Loose talk can cost lives

During the Second World War, the public (on both sides of the Atlantic) was encouraged to be careful with what they said in public. Eighty years later, some people appear not to have understood that. Take Ingraham for example. A week ago she chuckled approvingly while Rudi Guliani ridiculed contact tracing, saying that we should have contact tracing for heart disease, cancer and obesity.  And yesterday she suggested that there was no evidence that social distancing worked. Both are not only demonstrably wrong, they also undermine the efforts that sensible people are making to contain the spread of covid-19.

Encouraging people not to trust science, not to trust experts and not to take the precautions that will curb the virus' spread will not only cause more people to die unnecessarily, it will also mean the mitigation efforts will have to remain in place longer causing needless economic hardship as well. And since she can't possibly be stupid enough not to know that what she is saying is arrant nonsense, and says it anyway, that can only mean she is completely indifferent to the consequences - and that makes her a sociopath.

These are not the only bozos who are either clueless (Hannity) or indifferent to this loose talk and the cast of unsavory characters below is far from complete; but they are the public face of an organization that is undermining societal cohesion, partly out of a self-interest-based ideology, partly in pursuit of profit. Were there any justice in the world they would be held to account and live out the remainder of their sorry lives in jail as restitution for the lives their loose talk will have taken and the misery it will have caused; but of course there isn't. Since none of them appear troubled by anything remotely resembling a conscience, perhaps fate will allow that they or people they care about (if there are any) fall victim to the virus they are helping to propagate. That's the kind of Old Testament justice of which they would approve. And it would be poetic indeed.

Perhaps we should call these people what they are: traitors in the war on covid-19.