Desert Hound
DA
Anyone believe they haven't had a covid death now in months?
Bad News Thread
- Thread starter kickingandscreaming
- Start date
Hüsker Dü
DA
Yes, different culture, they listen to experts and do what they are told, they comply. There are positives and negatives to that type of community compliance.
That right there is the primary problem. "Buy in" or consensus with counties was never attempted. Everything has been dictated. Add in arbitrary, token and non-science based restrictions and your not going to get compliance particularly for curfews and non-essential travel restrictions. Oh and also add in the hypocrisy.
That having been said, myself, everyone I know, and 99.9% of the people I see, are wearing masks or practicing social distancing in public. No Covid issues with my friends and family (except a couple nephews in Utah). Frankly, I just consider myself lucky. The virus is going to do its thing.
You realize that by now we have buried more people than PRC placed into mandatory covid isolation.
There is a cost to sociopathic libertarianism, too. When too many people say "screw everyone else", everyone gets screwed.
(Don't read this as praise for PRC. Covid in US is bad, but still less than 1% of the size of Mao's engineered famine.)
No one is proposing this. (Queue mischaracterization of my arguments).
For sure -- it's all over the place. Newsom has really screwed this up. He likely won't be getting my vote next time around. On the flip side, the messaging from the federal side of the shop has been abysmal; almost criminal. Our local officials have been even worse as they're just kowtowing to the state. It's all stupid at this point. Opening indoor venues was just dumb. Not emphasizing what was safe based on data collected by tons of youth sports organizations was a massive missed opportunity. Few people, outside of parents, were ever going to be ok with seeing kids participating in outdoor activities like normal while business were in lockdown. The surges have nothing to do with youth sports.
Anyway, I think covid is just the beginning. I'm sure there are some countries that aren't friendly with the US that are watching this unfold and taking a lot of notes. Imagine a more deadly, laboratory (for reals) made virus. I have a feeling we're going to learn the hard way.
You say you aren't praising the PRC but then you put it in the same ballpark as "sociopathic libertarianism". I would remind you (setting aside the ancient history of Mao), the current Chinese regime has "controlled" COVID through the abuses to liberty we've seen in the video posted (including the forced testing of individuals, forced quarantine, and the separation of children and families), the Chinese regime lied to the world about COVID (creating the mess we are in and eliminating any possibility we had of containing it), the Chinese regime excacerbated the crisis we are in by buying up the world's PPE while it kept the outbreak a secret, the Chinese regime deliberately sealed off travel within China while allowing travel to outside of China to continue, the Chinese regime has set up a brutal surveilence state on its people including a points system to control the behavior or its population and a repressive system of prison camps for those who dare challenge the regime, the Chinese government has broken the agreement on Hong Kong and engaged in the deliberate suppression of its democratic systems and liberties, the Chinese regime continues its repressive occupation and resettlement of the Tibet region, the Chinese government has engaged in an almost genocidal campaign against the Uyghurs of north western China, the Chinese government corrupted the WHO to cover it and has engaged in retribution tactics against nations such as Japan and Australia that attempted to call it out on COVID, and the Chinese government engaged in a brutally repressive one child system which was only lifted a few years ago.
To compare American libertarianism to this is not only pattently unfair, it is also out and out offensive. I'll take libertarianism (the philosophy on which our country in part was founded) over Chinese style "democracy" any day of the week. It's nice ewhen the mask (ha ha!) slips and reveals the petty totalitarian tendencies of people who insist we must obey the experts and not publicly question them.
Desert Hound
DA
Expand on the positives of a dictatorship.
Tell us about the uighurs.
Tell us about about Tibet.
Etc.
Desert Hound
DA
I guess that would be an example of listening to the experts.
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
Hahaha! Really? You believe the numbers the Chinese government puts out? People "disappear" when they speak out against that government. That's not exactly a recipe for transparency.
Can We Believe Any of China’s Coronavirus Numbers?
On Wednesday, China changed how it counts COVID-19 cases for the eighth time.
Report of Urns in Wuhan Raises Questions About COVID-19 Death Toll
Many are skeptical of China's tallies given Wuhan’s overwhelmed medical system and authorities’ initial attempts to cover up the outbreak
The Wuhan files | CNN
Misleading public data, a three-week lag in diagnosing new virus cases, and a previously undeclared regional spike in influenza cases: 117 pages of internal documents show a chaotic and underfunded provincial health care system struggling to confront a mysterious viral outbreak.
www.cnn.com
Could you explain that point a little further - the one about "the philosophy on which our country in part was founded"? Are we talking Declaration of Independence and associated documents? The US Constitution and Bill of Rights? Or perhaps the philosophy of the current Libertarian Party movement?
With less than a minute of googling, I found that the first person to describe himself as a "libertarian" was Joseph Dejacque, a 19th -Century French anarchist and commmunist, but I don't think that is the philosophy you had in mind.
Meh....libertarianism as a philosophy (not the libertarian party) is based on the rights of the individual. You see this tendency in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. It derives from what is typically known as "Classical liberalism". You make too much of it. There are other tendencies there, whether federalism or Jeffersonian republicanism, hence the "in part".
Dictatorships are clean and efficient. Democracy is messy.
I like this article. Particularly from the perspective of a box store employee: they are being told to go to work but at the same time the government is telling them it's not safe and people should stay home. They have to work (and interact with people all day) but can't socialize.
www.latimes.com
Many aren’t buying public officials' 'stay-at-home' message. Experts say there's a better way
Some experts say a harm-reduction approach to public health — educating people how to mitigate risk in their activities — would be more effective than all-or-nothing pleas to abstain from contact with other people.
www.latimes.com
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
These two quotes from experts resonate with me.I like this article. Particularly from the perspective of a box store employee: they are being told to go to work but at the same time the government is telling them it's not safe and people should stay home. They have to work (and interact with people all day) but can't socialize.
Many aren’t buying public officials' 'stay-at-home' message. Experts say there's a better way
Some experts say a harm-reduction approach to public health — educating people how to mitigate risk in their activities — would be more effective than all-or-nothing pleas to abstain from contact with other people.
“It’s not because the public is irresponsible; it’s because they are losing trust in public health officials who put out arbitrary restrictions,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious-disease specialist at UC San Francisco. “We are failing in our public health messaging.”
...
But banning relatively safe outdoor activities risks alienating people who want to follow the rules but feel exhausted, disregarded and sometimes confused by them, Brown University health economist Emily Oster said.
“Some of the things they’re telling you not to do are incredibly low-risk,” Oster said. “When you are so strict about what people can do, they stop listening.”
Desert Hound
DA
This is absolutely the case.
Look back on this forum. Look how the discussions have changed. More and more people are tired of these arbitrary rules.
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
It’s the natural progression for the suppression of liberties. There was a lot of buy-in at first. No one quite knew how bad it was. Fortunately, it’s not nearly as deadly as first stated, but unfortunately, CA politicians (I won’t say leaders. That title should be earned) started with arbitrary rules, ignored their own rules and tried to use science to justify rules while blatantly ignoring science when it comes to our children - both with school and outdoor sports.
I'm pretty sure those sentiments are a basic concept in a Leadership 101 class.
Soccer Bum 06
SILVER
What I have been unable to piece together in my mind is why? Either they are afraid of saying they made a mistake, they truly believe their methods work, or they have a grand scheme to grow government towards a socialist society. I never thought I would see a politician do so many unpopular things to his constituents and not worry about the consequences. Most politician worry about getting reelected. Democrats don’t seem to have that fear.