Dan Huffines: Is It A Question of Science?

As noted in a prior posting, it’s almost amusing when extremists start using words like “tyranny” and “loss of freedom” when describing actions the politicians they elected start to act, not just rationally, but truly for the greater good.  

The view from an extreme is always narrow—extremely narrow, of course—and that view when applied to the state and nation is when freedoms are lost and tyrannies take hold; not when fact-based truths are applied, but when they are ignored.  

That would be one real takeaway not just of the minor protests across America’s state capitals yesterday (April 16), but in the words on the op-ed page of Dan Huffines, former Texas Senator and current lover of ignoring reality.

One must ask how adhering to facts to make a decision is being driven by emotion?  Huffines claims Governor Greg Abbott shutting down the Texas economy for safety reasons is an emotional one; the facts, however, show coronavirus spreads by human contact, and reason dictates reducing that contact will blunt the disease.

Huffines says Texans are independent and self-motivated, and should be allowed to decide what we do with our own lives. Who would disagree?  

But, to allow Texans to make their own decisions on how best to live their lives is contradicted by the photographic/video proofs of Texans gathering in close proximity either before the closure orders were given—but they knew those orders were coming—or in defiance.  Like the hundred or so protestors outside Abbott’s house on the 16th saying they know best when to distance as they crowd together, masks mostly pushed to their forehead.

So, instead of thoughts of tyranny or loss of freedoms, shouldn’t that instead bring to mind the Ben Franklin story where a man stopped him on the street to ask: With all the talk about individual rights, where do mine end and someone else’s begin?  Mr. Franklin purportedly thought for a moment before tapping the end of his nose with a finger and said, At the tip of your nose.  

Wouldn’t that be a perfect metaphor for America right this minute?

Huffines trots out the Sweden comparison: Look at how well they’re doing having not shut down their economy.  But, are they?  The deaths per million people in Sweden is a tick under 132, while the US is 100.  Now, granted, per million people that’s not a huge difference…unless you’re one of the 32.

The “irreversible shock waves felt for generations” Huffines claims happens with an economic shutdown are pure speculation, contradicted by the fact that America’s economy was smashed as a result of corporate greed and their political lackeys willing to feed that greed, and then came back for 13 years of unprecedented growth.

Of the two, the irreversible shock waves leans far more heavily toward future generations of those who died than those who went out of business.

Paycheck to paycheck, toll on mental health, suicide crime and poverty…when did people like Huffines begin to care about such things.  Their records tend to prove they have not, but now they do?  

Instead of the Swedish model, perhaps Republicans should look at the European model—choose one, Germany, Netherlands, England—where 60-70% of people’s paychecks are covered, as is their health care, for a far smaller per capita cost to their respective economies.  $1,200 per person?  In many places that’s not even one month’s rent, and that’s a one-time payment.  Want to show real caring, support the people so they have a job when this is over.

Huffines further casts doubts on his own intellectual abilities by using the death statistics of automobiles to bolster his already lacking argument.  He poses 3,600 dead per year against the pseudo-question: should the government outlaw cars?  Actually, the death toll was much higher before drunk driving laws were more strictly enforced, so enforcement was a better approach than passivity promoted by the liquor lobby for years.

Don Huffines thoroughly discredits himself and his idea of arguments against the current economic shutdown.  So much so, one wonders if the recent poll showing even Republicans support scientists over politicians by 68% (over 90% of Democrats) in times like these, shows his words fall on unlistening ears.

One also wonders if such a poll offers proof the tide’s turning from the vapid blathering of politicians and back to the side of facts and evidence.  For our nation’s future, we should certainly hope so.