On COVID-19 and the economy, First Things gets the last things wrong

On COVID-19 and the economy, First Things gets the last things wrong
The die was cast long ago on the elderly death rate from SARSCoV2. The CDC has pushed guidelines to keep the elderly from ever getting sick. The death rate among them is a result of that stupidity. Social distance and programmed panic won't build their immunities enough to survive it when exposed. Distancing was not about stopping people from getting sick, it was about slowing the spread down so that those who can survive with treatment can get a fighting chance. This is not Darwinian, it's clear thinking.

Scaring the crap out of healthcare workers has not helped things. If someone has recovered from the virus, they don't need PPE. Right now, COVID fear is keeping people away from hospitals until it is too late to help them. It is also keeping others away who need emergency non-SARS2 care (like detox).

The economic question is serious. Few are raising the obvious concern that giving higher subsidies to purchase a diminishing pool of labor and products may, in fact, be unsustainable. At the very least, liquidity must be extracted from the wealthy. The Federal Reserve is doing the opposite. This will not end well.

The C-Suite track on abortion is rhetorical. The reality is that more than 70% of families who get abortions are in poverty. The solutions to poverty are education, higher refundable child tax credits and a higher minimum wage. When presented with these options, most ersatz pro-lifers call these solutions socialism and subsidized sexuality. They are right, it is. That they oppose these measures shows that for many, the issue really is about controlling female sexuality. For many others, overturning Roe is about overturning the civil rights revolution, which quite rightly, gives federal protection to those aggrieved by state action.

That may one day include individuals who make a rational decision to suicide. The question is not whether this is a moral or immoral idea, but whether state governments and Churches should have the power to impose its choices on citizens. Mandated suicide is in the same class as mandated abortion. Such mandates are a violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. These regulate state action, not legal permissiveness.