Just months ago, Western leaders were scoffing at Chinese President Xi Jinping because the restrictions he imposed to control the spread of the coronavirus seemed draconian even for totalitarian China.
Yet this pandemic soon had those Western leaders joining others the world over to impose similar restrictions. It is notable, though, that US President Donald Trump was not among them. But this did not prevent governors like California’s Gavin Newsom from imposing restrictions that made their respective states look like a province in Xi’s China.
Even so, it’s arguable that only the effects of this virus can explain the restrictions British Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed last night.
As of now, people must stay at home except for shopping for basic necessities, daily exercise, medical or care need, and travelling to and from work where ‘absolutely necessary’.
Shops selling non-essential goods are being told to shut and gatherings in public of more than two people who do not live together are to be prohibited.
(BBC, March 23, 2020)
Anyone who knows anything about Britain during WWII knows that Britons were not under such restrictive stay-at-home orders even during those deadly times. And, yes, Johnson made a point of warning that Bobbies-cum-RoboCops will be patrolling England as if it were a police state to enforce these restrictions, which will be in force for three weeks.
Frankly, Johnson’s rallying cry seems more fitting for the surrendering spawn of Vichy France. Indeed, it’s a far cry from the way Winston Churchill rallied Britons during their “Darkest Hour” (never mind that the only ones who heard firsthand were members present in the House of Commons):
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
(International Churchill Society, June 4, 1940)
Still, I readily concede that Johnson’s strategy to fight this battle might prove more effective than any Churchill ever devised to fight any battle. It’s just that, whatever Johnson’s victory, it will prove pyrrhic at best. Because, even if he manages to stop the spread (for this season), Brexited Britain will never recover economically and bounded Britons will never recover mentally from his corona lockdown.
In my original commentary (dated February 18), I delineated the reasons why martial law-like restrictions to stop the spread might cause more harm than the virus itself.
Evidently, with the help of his Fox News intravenous tube, President Trump has now reduced that commentary to this sloganeering tweet:
WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF [sic].
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2020
Regular readers know this weblog is replete with disapproval, disparagement, and disavowal of Trump. Therefore, giving him kudos might smack of betrayal. But, in this black-swan case, Trump is right.
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