Friday, November 11, 2011
#OccupyHealthcare
Glenn Reynolds links an article in this morning's New York Times detailing the spread of disease among the #Occupiers in New York's Zuccotti Park. The place is really beginning to sound like the breeding ground for the next great pandemic:
“It’s called Zuccotti lung,” said Willie Carey, 28, a demonstrator from Chapel Hill, N.C. “It’s a real thing.”...
Dr. Philip M. Tierno Jr., the director of clinical microbiology and immunology at NYU Langone Medical Center, said the conditions could leave park-dwellers susceptible to respiratory viruses; norovirus, the so-called winter vomiting virus, which can lead to vomiting and diarrhea and which could quickly overwhelm the limited bathroom facilities in the area; and tuberculosis, which is more common in indigent populations and can be spread by coughing.
Even some camping in the park have grown concerned in recent weeks with the living quarters. Damp laundry and cardboard signs, left in the rain, have provided fertile ground for mold. Some protesters urinate in bottles, or occasionally a water-cooler jug, to avoid the lines at public restrooms. Food, from orange peels to scrambled eggs, is often discarded outside tents....
Although condoms are often available on-site, Dr. Tierno said the protest’s evolution to private tents, from sleeping out in the open, had raised the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. The site’s pounding drum circles, he added, could lead to hearing damage. He compared conditions at Zuccotti Park to those in a hajj — the pilgrimage to Mecca, in which whole groups of people have come down with respiratory infections in a short time — and those experienced by the flower children of the 1960s, when, he said, communal living situations created problems with sanitation and sexually transmitted diseases....
Observations
The comparison to the hajj and the communal living of "flower children" more or less says it all. At this point one is tempted to announce that "the prosecution rests" and move on to more pressing matters, but a serious question hangs obviously in the air: Why do the Occupiers, who demand "universal single-payer affordable healthcare," choose to behave in ways that hurt the public health? If it is so immoral to hurt the public health by omitting to pay for "universal single-payer affordable healthcare," why is it not as or more immoral to choose to live in a way that obviously incubates and spreads disease to the rest of us?
I am so confused. Perhaps you, our wise and gentle readers, can explain away this apparent hypocrisy.
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Nov 12, 01:55:00 AM:
Perhaps they want to hurt people, therefore, there is no hypocrisy? It sure would explain a lot.
Especially the Socialism, drum circles and the rapes.
By E Hines, at
Sat Nov 12, 08:52:00 AM:
Nah, they don't want to hurt people. But les enfants have been shown the way by their best bud Joe Biden: it's the patriotic thing to do, this spending of other people's money.
Thus, by elevating the costs of "universal single-payer affordable healthcare," and thereby encouraging les autres to be more patriotic, these worthies are simply demonstrating their own patriotism.
QEFD
Eric Hines
By , at
Sat Nov 12, 09:30:00 AM:
That might be it, Hines, but sometimes it sure seems like they want to hurt people. Like when they throw bricks into windows and stuff.
By E Hines, at
Sat Nov 12, 11:49:00 AM:
And there's the odd Molotov cocktail (http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/police_arrest_man_at_occupy_po.html ), tyree.
But bricks and fire bombs and the like are just more injuries for to be patriotic with, and jobs for the repairs, don't you know.
Eric Hines
By , at
Sat Nov 12, 12:32:00 PM:
I walked by Zuccotti Park the other day when I happened to be nearby. It's not much of a park -- about half a football field in area. It can't hold more than two or three thousand people standing, much less with tents.
This isn't a mass movement by any stretch, just a well orchestrated media event.
As expected the NYPD have done a good job, even though their Commander-in-Chief, Mayor for Life Mike, did a poor one.
One lesson the occupiers should learn from recent experience at Zuccotti Park is the importance of border control. It really went downhill when NYC's hardcore vagrants figured out that Zuccotti Park had become a little land of free milk and honey.
If you want a good laugh, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog visited Zuccotti Park. It's a bit long, but hilarious.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/triumph-the-insult-comic-dog-chews-out-occupy-wall-street-protesters/
By 
Aegon01, at
Sat Nov 12, 12:34:00 PM:
It's not hypocrisy, they're just thoughtless, poor college students (emphasis on thoughtless). The only reason that someone THAT moralistic and preachy would ever do something against "the common good" or "the proles" as the case may be is if they're a) not aware of the problem or b) don't think X leads to Y.
By , at
Sun Nov 13, 10:50:00 AM:
The question is interesting in a broader sense as well. The Tea Partiers are commonly called 'anti-government' but they scrupulously followed the law in their demonstrations, while the OWS protesters have been called 'anarchists for statism.' Bizarre.
By , at
Mon Nov 14, 03:14:00 PM:
The answer to your question is simple. These people don't know anything about how things really really work int he world. They've never been held accountable for that knowledge at any level. They see no conundrum, no disagreement, no conflict whatsoever in continuing their childlike ways while advocating that someone else pays for it all because apparently life has never bit them so badly that they actually had to react and act responsible.
