- Okay, I get why Americans abroad with a deadly disease (and their families) would want to be cared for in the U.S. I understand that the fedgov has some obligation to protect U.S. citizens in other countries (though that’s often more theory than practice). What I don’t get is why the CDC would go out of its way to bring an incurable infectious disease to these shores. I don’t care how many “precautions” you take. We’ve seen how well “precautions” often work.
- “The app I used to break into my neighbor’s home.” Covert key copying goes high tech.
- The criminalization of parenthood.
- Forget those sell-by dates. Here’s a site that tells you how long food really lasts. (And IMHO, they’re still being conservative, particularly when it comes to less risky foods.)
- Wendy McElroy on the NSA and social control.
- Weird Al Yankovic, grammar maven. 🙂
And don’t forget: JPFO is auctioning off Aaron Zelman’s shotgun commemorating the Battle of Athens, Tennessee. Very cool. One of a kind. Auction runs through August 12 at noon.
The government does not _and ought not_ have any obligation to protect specific individuals from anything, anywhere. The only conceivable justification for the CDC to even exist is to provide for the limitation and containment of potentially epidemic diseases (one of the tiny number of areas in which even a borderline anarchist like me will concede that government involvement might possibly be truly a necessity). If individuals happen to get medical treatment as a side effect of pursuing that mission, that’s a good enough outcome that I’m not going to complain about it, but it is by no means whatsoever a proper _motive_ for CDC action.
Is there a research-related justification for bringing these people back? Well…maybe. It’s not completely implausible. But I doubt it.
I agree with you, lelnet. And I also thought about the research angle. But you’d think it would be cheaper and much, much more sensible to send scientists to study in Africa than to deliberately bring ebola here.
Ever read the book The Hot Zone? It takes nothing for a disease like that to get loose. It almost did get loose in the U.S. once before and it was sheer luck — not those infamously bad government “precautions” — that it didn’t.
Excellent article by Wendy. I am prepared to underwrite a $5 research grant to the winning proposal for research into why certain ‘social scientists’ are such starving, contemptuous, money-grubbing, prostitutes as to undertake such studies.
This thing with little kids…. first of all disputing it with a cop is not going to get you very far. Ditto re cop brutality. What needs to be done is get people to ride the mayor’s butt and what ever elected governing body is in effect in that city. Granted, the police do not have to protect you, according to different things I have read. IF, they do not have the “duty” to protect you, how can they then say you are guilty of not caring for your kid? Secondly, I do believe we have brought this on ourselves. Consider the numbers of people who have this thing “it’s for the children”. DFS sticks their nose in where it is not needed because some busybody neighbor didn’t like the way you are raising your kid. While I do not believe in beating your kid, I do believe a swat or spanking is part of being a responsible parent. This crap about being a “buddy” to your kid is plain rediculous….you are NOT his/her best friend. You ARE the parent. What you say goes, come hell or high water. But, sadly, today how many parents have the balls to discipline their kids? How many parents will get off their ass and bitch to the politicians?
I too, am flummoxed by the notion of bringing in known infected Ebola cases. Given the incubation time, and world travel by plane, I’m surprised we haven’t had it in the US yet. But when it does get here, I can imagine it could play hell in a hospital. However, I wouldn’t expect widespread outbreaks.
Ironwill has some words on this.
Hmm, perhaps given the possibilities, bringing known cases in isn’t so perplexing?
Excellent overview of the Ebola thing. Just remember all of the hysteria in the past over various “bird flu” and such…. which never materialized into any real threat. And there are certainly many things one can do to reduce the chances of infection.
http://www.thesurvivaldoctor.com/2014/07/29/ebola-facts/
12 Things You Must Know About Ebola
Ebola Risks and Air Travel
by James Hubbard, MD, MPH
This is serious business. For those in Africa, it’s a nightmare.
Horrible. Devastating. But here are some more facts to put it in
perspective for the rest of us:
Thanks for the link about keys. Now I have to worry because my car dealer had my keyring during a service… 🙁
On criminalization of parenthood, that is just the state “taking care” of us. All that it requires is that we submit…
I wandered far and wide as a kid, even spent a fair amount of time fooling around on railroad tracks. I suspect part of the tendency is that the fewer kids you have, the more you want to keep them close to home, and if you have an only child you really go overboard with the protection bit (and people are having fewer children these days). But I don’t think this is good for kids. They have to learn how to handle risk.
About Wendy’s article, it’s a bit overblown. Minerva sounds creepy until you realize most people have their kids in a government school, and the entire mainstream media amounts to little more than a Ministry of Propaganda. The ruling class has always tried to control the peons, yet the peons continue to insist on arming themselves, and displaying other manifestations of thinking for themselves.
Weird Al is amazing! What bothers me is people who haven’t figured out the difference between “affect” and “effect”. I must be a grammer notsee.
[one of the tiny number of areas in which even a borderline anarchist like me will concede that government involvement might possibly be truly a necessity]
It’s not necessary to deny that government action can be helpful in particular cases, to be an anarchist. It’s not even necessary to believe that, all things considered, having government is worse than not having government. All it takes is wanting to run your own life, and opposing aggression.
Is it too tinfoil hat to presume elements of the present tyranny ‘want’ to have a couple of ebola cases lying around in the weapons against humanity shot locker?
RLW, they probably already have vials of the stuff lying around; no need to bring in (temporarily) live patients with the disease.
I heard Obama pontificating that these people “deserve to be brought home.” BS. The knew the risks when the went over there and assumed them. Whatever medical treatment is available should be provided there.
As to the “containment facility” in which they’re to be housed, remember that they were wearing hazmat suits when they contracted the disease. How secure do you really think those facilities are?
Ebola is a serious and contagious disease, but bringing Americans who have it home is not a threat to anyone. They are in biological containment and are getting experimental treatments that are already looking promising. This is a non-problem.
What is NOT a non-problem is releasing tens of thousands of illegal aliens into all 50 US States as well as US Territories that have not been screened for infectious diseases, who are NOT being held in any sort of containment, and who are ALREADY infecting the people caring for them, and who are being moved around willy-nilly SECRETLY before being diagnosed with these diseases, many of which are every bit as infectious and potentially as deadly as ebola. There was a REASON we had doctors screen people as they passed through Ellis Island, but it’s now politically incorrect to remind people of those who did it legally and by the rules.
http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/border-agents-family-members-infected-diseases-through-illegal-immigrant-contact-5841.shtml#.U-F8CqDwCu0
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/05/27/Scabies-Infected-Illegal-Immigrants-Pass-Infestation-to-US-Agents
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/border-agent-contracts-scabies-after-handling-undocumented-immigrants-n148791
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/07/its_happening_border_patrol_personnel_infected_by_illegal_immigrant_flood.html
http://www.christianpost.com/news/illegal-immigrants-bring-risk-of-ebola-and-global-array-of-viral-illnesses-124329/
http://www.alipac.us/f9/border-agents-their-families-becoming-sick-after-contact-infected-illegals-308640/
http://sharylattkisson.com/secrecy-surrounding-shelter-for-illegal-immigrant-minors/
http://online.wsj.com/articles/governor-complains-of-u-s-secrecy-in-housing-immigrants-in-nebraska-1405200477
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2014/07/18/the-flood-of-illegal-immigrant-children-why-the-secrecy/
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/07/02/medical-staff-warned-keep-quiet-about-illegal-immigrants-or-face-arrest/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/29/obama-mum-on-where-illegal-immigrant-children-are-/?page=all