On Mandatory Masks In Public and The New York Times March 31 2020 Editorial “How America Can Reopen”
Back on March 22, 2020 I emailed the Op-Ed Department my article The Immediate Coronavirus Solution Without Wrecking The Economy: Mandatory Masks In Public!, hoping The Times would publish it. Not only did the NYT not publish it, but it didn’t even take into consideration the recommendation of mandatory-masks-in-public, as evidenced by the Times’ March 31 editorial How America Can Reopen, which listed three steps but made no mention of the advisability of mandatory-masks-in-public, the most important step of all. Fortunately the CDC and the WHO reversed their gravely mistaken position yesterday, and stated that making masks in public mandatory might well be advisable after all. When will the NYT publish an editorial highlighting the critical importance of mandatory masks in public, the measure which would allow repealing the #StayAtHome policy which wrecks the economy?
The outrageous incompetence of the CDC and the WHO in not advising mandatory-masks-in-public immediately after acknowledging the pandemic threat in late December 2019 and waiting until April 1, 2020 for its revised recommendation, illustrates that experts are often mistaken and that it is important to play the devil’s advocate and put experts’ opinions to a stringent test, particularly one of logic. Indeed, the medical profession as a whole has committed the same shocking blunder as the CDC and WHO, costing thousands of lives and a needless deep recession with millions of unemployed. We need public acknowledgments and apologies for such incompetence from the experts, not stubborn refusal to admit grave mistakes. We have developed a national culture of non-accountability, of fear of shaming, which only encourages sloppiness and rejection of responsibility. That leads to a failing society. Meanwhile, pneumonia vaccines should be tested to see if they provide some degree of protection against the coronavirus since it attacks the lungs.
Additionally, last year, starting in late spring, early summer, I emailed the NYT Editorial Department my articles explaining why the Office of Legal Counsel rule against indicting sitting presidents was invalid, corrupt, fraudulent, and unconstitutional, ordered by Richard Nixon in September 1973 as Watergate was unfolding in order to protect himself, knowing full well that indicting sitting presidents was entirely constitutional. Nixon was afraid of being indicted but not impeached, since the Republicans controlled the Senate.
I sent rewrites of my original article right after Robert Mueller cited the OLC rule to explain why he couldn’t indict Trump while he was president, even though he found there were many valid indictments to be made. The Times evidently rejected my arguments because it relied on experts including Mueller. The Times should revisit my arguments because they are logical and based on the Constitution itself. This would not be the first time the experts have been mistaken.
Trump must be indicted without delay, because he might well try to block the November 2020 elections in order to stay in power. And Attorney General Barr must be impeached and indicted for obstructing justice, because he is enforcing an invalid, fraudulent, corrupt, and unconstitutional OLC rule which he knows is illegal.
There is another conventional wisdom propounded by experts which is clearly illogical and a fallacy, and which The Times subscribes to. That pollution is causing climate change, that eliminating fossil fuels will stop or at least greatly mitigate global warming. Has The Times played the devil’s advocate with this conventional wisdom of scientists worldwide? I am personally completely against pollution and have no financial or other interest in fossil fuels. My belief that the conventional wisdom on global warming and climate change is completely mistaken is based entirely on logic. We have had five major ice ages and five major warmings. Were they caused by man-made pollution? The only logical answer is that nature, not man-made pollution, caused the five ice ages and five great warmings. In fact, the current warming is logically the continuation of the most recent warming cycle after the last ice age. The increasing pollution over the past 30 years is not causing the warming, it just coincides with it.
Clearly, policies based on a mistaken belief will not lead to the desired result. Banning fossil fuels and all sorts of pollution will simply not reduce global warming caused entirely by nature. So, we must plan on nature being in control of global warming, not humans. Tom Friedman, a believer that climate change is due to mankind, incongruously writes that Mother Nature is all-powerful in his April 1, 2020 opinion piece It’s Again Trump vs. Mother Nature. If policy follows mistaken conventional beliefs on climate change, we will not be prepared for the inevitable.
The Times must play the devil’s advocate and challenge the conventional wisdom on climate change! Just as, months ago, it should have challenged the conventional wisdom that mandatory masks in public was not essential to quickly end the coronavirus crisis and to end the economically suicidal policy of #StayAtHome. Just as it should challenge the conventional wisdom that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is due to land, not religion. (If the Israelis were Muslim, or the Palestinians were Jewish, or if they were all atheists, would there be a conflict?) Just as it should have challenged the conventional wisdom that the United States is dependent on foreign capital to finance its budget deficits, which remains prevalent even after my Wall Street Journal article of May 3, 1985 No Addiction to Foreign Capital and after the Federal Reserve’s $3 trillion of QE between 2010 and 2013 which financed the entire budget deficit. Not to speak of enormous QE to finance the current stimulus plan to partially mitigate the economic disaster of the #StayAtHome policy!
The New York Times is a great newspaper which I have been reading since I was a child (at that time only the sports pages), but its greatness is with its reporters, not with the Editorial Department, in my opinion. The Editorial Department never challenges clearly flawed conventional wisdoms, it only parrots conventional wisdoms. We need a NYT Editorial Department which uses rigorous logic and critical thinking religiously on all topics, and which plays the devil’s advocate intelligently for constructive purposes, to unveil the errors of conventional wisdoms.
Can the members of the NYT Editorial Board list and explain all the major errors in economic, social, and foreign policy over the past 100 years and which would have been the correct policies? If not, why are they qualified to be on the Editorial Board? The same test should apply to all our candidates for president and Congress. Why do we have such a miserable record in economic, social, and foreign policy? Because, by that test standard, not one president, senator, or representative has been truly qualified! We should require all our political candidates for high office to pass that test as a minimum, to prove they are truly qualified before running. While we’re at it, every public high school should include in its curriculum a four-year course on the major mistakes in economic, social, and foreign policy and which would have been the correct policies, along with a course on logic and critical thinking. In a democracy, it is imperative that the citizens be well educated generally and well informed on important policy matters, and always use rigorous logic.
© Edward Sonnino 2020
April 2, 2020
