Something to consider...

As the Corona virus edges toward a pandemic, and there seems to be no safe path away from it, I'm wondering how others are thinking of the implications if the world leadership becomes threatened...Pope Francis has now been seen exhibiting some mild symptoms, bringing up the speculation should high ranking government, religious and business leaders contract the disease...

Quote:

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The Vatican has not specified the nature of the pope’s illness, but he was seen coughing and blowing his nose during Ash Wednesday Mass.

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Suppose for example that VP Mike Pence became seriously ill, and President Trump was known to be at risk to exposure...If conditions worsened, the prospect of SoH Pelosi becoming President could cause a crippling effect on government...A true pandemic is a horrible concept...My own grandmother died in the Flu Pandemic of 1918, leaving my own Dad to be raised by his grandmother from the age of two until adulthood...

I am not in favor of creating another overlapping layer of government agencies in our lives, but the knee-jerk solution for such quickly publicized events seems to be yet another federal department which, once rooted, never goes away, but only grows in size...I don't have the solution, but maybe the discussion should begin before we're all too sick to talk about it...:sick:...Ben

I'm going to stay home in CC with a big pond to protect us out there.

You have segued into the consideration of the political impacts of pandemics. There could be many. We are seeing some already as opposition to our president wasted no time in using this crisis to jump on him. A month ago he was a threat to become (or already was, we were told) an authoritarian grabbing power to bend us to his will, but now he is criticized for not being authoritarian enough to grab power to force us to his will by taking unspecified actions in our everyday life to fight a disease not yet here in any measurable capacity. No one knows what will happen yet or what to do, but because the man refuses to run around like his hair is on fire, he must not be taking the threat seriously even though he is known as a serious germaphobe in his everyday life.

Fear is a powerful thing, and in politics it rules. As this latest “pandemic” excellerates both here and abroad as it most certainly will until hopefully warm weather stems it, it will be interesting to see what other changes it brings. My fear beyond the death and sickness is what authoritarian force will come out of it? In our country who and what is the leading authoritarian figure and institution here? If your answer was The Government Party - the Democrat Party - and Mr. Command & Control - Bernard Sanders - you would win the prize. Remember, the Great Depression brought an overwhelming move to bring our arguably most autocratic president in our history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt...certainly the most such in peace time. It could happen again.