You might not like it. But, yes, fairness includes providing necessities to people. It isn't charity. In return, the people do have their own obligations. The beggar or whatnot needs to do things too.

 

Mark: All human interactions are decided by society and ONLY by society. There's no such thing as an individual isolated and apart from everyone and everything else.

In a free market, a society is a group of autonomous individuals voluntarily creating and trading goods and services.

In an unfree market, a government imposes its own desires with no regard to the wishes of individuals.

In neither case does a society make decisions.
 

Bart,

In a continental market serving the demand created by an illness killing a minuscule 6 people per million, billionaire demand making up maybe 0.01% of that demand will not amount to anything worth noting.

1. Apparently you don't understand the idea of providing an extreme example to make a point. I wasn't claiming that billionaires were buying up ventilators right and left. I was just illustrating the consequences of what seems to be your preferred approach, and suggesting that Brett's comment was a bit facile.

2. Your innumeracy is showing again. Coronavirus deaths in the US are approaching 4000. That's about double your 6 per million.


 

To emphasize it, as I noted and as noted in his own words by Larry Koenigsberg, there are various ways people give to society and this really factors into "paying."

Not having the raw money to "pay" doesn't mean a person doesn't provide something in return. So, on some basic level, we are living here in confusion.

See also, byomtov noting that it is a matter of how "efficiency" is defined. Denying public schooling to those unable to pay, e.g., in the long run has been shown not to be very efficient. I think it probably can be shown that denying basic medical care based on ability to pay will in the long run can be too.

But, raw pragmatics is not all that humanity runs on anyway. Taking everything into consideration, there are the hard choices set up by the OP.
 

BD: When the hospital experiences an unusually high demand, they employ triage protocols to most efficiently use the ventilators they possess until more can be purchased. Unless you own the hospital and thus the machine, you are unlikely to get priority merely because you are wealthy.

byomtov: So it's really not the free market working at all, at least within the hospital.

Hospital internal decisions how to use their own capital machinery is not a market place trading goods and services, which is why I noted at the beginning of the post: "Ventilators are not consumer goods, they are capital machinery."

However, the manufacture and purchase of ventilators in the US remains a relatively free market, infringed only by the government regulatory bureaucracy.
 

either myth (God)

A bunch of rabbis was debating some point on the Torah. God (G-D) intervened to say what he really meant. A rabbi chastised Him. "You gave us the Torah. Now, we decide."
 

byomtov:

Once again, I am using and will continue to use the official CDC numbers (which are about 2860 deaths as of a moment ago), not your own misremembered Democrat media reported guesstimates.
 

byomtov:

Once again, I am using and will continue to use the official CDC numbers (which are about 2860 deaths as of a moment ago), not your own misremembered Democrat media reported guesstimates.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:22 AM

Sniffles, it doesn’t matter where you got your number. We already know that the death toll will be significantly higher than your claim of 6 per million.

 

If people are interested in the actual numbers, rather than the lagging numbers announced by the CDC, they might try "worldometer" (and if they are concerned about its accuracy, may I suggest scrolling down to the bottom and looking for "about".)

But even those numbers are not the final tally.

The excess deaths due to COVID-19 will (eventually) be tabulated by the CDC (and others) by using the old tried-and-true method of simply adding up all the deaths over the pandemic period and subtracting from the expected number of deaths.

And it will be, if past experience is worth anything, several times the number of those deaths directly tested and attributed to COVID-19.

 

byomtov:

OK, the more correct COVID 19 mortality rate using the current CDC deaths total and the current government guesstimate of the US population is about 8.6 deaths per million.

You are quibbling over what are still degrees of miniscule.

 

C2H5OH: If people are interested in the actual numbers, rather than the lagging numbers announced by the CDC, they might try "worldometer" (and if they are concerned about its accuracy, may I suggest scrolling down to the bottom and looking for "about".)

Why would anyone be interested in guesstimates?

The excess deaths due to COVID-19 will (eventually) be tabulated by the CDC (and others) by using the old tried-and-true method of simply adding up all the deaths over the pandemic period and subtracting from the expected number of deaths.

Expected number of deaths? Yet another guesstimate.
 

OK, the more correct COVID 19 mortality rate using the current CDC deaths total and the current government guesstimate of the US population is about 8.6 deaths per million.

You are quibbling over what are still degrees of miniscule.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:39 AM

No, Sniffles, it’s currently 12. And things aren’t close to being as bad as it’s going to get.
 

Hospital internal decisions how to use their own capital machinery is not a market place trading goods and services, which is why I noted at the beginning of the post:

That's stupid. A hospital sells services just as surely as a barbershop. The idea that the services are provided in part by capital equipment is irrelevant. There's nothing about a service provided by equipment rather than people or, usually, a person using equipment, that makes it somehow impossible for it to be provided on a market basis.

You really are just making crap up again.
 

bb:

I completely agree COVID 19 deaths will get higher.

However, they have a LONG way to go before reaching the still miniscule 140+ deaths per million of your average annual flu and cold season and are running out of time before summer returns and respiratory illnesses decline.

It is almost as if you Democrats are cheering on the maximum degree of death and misery for election year political advantage...
 

It is almost as if you Democrats are cheering on the maximum degree of death and misery for election year political advantage...
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:46 AM

Lol. Sniffles, Trump is now claiming that 200,000 deaths will be a great success. You must not have got the memo that you fucksticks have to exaggerate the potential deaths so Trump can claim success no matter how bad it gets.

 

bb:

Trump and his bureaucrats are employing the old marketing technique of initially overstating difficulty in meeting a contract so you can brag later you performed in a shorter period of time and under budget.
 

"I'm kind of unclear about how it's supposed to be unfair, when the person getting the product is paying for it, and nobody who could pay is being denied it."

Always nice for another reminder that these Birchers are morally deficient.
 

Byomtov:

FWIW, catastrophic heath services (not ventilators) paid for by insurance have no short term price movement. The price for every service is set in annual contracts between insurers and providers
 

Trump and his bureaucrats are employing the old marketing technique of initially overstating difficulty in meeting a contract so you can brag later you performed in a shorter period of time and under budget.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:58 AM

Well, at least you admit that he cares more about PR than saving lives.
 

The Good Book According to Bircher Brett:

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has not put in enough to satisfy God. You get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.”

These are literally morally retarded individuals.
 

"A bunch of rabbis was debating some point on the Torah. God (G-D) intervened to say what he really meant. A rabbi chastised Him. "You gave us the Torah. Now, we decide."

Heh. I hadn't heard that one before. Gotta say, the rabbi has a point. Death of the author and all that. :)
 

"But even those numbers are not the final tally."

True. And deaths aren't the only cost either -- some people suffer permanent injury.
 

Mr. W:

A parable about the relative moral worth of charitable donations has zero to do with the manufacture of or hospital use of ventilators.

Once again, analogy is not your strong suit.
 

Bart D at 9:58 AM "...illness killing a minuscule 6 people per million..."

Per second? Per day? Per decade? For eternity?

The above type of statistic is of any utility at all only when it includes 1) the time period and 2) its rate of decrease or increase.
 

"Is it fairer somehow that people who could pay for the treatment that would save their lives be denied it, and die, in order to save the lives of people who wouldn't be paying for it? How is the medical system, which has no magical source of unlimited wealth, supposed to function on that basis? "

Bircher Brett's thoughts here are a moral and intellectual mess.

First, it seems not to occur to Bircher Brett that what two respective people can or cannot afford could not be an unfair situation. This is quite remarkable because conceivably even the usually truncated moral sense of the general libertarian acknowledges that some distributions of wealth can be unfair (for example, certainly if someone physically robs or frauds to get their larger wealth, but also consider various aspects of crony capitalism). Of course it would be a stretch too far for Bircher Brett to wrap his head around the idea that, say, because of parental advantages in wealth and resources or things like that that different distributions of wealth can be seen as inherently 'unfair' (note: we might in this imperfect world have to allow such necessary evils as this unfairness [because perhaps the motivation to leave things to your kids is overall a plus in utility, but that wouldn't make any specific imbalance any more 'fair').

Second, he seems to actually think that your luck/ability in gaining any fortune even untainted in the way described above does not give you any more *moral worth or consideration* when these kind of decisions are made (any more than, say, a person who has a more beautiful body [due largely to their efforts let's say] would deserve more moral weight or consideration). So he actually equates, for example, the 'injustice' of someone being able to pay more not getting the treatment with the injustice of, say, a younger person, more vulnerable person, or any of the other reasons that most moral and religious traditions find to be of proper moral consideration (I can't think of any moral or religious tradition that grants higher moral consideration to 'ability to pay' or 'wealth').

Third, as is wont for many ostensible libertarians, in his second question quoted he shows how he confuses two questions: one about justice/fairness and one about efficiency/utility: it may be the case that a market driven economy will, while allowing some 'unfairness' commonly, as a matter of efficiency, prudence, etc., promote the overall welfare better (help produce scarce resources overall better). But those are two different questions (and, amazingly, Bircher's Brett position would rest on the consequentialist utilitarianism he has often demonstrated he despises so much here).

Partisan incoherent.


 

"Agreed on by who? If it's not voluntary, obviously not everybody."

More ridiculousness. *Property* is not agreed upon (in fact, some have famously said 'property is theft'). So in Bircher Brett's world a government enforcing property laws is engaging in violent aggression.

In any situation where people live together there are going to be rules enforced that some people do not voluntarily want to follow. The existence of such rules themselves is not 'robbery' or wrongness, the basis and justness of the rules themselves is what's at question.
 

"When the hospital experiences an unusually high demand, they employ triage protocols to most efficiently use the ventilators they possess until more can be purchased."

"free markets remain the best means of efficiently allocating scarce resources."

These are contradictory or confused statements. One wonders if Bircher Bart knows (or cares) at this point.
 

"analogy is not your strong suit."

Wow, every accusation is again a confession.


Bircher Bart, like his Bircher brethren, confuses two things:

1. What's the best approach to get more ventilators made?
2. How should existing ventilators be allocated?

The answer to the first can (and is I'd argue) different from the second, but our Birchers can't help but conflate it and therefore poor Bircher Bart can't get my analogy.

To elaborate using my analogy:

The Good Book According to Bircher Bart:
Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has not put in enough to satisfy God. Her penny is not going to incentivize Godly action like those rich person's large amounts!”

 

Let me give you an example of how this usually plays out, even in pre-'progressive,' ostensibly 'classical liberal' times.

Let's say a poor boy gets lost in the woods. Cold temperatures approach. Meanwhile, a rich person's goods sitting outside his factory awaiting to be inventoried the next day (it's Sunday let's say, in 'classical liberal' times work was often forbidden on Sundays) could be vandalized or the object of attempted theft. The local sheriff is faced with allocating his deputies to search for the poor boy or the guard the goods.

Of course generally the resources were used to find the boy. Even though the poor boy's family paid less in taxes and the rich person could offer to pay the police time and a half for their guarding his goods, only the most deplorable sheriff wouldn't order his deputies to engage in the search.

The same principle applies here and should be obvious to all whose moral faculties are not retarded in some way (note, I use 'retarded' here not in the risible schoolyard sense but in it's classical meaning of arrested, not matured, etc.,).
 

"I can't think of any moral or religious tradition that grants higher moral consideration to 'ability to pay' or 'wealth'"

Galtism.
 

"All human interactions are decided by society and ONLY by society. There's no such thing as an individual isolated and apart from everyone and everything else."

Man, that's not just wrong, that's hideously, terrifyingly, "That's why Pol Pot built pyramids of skulls!" wrong. Seriously, if you actually believe that, you are one dangerous dude.

A human can exist alone on an otherwise deserted island. A society can't exist apart from individual people. Only one of these is a fundamental reality, and it ain't "society".

"Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has not put in enough to satisfy God. You get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.”"

There's fairness, and there's charity. One is what we deserve, the other what we hope for. Don't confuse them.
 

BD: "When the hospital experiences an unusually high demand, they employ triage protocols to most efficiently use the ventilators they possess until more can be purchased." "free markets remain the best means of efficiently allocating scarce resources."

Mr. W: These are contradictory or confused statements. One wonders if Bircher Bart knows (or cares) at this point.

As I noted above, how a hospital decides to most efficiently utilize their machinery is not a market in the manufacture and sale of that machinery. Economics is also not one of your strong suits.

Mr. W: The local sheriff is faced with allocating his deputies to search for the poor boy or the guard the goods.

A government executive's discretionary allocation of a public good is not in any way, shape or form analogous to a free market were individuals voluntarily create and exchange goods and services.

A wise man recognizes his weaknesses and analogy is definitely one of yours.

 

Let's remember some things we know about Bircher Bart from his posting here (it's great all these things can be found in the archives).

He has a history of making laughable conclusions about things in which he has no relevant experience and training. He guaranteed a Romney Presidency here in 2012. He insisted Iraq had WMD even after W, Rice and Powell et al., conceded ashamedly they had been wrong about this. He has said that the US is a 'progressive' state and that there is no distinction between a 'progressive' or 'totalitarian' or 'fascist' state (hilariously, since he was a volunteer in our armed forces, he unwittingly admitted to being a volunteer soldier for a fascist, totalitarian regime).

We know he makes these conclusions because he has a habit of taking a little bit of knowledge, casually dismissing those who know more, are trained more and more experienced in the complex fields he comments on, and then engaging in overconfident and/or hyperbolic conclusions (the hyperbole is almost surely for propaganda purposes). He gave the epitome of this tendency of his when, recently, he invoked a principle of logic that he clearly misunderstood and misapplied due to his not knowing more about the total field *to argue* that he didn't need to take experts (i.e., people who know more about their total field) more seriously.

We also know this is a morally deranged man. He has said he would support Trump (whom he called a fascist many times during the GOP nominating process) even if Trump murdered someone.

It can't be said enough: this is not a serious man. This is a propagandist and perpetual fool. A partisan incoherent (both morally and intellectually).

He's also exemplary of the conservative GOP base, btw.
 

"A human can exist alone on an otherwise deserted island."

It is imminently silly to use exceptions to the rule as foundations for further rules. Virtually none of the human experience is or has been alone on deserted islands, virtually all of it has been social. Also, no human can exist *from the start* alone, on an otherwise deserted island.

"There's fairness, and there's charity. One is what we deserve, the other what we hope for. Don't confuse them."

Jesus' entire point, perhaps his main point in the Gospels as a whole, is that in God's eyes charity and fairness are not distinct (see the parable of the prodigal son, the worker who came to the job late but got paid the same, etc.,).

More important, the Gospels, like all other religious and moral traditions that have been around a while, find moral worth and consideration (which is what is being asked about here, faced with the ethical conundrum how do you weigh the competing claims) to be in characteristics *other* than 'wealth' or 'ability to pay.' At the very least Bircher Brett's position is very, very idiosyncratic with the major religious and moral traditions we have sociologically and historically. What's disturbing is I don't think he actually gets that. We're approaching psychopath territory here when someone can't even get what the moral compasses of the society around him are set to (whether they agree with them or not).
 

"A government executive's discretionary allocation of a public good is not in any way, shape or form analogous to a free market were individuals voluntarily create and exchange goods and services. "

Good lord this is a dim man (in part, and firstly, because part of the question here is: what part should government play in directing 'a free market').

Also, consider, labeling the sheriff's efforts a 'public good' does no work here: without the sheriff's efforts the wealthy man's business and property in goods is meaningless; the sheriff can either allocate resources based on something like 'ability to pay' or on something like 'who needs it the most.' While an economy may at times have to structure itself around the first in order to, as a wash, have more overall good outcomes justifying the many unfair ones this produces, is one thing, but even that argument rests on the backbone of the idea that moral consideration is not distributed on ability to pay (the justification is that everyone, whose welfare is to be equally considered in general, will overall be better off by allowing this because of how human nature works). In an emergency situation this is laid bare because of course all morally mature individuals realize that whatever the long term injustices of basing resources via ability to pay, in acute emergencies this should not be done (the boy should be searched for, the good be darned).
 

"A human can exist alone on an otherwise deserted island."

"Exist" is a pretty low bar. Putting that aside, not in the sense you mean. Sure, a human being born to parents and raised by them to adulthood, while being taught to hunt and gather, could plausibly survive when they died. But you just ignored the whole social process by which that human being could do so, and of course the species would die out in your hypothetical for lack of any descendants. That's to say nothing of the impact of such isolation on the individual -- even Robinson Crusoe had Friday.

In any case, we don't live on desert islands. We no longer hunt and gather our own food (even hunter/gatherers do so in a *society*). We live connected to other people, and such connection is well-established to be essential to normal psychological functioning (solitary confinement is torture). Those interactions, and your reactions to them, shape your personality and your attitudes. You *are*, in substantial part, a creature of society and the world at large.
 

Mr. W: Let's remember some things we know about Bircher Bart from his posting here

As soon as you are reminded whatever proposition or analogy you are advancing is either irrelevant or lacks evidence, you will inevitably employ various logical fallacies like attacking the messenger.

Unlike economics and analogy, the frequent employment of logical fallacies is indeed one of your strong suits.
 

BD: "A government executive's discretionary allocation of a public good is not in any way, shape or form analogous to a free market were individuals voluntarily create and exchange goods and services. "

Mr. W: Good lord this is a dim man (in part, and firstly, because part of the question here is: what part should government play in directing 'a free market').

Putting aside the fact that Gerard presented no such question, even if your preferred totalitarian government directed both the allocation of law enforcement resources along with the manufacture and use of ventilators, these are not in any way, shape or form the same things.

When in a hole, stop digging.
 

"All human interactions are decided by society and ONLY by society. There's no such thing as an individual isolated and apart from everyone and everything else."

Man, that's not just wrong, that's hideously, terrifyingly, "That's why Pol Pot built pyramids of skulls!" wrong. Seriously, if you actually believe that, you are one dangerous dude.

Brett, a member of society which crafted laws and norms to protect him even though some disagree with them, including laws that he at times cites liberals allegedly invading like bank robbers, uses some Pol Pot reference for some confused reason.

A human can exist alone on an otherwise deserted island. A society can't exist apart from individual people. Only one of these is a fundamental reality, and it ain't "society".

The possibility aside, in actual reality, billions of people don't live as isolated individuals. They lived in groups, be it bands of people or larger groupings of society. Even in prehistoric times, humans were a social species that lived together in a society. This is fundamental reality. Robinson Crusoe is a book.

There's fairness, and there's charity. One is what we deserve, the other what we hope for. Don't confuse them.

What we "deserve" is something that had to be argued out.

To repeat, we started with an assertion of how the world runs. The world does not run based on the assumption that money itself is how necessities should be distributed. This is not how humans treated what is "fair."

Charity is something that a person can voluntarily supply such as deciding maybe they will support the arts or an animal group. Society as a whole, over our history, has determined that basics -- including not letting people die on the street if they lack funds to pay the doctor -- is an obligation. Not charity. Society includes the overall judgments of individual people. In this case, unlike mass deaths like Pol Pot or Nazi Germany, the societal judgment was also just.

The quote of Jesus (Brett expressed in the past he is an atheist, but Jesus was also a moralist) was a matter of him expressing what was an obligation of a moral person, there a reflection of his own Jewish faith. Society deems it not charity to provide necessities. Fairness includes providing basics and in return all members of society, including those who obtain them by societal subsidy, have obligations too.
 

And, as Mark said, even the sole person on a desert island came from somewhere.
 

"logical fallacies like attacking the messenger."

Again, let's remember that one of the most karmic examples of Bircher Bart's egg-on-the-face mistakes is the recent one of him demonstrating a misunderstanding and misapplication of a logical fallacy (he invoked the fallacy of appeal to authority in his argument he could casually dismiss experts in fields like economics, political science, climatology, epidemiology, etc., without realizing that had he consulted an expert in logic that logician would have told him that that fallacy is a narrowly principle of deductive logic, but that inductive logic not only allows but encourages deference to experts in complex fields in matters of those fields). In fact, I referenced that egg-on-face moment just now.

Undeterred, here Bircher Bart demonstrates the *same* type of error, and in logic again nonetheless to boot (Bircher Bart is like that clip of Sideshow Bob stepping on the same rakes and getting whacked in the face over and over):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRq1Ksh-32g

Here Bircher Bart employs the 'attacking the messenger' or ad hominem fallacy. That fallacy is also one of deductive logic, it says 'a claim or argument isn't unsound or invalid simply because of something about the person making it.'

But, again, of course, according to inductive logic it is perfectly acceptable and logical to doubt the probability of being true of a claim from a man who has a long record of silly or false claims. This is why, for example, lawyers 'impeach' witnesses.

Bircher Bart can't help himself stepping on those rakes. He's no inclination to learn since he knows all the answers on very topic already and/or he's just hear to fling propagandist poo anyway, not engage in honest, serious discussion.


 

As I noted above, how a hospital decides to most efficiently utilize their machinery is not a market in the manufacture and sale of that machinery. Economics is also not one of your strong suits.

What you "noted" is ridiculous. A car wash uses equipment to provide a service. That service is sold in a market.

You lecturing others on economics is droll.
 

Mark said this:

"There's no such thing as an individual isolated and apart from everyone and everything else."

This doesn't mean that individual rights aren't important. Mere majority rule can lead to injustice. It means that the individual lives within a society with a republican system of government in our case.

Both halves of the issue needs to be addressed when dealing with reality here. Such arises when interpretation of the law in practice.
 

"Putting aside the fact that Gerard presented no such question"

Again, how does a man this dim dress himself and find his way to his place of employment every day? Perhaps his wife helps (out of Bircher Brettian charity, of course)? Gerard's OP was about how to allocate resources, 'The Market' was but one option presented. At least some of the others could certainly (and likely would) be directed by government order.

"the allocation of law enforcement resources along with the manufacture and use of ventilators, these are not in any way, shape or form the same things."

Ah, another simply conclusory 'argument.' And a silly one even beyond that. I mean, at the very least even a complete dullard can see the allocation of law enforcement resources and the question about the manufacture and use of ventilators are in one major way, shape or form the same thing: they are both questions about how to allocate scarce resources (I shouldn't be surprised that the fellow who could find 'zero evidence' of Trump asking for an investigation into the Bidens in the White House 'perfect' phone call can't see that obvious way, shape and form these two topics have in common). Like all ostensible libertarians he'd like those he's arguing with to just accept, axiomatically, at the outset that government and private allocation decisions are entirely distinct animals, but that's just a silly thing they do.

For him, one of many.
 

"It is imminently silly to use exceptions to the rule as foundations for further rules. Virtually none of the human experience is or has been alone on deserted islands, virtually all of it has been social. Also, no human can exist *from the start* alone, on an otherwise deserted island."

Exceptions to the rules are exactly what probes the rules, and tells you to what extent they're fundamental, and to what extent they're superficial. No person who's spent an hour by themselves should fall for the notion that society is more real than the individual; That's the sort of idea that's so stupid you need real work to believe it. And the idea that when some guys get together in a room and decide to impose their decision on everybody else, "society" has decided something, is madness. At best it's an effort to diffuse responsibility, at worst to counsel non-resistance to evil.

"Jesus' entire point, perhaps his main point in the Gospels as a whole, is that in God's eyes charity and fairness are not distinct (see the parable of the prodigal son, the worker who came to the job late but got paid the same, etc.,)."

Look, the point of the Gospels is that God is everything, and we are, by ourselves, nothing. All that we have, all that we are, is by God's mercy, justice would end us. And God directs us to be merciful and charitable towards each other, per his example.

But, fundamentally, charity isn't fairness, isn't justice, it exists in contrast to these things. It is going above and beyond them. And as such, it requires understanding what they are and aren't.

If you really owe somebody something, it's not charity to give it to them. It's only charity if you DON'T owe it to them!
 

byomtov:

I now understand how economists feel attempting to explain basic concepts to politicians attempting to score partisan points.

A market for ventilators is the creation and trade of these machines.

A market for the hospital treatment of COVID 19 patients is no more the a market for ventilators, than a market for attorney representation is a market for computers. A hospital may use a ventilator and I may use a computer in the provision of our relative services, but we are not in the business of making and selling these machines.

As I noted from the outset, service providers employ a form of triage to maximize the efficient use their machines to provide their service. For example, I prioritize my computer to draft pleadings for clients with the most important cases and imminent deadlines. This triage is not analogous to a market.

Does anyone here have any good faith questions concerning these concepts and the distinction between them?
 

The saying 'the exception that proves the rule' is often misunderstood, it means 'this exception, under these parameters, proves that the rule works in all other circumstances' (sort of like the saying 'hard cases make bad law'). Again, it's kind of an inductive logic problem with the Birchers here: it's silly to make a rare exception the foundation for your argument when there's a much, much more common rule.

"No person who's spent an hour by themselves should fall for the notion that society is more real than the individual; That's the sort of idea that's so stupid you need real work to believe it."

Actually, again, this is an example of a conclusion that just hasn't examined itself much (that's probably what Bircher Brett gets at by 'you need real work to believe it;' perhaps you need real work to *see* it, and one thing Birchers hate is doing real, self-examinining and honest [in the sense of leaving the very real possibility that you are wrong and might need to re-evaluate basic things you believe in]is one thing Birchers seem to hate doing). For example, of course I exist by myself when I'm by myself. But note this: my, and Bircher Brett's, very telling of this experience to one another exists solely because of something we owe to our social existence: language. Bircher Brett's very thought even to himself 'it's nice to be alone, I can see I exist apart from society' *cannot even be stated to himself* without his social existence! In a more nuanced sort, many social psychologists have commented on how our self concept is largely defined *socially* (you come to see yourself in part by imagining how others see you based on your reading of their reaction).

So, in a very simplistic sense, yes, of course individuals exist apart from society. But in a more nuanced sense they don't.

Why Bircher Brett's such strong resistance to this idea? I think I can posit a probable answer. Ostensible libertarians like Bircher Brett have an idea even deeper than their strange, conspiracy congruent fantasies of self-sufficiency, they also fear that to the extent 'society' is recognized as a 'thing' then that thing might be able to make legitimate demands on them. And what many ostensible libertarians fear the most is the idea that they can't just do what they want, when they want, but that someone, somewhere, might tell them what to do, and, worse, to do something *for* someone else. This is why the distinction between charity and other kinds of duties or obligations is so critical for people like Bircher Brett. And it's this irrational, pervasive fear that I think motivates them to try to stick to near-psycopathic arguments like he's made here in this situation.

 

Moving past the back/forth, a Ian Milhiser Vox article flagged a House Report that examines voting options during the COVID-19 pandemic:

https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/StaffReport_VotingOptions.pdf

It's an interesting look at the history, practicalities and constitutional questions.
 

"Robinson Crusoe is a book."

Not just a book, a piece of propaganda intended to advance a libertarian view of the world.

I agree with your 12:46 comment.
 

The Gospels are all about collapsing the distinction between what you owe others and charity, because what God commands as your duty (your obligation) is that you act charitably.

But more to the point, let's focus on what Bircher Brett totally elided in his response to me: that the Bible, and indeed no long standing moral/religious tradition I can recall, posits 'ability to pay' or wealth as a valid unit of moral consideration. I think he doesn't try to answer this because he cannot. Perhaps he realizes how idiosyncratic, to say the least, his thinking on this subject is?

Again, it's quite sensible to say: because the welfare of everyone, regardless and apart from things like their wealth, success, etc., should get equal moral consideration, and because a capitalist system, while at times producing unfair outcomes, in the long run incentivizes people such that the overall welfare is greater than any other organizing principle, then we should let the market make decisions generally. But it's quite another thing to say: a person's wealth and/or success in life *fairly* gives them greater moral consideration in making these kind of ethical decisions. That's very idiosyncratic at the least and borderline psycho-pathic at the worst.
 

"This triage is not analogous to a market."

Good gosh, this is black hole levels of density.

Without getting out actual sock puppets, the point is a simply put as possible as this:

The question is, when faced with demand greater than scarce resources, in this particular instance too many patients and too few ventilators but also as a *general question* of when this occurs in other areas, what is the morally correct way for, in general and in the particular instance, the hospital to allocate these ventilators, among those in the demand for them? Gerald then says there are several possible answers: 1. the market, let people who can pay more get them, 2. triage, base the decision on medical factors rather than ability to pay, etc.

Bircher Bart then says 'hospitals use triage, the market is the best.'

It's like someone asked him 'should we have pork or beef' and he answered 'pork is from pigs and beef is from cows!'
 

"This doesn't mean that individual rights aren't important. Mere majority rule can lead to injustice."

joe, Some thoughts about individual rights vs. majority rule.

1. It can (and I would) argue that limits on government re: individual rights promote welfare overall, though there will obviously be cases that are exceptions that prove the rule.

2. In our legal system, our individual rights to protect minorities are actually super-majoritarian imposed rights: they were established into the Constitution by the super-majoritarian requirements thereof. Therefore, while they may act to protect a minority from a majority it can also be said they are when a super-majority has disallowed a bare majority to impact a minority.

To sum up my view by quoting a great fictional character: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...
 

I now understand how economists feel attempting to explain basic concepts to politicians attempting to score partisan points.

It would be impossible for you to know how economists feel about anything since your understanding of economics sems based on the first two chapters of an introductory text, on which you reflected not at all. It would be impossible for you to explain basic concepts, since your understanding of them is about a millimeter deep.

You argue that the free market should always be the way in which goods and services are allocated: "free markets remain the best means of efficiently allocating scarce resources."

I pointed out that the service provided by the hospital using a ventilator is every bit as much a service as anything else, but that it is not allocated by market forces - no auction takes place. And you agree that the hospital's triage system is the most efficient way to allocate that service, not even coming close to understanding the contradiction between that and your claim about the free market. You are incoherent.


 

It's somewhat interesting to get religious interpretation per a Trump supporter since the evangelical right is such an important part of that coalition, including their pressing their own views on others regarding private matters via public laws.

The so-called New Testament is important in part since Christianity is a major influence on this country. Overall, it is one avenue though the things being expressed here tends to be general norms that overlap not just other Abrahamian religions but in general. (To be open about it, biblical analysis and history is an interest of mine.)

The gospels and more generally the NT also is about formulating a Christian community and the later Pauline letters specifically are concerned about that. Thus, the "household codes" found some of them. Just what 'God' means here is a larger question. God very well can mean some overall system of justice and many see it that way.

Anyway, "For now we see through a glass, darkly." If we are going to talk the NT, just what "charity" means is complicated. 1 Corinthians 13 [I assume Trump is well familiar with this book] is for many a familiar one for its discussion on "love." But, that is at times translated as "charity." It is not meant to be an optional thing for a Christian. If it is a necessity, a member of a Christian community is unfair if they don't provide it. "Fair" reasonably includes evenhanded supply of obligations.

"Charity" has various nuances but there tends to be some degree of optional there as well as a matter of not earning it. But, a just society includes some form of "charity" at any rate. Plus, again, people do earn it, even in that fashion. People form a society to better protect their overall needs. Have since primitive hominoids existed. And, in return, they get certain basics. This is fair.
 

I basically agree with Mr. W aka Spock.

There are also individual rights that are a result of majority rule alone in various cases. Also, constitutional rights traditionally as well as today are generally not absolute. If there is a compelling state interest involving harm to others, at some point limits can be put in place. But, this is the very nature of 'liberty' as compared to 'license' so is baked in anyhow.
 

The market for ventilator services can easily become a free market. The most obvious "invisible hand" is the triage nurse, who evaluates which new admission is most suitable for a ventilator, that is, sick enough to die without it, and well enough to survive with it. This is a judgment call not subject to much review in emergency conditions. The triage nurses are not well paid (even among nurses), have been working 80 hour weeks for a while now, are self-isolating from their usual familial support networks, and they're pretty sure they're going to get sick soon, and may well die. The temptation to provide for one's own family by selling a ventilator slot to the highest bidder is high. Prosecutors: Take these cases seriously. Brett: Prepare to defend these heroes of capitalism.
 

Mr. W:

No good faith and definitely no understanding.

Fat, dunk and stupid is no way to go through life son
 

arthur:

As Gerard correctly notes above, triage (a hospital deciding if or how to use its ventilator to treat you) is not the same as a market (X selling a ventilator to Y at a mutually agreeable price).

Furthermore, catastrophic care paid for by insurance is not a free market with supply and demand setting prices because the insurer has previously contracted with it's providers to set the price for every treatment, no matter how minor.
 

Why is Brett fabricating a false moral to the Gospel story of the Widow's Mite? In both Mark 12: 41-44, Luke 21:1-4). The moral drawn is one of cardinal utility: the widow has, given her poverty, sacrificed more than the rich donors.

This is either an unfunny joke or - to believers - blasphemy.
 

I think it's also worth noting that the closest evolutionary relatives of hominins (chimpanzees) are also very social. Even the Class Mammalia tend to be social (maybe someone knows of a species that isn't, but even those have to reproduce which requires some social interaction). There's no support for Brett's extremist view of individuality in either science or religion.
 

Mark:

Freedom does not require individuals to act on their own.

Freedom of association is an individual right to voluntarily act together with others.
 

The Swedes have a taken a FAR more sane approach to dealing with COVID 19.


 

"Fat, dunk and stupid is no way to go through life son"

Lol, in addition to conceding he has no answer for my pointing out his persistent lack of intellectual/moral principle, Bircher Barts tops the sundae with the cherry when he misspells drunk.

Maybe he's dealing with the activity restrictions in his rural home in a way that leaves him saying 'I'm not as thunk as you drink I am?' That would at least make his posts more understandable (if no more coherent) and less morally deranged.

This is not a serious man.
 

"As Gerard correctly notes above, triage (a hospital deciding if or how to use its ventilator to treat you) is not the same as a market (X selling a ventilator to Y at a mutually agreeable price)."

Still not getting it, is he?

"catastrophic care paid for by insurance is not a free market with supply and demand setting prices because the insurer has previously contracted with it's providers to set the price for every treatment, no matter how minor."

More ridiculous gibberish.


 

James, Bircher Brett is likely a disciple of Supply Side Jesus rather than the one in the New Testament.

https://imgur.com/gallery/bCqRp

 

"Freedom does not require individuals to act on their own.

Freedom of association is an individual right to voluntarily act together with others."

This guy's approaching randomly generated sentences...
 

The Swedes have a taken a FAR more sane approach to dealing with COVID 19.


# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 5:03 PM

We could have a much more sane approach if we didn’t have a president who is a moron. But since he botched this from the very start, now we’re screwed.
 

I'm going to keep commenting on how goofy Bircher Bart's comments on this OP are (low hanging fruit, I know, I know).

Gerard in the OP says:

"Consider four possible allocation methods that Calabresi and Bobbitt discuss:

1. The Market. We usually use prices to allocate scarce resources. Wealthy individuals or hospitals or states would then get the most ventilators. The obvious objection to this approach is that it's unfair to the poor, and that this inequity is particularly wrong in a crisis that involves life or death.

2. Triage. Allocate the scarce resource to those with the best chance of survival. This means that the decisions are made by medical professionals on the scene...."

So Gerard is clearly saying 'there are these (4) ways we could allocate resources, we could choose number one, or number two, etc., which is the right one here?

Bircher Bart's 'reply':

"When the hospital experiences an unusually high demand, they employ triage protocols to most efficiently use the ventilators they possess until more can be purchased. Unless you own the hospital and thus the machine, you are unlikely to get priority merely because you are wealthy."

And yet also: "Once again, free markets remain the best means of efficiently allocating scarce resources."

Then in a series of posts Bircher Bart continues his 'point' triage is not markets.

Need 'duh' be said here? Of course the OP assumed the are not the same, that's why they're *listed separately under different numbers!* The question was which is the correct one?

Poor Bircher Bart, when he strays from his propaganda script, gets so confused. Essentially to the question of 'where would be the best place to eat tonight, 1. Wendy's which is closest, 2. McDonald's which is cheaper, etc.,' Bircher Bart replied 'some people eat at Wendy's because it's close, some people eat at McDonalds to save money. Once again, saving money is good!'

It's not so much that he's so poor in reasoning that's notable, it's that his paucity of reasoning power seems inversely related to his confidence in the same.

This is not a serious man.

This is a man who is exemplary of the GOP base right now. A generation of conservatives have built their 'intellectual' foundations on Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck level thinking.
 

I want to be clear this isn't 'picking on' our Birchers. I think their comments actually do serve one useful purpose here: giving us a sense of the pulse of the GOP base. It's an erratic and concerning pulse, for sure, but better to know it.

And it matters very much for what this website is about. The GOP has always had a significant amount of krazy konspiracy kooks and konservative keyboard kadets, Birchers and partisan progandists unable and unwilling to have honest, serious discussions. But the Party was largely in control of semi-responsible, professional adults. Sure, they had to throw some rhetorical sops to the two groups (denounce affirmative action quotas and multiculturalism every now and then, invoke states rights and condemn the UN here and there), but they largely ruled in a semi-responsible, professional manner.

That started to get shaken up with Reagan, the former actor and motivational speaker turned President. But he had had some serious experience in being (ironically) a labor leader and then governor. It got shaken when they chose W (who was in large part a privileged frat brother), but he was part of a legacy he (to his credit) made an honest attempt to honor and was well connected with what Bircher Bart calls the 'mandarin class' of the GOP (people with training and experience in what they were to do). And now, in Trump, the most shaken. There's a reason why the Birchers are so steadfast in devotion Trump, so excited about him. He's the most in line with both groups. Here is a decidedly unprofessional, unintellectual, non-expert, a man who made his bones in conspiracy theory.

Now, throughout this process the SCOTUS has been re-shaped. Burgers, Rehnquists and Souters are replaced with, first, Scalia's (who, while in large part still a serious jurist remember his turn to the hyperbole of he krazy konspiracy kook in his dissents in Romer, the Arizona immigration case, etc.?) to hacks and overconfident lightweights such as Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh (recall Gorsuch's wacky reliance on Amity Shale's revisionism and how much it tracks Bircher Bartisms). In the lower, but still important courts, Trump is packing in very unserious judges (ones with laughable credentials and ABA ratings).

The upshot of this is that those, like Gerard or Koppelman, who work to try to engage current conservative jurisprudence in an honest way are going to get continually bushwacked in acts of asymmetrical action. The legal realist view of Tushnet is really going to be the only realistic (no pun intended) approach to studying the federal courts for a while.
 

Let's also remember, since there is a very long record here on Balkinization, that Bircher Bart dismissed this current crisis as 'the sniffles.'

COVID-19 has killed several thousand Americans, more than were lost in 9/11.

When the latter happened Bircher Bart didn't engage in any call for a balancing of interests. He picked up his pom-poms, pulled up his knee-highs, and started to cheer the loudest and longest for 1. the invasion/occupation of a couple of countries; 2. torture and rendition; 3. increased/easier use of electronic surveillance (ironically, he now complains about it being used against Trump); etc..

This man karefully, kalculatingly kalibrates his outrage or kounsels of kaution or kalm dependent on his pathetic partisan propaganda aims.

This is not a serious man.

This is a man who is exemplary of the GOP base.
 

GM in the past self-labelled himself as a conservative and some of his posts over the years here and in other blogs suggest he is of the moderate conservative class even if he doesn't come out as a full fledged "Never Trumper." He is something like Orin Kerr, who actually (he bothers me so this warrants credit) on the record voted for Clinton since the alternative was Trump. Kerr is part of the "Volokh Conspiracy" blog.

Today is Justice Samuel Alito's birthday. Happy 70th!

There is an Atlantic article being spread around by those who talk about such things by a conservative who says "hey, we have the power now, so let's move past originalism ... it can restrain advancing our conservative ends."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/

"krazy konspiracy kooks and konservative keyboard kadets" is prime alliteration.
 

Thanks joe, there's just something koncise, korrect and kompendious about my phraseology...It's on the tip of my tongue...;)

Btw, I'd probably be considered in many circles 'conservative.' I like capitalism (don't like Bernie), would vote against affirmative action, in-state tuition for undocumented aliens, like tax cuts, etc.,

But what passes for conservative today, as we can see regularly here, is Kooky Konservative Kooks...

Not interested.
 

More than 1,000 dead yesterday. More than double the average daily death toll for the flu. I'm unable to find any death toll stats for the sniffles.
 

We blew past 10 Epstein Units so fast it makes your head spin. Truly, he has a dizzying intellect.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Mark, you might say Epstein's smarts are 'taking' a holiday during this crisis.
 

Mr. W:

Easily triggered? There is therapy for that.

CDC: At the end of yesterday, total COVID deaths over 2.5 months are actually 3,603. A single bad flu day. Get a grip.

 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

More than a 1000 dead. In a day. If that were due to, say, a terrorist attack or undocumented immigrants, our Bircher Bart would grab his pom poms, pull up his knee high socks, adjust his skirt and start the cheering for a complete invasion of some (remotely probably) related country or billion dollar wall building, among other severe, liberties curtailing measures he supported in the past in similar situations. Sniffles indeed.

Our Birchers are not serious men.

I have a submission to make. There are too many intelligent, honest people on this board to spend time on two 'men' who are neither. Just as at this time I would suggest all sensible persons keep their distance from one another, I propose to the sensible people here: do not engage with Bircher Brett and Bart. In fact, in the spirit of always keeping redemption as an option, let's do this: let's pick a recent howler they threw out there as fact, the kind of thing they do regularly, and whenever they post here, only respond to them with it until they 1. stop posting here or 2. explain themselves.

So, recently our two Birchers endorsed an absurd conspiracy theory, of the kind they normally do, that the prosecutions of Michael Cohen and Lev Parnas were political hits, that the prosecutor was stacking charges against these Trump associates to force them to spill dirt on Trump to damage the President.

In about 20 seconds of research I found that the head of the US attorney's office doing the prosecutions was 1. a Trump appointee, 2. a Trump donor (several thousands of dollars and 3. a volunteer worker on the Trump transition team.

Once I pointed these facts out demonstrating the ridiculousness of their krazy, kooky, konspiracy Birchers Brett and Bart never responded.

This is what they do. Spout krazy, kooky konspiracies and nonsense regularly, never owning up to it, always just moving to the next putrid propagandist poo to fling on the wall in the hopes something will stick.

Let's not let them waste our time anymore. Whenever they post anything here, whether calling COVID-19 'the sniffles' blaming the alarm over it on 'Democrat media,' defending the defunding of infectious disease units at the CDC with the 'argument' that the Democrats would have wasted time on studying gun violence, etc., I am going to simply respond with this:

You recently confidently argued that the prosecutions of Michael Cohen and Lev Parnas were politically motivated prosecutions designed to stack charges against these Trump associates to force them to tell embarrassing information about the President. The prosecutor overseeing these actions is, in fact a Trump appointee, a Trump donor, and a volunteer on the Trump transition team. We have to know we are not wasting our time with dishonest and un-serious men. Please defend this argument or retract it and admit that you are prone to making such conspiracy theories before anyone responds to the substance of what you are saying now.

I hope you'll join me in this, for two reasons: to push the dialogue here to a better, more serious place and, perhaps naively hopefully, to get these persons to reflect on what makes them say such outrageous and wacky things regularly (the latter could help the former if they decide to stay here commenting).
 

"Mr. W:

Easily triggered? There is therapy for that.

CDC: At the end of yesterday, total COVID deaths over 2.5 months are actually 3,603. A single bad flu day. Get a grip."

You recently confidently argued that the prosecutions of Michael Cohen and Lev Parnas were politically motivated prosecutions designed to stack charges against these Trump associates to force them to tell embarrassing information about the President. The prosecutor overseeing these actions is, in fact a Trump appointee, a Trump donor, and a volunteer on the Trump transition team. We have to know we are not wasting our time with dishonest and un-serious men. Please defend this argument or retract it and admit that you are prone to making such conspiracy theories before anyone responds to the substance of what you are saying now.
 

Mr. W:

I thought you weren't going to engage me any longer?

Come to think of it, anger management may be a better alternative for you..
 

2018-2019 flu deaths were 34,000, according to the CDC

Over a Nov-Feb season that's less than 300/day.

Maybe somebody needs to explain the basic principles of arithmetic to Bart.

The CDC count of 3605 is a day behind, by the way. They post their number daily based on 4PM the day before and it sometimes takes a while to update it. They had that total up yesterday afternoon. Other counts, like CNN, are more timely and no, they are not fake. When CDC catches up the numbers match pretty well.
 

Byomtov:

2017-2018 was a bad flu season with with 61,000 deaths.

Within that parameter, a bad flu day within can be 3,600. Deaths are not perfectly linear.
 

Please consider the amusement factor in that Bart insists on using the CDC figures while routinely griping about "bureaucrats" and ignoring or rejecting independent sources for statistics.

 

Bart,

2017-2018 was a bad flu season with with 61,000 deaths.

Within that parameter, a bad flu day within can be 3,600. Deaths are not perfectly linear.

That's an average of 500/day. It is insanely unlikely that 3600 - your day-old total - could happen in just a "bad day," even in a very bad year. Google "variance."


 

"Mr. W:

I thought you weren't going to engage me any longer?

Come to think of it, anger management may be a better alternative for you.."

You recently confidently argued that the prosecutions of Michael Cohen and Lev Parnas were politically motivated prosecutions designed to stack charges against these Trump associates to force them to tell embarrassing information about the President. The prosecutor overseeing these actions is, in fact a Trump appointee, a Trump donor, and a volunteer on the Trump transition team. We have to know we are not wasting our time with dishonest and un-serious men. Please defend this argument or retract it and admit that you are prone to making such conspiracy theories before anyone responds to the substance of what you are saying now.
 

Mr. Whiskas: "COVID-19 has killed several thousand Americans, more than were lost in 9/11."
The final toll will be up there with major wars. Wikipedia gives these totals for US deaths in combat in recent wars (total deaths are higher, but include many which would have happened in peacetime). Rounded to the nearest thousand.
Afghanistan 2,000
Iraq 2 4,000
Korea 34,000
Vietnam 47,000
WW I 53,000
WW II 292,000
Somewhere between the last two according to Fauci. I expect towards the high end. But a WW II total is not out of the question.
 

"Please consider the amusement factor in that Bart insists on using the CDC figures while routinely griping about "bureaucrats" and ignoring or rejecting independent sources for statistics."

The Birchers always do this.

I wonder if anyone saw the Eric Wemple article in the WaPo recently about how even in an internal review Fox News uses the 'lamestream' media as their sources. This is because conservative 'news' outlets don't really generate any news or stories themselves (especially any critical of Republican governance, they're essentially just a wing of the GOP of course). What they do is comb through the sources of those who do generate news and media, selectively seize on that which they find useful for their confirmation bias/propaganda purposes, and then spin that out there. That's their m.o. write large.

I mean, Bircher Bart is the kind of fellow who can write a screed about how all government bureaucrats and experts are deep state 'mandarins' with 'tunnel vision' and then express almost orgasmic excitement at, say the prospect of an Inspector General's upcoming report *in the same comment thread* without noticing the cognitive dissonance. Then when the IG's report comes out and doesn't say what he hoped it would he just moves on to fling the next poo on the wall. Luckily, we have his intellectual record of mistake in writing here archived. You really shouldn't engage him until he shows some sign of moving to honesty and integrity by owning these mistakes.
 

Mr. W. on engaging with the Killer Bs ... "I thought I was out ... but you dragged me back in!"

The John Stuart Mill "collision with error" principle can take on only so far. But, the whole money deal, e.g., is probably worth comment on since it is what many people think. They might not express it in such a raw way, but it is too often the sentiment and it flows into public policy. The same when simple words are used in curious ways. It does help sometimes to think about that.

OTOH, at some point, engaging with people will be counterproductive. For instance, there was a person elsewhere who basically quoted some sort of conservative religious cant on how marriage has to be "unitive" which in her view made it simply illogical to include same sex couples. It isn't always so simplistic. Thus, a person in the usual snide way of the class argued that only emotional sentimental arguments could ignore that polygamy and incest advances the ends of marriage than same sex marriage. Said person is now a leading member of the Justice Department.

So great to engage with greatness. Also, when it basically stresses you out, it might be time to take a break. Especially when the person simply doesn't have the ability to engage in a fair way. To quote someone who said it well:

"You’ve done this shit over and over and over again. I know you mean well, and you often do have serious points. But when you feel attacked you double down in these absurd ways, and respond to what you think were uncharitable readings of your posts with even more uncharitable and implausible readings, that couldn’t possibly be the intended ones unless your opponent was a total moron. It’s stupid and tiresome and it’s making me reach for the pie filter button, which I don’t want to do because, again, when you’re not in this particular mode I like reading you."

And, that is for someone who is more on point than others. Anyway, I appreciate the bloggers here who are charitable about letting us talk even when people here aren't that fair.
 

joe-I'm not really engaging. I'm calling him out. Until he owns up to the drivel that comes from his krazy kooky konspiracy and/or putrid, pathetic progagandizing I'm just going to post that paragraph in response every time he does. A man who could make such a ridiculous absurd and flimsy argument with such confidence in that instance and *then not cop to the mistake* once plainly demonstrated is not a serious man and shouldn't be engaged with.
 

To the serious commenters: Iirc I read that several arrests have been made of people engaging in religious services in violation of stay at home orders of various governors. I think it's interesting to speculate about possible Free Exercise lawsuits in that regard.

I think they'll lose. The laws are generally applicable and not aimed at religion and the power to quarantine in an emergency is an old and usually well respected one in the law. It's interesting to me because it really shows how silly 'classical liberals' who howl about 'progressive totalitarianism' which recognizes 'no limits to government power' really are. All along even the most classical liberal governments recognized the power to infringe any and all of even the most fundamental rights when they recognized an emergency. The only difference between these polities and ones with more active governments really is in what they consider to be important enough for government to step it, what they all agree on is that when it's that important government has power even to infringe on the most basic of freedoms.
 

Churches pose a hard case. But I'm not sure they pose any harder case than limiting groups of people generally, given that the right to assemble is also protected.
 

From Religion Clause Blog:

A suit was filed on Monday by a pro se plaintiff in a Colorado federal district court seeking a preliminary injunction to bar enforcement of the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders issued by the state and local officials. The complaint (full text) in Lawrence v. State of Colorado, (D CO, filed 3/30/2020) alleges in part:

"As a result of the Orders listed above that restrict the gathering of more than ten people at a time, the plaintiff's parish has ceased conducting weekly Mass, has ceased offering the Eucharist, and has ceased hearing confessions. The defendants' conduct has impaired the plaintiff's ability to freely exercise his religious faith, in violation of the First Amendment."

We have seen in the vaccine area a somewhat mixed response to religious claims so am not totally sure how all the courts, including in states with strong religious liberty laws that give religious exercise extra protection (the general applicable rule is the federal constitutional floor). But, the claims should be rejected given the compelling need and general consistent rule regarding assemblies. The fact many of these places have more at risk people, given they often have a great number of older people etc., should help the case.

Some accommodations are likely such as Michigan applying the rules but waiving the fines for violators. I gather priests who visit people to give last rites and so forth would be considered essential to the degree supermarkets and the like are. Such one one one contact might be a tricky situation at times. Normal pastoral visits might violate stay at home orders & there might be a stronger claim if there is a RFRA in place that should be allowed. Again, we do allow delivery of food etc.

Also, there has been litigation started regarding gun shops being "essential" businesses. There is also a pending federal lawsuit in Texas as well regarding blocking abortion services. The latest was a lower court ruling blocking the move was overturned 2-1 and the matter is being heard on an accelerated basis. Rewire Blog is one good source of the news in that area.

http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2020/04/suit-challenges-colorado-stay-at-home.html

(That complaint sounds like someone here might have crafted it.)

Verdict/Justia had a view essays on federalism issues as well. See also: https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/contagion-and-the-right-to-travel/
 

Bymatov:

Flu infections and deaths spike over a few week period at the beginning of winter.
 

" Bart DePalma said...

Bymatov:

Flu infections and deaths spike over a few week period at the beginning of winter."

You recently confidently argued that the prosecutions of Michael Cohen and Lev Parnas were politically motivated prosecutions designed to stack charges against these Trump associates to force them to tell embarrassing information about the President. The prosecutor overseeing these actions is, in fact a Trump appointee, a Trump donor, and a volunteer on the Trump transition team. We have to know we are not wasting our time with dishonest and un-serious men. Please defend this argument or retract it and admit that you are prone to making such conspiracy theories before anyone responds to the substance of what you are saying now.
 

Bart,

Please improve your spelling, if you can.

Flu peaks during winter months. That doesn't mean the peak day is seven times the average day (actually ten times now that we are over 5000 deaths from coronavirus) Vague references to a spike are meaningless. Have you googled 'variance' yet?

Or can't you spell it?
 

DeSantis has now ordered that churches be exempt from the shelter orders, whether state or local. He's going to kill the whole state.
 

To be evenhanded (fair?) John Fea on his blog is overall correct that this right wing evangelical group should have the ability to use "Christian" volunteers etc. here as long as the antidiscrimination rules apply.

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/group-behind-central-park-s-covid-19-field-hospital-run-n1173396

Looking up Mark's news, a Business Insider article also notes:

"Similarly in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott also overruled multiple local county ordinances banning religious gatherings by labeling religious gatherings as essential in a statewide order as long as they comply with social distancing guidelines, the San Antonio Express-News reported on Wednesday."

Good luck with that. One religious gathering (some megachurches are like malls) can have more people (in close quarters for an hour or more) than a small supermarket might for a sizable amount of time.
 

I recall reading an article about several congregants coming down with Covid 19 from attending choir practices-they were shocked they came down with because, they said, they were 'practicing social distancing by not hugging each other like usual.' They were, however, assembled in a group larger than 10.

I wonder if, by the time these lawsuits make it to appellate courts, if the stay in place or at home orders are lifted at that time, they will be dismissed as moot...
 

Off memory, one woman in S. Korea went to church after testing positive -- against orders -- and 1000 people caught the virus from her, directly or indirectly.
 

Byomtov: Flu peaks during winter months. That doesn't mean the peak day is seven times the average day

Actually, it likely does. Take a look at the linked chart of the short spike in 2017-2018 flu season cases.

actually ten times now that we are over 5000 deaths from coronavirus

Assuming your media guesstimate is accurate, let's now say that 2.5 days of peak flu deaths equals 2.5 months of COVID deaths. There is a certain symmetry there.
 

Mr. W: Please defend this argument or retract it and admit that you are prone to making such conspiracy theories before anyone responds to the substance of what you are saying now.

You seem to be spending a great deal of time responding to my posts which are not directed to you. Unsurprisingly, your response is a big rotting pile of red herring. Coincidentally, opposing counsel in a restraining order hearing this morning unsuccessfully did the same thing.

By all means feel free to ignore me.

I'll check back to see if your self control has improved.

 

Mark: DeSantis has now ordered that churches be exempt from the shelter orders, whether state or local. He's going to kill the whole state.

Your hyperbole begs a question I asked here before: At what level of danger does a disease grant an executive the power to shutter churches and other public gatherings and place everyone on modified house arrest?
 

Bart,

You neither read what the chart shows nor looked at the numbers. Really, your efforts here are pathetic.

Assuming your media guesstimate is accurate, let's now say that 2.5 days of peak flu deaths equals 2.5 months of COVID deaths. There is a certain symmetry there.

So we've gone from one peak day to 2.5. Keep moving those goalposts. I doubt you'll go far enough. Remember, not long ago, when you thought it was no big deal because there were only 1200 cases? We're close to five times that many deaths. The CDC is reporting over 4500 as of 4PM Eastern time, about 24 hours ago.

It's not a "media guesstimate." It's a pretty accurate count. You are happy to rely on CDC numbers when you think, wrongly, that they support your point. The numbers published by CNN and Worldometers closely track CDC figures.



 

"With the coronavirus outbreak creating an unprecedented demand for medical supplies and equipment, New York state has paid 20 cents for gloves that normally cost less than a nickel and as much as $7.50 each for masks, about 15 times the usual price. It’s paid up to $2,795 for infusion pumps, more than twice the regular rate. And $248,841 for a portable X-ray machine that typically sells for $30,000 to $80,000."

Just the free market at work.

https://www.propublica.org/article/in-desperation-new-york-state-pays-up-to-15-times-the-normal-price-for-medical-equipment

"Without federal intervention, states and hospitals may only become more vulnerable to the demands of brokers and speculators outside the normal supply chain, said Chaun Powell, vice president for strategic supplier engagement at the national health care consultant Premier Inc., which helps negotiate contracts for hospitals and health systems."

Oh well.
 

"You seem to be spending a great deal of time responding to my posts which are not directed to you. Unsurprisingly, your response is a big rotting pile of red herring. Coincidentally, opposing counsel in a restraining order hearing this morning unsuccessfully did the same thing."

Mark him well fellow. He still won't own up to it, but I'll keep asking until he does.

You recently confidently argued that the prosecutions of Michael Cohen and Lev Parnas were politically motivated prosecutions designed to stack charges against these Trump associates to force them to tell embarrassing information about the President. The prosecutor overseeing these actions is, in fact a Trump appointee, a Trump donor, and a volunteer on the Trump transition team. We have to know we are not wasting our time with dishonest and un-serious men. Please defend this argument or retract it and admit that you are prone to making such conspiracy theories before anyone responds to the substance of what you are saying now.

 

byomtov:So we've gone from one peak day to 2.5. Keep moving those goalposts.

COVID 19's goalposts are constantly moving. Where a peak day with 3,600 deaths is reasonable to assume during the 2017-2018 flu season, your 5,000 death guestimmate is not.

The data on the ground suggest we are heading into the US peak period for COVID 19 and deaths will more rapidly approach these consistent with the annual flu.

The ongoing point I will make with that data (as Dr. Fauci did last week in the NEJM) is COVID 19 is roughly on par with a severe flu and, IMHO (shared by the Swedes as linked above), this illness does not justify placing the nation on house arrest and inflicting mass unemployment.
 

Mr. W:

Well, so much for self control. Seek anger management counseling ASAP.
 

"Mark him well fellow. He still won't own up to it, but I'll keep asking until he does."

The only winning strategy is not to play.
 

"Well, so much for self control. Seek anger management counseling ASAP."

Wow, he still won't or can't answer for himself. This is clearly not a serious man.

But, I'll keep giving him a chance to restore a shred of intellectual and moral integrity. Hopefully he'll overcome whatever fears, feelings of inadequacy, etc., that are keeping him from facing up to what he said.

You recently confidently argued that the prosecutions of Michael Cohen and Lev Parnas were politically motivated prosecutions designed to stack charges against these Trump associates to force them to tell embarrassing information about the President. The prosecutor overseeing these actions is, in fact a Trump appointee, a Trump donor, and a volunteer on the Trump transition team. We have to know we are not wasting our time with dishonest and un-serious men. Please defend this argument or retract it and admit that you are prone to making such conspiracy theories before anyone responds to the substance of what you are saying now.


 

DeSantis has now ordered that churches be exempt from the shelter orders, whether state or local. He's going to kill the whole state.
# posted by Blogger Mark Field : 1:00 PM

I live in FL in the winter, and I know some people in one of the larger local cults. They shut down services a few weeks ago. Anyone who hasn’t shut down deserves the Darwinesque results.

Also, this thing hit north Florida even earlier than officially recognized. I’m relatively certain that I had it back on January 10.
 

Blogger Mark Field said...
"Mark him well fellow. He still won't own up to it, but I'll keep asking until he does."

The only winning strategy is not to play.

I disagree. Curb stomping that asshole is fun. And MW is good at it.
 

The ongoing point I will make with that data (as Dr. Fauci did last week in the NEJM) is COVID 19 is roughly on par with a severe flu and, IMHO (shared by the Swedes as linked above), this illness does not justify placing the nation on house arrest and inflicting mass unemployment.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 5:22 PM

The only problem is that your view was exposed as moronic nonsense a few months ago. But that has never stopped you in the past, so no one here expects it to stop you now. We’ll continue to mock you until you pretend this didn’t happen and you move on to some other moronic nonsense that will be just as stupid as this.