Drunk With Authority

Two things I'm amazed by in stage 2 of this coronavirus:

1) How drunk with authority our politicians are.
2) How much of coastal America seems to agree with it.

The other day Trump "ordered" meat processing plant workers back to work. Last time I checked, the Constitution doesn't grant the executive the power to force anyone to work. PERHAPS the states have some authority to make sure police, etc cannot strike, but no President of mine orders me to go to work.

And then his political polar opposite (but they are similar creatures of ambition and sycophantry) - Gavin Newsom - sees some pictures of beach goers on the news and drunk with his own authority, decides to close all state beaches! Under what power? He cites "science." Is there any shred of scientific evidence that going to the beach on 90 degree plus days causes coronavirus to spread? Is there a single hospital case of this? The entire exercise is completely absurd and so divorced from what we've actually learned about the coronavirus over the past four weeks. His move is petty, paternalistic, and stupid.

And cheered by liberals. Not because it's smart, but because it punishes those who disagree with them politically and ideologically.

This should be a separate post, but how does it feel to be a grocery worker, a plant worker, who is getting paid the same or less than their friends and family who are getting paid to sit on the couch and watch netflix? We should be doubling the pay of all these workers already AND charging more for the "essential" products at the stores. By upping the costs, people would buy less and we'd see less hoarding. Or at least make hoarding more expensive.

And I'm not against the extended unemployment or any of that - it was needed, but let's not pretend that it's sustainable for more than a couple months.