On Taking the Lead and Burying the Lede

[Latrinsorm]

New York has dropped statewide mask mandate. Fauci says we are out of the pandemic phase.

Dr. Fauci hopes for a scenario where all Americans routinely get vaccinated - i agree that scenario is likely to bring deaths to a much lower number (if we accomplish it before allowing an even deadlier variant or variants than omicron to occur) which is why i have already advocated for it in this thread

when barely a quarter of America has gotten their booster, we are not out of the pandemic, which no doubt is no small part of why he did not say we are

what you should be asking yourself now is why so many people are saying he did anyway, and why they want you to say the same. who stands to gain from this? as always, we already know the answer

[Latrinsorm]

I'd say the worst pandemic every was the introduction of diseases after Christopher Columbus and other explorers came to the Americas. An estimated 55 million natives died off from diseases spread, war and famine.

Anything Covid related worldwide is just a drop in the bucket compared to that.

i encourage you to reread what i said

[Gelston]

Dr. Fauci hopes for a scenario where all Americans routinely get vaccinated - i agree that scenario is likely to bring deaths to a much lower number (if we accomplish it before allowing an even deadlier variant or variants than omicron to occur) which is why i have already advocated for it in this thread

when barely a quarter of America has gotten their booster, we are not out of the pandemic, which no doubt is no small part of why he did not say we are

what you should be asking yourself now is why so many people are saying he did anyway, and why they want you to say the same. who stands to gain from this? as always, we already know the answer

Nah, we're done with this. Stop being a tard.

[Suppressed Poet]

this is another way to let ourselves the hook easy - no one managed to contain COVID yet, so it's impossible and we might as well give up entirely

no one ever managed to contain smallpox, until America decided to lead the way, and then we did
no one ever managed to contain Hitler, until America decided to lead the way, and then we did
in doing so, in both cases, we had to savagely curtail freedoms

we did it anyway

and no one, not one person, anywhere in the entire world, would argue that rationing price controls etc. were bad trades... because we were fighting literally Hitler!

so let's look at what specifically i'm aiming to force upon people:
-an 11% increase in vaccines they're required to take
-a 5% increase in clothes they're required to wear in public

...that's it? i've got the deadliest pandemic in US history at the highest daily death levels in a year, a conflict that in one year killed as many Americans as all of World War II, you've got "nine vaccines is freedom, ten vaccines is tyranny"? plenty of other people are gonna say the same thing as you, a lot more than are saying what i'm saying, and that makes you feel better

should it?

.

you ask what i'm going to do, and it is what's in my immediate control - saying the truth. not just knowing it, we all know the truth, this is a very easy problem to solve, but until we say it, we won't do it

and the cost of that is another million dead Americans

Cloth and surgical masks offer, in my opinion looking at what data we have available, very limited protection from spreading infection.

Some people have decided they don’t want the vaccine and they have their reasons. Whether you deem those reasons to be sound or not doesn’t really matter to those individuals.

I disagree with you that the cost of liberty is worth the benefits to public safety. We’ll just have to respectfully disagree with each other on that one. The unvaccinated are not evil Jews that you can round up into a concentration camp & force upon them sterilization in the interest of keeping the blood of the master race pure…they are your fellow Americans.

Why can’t you just take whatever precautions to yourself you deem are necessary and let people make their own health decisions? The vaccine has done a terrible job at preventing the spread of the virus, but it does seem to help greatly in reducing hospitalization rate and chance for death. Part of living in a free society means letting others make their own life decisions even if they are wrong. I’d rather accept that more deaths will happen than force people into a health decision they don’t want to make. And even if you could mandate it, people are going to resist you. We’re seeing that happen globally.

I may disagree with you L, but I always liked you... Don’t let your mind remain fixed in that dark place. I was there myself in the summer of 2020 watching the political unrest and crime spikes. We’re going to get through this and humanity will survive.

[Latrinsorm]

You should just follow the science.

Science has proven that lockdowns do not work.
Science has proven that masks are ineffective.
Science has proven that the current vaccines do not stop the spread.
Science has proven that the current vaccines do not stop you from getting covid.

Why are you so anti-science, Mr. Flat Earther?

let's start with vaccines

you know that vaccines did not stop an individual from getting smallpox when exposed to it
you know, indeed, that vaccines did not even stop an individual from *dying* from smallpox when exposed
you know, finally, that vaccines nevertheless stopped *everyone* from getting smallpox

you know these things

you know beyond a shadow of a doubt the covid vaccine has the same outcome as the smallpox vaccine; viz,
1. when neither reaches sufficient levels, the disease spreads and the vaccinated die, albeit at a lower rate
2. when either reaches sufficient levels, the disease doesn't spread and nobody dies

.

so why can't you say any of them?

what do you think will happen to you?

as gelston is fond of pointing out, it's a bulletin board for a forty year old text mud. who cares? nobody cares

just say the truth. i promise you'll feel better

[Latrinsorm]

Cloth and surgical masks offer, in my opinion looking at what data we have available, very limited protection from spreading infection.

Some people have decided they don’t want the vaccine and they have their reasons. Whether you deem those reasons to be sound or not doesn’t really matter to those individuals.

I disagree with you that the cost of liberty is worth the benefits to public safety. We’ll just have to respectfully disagree with each other on that one. The unvaccinated are not evil Jews that you can round up into a concentration camp & force upon them sterilization in the interest of keeping the blood of the master race pure…they are your fellow Americans.

Why can’t you just take whatever precautions to yourself you deem are necessary and let people make their own health decisions? The vaccine has done a terrible job at preventing the spread of the virus, but it does seem to help greatly in reducing hospitalization rate and chance for death. Part of living in a free society means letting others make their own life decisions even if they are wrong. I’d rather accept that more deaths will happen than force people into a health decision they don’t want to make. And even if you could mandate it, people are going to resist you. We’re seeing that happen globally.

I may disagree with you L, but I always liked you... Don’t let your mind remain fixed in that dark place. I was there myself in the summer of 2020 watching the political unrest and crime spikes. We’re going to get through this and humanity will survive.

i'm not disagreeing with you on the relative value of the cost of liberty, i'm disagreeing that there's a cost of liberty at all

since before the birth of our great nation people have shouted "liberty!" to excuse all manner of behavior, and it has very frequently been malarkey, and we have very frequently treated it as such - we don't let people get out of paying taxes because they have a wildly distorted understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment, we don't let people murder because they say their religion said to and something something First Amendment something

liberty in short is not like bankruptcy, you can't simply say the word liberty and expect anything to happen

you ask why i can't let people make their own health decisions, and the answer is because i already didn't - none of us did! the United States has forced people to get vaccinated before it was technically even a United States, and when people whined about it we made them do it anyway...

...and you never once cared!
you never ONCE told people forcing polio vaccinations to lighten up
you never ONCE told people forcing measles vaccinations about living in a free society

so what are you really defending here?

you know the answer, and i know the answer, but only you can face it for yourself

[Suppressed Poet]

i'm not disagreeing with you on the relative value of the cost of liberty, i'm disagreeing that there's a cost of liberty at all

since before the birth of our great nation people have shouted "liberty!" to excuse all manner of behavior, and it has very frequently been malarkey, and we have very frequently treated it as such - we don't let people get out of paying taxes because they have a wildly distorted understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment, we don't let people murder because they say their religion said to and something something First Amendment something

liberty in short is not like bankruptcy, you can't simply say the word liberty and expect anything to happen

you ask why i can't let people make their own health decisions, and the answer is because i already didn't - none of us did! the United States has forced people to get vaccinated before it was technically even a United States, and when people whined about it we made them do it anyway...

...and you never once cared!
you never ONCE told people forcing polio vaccinations to lighten up
you never ONCE told people forcing measles vaccinations about living in a free society

so what are you really defending here?

you know the answer, and i know the answer, but only you can face it for yourself

Polio and measles vaccines were required to attend public schools, which are government institutions. There is an option for people to choose private education, home schooling, etc. if they don’t like it. Also those vaccines are much more effective, but that’s not really relevant for this point. It’s not quite the same thing for government to require vaccine mandates upon employees of private businesses. I think the Supreme Court came to the right decision.

Do you think places like New Zealand has handled it better with their 0 tolerance policies? You don’t think those people have suffered a cost to their liberty?

[Suppressed Poet]

L, you need a good hobby to distract you from the current state of the world.

In 2020 when I was in a really dark place, I bought a shitload more guns and ammo. I went to the range at least two times a week, took some survival & self defense classes. I turned a walk-in pantry into a supply station full of MREs, medical supplies, survival gear, toilet paper, etc. I even bought some land in the middle of Nowhere, Texas for my retreat destination when the communist zombie paratroopers arrive. Go do something like that…it helps. Or play Gemstone.

[Parkbandit]

let's start with vaccines

you know that vaccines did not stop an individual from getting smallpox when exposed to it
you know, indeed, that vaccines did not even stop an individual from *dying* from smallpox when exposed
you know, finally, that vaccines nevertheless stopped *everyone* from getting smallpox

you know these things

you know beyond a shadow of a doubt the covid vaccine has the same outcome as the smallpox vaccine; viz,
1. when neither reaches sufficient levels, the disease spreads and the vaccinated die, albeit at a lower rate
2. when either reaches sufficient levels, the disease doesn't spread and nobody dies

.

so why can't you say any of them?

what do you think will happen to you?

as gelston is fond of pointing out, it's a bulletin board for a forty year old text mud. who cares? nobody cares

just say the truth. i promise you'll feel better

So, a "vaccine (new definition since Covid19)" that doesn't stop you from getting the virus and doesn't stop you from spreading the virus... if only every single person on the planet had it... it would magically stop?

Like I said... why do you hate Science so much? I always knew you were incredibly socially awkward and pantophobic... but I always thought you were at least able to rationalize science (even though you are religious) and wouldn't just go full blown "ZOMGVIRUSZOMBIES!" like this.

[Latrinsorm]

Polio and measles vaccines were required to attend public schools, which are government institutions. There is an option for people to choose private education, home schooling, etc. if they don’t like it. Also those vaccines are much more effective, but that’s not really relevant for this point. It’s not quite the same thing for government to require vaccine mandates upon employees of private businesses. I think the Supreme Court came to the right decision.

Do you think places like New Zealand has handled it better with their 0 tolerance policies? You don’t think those people have suffered a cost to their liberty?

this is another deflection

you say "why can't you let people make their own health decisions?" because it feels good, it feels magnanimous and broadminded... but no matter how you dress it up, when you look at the fine print we never have in this country. to wit, the Supreme Court in fact came to two decisions regarding the government's ability to require vaccine mandates for employees of private businesses - one said they couldn't, but one said they could. they didn't forget about the cost of liberty or the right to make health decisions or federalism or separation of powers in between, the reason for the ostensibly contradictory decisions is again in the fine print; specifically, in the present scenario 29 USC 655(c)(1) doesn't give OSHA that authority and 42 USC 1395x(e)(9) among others does give it to HHS. the HHS ruling wasn't a classified secret i uncovered with Tom Cruise and a decoder ring, it was right there in all the papers, so why do you refer to "the" ruling? why even in your own mind can you only think about the OSHA one?

why else? because what you're defending is YOUR right to not be uncomfortable - it's uncomfortable to make people do things, and it should be! but sometimes we have to find the courage to do the right thing anyway, and the right thing is as much the right thing when it's just Jenny McCarthy complaining about it as when it's a hundred million Americans complaining about it

.

O.K., you ask about New Zealand, and if we had had New Zealand's success we'd have seen 3,500 deaths total the entire pandemic. since i explicitly detailed a plan that does not rise to their level, you tell me what specific liberty they lost that we shouldn't trade for 900,000 American lives