I am so glad these posts exist. They have been a rare breath of sanity this year.
That said, I disagree with your point specifically about camp grounds. Obviously taking a camping trip is nonessential (and that this fact dominates the optics, relative to closing houses of worship), but about 1 million Americans live full time or near full time in RVs (I plan to join that number within a year or so, so this is very much on my radar), and the camp ground closures early on in the pandemic caused many of them to be evicted, suddenly and without warning, at a time when there was no where else for them to move to. After at most a week or so, that made many of those people have trouble getting sufficient access to electricity, fresh water, and proper sanitation. Today, with restrictions on interstate travel, it could be much harder for those people to simply go elsewhere (say, to stay with relatives, or to visit states that still have camp grounds open).
I’m sure there is some way to have written the restrictions to get around this (though I’m not sure if that would be enough to keep camp ground operators afloat financially), but given the general lack of reason and nuance in what gets shut down, I don’t really think anyone was going to put in the effort to do so.
Ah. When I think camp grounds I think… camp grounds for camping trips. Which isn’t dangerous at all, but also isn’t essential.
So camp grounds are de facto semi-permanent housing, or collectively serve that function because people rotate between them?
If that’s true, and there’s no alternative, then it would make sense to let people already there remain, and if that requires keeping them open, so be it. I don’t think it changes the larger argument.
Of course, the correct answer is actually more like “we don’t have to think about this as essential because it’s safe so there’s no reason to shut it down” and calling it essential is being perverse at least once and potentially twice because of that.
Of course, the correct answer is actually more like “we don’t have to think about this as essential because it’s safe so there’s no reason to shut it down” and calling it essential is being perverse at least once and potentially twice because of that.
I am so glad these posts exist. They have been a rare breath of sanity this year.
That said, I disagree with your point specifically about camp grounds. Obviously taking a camping trip is nonessential (and that this fact dominates the optics, relative to closing houses of worship), but about 1 million Americans live full time or near full time in RVs (I plan to join that number within a year or so, so this is very much on my radar), and the camp ground closures early on in the pandemic caused many of them to be evicted, suddenly and without warning, at a time when there was no where else for them to move to. After at most a week or so, that made many of those people have trouble getting sufficient access to electricity, fresh water, and proper sanitation. Today, with restrictions on interstate travel, it could be much harder for those people to simply go elsewhere (say, to stay with relatives, or to visit states that still have camp grounds open).
I’m sure there is some way to have written the restrictions to get around this (though I’m not sure if that would be enough to keep camp ground operators afloat financially), but given the general lack of reason and nuance in what gets shut down, I don’t really think anyone was going to put in the effort to do so.
Ah. When I think camp grounds I think… camp grounds for camping trips. Which isn’t dangerous at all, but also isn’t essential.
So camp grounds are de facto semi-permanent housing, or collectively serve that function because people rotate between them?
If that’s true, and there’s no alternative, then it would make sense to let people already there remain, and if that requires keeping them open, so be it. I don’t think it changes the larger argument.
Of course, the correct answer is actually more like “we don’t have to think about this as essential because it’s safe so there’s no reason to shut it down” and calling it essential is being perverse at least once and potentially twice because of that.
No argument there!