Progressivism and Covid 19

Vincent J. Cutis

18 Apr 20

Much of progressivism can be summarized in two concepts: rule by experts and the moral equivalent of war.  The Covid crisis has provided the opportunity for both.

What we have learned about rule by expert is that you have to pick the right expert.  Each expert can be thought of as a hammer who sees the problem as his or her nail.  The Covid crisis has introduced the expert in epidemiology, and their primary technique is the quarantine.  The voices of other medical experts are suppressed.  All other medical procedures are suppressed for the sake of the quarantine.  Stopping deaths from the epidemic take precedence over all else, including deaths caused by the quarantine itself.  Those other deaths don’t count.

Experts in economics are also suppressed, except for contriving measures to support the quarantine.  The economy can be flattened, but all economists are needed for is to explode the Federal deficit and have the Bank of Canada print money, all to support the quarantine.

There are examples of the moral equivalent of war being applied by genuine non-experts, like the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer.  She decided that selling paint and garden seeds would undermine the quarantine, and would therefore be banned.  You can’t have joint replacement surgery in Michigan, but you can have an abortion.  So the Governor decreed.  And when 10,000 people drove to the state capital to protest from their cars these arbitrary and capricious measures, the Governor accused them of spreading the disease.  Should her State Attorney-General and Lieutenant-Governor stage a coup d’état, having over-ridden her State constitution, Whitmer wouldn’t have a legal case to argue.

The Covid crisis has exposed all the weaknesses of progressivism.  First, you have to pick the right expert.  Second, the myopia of the expert you pick can create problems that make their cure worse than the disease.  Only one expert at a time can rule, and a non-expert needs to decide which expert holds the sceptre.  The moral equivalent of war gives even charlatans practically unlimited power – power that is not always aimed accurately at the public good.

The progressive mind-set enabled constitutionally protected civil rights to be destroyed easily and with impunity.  The repercussions of this season-long trial of full progressivism will be felt for a decade or more, so great were the economic measures employed to support it.

One hopes the people have learned their lesson, and when the cry goes up that the virus has returned, the people say, “tough!”
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