Covididiocy a year and a half later

In Texas, there is a leader of anti-covid protests who is near death. 

I feel sorry for his family and three (soon to be four) kids who will grow up without a father, but how exactly do we as a civilization deal with this mindset? People can talk about passing laws, but laws only work as long as people feel they should be obeyed. Why do 99 percent of people not murder each other? Even without laws doing so, they would feel it's morally wrong. Why do so many people use drugs, even though it's illegal? Because they don't feel like it's not hurting anyone else and is their choice, and so on.

We have always tossed around the idea of the common good or public good. At some point, we need to decide which side of the street to drive on and tell horrible parents they can't raise their kids any longer. We have laws against pollution for this reason. And so on. In this case, we had regulations for how to mitigate the spread of covid. These regulations were developed by people who had expertise in virology and infectious disease. Not sure what Caleb Wallace does, but I'm going to guess he doesn't have a PhD in either of those or a related field.

The thing is, the guy apparently isn't a monster. He has strong political opinions, but also helps his neighbors. You can't point at him, look at his political opinions, and say that he should be immediately condemned for opposing regulations. Plenty of people on the left early on said there was nothing to worry about, either. On the other hand, how have we reached a point where dealing with this pandemic boils down to having to pick one side or the other to stand on?

Finding middle ground and being able to objectively deal with facts is necessary for any healthy civilization. When half the people are suggesting irrigation ditches and the other half are suggesting that the first half gets sacrificed to the rain god, it's going to be a problem. It means that no one can agree on effective action to deal with major issues. It means that paralysis will take hold, something like it already has with covid. Civilizations that do not have united people cannot act effectively when there is a crisis, and each crisis weighs down on it just a little bit more.

In the end, covid will burn out or become like a seasonal flu that persists all year round (sunlight and warm weather don't seem to be putting much of a dent in it). Whether it stays as deadly, who knows, but this has weakened trust and goodwill. The next looming crisis is when the western U.S. is completely unable to support agriculture or habitation. How will the politics line up after that and what will be the fallout there? Will it boil down to people waving signs that say "Stay on your side of the Mississippi!" or will we see people in the west start sabotaging fossil fuel production in the name or protests? Will the left-leaning coastal cities build walls to keep the rural conservatives out?

Hopefully there won't be a popcorn shortage, as things are just going to keep getting more "interesting."

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