[ExI] texas county judge demands residents wear bananas

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Fri, 24 Apr 2020 at 10:07, spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

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> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat
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> > *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat
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> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] texas county judge demands residents wear bananas
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> Hi Stathis, this power-tripping county judge thinks so, but I think not.
> I can’t imagine how the prosecution would continue, should the defendant
> show up and say she didn’t have a mask.  The government cannot make you buy
> something.
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> >…But in general, is there a mechanism to make people wear masks, perhaps
> provided for free? It doesn’t seem to make a huge difference in this
> pandemic but we can imagine a situation where it would.
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> Stathis Papaioannou
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> Eh, good question Stathis.  It wouldn’t be enough to just provide them for
> free.  The government would need to deliver the masks to the homes.
> Otherwise, the resident still doesn’t have them and has no mechanism for
> acquiring one without leaving the home without one.
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> OK, so this judge proposes (we assume) delivering masks (a whooooolllle
> loooootta masks) to each home (about 100 day per person would be a good
> start) and keep delivering them on that schedule, free to the residents, in
> order to be able to hold to the court that the residents were not obeying
> her silly orders.  But this isn’t sustainable.  This judge can order the
> citizens to wear bananas, but I have no bananas.
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> A question like this came up and continues to come up in the USA with
> regard to health insurance.  The government cannot make the citizens buy
> something, but they can charge a tax penalty for not having it.  That still
> doesn’t cover the people who don’t have any income, so the Federal
> government will provide health insurance free.
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> Problem: the government still does not have the authority to make people
> sign up for free health insurance.  So… plenty of them don’t.  They just
> show up at the hospital with no insurance, no money, no nothing, and
> hospital must somehow cover the costs itself.  It’s a hell of a problem.
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> With the masks, what you have are authorities (JUDGES no less) who are a
> bit unclear on what authority of the “authorities” have in a case such as
> this.  My prediction is that few if any fines will ever be collected for
> those who disregarded governors’ and sheriff’s orders.
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> The authorities pressured businesses into closing, but pressure is now
> pressuring back: economic necessity is pressuring them to open back up.
> They are the part of America whose paychecks don’t keep coming.
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> I find it distressing that America has such a large contingent who
> disregard the needs of those who rely on paychecks coming at regular
> intervals without interruption.  We have a sloppy stopgap measure with the
> 1300 bucks to every adult, but a casual observer can see that isn’t
> sustainable.  People need their jobs and they need their paychecks.
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Suppose a new virus emerges which will infect anyone that comes within 10
metres of an asymptomatic carrier, unless the carrier is wearing a mask,
and this virus will kill half of the people who are infected. If everyone
wears a mask, then in a few weeks the virus will disappear. Given this
information, most people will probably voluntarily wear a mask, but not
all. Are you saying there is no legal mechanism to enforce mask wearing,
with the result that either half the population will die or the economy
will permanently shut down because everyone is too afraid to go outside?

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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