Author: Joel Levin

In the heated arguments about Attorney General Barr’s intervention seeking the dismissal of all charges against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former National Security Advisor convicted of repeatedly lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with the Russian Ambassador – and Barr’s intervention in other matters

Perhaps now isolated at home, imagine a stroll through the stunning United States Naval Academy campus at Annapolis, a campus of lovely buildings, manicured grounds, and everywhere whispers of bravery, service and sacrifice.

The COVID-19 pandemic challenges the normal divisions of politics and economics, that is, the way we look at what governments should do with our money and its own money. Normally that problem pits market-based endeavors against government-based endeavors. But this is not a normal time. Now everyone wants more government intervention.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reached and exposed forgotten corners of our society, some of those corners dark and unpleasant. One such corner involves the welfare and health of individuals in our prisons, both those awaiting trial and those found guilty.

Should we ever let people die? That is, when reasonable efforts and not unreasonable expenses would save a life should we ever send an individual to their death? Never is a difficult standard, here as everywhere, as we send young people to war, remove dying and incurable patients from life-support, and, in the workplace, construct tunnels and buildings and open mining operations with the near certainty that significant numbers of workers will die in the effort.