The Arkansas Republican governor wants businesses to make money. He added, “Besides, if you tell people they can’t go out, everybody will immediately go out.”
Trump’s best hope for the election is that in November 2020, the economy is back to normal. This is the least likely scenario.
The second-best hope is is that the economy is at least trending upward. This is a marginally likely scenario.
Absent good economic news, his third-best and most likely hope is to push a story of “We Republicans tried to open the economy and the Democrat governors wouldn’t play ball.”
Sadly, this seems to be a smartly hedged strategy with a non-zero chance of success.
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Keeping a government at a bare minimum does not equal anarchy. Of course government should provide prisons and border security. Those are essential and basic functions of any functioning government. You say that you distrust government, yet you want more, more, and more of it all the time. You even said so in that rant: You want more government involvement in health care, more regulation of industry for pollution, more government involvement in schools.
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Again with the extremes. The right to assemble does not go so far as the right to assemble on your property. It does not mean the right to assemble as a mob. These are limits on the periphery of the right and/or never considered part of the right at all.
But what it does mean is that you have a right to assemble. The government cannot just destroy that basic right. And to others talking about emergency powers, they have been historically limited in geography and scope. Even during the worst hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, the government never said that the survivors couldn’t go assemble in church.
You say I can attend online church? So now a person has to be well off enough to own a computer, and pay for internet service in order to worship? Your side complains about having to present an ID to vote, but you require that sort of financial outlay to worship?
Yeah, it is pretty tiresome. You have a well intentioned OP who is really trying to genuinely understand the other side’s beliefs, people come in here and explain their beliefs only to be met with responses from people saying that we are full of shit and just want to hold our Trump Nazi rallies or kill Mexicans.
To be fair, it also gets tiresome when we see Fox news, politicians, and protesters suggesting that we ought to just sacrifice the elderly to juice the economy, and other people explain it away as a spirited debate about the proper role of government.
I don’t think me or anyone else in the thread has said any such thing. The thread is “Why do Republicans want to end the corona virus restrictions?” and my answer is that Republicans, generally, do not like government intrusion. When the government tells me that I must stay at home, my first reaction is to recoil and protest against that, and then continually think that we must have a better solution than that. So something like ending restrictions and getting herd immunity will instinctively get a much more positive response from a Republican for that reason alone.
My impression is that when Democrats hear a decree that you must stay home, their first reaction is that because the government said so then there must be some real substance to that decree because they, again generally, view the government as the provider of social good whether that is health care, or social security, or WIC, or education, or any of the litany of things that the left typically support.
Like the prior poster, I think we have seen these “Trump sucks” posts in everything. I’ll bet I couldn’t start a thread about stamp collecting that within 10 posts wouldn’t have a negative comment about Trump. And that’s fine, this is a left learning board, so have your fun.
But when an OP asks us Republicans a question about why we feel a certain way, don’t tell us that it is bullshit when I am telling you exactly how I feel. I don’t have a secret scheme I am hiding from you.
When they have the chance to do the intruding, they do. With a great deal of glee and vigor.
Yeah.
Because nations where the government is more involved in health care have better outcomes for less money. I thought saving money was a conservative virtue but maybe not?
Before we had government involvement in pollution regulation we have rivers in this country catching on fire. Multiple times. See “Cuyahoga” - a river that caught fire no less than 13 times! But not at all since the 1970’s.
Government involvement in school resulted in more people being educated.
Wow, sometimes government improves things. Where it does, yes, I want it to be involved.
No, you do not need to own a computer. A smart phone will do. Don’t even need a high end smartphone. I’ve got a pretty minimal one and it will work. Also, there are synagogues in my area that allow people to listen to services via dialing in my dumbphone, or even landline, so presumably this could be done by Christians as well.
Or, hey, get a big enough building or even a large open field, use a sound system, and have your ceremony while keeping everyone at a proper distance from each other.
Or talk to your god wherever you happen to be. Last I heard, the Abrahamic God is not confined to a box, you can address that one anywhere. The need to assemble in a dense group in a building is a requirement made by man, not God.
Yes, I agree, it’s tiresome that the Republican Party keeps denying its lunatic fringe, even when they are outright dangerous or harmful, rather than attempting to get them under control.
Like how fundamentalist Mormons have been successful in every court case they have brought on anti-polygamy laws, because their rights to religious worship can’t be balanced, ever.
OK. So we’ve established that whatever the government tells you to do, you’re going to filter it through your ideology before you even consider the merits. Heck of an admission, and it explains the worldview you describe below, but let’s move on.
So, in your interpretation, the government-worshipping Democrats credulously bow down to government officials when it comes to the stay-at-home order, because obeying government edicts is what we do. So far so good. But now that the government is beginning to sound the all-clear, Democrats are resisting fiercely saying it’s too soon. Your assumption falls apart at that point, does it not?
Perhaps not, but it seems odd that you seem to insist on the rosiest possible interpretation, while ignoring the plain evidence spewing out of Fox news, plus the alternative right-wing press, plus the protests. I mean, I get that maybe you’re not part of the main body of the right-wing rabble, but it’s really suspicious that you want to ignore or deny that elephant in the room.
If a Republican wants to come on here and give simplistic answers like, “Because Fox News”, then fine, let them do that. So far I haven’t seen it. That is certainly more credible than somebody mentioning some relic family member that isn’t even here to articulate their own views.
… said no legal scholar ever.
I never agreed to be responsible for watching those people. They’ll go away if you just ignore them. There are lunatics on all sides of the political spectrum. You didn’t agree to be responsible for them either, so why are we blaming each other?
I agree that no right is absolute. You cannot falsely shout fire in a crowded theater or own a nuclear weapon or broadcast obscenity or speak slander or publish libel. You cannot sacrifice virgins on an altar before a full moon or practice polygamy as part of your religion. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. And I’ve said so much.
What you are saying is not that. It’s not even close to that. What you are saying is that it is too dangerous to assemble. You are saying that the very core of the right itself is too dangerous and must be suspended. That is not arguing things at the periphery or carefully limiting rights in outlier applications that really were not part of the right to begin with.
We can agree that the Second Amendment doesn’t give you the right to own nuclear weapons. We can have a debate on whether you have a right to own an AR-15. But what we cannot do (according to Heller) is say that you can be prevented from owning any gun at all because, after all, you can’t own a nuclear weapon.
I don’t even know what you call this fallacy. It goes something like “Because certain exceptions are permissible, then anything is permissible.” You have a right to do X, but because reasons, you do not have the right to do X. Did I really have a right to do X?
Also I walk back a little of what I said earlier. This isn’t a generally applicable law. I can assemble with my neighbors at the grocery store or the hardware store. Or at the law office where legal services are deemed essential. But not at church. The law deems church “non-essential” which is a law against the free exercise of religion.
Worst case scenario for the Republicans: They have to run campaign ads this October with the message “Sorry we killed your Mom.”
No one agreed to be responsible for the destructive members of our society but no, ignoring them does not make them go away. People who can not behave themselves and cause problems become the collective responsibility of the society in which they live. Or, I suppose we could ship them up to Alaska and abandon them on an ice floe (if you can find any left with global warming and all…)
In the case of a pandemic that is spread by close proximity to other people, yes. The right of you and your fellows to assemble does not cancel the right of others to NOT be hurt by your assembly.
So…
Assemble in a manner where transmission is unlikely (large areas, distance between you)
Assemble via technology (livestream, Zoom, whatever)
Find alternatives to assembly for the duration of the emergency.
Or, I would be amenable to you forming your own little community that can rub shoulders all you want… but you collectively go into quarantine. You are all in a designated area you can not leave for a full quarantine period but within that area you can assemble all you want, as closely as you want, because under those circumstances you will not be endangering anyone else.
During a pandemic? Yes, assembling people together is dangerous. We’ve already had outbreaks and deaths among those who insisted on such assemblies during this time.
Why does your religion supersede the health and safety of other people in your community?
But you CAN be prohibited from owning a weapon if you are a danger to yourself or others. This has also been upheld in the court.
Assembling in close proximity to other people spreads the virus. Therefore, assembling in groups during this pandemic is endangering yourself and others. Therefore, it should not be permitted for the safety of yourself and others.
The church building itself is, indeed, non-essential to the practice of any major religion. You will not die if you can’t attend services in person for a few months.
Obtaining food, on the other hand, is a necessity of life. Even there, society is trying to impose physical distance, physical barriers, limit contact, and so forth. In some of the worst areas you can only get curbside groceries - you have to order in advance and someone puts them in your car.
The purpose of keeping those businesses open is NOT to assemble closely with others, but to enable people to do what they need to do to keep life going during this emergency.
You can talk to your god at home for a few months. You can find alternatives - as so many have done - to traditional assembly. You can assemble and then quarantine yourselves.
But what I do not want you to do is endanger other people. Go to a church assembly, pick up the virus, and then you’re spewing it for days on everyone else you may come into proximity to. You might even do that for a couple weeks. Is that what your god wants you to do?
While I agree that Republicans bristle at some types of government intervention, so do liberals. Republicans are just fine with nonsensical and invasive laws on abortion in order to cut down on the procedure, for example; liberals have much less tolerance for police powers generally.
So I think what you have laid out here, even through the prism of how each side sees itself, is not a thorough answer.
A fringe of conservatives aren’t rebelling simply because the government told them to do something, and liberals and moderates aren’t staying at home just because the government ordered them to. How do I know this? Because conservatives in states with lesser restrictions aren’t voluntarily staying at home. Some of these locales are becoming hotspots, like that South Dakota meatpacking plant that is worse off than any cruise ship.
I don’t think that the rejection pertains to government specifically as it has to do with rejection of… well, science? It seems to fit in somehow with the rejection of climate change because it conflicts with perceptions of what American life should be for many conservatives, like big cars burning fuel and made-in-America coal, etc.
Note also that liberals are taking their own steps on climate change even without government mandating such things. So much for the theory that libs never question government.
Going to stores to buy necessities isn’t a First Amendment issue. It’s not credible to argue that commerce is a First Amendment right; besides which, if people didn’t go to grocery stores, we would likely starve. How many people have died for lack of going to church? Seems like more people have died of COVID because of church than lives have been saved by going to church. I don’t think it’s even debatable.
Aren’t you making sparks and doing work by using a phone?
That is not what I said. Do not mischaracterize my words. Stop now.
BTW public schools already feature rather massive “government involvement” so I don’t grok your point. Should all schools be privatized? And per environment and health: Should healthcare and industry be free of regulation? If so, why?
IOW “fundamental rights” indeed have limits recognized by courts. Keep that in mind.
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Back to topic. GOPs want to “open the country fast” because, following their national leaders, they don’t really give a shit about more deaths as long as survivors, hopefully themselves, can cash in. A century-old lesson shows that locales locking-down soonest and strongest restore their economies fastest. “Open the country now” morons ignore history at their and our peril. Very bad idea.
Opening early guarantees more pain. But hey, let’s sacrifice millions of Americans so the rich can stay rich! And be sure the untreated have the right to infect others. It’s right there in the Bill of Rights granting liberty to microbes. Equal rights for viruses and prions! Set those bacteria free! If an embryo is a person, so is a paramecium, right?
Note to UltraVires: I am not attributing these thoughts to you. No way.
I really am not sure how that’s working out with the Orthodox (I suspect they’re doing no-tech strictly at-home Sabbath) but not all Jews have the same level of restrictive practice. Heck, quite a few don’t even bother to keep kosher these days, there’s all levels of observance.
With Judaism the Sabbath needs to be observed, but that can happen at home, even without anyone else present. Outside of the Sabbath, various other things can certainly utilize modern technology without running afoul of the more hardcore rule observances.
This conservative wants to end the stay at home work order because it isn’t sustainable. Now I am ok will all kinds of restrictions (wear face mask, stay 6’ away, wash hands etc) but people have got to get back to work. I and my family all are lucky enough to have jobs that we can do from home, a lot of others do not, and a lot of other industries business models are failing because they also CANNOT
I will also attribute it to a false belief that this may be a chicken little moment also but I lack faith in any government entity telling me what is best for me or my family. I’d rather make those calls myself.