We’re Paying a Terrible Price for States’ Rights

As suggested here, Missouri governor Mike Parson has a unique response to the pandemic.

Now, I know readers outside the U.S. (who average 40% of the total, btw) are wondering both a) how it’s possible that the governor of one of our 50 states could be a complete moron, and, perhaps more importantly, b) why any person in this position, moron or genius, has the power to condemn a large percentage of Missouri’s population of 6.1 million (assuming they stay inside the state lines) to a horrible disease that often means permanent organ damage, if not death–one that is easily communicated from children to any elderly people which whom they may be in contact, e.g., grandparents, who are at much greater risk of infection and an agonizing death.

And, get this: “(very sick children) are not going to the hospitals?” Really?

OK, back to how this happened.  In brief, shortly after the Declaration of Independence in the early days of the American Republic, many of the Founding Fathers were concerned that a strong central government could be turned back into the same kind of tyranny they had just escaped, at great peril, under England’s King George III.  After much debate, they ultimately decided to give a great deal of power to each of the states, thinking that this would make it harder for an authoritarian regime to replace the democratic republic they worked so hard to put into place.

Of course, they were correct, and it’s possible, even today, that there may be some benefit to this decentralized government.  But this came at a huge cost, and we’re seeing just one line-item of those costs right here.