[wyattpeak]

That was a fairly unusual scenario though, where the government actively disliked their citizens, many politicians explicitly happy to see the Irish suffer, others viewing it as the will of God, and none of them dependent on Irish votes.

It's an indication of how things can go wrong with the government working against you, but I don't know that it maps well to the current pandemic.

[DoreenMichele]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Irish example is a real world example of the government tampering in some way with landlords and it having unintended consequences that were disastrous.

[wyattpeak]

I don't think that's a reasonable reading of the event. Ascribing good intentions to Westminster with regard to the famine is unjustified. Some wanted to help, others distinctly didn't. It would be beyond charitable to suggest that all their actions were designed to minimise Irish suffering.

[DoreenMichele]

I don't think that's a reasonable reading of my comment. (Trying to be light-hearted here, not mocking.)

I wasn't ascribing good intentions to Westminster. I was saying that their intentions, good or bad, and the intentions of the current American government are irrelevant. What's relevant here is they did a thing and it got x result. So we should use that example to wonder what will really happen should we do a similar thing now.

[markdown]

> So we should use that example to wonder what will really happen should we do a similar thing now.

Except nobody is suggesting a similar thing. I started this thread by suggesting that the government do x, and you replied with the assumption that the government would do x+y.