NYT, Farhad Manjoo, 13 Jan 2022: We Must Stop Showering the Military With Money
In 2020 the U.S. military’s budget accounted for almost 40 percent of the world’s military expenditures. This level of spending has long been excessive, but after a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more Americans than any war we fought, continuing to throw money at the military is an act of willful disregard for the most urgent threats we face.
Republicans, and even conservative Democratics, worry about the deficit when it comes to social programs, but not when it’s about tax cuts for the wealthy or signing blank checks to the military-industrial complex. My quick take: because conservatives can never have too many guns. Theirs is a deeply paranoid, Manichaean worldview.
\\
AlterNet, John Stoehr, 13 Jan 2022: ‘To defy Trump’s wishes is to defy God’s plan’: The scary truth about modern right-wing misinformation.
All people who think such things are doing is undermining the dwindling moral authority of their religion.
\\
Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 14 Jan 2022: The radical right’s takeover of the Supreme Court is complete, subtitled, “With their ruling against Biden’s vaccine mandate, the conservative majority made clear that the law is political”
Maybe if the law inhibits measure to save the lives of people in a global pandemic, the law should be changed. The real problem, as I’ve noted my entire life, is that judges and justices manage to detect partisan preferences into the same words of the same laws and the same Constitution. They are not scholars looking for the truth; they are lawyers concerned with winning.
\\
On the same note,
Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 14 Jan 2022: The Supreme Court’s golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power, subtitled, “The only ‘legal theory’ the Supreme Court is operating under: Republicans alone have a right to rule”
The Atlantic, Kimberly Wehle, 14 Jan 2022: The Supreme Court Has Anointed Itself Czar of the Country’s COVID Rules, subtitled, “The conservative justices say that vaccine policy is Congress’s or the states’ job, but in practice they’re the ones calling the shots now.”
The Atlantic, Adam Serwer, 14 Jan 2022: The Culture War Has Warped the Supreme Court’s Judgment, subtitled, “Yesterday’s decision hinges on a new and alarming embrace of the right-wing crusade against vaccination.”
Which leads to this:
Slate, William Saletan, 14 Jan 2022: Immune to Reason, subtitled, “Conservatives have developed a dangerous obsession with natural COVID-immunity that defies logic and science.”
To social conservatives, natural immunity is attractive for a third reason: It taps into a kind of creationism, the idea that we should rely on what God has given us, not on technology. “Why do we assume that the body’s natural immune system isn’t the marvel that it really is?” asked Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin in a rant against vaccine advocacy last week. “Why do we think that we can create something better than God in terms of combating disease?”
Isn’t this an argument against all modern medicine? God gave you the one heart, and if it fails, tough beans.
Some of these arguments, such as the idea that vaccines are a Big Pharma conspiracy, are just nuts. Pharmaceutical companies make a lot less money if you get a COVID shot—which costs the government about $40—than if you refuse vaccination, get COVID, and need antibody therapy (promoted by the same Republican politicians), for which the government shells out hundreds or thousands of dollars per patient.
Concluding (remember “God helps those who help themselves?”):
Ultimately, it’s a mistake to think of vaccination as an alternative to trusting the human body. Vaccination doesn’t outperform your immune system. It strengthens your immune system. “Vaccines take advantage of this natural process to train your immune system,” says the British Society for Immunology. As a result, when the real virus shows up, your body “responds faster and more efficiently to prevent infection and stop you from getting seriously sick.” This synthesis of nature and technology can help anyone. As the immunology society explains: “Even if you’ve had COVID-19, vaccination will boost whatever immunity you have from natural infection.”
Sen. Paul knows this. On Tuesday, at a Senate hearing, he noted that “the idea of natural immunity is the idea upon which vaccines are based.” His point, in highlighting this relationship, was that people who believe in vaccination should also believe in natural immunity. But the reverse is also true. If you think that the human immune system is the key to beating COVID—or if, like Johnson, you believe that this wondrous power was given to us by a creator—then honor that gift by doing your part. Get vaccinated.
