Territorial Economic Inequality: On the Impact of Ideological Category-Mistakes

Why do some countries have more inequality in terms of wealth or economic development, whether between big cities and urban areas, or just from region to region, than do other countries? I contend that in comparing the internals of one state/country to those of another, as much “all else equal” should be satisfied as possible. This can be accomplished to a large extent by resisting the error, or temptation, to make category mistakes, such as in comparing Singapore with China—a city-state to an empire-scale country—or in likening an E.U. state to the entire U.S. European scholars of comparative politics tend to make this category mistake, and non-European scholars are so used to the ideological aggrandizement that they do not typically even recognize the category mistake of treating an early-modern(rather than Medieval) kingdom-scale state of an empire-scale federal union as equivalent to another such union, as if a state in one such union, or a comparable sovereign state, were itself an empire-scale union. Resisting the ideologically-driven urge to begin with a category mistake would do wonders in studying comparative politics and political economy and providing more accurate and beneficial conclusions and recommendations.

Illinois, for example, has fifteen economic regions, yet the one containing Chicago dwarfs the other regions, with are either rural or sport a medium-sized city like Springfield, Rockford, and Peoria, none of which is known for its wealth. How does this compare with Switzerland in contrasting Zurich, and to a certain extent Geneva, which is half the population of Zurich, to the counties, or cantons, that are mainly rural? Both in territory and population, Illinois is larger than is Switzerland, and Chicago relative to the rest of Illinois has a higher population and greater metro-territory than Zurich has to the rest of Switzerland; perhaps comparing Paris in France to Chicago in Illinois would be a closer comparison. Unlike Switzerland, neither Illinois nor France has a federal system, and both are semi-sovereign states in federal systems, the U.S. and E.U., so in comparing Illinois and France, a scholar would better able to “hold all else constant,” except in terms of population, than is the case in comparing Illinois and Switzerland. In that regard, comparing Arizona and Switzerland would be better, as the respective populations are around 7 to 8 million people.

Avoiding the temptation to make category mistakes, such as in claiming that Switzerland is a United States of Europe, with county-sized cantons be likened to red and blue American states, is a prerequisite to being able to make accurate comparisons. At a talk at the Center for European Studies, a Swiss junior scholar acted on the urge during a talk on this topic in November, 2024, to ignore this point even though it had been made by a senior scholar and the scholar from MIT visiting to give his talk that E.U. and U.S. states are comparable with respect to contrasting large cities with rural areas. Ideology, whether States’ Rights in America or the Euroskeptic, or “nationalist,” ideology in Europe, can entrap even scholars, such that their scholarship may be compromised from their decision on an axis of comparison. Hawaii, Alaska, or Texas becoming a member-state in the U.S. is not comparable to one of Switzerland’s county-scale cantons.

After avoiding category mistakes that are based on ideology rather than reason, we can investigate whther too much power being given by a government to localities and regions increases the economic inequality from region/locality to region/locality because there tends to less economic redistribution to less developed regions or urban areas, and because they tend to compete with each other for direct investment by companies. How can we reconcile the cities competing against others to economic equality between regions and cities within a country?

Moreover, there is not only an economic divide between big cities and rural “left behind” places; there are social and cultural differences too; for example, anti-urban sentiment can be non-economic barrier to moving to a big city for school or a job. In some states/countries, the chasm may be more cultural whereas in other cases the difference may be more economic.  To claim that cultural differences within a European state are comparable to those between certain U.S. states, such as Hawaii and Alabama, even ignoring the fact that different languages are spoken to a considerable extent in those two U.S. states and even dismissing the non-linguistic differences that can exist between two distant and large geographical territories, such as Hawaii and Alabama (or Louisiana!), reflects the convenient imprint of a European ideology.

In short, category mistakes, whether spuriously using political, economic, or cultural factors, can doom a study of comparative politics and economics from the start. Much of what is concluded by reason once such a mistake has been made is likely to be faulty. Perhaps the largest cost in doing so in many studies may be in the loss of scholarly reputation of the fields of comparative politics and political economy. Judging from the talks at Harvard’s Center for European Studies, the ideological motivate is salient even among scholars, and this prompts me to ask whether the results of their scholarship is in fact academic in nature or too compromised by the common instinctual-urge to put one’s own ideology in the driver’s seat. To Nietzsche, the content of ideas is instinctual urges, and reasoning is the process in a brain whereby those urges compete with each other for dominance.  

Compromising Public Health for a States' Rights Ideology: The Governor of Arizona Nullified a Federal Law during a Pandemic

On October 27, 2021, I rode on two mass transit buses in Phoenix, Arizona. Both drivers were knowingly and willfully violating the federal regulation (42 CFR sec.s 70-71), which requires transit operators to wear masks during the pandemic even when they are situated behind a plexiglass barrier. One of the drivers, whom I had twice before seen not wearing a mask, again had lowered the plexiglass window pane between the driver and customers paying.  The first time, I had asked her to put a mask on, given the federal regulation and her proximity to the passengers boarding. Replying as if making an announcement, she said, “If anyone feels unsafe on the bus, they can get off and wait for the next bus.” That prompted a passenger to insult me. The company subsequently backed up the driver's refusal by saying that the federal law doesn't apply to buses in Arizona. It did, so the company violated federal law with impunity.

 

I reported this incident to the regional bus authority and the city of Phoenix. Nevertheless I saw her maskless more than a week later and then during the following week. I did receive a voicemail from TransDev, a bus-operating company contracted by Metro Valley, informing me that regardless of the federal law, the company policy does not require bus drivers to wear masks. In fact, a representative from Metro Valley defiantly declared on a subsequent phone call that drivers can let maskless passengers board—again, in violation of federal law. Company policy apparently can nullify federal regulations in Arizona, a U.S. state with special needs. 

Even though the FBI told me that it looks to local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal regulations, a supervisor at one of the police sub-stations told me that his department would not enforce the regulation. “Oh, so they want to dump it on us,” he said. Astonishingly, he claimed that only law passed by his state’s legislature is “real law in Arizona.” About a week later, a police transit supervisor told me that the chief of police had told the non-supervisory patrol employees not to enforce the federal regulation, and this directive had come down from the governor.

As shocking as such corruption is, the immature, even pathological behavior of the second maskless bus driver I witnessed on the morning of October 27, 2021 told me after I had asked her to put on a mask that she didn’t care if a federal regulation requires drivers to wear masks. “I don’t care. Go ahead, call the FBI,” she said with a daring tone of presumed impunity. She also encouraged me to call the local police after I said I would contact them too. “They don’t wear masks either,” she shouted. Yes, shouted. I replied that I was ending the conversation, which she ignored until I went to the back of the bus. She then accused me of threatening her. “Get off my bus!” she exclaimed angrily even though she kept the bus in motion. She was clearly making up an excuse to get me in trouble for having asked her to comply with U.S. law. What a strange, absurd mentality, at least outside of Arizona. Not surprisingly, she had let a maskless man ride. While walking to the back door to exit the bus, the maskless old male passenger felt entitled pick up the baton from the driver and shout “I’m vaccinated; I don’t have to wear a mask” at me. I knew he was ignorant so I did not comment. Nevertheless, she kept shouting his presumed factoid to me as he got closer. After he left, the driver once again began shouting insults at me, having dismissed my statement that I was done with the conversation. She called me a dumbass and a weirdo, and told me in a dismissive and hostile tone, “Go back to your institution!” My stop was coming up, so I could not get off the bus, but I did not want to hear any more from the childish driving having a temper-tantrum. So I began repeating, “I don’t talk to local creepers.” I had said this to the maskless passenger too.  “I won’t let you ride on my bus ever again,” the driver said. It is significant that she referred to her bus, in repeating, “I won’t let you ride my bus ever again,” when in actuality the city of Phoenix owns the bus and she does not have the authority to ban anyone from ever riding “her” bus ever again. Even were the bus her own, she would still be required to follow federal law, though she clearly believed otherwise.  She even put her two hands to her ears while operating the bus like a kid would do, and angrily repeated, “I know you are, I know you are,” after I declared that I do not talk with local creepers.  It was surreal that any bus driver would behave like a four year-old. “What are you in kindergarden?” I replied. Even when I was walking out of the bus and then outside of the bus, the driver was yelling insults, so I continued repeating my line. It was incredibly pathetic that a four year-old’s mentality would stop her temper-tantrum only to pick up her phone to call her supervisor, and yet the bus company’s customer service does not allow passengers to speak with a supervisor of the drivers in real time even when a driver is not only abusing his or her authority, but is having a temper-tantrum. It is precisely because the drivers know that they can misbehave with impunity that they go on the offensive even more by claiming that a passenger is misbehaving. It is not surprising that drivers tend to presume impunity in violating a federal regulation geared to ending a pandemic. It is not surprising that several drivers in 2020 and 2021 felt entitled to ignore the local and federal laws, respectively, requiring that passengers and drivers wear masks. Some drivers actually wore their masks to cover only the chin area as if that constituted compliance. Arizona’s pre-college education ranked 49^th out of the 50 states at the time. Go figure. Presumptive arrogance combined with astounding ignorance is a toxic combination.

I submit that this last driver was so brazen at least in part because there really is no accountability in the local mass transit system, which includes Metro Valley, the regional transit authority and TransDev, a private subcontractor that operates the buses, which are owned by the city of Phoenix. Both Metro Valley and TransDev have told me that their policies allowing maskless riders and drivers invalidate the federal law. By the way, a local police patrol employee informed me (when he was off duty) that bus drivers are not federal employees to the federal law does not apply to them. “So you locals are ok with the federal money you get from the feds for your mass transit, but that doesn’t obligate you to follow their regulations,” I concluded. He gave a thumbs up. Three weeks earlier, a patrol supervisor informed me that the only “real law in Arizona is that which goes through the state legislature.” There is virtually no enforcement of masks on the light rail by security guards either. They illegally impersonate police officers by wearing silver badges, yet have admitted that Metro Valley won’t allow them to enforce the local ordinance in 2020 and the federal regulation in 2021. I think the guards are more interested in intimidating passengers to feel the pleasure of being dominant (albeit certainly not superior in any way) than in enforcing even federal law.

It is strange seeing three or four guards on one half of a car yet not one of the Allied Security employees are enforcing the federal law as it is even stated on on-board signs declaring, “Per Federal Law, Masks Are Required.” Once when I heard a train’s operator make an announcement at every stop, I pressed a red button at an intercom with the driver. The drivers want passengers to report problems, so it was ironic that a young black guard rushed to me (I had not seen him in the back) and demanded to know what I had been talking about. I asked him twice to lift his mask from his chin to cover his mouth and nose. He obviously felt entitled to break the law even though signs on the doors and windows were obvious. Without even waiting for me to answer his question, he became very hostile toward me and declared that if he ever sees me use the intercom again, he would kick me off the train. As I was leaving the train, I passed by the operator’s open window. “Of course we want you to use the intercom to report things like you did—that many passengers are ignoring my announcement!” I asked her to report the guard.

In short, the arrogance, corruption, and incompetence at the state, city and mass transit levels at least in Phoenix are such that someone who is not used to such a sordid, ignorant, and hostile culture cannot but be astonished—jaws-dropped astonished. Not only does the bus company ignore reports of illegal behavior; the company claims that its policy, which contradicts federal law, is the only thing that the company acknowledges as valid. How could anyone at a company believe that a company policy nullifies a federal law? How could a police chief tell her police force not to enforce a federal law, when according to the U.S. Department of Justice, the F.B.I. routinely relies on local law enforcement to play a role in enforcing federal law. Yet in Phoenix, Arizona, a police supervisor specializing on transit refused to acknowledge that state officials ever enforce federal law. “They want their laws enforced? They will have to send feds to enforce them.”

Corona Crisis: Unethical and Criminal Businesses and Municipal Agencies Pervade in Phoenix, Arizona

On July 7, 2020, NBC News reported that Arizona had a record number of cases (105,094) and of deaths (1,927), with a four percent daily increase in reported cases. Also, coronavirus hospitalizations and related ventilators being used were also at record highs. A reporter with MSNBC stated, “Arizona is in crisis.” On the previous day, on MSNBC television, that same reporter had said, “Arizona is in free fall,” in that the number of cases was rising so fast. It had taken three months for the first 50,000 cases and only 23 days for the next 50,000. Observing that people were not wearing masks in downtown Scottsdale, he reported that “Arizona is out of control.” People there were not taking precautions, and the local and state authorities were not on top of the crisis. On June 22, 2020, a physician with the University of Arizona-Phoenix interviewed on The 11^th Hour show on MSNBC asserted that the Arizonans who were saying, “No one is going to order me to wear a mask,” were being selfish because refusing to wear a mask, say on a bus or in a store or restaurant/bar puts other lives at risk. Also a salient ingredient of the crisis in Arizona was the anti-science contingent of the population. In an interview at the time, Alan Alda (of the TV show, MASH) pointed to “pockets of people who still think science is just another opinion” as having a mindset that “puts us all in danger.”[1] The rigors of scientific experiment, such as the use of control groups and random selection, render science closer to knowledge than are mere opinions based on ideology and a person’s own experience. Privileging one’s own ideology and experiences counts as self-embellishing, and perhaps even self-idolatry. Such people are not likely to accept knowledge that contradicts their respective opinions and experience. Living in Phoenix at the time, I had encountered a lot of anti-intellectualism and incompetence along with refusals to enforce virus-deterring policies and even laws. Just one year earlier, Arizona’s education system through High School (K-12) had been rated as 49 out of the 50 States. Combined with an ideology in which companies and individual residents should (which implies can) self-police themselves on physical-distancing and wearing face masks indoors in public and on public transportation,  the recipe is for a greater need for respirators. 

To be sure, Arizona got to the place of crisis in part because the governor had lifted the stay-at-home order and opened businesses on May 14, 2020. His choice was in line with the wishes of U.S. President Trump, who wanted a more productive U.S. economy that would facilitate the president’s re-election in the coming November. The spike in new cases began in Arizona after the governor allowed non-essential businesses, including bars, restaurants, and gyms, to reopen. Pressure from President Trump and a shared pro-business political ideology were likely factors in the Republican governor’s decision. Meanwhile, Arizona had more than its share of political ideologues who believed that business policy or a public law mandating physical distancing and mask-wearing were tyrannical overreaches even though government has a duty to keep its people safe. 

Does mandating the use of masks indoors in public constitute tyranny? Is God against public health? Are certain political ideologies blind to the health and safety of a people? Can what is generally viewed as outlandish in most democratic societies be mainstream, and thus virtually unchecked, in one particular society?

However, other salient factors leading to the crisis in Arizona as of early July are worthy of being mentioned. Such factors include the refusal of Arizonans overwhelmingly to maintain a physical distance from other people while in public—especially indoors, such as at retailers including grocery stores, department stores, and bars. Even before mid-May, when Arizona had been on lock-down, grocery store employees got away with regularly ignoring the store policies and state law on physical-distancing because neither the store managers nor public authorities (e.g., the local police, county Environmental Services dept, city government) would see that the policy or law was enforced. Store managers of two grocery chains blatantly told me that they were not enforcing their own physical-distancing policies and thus the state law. Even on July 9, 2020, when the state’s hospitals were nearing capacity from the virus, I was stunned at a Sprouts store to see neither customers nor employees paying any attention to the store’s own regularly-announced physical-distancing policy. From a business standpoint, refusing to follow or enforce a store policy goes beyond incompetence and sheer foolishness; fecklessness, I submit, was also in the mix.

Wearing masks indoors when in public became a local law in Phoenix in late June, 2020. A few days before July 4, 2020, I went to Target, a retail department-store chain, to return an item. As I entered the store, I saw a sign indicating that masks must be wore as per the local law. 

Inside the store, I asked the assistant manager helping me with the return what is done to customers who ignore the policy and law. “Oh, we can’t enforce that,” she said matter-of-factly. 

On the evening of July 4, I (stupidly) went to a bar/restaurant called Half-Moon Sports Grill for a burger. As I approached the establishment, I heard a group of customers leaving the “restaurant” wonder aloud, “No one in there is wearing a mask.” Yet I went inside anyway, though to an isolated table from which I could see the horse-shoe bar where neither masks were being worn nor physical distancing was being enforced (e.g. by spacing out the seating). The store’s policy violated the law on both counts. 

The seats had not been spaced out along the bar. Perhaps the manager was spaced out? Many people sitting at the bar and at the tables near me were not eating anything. Even actual drinking was sparse. The customers "nursing" their drinks could have removed masks to take periodic gulps or sips, as the case may be. 

Indeed, the governor had recently closed bars (and gyms) because they had been hotspots for transmission of the contagion. A waitress told me that masks were not required when people were sitting. The law, however, stated at the time that masks need not be worn while mouths are being used to eat or drink.  The manager of Half Moon must have assumed that anytime a customer is seated, he or she must be eating or drinking. This is not what I saw, and during a crisis wouldn’t it just make sense to err on the side of caution in interpreting the local law? I was especially shocked when the waitress came up to my table twice without wearing a mask; she had been walking without wearing a mask and she had apparently decided that physical distancing does not apply to herself.

So the next day, I gave the local police a tip. On a Sunday afternoon, the cops would go to the bar/restaurant to see if any violations were occurring. I offered to send the videotape I had shot inside the establishment, but the Phoenix police refused. So the matter being corrected depended on whether the bar was busy enough on a Sunday afternoon to show a violation. No one would ever guess that the matter was urgent and important; it was as if the police were oblivious to the unfolding health crisis. The police had obviously not been paying attention when the governor had only weeks early stated in a news conference that businesses refusing to enforce local and state measures would be dealt with. Instead, the police followed their typical minimalist enforcement routine. A minimalist mentality has no place during a crisis, except, it seems, in Arizona.

The local transit authority, Metro Valley Transit, already had a sordid reputation for enabling bus drivers who were hostile to paying customers and drove badly. In early July, the company showed just how incompetent it was by having signs and a company voice (phone) message indicating that masks were required on the buses and yet Oliver, a supervisor of the customer-service department, told me that because some passengers cannot wear masks for medical purposes (i.e., there were exceptions), the company was only recommending that masks be worn. That a requirement would be treated as optional because exceptions exist demonstrates gross managerial incompetence. Such incompetence (and narrow-minded rigidity) is apparently inert even to a societal crisis (e.g., sky-rocketing numbers of coronavirus cases). That is to say, more was involved than ignorance.

Masks being worn improperly, or "minimalist," quickly became popular in the Phoenix metro on the buses, with drivers looking the other way. In the photo just above, the driver had even contorted his mirror so as to see the passengers, and yet he did not even ask the passenger pictured to wear a mask in spite of there being a "Mask Are Required" ungrammatical sign facing the entry door. This is ironic, given the driver's intent to be able to watch as many passengers as possible. The pleasure of power seized at in weakness issues out in control, yet interestingly here without holding passengers accountable. 

On July 10, 2020, I was fortunate on my morning commute to be on a bus in which not only was the driver not wearing a mask, but three passengers were not too. One of them was biting down on a small towel, demonstrating that the lack of accountability on the non-enforcing drivers was particularly risky, given the willfulness and ignorance of many riders. By the same reasoning, the lax enforcement of the public-health state, county, and local (Phoenix metropolitan area) laws by police and the respective governments on not only the bus company, but also grocery and department stores and restaurants/bars bore a high health cost given the condition of the local population. 

It was bad enough that the vast majority of bus drivers were not enforcing the mask policy in spite of the local law even though signs notifying passengers (and drivers) of the requirement were on the buses. On July 10, I discovered that at least one driver didn't think his company's policy and the law pertained to him. After he let on three passengers who were not wearing masks, I called Metro Valley's customer service number. Not surprisingly, no one from the company (e.g., the driver's supervisor) bothered to call the driver during the route. That too is typical, even though the customer service employees could see to it that someone from the company immediately calls the driver, whether he or she is not wearing a mask, enforcing the policy/law, or being verbally abusive toward paying customers. In May, I had tried calling the local police on a driver who was refusing to comply with the bus company's policy on 10 riders maximum on a standard-sized bus. "You have to call the bus company," the police dispatcher told me. "But the driver is breaking the physical distancing state law," I exclaimed, utterly astonished that a private company rather than a police department would be the only enforcer of the law. "You would have to contact the bus company," I heard again. The local police also tried to avoid enforcing the local laws on nighttime noise, so I was not surprised at the push-back itself. 
During my conversation with Oliver of the bus company in early July, I mentioned the company’s voice-message and the signs specifying that masks were required. “They are wrong,” he informed me. He even said he would change the voice-message; I was not surprised at all a week later to hear the same phone-recording that masks were required. Oliver believed that he could not be wrong even though people could die as a result. So I wrote to the city of Phoenix and the local press on the conversation. Although Oliver had no reason to fear being held accountable, given the company’s squalid management cadre, I suspect that the city may have come down on the bus company for telling customers that wearing masks is merely recommended due to there being exceptions. For a week or more later, the bus company's customer service employees were no longer telling riders that drivers do not enforce what is a recommendation. Even so, drivers were still not complying, even though the company was finally taking its own signs and voice-recording seriously. 

Despite complaints from paying customers for some time on driver hostility and bad driving (e.g., abrupt stops), the management had failed to solve those two problems. In part, the drivers’ union was too strong, but the city of Phoenix and the suburbs were not good at holding the regional transit authority accountable. So I was not surprised in early July, 2020 when a bus driver became enraged when I called customer service to report that masks were not being worn by about half of the riders, and the driver was ignoring the company’s policy on the ten-passengers maximum on a regular-sized bus. With 17 riders on the bus, physical distancing was not possible, which made the non-compliance on masks particularly risky. Fortunately, the customer service representative also heard the driver’s shouts. In going after me rather than having enforced the policies (and laws) in the first place, that driver demonstrated to me why things were out of control in Arizona with regard to the pandemic. The driver was certainly out of control mentally, and his refusal not to enforce bus-company policies with impunity means that his company was out of control managerially. By implication, the city governments in the metropolitan area were falling short in holding the regional transit authority accountable.

By early July, 2020, I noticed that the riff-raff (i.e., rules don't apply to me) on the buses were developing a sub-culture wherein masks were to either not be worn at all or just cover the chin. Because the buses are so unreliable there, the riff-raff make up the vast majority of the ridership. Even so, drivers were not enforcing the mask requirement on that ridership, which one driver confided to me is generally viewed as pathetic by the drivers. Is not a refusal to enforce a requirement also pathetic? Does this not liken the drivers to their typical ridership? Signs on the buses continued to declare that the masks are mandatory, and the drivers continued to dismiss their duty to enforce that company policy. As evidence for this investigation, I took a photo of a rider as he was dozing off; he was wearing his mask to cover his chin only. 

When this passenger got off the bus, he put his bandana on even though no one else was on the sidewalk. 

As I turned back around, I saw the driver shaking one of her fingers at me as if she were scolding a child. It is legal to take pictures on the buses and light rail in Arizona, and yet the driver felt sufficiently emboldened in her refusal to enforce the policy that she called her supervisor and took a picture of me!  Rather than realize that she had failed to enforce a requirement, she directed her hostility to me. Generalizing, given all the reports of driver hostility toward passengers, the drivers who refused to enforce company policy not only felt entitled to do so, but also aggressively went after the paying customers who felt that the drivers should be held accountable because they were putting the health of those customers at risk. Sadly, given the continued bad driving and driver-hostility generally, I could conclude that the company’s management was lax (i.e., incompetent) on holding its drivers (and bus operating subcontractors) accountable.

It is interesting that at least some retail companies, bar/restaurants, and bus companies in Arizona gave up on enforcing their own respective policies (and any underpinning laws), while Airlines, libraries, medical clinics, and hospitals had no such problem. It is not surprising that NBC News would find that things are out of control in Arizona regarding the pandemic. It is ironic that such a heavily-policed state, where intimidation from a huge police show of force/presence is presumed to be the best deterrent to crime, would be so deficient on enforcement even during a crisis. Perhaps views of the national news could finally see just how pathetic the situation in Arizona really was, and likely will be for some time.

Theists, ecologists, and ethicists could agree that a pandemic taking a particularly dire toll on such a people would make sense. Theists could point to God’s disfavor on the selfishness, lack of consideration for others’ health, refusal to do one’s duty in enforcing public-health business policies and governmental laws, and hostility. The same rationale would support a variant on the Biblical story of Noah—this time with God extinguishing our species for having refused to sufficiently stave off carbon-induced climate change. Naturalists could paint a picture of a selfish, inconsiderate people being especially prone to a pandemic. Nature abhors weakness, and thus a weak people. Ethicists might say that it is just that people who refuse to enforce policies or laws protecting the public health during a crisis catch the virus themselves. Similarly, bus passengers and retail customers whose risky behavior puts others at risk could be said to deserve to suffer the plight themselves. They would doubtless disagree, and they would insist that they could not be wrong about it, as if they were gods on stilts during a flood.

1. David Hochman, “Alan Alda Is Obsessed with the Power of Science,” AARP: The Magazine, June/July, 2020.

A Tale of Two Republics: Arizona and California during the Coronavirus Pandemic

An educated and virtuous citizenry is essential for a republic to endure, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two former U.S. presidents and rivals, agreed in an exchange of letters. Interestingly, both men died on July 4, 1826. Of course, the vote on independence had occurred on July 3, 1776 and the Declaration was signed over weeks rather than dramatically on July 4, 1776. Unfortunately, false narratives can take on a life of their own. Another example involves the U.S.'s "sun-belt" states, whose surging popularity from the 1980s at least through 2020 has masked the true conditions of the underlying cultures. Maricopa county, in which Phoenix, Arizona is located, was in the top 10 nationally for numeric increases in population from 2010 to 2020. Lest it be supposed that that county improved, a survey in July, 2019 listed Arizona as 49th out of the 50 States on elementary education (K-12th grade). 
Relatedly, Arizona's Medicaid system had a sordid reputation in terms of how well the subcontracting companies and non-profits managed themselves and were held accountable. As of 2020, Arizona still had a significant number of ideological voters who believed that Medicaid was a form of sordid socialism, which unjustly had taken the place of horrid communism. Because Medicaid had become the unwanted step-child in that political culture that still boasted that "taxes are theft," tight budgets and the State's bad education system resulted in subcontracting organizations, including medical clinics, conveniently embellishing their low-wage employees. Reports emerged of nurse-practitioners claiming to have the same training as physicians and even specialists such as psychiatrists and dermatologists, and of counselors misrepresenting themselves as being synonymous with therapists. In fact, Arizona's Medicaid tumor even reduced mental health to behavioral health so the cheaper behavior-trained counselors rather than therapists could be hired and relied upon. 
Furthermore, the organizations in Arizona receiving most or all of their funding from public-aid agencies like Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Medicaid were reputed to suffer from administrative incompetence without much accountability from either of those two government agencies. It was quite strange to read of the non-profit organizations and companies, including medical clinics, refer to themselves as agencies. Such lying with impunity also served to dissimulate any criticism of administrative incompetence. That low-class sub-culture of dependent organizations could count on the low education level in the state and its notable anti-science (and anti-intellectualism) ideology not to know better. In fact, no one would be likely to push-back on the Medicaid employees in the state who mispronounce the technocratic acronym for the state's Medicaid program, AHCCCS, as access rather than ah-kehs. In Arizona, the letter C is not hard (like a K) if an S follows, rather than just an E or I. You're wrong, ignorance that can't be wrong has the gall to say. You're wrong, I don't need to keep six-feet away from people. You're wrong, my people don't need enforceable government orders. Relative to California, we could rightly expect that Arizona would botch its management of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. 
The same ideology that compromises Medicaid at the ballot-box resists government itself, and thus any of its constraints, including physical distancing and the wearing of masks in stores. The following statement from Anthony Fauci, director of the National Center for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, applies especially to Arizona: "One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are--for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable--they just don't believe science and they don't believe authority."[1]
A poorly educated and bigoted citizenry may arrogantly dismiss the advice of public health officials like Fauci. In fact, in a local culture wherein strangers are generally known, especially to new-comers and visitors, to be noticeably aggressive in public and especially on public transportation, the ideological and/or badly educated residents may even lash out just for being asked to keep a certain distance or to put on a mask. 
At least in Phoenix, customers were not keeping six feet from each other in stores, including in the crowded grocery stores, in spite of the fact that the governor had ordered it. Employees and customers alike presumed to be immune from the store policies and the law. Both were left unenforced. From a management standpoint, this demonstrates gross incompetence, and from a Nietzschean standpoint, pathetic weakness. 

Therefore, I contend that the governor of Arizona, and the government of Phoenix, badly misjudged their own residents in March, 2020, especially in relying on businesses to enforce the governor's physical-distancing order on customers and even the managers' own employees. As against offenders generally, the governor left the physical-distancing order unenforceable! Nietzsche would say that such power is borne out of weakness. Even the governor's stay-at-home order was stated at the outset to be unenforceable. Issuing an executive order and saying that it will not be enforced turned the order into a guideline--something that was too weak for the ideologically anti-government residents (and there were many) in the Phoenix metropolitan area. It is my right to stand where I want, even if it means that I or other people get sick as a result. As Matt Shumway put it on Twitter, "No dog muzzles here. I value freedom and the U.S. Constitution as opposed to tyranny and rolling over and obeying simply because I'm told without questioning the narrative." Matt and many other Arizonans were not bothering to maintain a reasonable distance from other shoppers in stores, and the managers were looking the other way in spite of the governor's order. With such exaggeration and callous selfishness being a significant feature of the political culture there, only a foolish governor would place his reliance on the people to self-govern, or willingly enforce the order.  
As yet another data-point, a significant number of local bus drivers were ignoring the city council's guideline of a maximum of ten passengers on a regular-length bus. Why issue a health measure as a guideline when it is reasonable to assume that drivers of the sordid local bus company would abuse their driver discretion rather than regulate even unwilling passengers? Some of the local-creeper bus drivers, who were known generally to be hostile to their riff-raff ridership, used their discretion during the month of March (before the hot months!) to close all of the window-slits. Apparently those drivers did not believe in disbursing any virus enclosed onboard in the air. Ignorance and power, a toxic cocktail that is endemic in Arizona, do not exactly form a united front in combating a pandemic. In fact, viruses do remarkably well in dysfunctional cultures because the people are not adequately protected, given their conditions. Not even the local police were maintaining 6-feet on non-emergency (e.g., noise complaints) calls for service. 

California's government was more pro-active (and thus sensible) in March. The governor knew that enforcement of public-health measures is important even where the population is reasonably educated and not out to protest government measures even against a dangerous pathogen as instances of tyranny. Ironically, that government could have relied more on its people and companies than Arizona's government could have, and yet California's had the common sense to know that given the health threat, enforcement would still be needed. 
In early March, California health officials were urging companies (esp. tech) to have employees work from home, companies such as  Google, Apple, and Facebook complied, as did their respective employees. There was a general sense that this was important, and people listened.[2] In other words, people were being responsible. This suggests that they were capable of self-governing themselves, and they were sufficiently mature to recognize that they were not being subject to unconstitutional government control and thus did not need to feel the need to fight back by deliberately not complying. What a difference a border makes! 

Unlike Arizona’s stay at home order which came later and without enforcement, California’s first shelter-in-place order that applied first to a wide swath of Northern California including the Bay Area on March 16, came with enforcement. The California-wide order was issued on March 19; Californians could “not leave home except for essential things such as food, prescriptions, health care and commuting to jobs considered crucial.”[3] Crucially, this order was enforced too. Generally speaking, in issuing orders in a timely manner and enforcing them, California’s government was being responsible in being realistic, which is important even if people take the matter seriously.

To be sure, California was rapidly becoming a “hot spot” for the virus, whereas Arizona was not so designated. That California’s order was “one of the most draconian at the time,” hence exceeding measures in New York City, another hot-spot, suggests that the California Government was acting responsibly, even making the important assumption that enforcement would be needed even though people were taking it seriously. “Why people are praising San Francisco,” the mayor there said, “is because everyone here knew how important it was to follow instructions.”[4] Such maturity is essential for a properly working governmental system based on self-governance (i.e., the People over its government).
Whereas businesses in California undertook to enforce the distancing and lower maximum occupancy limits, store managers in the Phoenix metro area were openly admitting that they would not enforce even the store's own policies, even those that dovetailed with the governor's executive order (e.g., physical distancing). Managers of grocery stores refused even to enforce the policy (and law) on their own carefree employees. 
So in March, 2020, I predicted that Arizona would become a hot-spot. Certainly by mid-June, this had come to pass. In that month, Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was still advising Americans to follow physical-distancing recommendations and wear masks in public, which includes in stores. As of June 13th, at least 13 States, including Arizona, were showing an upward trend in average daily cases--an increase of at least 10%--over "the previous seven days, according to an analysis of John Hopkins University data."[5] As in March, April, and May in Phoenix, I saw little if any physical distancing at the time in public, including on sidewalks and inside stores. 
A survey by the CDC released on June 12th indicates that close to 80% of Americans had self-isolated in May, and 74% had worn face-masks in public either always or often.[5] Arizona opened for business on May 15th in line with President Trump's wishes, whereas California's governor was more cautious. So the percentage of residents in the Phoenix metro who self-isolated could not have been anywhere near 80 percent. Judging from the stores, I would estimate that less than half of the people were wearing masks. Even this might be an over-estimate, considering that Arizona had more than its share of people who refused to weak masks out of an anti-government-control political ideology. Viruses do not walk around such ideologies. In fact, such people put themselves at risk to make political points. This is why I brought in the poor condition of primary education in Arizona. The anti-professional bias, also very much extant in the middle and lower socio-economic classes in Arizona, undoubtedly played a role in the dismissiveness of even the guidelines. 
In fact, if we can assume that the people nationally who were self-isolating and wearing masks in public in May were also careful to keep at a distance from other people in stores as well as in public otherwise, the practically non-existent physical-distancing being practiced in Phoenix contrary to the governor's order suggests that even in this respect Arizonans (including the store managers and employees!) were falling short relative to the national percentages. Hence Gov. Ducey's ineffectual approach, which included his faulty trust that businesses would enforce at least their own policies on not only customers, but also employees. At a press conference on June 17th, the governor declared that the virus was spiking again, and that he would leave it to the local governments whether to require face masks  . In his tone as he reminded businesses that they would be held accountable, I contend he subtly acknowledged that businesses such as grocery stores had not complied to his physical-distancing executive order in March and still in effect in June. I wonder if he realized just how pathetically many of his citizens had taken his heed on distancing. Arizona is not California, either in terms of citizenry or governance.

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1. Jacqueline Howard and Veronica Stracqualursi," Fauci Warns of 'Anti-Science Bias' Being a Problem in US," CNN.com, June 18, 2020.
2. Ray Sanchez and Dan Simon, “What California Is Doing Right in Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic,” CNN.com, April 3, 2020.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.
5. Madeline Holcombe, "Fauci Says Second Wave is 'Not Inevitable' as Coronavirus Cases Climb in Some States," CNN.com, June 13, 2020.
6. Ibid.

Police/Security Over-Reaches: A Mentality Unfit for the Job

Absolute authority corrupts absolutely. On an organization or even a local scale, people with authority can play considerably on the ignorance of individuals to over-reach at their expense. As a consequence, surveillance and actions can be horribly excessive without there being recognition of it. Seeing an off-duty police employee wearing a bullet-proof vest and standing next to a store security guard in the entry-way of a grocery store in Phoenix, Arizona, for instance, can give at least new-comers an immediate sense of the excessive use of authority to intimidate even the innocent shoppers. As if seeing a policeman and security employee "greet" customers entering the store was not enough, I also saw a young mother with her young daughter in one of the aisles “freeze up” at the sight of the policeman (wearing a bullet-proof vest) staring at them in a confrontational posture from the end of the aisle. I could not believe my eyes. As the front doors opened as I left the store, I looked up only to see a security guard with his feet pointed right and left, respectively, in a confrontational posture. 

A security guard stands in a confrontational posture at an Albertsons (Frys) grocery store in Phoenix.

Could such practices ever be accepted as the default in the "land of the free"? It depends on the State. Furthermore, how does such ill-fitting excessiveness, which would only fit were someone reported to be shooting in the store, shift from inappropriateness to become the default—the status quo? Typically the underlying mentality is one of stubborn ignorance that cannot be wrong, backed up by an excessive and microscopic grip on real or invented authority. How is it that the more educated and broad-minded perspective in upper-echelon management comes to doubt even its common sense by being hoodwinked by the lower mentality? Excessive delegation to middle-and-lower levels of management, where the wider perspective can easily be lacking, may be part of the answer. Playing a supporting role, the value-system in the local culture may actually support the excess or look the other way in blind obedience to an ideology. Finally, if a practice beyond the pale gets its toehold in the status quo, then people can become blind to the excessiveness and treat it instead as normal. Excessiveness as the new normal. Dislodging an invasive or encroaching unquestioned trend can be very difficult given the nature of the status-quo default to act like cement. Two case studies demonstrate that an absurd over-reach by someone in the security field can occur. The first took place in Orlando, Florida. Accountability did occur, so the absurd was not allowed to become ensconced. The second was in Phoenix, Arizona. Such accountability is much more difficult there, so the aggressive over-reach of authority would likely become further ensconced in the conducive or enabling local culture. 

In September, 2019, an elementary school “resource officer” arrested two 6-year-olds at school in Orlando, Florida. At least one of the kids had committed the high crime of kicking another student. The “resource officer,” a misleading term for what was actually a policeman capable of making arrests (a resource for whom?), was subsequently fired for not having obtained permission from a “watch commander.” The militaristic term, commander, in having anything to do with first-graders, makes clear just how far the Orlando police department had overreached. Indeed, I submit that the cloak of being a resource is just as dishonest, and overreaching, as is the appropriation of military terms. A police employee is neither a security guard nor a military commando.

Of course, arresting a first-grader is such an obvious overreach that the judgment involved in the overreaching itself is arguably incompatible with the legal right to use lethal force. At least one of the first-graders was arrested for battery, fingerprinted, and had mugshots taken. That a police employee (or department) would even suppose that with a commander’s permission is appropriate or sufficient to arrest a first-grader for kicking another kid is so far-fetched that a lack of perspective, not to mention common sense, was also in the mix. Even Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala chastised the Orlando police department when she said, “These very young children ought to be protected, nurtured, and disciplined in a manner that does not rely on the criminal justice system to do it.”[1] That a police employee (and department) would interlard that system indicates a basic lack of understanding regarding that system and the fact that it has boundaries. People who have problems with boundaries should not be wielding power, for such people love power too much to exercise it realistically. For a child to make being a child a crime suggests that that child should not be allowed to play with guns, much less to be lawfully entitled to use them. 

Such an obvious overreaching mentality can also exist “under” the police, such as in security guards. In Phoenix, Arizona, for instance, the security guards on the light-rail trains have regularly over-reached beyond their authority. This reflects the culture, as the same tendency can be observe in other domains there. 

For example, some of the employees of the security subcontractor have turned on passengers simply for taking pictures inside the train. Guards have aggressively threatened to kick such passengers off the trains, using the flimsy excuse that the guards had been photographed and the erroneous claim that picture-taking on the trains was illegal. Such ignorance that could not be wrong backed up by authority that simply did not exist is inherently toxic and utterly incompatible with (i.e., a danger to) wielding even the authority that has been authorized. Beyond even the ignorance is the sheer aggressive nature that looks for any opening in which to bully another person. In fact, the dismissiveness of other people’s natural boundaries may itself be sociopathic. The aggression unleashed by efforts to hold such people accountable points to a demented perspective in which the victim rather than the aggressor is actually the aggressive party. 
It is interesting, or telling, that security employees would be so preoccupied with passengers taking pictures and yet actually refuse to do anything, whether on a platform or on a train, about a passenger known to have walked across the tracks even in front of an oncoming train. 

This man rushed across the tracks so fast his baby's carriage back wheels caught on a rail.  

Once I witnessed a man run across a street (amid oncoming cars) and across the tracks before entering the train-car that I entered. The security employee told me that he too had seen this, but could do nothing. "The street is not our property," he explained. "Aren't the tracks your property?" I countered. He did not reply. Being so reluctant to even confront such a passenger (or people smoking on the platforms) is quite a contrast to the excessive presence of the employees on a train car. 

Three security employees are clustered together in one half of a rail car. Typically none of them would be checking tickets. Imagine being a passenger surrounded by security guards! 

Looking at me leaving the train and then at the three security employees, the man in the foreground asked me if he could enter the train! When I was on the train standing next to the door, the security employee shown on the right walked over and stood in the middle between the doors, blocking the entry-way to the rest of the car. He was too big to be standing in that space, but I suppose he felt that he could do whatever he wanted as he had a badge.

That the security company put as many as six guards at a time in a car (typically not during commuter times, as office workers could be expected to complain) suggests a proclivity toward and enabling blind-spot concerning excessiveness itself. At the very least, the employees don't care whether passengers feel uncomfortable as a result. Sometimes the excessiveness is so obvious on a rail platform that customers may stand at a distance until a train comes.

Four or five security employees were on this platform. 

Twice I witnessed around fourteen police and security employees enter a rail car to check tickets. In both instances, three or four passengers were taken to the platform to be surrounded by the police and security employees as the latter wrote municipal citations! Imagine if so much attention were directed to a motorist pulled over for speeding! In effect, the passengers were being treated as criminals likely to become violent. 
Tellingly, at least one supervisor of bus drivers at a bus-transfer hub in Tempe decided to have his new van's yellow lights flashing continuously, as if the default were to treat the routine as a constant state of emergency just because one might be possible. 

Even during daylight hours, on a Sunday when the hub was virtually empty, a supervisor still felt the need to have his flashers on!

The flashing yellow lights on top of the white van are barely visible, and yet presumably someone thought they were fitting. 

People who are not willing or able to perceive when they have gone too far should not be permitted to wield power over other people. 

The relationship between excessiveness and over-reaching is an interesting one. Perhaps the former connotes being oblivious while the latter stresses the underlying motive. In both of the cases of Orlando and Phoenix, the excessiveness in the over-reaching itself was of such an extent as to be utterly transparent to the naked eye. It is perhaps a easily overlooked truism that going beyond authorized authority is itself an over-reach.

Typically when an over-reach or excessiveness is treated as part of the legitimate status-quo, or societal default, the culprits eventually go so far that they come to be viewed as a problem. For example, the decision of Allied Security in Phoenix to have the ticket-checkers/security-guards wear police-color uniforms and even separate silver badges could eventually lead to the company being charged with intentionally impersonating police. 

One of six security employees (not the one who became aggressive concerning picture-taking of half of the car)  watching passengers (rather than checking tickets) on a routine basis rather than because of an incident suspected or in progress on one car of a light-rail train in Phoenix. The obvious police impersonation, with its (intended) implications of additional authority, is no accident. Even though the employee pictured here was not belligerent, she and another employee blocked the conduit between the two sides of the car (and thus were "front and center" for any general picture-shot).

I submit that the impersonation to look like police employees was geared to intimidating customers beyond that which a security guard as such could muster. On account of the low pay, minimal qualifications (a High School diploma), and the bad (hiring) management (as reported by former employees online), it should be no surprise that the attitude toward customers has been more like that of the local police to the citizens than customer service in a company. The allure of power taken can be too much, especially if that elixir is not ideally in a customer-service attitude.
In the Phoenix Public Library, the security employees also wore silver detachable badges, at least as of 2019.  

The security employees are so numerous that a patron could easily sense that the library's management had gone too far. That the security employees intermingle with the police stationed at the library renders the impersonation problem more of problem because patrons could more easily assume that the employees also have police powers. 

The policewoman is at the left-back, next to one of the security employees. 

That the police and security employees are constantly making the rounds passing by patrons who are reading or studying does not render the library a place conducive to studying. 

At the Tempe Public Library, armed security employees with badges stood at the entrance at least by 2019. A volunteer told me that a manager had insisted that the "Welcome" desk be relabeled "Security" just in case patrons miss the point even in seeing two armed guards in front. 

Those security guards, each having a gun and taser, also made rounds through areas where patrons were reading or studying, as the video below testifies. 

At one of the pot dispensaries in Phoenix, a security guard could be seen sitting at a close proximity to the customers on whom he was keeping a direct eye. I doubt it made any difference to him whether they felt uncomfortable with his excessiveness. To him, he may not even have been excessive. 

The security guard is seated on the right, positioned to face the three customers seated against the side wall. Was the guard worried that one of the customers would suddenly explode in reefer madness? Such over-blown assumptions, while ludicrous, have existed in Arizona even as marijuana was legal in some of the other States. 

In the television series, Downton Abbey, the Dowager Countess, played by Maggie Smith, remarks that power goes to the head of a common person like strong drink. She is referring to the village physician whom the British military put in charge of the military hospital during World War I at the Downton residence. If that could be said from her perspective of a physician, the hiring of (in many cases) inner-city youth to wear badges on trains can be expected to lead to a host of problems.  

The dynamic can be explained by appropriating Nietzsche’s philosophy in which some people are weak internally and so they cannot resist their instinctual urge to dominate even and especially the strong. The weak resent the strong for their self-confidence and surfeit of strength. Whereas the strong do not feel a need to use more power than necessary because they have more than enough strength anyway, the weak will stoop to even cruelty to exact even a bit of pleasure from the exercise of power externally; exerting power internally, as in mastering an intractable urge, requires more strength than the weak have.

If a hiring budget is inadequate to attract a certain maturity- and knowledge-level, then fine-tuning the hiring criteria will not be adequate. Unfortunately, if, as Nietzsche says, the weak cannot but be weak and the strong cannot but be strong, then training too can be expected to have limited usefulness. Organizational, governmental, and even societal accountability may have to be called on to supply the needed check on the power-overreaches. Unfortunately, in such a law-and-order culture as has existed in Arizona at least through the first two decades of the twenty-first century, security guards as well as the local police could be expected to get away with a lot. Even the state's major universities, including ASU and UA, were not immune from over-reaches by security guards given police status (a police department is reports to a city, rather than an organization), and yet students passively took it while the "academic" administrators compromised academic ways to make way for other values such as intimidation (i.e., of students). 

It was not uncommon, at least by 2019, for campus "police" to park their cars on a routine basis on sidewalks used by students to get from class to class. The assumption that they would not be concerned passing such a car belongs in a fantasy movie rather than on at an institution of higher learning (at least in principle). 

It was not uncommon for campus police to "patrol" in one place on an ongoing basis out in front where students walk. The obvious need to stick out carries with it a certain amount of ego and lack of concern for how the young students may be affected emotionally. Few, I submit, would feel that such a presence during a school day is necessary to feel safe. 

In fact, in addition to the campus police, ASU hires student security guards. The result is a sense of constantly being watched on that campus, which obviously must have had cameras too. 
Once while talking to two students representing a cause at a table, I noticed that a student security guard was taking his job too seriously, or was told to do so, by how he was so obviously watching us. I was reminded of the secret police of the Communist states in the last century. 

Notice how needlessly confrontational the security employee's posture is in this picture. 

To the extent that a local culture enables the over-reaches by casting a blind or even permissive eye, as in Arizona, the imposition of checks on authority are especially important. That Florida's authorities, in contrast, came out against the child-cop who tried to criminalize being a child suggests that not every state is as dire in this respect as is Arizona. 

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1. A. Willingham, Artemis Moshtaghian, and Amir Vera, “A School Resource Officer Is Fired after Arresting Two 6-year-old Children,” CNN.com, September 23, 2019 (accessed same day).