Searching for Empathy

Never in my lifetime has public leadership been so needed or so lacking. We are living in a paradox where a pandemic, a crisis if you’d prefer, is impacting a vast majority and at the same time only impacting a thin minority.

We easily know how we’re impacted; businesses closed, jobs lost, jobs furloughed, massive debt, economic restructuring (online way up, bricks and mortar way down), restricted mobility, families split, savings exhausted, and so on. But what about the sickness and death, or the overworked, endangered healthcare workers? Not so much impact there.

Take my home state of Virginia as an example. As reported in the New York Times May 22, Virginia has reported a total of 34,137 confirmed cases of Corona infection which has resulted in 1,099 deaths. Put another way, 1 out of every 250 Virginians has been diagnosed with the Corona virus and 1 out of every 7,700 had died from COVID19. 

The chances that any given uninfected Virginian knows someone who has been infected is remote. Knowing someone who gets seriously ill even more so. Knowing someone who has died from it becomes minute. If you skew those numbers by removing those sickened or died in nursing homes and prisons, populations which Americans have a shameful way of discounting by easily forgoing compassion, it is no wonder why people cannot “feel” the effect of the actual disease in a personal way. In most other states it is even more so.

Nationally, there are about 300,000 nurses working in critical care, or about 1 out of every 1000 Americans. Doctors number far less. The number of those nurses who get infected amounts to 1 out of about 22,000 Americans. Exact numbers are not known, but these are reasonable estimates.

The bottom line is this: of those Americans rebelling against economic restrictions, mobility restrictions, and behavioral directions, the vast majority has had no direct, personal experiences with the disease itself…devastation for a few, a news stream for the rest.

Initially the prospect of getting terribly sick and even dying generated enough fear to curb the behavior of most people. Living a confined lifestyle felt more like participation in a greater effort. Then communications from the Federal Government became disjointed, rambling, contradictory, or even bombastic.

In time there became an almost carnival believability to the predictions and estimates. With no plan for everyone, we began to watch fifty different plans evolve, mostly piecemeal in States that were being infected at different rates and at different times. Now we're seeing it again as restrictions are removed.

Only three weapons were disbursed to fight this invisible enemy and late at that; keep distance between yourself and others, wash your hands, and don’t touch your face. The importance greatly depended on what television network a person watched. It was good advice, but for many it did not feel commensurate with the social upheaval.

If you were deemed a person at risk for COVID19 mortality then the dire nature of the messages (or at least some of the messages) made the sequestered times seem even more uncertain. If you were a person considered not at risk, the sacrifices (liberty, mobility, economic security e.g.) began to appear excessive as one’s individual situation was weighed against amorphous predictions.

The incompetence of Trump only widened our already polar political and social divisions. Medical directions or even the entire Pandemic itself has become attached to political conspiracies or infringements of “patriotic” liberties.  Liberal obsession with the past and future dire consequences of Trump’s ineptitude only exasperated the disconnect between what is and what should be.

Real leadership finds a middle ground between fear and blind trust. For example, we have known since December that an airborne, person to person virus was loose in the world. If an American President had only prepared the nation to make the initial, simple sacrifice of wearing masks in confined public spaces and other large gathering the consequences of the virus would have been substantially reduced, both health and economic.

Now today wearing or not wearing a mask has political considerations. How crazy is that?

Leadership can help people understand something they can’t feel, to empathize when experience provides no basis for empathy. It’s done with honesty, humility, responsibility, and by example. It could have made small but critical sacrifices not a restriction of individual liberty, but an enhancement to it.

What Is Religious Freedom in America...Really?

Well before the end of 2019 I received a large 8x11 flyer in the mail. When opened to its full size it showed a 2020 Congressional candidate’s face filling the page, hands together on a table and eyes closed in deep, contemplative prayer…nicely backlit. Next to her, appallingly, was her adorable daughter, maybe 4 or 5 years old, in an identical pose.

This was a political flyer, of course. The copy throughout contained a single message. The candidate, Tina Ramirez, was seeking political office to primarily protect my “religious freedom”. I’m uncertain as to what her daughter was there for. My guess it was for the treat she’d receive after the photo shoot.

Most of the copy in the flyer focused on the claimed efforts Ms. Ramirez has made regarding the violation of religious freedom internationally through organizational affiliations or employment. Religious conflict and discrimination in various countries around the world, while often tragic, is not an eye opener. However, at the top of her brief resume on international religious freedom were in big, bold, and red letters: FIGHTING FOR OUR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.  

“Our” religious freedom? Just what is being sold…and to whom?

When I tried to research what religious freedom in America means to a self-described “Christian Conservative” like Tina, I found it frustrating. I wanted either a definition or some description of the violations to religious freedom that needed thwarting.  What I found instead was constant references to just how important religious freedom was. I mean…religion…freedom…need they say more? I guess not. It’s like fighting for MOM and DAD.  No point wallowing in the detail.

For example, the respected opus magnum of Conservative literary thought, The Heritage Foundation, waxes on about how religious freedom is “one of the most pressing issues in America today”. They also say it has nothing to do with…well…religion. Like other proponents of religious freedom they point out the obvious ability to worship your faith in America is not inhibited in any way.

What they claim is that certain laws can conflict with certain ethics that are part of one’s religious faith. Interestingly, they include agnostics and atheists in this conflict, so you’re left with wondering what religion has to do with it at all.

So I go looking for examples of how the oversight of society (i.e., governmental laws) has violated the ethics of Christian Conservatives so as to make them have to behave in a way that violates their faith.  I look and I look and I look. I find a handful of references to restricting Christian scripture on governmental property or public schools, or “Merry Christmas” vs. “Happy Holidays”, but it is hard to see how such issues restrict a Christian to “live their faith” independently. I could really only find one reference which made that claim and it revolved around homosexuality.

It seems that as sexual orientation has become a protected class (in order to stop the associated discrimination) it has butted up against Christian sensibilities. It actually appears that, figuratively, the whole defense of religious freedom in America focuses on wedding cakes for gay marriages. The implied argument is that this ominous hook, forcing Christian Conservative bakers to sell cakes to gay couples getting married, is the slippery slope to religious oppression. Thank goodness we have Tina Ramirez fighting to make this not happen.

Here’s the reality. We live in a marvelously free country that is constantly fending off special interests trying to undermine that freedom. Tina Ramirez may not want to protect religious freedom at all. It can’t be just about cakes and gay weddings. What is certain is that Ms. Ramirez wants to be elected to Congress and she is willing and enthusiastic about using faith and fear to garner votes, and she is flat out not interested in non-Christian support.

We have religious freedom in America because our Government is secular. Our Constitution is just words on paper. What gives it strength is a strong and independent Judiciary and the blanket willingness of the electorate to accept the conclusions of that Judiciary.

If Ramirez were elected to Congress I am lost as to what Tina would do to promote religious freedom. If her efforts, in some vague and ethereal way, would be to bring more Christian ethics to Government, especially by seating bias judges, then the word “freedom” shouldn’t be part of her handle.

However, I’m cynical enough to believe that “religious freedom”, like abortion, immigration, and health care, e.g. are just marketing tools. Once a Congresswoman she would join the rest of her Party to fight against the great unwashed, the fake free-press, and the looming Deep State…primarily by cutting taxes for the wealthy.

When Good People Go Wrong

In a (properly distanced outside) discussion with good friends about the COVID19 pandemic, one person mentioned how he had gone to Lowes recently and that it was quite busy. He continued that many of the patrons weren’t wearing masks. I find myself in some awe at that reality, which I have seen in other places as well.

I then volunteered that if I were an employer, for the sake of my employees, I wouldn’t allow customers in without a mask. One who is a fine and caring person (and a very good friend), looked at me and said “are you some kind of Nazi?” I was taken aback. Defensively (I hope calmly) I told her she’s been watching too much Fox News. She retorted that I hadn’t been watching enough. Exchange fini.

What troubled me as I left, without malice, was the fact that I had been watching plenty of Fox Cable News, probably too much, in my attempt to understand the sources and motivations behind the manipulative messages they convey. I also find it informative since our POTUS puts into action and policy much of what he watches on Fox, since he feels it reflects his so called “base”. That in itself is extraordinarily sad testimony.

Most masks, especially the homemade t-shirt variety, don’t do squat for keeping micro monsters from sneaking in, but they help immensely from keeping wet splatter from flying out. The fact is much of the general population doesn’t understand that the purpose of wearing masks during a mostly airborne viral pandemic is to cover the mouths of infected individuals who don’t know they're infectious. The metaphor on the (obviously facetious) Nazi comment was more about perceived (via Government) social intrusion into personal “liberty”. That a mask somehow inhibits my liberty is (pardon me) on its face…ridiculous.

This whole encounter, like others, drew me back to 2003-2006.

My son, graduating from high school, had been recruited to join the Virginia National Guard, which he (and I) thought an opportunity for the limited service and benefits. At the time we had no idea that Bush/Chaney would decide to use National Guards across the country as a backdoor draft to carry out their plans in Iraq. My son ended up spending two years in Iraq, risking his life to varying degrees every day (I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it literally).

Less than one percent of the American population was directly impacted by that War, as he and our family was. He was wounded in year one. No one even had to pay for the conflict, it being totally financed by borrowing. I knew it was ill-conceived before it started and a fiasco soon after. Yet I had to listen to the clap trap Conservative echo-sphere go on continuously about the honorable mission, the patriotism, the American retribution for 9/11, the heroic sacrifice to Flag and Country, and, of course, the despicable nature of those that dissented the actions of that Republican Administration, the Liberal Deep State conspiracy.

Conservatives no longer defend the Iraq war given the waste, the tragedy, the devastation, and futility of that meaningless and contrived adventure. You never saw any retractions on Fox News. They also don’t remember it much either, which is easy when it’s lived as a passive news feed.  I haven’t forgotten it. I never will.

Now that same son is a nurse, working long hours in a COVID19 bio-containment floor at the University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore. He and his co-workers are the bottom line dealing with the impact of this pandemic. As this disease plays out either over time or by vaccination, many Americans will never have to face much more than inconvenience and their fears. Many will not care to understand that by acting collectively we could reduce the need for medical intervention. They will not bother to question why, adjusted for population, our death rate for COVID19 is 35 times higher than South Korea’s, which was on an identical timeline.

Too many good people will immerse themselves in Fox & Friends, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity, e.g.  They will not listen to other sources of information (nearly all other sources) of which they have been convinced are “fake”. There is currently a drumbeat in the Conservative echo-sphere promoting behavior in this pandemic to compliment a dangerous and erratic President on the hope that enough ‘good times’ will emerge before November. So fearful are they that “Liberals” are coming to take their money, kill babies, ban their religions, and confiscate their weapons.

I suspect that a year or three from now the 100,000 or 200,000 American dead will be forgotten, possibly considered just as a cycle of life by some of those who considered collective behavior as antithetical to perceived American “Freedom”. It will fade, just as Iraq has turned virtually invisible.

Those that are currently knee deep in the crisis working to save lives will not have forgotten. Perhaps they will have the courage to wear masks in the future when they are ill and out in public, as is already done in many parts of the world. They may just think of that as kind, and the right thing to do.

Pessimism or Realism?

It is beginning to appear obvious that the United States is heading down a road to defeat the Corona Virus and CoVid-19 through Herd Immunity. If true, it will not likely be a pleasant road to travel and the end of the road will not lead to a past which we lament as “normal”.

Perhaps the US is just too big. Maybe it is our current lack of central leadership. It could possibly be the independent nature of our citizenry or the divisiveness that feeds off that independence. Perhaps the dissemination of information is too compromised or we’re too mobile or we’re too selfish or too ignorant or too fearful. Maybe it is all those things…and more.

So it appears we can’t do what has been done in South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Iceland, France, Norway, and many other countries we categorize as “free”, and other countries, like China, which are not.

The United States, undirected by our Federal Government, has decided to ride out this virus and the disease it causes with an attitude something along the lines of let the chips fall where they may. Our “curve” will not look like the countries who have decided to limit the infection as a means of curtailing both the mortality and the stress on medical services.

Our “curve” will be long and drawn out, more like a bumpy, gradual slope. The major effort will be to apply treatment to the disease once contracted as a means of reducing mortality rates. However, the strain on our health care system will be enormous. It will become the unstated position that (figuratively) all Americans will catch the virus eventually, barring a vaccination which seems unlikely for years.

We can already see and hear in the Conservative outpouring of dissatisfaction that sickness and death are simply a cost factor in the quest for maintaining a lifestyle. Freedom from disease seems to not come under the general heading of Freedom.  Much of it is wrapped in politics and Fox News profits, buffered with Conservative conspiracy promoters (at rallies to end shut downs there are more professionally made Trump 2020 signs than any other). It may not matter at this point.

Those that have gone along with the concept of reducing the contagion through seclusion and distancing to a point where the virus can be managed through testing and tracking are increasingly being compromised by authority. Staying at home, faithfully washing, and maintaining distance are going to start feeling like just delaying the inevitable. If enough of the population is encouraged to defy the science, the futility will become manifest.

The great irony, of course, is that the beloved lifestyle that the dissenters want to go back to will not be anything like it was before. Likely it will be at best disheartening and at worst disastrous.

Death rates could be socially debilitating, especially as more and more of those advocating “back to normal” become directly affected.  Health care costs will be catastrophic. If Trump and Republicans are removed from power in November, the fight for central control of medical costs will reach a new level. The need for such controls will be bordering on economic survival. If Trump is re-elected I believe our health care system will collapse for a majority of the population. Americans attempting to travel may become international pariah, requiring testing wherever they go and/or being quarantined.

The easiest place where pessimism can fade into realism is the understanding that a protracted impact of the Pandemic will have a greater overall negative impact on the economy then the short term constriction we’re currently experiencing. We will learn to live with the disease, but good economic times rely on reasonable predictability by an influential majority. Under the shadow of a lingering pandemic, the future will hold precious little assurance in its outlook.

Those that are at high risk have the uncomfortable prospect that as isolated as they might try to be, they most likely will catch the disease from those that have abandoned collective solutions. Ultimately they may die because of it. They will be the chips fallen where they may.

The herd will survive, of course, we always knew it would. Just be aware that the herd, and the fields it roams, will not resemble the Nation before 2020. That’s not even the pessimistic part. The real pessimistic view is that because of our discord and lack of leadership we will not end up any better for the experience.