If living through this nightmare does only one good thing, it’s this. It will give President Trump a mandate to end globalism once and for all. Once we’re finally released from our cells, we’re going to want him to take whatever steps he can to make sure this doesn’t happen again. And that’s quite a laundry list of things. First off, it’s time to close not only the borders but the airline routes too. Apparently Chinese New Year is the occasion for sending millions of Chinese back and forth from there to here just chock full of whatever pathogens have shown up in the wild game markets of China. That must stop. If China refuses to adhere to modern food hygiene then they should be treated like a plague city and kept at arm’s length. Instituting a quarantine for travelers from China and similar places at the border for say, two weeks would go a long way to preventing another horrific outbreak like the one we’re suffering under now. And because there’s no way of telling at the Mexican border where anyone comes from, we’ve got to end all the illegal immigration. Not just sorta/kinda, but for real. Use the state of emergency to shut down the border and if a judge says no then declare martial law and do it anyway. The people will approve it. And while we’re at it, suspend legal immigration for the time being. It doesn’t make sense to be bringing people into the country during a catastrophe.
The next thing is to get Congress to declare all sorts of industries critical to Homeland Security and use a carrot and a stick to bring them back on shore. And make it a very heavy stick. Having our pharmaceuticals manufactured in China turns out to be a bad idea. And manufacturing everything else there hasn’t helped either. The President should do himself and us a favor and repatriate pharmaceuticals, automobiles, electronics, chemicals, metals, building supplies and just about everything else. As far as I can tell we’ll need the jobs badly when this is over and the tens of millions of unemployed people are going to want growth in the economy and plenty of it. And one good way to jump start something like that is to rebuild all the infrastructure that has virtually rotted away over the last fifty years of neglect. Infrastructure projects have often in the past been boondoggles but compared to tossing trillions away to keep people sitting in their homes I doubt you could do worse.
Some will be worried that shifting production here could cause a worldwide depression. I find that unconvincing. The East Asian economies have their own domestic demand that is quite mature at this point and not having ten percent growth won’t kill them. As for the rest of the developing world, if it’s not corona virus from China, it’s dengue fever from Guatemala or Ebola from the Congo. We don’t need any more lessons in epidemiology. We can see that plagues don’t mix well with a modern western democracy. It’s time to roll up the welcome mat and tell everyone out there to stay home and fix their own damn problems. And if it’s not too much to ask how about stop eating bats for a start. Try chicken, it tastes the same.
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Fantastic post, photog. I hope you’re right. I was talking to a buddy last night and he said this situation is one of those moments where everyone realizes the world has changed in a major way, and that change is going to last a long time, but no one is quite sure _what_ is going to change, and _how_ (that was the gist of it, anyway). We’re at that moment where everyone is theorizing about what comes next. You’re right–the _logical_ reaction is that we repatriate a bunch of key industries, tighten up borders, and reject unthinking globalization. The Virus… Read more »
It’ll take the right leader to push us in the right direction. Luckily W is not in the White House. So we have a chance.
I’m far too cynical to think enough “normies” or anyone else will come to such an “earth-shattering” (sarcasm) realization as this. A person can be intelligent, but people are stupid, and they’re everywhere.
You may be right, Jason. I suspect, sadly, that you are.
But it’s more about the opportunity. The dislocation caused by this insanity will make a lot of people receptive to a course of action that also fits in with their other interests. America First should be an easy sell.
I started saying 30 years ago that the solution to all of our economic , environmental and social problems is to make our own stuff. How rediculous is it to ship huge resources over to China and elsewhere to have them build our products for us and ship them back. Trillions and trillions of dollars, millions and millions of gallons of fuel and countless tons of raw materials are wasted year after year needlessly shipping jobs and goods across the globe.
That’s it all right. We’ve been sold down the river by the money men. We need to put a stop to it.
We are not criminals, we should not be in cells.
Let’s hope this is the last time.
With Chicago using strong arm tactics to break up funerals and church services, before long someone is not going to obey and then there will be blood. Will the next “shot heard round the world” be fired in a liberal enclave in order to herd the people?
If so I fear it will backfire.
This could turn out to be a very interesting time to live in. Our leaders may have a very dangerous tiger by the tail. I hope this crisis works to our advantage.
Supposedly, Abraham Lincoln said: “I do not know much about the tariff, but I know this much, when we buy manufactured goods abroad, we get the goods and the foreigner gets the money. When we buy the manufactured goods at home, we get both the goods and the money.” Companies move their operations overseas to avoid environmental regs and to take advantage of slave labor wages. Both of these save them millions. The American worker is an expensive pet to keep. There are wage laws, hour laws, higher wages, paying into several federal and state funds for unemployment, disability, workman’s… Read more »
Luckily there are more unemployed workers than millionaires. The problem is there are a whole lot of government workers with 401 K accounts It’s a race to change things before we’re out voted.