China and Europe have public healthcare and social safety. They've been much worse off than the US so far. I'm not saying that won't change, but to sit here and shit all over America's approach to limited government is a premature celebration.

Let us not call it "America's approach to limited government". It does not represent the view of majoriry, just an influential minority. A better phrasing would be "America's approach to privatising profits and socialising costs"

It's been awhile since I looked at these stats but as of like 2008 more people identified as Republican than Democrat.

What does identifying as a Republican have to do with small government anymore?

Well, it has to do with running on an agenda of small government then making it bigger and less functional.

Fair

It’s been a while since that was true. Democrats have had a several percentage point lead for years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/24/o...

PS: It’s also irrelevant as many people identify as independents while actually voting overwhelmingly for a single party. Further, political power has nothing to do with the national popular vote let alone what the non voting public believes. For example Trump won with 46.1% of the popular vote and votes from about 19.5% of the total population. That’s simply how the system works and what shapes politics.

Okay sure, but to sit here and definitively say that a minority of US voters prefer limited government is patently untrue.

The willingness of both parties to constantly expand government despite it’s huge size suggests otherwise. A few state governments are actually significantly smaller, so there is significant wiggle room. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets

My guess is it’s a difference between stated preferences and actual preferences.

They’ve also had widespread infection for longer. China got a 3 month head start. It’s pointless to say one has an good outcome when it’s only now beginning to grow.

And some countries like Japan have public health care. Despite being one of the first countries with widespread infection, they’re still far below America.

"It’s pointless to say one has an good outcome when it’s only now beginning to grow."

It's also pointless to say that we have a bad outcome when it's only now beginning to grow. We don't know how this is going to turn out, but the US is not in a worse position to deal with this than most other countries.

Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. responded well because they already had to deal with SARS. They had infrastructure in place to respond to an outbreak exactly like this one. The US didn't have that experience, but we're catching up.

Moreover, we still don't know if China has actually weathered this storm. It is very possible that this could tick back up once they start going back to work. If that happens then all of this effort could end up as nothing more than a stall on the inevitable.

Ignoring China and Japan as outliers. The US, Germany, France, and Spain have nearly identical growth curves so far. It will be interesting to see if the US will end up. I expect the response will be better than most.

China also has a wider set of options to violate the liberties of her citizens. That does come in handy some times, but we've decided we don't do that here. Japan is very, very different culturally, so it's quite hard to compare; she's also a small archipelago whereas America is a large landmass.

It will also be interesting to see the court cases that come from what American governments have done so far; there's a serious case to be made for violations of our right to freely assemble. Even the time, place, and manner standard (which is still contested but is current precedent) may not cover such drastic curtailment of all public gatherings.

Sadly, these things usually happen and get fought out in court later (see Japanese internment camps) when in some sort of crisis state, so I doubt constitutionality has any bearing on the pencil-pushers latest and greatest idea.

Friendly reminder that, while I don't see any malicious intent in the current actions, these directives specifically sound disturbingly close to those issued by many an authoritarian government:

> You cannot engage in group activities in person with others.

> You cannot have dinner parties. You cannot invite friends over to your home to hang out.

The precedent set today could be abused in the future, particularly precedent that looks like this.

> Friendly reminder that, while I don't see any malicious intent in the current actions, these directives specifically sound disturbingly close to those issued by many an authoritarian government.

And yet, China's number of active cases went from 81K to 9K in a few weeks.

Don't trust Chinese statistics. They are manipulated to say whatever the government wants them to say. This is the same country that starting running empty production facilities so economists couldn't predict GDP impacts.

The WHO agreed with China's assessment, and if you don't believe them, Tim Cook re-opened all Apple stores in China because the situation is effectively under control now -- and shut them everywhere else in the world.

No matter how you feel about China, you can believe Tim.

It's also possible that the communists pressured Cook to re-open to send that message. It wouldn't be the first time Apple has caved to the CCP.

To answer your earlier comment, even if the cases dropped, are you arguing that we implement authoritarianism just because it's more convenient in this case? Classic "trains run on time" argument. Of course it offers some benefits, but the losses are far greater.

You think Tim Cook bowed to China and closed every Apple store in the entire world except in China? That hardly seems likely.

> To answer your earlier comment, even if the cases dropped, are you arguing that we implement authoritarianism just because it's more convenient in this case? Classic "trains run on time" argument. Of course it offers some benefits, but the losses are far greater.

Not making an argument one way or the other just stating some facts. People can make up their own minds.

Thank you for making this argument more rationally than I am apparently capable of making it.

Their outbreaks started earlier.

If we get off easy it will be because warmer temperatures or mutation play a part.

Delayed testing, a disbanded pandemic response team, a president in denial for the first part of the outbreak, people not going to hospitals because they can't afford it... Do you sincerely think these things put the US on equal footing with the rest of the world in terms of responding to this?

Lets start with the things we probably agree on: - The US healthcare system is wildly inefficient - The US has certain societal advantages in dealing with this outbreak that China doesn't (i.e., we are more spread out, we are more likely to take individual transportation, etc.) - China has certain societal advantages in dealing with this outbreak that the US doesn't (i.e., they can order mass quarantines and mobilize people in a way that the US cannot)

Keeping those in mind. Yes, we might get off easy. Yes, it might turn out worse for us. No, the outcome will not be 100% correlated to government effectiveness.

That said, the US healthcare system still leads the world in research, funding, talent, etc. Is it more expensive? Yes. Is it the best system for public health? No, probably not. But we do have our own advantages.

Immuno-suppressant therapies that are being used as a last resort for COVID 19 were developed by Genentech. Roche and Genentech are leading the way on development of a vaccine. The US healthcare system is home to some of the world's foremost experts on drug development and patient care.

We are undoubtedly better off in dealing with this than many other countries. We're probably not the top percentile, but we are most definitely among the top 5-10%.

> so far.

Those words are doing a lot of work. If we densely-packed city folk don't work extra-hard to contain this, it's going to absolutely raze our health, and other support systems.

Premature for people incapable of deduction or what?

It's knowable that the situation in the US will be comparably bad to what we're seeing in other countries. The original comment suggested that it'll be particularly bad in the US, and I think it requires a lot more than deduction to figure that.

Considering the Seattle Flu Study had to violate the law[1] to get the first few confirmed cases in WA I don't have a lot of high hopes.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/seattle-flu-study-coronaviru...

I think you misread what the person I was respond to said. In any case, I also disagree that it takes much to know that the US is going to suffer particularly bad. If people don't have job security, they aren't going to stay home. If people don't have health care, they won't bother trying to access it. This will help spread the disease faster than the health care system can handle it. Furthermore, given poor education levels and (justified) distrust of the government, in most of the country, compliance is going to be low anyway. Time will tell.

> They've been much worse off than the US so far.

I think this is a simplistic view. We're not only talking about infection rate here.

edit: Social safety nets, medical debt, etc.

Okay, sure. Lets talk about fiscal. Italy's going go re-enter another sovereign debt crisis because they were already in recession before they shut down their entire economy.

Lets talk about medical. I haven't heard anything about hospital bed shortages in the US yet. Again, not saying we won't get there, but China had to build entire new facilities because they didn't have adequate infrastructure.

Lets talk about essentials. American stores might be temporarily out of toilet paper, but Wuhan is currently dealing with dramatic food shortages.

You seem to be missing both the growth rate curve and the time lag. If anything the US still has its head in the sand and is heading for 5-40 million deaths due to just swamping the hospital capacity for critical care.

I'm not going to sit here and defend the US government's approach to this situation. Not producing test kits, not investing in additional medical supplies earlier, etc. Those were the wrong decision.

That said. Italy basically denied having a problem until they couldn't anymore. China's safety net health system did everything they could to cover up the crisis until it exploded in their face. Other countries haven't been doing much more to prepare than the US.

People like to hate on it, but the US government still functions are a comparatively high level while maintaining a degree of individual freedom that other countries do not.

Low trust in the government isn't an issue its literally the entire mantra for the US. And no offense it's been working better than trusting it.

There exist a large cadre of politicians that consistently run on the platform that the government is incompetent and should not be trusted, win elections, and then go out of their way to prove it.

Theres also a large cadre of politician worldwide that consistently run on the platform that government is all-knowing from Venezuela, Korea in the 50s, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, lots of central America, Chile, Italy, Greece, etc.

And still, go out their way to prove it doesn't work. Should you really ever trust a system that individuals can sabotage so easily on purpose or not?

For certain values of "trust" and "working".

For example, having the highest incarceration rate in the world would be consistent with both authoritarianism (a form of high trust in government) and not really working all that well.

What a crazy statement. The reason the USD is so highly valued is because there is such high trust in the government. There’s a reason countries with low trust have to come to NYC to sell bonds.

Society is much more productive when you don’t have to worry how much to bribe everyone.

But as American, I always feel like the government does its job and nothing more and does not terrible is because no one trusts it.

No one gets lazy about keeping a critical eye on it. We also don't give it complex tasks cause it would just mess it up so it only does really big simple things.

We look at other places that trust their government and it always historically goes wrong as soon as you give blind trust. Like if Trump got elected in a well-oiled machine that mechanism that necessitated blind trust. I don't want a smart capable government. Give me a dumb one that does simple things any day especially if the people in the country are capable.

The trust in the government comes from the skepticism of the citizens.

No, it really doesn't. It's a hold-over from a time when the government could be trusted. Perceptions lag reality.

The government of the US is no more or less capable than its ever been. People lives are just to short to realize it.

> The government of the US is no more or less capable than its ever been. People lives are just to short to realize it.

Ah that old chestnut -- the ostrich in the sand approach. I like it!

Low trust in government is the mantra of the US and it's an issue.

Look at Russia, people there have high trust in government.

Look at Norway, people there have a high trust in government. The problem isn't trust in government, it's the quality of the government.

I don't think you should use an exception historically its apt to go bad rather than good in most cases. Norway is one bad leader away.

And Russia is one good leader away.

Your government shouldn't have the capability to titer on that. Good, bad, or medium leader things should march on.

That's entirely separate. You should be able to trust a government that's wrapped in checks and balances.

That’s not as true as you might think

If you are implying that you can 100% trust each and every politician that gets elected during various election cycles to be genuinely sincere and not corrupt, then yes, limited government involvement is bad!