Tea at Trianon: ICU Doctor: What I Wish People Knew About Coronavirus

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

ICU Doctor: What I Wish People Knew About Coronavirus

From The Federalist:

We probably will have to open the economy more and more, because in just a couple months we’ve entered historic levels of unemployment. You need to read history to appreciate what a killer that can be. Supermarkets will go empty, farms will be unfarmed and turn to dust bowls, animals will be mass euthanized, the economic engine needed to research and mass produce a cure might not be there when we need it, and people will die of despair or other disease.

Also, go ahead and try to enforce an indefinite shutdown. Every day the traffic is getting heavier. Are we going to lead our barbers, tailors, and salesmen away in handcuffs at the point of a gun? These folks are getting desperate for money and supplies. Do you think at some point these people will have nothing left to lose and will risk challenging and breaking down authority? Do you think those with authority won’t strike back harder against those disobeying indefinite, vague, crippling restrictions that risk wasting away people’s life’s work, leading to a massive escalation in force?

And what is an essential business that is okay to furlough? Is it okay for a child not to have access to shoes she can fit into? Is it essential for a health-care provider to have a working car to get to his place of work? Do we need a home internet repair man if the person at home is using the internet to coordinate deliveries of viral testing devices? Can going to a park or trail to exercise be an essential and permissible activity when we know fat and deconditioning are directly contributing to COVID-19 deaths? (Read more.)