Whatcha doin????

That's probably true enough.

 

It is taking away freedom. It is taking away my freedom to decide for myself whether I want to associate with others and on what terms, and also taking away their freedom to associate with me if they so choose.

Your argument here is little more than "but it's for your own good" and that just doesn't work. You could tell people not to drive their cars any more - look at the number of people killed on the roads every year - and claim it's for their good.

Ultimately the question is whether we are free or not. If the government can unilaterally and arbitrarily tell us, with no more than a couple of hours notice, that we are no longer free to choose our associations, no longer free to live as we choose and we aren't even free to continue to provide for ourselves, just what freedom can we say we have? We are free to obey the government's diktats, however arbitrary and however random.

ETA: There's also a huge difference between asking people to "stay home for a few days" and shutting down their livelihood indefinitely. Telling people they aren't even allowed outside their homes without permission (as some parts of Europe have done) for weeks at a time isn't "a few days". Closing businesses until further notice isn't "a few days". Even when these orders are lifted, how is a business supposed to move forward? Should places like restaurants start to rehire staff, knowing that state governors may arbitrarily shut them down again with no more than a couple of hours notice? How can any business possibly plan for such sweeping and arbitrarily imposed rules?

I don't call that freedom.

 

Yes, you should be free to endanger me.

As I have the freedom to permanent eliminate you as a risk should you refuse to stay away from me once I've given you free warning.

Yes, you have the freedom of not being at risk by my choice. Stay isolated if you wish, or if I invade your space, eliminate me if I pose a present danger to you.

Freedom is like pregnancy. There are no degrees.

 

Should I be allowed to drive a motor vehicle? In doing so I potentially endanger every other road user.

 

"Don't drive like my brother. No, don't drive like MY brother."

 

Curiously, if you see me walking down the street you have precisely 0% guarantee that I'm not going to stab you, or push you under a passing truck, or do something equally unpleasant. This is called living in a free society. Yet if you see me walking down the same street with precisely the same 0% guarantee that I'm not going to cough on you and possibly infect you (and to be clear, stabbing has a very real damage while coughing has a lower chance of passing a disease that probably won't kill you) apparently this is unacceptable and we all need to be shut in our homes until Nanny State decides to let us out again.

 

As I heard someone say yesterday.

"I set the terms of my freedom. At the point at which the government overreaches its constitutional authority to infringe on my liberties, I decide whether to comply with their overreach or not, and if I choose to restrict my freedoms for a period of time or in a particular manner, that action is not a waiver of my liberties, but an accommodation to the desires of government at that time, which may be withdrawn at any time."

 

Lots of fun planned today. I got myself a shiny new belt sander and tested it on a small section of floor in the attic.

Now i get to sand the whole of the floor in the room I'm currently working on. It needs to be painted but we haven't decided what color yet, so I just need to decide whether to get some white paint and paint the ceiling, or wait until I can do all the painting in one hit.

I'd rather not sand the floor and then drip paint on it meaning I need to sand those sections again, but can always put a sheet down while painting. A bit of a hassle but at least it means I can keep moving forward.

I also need to measure the room and get some wood to make new baseboards. Some of the wood from the old baseboards might be re-usable but at least some will need to be replaced. One piece has a hole cut out for an electrical backbox but I've rejigged all the electrics so don't need the hole there, and I also took out a doorway so will need to cover over that space anyway. Maybe my lumber yard will still be open, it will be good to get this room as close to finished as I can manage.

 

Lumberyards are likely "essential"

 

Schooling from home. So far so good, but our kids are self-motivated and most things have not been difficult for them. We've also homeschooled in the past so its not a new thing.

The wife is still in Vancouver for the near term. Infection and inflammation are under control but the pain will persist for some time. She got sent back to ICU the other day because of what appeared to be an allergic reaction to something with her picc line. I did not realize that the surgeon had to remove some infected bone from her spine. The lower two vertebrae should naturally fuse now. The surgeon's hoping he wont have to go in again to set a rod in there for stability. We should know that in a week.

 

Thanks. She really hit rock-bottom emotionally the other day. There has been some more clarity on where things are at and where they are going so I think that should help her focus more on the end goal. The surgeon is confident she'll get better, bit it's hard to be patient when you are pain.

 

Will keep you guys in prayer.

 

Trying to sand my floor is an exercise in frustration. There's some kind of coating on it that gums up sanding belts in very little time and I don't really feel like going through $2-300 worth of them to sand the floor. So now I have a scraper, I'll see if I can scrape whatever it is off the floor before sanding the rest of it.

Note to self - sticking a wallpaper scraper in my wrist didn't end well. Keep this scraper well away from wrists.

 

How big a floor area are you trying to do?

And as for the scaper - Ouch! Those are sharp.