Thanksgiving 2020

 

Every un-incarcerated, un- incapacitated adult who considers Thanksgiving this year has to decide for himself what he will do about the holiday whether today, this weekend, or whenever the schedule  of his occupation permits.  That is not a political opinion. It is a statement of fact. A decision to follow the dictates of officials is still a decision. That most of what one hears promotes either blind obedience or unthinking defiance is typical of the twitteroid level of so-called discourse these days.  (It is certainly possible to believe that everything politicians and bureaucrats of one’s preferred party say and want is true, scientific, necessary, and desirable just as it is possible to believe that everything politicians and bureaucrats one does not care far say and want is false, hypocritical, unnecessary, and malicious.  However it is not smart.) It is interesting that one hears so little about another and better  possibility. People could try to make a rational decision based on their situation and what is known about the disease, the status of the epidemic, and which people are at risk for getting very sick.  That is what should happen and what officials should have been encouraging instead of issuing mandates which ignore relevant differences, which they do not follow,  and which millions of people will scoff at and ignore, often unsafely. They have come across as hypocritical buffoons, petty would be tyrants, or both, and too many people have tuned them out, because based on their behavior, they deserved to be tuned out. That is bad, because people do need to be careful and take the risks seriously.