Bob McCarty Writes

Since the beginning of the War on Terror, liberals have used a plethora of far-from-complementary adjectives to describe the U.S. military’s detainment facility at Guantánamo Bay. Today, for instance, a reader need only read the lead paragraph of a New York Times editorial on the subject to understand the slant of the editorial:

The five-year-old military prison at Guantánamo Bay, with its indefinite detention rules, lack of judicial review and insufficiently regulated interrogation techniques, is an ugly stain on this country’s long tradition of respect for the rule of law and an endless propaganda bonanza for America’s enemies. Yet it is clear that despite the good advice of friendly foreign leaders, members of Congress and even his own cabinet officials, President Bush has no intention of closing the facility unless Congress forces him to do so.

If liberals oppose the GITMO-style approach to dealing with people who want nothing less than to wipe America off the map, what will they say to locking up people when the next disease pandemic sweeps the planet?

In a Washington Post article today, writer Peter Finn points out that voluntarily or involuntarily placement of individuals in isolation or quarantine might not be far away. The reason: A virulent strain of tuberculosis resistant to most available drugs that’s surfacing around the globe and “raising fears of a pandemic that could devastate efforts to contain TB and prove deadly to people with immune-deficiency diseases such as HIV-AIDS.”

Here’s one more TB tidbit for you to digest: Finn adds that at least 50 percent of those who contract this strain of TB will die of it, according to medical experts. In trying to stop the spread of the disease, which can be transmitted through coughing, spitting or even speaking, health officials have imposed sometimes extreme controls on infected people.

What are “extreme controls on infected people”? The Centers for Disease Control web site covers the topic well:

To contain the spread of a contagious illness, public health authorities rely on many strategies. Two of these strategies are isolation and quarantine. Both are common practices in public health, and both aim to control exposure to infected or potentially infected persons. Both may be undertaken voluntarily or compelled by public health authorities. The two strategies differ in that isolation applies to persons who are known to have an illness, and quarantine applies to those who have been exposed to an illness but who may or may not become ill.

When this or a similar pandemic arrives on our shores, I suspect many liberals will, when faced with them-or-us, life-or-death prospects, see the error of their ways. Others, however, will describe TB isolation and quarantine measures as “inhumane” and “ghastly” during raucous public forums and town meetings sure to make previous such events look civil.

God help us all.

Stay tuned to Bob McCarty Writes for updates.