I have a really hard time accepting the way our federal government is mismanaging our response to COVID-19. As a retired military officer, I do not want to personally criticize our Commander in Chief. But in all honesty, this is what we used to call a “goat rope.” Looking back two months, we were almost totally focused on impeachment of the President when the initial warnings came into government view. But that cannot be an excuse for ignoring the warnings, declining an opportunity to receive vast quantities of test kits from the WHO, and then politicizing the disjointed and reflexive federal response to this pandemic.
Why are our nation’s governors competing with each other and with federal agencies over access to protective equipment and masks, not to mention ventilators? Doesn’t anyone see the need for nation wide, uniform response? I know who can organize and execute an effective national response strategy. It is our nation’s military leaders, the ultimate guardians of our democracy. But is anyone seriously considering tapping into that national resource? Not really. We are afraid of martial law. We prefer to continue the disjointed “goat rope.” Look the term up. That’s what we have. No need to sugar coat it. Our brave health care professionals are on the front lines without essential and reliable protective gear. Tax payer funded initiatives for private companies to produce 21st century ventilators are resulting in sales of such vital equipment to the highest bidders overseas. War profiteers and hoarders are running rampant.
Why can’t our national leaders see this pandemic as an existential threat to our libertarian, capitalistic society? Why don’t we see more orders and less requests for voluntary assistance? It surely is not due to a lack of authority. It is simply a failure of leadership. As the Supreme Court has observed, our Constitution is not a suicide pact. It can flex with emergent times. The American people must wake up and demand more from their national leaders. State governors cannot reasonably be expected to do this on their own. Could we be on the verge of losing everything our fathers and other ancestors fought and shed blood to preserve?
Our legal system is a huge part of the problem. Our antiquated Electoral College only came into existence as the perceived lesser of three evils, one of which was the then dreaded notion that we could never really trust our people to choose their President and Vice President. And never forget that our Southern states insisted that African slaves only be counted as three-fifths of a person. That was an essential ingredient in the compromise that birthed the electoral college. At the time of this decision, Virginia’s population was sixty percent slaves. Virginia had forty percent of the total electoral votes, so hardly a surprise that all but one of our early Presidents were Virginians. Fast forward 230 years. Why do we still hang on to a system where the people’s choice for our President can come in second? Well, it’s in the Constitution, and hell will freeze over before two thirds of our legislators approve a change.
My wife and I bought a very small, six hundred square feet, condominium apartment two years ago. It is a wonderful getaway, and salt air is really good medicine for us. Our unit is in a tower that contains almost twenty stories and over two hundred separate apartments. Most residents are our age or older. They are wonderful people, including a couple of WW II veterans over a hundred years of age. Less than half of the unit owners live there full time, and in times like these, that is a good thing. As New York has shown us, people living in such high density or common areas have exponentially higher risks of contracting or transmitting the Coronavirus than do people who live in single family dwellings. Many of our residents travel extensively, although not for the foreseeable future. Our board and management team have done a great job of developing and implementing a response plan, but due to legal protections grounded in the need to protect personal health information from public disclosure, only key managers will be informed if and when residents test positive for the virus. This means infected people could be using the elevators and walking through the common areas without their neighbors having a clue. Why in the world do we make personal privacy a higher value than protecting the masses? This is just one example of how we really miss the mark on balancing of competing interests. I could tell you of many more, but my wife counsels me to “keep it brief.”
God bless you all, and bless and protect our health care professionals! They are our soldiers now, and sending them into battle without essential protective equipment is a form of treason. And so is hoarding or profiteering in such weapons of war. Think about it.
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