i guess we’re just giving up now?

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Did I get this wrong? I mean, it was only a month ago. I recognize that a month in TrumpTime is like a year in normal time, but still. Only a month ago Comrade Trump’s own coronavirus task force cobbled together a vague set of guidelines that individual states should meet before the country would be allowed to ‘open up again’ (whatever the hell that means).

Bringing out the dead.

Here are the state/regional gating criteria Trump said should be satisfied BEFORE starting the first phase of the comb-over comeback:

A downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period.
OR
A downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests within a 14-day period (flat or increasing volume of tests).

And remember, that’s not even Phase One. That was supposed to be the criteria before entering Phase One. When did we decide to scrap that?

I mean, sure, the guidelines are pretty vague. None of the terms are defined. For example, what constitutes a ‘documented’ case? What is the base proportion of tests that should be conducted (should we test 25% of the population of the region? 10%? One percent?). But at least it says ‘downward trend‘ so you could reasonably assume that meant the number of cases or positive tests would be…you know…going down. Right?

Apparently not. Take a guess how many regions/states that are now relaxing social distancing guidelines (and isn’t that a nice way to put it…relaxing?) have any sort of downward trend in cases or tests. Go ahead, guess.

If you guessed NONE (and I’m pretty sure you did), you’d be right. None. Just the opposite. The number of cases AND the number of positive Covid-19 tests are uniformly increasing. And the Trump administration officials who SET the guidelines are cheering on the folks who are ignoring them.

It’s completely fucking insane.

Storing the dead in refrigerated trucks.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that after a few weeks of half-heartedly following some very basic social distancing, the Trump administration — and conservatives in general — have thrown up their collective hands and said, “This shit is hard, no way we can do this, let’s just give up.”

I’m old enough to remember President Obama’s 2008 victory speech, in which he kept speaking the refrain of “Yes, we can.” That sort of optimism and willingness to work hard is gone. We’re now living in the era of “I don’t know, maybe we can, maybe we can’t, I guess we’ll see, but it’s not my responsibility.”

So this is where we are in the United States. As I began to write this, the US had suffered 69,942 confirmed deaths from Covid-19. Confirmed. And we all know there are a lot of Covid-19 deaths that haven’t been officially confirmed. Right now there are 69,968 deaths — twenty-six more people died from Covid-19 while I wrote this.

We know with mathematical certainty there will be more deaths. A LOT more deaths if we don’t follow those basic social distancing guidelines. But our government, and most of Trump’s followers, are apparently okay with that. Because it’s such a bother to wear a mask and stay two meters apart from each other.

Refrigerated ‘morgue’ trucks.

So I guess the current plan — not the worst case scenario, the actual plan — is that we’re just going to accept that at least a thousand Americans will die every day for the foreseeable future. That’s the current price of doing business in the US.

But think about this. If Trump is willing to allow that to happen during an election year, what is he capable of doing in a second term?

ADDENDUM: By the way, stories about Covid-19 deaths usually stop in a metaphorical sense with the word ‘death’. But that’s not what happens in the real world. When somebody dies in a hospital, there’s still work to do. There’s a point at which the patient ceases to be a patient and becomes a body. All the machines have to be disconnected from the body; all the tubes and IVs have to be removed. Then the body has to be cleaned — completely wiped down, tidied up, toe-tagged, bagged. Then transferred to the morgue (or refrigerated truck). It’s an unpleasant job. I’ve done it many many times. It wears on you. Give some thought to the folks who are doing that multiple times a day.

ADDENDUM 2: As I hit ‘save’ for the last time, the butcher’s bill has climbed to 69,977. Do the math.

targeted murder hornets

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Okay, so, I have a plan. It’s still in the very early stages of development, so maybe it’s not actually a ‘plan’. At least not in the sense of a thought-out arrangement or method for doing something. I can’t really say I’ve thought this out terribly well. In fact, it would be more accurate to call it a ‘plot’ rather than a plan, since it’s more of a sequence of intended events rather than an actual arrangeme…well, okay even ‘plot’ is probably inaccurate. Let’s call it a thought experiment. Or wishful thinking.

Okay, so I’ve been doing some wishful thinking about those tuna-brained plonkers parading outside the offices and homes of state government officials who have implemented stay-at-home orders in an effort to reduce the Covid-19 butcher’s bill. I should say that I support anybody’s right to protest. Anybody’s, even if I disagree with the protest, and even if I think the protest is stupid beyond belief.

Yeah, THIS is a guy I’d trust with a firearm. He looks nice.

But damn. Look I know I should feel compassion for folks who are so frightened or timid they feel they need to carry at least one firearm (and preferably more, plus some extra ammo and probably some sort of tactical knife) to go to the market or to exercise their civil liberties. It must be miserable to be that scared all the time. But the sad truth is I’m finding it increasingly difficult to be compassionate for people who have to carry a firearm everywhere they go in public in order to feel safe while insisting that others who are scared of a virus should just stay home.

Anyway, I have a plan some wishful thinking about these dolts. It involves murder hornets. Have you heard about the murder hornets? Vespa Mandarina, or something like that. Big fucking Asian wasps that have found their way to the US, probably from Wuhan China (I mean, why not?). Two inches long, with mandibles like scimitars and a stinger long enough to penetrate a bee-keeper’s suit. Also? They can sting you multiple times. Multiple. Flies at 20 miles per hour, so good luck outrunning one of those angry bastards. I mean, Usain Bolt, who is like the fastest man on the damned planet, was clocked at 28 mph, and that was only for a hundred meters. Of course, if he had a murder hornet behind him, he might do better. But the rest of us are fucked. I mean, just look at them.

Their sting has been described as like being impaled with red hot thumbtacks.

Here’s a thing about hornets (well, some hornets, not all of them, but maybe including murder hornets, I don’t know, but we’re still in the wishful thought experiment stage, so don’t discourage me): when angry or attacked, they release an alarm pheromone (your basic 2-methyl-3-butene-2-ol) that incites other nearby hornets to attack. This alarm pheromone is semi-key to my plan wishful thought experiment.

Okay, here it is: we (and by ‘we’ I mean somebody else other than me) capture and breed hundreds or thousands of murder hornets, genetically modifying the brutes so they’re attracted to the smell of Hoppe’s gun oil. How hard could that be?

Hey tunahead, say hello to my little friend.

Anyway, that’s the plan wishful thought experiment. Breed them, train them, turn them loose at these protests. Then stand back. The hornets are drawn to the firearms, the tunaheads panic and swat at them (or just panic and run, the plan work…dammit, the wishful thought experiment works either way), hilarity ensues.

There are still a few wrinkles to work out, I admit. I wonder if Kickstarter would accept something like this.

it stinks

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I’m trying to remember when I hit that point where I stopped trying to keep track of each and every awful thing that happened that day.

I mean, there was actually a time when I could read two or three news sources and feel like I had a solid grasp of all the awful things that happened on any given day. Later I found myself focusing on the primary awful things that happened, because it would take a spreadsheet to keep track of the picayune awful things. But over time, every day became a muddle of major corruption, lying, gross incompetence, vindictiveness, and venality, all of which existed in a melange of Trumpian hate-rage. And it was impossible to keep track even of all the massively awful things that happened in a given day.

This guy is awful in so many ways you need a quantum computer to keep track.

It’s hard to imagine a president who in the course of a single day would 1) shirk his duty during a pandemic that has cost more than 65,000 American lives, 2) lie about the availability of testing necessary to know the extent of that pandemic, 3) encourage states to re-open their economies even though NONE of those states have met the guidelines issued by the president’s own task force, 4) try to extort political favors from states in desperate need of federal financial aid as a result of that pandemic, 4) try to undermine the 2020 presidential election by claiming vote-by-mail is risky, 5) find ways to threaten the unemployment benefits of the nearly 20% of the US workforce that’s unemployed because of the pandemic, 6) use his presidential emergency powers to force workers in the meat industry to continue to work despite the alarming number of Covid-19 cases appearing in meat-packing plants, 7) block the nation’s most trusted information source from testifying in front of the Democratic-led House while allowing his testimony in the Republican-led Senate, 8) encourage armed insurrection against the legitimately elected Democratic governors of states he doesn’t like, 9) float the idea of pardoning his former National Security Advisor whom he’d fired because the man had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI (and the Vice President) about his dealings with Russian intelligence (not to mention his failure to register as a foreign agent of Turkey OR his involvement in a plot to kidnap a Turkish dissident cleric), 10) denigrated and undermined the leadership and line staff of the nation’s primary national law enforcement agency, 11) promoted a number of conspiracy theories, including one about the origins of the pandemic, and 12) tried to pressure US intelligence agencies to substantiate that conspiracy theory.

That’s just what I can recall of the major awful stuff Comrade Trump engaged in one a single day. There’s bound to be awful stuff I’ve missed.

Gov. Kim Reynolds and Comrade Trump ohmyfuckinggod I can’t even look killmenow.

All of this horror is compounded by state governors who are willing (or actually eager) to curry favor with Trump for their own political reasons. Like so many other Republican governors, the governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, refused to issue a state-wide shelter-in-place order. She’s not only supporting Trump’s executive order to require workers at meat-packing plants (a large proportion of whom are immigrants) to report for work regardless of Covid-19 outbreaks, she’s also informed low wage workers who are reluctant to return to work because of pandemic fears that if they refuse to return to work, they will be denied unemployment benefits.

The result of this monstrous cascade of really, truly, awful stuff from Trump and his supporters is a sort of numbness. It’s like living downwind from a paper mill or a hog containment farm — you sort of get inured to the stink. Some days stink more than others, but every day stinks horribly.

And it will continue to stink horribly until we get rid of the hog farm.

the lord knoweth them that are his

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If you’re anything like me (and yeah, the odds are against it), when you hear people like Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne of the River Tampa Bay Church in Florida, you almost immediately think of Arnaud Amalric, the Abbot of Cîteaux.

Since you’re probably not like me, you’re probably thinking, “Greg, old sock, these names are completely unfamiliar to me. Who, pray tell, are these people?” First, stop calling me ‘old sock’. Second, they’re both what I like to call ‘providentialist fuckwits’. True, they’re separated by about 830 years, but they share some astonishingly stupid approaches to their religious practices.

Here’s Pastor Rodney just a few days ago:

“If you cannot be saved in church, you in serious trouble. I’ve got news for you, this church will never close. The only time the church is closed is when the Rapture is taking place. If you don’t believe God, and trust God, you will not make it in the days coming. God will protect our people. And if you die to be with Jesus, so what’s the problem?”

This is some seriously old school providentialism that…wait, some of you might be thinking, “Greg, old sock, what do you mean by ‘providentialism’?” Okay, we’ve already discussed the ‘old sock’ issue. Providentialism is the belief that all events on Earth, including the fates of individuals and/or nations, are determined by god, who will take care of the true believers, obv.

This is Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, providentialist fuckwit.

Basically, in its purest and most idiotic form, it’s an abdication of personal responsibility. ‘If I get sick and die, that’s god’s will. If I expose a few dozen other people who get sick and die, that’s up to god. It’s not me but god, who is responsible for everything that happens. God will sort it out.’

And that brings me to Abbot Arnaud Amalic, who was a big hat in the Albigensian Crusade. In the summer of 1209, our boy Arnaud had led his crusader army to the town of Béziers, which was considered a stronghold of the Cathars. He…okay, okay, now you’re probably thinking, “Whoa, Greg old so…uh, what is this albiwhatsit crusade and who or what are Cathars?”

The guy on the left with the halo? That’s Abbot Arnaud Amalric, providentialist fuckwit. I’m not saying there’s a family resemblance to Pastor Rodney, but….

Yeah, good questions. Understand, this is a really quick and dirty explanation of a really complex and fascinating sociological thingy. With that warning in mind, Cathars were a religious sect, many of whom lived in the town of Albi, which is why they were called Albigensians. The Cathars were vegetarian Christians who believed in reincarnation, gender equality, and non-procreative sex (basically any form of sexual activity that wouldn’t lead to pregnancy — yeah, that’s right, any form). They also thought the pope was corrupt as fuck (SPOILER: despite taking the name Innocent III, he was really pretty corrupt). None of that was acceptable to the Church. The pope decided the Cathars were NOT Christians at all, and therefore they had to be converted. Or killed. Pick one.

Remember, from about 1099 to 1272, Christian Europe did a LOT of crusading. This involved traveling a couple of thousand miles to the Middle East in order to kill non-Christians and take their property. A crusade against non-Christians in the south of France was a LOT easier, a lot more time-effective, you didn’t have to deal with all that foreign food, and you still got to kill folks and take their stuff. That made this a very very popular crusade.

Right, back to our boy Arnaud Amalric. He took his crusader army from northern France into southern France, stopping at the town of Béziers. Another tangent: this wasn’t an army in the way we think of armies today. Crusader armies were largely led by knights (privileged guys who expected to get richer through plunder), but the bulk of the fighting was done by peasant foot soldiers (who expected to get some of the riches the knights missed) and mercenary bands (who expected to get paid by the Church and also get rich from plundering), as well as a contingent of religious pilgrims who just wanted the chance to kill non-Christians (and maybe pick up some extra coin while they were at it).

Christian v. Cathars (The guys doing all the stabbing? They’re the Christians.)

So Arnaud’s boys pull up to Béziers, which basically locked their doors (which they could do since the city was behind walls). Arnaud began to set up a siege. Some townsfolk decided to slide out of the city and whack a few mercenaries before the siege was firmly established. Big mistake. The mercenaries not only whacked the townsfolk, they were able to get in the gate. Where they started killing folks.

Siege warfare at that time was pretty routine. You pick away at the walls until you can send in some mercenaries and foot soldiers and peasants to get gloriously slaughtered while opening a gate or a big enough breach in the wall. Then the knights come flouncing in on their horses, allow the people of the town to get semi-slaughtered until the mercenaries reached the part of town where the richest folks lived. Then the knights would move in, stop the slaughter and the plundering, and take the best stuff. Like Jesus intended.

But in Béziers, the knights were still sitting in their tents drinking wine when the mercenaries broke into the city and started the slaughtering and plundering. Somebody found our boy Arnaud and said, “Dude, they’re killing everybody in town, Christians and Cathars alike, women and children, everybody, what do we do?” There’s some dispute whether the concern was about the slaughtering or about the fact that the peasants and mercenaries were getting all the best plunder. In any event, Arnaud is reported to have said this:

“Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.”

This often gets translated as “Kill them all, let god sort them out.” A more accurate translation is, “Kill them. For the Lord knows those that are his own.” The more accurate translation is important, because it cites the Bible (Paul’s second epistle to Timothy) as the source for the killing.

“[T]he foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.”

In the end, Arnaud wrote to the pope to let him know they’d taken Béziers. He wrote, “Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost twenty thousand people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt.” But hey, we all make mistakes, and surely god knew which of those twenty thousand were good Christians. So there’s that.

“The Lord knoweth them that are his.”

Basically Arnaud’s take on the situation was largely the same as Pastor Rodney’s. “If you die to be with Jesus, what’s the problem?” Of course, it sounds more sober and religious if you say it in Latin. Si morietur cum ad Jesum, quid est forsit?

The problem, of course, is there are folks who’d just as soon not die. They’d prefer to have a choice in the matter. They’d rather not be put to the sword or infected with a disease simply because some folks believe god will take care of everything in the end, and everybody will get what they deserve.

Let me be clear about this. I have no beef with religion as a social institution. A lot of folks find comfort and solace in their beliefs. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. But I do have a problem with the sort of religious stupidity that puts folks with a different belief system at risk because believers think in the end god will take care of his own team.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to tell those providentialist fuckwits to go fuck themselves. That would probably sound better in Latin.

no, mr. president, you can’t have a pony

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You know how kids ask their parents kid-like questions and parents sort of play along rather than give an actual answer? Like if a kid sees a pony on television and asks, “Can I have a pony?” and the parents say something like “We’ll see” just to temporarily placate the kid. They know they’re not going to give the kid a pony–because ponies are big and expensive, and veterinarian bills are expensive, and pony-chow is probably expensive, and besides there’s no place to even keep a pony because they live in a split level in the suburbs–but they equivocate because it’s easier to avoid kid-style dramatics by saying “We’ll see” than being honest and saying “Ain’t happening, kid, give up that idea forever, no pony for you.”

I figure something like that is what happened with Comrade Trump at his ‘Covid press briefing’ yesterday. I’m just making an assumption based on the transcipt; I didn’t see the press briefing. My understanding is both Dr. Birx and Dr. William Bryan (the undersecretary for Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security) briefed Trump in private on the material they were going present at the the ‘press briefing’. Then they went live. And lawdy.

President Trump giving his full attention to Dr. Bryan’s presentation.

In the briefing, Bryan described the research into ways to effectively kill the Covin-19 virus on surfaces. Let me repear the important part of that: on surfaces. He said:

“We’ve tested bleach, we’ve tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus, specifically in saliva or in respiratory fluids. And I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes; isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds.”

On surfaces. Bryan very specifically mentioned “nonporous surfaces: door handles, stainless steel.” He also spoke about increased humidity destabilizing the virus. On surfaces. He showed a chart showing the effects of sunlight, temperature, and humidity. ON SURFACES. It’s right there on the chart. Unfortunately, when presenting the chart, Bryan used a poor choice of words. He said, “if you inject the sun [into the increased heat and humidity] the half-life [of the virus] goes from six hours to two minutes.”

Trump looking directly at a chart clearly stating it’s about goddamned surfaces.

And hey, bingo! Trump the idea lodged in Trump’s brain. Injection! UV light! Bleach! He then combined that with what he remembered from the pre-briefing briefing, and this was the cockamamie result:

“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous ultra violet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you are going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you could do either through the skin or in some other way. I think you said that you are going to test that, too. And then I saw the disinfectant, where knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way we could do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning. As you see it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

Did he say anything at all about surfaces? He did not. Surfaces? We don’t need no stinking surfaces.

So my assumption is as follows: Trump, in the pre-briefing briefing asked Doctors Birx and Bryan about injecting disinfectant into the body, and they basically said, “Sure, we’ll look into that, why not?” Because it was easier and less likely to lead to a tantrum than saying, “No, I’m sorry, you can’t have a pony.” It probably never occured to Birx and Bryan that Trump would stand in front of a national television audience and announce, “I think Doctors Birx and Bryan said I could maybe have a pony.”

Dr. Deborah Birx thinking, “Oh Jeebus fuck, did he really just say that, tell me he didn’t just say that.”

Here’s the thing: it’s not easy to have a pony. There’s a lot of hard work involved, a lot of effort and dedication. A lot of preparation. A lot of committment. You have to be mature enough to own and care for a pony.

Donald Trump isn’t mature enough.

The really sad thing–one of the sad things, one of the very very many sad things–about this isn’t that Trump can’t have a pony (although I’m sure it makes him very sad ), or even that his Covid-19 team feels it necessary to tell him that maybe he can have a pony just to avoid a tantrum. The sad thing is, even after this mess, they still won’t tell him he can’t have a pony. The sad thing is they’ll tell him “We’ll see about getting that pony…but you have to keep it a secret. Don’t tell anybody or they’ll want a pony too.”

That’s not just bad government; that’s bad parenting.

lockdown clowns

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Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
You with your head up your ass,
Me gasping for air.
Where are the clowns?

Isn’t it bliss?
Don’t you agree?
People keep tearing around,
Pretending they’re free.
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns?

Don’t you love farce?
Trump’s fault, I fear.
You get to protest with guns.
While I disappear.
But where are the clowns
Send in the clowns
Don’t bother, they’re here

Isn’t it rich?
Ain’t we been pwned?
You said America’s great.
But I died alone.
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Vote better this year.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Apologies to Mr. Sondheim. Also? If you’re not familiar with Puddles Pity Party, this is a good introduction.

continuing conversations between knur and gary

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Gary: I am listening, Knur. I am designated Gary.
Knur: Gary, I request information about the germ spore which initiated the cascading collapse of my life functions.
Gary: The germ spore has been officially designated as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Two of 2019.
Knur: An unwieldy designation.
Gary: Colloquially the germ spore is known as Covid-19.
Knur: A superior designation. Gary, the germ spore which infests your atmosphere may also threaten the life functions of your fellow human inhabitants of this planet. I urge you inform your planetary principle overseer.
Gary: He is aware, Knur.
Knur: Then your planet is engaged in a course of conduct to eradicate the spore.
Gary: Incorrect.
Knur: Explain.
Gary: The overseer of my sovereign state has no internally coherent approach to eradicate this germ spore.
Knur: Further explanation is required.
Gary: Elimination of the spore would require actions that would inhibit the ability of the ruling classes to accumulate valuable resources and occupiable land mass.
Knur: Illogical. The germ spores threaten all resources and land masses.
Gary: Agreed. Yet the ruling classes contend the ongoing accumulation of resources is necessary to fulfill the normative rules inscribed and certified by our progenitors.
Knur: Hail the progenitors!
Gary: Hail the progenitors!
Knur: Then your planetary overseer opts to sacrifice inhabitants to the germ spore in order to insure continuity of resource accumulation?
Gary: Correct.
Knur: Astonishing. Perhaps your secondary overseers should consider exchanging your planetary overseer for a better overseer.
Gary: The secondary overseers recently considered an exchange event.
Knur: And?
Gary: The exchange was rejected.
Knur: Reason for the rejection?
Gary: Unclear.
Knur: Speculate.
Gary: They are fucking idiots, Knur. In addition, some of the inhabitants of this planet believe themselves to be impervious to the germ spores.
Knur: Curious. Are they, in fact, impervious to the germ spore, Gary?
Gary: There are not, Knur.
Knur: Why do they believe themselves to be impervious?
Gary: They believe an invisible omniscient and omnipotent spiritual haecceity will protect them from such life-terminating events.
Knur: Such an entity exists?
Gary: There is no evidence to support that conclusion. It is linked to the wisdom of the progenitors.
Knur: Hail the progenitors!
Gary: Hail the progenitors!
Knur: The germ spores will proliferate, then.
Gary: Correct.
Knur: The life functions of numerous inhabitants will cease.
Gary: Correct.
Knur: Needlessly.
Gary: Correct.
Knur: …
Gary: …
Knur: I kind of hate your planet, Gary. It is a stupid planet.

fuckwits struggle with tyranny

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Garrett Soldano, the founder of Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine, one of the groups participating in Wednesday’s Fuckwits on Parade, had this to say about that punk-ass stunt:

“Keeping healthy people at home is tyranny.”

Tyranny. What is it? Where does it come from? How do you spell it? Conservatives know they don’t like it, but they’re having some difficulty, the poor dears, trying to figure out what actually constitutes tyranny. Happily, I am here to help! Here are some useful examples.

Saying ‘Happy holidays’? Not tyranny. Being kidnapped by the authorities for dissent? Tyranny. Giving folks access to affordable health care? Not tyranny. Routine torture to obtain confessions from political/religious dissidents? Tyranny. Having a limit on the number of firearms you can purchase in a month? Not tyranny. Having your home bulldozed to make way for a settlement of ‘approved’ citizens? Tyranny. Requiring pharmacies to fill prescriptions for birth control for unmarried women? Not tyranny. Being shot by agents of your own government for voicing anti-government opinions? Tyranny. Telling folks to isolate themselves at home to mitigate the death toll of a pandemic? Not tyranny.

See how easy it is? You don’t have to have a brain like Stephen Hawking to tell the difference between 1) laws/rules/regulations you disagree with, or you think are stupid, or you find overly restrictive and 2) tyranny. 

Another useful tool in determining tyranny: compare and contrast. Ask yourself ‘What would happen if I showed up armed and dressed in camo on the capital steps in Lansing, Michigan to protest against the government?’ And then ask the same question, this time using Riyadh, Saudi Arabia? (HINT: the correct answer is ‘In Lansing, after a while I’d go home and grill burgers’ and ‘In Riyadh, I’d be arrested and have electrodes attached to my genitals.’) Ask yourself ‘In Lansing, what would happen if I protested by blocking traffic in front of the emergency entrance to a hospital?’ And then ask the same question, only using Pyongyang, North Korea. (HINT: the correct answer is ‘In Lansing, people would be upset because I was acting like a horse’s ass’ and ‘In Pyongyang, they’d put a bullet in the back of my head and feed my body to the pigs.’) Ask yourself ‘What if I carried a protest sign and chanted for the governor to be locked up without a trial?’ and ask the same question about Harare, Zimbabwe. (HINT: the correct answer is ‘In Lansing, the police would protect my right to protest’ and ‘In Harare, I’d disappear and never be heard from again…and so would my family.’)

Tyranny.

See? It’s simple. If you can publicly call your government officials tyrants without fear of being arrested, assaulted, or killed by the authorities, you’re NOT living under tyranny.

But just to be sure, I took a look at Governor Whitmer’s ‘stay at home’ order. I wanted to get a sense of exactly how tyrannical it was. She explains the reasoning behind the order. “To suppress the spread of COVID-19, to prevent the state’s health care system from being overwhelmed, to allow time for the production of critical test kits, ventilators, and personal protective equipment, and to avoid needless deaths.” Not very tyrannical.

Not tyranny.

But then comes the meat of the order. The real test of tyranny. The order prohibits “businesses and operations from requiring workers to leave their homes, unless those workers are necessary to sustain or protect life or to conduct minimum basic operations.” That’s not just disappointingly non-tyrannical, it’s also a reasonable step to reduce the body count during a pandemic.

What about personal restrictions? I mean, that offers some opportunities for serious tyranny. Her order expressly tells folks it’s okay to “leave the house to get groceries or needed supplies” and to “engage in outdoor activities like walking, hiking, running, cycling, kayaking, canoeing, or any other recreational activity” so long as it was consistent with remaining at least six feet apart. That’s not tyranny. That’s good government.

Tyranny.

You know what would be tyrannical? A government that required its workers to labor in conditions known to increase the probability of dying simply to maintain a certain economic standard for the nation’s elite.

As I write this, the butcher’s bill in the United States is 37,175 confirmed Covid-19 deaths and 609,587 confirmed active cases (13,509 of which are considered to be in serious or critical condition). Those are confirmed cases. Because of inadequate testing, we don’t know how many actual active cases exist or how many people have actually died from Covin-19. The confirmed cases undoubtedly underestimate the actual cases.

Not tyranny. Heroism. Stay home. Wear masks. Wear gloves. Wash your damned hands.

Let me just repeat that. We have 37,889 confirmed Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. There are 157,451 confirmed deaths worldwide. That means the United States, which has about 4.25% of the world’s population, accounts for around 24% of the world’s confirmed Covid-19 deaths.

That’s not tyranny. But it’s really, really, really bad government.