Today I use Leonard Pitts, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Miami Herald, thoughts about re-opening our economy with a few of mine added for emphasis.
Someday, I’m going to die.
This, I grudgingly accept. I have no idea how it’s going to happen. Maybe I will die of having a tree fall on me, of eating tainted shellfish, or of being struck by lightning. But this much I guarantee. I will not die of having wagered my life on the word of some political halfwits who claim they know more than experts with R.N., M.D., or Ph.D. after their names.
In other words, I will not die of stupid
Not that there aren’t plenty of opportunities to do so. Indeed, in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the question of when and how the nation’s economy should be reopened, we seem to have tapped the U.S. Strategic Stupid Reserve.
Surveys show, for instance, that a solid majority of Americans (63 percent according to a CBS News poll) are more worried about re-opening the country too fast and worsening the pandemic than opening it too slowly and worsening the economy. Yet a noisy minority of protesters are furious at our government for trying to keep them healthy. They demand their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of acute respiratory distress.
In Las Vegas, the mayor demanded the re-opening of casinos, suggesting her town could be a “control group” to find out if social distancing works? Talk about shooting craps with people’s lives! Not that she would wager her own life. Asked by Anderson Cooper if she would visit the casinos, the mayor declined.
But here’s the thing. There’s been a lot of talk over who has the power to reopen America’s economy. Well, it doesn’t belong to the president, nor to the governors. It doesn’t even belong to business owners. No, ultimately, it belongs to me. And to you. It belongs to us, as consumers.
The president and the governors can issue all the orders they want, the owners can remove all the padlocks, but none of it matters if customers are too afraid to walk back through the doors. And I am. I have no idea how many consumers I represent, but I suspect it’s more than a few.
I get that businesses are suffering. But I refuse to eat in a crowded restaurant, sit in a packed movie house, or fly on a full flight again until I feel I can do so safely. And I am emphatically not assured by TV carnival barkers or political halfwits.
No, I need to hear from serious, credible people. I need to know sufficient testing has been conducted and that they feel the virus is no longer a threat. If other people want to die of stupid, I can’t stop them. But if America wants its economy back — it better do whatever is necessary to persuade Dr. Anthony Fauci it’s time to give the all-clear.
Look for me two weeks after that.
Mr. Pitts’ message is insightful.
I don’t want to die stupid, either! so I need to be patient.
Hopefully, this gives you – Something to think about.
I’m Steve Sauder.
