Another day that got away from me. I have something of an excuse. I woke up several times in the night. Once I woke up shivering. I had kicked off my covers, but it wasn’t cold enough for me to shiver. My brain was telling my body to raise its internal temperature. I get that when I’m sick and my temperature is rapidly rising. I wasn’t worried about COVID-19 but Crohn’s disease. That’s what usually causes it. I got under my covers and eventually stopped shivering and fell back to sleep. Then I woke up around 6 and felt some of the telltale tightness in my abdomen. I went back to sleep again. When my alarm went off at 8 I still wasn’t feeling right so one more time to sleep. I finally woke up and got out of bed at 9:15. I spent some time online and then let myself fall asleep yet again for a few hours. That did the trick. I heard things moving inside me and was soon hungry and able to eat. I’ve had Crohn’s for 60 years; I know how to deal with it. First thing is rest. Even after eating breakfast I was hungry. I had a snack a couple of hours ago and I’m getting hungry again. When I’m healthy I’m a bottomless maw.
I started watching The World is Not Enough a James Bond film I had somehow missed. I pretty much always enjoy Bond films. It was so uncompelling that I went to bed in the middle of an action sequence and have not finished it yet. It reminded me of the early Roger Moore flicks, the nadir of the series. The boat chase reminded me of the one in the worst Bond film of all, Live and Let Die.
How much did this day get away from me? It’s now 9:38 PM. I’m still going to try and write, and I’m stuck with something serious. I see so many posts on social media about the people, often armed, protesting social distancing regulations. So many say things like, “People who join these protests should not be able to go to hospitals when the catch COVID-19.” That misses what’s most wrong with these protests. It’s not about these people endangering their own live. That’s accepting the protestors perspective that it’s a matter juggling their own freedom with their own safety. That perspective is their entire problem. Nobody was at risk, but the protestors and all their families wouldn’t grieve them, I’d be fine with it. But that’s not the case, and it’s not even about their families’ grief. It’s that what they are doing endangers everyone else. They provide a vector for the virus to spread. They are mosquitos and COVID-19 is malaria. How do you fight malaria? You fight mosquitos. How do you fight COVID-19? You prevent people from coming in contact with each other. The protestors think it’s about themselves and they are wrong. What they do about affects everyone else. When they are demanding freedom for themselves it’s at the price of everyone else’s freedom.
This is a common human failing. People don’t realize that their freedom to smoke takes away the freedom of others to breath smoke free air. People don’t realize that anyone that uses a commonly held finite resource denies that use to others. Polluters don’t realize that their freedom to pollutes takes away everyone else’s freedom to breath clean air, drink clean water, and not suffer a climate disaster.
Personal freedom is important, a core American value, and a core personal value for me. We are the land of Give me liberty or give me death! Freedom of speech is protected in the constitution. A person’s words can cause harm, but we all have the freedom to not listen. If someone denies that by blasting it from loudspeakers that can be stopped, within limits, but not for the content. Freedom of religion works both ways. It gives you the freedom to live by your religion, it doesn’t give you the freedom to force others too. The circumstances have to always be considered. I have a total right to move my hand through the air any way I want. But not when the way I want involves my fist hitting your nose. Sure, you have the right to not where a mask and go where you want but that right ends when your virion hits my nose. It’s important here that as of now people can’t know they aren’t infected and can’t spread the disease. The odds might be low, but we all have to act like we potentially are.
Wise Madness 