{"id":14768,"date":"2020-05-30T14:41:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T18:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=14768"},"modified":"2020-09-17T13:06:05","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T17:06:05","slug":"hacksawing-the-economy-lockdowns-as-civil-war-amputations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/30\/hacksawing-the-economy-lockdowns-as-civil-war-amputations\/","title":{"rendered":"Hacksawing the Economy: Lockdowns as Civil War Amputations"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Mises Institute, May 19, 2020<a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Logo-Mises-Institute.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-7180 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Logo-Mises-Institute.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Logo-Mises-Institute.jpg 200w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Logo-Mises-Institute-150x75.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/h3>\n<h2 class=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/wire\/hacksawing-economy-how-lockdowns-are-tradition-civil-war-surgeons\">Hacksawing the Economy: How Lockdowns Are in the Tradition of Civil War Surgeons<\/a><\/h2>\n<div id=\"slideshow\" class=\"group-image-wrapper field-group-html-element pull-left\">\n<div class=\"image border-secondary\">\n<div id=\"flexslider-1\" class=\"flexslider optionset-node-slideshow flexslider-processed\">\n<div class=\"flex-viewport\">\n<ul class=\"slides\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/civil-war-Social-Card-Amputation.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-14769\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/civil-war-Social-Card-Amputation-800x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/civil-war-Social-Card-Amputation-800x400.jpg 800w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/civil-war-Social-Card-Amputation-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/civil-war-Social-Card-Amputation-150x75.jpg 150w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/civil-war-Social-Card-Amputation-768x384.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/civil-war-Social-Card-Amputation.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a>by James Bovard<\/li>\n<li>Listen to <a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/library\/hacksawing-economy-how-lockdowns-are-tradition-civil-war-surgeons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the <em>Audio Mises Wire<\/em> version<\/a> of this article.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"body-content clearfix\">\n<p>Politicians and government health officials\u2019 justification for decreeing shutdowns of vast swaths of American life has been deterring the spread of COVID-19. According to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, almost 40 percent of households earning less than $40,000 per year have a member who has lost their job in recent months. Depression, drug abuse, and suicide are spiking as a result of the lockdowns and \u201cshelter-in-place\u201d commands.<\/p>\n<p>Infection rates and deaths have soared despite\u00a0severe restrictions on daily life. However, politicians and government health officials continue to claim victory because otherwise more people would have been infected by COVID-19. Most of the media coverage applauds politicians and officials who champion extending\u00a0lockdowns regardless of the collateral damage to American life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The political response to COVID-19 is eerily similar to Civil War surgeons\u2019\u00a0rationales. A<\/strong>mputation was the most common surgical practice during that war,\u00a0and more than fifty thousand soldiers had limbs hacked off after battles. Amputation was a reflexive \u201csolution,\u201d because limbs were sometimes shattered by Mini\u00e9 balls and also because that was the only trick that many untrained \u201csurgeons\u201d knew. Surgeons were derided as butchers and were usually utterly negligent about hygiene, leading to far more unnecessary deaths.<\/p>\n<p>Surgeons justified fetching out their hacksaws, because otherwise many soldiers would die from their gangrened\u00a0wounds. It didn\u2019t matter how many soldiers died from unnecessary or botched amputations as long as surgeons didn\u2019t get blamed for deaths from gangrene.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians in many states are justifying their COVID-19 shutdowns with rationales that resemble those surgeons\u2019. It doesn\u2019t matter how many individuals lose their jobs, businesses, or robust health due to the shutdowns. <strong>As long as politicians claim that things would be worse if they had not amputated much of the economy, they can pirouette as saviors.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Actually, there is a closer analogy between the Civil War surgeons and contemporary politicians. Politicians have razed much of the economy purportedly to prevent anyone from getting infected at some unknown point in the future. This is like a Civil War surgeon sending his assistants to roam the countryside to seize hapless young men and saw off their arms in order to prevent them from being casualties in future battles.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how New York governor Andrew Cuomo justified shutting down his state\u2019s economy and confining almost 20 million people to their homes two months ago: \u201cIf everything we do saves just one life, I\u2019ll be happy.\u201d At the time of Cuomo\u2019s decree,\u00a0five or fewer people had tested positive for coronavirus in most counties in New York State. Cuomo\u2019s formula exemplifies how politicians reap media applause for dramatic actions that have little or nothing to do with public safety.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time that Cuomo practically put his state under house arrest, he also ordered New York nursing homes to admit COVID patients. His disastrous dictate contributed to the more than five thousand COVID deaths in New York nursing homes. Cuomo absolves himself, because some states have a higher percentage of COVID fatalities occurring in nursing homes than does New York\u2014but no state has anywhere near five thousand dead in nursing homes. Most of the media is still scoring Cuomo as a heroic benefactor thanks to his shutdown to save \u201cjust one life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have saved lives\u201d is also the self-exoneration trumpeted by Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer after she imposed the most punitive restrictions in the nation. Whitmer prohibited \u201call public and private gatherings of any size\u201d (prohibiting people from visiting friends) and also prohibited purchasing seeds for spring planting in stores after she decreed that a \u201cnonessential\u201d activity. (Purchasing state lottery tickets was still an \u201cessential\u201d activity, though.) Many Michigan counties have less than a handful of COVID cases and have had few if any fatalities. But their economies have been obliterated by Whitmer\u2019s statewide decrees, which\u00a0have driven unemployment up to 24 percent.<\/p>\n<p>In the old days, politicians could always put forward some economist who had discovered a Keynesian \u201cmultiplier\u201d to justify more boondoggle spending. Nowadays, \u201cscience\u201d is the magic word used to justify any and every restriction on American freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Whitmer, for instance, exonerates herself: \u201cWe\u2019ve got to make decisions based on where the science leads us.\u201d Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has already seen a long series of debacles by \u201cscience.\u201d The national response to the coronavirus threat was sabotaged, because incompetent Centers for Disease Control scientists contaminated key samples for creating a test in February and because Food and Drug Administration scientist-bureaucrats blocked innovative private testing. It is also difficult to treat scientists\u2019 warnings and forecasts as originating on Mt. Sinai when there is fierce dispute among experts about the most prudent policies to curb the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Another parallel with Civil War surgeons is that contemporary politicians pay no price for the unnecessary damage they inflict. Many crippled Union and Confederate soldiers spent decades hobbling around after the war. It remains to be seen how many millions of Americans suffer long-term handicaps as a result of the draconian decrees now afflicting much of the nation. But it is unlikely that politicians will ever be held liable for the lives they have unnecessarily maimed.<\/p>\n<p>After Civil War battles, the tents where surgeons did their sawing were renowned as one of the most horrible places that many soldiers ever encountered. Even those who recovered from their wounds were often left with perpetual nightmares over the screaming they heard and the sight of the gory stacks of severed arms and legs.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, the politicians and government health czars who have shut down much of the nation\u2019s economy have not witnessed such traumatic venues. Instead, they have their meetings\u2014perhaps on Zoom\u2014and then issue decrees which their friends in the media are certain to applaud. Unemployment rates are rising even faster than the amputation piles of the 1860s. But the agony occurs far away from the palatial offices that governors enjoy\u2014in quiet homes where families desperately agonize over pending rent and mortgage payments, and in the sinking businesses where owners see their life\u00a0dreams dying week by week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"view view-term-landing view-id-term_landing view-display-id-author_box audience author-box view-dom-id-788ff672ec2043d56400ed36ca7b4dc1\">\n<div class=\"view-header\">Author:<\/div>\n<div class=\"view-content\">\n<div class=\"views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first views-row-last\">\n<div class=\"ds-2col-custom-fluid column node node-person-profile view-mode-author_box clearfix\">\n<div class=\"panel-body\">\n<div class=\"group-top col-xs-12\">\n<p class=\"author-box__name\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/profile\/james-bovard\">James Bovard<\/a><\/p>\n<p>James Bovard is the author of ten books, including 2012\u2019s <em>Public Policy Hooligan<\/em>, and 2006\u2019s <em>Attention Deficit Democracy<\/em>. He has written for the <em>New York Times<\/em>, <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>, <em>Playboy<\/em>, <em>Washington Post<\/em>, and many other publications.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mises Institute, May 19, 2020 Hacksawing the Economy: How Lockdowns Are in the Tradition of Civil War Surgeons by James Bovard Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Politicians and government health officials\u2019 justification for decreeing shutdowns of vast swaths of American life has been deterring the spread of COVID-19. According to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2361,247,2284,2349,53,1959,2362,2358,2359,2350,2313,2360],"class_list":["post-14768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amputations","tag-civil-war","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid","tag-federal-reserve","tag-food-and-drug-administration","tag-gretchn-whitmer","tag-hacksawing","tag-job-loss","tag-lockdowns","tag-pandemic","tag-shelter-in-place"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hacksawing the Economy: Lockdowns as Civil War Amputations - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/30\/hacksawing-the-economy-lockdowns-as-civil-war-amputations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hacksawing the Economy: Lockdowns as Civil War Amputations - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mises Institute, May 19, 2020 Hacksawing the Economy: How Lockdowns Are in the Tradition of Civil War Surgeons by James Bovard Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Politicians and government health officials\u2019 justification for decreeing shutdowns of vast swaths of American life has been deterring the spread of COVID-19. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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Politicians and government health officials\u2019 justification for decreeing shutdowns of vast swaths of American life has been deterring the spread of COVID-19. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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