if we had shut down our country for three months, paid people well to stay home, and enforced quarantine laws at least 100,000 people would still be alive, and so many more of us would still have our jobs and our homes. our government made a choice to wreck itself.

alexis de tocqueville had a theory on what happens when governments do that. it didn't end well for the government.

anyway, in observance of tisha b'av i meditated on the destruction of my own country as well as jerusalem and what struck me was how many people died perfectly preventable deaths and a lot of people seem ok with 100,000 people dying. poof. when they did not have to.