{"id":18941,"date":"2014-10-06T07:49:41","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T14:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=18941"},"modified":"2014-10-06T07:49:41","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T14:49:41","slug":"ebola-government-and-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/06\/ebola-government-and-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola, government, and you"},"content":{"rendered":"

Furrydoc asked in comments the other day, “Where’s the CDC?” (in fighting Ebola in the U.S.) Rhetorical question, of course. She knows quite well where the CDC is: giving bland assurances to the media about being just right up there on top of Ebola while primarily occupying itself with profitable and political mission creep<\/a>. These days it’s focused on “epidemics” such as obesity and “gun violence.”<\/a><\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Ron Fournier, at the National Journal<\/i> says the scariest thing about Ebola isn’t the disease but our growing lack of trust<\/a> in government and other institutions.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He, of course, comes from the “if we don’t trust our leaders we’ll all run amuck in the streets” school of thought.<\/p>\n

But faced with a real infectious health danger that may require quarantines and travel restrictions to contain it, even many traditional libertarians (as Newsweek<\/i> happily reports<\/a>) say let the government handle it.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

And yes, in the traditional libertarian view, protecting citizens by containing epidemics may be one of the few legitimate functions of government. (Not my view, but definitely a much thornier problem<\/a> than who builds the roads or runs the post office in Libertopia.)<\/p>\n

But of course, all we have to do is look around us in the real world to see precisely how well governments respond to epidemics. The governments of Liberia and Sierra Leone et al. haven’t contained Ebola any better than they’ve ever done anything else (other than practice corruption, wage savage warfare, and enrich cronies). And so far, Authoritah in America isn’t inspiring much confidence, though I’m sure the CDC and local governments will eventually do better than some medal-ridden tribal dictator.<\/p>\n

American institutions have better infrastructure, a more educated public, more money, and more polished P.R. machines to assure us they’ve got everything under control. We’re not about to turn into Africa, though should Ebola get loose in some already dysfunctional U.S. city, things will get … interesting.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

But very little is under control. Politico<\/i> examines the role<\/a> that government mandated (and often politically purposed by officials at various levels of government) electronic health record systems may have played in the Dallas mess. Their article goes well beyond what may (or may not) have happened when one hospital made a terrible mistake with one patient:<\/p>\n

No one wants to go back to paper records, but health care providers\u2019 protests have reached a fevered pitch over the software\u2019s expense, its lack of user-friendliness, the slowdowns in patient care it often causes, and its failure to enable the sharing of information among doctors.<\/p>\n

Some, such as the American Medical Association, have warned that the electronic health records program could collapse in the next year if something isn\u2019t done, quickly, to make it work better. …<\/p>\n

Even at the best hospitals, dissatisfaction is high. Peter Pronovost, safety director at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, recently said his famed institution was \u201cmore dangerous than a hospital that was built 30 years ago\u201d because the health records system it just installed \u201cis backed with scores of pieces of equipment that do not communicate.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, in today’s news climate, it’s impossible to know how much of that<\/i> is also fear-mongering by those who want more funding and how much is a genuine cry of distress from knowledgeable people who see disaster looming.<\/p>\n

In overgoverned societies, everything is political and no institution is trustworthy.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Without ever directly referencing the ongoing Ebola crisis, Kent McManigal certainly nails<\/a> a big part of it:<\/p>\n

People who want to have power to control you need you to believe their control is better than the alternative of you controlling, and being responsible for, your own life. If they can keep you fearful, you\u2019ll allow them to do things to you that you\u2019d never otherwise permit.<\/p>\n

They also depend on pitting you against your neighbors. If they can get you to beg someone else to control your neighbor, through limiting his choices of what to do with his own body or his own property, they gain power. And never forget they are encouraging your neighbor to seek protection from you, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

—–<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/i> at least gives friendly coverage<\/a> to the self-responsibility view<\/a> of preppers. <\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

And somebody’s going to ask, “If government and health experts aren’t equipped to handle Ebola, what would you<\/i> do, instead, Ms Critic?”<\/p>\n

I don’t pretend to have “the answer.” Not in any sense. Not in a medical sense (thank heaven for cutting-edge researchers, gutsy medical workers, and honest educators!). Not in a political or public health sense (my heart goes out to anybody charged with dealing with messes like the one in Dallas).<\/p>\n

But of course those who pretend to have answers don’t have answers, either. They have only bland assurances that everything’s going to be okay — followed by brute force when it develops that everything’s not<\/i> okay.<\/p>\n

The only thing I can say is what you already know: be prepared to protect yourself and your loved ones. <\/p>\n

It may be premature to run out and buy a hazmat suit. Or maybe not. If I lived in a city, I might be shopping for one. Just to beat the rush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Furrydoc asked in comments the other day, “Where’s the CDC?” (in fighting Ebola in the U.S.) Rhetorical question, of course. She knows quite well where the CDC is: giving bland assurances to the media about being just right up there on top of Ebola while primarily occupying itself with profitable and political mission creep. These days it’s focused on “epidemics” such as obesity and “gun violence.” —– Ron Fournier, at the National Journal says the scariest thing about Ebola isn’t the disease but our growing lack of trust in government and other institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-guns-and-gun-rights","category-health-and-science","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}