I Want To Get This Off My Chest · 8:14pm Sep 21st, 2020
I keep seeing people posting stuff about how "The virus isn't going away, viruses never go away, you guys just need to deal with it".
Here's some straight truth for you guys.
And here's a link where I cite my sources about SARS.
In 2002, the SARS virus, the predecessor to COVID-19, come about, and it was considered a dangerous potential pandemic. It was very similar to COVID, barring the two week latency period where you could catch it and be contagious without showing symptoms. Because all parties involved took it as a serious threat, put into place proper precautions in the affected areas, prevented anyone from traveling to and from the affected areas, and all in all followed the advice of the CDC and WHO, the SARS strain of the virus that was infectious to humans was literally extinct within two years. That's not hyperbole. As of 2004, there were zero human cases of the SARS virus on planet earth. A virus that was considered a potential pandemic was caught, contained, and destroyed within two years. A global threat was reduced to the past tense with very few people even knowing about it, or remembering it afterward.
And before anyone starts saying that it was a completely different situation or that SARS had no chance of being a global threat, please note that COVID-19 is literally just a new strain of SARS that jumped from animals to humans. COVID-19 is just a slightly mutated version of SARS.
This was done while G. W. Bush was president of the USA, a republican often lambasted by the media for not being especially bright. Yes, his part was minimal, as only a small handful of people were infected in the USA, but the president listened to the experts, took the precautions they advised, and because of that very few people in the USA were infected, and literally zero died.
So, when people say that there's nothing we can do about the virus and that we should just give up, it irritates me because not only has it been done, and not only has it been done within the last twenty years, but it was also done when the Republicans were in charge. We could have the virus wiped out by the end of the year if the government and the American people could stop trying to politicize it, and behaved like responsible adults.
And the other excuses for why it shouldn't be taken as a threat sicken and disgust me.
"Oh, it's only dangerous to the elderly or to those with preexisting conditions." Do... do you not care if your parents or grandparents die? I live with two people with serious health conditions (My father is Endstage COPD, my mother is a smoker with a large number of health conditions), and if they catch COVID-19, they are almost certain to die. The Boomer demographic is among the most vocal about it not being dangerous despite being the ones most at risk. And when was your last health checkup? Smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity are listed among the conditions that can cause serious complications with COVID, and that covers an extremely high number of adults in the USA. One-third of the American people qualify as obese This is especially egregious because the majority of the Republican party's voters fall into either the elderly category or the preexisting conditions category. Treating the virus this way literally endangers their own voting base, and even my grandmother who is very strongly a Republican considers Trump an idiot and is choosing to vote Democrat instead this year.
"It's just the flu." The 1918 flu epidemic. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic. The 1957-1958 flu pandemic.
The 1968 pandemic. The flu has had multiple pandemics in the last 102 years, several of which killed more than one million people. Heck, the 1918 flu epidemic became as bad as it did because people were doing the exact same stupid stuff that has allowed COVID to spread, including people refusing to wear masks and gathering against state and federal regulations saying not to. History is repeating itself. COVID is not the flu, but even the flu can kill a million people if they act like idiots.
"The number of fatalities is inflated." No, they aren't. From day one, we've been warned that people with preexisting conditions were at a far higher risk than people who were healthy. 6% of COVID fatalities being from COVID alone was expected. If someone has lung cancer, then catches COVID and dies because their lungs failed, COVID was the cause of death because if that person hadn't caught COVID, they might have lived another ten years with no problems. COVID was the catalyst for the deaths of these people. Claiming that the numbers are inflated only shows how little you actually understand about the virus and your health in general.
"It's all a liberal fearmongering conspiracy and the media is in on it." If it was, then why did literally the entire planet shut down? The democrats don't have the power to make everyone on the planet obey them. We're talking about governments and news agencies all across the globe doing something that almost never happens (Agreeing on something), and people are talking about it being a conspiracy just in the USA. I mean, the World Health Organization, a group that is beholden to no one government, is made up of people who have spent their lives studying the spread of disease and how to stop it, and are respected by literally every other government on the planet, are being treated as if they were part of a liberal propaganda machine even after the USA pulled out of the WHO.
"Masks don't do anything." COVID isn't an airborne virus (YET), it travels solely through body fluids, including saliva vapor. If you wear a mask, it catches that vapor so you don't spread the virus. If you don't wear a mask, then talk to someone who is, your saliva vapor can go into their eyes and infect them if you have COVID. If both you and the person you speak with are wearing a mask, then neither of you are likely to infect the other. It's not perfect, but it does reduce the likelihood of transmission immensely.
"Masks are just a form of government control." In the USA you're literally given a number at birth (Social Security Number), they require that you get a legal document proving you were born in the USA (Birth certificate), if you drive a car the government gives you another number and gets a picture of your face for their records and some states even require you give them your fingerprints (Driver's license number and driver's license photo), the government has a list of rules and regulations that you're forced to follow or you'll be fined, imprisoned, or even executed (Laws) and has a bunch of armed guards regularly patrolling to make sure you obey them (Police), plus keep a detailed record of every time you've broken those laws and collects your fingerprints if they don't have them already (Your criminal record), takes a significant portion of your paycheck every time you get paid (Taxes), and collects money from you every time you make a purchase of just about any commodity (Sales Tax). Could someone please explain to me how wearing a piece of cloth over your face accomplishes something that all of the doesn't already do? The government doesn't need to do anything to control people, they already control our lives in effectively every way they can without resorting to a literal jackboot dictatorship.
"We just need to gain immunity." Well, when European settlers came to the USA, they brought diseases like smallpox with them, diseases that were largely harmless to the Europeans since they had centuries to gain resistance and immunity, but it was incredibly deadly to the native population. Gaining immunity requires centuries of people getting sick and dying, and with some viruses, is effectively impossible. If it were, we'd have stopped getting colds or flus centuries ago. "Gaining immunity" would mean that a lot of people would die from the virus even if it were possible. COVID, being new to humans, is a virus literally no one is immune to, and it is so prone to mutations that people who had it six months ago are catching it again. Herd immunity only works if large numbers of people can become immune to the virus. Given COVID's high rate of mutation, it just won't happen. Even a vaccine is going to be a stopgap measure at best, as we're going to be needing a new one every six months to keep up with the latest mutation of the strain. More importantly, COVID has a 50% chance of leaving you with long-term, potentially permanent health problems. So, if you survive the first encounter, in six months you may catch a new mutation of it that can kill you because your first round with it left you with severe health problems. So, if you don't die the first time, you may die the second, third, or fourth time.
"You just wear masks because you're afraid/unpatriotic." We're wearing masks because literally every responsible health agency on the planet recommends it, state and federal law demands it, and because unlike a lot of people, we're not sociopaths and actually care more about our fellow human beings than we do about whether a politician looks good during an election year. How is taking precautions against the spread of a virus to my fellow Americans 'unpatriotic'?
"It's a Chinese bio-weapon." Nope. It's a mutation of a known virus. Viruses mutate. It's a fact. We've seen multiple mutations of the same flu virus over the last century that caused a pandemic that no government had anything to do with and had killed massive numbers of people worldwide each time it happened. There are known indicators that show if a virus was deliberately tampered with, and no reputable virologist on the planet has discovered any of those despite months of intensive study of the virus. It isn't a bioweapon, it's just a normal mutation of a virus. It happens.
"The Chinese brought it over." The virus came to the USA because the president failed to cut off travel to and from Europe in time. He implemented travel restrictions right away with China, but hus failure to do the same when we were seeing the initial outbreaks in European countries was what allowed the virus to come into America. Had he come down as hard on all international travel the way he did China, we might have stopped the American outbreak before it started. China had nothing to do with the virus coming to America or spreading, it's just good old fashioned incompetence, something as old as humanity itself.
"President Trump said..." You can never trust anything any politician says, and that goes double during an election year. We know this, we make jokes about it, it's practically a meme from before the birth of memes. However, everyone forgets that fact every election year, and we act surprised when any politician goes back on the promises they made. Trump admitted on tape in an interview that he knew COVID was a serious threat and that he was downplaying it, then came out and not only confirmed that was true but also defended that decision. He literally admitted to the American people that he lied about the virus. If he downplayed it to prevent a panic, there were much better ways of doing it, and he should have been consistent about it and not treated people taking the precautions that he himself recommended as a critique of his administration. He should also have stopped downplaying it months ago, back when the number of cases started skyrocketing, or when we had more people catching COVID daily than nearly every other country on the planet combined. If he came out and admitted that he'd made a mistake and put us back in quarantine, I'd respect him for it. A man owns up to his mistakes and strives to avoid making them again, not denying their existence or trying to push the blame on others. Bill Clinton did that when he was caught lying to both Congress and the American people about Monica Lewinsky, and unlike Trump, Bill Clinton's lies didn't endanger or kill American citizens. Do not put your health in the hands of a politician, because all they see you as is a vote, not a person. Talk to your doctor about COVID, get their take on it, and ask them where they get their information from. Trump never went to med school, so anything he says about the virus is highly suspect, especially now that he's been caught lying to the American people while knowing full well that the virus was a major threat.
I feel like I'm talking to myself at this point, honestly. However, if I can get even one person to take the virus seriously who wasn't before, then the time and effort it took to write all of those was time well spent. We can get through this, and we can do it together.
I'm glad that someone gets it.
I'm of the opinion wearing JUST a mask isn't enough. To me, the MINIMUM everyone should be wearing is a mask combined with a hazmat suit, and wearing both of those 24/7. Yes, even while you sleep.
when I find people anti masking talking about how unjust it is I ask how long they have been campaigning against public nudity laws. I mean why is requiring a peace of cloth over one set of orifices near your legs different than requiring a peace of cloth over a set of orifices on your head?
5360590
If/When the virus goes airborne, that might be what we all need to do.
Man, I'm not happy to be wearing a mask, but then, I sometimes resent wearing a seatbelt, too. There are new safety measures being adopted all the time; this is just another.
5360652
By that point, the MINIMUM everyone should be doing is all the previously aforementioned items combined with an underground bunker.
5360678
ooooh, an underground bunker and the need to stay away from eachother? My own personal fortress of solitude? Yes please!
5360652
good to see you again mate, how have you been?
Sadly not alot of people get this, The Virus WILL go away at some point that is a given, Hell I doubt it will survive past the end of the year outside small pockets.
The issue is the spread of Mass Misinformation and Panic Mongering and that's just as deadly, if not more so, than the Virus it self.
5360656
I'm not a fan of masks either. Wearing a mask, washing my hands often, disinfecting everything that comes into my house, etc., it's all an inconvenience. Life is made up on inconveniences. I find it oddly hilarious that we're seeing conservatives who've spent years calling mileenials shallow, spoiled, and self-entitled, and yet, they're the Karens who throw massive public fits over a $0.50 expired coupon getting rejected and demand to speak with the manager, they're the anti-vaxxers who refuse to vaccinate their children and then refuse to take responsibility when their unvaccinated children catch preventable but incurable diseases and die, and they're the ones who claim that wearing a mask obstructs their breathing when medical professionals wear them all day without any problem (This absolute legend posted a video online of himself smoking and then doing an extended run in 100 degree heat while wearing ten masks at once just to prove that wearing a mask does nothing to impact your breathing). If we're shallow, spoiled, and self-entitled, current behavior shows exactly where we learned it from.
The issue isn't really that "masks are a form of government control." It's that, because there is a general lack of information about the virus, masks end up being used for control. Kind of, at the very least.
The fact of the matter, however, is this: In the United States, mandates like this can be instituted in times of emergency; there is prior legal precedent for this. Anyone who claims otherwise is either poorly informed or trying to trick you. However, any such measures must be temporary, and cannot persist into perpetuity. Many States that require masks are requiring them improperly, because the criteria set for when masks are no longer required - provided such criteria have been established at all - are either defined in such a way that they cannot be satisfied reasonably, or are defined so vaguely that they can be interpreted in ways that prevent them from being satisfied even when they normally should be. The Constitution prohibits such measures from becoming permanent, and for good reason.
Once control over some aspect of life is ceded to a government - once a Right is surrendered - it is gone. There is no getting it back once the circumstances "necessitating" its surrender are gone; it is gone forever unless it is taken back by force. Anyone who claims otherwise is either poorly informed or trying to trick you.
I will say again, and will keep saying it: Cases are crap. The rate of infection does not tell us anything truly meaningful about any virus; the "common cold" is caused by any number of viruses, but nobody would give the infection rate there a second thought. The rate of hospitalizations and the rate of mortality are the data that actually matter; these are the reasons why nobody worries about the "common cold." So far as I know, both of those are continuing to decline even while the rate of infection stays constant or rises. Anyone who talks about the number of cases as if that has any real meaning is not poorly informed; they are either trying to trick you, or they have been successfully tricked by a bad actor.
5360713
It will become extinct by act of man, or by virtue of evolution through natural section will become less and less lethal (killing your host is a sub optimal strategy for a parasite) to the point were we don't care much any more and it's just a fact of life like herpes. How long this takes well that's hard to know.
The Chinese brought it over - Fact check: True. They were slow to quarantine Wuhan where it originated, lied about how many cases there were, lied about how contagious it was, and generally continue to lie about everything involved with it (Except we can presume it was not released as a bio-weapon because even incompetent Chinese researchers would have a vaccine before release) The US blocking China travel was promptly circumvented by many Chinese visitors by simply visiting Canada or Mexico first until that was caught and stopped too. Then second-stage infections hopscotched that, and off we go.
Masks are a form of government control - True-ish. One thing the lockdown has shown is how quickly some governmental officials have jumped on the opportunity to expand their power, and hang onto it like a tick. Of course, they're willing to enforce these rules with every bit of their expanded power while ignoring the rules as they apply to themselves. (See Pelosi, Gov. Whitmer, Gov. Cuomo, etc...)
President Trump Said - Generally, second-guessing Presidents is our national pastime. Trump followed his national medical team's advice on just about every aspect of this pandemic, even instituting the Chinese travel ban when they were still waffling over it. He acted on China when Biden criticized him, he was acting on the pandemic response even while the House was impeaching him for a phone call, and called for action during his State of the Union speech, which Pelosi tore up on camera. All in all, even using 20/20 hindsight, I can't really criticize what he did.
Aftereffects: We're not going to have another shutdown on this. After you count suicides and deaths from delayed medical treatment, it is possible the shutdown killed more people than the disease. Several countries did not shutdown, and currently have about the same Covid death count but without the economic destruction. In regard to the process of pandemic reaction, Fauci has been a disaster, reversing his opinions on what needed to be done sometimes within the same interview. I suspect after the election, Trump will replace him with somebody 20 years younger and who can talk to the press without meandering.
Look at the bright side, at least you're not in Brazil where shit's pretty much as fucked as in the US, if not more, with an even bigger shitstain as a president.
5360751
Using a mask should be completely unrelated to if there's a regulation about it or not, it's about public health.
Didn't think about how politicians can use that to implement other control measures though.
5360742
Honestly, with it's rate of Mutation? it's already all but dead. I highly doubt it will survive the Cold at the end of this year, well outside of small pockets in the Tropics anyway, so we just have to wait.
5360717
most of the hate for the Masks stems from the Price Gouging, if you want an Example of that: Walmart has Boxes of 24 masks that in the past would have run MAYBE $5 are now going for $17+ and limited to one box per person per check-out. Honestly?
I think there is also an Issue of which masks are useful against the Virus, N95's as far as I know the public cant' get and the substitute KN95's are as useful as a holed Paper bag. The Disposable Surgical Masks arn't rated for this kind of outbreak and the homemade ones are to mass produced to really be useful.
5360721
My argument is that initially, the timeline was better defined, back when we were more hopeful that the virus would be handled quickly. The CDC established guidelines that were intended to be followed. The quarantine was expected to last three months, and then those guidelines were supposed to be followed, limiting the spread of the virus and containing it so that the impact it would have on the American people would be minimized. However, those guidelines were based around the idea that everyone did what they were supposed to do, and behaving like responsible adults. They didn't plan around the president ending the lockdown a month early, or for millions of Americans to ignore those regulations. If those deadlines are now vague and hazy, it's because the original plan fell apart through incompetence, stupidity, and good old fashioned Murphy's Law. If the deadlines for mask mandates aren't nailed down, it is because right now, no one knows when this situation is going to be resolved. Example: In New Mexico, for unemployment we had a work search requirement waiver in effect that was originally only going to be in effect until mid-July. Then, it got extended, stating that it is in effect until further notice. Does that mean that the waiver is permanent? Of course not. It just means that until we have a better idea of what the end date for the current crisis is, we're not going to force people to try and find a job when the job market is a colossal garbage fire and everyone is legitimately concerned for the health and welfare of both themselves and the ones they love. When we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, an end date will be established. Until then, state governments are doing the reasonable thing and stating that, until we know more, we're asking you to bear with us and do slightly inconvenient things to keep you safe. There's a world of difference between handling something like a natural disaster (Earthquake, fire, flood), and a global pandemic which is still ongoing. Natural disasters have a clear start and end, and a reasonable timeframe in which they can be handled. A pandemic is a lot harder to nail down, and expecting state governments to be able to define an end date in the current climate is foolhardy at worst, naive at best.
And you're wrong about something else: The government doesn't take away your rights, it gives them to you. Without a government, the only rights you have are being able to keep anything you're strong enough to protect, and the right to take whatever you want if you have the power to take it from whoever has it. Without a government, someone has the right to break into your house, kill you and your loved ones, throw your corpses into the street, lay claim to everything you own and live in your house if they decide they like it, so long as they have the ability to do so and you don't have the ability to stop them. Our default state is survival of the fittest, which laughs at the idea of 'Rights'. Government is the only thing that allows you to have any rights. We live, thankfully, in a democracy, not a totalitarian dictatorship, but the main difference between those two is the number of rights you're allowed to have, and how much of a say you get in how things are run.
How this is an opinion boggles the mind. In the interest of disclosure, I work for a county government in a county that shut down early, stayed shut down longer, and has strict mask laws
We have one of the smallest case number and smallest death numbers.
Had we the strong leadership to put a boot to the virus early then we could be like New Zealand right now, and 200,000 people in the US could still be alive.
Remember that number. Playing the virus down and mocking those who wear masks killed 200,000 by inaction. Come Nov. There is a responsibility to vote for 200,000 silenced voices.
Sars-Cov-2 is an airborne virus. The death rate may or may not be inflamed, but the statement that sars is extinct is not entirely accurate, since 2003 there have been a small number of cases (https://www.who.int/ith/diseases/sars/en/). We faced a much worse disease in 2012 MERS, which is still around and has infected around 2494 people and killed about 858 the only reason we haven't had mass outbreaks is because of a quick global containment thanks to quick identification and continued safeguards.(https://www.who.int/emergencies/mers-cov/en/), while Sars-Cov-2 has infected approximately 31.1 million and killed about 962 thousand with around 21.3 million making a recovery. I want to make it clear that I am not attempting to downplay the danger of the virus, but a lot of people who will look at how many have been infected and use that as their basis, and a fair bit of those recoveries are people with pre-existing conditions that put them at higher risk.
China has a fair bit to do with the global pandemic, it is well known that they attempted to cover up the existence of the virus in an ill fated attempt to get ahead of the outbreak, they went so far as to detain several doctors who said they appeared to have several patients that were infected with SARS. They were detained for spreading "rumors".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/02/04/chinese-doctor-has-coronavirus/
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-06/coronavirus-china-xi-li-wenliang
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51364382
If China didn't attempt to cover up the existence virus the world would have had time to respond properly.
The main reason Trump doesn't want America back into quarantine, is because we don't have the economy for such a thing. The only country which could even be considered economically prepared for an extended quarantine is Germany.
COVID is absolutely airborne. From the WHO:
In other words, COVID can be caught via airborne transmission, but it is not currently clear that airborne transmission of COVID can happen spontaneously, on its own.
5360763
It would be great if we could all have M95's, but sadly, that's not gonna happen: Too many people need them, and not enough of them are in circulation. When I was working with a DME company, the first thing they did at the start of the outbreak was make sure we all had M95s, knew how to put them on and wear them properly, and understood that if there was even a chance of someone having it, we were to wear it. This was before we even had our first cases in the state, and it was basically just following the procedures that were in place for any patient who had an infectious disease.
Even the standard homemade ones can, if competently made, help prevent spread since it keeps your own saliva vapor from spreading. Like I said, the virus isn't airborne, so anything that stops you from spraying spit and mucus everywhere helps. It can't necessarily stop you from getting infected, but even a basic cloth mask combined with social distancing drastically reduces your odds of infecting others.
And we can't rely on winter killing the virus. It's already hitting its second wave in Europe, and America is still in the first wave. I mean, we're coming up on Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, three of our biggest holidays. Halloween is one thing, since that's a largely voluntary thing, and all you need to do is just keep your porchlights off on Oct. 31st and don't take your kids out, and you're fine. However, Thanksgiving is going to see large family gatherings from across the country. Christmas is going to be even worse, especially once the shopping season hits. Black Friday shoppers would cause the numbers to jump catastrophically if many stores weren't outright canceling Black Friday this year. Perhaps worst of all, it's an election year, with everything that entails. We're seeing big spikes of COVID infections two weeks after every Trump rally, and the man is doing nothing to stop them or ask his followers to take precautions. This in spite of the fact that, yes, he has admitted to have known all along that the virus was a major threat and that doing that endangered the lives of his voters. It's one thing to not believe it to be a threat, it's quite a different thing to know, and act this way anyway.
5360771
That's true in some countries. Not in the United States. The Constitution makes it clear that the people have certain inalienable rights. We have the right of free speech. The government is only permitted to nibble about the edges of that. We have the right to keep and bear arms. There's been a bit more nibbling there. We have the right to be secure in our homes and property against illegal searches by the government. We have the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. There's a whole bunch in there, and most of the Constitution deals with keeping the government's greedy hands off them, rather than the opposite. It's one of the rarities about the US Constitution that we appreciate.
5360751
The Chinese Brought It Over:
January 31st, Trump blocked all travel to and from China, right after the first cases started coming into the USA. Meanwhile, March 11th, Trump blocked all travel to and from Europe, even though we were seeing cases in Europe as early as January. If he'd blocked both Europe and China on the 31st, heck, even shut down all international travel on January 31st rather than targeting just China, he could have blocked the virus from entering and spreading across the USA. Instead, the virus had a month and a half to come over and spread. We weren't seeing the first comunically spread cases of COVID until well after the China block, so the lion's share of initial COVID cases did not come from China. Yes, China did hide a lot of stuff, but then, Russia tried to hide the whole Chernobyl incident in spite of it being a crisis that could have reduced much of Europe and Russia to an irradiated wasteland, all of that just to preserve their public image that everyone outside of Russia knew was bunko. Communist regimes often conceal stuff that they consider an embarrassment, and getting mad at China for doing that is like getting angry at a dog for licking itself. Besides, if we want to talk about government leaders lying about the virus, Trump is hardly innocent of that, and he's done a far worse job of hiding it.
Masks Are A Form Of Government Control:
You're quick to start pointing fingers at Democrats doing things individually, while Trump has had huge rallies where the health guidelines that he himself initially recommended are being ignored. It's one thing for, say, Pelosi to enjoy gourmet ice cream or live in a house paid for with tax payer money. How about Trump spending billions of taxpayer dollars to go golfing or stay in hotels that he owns and making the Secret Service stay in luxury suites in those hotels, while having the cost for those charged to the American taxpayer so that money goes directly into his pockets? He's literally paying himself with taxpayer dollars, in a barely concealed act of embezzlement that is only not illegal because we've never had a sitting president who was a multibillionaire who could so flagrantly abuse his position of power. This is the same president who promised that 'He'd be too busy to play golf", when he has spent total of over a year out of the last three and a half on golfing or other vacation retreats, all of this on the taxpayer dime. To paraphrase the good book, don't point out the mote in one person's eye while ignoring the plank lodged in your own. Don't talk about Democrat corruption and ignore a sitting president blatantly abusing his power and lining his pockets with billions of taxpayer dollars and not even bothering to hide it.
Trump Says:
I'll agree that second-guessing the President is a national pasttime, and that the opposing party is always going to be harsher on the guy than his own supporters, but we've got Republicans Against Trump, an organization of Republicans, Conservatives, and Trump Voters, all of whom are saying that Trump needs to go. When even your own party is abandoning a president and calling him out on his actions, and there are so many of them that they are able to form a coalition, things have escalated beyond simple second-guessing. We're talking about a group millions strong and growing, in spite of Trump claiming total support from Republican voters. Watch some of the videos on that site, if you have the time. It can be a real eye-opener.
After Effects:
Trump has no authority over whether or not Fauci holds his position, something that has been discussed at some length, and Trump is only antagonistic towards Fauci because Trump insisted on talking first at press conferences without even bothering to consult the leading expert he'd invited to the press conferences, and Fauci contradicted the factually false statements that Trump made. It's like when Trump got mad about Twitter fact checking him online and Trump then signed a bill intended to hurt social media companies in retalliation. Of course, that shot Trump in the foot, since that angered Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook and a longtime Republican supporter. That means that a lot of money that would normally go to the Republican party from a powerful multi-billionaire... isn't.
Plus, if he wants the US military to support him in keeping office if he loses the election, he probably shouldn't be calling generals tools of the military industrial complex or saying dead war heroes are losers and suckers. If he tries to hold onto the office of the president after saying that, he's likely to get a military escort right into a federal prison.
He's doing an amazing job of uniting America... against him.
5360858
You miss the point: You have those rights because the government of the United States gives you those rights. The Constitution was written by the government to outline your rights, and maintains that document so you have a handy list of those rights, but never forget that it was written by the government, not chiseled into stone tablets by some almighty being who made them a universal truth. The constitution has been amended multiple times to add some rights, and take away other rights like the right to be president more than twice. They are not constant, and can be changed if enough people agree to it, or the government changes and decides to do away with them. If you leave the United States, you don't carry those rights with you. If the United States government collapses, those rights cease to exist. If a president decides to go full facism and burns the constitution to establish himself as a dictator, those rights are gone forever. And in the absence of any government, you have no right to anything but what you have the power to keep and to take.
5360805
The one correction I'm going to make is that I said SARS went extinct 2004, so that's within the timeframe I outlined. It took only two years of competent handling to wipe out a strain of human infectious SARS from the face of the Earth.
I suppose my definition of Airborne is different, in that mine is that the virus is capable of hanging in the air for extended periods. Aerosolization is still being debated, but right now, it's primarily a matter of the six-foot rule, not "If one person coughs in a building, everyone needs to be tested". Outside of liquids, COVID currently has a very short lifespan, and in direct sunlight, it also quickly dies. If it comes in contact with soap, COVID dies. If COVID mutates to where none of those rules apply anymore, we're going to be in a lot of trouble.
"The number of fatalities is inflated."
What's even better about this stupidity, is by looking at the number of deaths caused by failure of the respiratory tract, you can see a clear pattern the deaths of this nature are several times higher than normal. This is despite the fact that almost all other death rates are DOWN.
Plus, we have cases where underreporting is known:
The state of Kentucky suddenly had their number of covid-19 deaths drop, while mysteriously respiratory related deaths kept going higher.
Florida literally fired people for not fudging numbers enough.
And I don't know about y'all, but I don't for one second trust the death counts from China (if nothing else because there's evidence of lockdowns outside of the areas the Chinese government said they locked down).
5360884
Trump wanted to institute stricter travel bans, have you forgotten what happened? The democrats fought him at every turn due to their own cases of TDS; "Blocking travel is racist, this is an overreaction, the WHO (thoroughly proven to be under the political control of China) says it's not human transmissible" on and on and on. They fought him trying to take measures, and now people mistakenly blame him rather then the people who interfered with said measures.
5360892
You're mistaken about this in the USA, as Georg noted the Constitution identifies those rights as being given to us by our creator and being inalienable, there's nothing about "the government gives you those rights." The Constitution recognizes and guarantees those rights as being ones that the government cannot take away, not that they are given by the government.
Can I live where you live?
Please?
Because I have the exact opposite where I live.
And I don't mean the nice, polite kind of pro-masking (btw, I am pro-mask, if only because I myself have several high-risk people in my own home and damned if I'm going to be the reason they die) where it might come up in conversation or somebody might ask if they need one.
No.
I'm in the area where somebody might lift it a fraction of an inch to take a sip of their drink or be swapping out for a new mask because the string on the old one broke, and some Boomer Karen or Kyle will swoop down from out of literal nowhere and begin shrieking (and I do mean shrieking) about how the person who just shifted their mask for comfort obviously wants everybody to die and essentially begin a technology-less cancel campaign (complete with finger pointing) because it feeds their ego or something.
I can put up with being called unpatriotic or a coward or a wannabe government drone or whatever all day long; I get it all the time by dint of my age and where I work, it comes with the territory. I wear a mask during flu season as a general rule because I dislike getting sick (since getting sick interferes with my ability to earn money and/or have fun) and to avoid giving my darling little Gramma anything that might push her sweet, cuddly, cookie-baking, Stage 4 Cancer Immuno-Compromised self off the mortal coil.
I dislike being called four different shades of bad/evil/selfish/stupid (take your pick of combo) because I lifted my mask to take a sip of my damn root beer when I am literally ten feet from anybody in the room like I planned because I talk all damn day long and I'm thirsty.
Is there a Boomer Exchange Program?
Anyone?
PLEASE?!
(broken sob)
...p....please...?
While I don't agree on everything here, and I agree on some things, I have to point this out:
Cuomo, DeBlasio, and in my state, Evers. Cuomo and DeBlasio are high on this list mostly for *checks notes* stuffing COVID positive patients in nursing homes, killing hundreds upon hundreds of elderly people. They have... I believe it was 2 week checkpoints in NY, meaning that if you try to leave before the 2 weeks they fine you something like $100,000. I've heard people from WHO and CDC say masks don't work. To track back a little I brought up Evers, because he locked down our state, lifted the lock down, then IMMEDIATLY LOCKED US DOWN AGAIN, enforcing a mask policy but the local police departments pretty much said "Fuck you" and aren't enforcing it. We're even having a poll to remove Evers (Thank god)
I'm just throwing my opinions, but I'm sorry. The Democrats are indeed fear mongering the virus over everyone's heads. Most prominently the conservatives. "People can assemble for a worthy cause like ANTIFA and BLM." while also in the same breath they say to conservatives: "What are you doing?! You're gonna kill everyone out here! Stop being so insensitive!"
Remember: When this all started, Democrats like DeBlasio, Cuomo and Pelosi were saying to come gather in China Town. Then suddenly, New York "spikes" in COVID cases. I say that loosely because NY didn't have the means for testing yet. Also as well, lets not forget the motorcyclist who died in a crash and they marked that as a COVID death.
So yes, I feel like the Dems are fear mongering over the virus, yes I feel like masks don't work because when you have the people from the CDC and the WHO saying they don't work well... they've been given advice for everything. And yes, I believe that the numbers are being inflated by staunchy numbers. If someone dies with a pre-existing medical condition and they happen to have COVID, isn't it the doctors job to determine cause of death? While sure, COVID might exacerbate things, the cause could still be the medical condition. So if they died from the condition, but have have COVID, and the doctor rules a COVID death, that'll inflate those numbers, making them higher than what they are.
To put in perspective, say I got shot in the leg. Knee cap shattered, artery severed, bled out in minutes. COD would be: Bleed out from gunshot wound. The bullet didn't kill me, but it was a factor. So saying that someone who dies of lung disease while they have COVID and then mark it as a COVID death doesn't make sense in the slightest. I believe it's South Dakota, you might need to fact check me on this, but the Governor didn't shut down her state. Kept it open, economy and everything else was just fine. They had cases, sure, but they treated it like a flu and then... nothing. Can you believe that?
Also, as a little footnote: You have 99.9975% chance of recovering from COVID after you get it. The lockdowns are a sham, the whole thing is fear mongering and nothing can sway my opinion on that.
5360771
Rights are not granted by government; you do not possess Rights because some distant bureaucrat feels you should be allowed to do something. You possess Rights because you are born; you have them because they are natural to the state of being human.
The purpose of government is not to grant Rights, but to protect them. The Constitution is not a list of things that we, as free citizens, are permitted to do; it is a list of things that government, as a naturally oppressive invention, is not permitted to do. This is why the Bill of Rights contains language like, “The Right of the People shall not be infringed.” It is a statement on the subordination of government to the People, not the other way around.
As part of living in civil society, we agree to limitations on certain Rights in order to protect other Rights — we agree to limit our Right to kill others in order to protect our Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — and government is the mechanism we used to enforce those agreed upon limitations because, as stated above, the purpose of government is to protect the Rights of the People.
This does not change Just because there is an emergency.
Reminds me of a livestream QnA the Dutch prime minister did a while back. The part basically went like this:
‘‘You are just making this up!’’
"Oh, I wish."
I'd rather be over-prepared and safe than sick, in any situation.
The past 8 months have been the longest five years I've ever experienced and I don't want some half-witted anti-masker kicking it all off again just because they're vaguely inconvenienced.
Be safe now so you can be secure in the future.
You forgot my favorite one: "COVID was created by jews. For profit."
5361270
Your rights only go as far as the person standing next to you. If your actions cause harm to others, your rights can and will be suspended to protect the rights of those you harm. You have the right to swing your arms however you like, you do not have the right to strike the person beside you unless they hit you first.
With rights, comes responsibility, and accountability.
5361270
5361152
5360941
5360751
Unalienable: Not transferable to another or not capable of being taken away or denied.
I think you guys misunderstand something: What the founding fathers meant was that the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are supposed to be unalienable, not inherently unalienable. If someone takes a gun to your head a pulls the trigger, your unalienable rights won't stop the bullet from aerating your gray matter. If someone decides to throw you into jail unjustly, your unalienable rights won't stop someone from locking the door and throwing away the key. If the world goes to crap and society collapses, your unalienable rights won't stop you from having to fight for survival, rather than pursuing happiness.
The Founding Fathers meant that these rights should not be taken away, not that they cannot be taken away. "Cannot" means that it would be physically impossible for anyone to take those rights away, and we've seen far too many tyrannies in this world to be able to say that it is impossible for your "unalienable" rights to be taken away. Further, there have been cases where the government of the USA has acted in direct violation of those three rights (Putting anyone of Asian heritage into internment camps regardless of their status as citizens in WW2, just as an example), so don't tell me that even the government of the USA can't take those rights away whenever it pleases. It shouldn't, but it can. Governments are, as noted in the above, created to secure those rights. Without governments, you have no means by which those rights can be secured. Governments should exist so that you can have those rights. You wouldn't need to secure those rights if they were inherent and impossible to take away. What the Founding Fathers were saying was that those basic unalienable rights were the bare minimum that any government should give you, and any government that fails to provide those rights needs to be either changed or overthrown. Anything beyond those basic rights can be granted or taken away at any time. The constitution has been amended to take a right away (Prohibition of Alcohol) and then give it back, as well as to grant rights where none existed before (Women's Sufferage, Freeing The Slaves, Granting Everyone The Right To Vote Regardless of Race, etc).
Look, after the current crisis ends, we should definitely nail down some guidelines for how the government should act in the future, as well as be more watchful for it in the future. Obama tried to prep us for a global pandemic. Before leaving office, Obama briefed Trump on all of those safety measures, the organizations created to help prevent a pandemic and to help American citizens if one occurred. Trump actively undid all of that, and further went on to cut the funding to the CDC. That's on him.
Here's some links for proof:
So don't say that he inherited this problem.
The previous administration had worked hard to prevent this problem.
He then tore those preventative measures apart.
He then left us largely defenseless against a global pandemic since he put nothing in place to replace the programs meant to protect us.
In short, he left us pants down and bent over for any Pandemic that might occur, for no other discernable reason other than the fact that he hated Obama.
The government is supposed to provide and secure our rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Trump removed programs meant to protect American lives, and as anyone living in 2020 can testify in the USA, it's very hard to pursue happiness during the pandemic, especially when the quarantine causes severe limits on your liberty. Through inaction, spite at the previous administration, and incompetence, he's done more to damage the rights of the American citizen in his term than any previous president in history. It amazes me that so many of his followers are blind to that.
5361414
And we fall to racism again. Change that post or I'm deleting your posts and permanently blocking you. This is your one and only warning.
5361414
More like someone is driving drunk and might hit you. You're acting in blatant violation of the rules and laws in place, despite being fully aware of the consequences for both yourself and others.
5361414
You were warned, and I'm sorry to see you go, but names like "WuFlu", "KungFlu", etc. are blatantly racist. It's a shame that you can't understand that.
Edit: What she'd tried to do was double-down and defend the term WuFlu, in a manner similar to how someone might imply that the N-Word isn't racist because it derives from the term Negro. It's not a valid argument, it's an excuse to try and get away with a racial slur, and I will not tolerate it.
5361448
Wow. Sometimes my mere existence brings out the absolute worst in people. (Their post had been a reply to mine (I think. That’s the notification I got.))
[checks email]
And wow, I bet they drink and drive too with that ‘justification’.
5361505
Eh, it's alright. If I recall correctly, she was also the person who primarily was responsible for me having to delete that previous blog post. Thankfully, I caught things before it degenerated too far like last time, but the idea that there are people with that kind of attitude in a fandom that's supposed to be about love, friendship, acceptance, and tolerance is worrying in the extreme. It seems like 2020 is bringing out the worst in people.
The really worrying thing is that Trump's continuing attitude feels more and more like he's trying to talk America into a war with China as much as he is trying to shift the blame elsewhere for the current pandemic. I don't know what he thinks is gonna happen there, but going to a full-blown war with a nuclear-capable country is going to end very badly. America has 330 million people, and China has 1.4 billion. Even if a nuclear war reduces the population of both countries to 1% of their original numbers, we'd still be outnumbered nearly five to one even if we were still in any position to continue a war on the ground.
It's like Trump's "secret plan" against ISIS. While the plan he actually went with was essentially identical to the plan that Obama was carrying out (Just like how TrumpCare was basically just slightly edited ObamaCare), sources who left the White House indicate that his initial plan was to literally nuke the Middle East. Just glass all our enemies, all our allies, and all of our sources of oil in one fell swoop. Nevermind how many treaties that would break, how many of our allies would abandon us for using nukes indiscriminately on an entire geographic region, or how many other nuclear-capable countries would view that as an act of war and nuke us in retaliation, his plan was to just drop nukes until the problem went away. I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall when all the generals and chiefs of staff had to sit him down and explain to him that nuking the middle east was the absolute worst idea he ever had.
Even if somehow China was responsible for COVID coming to the USA, nuclear war would be the worst possible thing Trump could do. However, it feels more and more like Trump wants to make sure that no one will be president after him, even if he has to turn the USA to ashes to do it.
5361368
At this point, that's honestly expected. Nevermind the fact that the current situation is destroying the economy and risks making all money worthless, something that the "Greedy, money-loving Jews" stereotype would be completely against on basic principles. There's always going to be racist slimeballs willing to blame anything that goes wrong on whichever race, religion, or creed they hate the most.
5361155
It's funny how your problems can change depending on your location. I'm in New Mexico, historically a swing state but currently strongly blue (Thank goodness). So, we've got both pro- and anti-maskers here. So, we often get the worst of both worlds. At least with the extremely loud and Karen-ish pro-maskers, it's coming from a place of care and concern for both yourself and your fellow human beings, unlike the selfishness, sociopathy, and stupidity we're seeing from anti-maskers.
5361592
Georgia. Red state going purple, God help us. Luckily, I don't do politics much anymore. Better for my genetic predisposition of stress-induced heart attacks, in between one group screaming about the "Nazi Cheeto" and the other group bellowing about "muh 4D Chess". I live out in Nowheresville, as far away from any real population center of consequence, and I love every minute of it.
Though Montana seems more and more tempting as the days go by. Possibly because of Yellowstone; nobody but people like me (IE: "I don't care, leave me the hell alone" types) think living next to an active supervolcano is a good idea.
Sublime perfection.
Trust me, it isn't. I see several of these jerks multiple times a week. They're only doing it so they can virtue-signal and score points with whatever the current social morality is. Trust me, see the same people bitch and moan over the height in inches of ice in their drink or their rolls not being "round enough" when compared to somebody else four tables over, and you start to understand why Western Civilization as we know it is ready to crumble under our feet.
Interestingly enough, their political alignment seems to range to the point that I am fairly sure it's utterly utilitarian. I've had to ask more than a few couples or individuals to stop arguing politics with each other because otherwise I will have to throw them out (not in so many words, of course), up to and including a few weeks back when two of our regulars almost came to blows over BLM, and yet they applaud each other over this stuff, and even escalate it; it's like they mutually feed and feed off of each other.
I'm starting to become convinced that it's a form of Keeping Up With The Joneses based off of how much they can embarrass someone else.
Wouldn't be surprised if they're keeping points.
5361610
Hey, the height of ice in a drink is the difference of whether or not you get the same amount of soda from a large as a small.
[End-Sarcasam:>>
5361869
DAMMIT, WE HAVE FREE REFILLS!!!1!1!
5361592
New Mexico is a model for how things should have happened. NM is surrounded by red states (except Colorado) with a very iffy response to the pandemic, but they locked down as soon as the virus was detected within the state and haven't wavered on the lockdowns and mask mandates. As a result, their death rate was far lower than everyone else around them (except Oklahoma), despite it being a rather poor state with an already strained healthcare system.
It's insane seeing anyone defend the Covid-19 response of President "Inject Disinfectant". The biggest issue isn't what he did, but what he didn't do. Kushner made sure mask mandates and lockdowns were mostly left to the whims of state governments, and we've seen how well that's gone. We are a Union of individual States, but a global pandemic requires a federal response. He's not responsible for the virus coming here (Getting Trump to support a travel ban is stupidly easy), but his administration is responsible for botching the response while it ravaged the country. Trump says he "told his people to slow down the testing" and then his own staff say otherwise. His attorney general compares pandemic lockdowns to slavery. He is also on record as having admitted to intentionally downplaying the risk of the virus, and no one cares. It's madness!
And Kushner is now claiming that 200,000 dead Americans is a "success" and Trump says, and I quote:
5361610
Personally, New Mexico is probably one of the better states to be in right now. We've got beautiful scenery, a state government that has been taking the virus seriously, and the fact that many of our cities are long distances apart and separated by mountain ranges has helped keep infections from traveling out like we see in other states. Our scenary is pretty, but asides from a few notable places like White Sands, there isn't a huge number of tourist spots, no beaches, and nothing to draw the huge crowds like other places. Santa Fe and Albuquerque have been getting hit hard, but a lot of our more isolated communities have been able to either keep the virus out or keep it contained.
Funny thing is, my brother moved to Albuquerue last year because our smaller town didn't offer as many opportunities for fun and socialization, nevermind employment, then this year he ended up in virus central and having to largely be self-quarantined to stay safe after getting laid off due to the same recession that cost me my job.
My current unemployment was initially just a temporary 90-day layoff, but the ongoing pandemic caused me to permanently lose my job in July. And you know things are bad when, during a pandemic centered around a respiratory virus, a nationwide company that revolves around providing Respiratory Durable Medical Equipment (Oxygen, Nebulizers, Non-Invasive Home Ventilators, CPAP and BIPAP Machines, and even a mail order pharmacy for respiratory medications) has to lay off a third of its staff and cut the hours of half the remaining staff to keep from going out of business. Five months later, and it is still going on with no end in sight. Before I lost my job, we were getting swamped with orders for equipment from people who had gone to the doctor fearing COVID, only to find out that they were simply asthmatic or had COPD instead (Which is still a scary thing to find out you have during the pandemic, since, you know, that means you're much more likely to die if you catch COVID). I'm honestly genuinely worried about that, since they're the ones who provide my dad with his oxygen and equipment, and if they go under due to the recession, the other companies in town are notorious for not offering anywhere near the level of service and care my former employer has.
Sorry, I kinda rambled on there for a bit.
5361954
Put simply, somehow a significant number of people have decided that Trump is God, Jesus, and the Second coming, all rolled into one. Truth is, he's just a rich, charismatic, but mentally unstable 74-year-old man who somehow managed to convince a large number of people to follow him. Trump is Jim Jones, thinking that he's the God Emperor of Mankind, and 2020 is the year he's handing out the Kool-Aid. However, he is no god, and if anything, he's more at risk than anyone else during the pandemic, especially since he's had multiple members of his staff catch COVID. His luck can't keep going forever, especially since he keeps holding rallies where literally no one takes minimum safety precautions. He may very well die on the campaign trail through his own actions.
Trump could die any day from natural causes even if he never catches COVID, especially given his high stress lifestyle and the poor health that his age brings. That's especially true due to the stress of a nationwide presidential campaign. Even if he gets reelected, he's not likely to live to see the end of his term, nevermind the "12 More Years" he has been touting at rallies. In 12 more years, if he's still alive, he's much more likely to be drooling all over himself in a wheelchair while soiling his adult diapers. And I promise you, once he dies or fails to get reelected, a lot of people are going to wake up, look back over the last four years, and ask themselves "What the heck was I thinking?"
There's a movie about the Rat Pack, you know, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. During it, there's this scene where Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin are talking about things, and Frank mentions how, with their popularity, the Rat Pack could make a big impact if they got involved with politics. Dean then demonstrates something, calling out to two attractive young women walking by and literally just saying "Blah blah blah blah" to them, causing them both to break out laughing. Frank is confused about that, but then Dean then tells Frank that, basically, the entire world is drunk right now, but sooner or later, everyone is going to wake up and wonder what the heck happened. Given the events that happened afterwards, and what ultimately happened to Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, that was painfully prophetic.
Sooner or later, Trump will either fail to get reelected, die, or alienate the remainder of his followers, and then everyone who followed him will look back on the last four years, and wonder why the heck they were following this guy so religiously (Although, there will be a few super-devoted that will still deify him, but that's inevitable, sadly). America is going to have one heck of a hangover once Trump is gone, but hopefully, we'll learn from it and never get that drunk again.
5361955
Oh, shut up, you're fine. Given my job(s), I really don't get to engage in good conversation, so this is good stuff. Besides, your blog, do what you want.
Of which I have no doubt. I've always loved the...at the risk of an oxymoron, fertile barrenness of many of the Western states, how it goes from stark desolation (by no means a bad thing, in and of itself) to lush beauty with seemingly a few minutes of driving.
As for the virus/response in and of itself, Georgia is...meh. Being fairly healthy, I am not concerned very much for myself, but, as I said, I have family members to worry about. Luckily, the ones who are most at-risk (Mama, heart patient, Gramma, elderly cancer patient) don't go out in public much anyway, and we all take precautions during flu season, anyway (masks, sanitizing, etc) to avoid getting them sick, so this wasn't really anything new for us, save for the length of time we took those precautions.
Luckily, I'm the only one who has a job that takes going into a city, so I've just been self-quarantining more. Not to mention, that particular job has only seen an uptick in business within the last two months, so even that wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Yeah, I will never live in a city. I don't give a tinker's damn if there's "more to do", I don't even go anywhere after I get off of work. I live in a small town, my other job is there, and I love the quiet. Cities are dirty, smelly, loud, expensive, cramped and generally not pleasant places to be in (but that's just me).
Also...
Last place you want to live in is a city, for three reasons: Natural Disaster (New Orleans when Katrina hit), Civil Unrest (Portland and Seattle being prime modern examples), and Pandemic (your brother's situation being another prime example).
My GM at my city job thought I was an idiot for travelling over an hour to get there, and he brushed off those reasons I gave as me being paranoid. Kept telling me that there are so many advantages to living in the city, like all the places to eat, yada-yada.
Cue Corona-chan, and him not being able to get toilet paper, go out to those aforementioned places to eat and all the rest of the pandemonium.
He's now asking me what property prices are like where I live.
I'm resisting the urge to do Razörfist's "F*** You, I Was Right" dance.
Luckily, where I live, there have only been a scant handful of cases (4, I think) and no deaths, and those were in the actual town, which I never go in, anyway (I live in the county), so...another advantage to isolated communities, I guess.
Christ...sorry you lost your job, man. Same thing happened at my city job; most of everyone else got laid off. The only reason I kept my position was because I am one of two people who know how to do what I do, so I am somewhat indispensable, and the only reason I stayed was because I need the insurance. If it wasn't for that, I'd have said hasta la bye-bye.
Thoughts and prayers with you and yours, Buck. I know it ain't much, but it's what I can do.
5361954
It's so weird seeing people try to make this fake reference to something that didn't happen. Sometimes it's like there's multiple intersecting timelines that we're all experiencing separate from each other.