{"id":13488,"date":"2021-06-03T09:48:56","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T16:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=13488"},"modified":"2021-06-03T09:49:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T16:49:03","slug":"never-let-a-plague-go-to-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/never-let-a-plague-go-to-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Let a Plague Go To Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Plague preventive costume of a doctor in 17th century. Our masks and social distancing seem as useful. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During America\u2019s first-ever national lockdown, thousands of unelected bureaucrats, as well as federal and state governments, assumed enormous powers not usually accorded them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They picked and chose which businesses could stay open without much rationale. They sent the infected into rest homes occupied by the weak and vulnerable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their rules of prosecuting those who violated social distancing, sheltering in place, mask-wearing, or violent protesting hinged on political grounds. Their spending bills on \u201cinfrastructure\u201d and \u201chealth care\u201d were excuses to lard up redistributive entitlements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONTINUE READING…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness During America\u2019s first-ever national lockdown, thousands of unelected bureaucrats, as well as federal and state governments, assumed enormous powers not usually accorded them.  They picked and chose which businesses could stay open without much rationale. They sent the infected into rest homes occupied by the weak and vulnerable.  Their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3vy","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12277,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/viral-prerequisites-and-nationalist-lessons-in-time-of-plague\/","url_meta":{"origin":13488,"position":0},"title":"Viral Prerequisites and Nationalist Lessons in Time of Plague","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 31, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness President Donald Trump has courted endless controversies for promoting nonconventional policies and entertaining contrarian views. From the outset, he oddly seemed to have believed that having navigated the jungles of the Manhattan real estate market\u2014crooked politicians, mercurial unions, neighborhood social activists, the green lobby,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13818,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-traditionalist-the-plague-of-liberalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":13488,"position":1},"title":"The Traditionalist: the Plague of Liberalism","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 27, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Art19 and Just the News https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/the-victor-davis-hanson-show\/episodes\/30cd21af-2522-46c0-b43d-3acc14cfdb6c","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-traditionalist-the-plague-of-liberalism\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13515,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-traditionalist-to-plague-or-to-be-plagued\/","url_meta":{"origin":13488,"position":2},"title":"The Traditionalist: To Plague Or To Be Plagued","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 9, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Art19 & Just the News Listen to Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler discuss Biden, the Harris faction, the new evidence on COVID and its cures, and whether America is slumping into cultural and political regression.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12281,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/some-coronavirus-humility\/","url_meta":{"origin":13488,"position":3},"title":"Some Coronavirus Humility","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 3, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ City Journal There are two well-known themes, or topoi, in classical literature. One concerns the graphic descriptions in Thucydides, Sophocles, and Procopius of plagues\u2014especially the human misery and despair that accompanies outbreaks that killed large numbers. The unknown plague at Athens (430\u2013429\u00a0BC) killed one-quarter of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12280,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/viral-prerequisites-and-nationalist-lessons-in-time-of-plague-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":13488,"position":4},"title":"Viral Prerequisites and Nationalist Lessons in Time of Plague","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 3, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness President Donald Trump has courted endless controversies for promoting nonconventional policies and entertaining contrarian views. From the outset, he oddly seemed to have believed that having navigated the jungles of the Manhattan real estate market\u2014crooked politicians, mercurial unions, neighborhood social activists, the green lobby,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12551,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-or-who-decides-this-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":13488,"position":5},"title":"What or Who Decides This Election?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review We know where to watch in the next few weeks but have no real idea what we will be watching. Yet pundits, the media, and the Left seem giddy that their polls show a Trump slump, as if they have learned nothing and forgotten\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13490,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13488\/revisions\/13490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}