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We’ve had to do a lot of writing both here and on our social media about those amongst us who think they know better than epidemiologists and virologists because of the very serious Dunning-Kruger effect that too many people in this country seem to suffer from.

The biggest D-K sufferer in our fine county is one Delegate Dan who decided to file a copy and pasted lawsuit in federal court against the State of Maryland for the very high crime of attempting to protect public health in the face of a poorly understood and dangerous novel Coronavirus. You can search on back through our last couple of posts to read more on all he’s done around here lately. This post will focus more on his fitness to lead any kind of movement at all.

Evidence:

Comparing Covid-19 and the American Civil War is really something to behold isn’t it? It would make more sense to compare what we are going through to the Flu of 1918, but then he would have to acknowledge social distancing and the closure of schools and businesses saved lives and that wouldn’t fit his narrative. Instead he chooses to link to a singular research paper in order to present a very poor argument that tries to equate the Civil War soldier pensions with the Coronavirus stimulus checks. Here he’s following some Senate Republicans in thinking that all this government money is going to make y’all no good freeloaders . Just like the war pensions made the Union soldiers lazy good for nothings! Too bad the paper he refers to doesn’t even come to the conclusion that he says it does in his great example of false equivalency.

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Lots and lots of other factors at work during the post-Civil War Industrialization period in American History! The paper also concludes that war pensions allowed Civil War veterans the time to find higher paying work. Guess Dan would rather the men who served their country toil away in low paying jobs for all eternity.

Let’s move onto his irony statement since 1. He has 0.0 evidence that the Southern and Western states are leading any kind of economic recovery 2. That’s not what irony means. His pandering to politics comment is super rich considering that is exactly what he is doing! Now that’s some irony for ya! We aren’t even going to discuss the conspiracy theories he espouces regarding Trump’s re-election prospects because there’s only so much we Yokel gals can take on in a day.

Couple the Dunning Kruger effect with John Oliver’s assessment that America is the most defiant nation on the planet and we are left with a lot of questions as to how we will survive this pandemic. There’s a lot being written about how our culture makes it really hard to institute these necessary restrictions, and that really is sad. Look, none of us like being out of work, away from our friends and family, the economic uncertainty, or the fear of getting sick or actually dying from Covid-19. Despite Dan’s, previous assertion that this virus only affects a certain portion of the population (which is turning out to change daily) no one really knows how this disease will affect them, and that’s what makes it so dangerous. So instead of advocating for the arrest of Bill Gates:

Perhaps we should should start a new hashtag: #ArrestDanCox. For his actions are far more dangerous than anything Bill Gates has done.