Zombie fiction at its best raises ambiguities to ponder. Is the CDC our friend? In a worst case scenario, will the CDC be our friend? How will America respond to a crisis? Will America respond to a crisis?
In our PC times, how much trouble can we get into for coming down on the wrong side of the equation? I want to take a moment to pose an important zombie question: Are we too damn dumb to sustain a necessary quarantine? When the virus takes hold, will we try to put borders around that virus? Or, as my mom said when I told her I needed to vacuum, will we say, “Oh, no, dear. Just open the door and let the breezes in.”
???
Let’s be clear: The POTUS has created a porous and peculiar attempt at a quarantine with his travel ban. It reminds me of an Israeli official describing U.S. airport security measures after 9/11: “The Americans haven’t made travel safe. They have made it annoying.” The travel ban’s too steeped in politics and prejudice, I’d say.
But a little big-picture thinking might be useful here. What will we do if the POTUS has to impose a quarantine due to a broken vial of smallpox and some random judge in Seattle or Hawaii declares his action to be legally inadequate, shutting down that quarantine? If the best answer we can come up with is “Die with our Civil Rights intact!” we might want to pause a bit. Someone has to be able to say, “Shut down the roads into Cleveland.” That someone logically should be the POTUS. We could hand the responsibility to the CDC, but I’d guess they are already pretty thoroughly embedded in the loop. Also, military structures of command exist because someone must take charge in an emergency.
I am sure readers are thinking, “But this is not an emergency!” I hear you out here. But what if it were? When judges all across America can stop putative emergency measures, we had better hope the dead don’t rise. Or the vial doesn’t fall. Or some crazy guy in North Korea can’t get his missile across the ocean. Or his emissary with the bottle of who-knows-what-nerve-agent doesn’t reach Chicago’s water supply.
Just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean they are not out to get you. Just because you not even worried most of the time doesn’t mean they are not out to get you, either. We are a wild and diverse species, and we should not underestimate our ability to screw feral pooches.
Coming to you from Zombieland in the Blue Room, where reality penetrates at the oddest times in the oddest ways. Just food for thought.
This post was going to be about unionism. 
Something went wrong.
