Please don’t think that I disagree with your underlying points. I agree that people should stay home and participate in church online. I’m 100% for that.
But my issue, for the reasons I have stated in other threads, is that it is a very dangerous precedent to be able to label this a *special circumstance to proscribe rights. Every tinpot dictator can label something “special.” What it means in the end is that freedom keeps getting chipped away at. This virus will pass but this precedent will not.
I would rather leave my daughter with a just as free or freer society than the one I grew up in, even if this virus kills me (or a terrorist kills me, or a DUI driver kills me, or whatever the demon du jour is). I am not a conspiracy theorist. This shit is real. But a precedent for restrictions on freedom is even more real and longer lasting.
Like I said; I’m not in a good position to opine. I’ve made more money since my state was locked down then I had the rest of this year. I couldn’t dream of a better working environment for myself except I wish my kids could go to school. I also know that for my friends who were a banquet manager at a hotel, a bartender, a waiter, and a facilities manager at a bar this question wasn’t theoretical and when faced with staying home unemployed or risking getting the virus every one of them got jobs are grocery stores.
Let’s put the question to you. Why haven’t you quit your job rather than risking getting the virus? If I remember other threads correctly you work in a grocery store. It seems you’re ok risking permanant disability rather than unempolyment.
Except this is not a new precedent. Governors have had the power to enforce curfews, require that people shelter or evacuate, et cetera, in response to natural disasters. These are normally restricted to specific areas and for a shorter duration, but this isn’t some kind of novel power that governors have suddenly claimed ex nihilo. And as a general principle there is long standing legal precedent for the restriction of Constitutional rights where there is a large scale public threat in place as long as those restrictions are specific to the nature of the threat and limited in scope.
The people protesting to lift restrictions are, ironically, making things worse, not only because they are likely to spread the contagion among themselves, but the more prolonged the epidemic is and the lest time governments have to prepared for additional waves, the harder it is going to be to “restart” the economy. And as for what they are achieving, other than civil disobedience for the sake of making a political statement, I don’t know. It isn’t as if their demonstrations are going to in any way affect the progression of the epidemic other than to extend it.
There is an argument to be made that the federal government should get out of the way of individual groups and states deploying tests so as to facilitate being able to lift restrictions, and of course state governments should be working with employers in crucial industries to find ways that employees can continue to work with protections. But the reality is that many people believe that “the corona” is somebody else’s problem to deal with, and ideology about the merits of individuality aside, the only way to effectively mobilize all of society to take some measure of responsibility is by imposing isolation and lockdown measures.
I was going to mention this astroturfing. I only recently became aware of it–basically a fake grassroots movement.
Some people may just want to stir up trouble. From this link:
URL to the reopen groups are in the post. The screenshots of the FaceBook group code is basically identical with different group names.
Also, remember Trump could possibly be prosecuted by a Democratic admin for obstruction of justice as detailed in the Mueller report once he out of office, so that may contribute his desperation about re-election because of that being on his mind.
That’s good to hear. I read and participate in message boards on both the right and the left, and I see both sides claiming that the other side are the ones who are irrational and screwing up. The truth is, people are people. There are assholes and idiots everywhere, and great people everywhere.
I don’t think he’s competent either, but then I don’t think very many people are competent to deal with a once in 100 years pandemic. Shall we go through the failures of the World Health Organization, the CDC, or the FDA? Obama and Bush both failed to replenish the strategic PPE stockpile. DeBlasio said incredibly stupid and damaging things long after he should have known better. People called Trump a racist for closing flights from China earlier than other countries. Nany Pelosi implored her constituents to go out and celebrate in Chinatown long after other places started lockdown orders.
On the other hand, Andrew Cuomo has done a good job. Other Democratic governors have done a good job, and so have many Republican governors.
This is an unprecedented event, and everyone is winging it. It doesn’t help when all the decision-makers know there are partisans just waiting to jump on them when a prediction goes wrong or a seemingly reasonable decision turns out not to be. The middle of a pandemic is a terrible time for sneering and finger pointing, although I accept that it’s probably inevitable in a time of stress.
I think this may be the effect of being in a bubble. Because I can easily tell you what Republicans like about his policies. First, his initial response was to de-regulate parts of the economy that needed to move faster, rather than institute even more new regulations as past presidents have done in crises.
The dilemma Republicans have is that many of them think Trump is personally an ass, and they cringe when he speaks, but they actually like his policies. The ‘Never Trumpers’ are the ones who can’t get past the personality flaws (I’m probably one of them), but even they like his judicial appointments, tax cuts, deregulation, etc. I understand that those on the left have the opposite opinion of those policies, but that’s why they’re on the left. We’re never going to agree on that stuff.
I don’t see many saying that the steps should never have been taken, but rather that this is the time to start easing back, because the pain is too high and getting worse.
But I think you are fooling yourself if you think this is just a Republican thing. Unless you think Sweden and Hokkaido are full of Republicans.
Here’s what I see some Republicans saying:
The lockdown required for a place like New York City, which is indeed suffering under this greatly, should not necessarily be applied to say, Knoxville Tennessee which has 34 active cases.
Here in Edmonton we are still in complete lockdown, yet we have only had two or three new cases in the past week and only have had 37 people go into the ICU in the entire province. If the goal was to ‘flatten the curve’ just so that we don’t overwhelm the healthcare system, it’s not hard to start thinking that maybe we went too far. On the other hand, Calgary, which seems to not have restricted as much, is still on an exponential curve and now has something like 1800 cases.
Another point they make is that the ‘movers and shakers’ making decisions about when to open up are generally in a position where the lockdown doesn’t really hurt them that much. If you’re a keyboard warrior in your spare time and a government office worker, chances are you’re still getting your salary and you’re still doing the same things you did before the lockdown. If you’re a media person or a politician you can generally keep working. To these people, the cost/benefit of a lockdown looks a lot different than someone in, say Texas with four unruly kids in the house, a mortgage payment due, no money for food, and everything you do for fun and relaxation involves being outdoors. Then they go out to a park with their kid and get fined $800, despite the fact that they don’t know anyone who is sick and their whole community only has a handful of cases.
The bottom line is that Republicans tend to live in places that aren’t that hard hit, and where they maybe COULD go with fewer restrictions without serious problems. But they are stuck being restricted just as if they lived in a dense city where every step outdoors carries risk to you or others. If you live in a town of 500 people and no one is sick, that’s a hard pill to swallow.
Add in to that the fact that Democrats tend to see government as a force for good and want the government controlling certain things even in the best of times, while Republicans tend to see the government as a problem that makes things worse as often as it makes it better, so they are inherently more skeptical. And this too makes sense, since Republicans tend to live in places where they can maintain strong families and be more self-reliant, whereas Democrats tend to be more in the big cities where everyone is in everyone else’s back pocket and government regulations are seen as a safety net against the vagaries of life.
I’m not saying Republican attitudes are correct: I’m saying they are understandable without resorting to ‘Republicans are stupid and/or evil’.
Aside from a few yahoos, I’m not seeing such simplistic arguments. Instead, I see arguments like, 'Wait… If we are just doing this to prevent the ICUs from being flooded, why can’t we ease off just a bit when our ICU use hasn’t even hit 10% of capacity? Or, “how do you know it’s better for us to be completely locked down like this, or whether it would be better for most of us to go back to work, so long as we maintain social distancing and wear masks and gloves? How do we know that won’t work? Didn’t that work in Taiwan? Isn’t Sweden still claiming that’s the right thing to do? Are they dumber than we are?”
No they don’t, and why should they? Let’s not forget that the WHO first told us that the virus was contained in China. They then said there was no evidence of person-to-person transmission, several weeks after they knew there was. After China closed internal air travel from Wuhan, Trump also stoped air travel from Wuhan. The WHO responded that there was no evidence of pandemic spread and no reason to shut down international air travel at all.
The CDC’s models were completely wrong. The CDC told us that wearing masks did no good, and we shouldn’t bother. The FDA refused to allow any existent COVID-19 testing, wanting to use their own test - which they then screwed up through poor lab safety protocols. This delayed the start of testing in the U.S. by weeks. The PPE stockpile they were supposed to maintain was depleted during the Swine Flu epidemic, and neither the Obama administration or the Trump administration bothered to refill it.
None of the ‘professional’ agencies have covered themselves in glory over this. ON the contrary, the crisis has exposed the fact that the WHO is in the pocket of the Chinese Communist Party, the CDC was too busy worrying about obesity, racism and playground safety to properly focus on actual disease, and the FDA has become a victim of its own bureaucracy and dysfunction. I don’t blame Republicans at all for not believing what they are saying now. They probably should, but their skepticism is well founded, and that’s on the CDC, WHO, and FDA.
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Or do they believe the numbers but just think that having 1 to 2 out of every 50 of us dying is preferable to accepting a little socialism for a couple of months? Or do they maybe believe that it won’t effect them because it hasn’t spread to Flyover, USA yet? Or is there something else?
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It’s a combination of a lot of things. There are reasonable arguments on both sides. For example, our premier (relying on models from the CDC) said that we could expect 800,000 infections, even with social distancing, and that the whole point to this wasn’t to reduce the number of people who ultimately get COVID-19, but to ‘bend the curve’ so that the peaks don’t overwhelm the health care system.
All well and good, and everyone accepted that. Except, at our peak we only had a total of 37 ICUY admissions, with a provincial capacity of 600-700. A logical argument could be made that goes like this: "If the object is to get through this and develop herd immunity as fast as possible while not overwhelming the healthcare system, isn’t the fact that we are only at 5% capacity in our ICUs while the peak seems to have passed a sign that we went too far?
What if the future is that each time we ease the lockdown the number of cases start to rise, and that continues until we develop herd immunity? In that case, the best solution would be to lockdown and use PPE just enough to keep the system from failing us, which would be the fastest way to get to the point where we can get back to normal. If we lock down to the point where each lockdown period only results in another .5%-1% of the population being infected, and our hospitals are still mostly empty, then we’re doing it too slowly and by the time we’ve reached herd immunity we’ll have economic devastation on our hands.
That’s a reasonable argument. It’s not the only argument, and there are plenty on the other side, but the people who believe this are not crazy, immoral, or even necessarily Republican. But I think you’re more likely to buy this if you live in Knoxville than if you’re in New York City in the thick of it. That biases such beliefs towards Republicans, but only through correlation. The real factor is where they live and what they do for a living and how wealthy they are.
Incorrect. Liberals want government to help people while their opposites, the mentally enslaved right, wants government to hurt people. Spend more on prisons than schools. Promote pollution. Health plan: Don’t get sick. :smack:
You think liberals trust government? You must be very young. I can re-do an old chant directed at Lyndon Johnson.
Hey, hey, Donald J.
How many sp!cks did you kill today?
You do not have the right to spread contagion. Stay home except for essential outings. Stay away from me. Worship online. Assemble after a usable vaccine is administered.
Courts disagree with you. Your fundamental right to assemble ends at my property line or a police barricade. Your fundamental right to free speech ends with slander or incitement to riot. Your fundamental right to bear arms doesn’t include personal nukes. Like I said, if you don’t like emergency declarations, tell a judge.
That’s been my take on his decision process all along. He’d rather die in Bethesda than Leavenworth.
It was the CDC that developed the coronavirus test, which initially contained a contaminated negative control reagent that came up positive for the virus. It was up to the FDA to approve the CDC test for use.
It should also be noted that Trump has specifically targeted states with Democratic governors (VA. MI, MN), but has not mentioned states with Republican governors who have instituted similar lockdowns (OH). Culture wars, anyone?
People can continue to worship IF they don’t gather in groups in such a manner as to spread disease.
Otherwise they are just as free to worship whatever they choose as they were before. Absolutely NOTHING in any Abrahamic religion requires people to gather together in massive, jammed together groups every Sunday.
You want to take away MY freedom to make MY choice. MY choice is to comply with medical instructions because I want to live. I do not want to die of this. I reject your notion that your freedom is worth more than the lives of other people.
What good is “freedom” if it kills me? The constitution, the bill of rights, and society are not and should not be a suicide pact.
Those who work in grocery stores were not given a choice.
If we quit we do NOT get unemployment because you don’t get it if you leave “voluntarily”. So if I leave I will have zero income, no health insurance, and with no other jobs available I would shortly blow through my savings and lose everything I currently have and be left homeless. During a pandemic.
So… granted all those millions laid off are having a hell of a time trying to get onto unemployment, but once they do they at least get something, and extra money a week at least for awhile.
So… either risk illness and death, or risk being homeless and destitute. That’s a hell of a non-choice don’t you think?
oh, sorry. i said that Pelosi said people should go to Chinatown and celebrate. You ‘refuted’ that with a quote that admits that Pelosi DID tell her constituents to go to Chinatown and celebrate. Do I have that right?
The rest of your quote was just another ‘Orange Man Bad’ description, which has zero to do with what I said, and contains stuff I never disputed and actually agree with.
You need to stop jerking your leg and rushing out to Google every time you see a message that differs from your priors in any way. or id you are going to, you should at least attempt to stay on point.
Wrong again, the most accurate way is that it was advised to go to get takeouts, keep social distancing, visit. Not to go to celebrations.
Wrong again, I was pointing where those items came from, it is really sad to realize that while you can be dubious of Trump the sad thing is that what he declares you got it by osmosis from some dubious sources.
The point I make is very clear, at the same time you post some good information there are some very shitty items inside the candy shell.
Just saying that you should be continuously put on notice that you should stop relying on those sources for information, you are just then using a lot of trash to prop up very, very dubious points.
And BTW, you should use Google too before referring to very regurgitated dubious points, it is not just for liberal minded fellows ok?
