Thread by @thrasherxy

Something to ponder re the photos of ppl in line at airports:

The airlines + the fueled jets + the govt + 300 yrs of mythology & socialization say this is OK.

Biz & govt have made few restrictions to travel.

So why is it solely an individual matter to “do the right thing”?

I, too, am frustrated by 🦃 travel & wish anyone who can avoid it will. But shaming never works for anything, I’m curious how a lack of a federal plan to address interstate travel (or anything COVID, really) + the air travel business being legal, advertised & welcome affects this

Other countries’ lockdowns, of course, are national. Ours are regional (& I’ve no idea if US law allows for more than intrastate governors’ patchwork). But surely our populace is affected by centuries of being told we can do whatever we pay for, by a century of car+plane travel,

by the FAA not restricting commercial air travel (as it did after 9/11), by US govt(s) not restricting internal movement as it restricts migration, by not restricting interstate mvmt as it restricts interstate.

We have a society—for better or worse—where much is left up to individual choice. Sometimes those choices are very limited in scope. With domestic US travel, they’re pretty open to those w $. And when you let ppl make choices business welcome & govt allows, they make...choices.

There are all kinds of things we don’t allow ppl to choose in this country (or grant them only few options).

But when ppl are socialized their whole lives (in centuries of ideology) & allowed to choose what govt & biz welcome, it’s not fair to put entire onus of choice on them.

We’ve an entire society where holidays, family togetherness (even for those who hate each other), shopping, consuming, biz>govt, feeling free to do whatever you please (as long as you got the dough) whenever you want & airline deregulation rule.

That won’t change overnight.

And so what we get with travel—what we’ve largely gotten in this pandemic—is, “It’s on you and you alone, bub. YOU do the right thing. Resist advertising, plane seats to be bought & decades of socialization. Govt won’t be here to enforce public health.

Good luck! “👋🏾

It’s similar to bars/restaurants being open for indoor dining. We know by now this is a high risk activity. But govt doesn’t want to pay bars to close & workers to stay home, so they stay open & govt then scolds diners (+ ppl exposed to them) for “letting” COVID happen to them.

https://twitter.com/News_8/status/1329135843093733378

*interstate as it does *intrastate*

https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1330285090581131264

This is a good example from @ProfLWiley that complicates idea of “choice” as an individual matter. I have students who will go home next week. And then they’ll stay there until January, most likely. But unis like mine drew them to campus—that wasn’t fully the students’ choice.

https://twitter.com/proflwiley/status/1330294937301250057

I think I've found a simpler way to think about choice:

In a society where market logic determines everything,
market logic determines everything.

https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1330279709402337285?s=20

When the market allows anything, well,