COVID19, Law, Religion

Cain, Abel and Covid19. Are We Our Brother’s Keeper?

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And the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother? And he said, "I do not know: am I my brother's keeper?" Someone on Facebook posted something I disagreed with the other day. I know what you're saying, "That happens to me all...the...time!" And I'm sort of glad it does! Posts I disagree with give my brain more exercise than posts I agree with. Sometimes I lie awake at night going over aspects of my argument in my head. For the most part, these resemble conversations with myself. Me: "There is no way that you have to be either a dog person OR a cat person. What if you just love all animals? Other Me: "That's just a false dilemma!" (A false dilemma is usually characterized by "either this or that" language but can also be recognized by an omission of choices.) The post that got me thinking the other day went something like this: "I can't believe that

people think we should be responsible for the health of others!"Poster on Facebook who lives in a vacuum. (Note: not the cleaning kind) The rant continued longer than this and there was of course the necessary pre-rant warning. But what the poster eventually expressed was that she didn't think she should have to wear a mask. If she transmitted Covid19 to someone else it wasn't her fault they got sick. The government was making her wear a mask in order to protect OTHERS from getting a virus. And the poster acted like this was the first time in her life (she's in her 40's) that she had ever encountered such a concept in America. It made me wonder if the poster had ever heard of laws against driving under the influence. Sure, that law is to protect the drunken fool from smashing up their car and themselves. But it is mostly meant to protect the family of four with the…

COVID19, Law

Ignorance Unmasked: Shelley Lewis’ Constitutional Right to Spread Covid19

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It was the typical hot summer day in Northern California where the streets were so hot you could see the heat waves rise off the asphalt. Sometimes you could even see a mirage. My friend Joey and I had been swimming in an irrigation ditch and thought it might be nice to run to what we called the "Little Red Store." As 8-year-olds, we didn't pay much attention to the name of the store or really anything else. Our attentions were hyper focused on the rack of toys that the owner had just inside the door. And just next to that was the candy rack -- if you had any change in your pocket at all, you could fill your Levi's cutoffs with enough candy to rot your teeth out before you got home. While the sidewalks were hot, we'd developed quite the set of calluses and weren't much fazed as we sprinted the several blocks to the store. If

our feet got too hot we'd run into a neighbor's yard that happened to have a sprinkler on and we could run for another block. By the time we reached the store we were drenched. Wearing nothing but our Levi's cutoffs, we ran through the door in search of treasure. I had just made it to the rack when I heard a crash behind me. Joey had slipped on the tiles and run into an old lady who was at the counter. They were both on the ground safe but embarrassed and upset. Joey the former and the old lady the latter. "What are you two doing running into my store with no clothes on?" The owner yelled. As 8-year-olds, Joey and I both knew there were two reliable responses to a question that you didn't have a good answer for: 1. Answer "I don't know." It is impossible to reason with someone who doesn't know why they do things.…