[BrevinsBest]

Aren't racial and ethnic minorities at a much higher risk of getting COVID? Just as frontline workers should be the first to get a vaccination, doesn't it make sense to prioritize groups that are at higher risk?

I expect Trump to lose, and lose big, in a couple of weeks. But that is going to reflect his odious personality. The obsession of the Democrats with identity politics and victimization tropes that got them into trouble are still with us. Gavin Newsom, one of the True Believers, is headed straight for the iceberg.

Vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer apparently will be available in mid-to late November - pretty exciting. But they will of course be available on a limited quantities. California is one of five States that the US has required to submit detailed distribution plans, due today. Here's the full 84 page draft, if it interests you.  Most of this is garden variety bureaucratese, although California's usual pain-in-the-a$$ insistence on its own review might be mildly controversial.

The disaster lies in the allocation plan. The first group, in the I-A class, is health workers. That is absolutely non-controversial. For my two cents, if I were emperor of the world, the I-B class would consist of educators in elementary and secondary schools that actually interface with students. It's imperative that we reopen schools as soon as possible. The kids themselves are apparently at low risk. If we vaccinate the teachers, we're well on our way to reopening. That seems to me obvious. This insight seems to have escaped the Governor.

(Digressing for a second, I'd also have a I-C group - those persons who are hands on with the distribution chains of goods and services that have kept the nation going these last six months. Biden disgraced himself by thanking only the Black women who did so. But the category actually relates to job classification rather than race, the insight that Establishment racists consistently refuse to acknowledge. I'd develop my I-C by looking  to the employment rolls of Safeway, Raley/Nob Hill, other food processors and trucking companies, etc. and develop my preference off that. Based on my observations locally, that group is heavily weighted towards Hispanic, but I don't care. It's the job they did that that matters, and not racial origin. Duh.)

Newsom's I-B group, however, has nothing to do with education or gratitude for services rendered. Rather, it has to do with 'vulnerable groups' as Newsom's administration perceives vulnerability - and that is something of a wowser. It's hard to find a /pdf link, but here's the video stream of Newsom's press conference.  Go out 11 or 12 minutes, when the stream shows about 47 or 48 minutes to go. You'll find Newsom's chart and comments.

After the non-controversial 'essential workers' (that's category I-A), the Governor proposes to allocate to vulnerable groups, in order of his presentation - 65 plus (already a problem), those with disabilities (bigger problem), racial and ethnic minority groups (no comment), rural populations (almost as bad), and  . . .  prison and incarcerated populations. 

Let us start with 'people with disabilities'. I have a 32 year old daughter who is disabled, one of the joys of my life (her sister as well), and about whom I am extremely protective. That does not prevent me from thinking clearly. There is not the slightest aspect of her life that makes her more or less vulnerable than anyone else. There is nothing in the lives of any of her friends or peers that does. If anyone tried a lifeboat ethics approach to deny this group their rightful place in line, I'd be the first contributor to the lawsuit. But ADVANCING them? No. (Some do work in vulnerable employment occupations, as noted above. But it's the employment, not the disability, that provides the preference.) 

Let us then move on to the piece de resistance, the preference for 'racial and ethnic minorities'. The mind boggles. You can't do that. You do not have to be a member of the California Bar for 50 years, as I am about to me. All you need to be is an eighth grader taking civics. You don't have to explore case authority. All you have to do is read the Fourteenth Amendment. You cannot condition potential life saving medication on a racial classification. You probably don't even have to go to 1954, and Brown. Even the Nineteenth Century knew better. But that stark, unadorned racism is just what Newsom has proposed.

To the extent the burden of contagion has fallen harder on these communities because they disproportionately occupy job classifications that are at risk, you respond by looking to the job classification, not race, as I mentioned above. You are going to look at two grocery distributors, both doing essentially the same job, both taking the same risk, and you're going to discriminate on the basis of race? Are you kidding?

Next is rural communities. Where the hell does that come from? You are entitled if you live here rather than there? (Let us not forget the problem of citizens who own vacation homes.) In terms of vulnerability, aren't people who live in urban situations exposed to more crowded conditions? Aren't they MORE vulnerable? To lawyer for a second, unlike race or gender, I don't THINK geographical residence is a suspect classification. So you don't have the straight litigation shot you do with race. But it is still amazingly, stupidly arbitrary.

And lastly  . . .  prisons. There is a kernel of rationality here, as there does tend to be overcrowding in jails and prisons. But I think it fails rather radically to the common sense perception that the vast majority of Californians who HAVE not committed offenses that have landed them in stir probably have a greater moral claim to the benefit than those incarcerated.  Plus they are tax payers. I do believe there will be outcry on this point as well.

So how do you distribute this scarce resource in practice? After the three rational allocations based on employment category, I don't see any other way than birthday lottery. And this is obvious. The fact that Newsom and his cohorts actually think this system of out and out racial and social discrimination comports with basic egalitarian principles of this society shows how far they have strayed from the notion of a color-blind society. It's an aspirational goal, to be sure, never completely realizable in practice, but the North Star that should drive us forward. The various sins and failings of Donald Trump conceals the some of the real conceptual rot that has beset the Democratic Party in the last two decades.

[BrevinsBest]

Aren't racial and ethnic minorities at a much higher risk of getting COVID? Just as frontline workers should be the first to get a vaccination, doesn't it make sense to prioritize groups that are at higher risk?

I expect Trump to lose, and lose big, in a couple of weeks. But that is going to reflect his odious personality. The obsession of the Democrats with identity politics and victimization tropes that got them into trouble are still with us. Gavin Newsom, one of the True Believers, is headed straight for the iceberg.

Vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer apparently will be available in mid-to late November - pretty exciting. But they will of course be available on a limited quantities. California is one of five States that the US has required to submit detailed distribution plans, due today. Here's the full 84 page draft, if it interests you.  Most of this is garden variety bureaucratese, although California's usual pain-in-the-a$$ insistence on its own review might be mildly controversial.

The disaster lies in the allocation plan. The first group, in the I-A class, is health workers. That is absolutely non-controversial. For my two cents, if I were emperor of the world, the I-B class would consist of educators in elementary and secondary schools that actually interface with students. It's imperative that we reopen schools as soon as possible. The kids themselves are apparently at low risk. If we vaccinate the teachers, we're well on our way to reopening. That seems to me obvious. This insight seems to have escaped the Governor.

(Digressing for a second, I'd also have a I-C group - those persons who are hands on with the distribution chains of goods and services that have kept the nation going these last six months. Biden disgraced himself by thanking only the Black women who did so. But the category actually relates to job classification rather than race, the insight that Establishment racists consistently refuse to acknowledge. I'd develop my I-C by looking  to the employment rolls of Safeway, Raley/Nob Hill, other food processors and trucking companies, etc. and develop my preference off that. Based on my observations locally, that group is heavily weighted towards Hispanic, but I don't care. It's the job they did that that matters, and not racial origin. Duh.)

Newsom's I-B group, however, has nothing to do with education or gratitude for services rendered. Rather, it has to do with 'vulnerable groups' as Newsom's administration perceives vulnerability - and that is something of a wowser. It's hard to find a /pdf link, but here's the video stream of Newsom's press conference.  Go out 11 or 12 minutes, when the stream shows about 47 or 48 minutes to go. You'll find Newsom's chart and comments.

After the non-controversial 'essential workers' (that's category I-A), the Governor proposes to allocate to vulnerable groups, in order of his presentation - 65 plus (already a problem), those with disabilities (bigger problem), racial and ethnic minority groups (no comment), rural populations (almost as bad), and  . . .  prison and incarcerated populations. 

Let us start with 'people with disabilities'. I have a 32 year old daughter who is disabled, one of the joys of my life (her sister as well), and about whom I am extremely protective. That does not prevent me from thinking clearly. There is not the slightest aspect of her life that makes her more or less vulnerable than anyone else. There is nothing in the lives of any of her friends or peers that does. If anyone tried a lifeboat ethics approach to deny this group their rightful place in line, I'd be the first contributor to the lawsuit. But ADVANCING them? No. (Some do work in vulnerable employment occupations, as noted above. But it's the employment, not the disability, that provides the preference.) 

Let us then move on to the piece de resistance, the preference for 'racial and ethnic minorities'. The mind boggles. You can't do that. You do not have to be a member of the California Bar for 50 years, as I am about to me. All you need to be is an eighth grader taking civics. You don't have to explore case authority. All you have to do is read the Fourteenth Amendment. You cannot condition potential life saving medication on a racial classification. You probably don't even have to go to 1954, and Brown. Even the Nineteenth Century knew better. But that stark, unadorned racism is just what Newsom has proposed.

To the extent the burden of contagion has fallen harder on these communities because they disproportionately occupy job classifications that are at risk, you respond by looking to the job classification, not race, as I mentioned above. You are going to look at two grocery distributors, both doing essentially the same job, both taking the same risk, and you're going to discriminate on the basis of race? Are you kidding?

Next is rural communities. Where the hell does that come from? You are entitled if you live here rather than there? (Let us not forget the problem of citizens who own vacation homes.) In terms of vulnerability, aren't people who live in urban situations exposed to more crowded conditions? Aren't they MORE vulnerable? To lawyer for a second, unlike race or gender, I don't THINK geographical residence is a suspect classification. So you don't have the straight litigation shot you do with race. But it is still amazingly, stupidly arbitrary.

And lastly  . . .  prisons. There is a kernel of rationality here, as there does tend to be overcrowding in jails and prisons. But I think it fails rather radically to the common sense perception that the vast majority of Californians who HAVE not committed offenses that have landed them in stir probably have a greater moral claim to the benefit than those incarcerated.  Plus they are tax payers. I do believe there will be outcry on this point as well.

So how do you distribute this scarce resource in practice? After the three rational allocations based on employment category, I don't see any other way than birthday lottery. And this is obvious. The fact that Newsom and his cohorts actually think this system of out and out racial and social discrimination comports with basic egalitarian principles of this society shows how far they have strayed from the notion of a color-blind society. It's an aspirational goal, to be sure, never completely realizable in practice, but the North Star that should drive us forward. The various sins and failings of Donald Trump conceals the some of the real conceptual rot that has beset the Democratic Party in the last two decades.