Have you heard of the Patriot Act? Tom is correct that this does set a
precedent of suppressing freedom of speech (I realize this is not a
right in the EU like it is in US). "They that can give up essential
liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety."
On 3/20/2020 10:10 AM, Mike Bolitho wrote:
"It is something that matters, because it has the potential to set
a dangerous precedent."
Can we stop with this talk... around everything? We're literally
living through an unprecedented event right now. My 86 year old
grandmother said she's never seen anything like this in the US. My
friends 94 year old grandmother in Italy said she hasn't seen this
since WWII. Nobody is going to say "Well we did this during a global
pandemic so we can now do it because we feel like it". People will
laugh them out of the room. I live in Phoenix, the mayor shut down
bars and restaurants (carryout only) in order to help stop us from
becoming Italy. One of our city councilmen was saying the same thing:
"This is martial law and sets bad precedent! We must open everything
up!" Of course, they then held a closed to the public meeting because
city council can't be exposed. The point is, the mayor isn't going to
do the same thing in six months on a whim because traffic on the
freeway is bad. Thankfully calmer heads prevailed and the rest of the
council told him to pound sand, at least for now.
Something that keeps happening on this mailing list over the last few
weeks is this tendency to try to take the "Moral high ground". And
from way up there people are looking at the whole topic from an
idealistic point of view like we live in some Network Operators Utopia
with perfect conditions where money doesn't exist and we can do
whatever we want because there is no upper management. We should be
having a practical conversation that sits within the confines of
reality. We don't have perfect networks built. We don't have unlimited
resources. We are facing a global pandemic. Money is tight. In
principle, I agree with what you guys are saying. But in reality,
we're going to have to bend our convictions in order to protect
populations from COVID-19. You will be changing your tune when your
mother is sick and can't get the care she needs because the system is
overwhelmed because we (communities, not just network operators)
didn't do what was necessary because of some idealistic hard line
people drew in the sand.
- Mike Bolitho