Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

  Xi Jinping How scientific is science in the matter of Coronavirus? Science is settled opinion. Medical science is settled opinion on medical matters, political science – yes, there is such a thing – is settled opinion on political matters. The one thing we do not want in any confluence of the two is confusion and mass hysteria, which can best be avoided by observing this rule: Politicians should decide political matters and medical scientists should decide medical matters. Occasionally, politicians decide that mass fright can better able convince the general population than rational argument.   The answer to the above question is simple: In the case of new viruses, science, as defined above, must be silent. There can be no “scientific” view of Coronavirus because it is a new phenomenon, the recent arrival of a stranger on the medical block. Concerning Coronavirus, there are, properly speaking, multiple views of different scientists, many of whom will dis...

Governor Ned Lamont is an imitative politician, which is okay, provided your model is a fitting one. Connecticut, we know, is not New York. Indeed, it is precisely because Connecticut is not New York that New Yorkers, in pre- income tax days when Connecticut state government was far less rapacious, flooded into the state. The New York expatriates were looking for a modest state government and settled in Fairfield County, then aflame with job opportunities. New York City is an international port of call; Connecticut, not so much. Coronavirus is most virulent in Fairfield County because Fairfield County,  contiguous to New York, is New York’s watch pocket, to some degree a bedroom community many of whose residents either work in New York City or travel there on business. Fairfield County is not Hartford. For all these reasons, thoughtless imitation in the absence of political discernment, far from being the sincerest form of flattery, may be a dangerous form of narcissism...