Phrases like “essential worker” and “nonessential business” are now being bandied about by the collectivists without any apparent recognition of what such phrases say about their ugly view of humanity. People are complex individuals who often find comfort in belonging to something larger than themselves; they are not ants or mechanical parts to be reduced to “workers” and declared “essential” or “nonessential” (for the latter read “disposable”) by their owners. The idea that bureaucrats have the right to make such pronouncements over the lives of individuals, and to dictate that some people are unworthy of being allowed to make a living and feed their families, is a totalitarian abomination. Even if you accept the extremely shaky premise that it was “necessary” to forcibly cut off some people’s income in order to manage a pandemic, no society which pretends to be “free” has any business sorting human beings into categories as though they were produce. Rather than subjectively (and such decisions were extremely subjective, varying wildly from state to state and country to country) declaring some people’s businesses, jobs, and needs expendable, governments could instead have established clear, objective criteria to which businesses had to adhere in order to go unharassed. For example, the plexiglass shields which have now appeared in grocery stores and other “essential” outlets would be equally effective in many other businesses, regardless of whether politicians declared them “essential” or not, and cops have repeatedly demonstrated in the past few weeks that they imagine their busybody interference in the lives of people who are doing mundane things that aren’t remotely unsafe (such as walking with a spouse in a park) to be “essential” despite its potential to expose people to infection (especially when they actually manhandle such people and lock them in the filthy cages which have become breeding grounds for pestilence). In short, the only people who have demonstrated themselves to be “nonessential” during this crisis are the sociopathic control freaks who imagine that everything they do and say is important, while other people are simply interchangeable objects to be sorted through and either used or discarded.
Nonessential
May 11, 2020 by Maggie McNeill
[…] https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2020/05/11/nonessential/ […]
Since the beginning of the shutdowns I’ve thought ‘essential’ vs ‘nonessential’ was the wrong approach. The goal is to slow the spread of the virus. We can’t really stop it, so slowing it down to a rate the health care system can handle is probably all we can do. The virus spreads between humans, so you have to interrupt that by either 1) introducing barriers like masks, face shields, plexiglass screens, etc., or 2) keeping the humans apart, anywhere from six feet to stay-at-home. The question then becomes what activities can or can’t continue while also serving the intent of slowing the spread of the virus. This isn’t some blanket edict, but something that has to be considered for each specific circumstance. For example; a salon with half a dozen stylists all just a few feet apart, each serving a client, with a full waiting area is probably not a good idea. But a single stylist in their own shop seeing one client at a time who can thoroughly sanitize in between clients (plus everyone could wear masks), that seems reasonable. Even the ‘full salon’ could be modified both physically and operationally to limit exposure, but we have to stop thinking about this in the framework of ‘essential’ vs ‘nonessential’. It doesn’t serve the actual goal and it will produce backlash that will likely make things worse, since people acting out of anger, fear, and frustration rarely make things better.
MORE politicians need to be tossed in the bin.