Thought for the Day

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Here's another thing that epitomises the moral black hole the Republican Party has gone down. Republicans who hold Trump accountable for inciting violent insurrection are being threatened with punishment while an odious conspiracy theorist is rewarded with committee positions.
https://www.vox.com/22254103/marjori...facebook-posts

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The Republican Party is in the mist of a civil war between Conservatives like Liz Cheney,Adam Kinzinger and 8 other Republicans who voted to impeach the Demogouge And Malignant Narcissist Donald Trump for causing an insurrection,and those who continue to defend him like the Qanon Supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene and others. Marjorie Taylor Greene comments are dangerous,despicable and vile,someone like her should not be allowed to continue to serve and should be stripped of her committee assignments and expelled from congress along with the other members of the Conspiracy Theorist Wing of the Republican Party.

On one level, free speech means that to some extent Representative Greene can say what she likes, but in her case some of her comments (and she seems rather keen to delete social media comments from a few years ago now she is an elected member of the House) might be actual or borderline illegal.

The question that puzzles me about some of her claims is that they are not only daft, but verifiably so, as with her claim that Ruth Bader Ginsberg died years ago but was replaced by a body double, one that fooled all of her staff and collegues on the Supreme Court- unless they were in on it, which is implausible and not just in the case of Justice Thomas.

Always ask the question, Why? If it was to maintain a Liberal justice, that makes no sense because she could have retired in 2014 and a Liberal nominee by Obama have taken her place. If it was to maintain a Liberal presence on the Court because she failed to retire before the end of Obama's tenure, a) that didn't matter as McConnell and the Senate refused to even consider Merrick Garland for the Court, and b) no Liberal was going to be nominated once Trump was elected.

Mass murders perpetrated by 'Right Wing' men with guns, instead of proving the dangers of the 2nd Amendment, are instantly dismissed as 'false flag' operations designed by 'Liberals' to repeal it, or a 'hoax', it doesn't even require an effort. That Greene has personally engaged in the harassment of people involved in the murders was her problem when she was a citizen, now she is a Member of the House it becomes a House problem. What stands out, as with the 9/11 'Truthers' is absolute contempt for the victims and their families. But at what point does the right to be offensive become illegal? It may never be, but the legal cases against Alex Jones brought by relatives of the victims of Sandy Hook may establish the extent to which Defamation is the means whereby the outrageous comments of people like Jones and Greene can be made liable for prosecution and punishment.

Again, to sustain a paedophile ring in Washington DC dating back to the 'murderous' Clintons requires too many people to maintain it as a covert operation. Here, the paedophile angle is one that has become almost a staple of conspiracy theories. I am not sure when it began, but there was mass hysteria in the UK in the 1990s with newspapers printing stories, such as the one in the Mirror in 1990, 'Kids forced into Satan orgies' -though in the years that passed no evidence of orgies, sacrifices etc was ever found; you can read about it here-
https://www.theguardian.com/science/...ories-scotland

Or the PhD by Rosalind Waterhouse here-
https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/epr...l%20panics.pdf

My guess is that for religious nuts, when something happens that is bad it must be the work of Satan, so if a Politician is considered bad, he or she too, must be in league with Satan. But guess what, when they do or say bad things, they are not Satan's body double, just tellin' the truth...

Here the irony of Conspiracy Theories is that you can set aside the claims about JFK, 9/11 and Sandy Hook, because on the 6th of January an actual Conspiracy materialised -the point being that the men and women who stormed the Capitol had openly conspired to do so on social media platforms, and became known to each other as well as law enforcement reading their posts, were filmed and photographed outside and inside the Capitol building, their affiliations identified. In this case, the actual conspiracy worked because law enforcement either did not believe it, or failed to act in time or with sufficient seriousness to prevent it. And yet in spite of these facts, the very same people who stormed the Capitol, we are now told were in fact part of an Antifa/Fed 'false flag' operation -a fake conspiracy designed to discredit an actual one.

I don't know if Represenative Greene can be expelled from the House, I am not sure what the rules are, but she seems to be flouting some basic norms of behaviour by harassing other members and their staff, not wearing masks, etc, so the question now is how far the extemists who appear to have succeeded in placing their fringe ideas at the centre of the news, may now succeed in making bad behaviour in the Capitol a fact of daily life.

But is it not also an example of failure in politics when someone, unable to justify their position on a matter of policy and principle, dismisses rational debate and argument by referring to an unverified claim that shuts down the debate?

The conspiracy claims against left are daft, crazy, horrendous and hateful. (Okay, I may occasionally enjoy feasting on a human baby, but I definitely do not worship Satan. I don’t even believe in God let alone fallen angels.) The fact that people believe these things is not only a measure of how stupid they are but also of how much they hate anyone with any other political, religious, racial or sexual perspective. What they’re willing to believe of us is what they want to believe...what they need to believe in order to justify their burning hatred of us. They know our actual disagreements don’t warrant the emotions they feel. Hence, we’ve become baby eaters, demon worshippers, pedophiles and lizard aliens to justify the insane passions that alt-right fear mongers have stirred in their hearts while those in office sat back and fanned the flames.

It looks like the Republican civil war might be over with barely a shot fired. After a week or two of soul-searching, the party establishment appears to have decided that they can't do without Trump and his supporters, so they've reverted to their old habits of appeasing him.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...d-trump-463684

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Originally Posted by Stavros

The question that puzzles me about some of her claims is that they are not only daft, but verifiably so

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I think once you lose the anchor of some notion of objective truth there is no limit to where you might go. The only standard for something to be believed is whether it suits your pre-conceived view of the world.

The attraction of conspiracy theories for some people is that it's a ready-made framework for explaining everything - as you suggest, it's analogous to religion. There is no need to confront awkward questions or to reconsider anything. If your messiah is a political failure, it was a conspiracy to rig the vote and he didn't really lose. If your messiah makes a mess of handling a pandemic, there has been a conspiracy to exaggerate the problem which hasn't been a crisis at all. If you can't explain why you policies will help more people than your opponent's policies, it's because they have an evil plan they are keeping secret.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

I think once you lose the anchor of some notion of objective truth there is no limit to where you might go. The only standard for something to be believed is whether it suits your pre-conceived view of the world.
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I used to think a good liar was one who could craft tales that are plausible but simply don't match up with reality. But if the audience is sufficiently radicalized the best liar is audacious and not restrained by shame or conscience.

Once the people have accepted a liar who doesn't insist on telling plausible lies you know you're in trouble. Look at how quickly the Republicans admitted they were lying as soon as people started getting killed over their lies. It is a weird dualism.

I saw a tweet that had over 90 thousand likes that said, "I found a shredded ballot that had a Chinese shipping receipt on top of it." When I first saw it I thought it was a parody tweet about how credulous people are. But in the comments you could see people with names like DebbieMAGAfreedomeagle saying "I knew the Chinese were involved in this." A normal, somewhat curious person would ask for more information I assume. I had no questions because I don't know what it would mean if someone did observe this: The Chinese government shipped one torn ballot, placed it in a dumpster and put a receipt on top of it?

Over the years I've noticed this with antisemitic conspiracy theories that for someone to believe them they have to have already taken leave of their sanity. They know their ideas can't stand up to scrutiny but they hate you for not allowing them to live in the temporary refuge of their lies. Not to be melodramatic but eventually those lies will destroy us.

My memory wasn't exactly right. The tweet I mentioned has about 53,000 likes and one of the top responses says "I just popped a freedom boner." Very disturbing.

Robert Reich in today's Observer/Guardian argues that Biden's best hope is that his Administration and a Democrat Congress succeed in seeing the US out of the Covid-19 crisis, establish some level of economic growth with a corresponding decrease in unemployment, and thus prove that Government works. I suspect that for a large proportion of the Trump supporters, nothing much the Democrats do will satisfy them, as was evident when Obama's record of rescuing the US banking system from collapse, and restoring economic growth was dismissed as if it never happened.

The key for me is that while the armed militias may bark loudly, they are wary of biting, as was seen in the sloppy invasion of the Capitol building. It seems to me that if they want to register their discontent with the Federal Government, the real battleground must be within the States. Republican States have led the campaign to take voting rights away, and are now more motivated than ever to ramp up voter suppression, purges of electoral rolls, the imposition of ID requirements, confident that the Supreme Court will not intervene to stop it. I don't know if extremists have been registering as Republicans in order to take part in the various processes that govern the selection of candidates in States and confirm it as a 'Trump/QAnon Party', but it is one way of 'taking over' the party even as some 'old style' Republicans are leaving -30,000 are know to have changed their affiliation since the 6th of January, and the true figure may be higher.

Within the States, members of the various armed militias -Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, Oathkeepers, Three-Percenters, also have the option of infiltating the armed branches of Goverment. Three-Percenters in some States are Law Enforcement Officers -policemen, mostly- who sew the III Percent Emblem on their Uniforms to broadcast their affiliation, which they can use to harass minority citizens and maintain their 'knee on the kneck' tactic -but if they are, or were to be regarded as Domestic Terrorists, the States would have to engage in a purge of officers with dual loyalty, while some would remove their emblems as 'stay behinds' to maintain their internal campaign against that 'other America' they don't consider to be their equal.

But there need be no insurrection, rather, just as States can shred as many voters as it can, re-define term limits to make Abortion all but impossible, so the longer term aim among the extremists could be, not secession, as happened in 1861, but a form of autonomy, in which States decide to either ignore Federal law, or find ways of tinkering with the mechanics, as with the Voter Registration Act of 1965, to make the law all but irrelevant. But within the State, and particularly if it is run by Democrats, the extremists could 'opt out' of the Federation by refusing to pay taxes en masse, and like the Bundy Clan that continues to graze herds on public land, just ignore the law when they can. The point would be, not to take the confrontation with the Feds to Washington DC, but to establish pockets of resistance across the country and in effect, dare the Feds or the State to bring the confrontation to them, as in 'every town its own Waco'. Thus, if there are confrontations that turn violent, the protestors can present themselves as 'victims', the State, the Fed, the 'Liberals' the enemy.

If the Democrats succeed in expanding their representation in the mid-terms, with the GOP dis-united, even in disarray over its candidates and its future, conventional politics will have failed the 'Pioneers', just as they condemned Trump for abandoning them on the 6th of January, because even Trump is not enough to satisfy their needs and desires. And, though they may still be a fringe movement, they are large enough, and well armed enough to cause a lot of trouble, and a permanent sore for the country. They have learned the lesson of a defeated Confederacy -'fight the power' within, autonomy not secession is the solution. And much harder for the Federal and State government to deal with.

Very good post Stavros. All of those phenomena you mention are real things to be concerned about. I think rather than achieve autonomy for the states or the accomplishment of any positive objective, this will partially obstruct effective governance by the majority. The fact that Republicans have not moved towards the center to try to win elections fairly really harms this country. Instead of creating a broader coalition they have doubled down on voter suppression and obstructionist tactics. Without a majority in either house of congress or the Presidency, their attempts at obstruction have to be even more extreme to be effective.

I do think that since there are a range of political views in this country we need a Republican party that can hold itself to a higher standard. I'm not hopeful that it can transform itself from a party for disaffected conspiracy theorists into a party that represents some coherent conservative movement. But I do see the need for people who have different political views than I do to have a party that will at least hold itself to the standard of honesty, decency, and basic fairness.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Very good post Stavros. All of those phenomena you mention are real things to be concerned about. I think rather than achieve autonomy for the states or the accomplishment of any positive objective, this will partially obstruct effective governance by the majority. The fact that Republicans have not moved towards the center to try to win elections fairly really harms this country. Instead of creating a broader coalition they have doubled down on voter suppression and obstructionist tactics. Without a majority in either house of congress or the Presidency, their attempts at obstruction have to be even more extreme to be effective.

I do think that since there are a range of political views in this country we need a Republican party that can hold itself to a higher standard. I'm not hopeful that it can transform itself from a party for disaffected conspiracy theorists into a party that represents some coherent conservative movement. But I do see the need for people who have different political views than I do to have a party that will at least hold itself to the standard of honesty, decency, and basic fairness.

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Without starting some big thing, I would like to point out that if we're going to talk about political parties "holding themselves to a higher standard," it is quite disingenuous to apply this demand to Republicans while ignoring the behavior of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY for the last 4 years - in particular its behavior since the George Floyd incident.

Democratic elected officials have promoted rioting, sedition, and murder. The party's adherents have turned some parts of this country into literal war zones. For 4 years they have behaved like 4-year-olds, utterly failing to accept the results of the 2016 election. "Not My President" has been the cry from these naive children.

The Republicans, in defeat, have been quite tame compared to the violent excess of the Democrats. Stricly objectively, it's the very limit of hypocrisy for Democrats to act as if they suddenly occupy the high moral ground of political methodology. Half of the people crying out for Trump's post-presidency impeachment should rightfully be in prison right now, and probably would be if the election had gone the other way.

Anyway, again, not looking to start some big debate. We all know nobody here is going to change anyone else's mind about politics. But let's not act as if Republicans have the monopoly on political temper tantrums. If anything, they are mere plebs compared to the Democrats when it comes to showing one's ass.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

It looks like the Republican civil war might be over with barely a shot fired. After a week or two of soul-searching, the party establishment appears to have decided that they can't do without Trump and his supporters, so they've reverted to their old habits of appeasing him.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...d-trump-463684

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Not surprised at all the Republican Party reverted back to their old habits by appeasing the Demagouge And Malignant Narcissist Donald Trump,and all that talk about unity from the Republicans was bullshit,because they never had any intention on coming together and uniting and healing the country.

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

Without starting some big thing, I would like to point out that if we're going to talk about political parties "holding themselves to a higher standard," it is quite disingenuous to apply this demand to Republicans while ignoring the behavior of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY for the last 4 years - in particular its behavior since the George Floyd incident.

Democratic elected officials have promoted rioting, sedition, and murder. The party's adherents have turned some parts of this country into literal war zones. For 4 years they have behaved like 4-year-olds, utterly failing to accept the results of the 2016 election. "Not My President" has been the cry from these naive children.

The Republicans, in defeat, have been quite tame compared to the violent excess of the Democrats. Stricly objectively, it's the very limit of hypocrisy for Democrats to act as if they suddenly occupy the high moral ground of political methodology. Half of the people crying out for Trump's post-presidency impeachment should rightfully be in prison right now, and probably would be if the election had gone the other way.

Anyway, again, not looking to start some big debate. We all know nobody here is going to change anyone else's mind about politics. But let's not act as if Republicans have the monopoly on political temper tantrums. If anything, they are mere plebs compared to the Democrats when it comes to showing one's ass.

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I am against rioting no matter who is doing it. I guess what I'd ask you is whether Joe Biden supported vandalism or violence? Did he incite violence or engage in the kind of conspiracy mongering Trump did? You will remember that all of our intelligence agencies concluded that Russia did hack the DNC. Nobody credible concluded anything about shredded ballots or the batshit stuff Trump has promoted. He filed 60 lawsuits without any real evidence and tried to subvert every political process we have including using the potential for violence to pressure Pence to impede the peaceful transfer of power.

The former President promoted outrageous lies about the election, he refused to concede at any point, and during the counting of the votes tried to claim victory because he knew the mail-in ballots were counted last and he had discouraged his supporters from sending in those ballots. He then spent more than two months claiming he would remain President. During that time he tried to extort Brad Raffensperger into calling Georgia for him. The vandalism he incited was not against a privately owned building, which is indefensible, but was, more dangerously, against our capitol.

Many of the people who broke into the capitol were looking to hang Mike Pence and kill legislators. They did kill a police officer and injured many others. Afterwards he told them he loved them.

You might have an argument if storming the capitol to overturn an election were simply vandalism, if saying "not my President" was the same thing as the President promoting outlandish conspiracy theories and refusing to concede, and if the people who stormed the Capitol were protesting some civil rights violation and were not people waving the confederate flag and wearing Camp Auschwitz shirts. Everything about what he did threatened the very basis of our democracy and tried to empower the worst people in our society (Neo-Nazis).

No the Democrats aren't perfect and any fringe person shouldn't be in the party. For Republicans, that is who is at the helm. A Representative who thinks there are Jewish space lasers and senators and congress-people who lie up until the minute people start getting killed and then pretend they didn't.

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

The Republicans, in defeat, have been quite tame compared to the violent excess of the Democrats.

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I assume this is some kind of joke - you making a deliberately outrageous statement just to provoke a reaction.

On the oft chance you are actually serious, here is a link to Hillary Clinton's concession speech, which you seem to have missed. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/09/p...ech/index.html

Perhaps you'd like to give us some links on how the Democrat party tried to overturn the result in the courts and Congress, pressure state electoral officials and goad an armed Democrat mob into storming the Capitol.

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

Without starting some big thing, I would like to point out that if we're going to talk about political parties "holding themselves to a higher standard," it is quite disingenuous to apply this demand to Republicans while ignoring the behavior of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY for the last 4 years - in particular its behavior since the George Floyd incident.

Democratic elected officials have promoted rioting, sedition, and murder. The party's adherents have turned some parts of this country into literal war zones. For 4 years they have behaved like 4-year-olds, utterly failing to accept the results of the 2016 election. "Not My President" has been the cry from these naive children.

The Republicans, in defeat, have been quite tame compared to the violent excess of the Democrats. Stricly objectively, it's the very limit of hypocrisy for Democrats to act as if they suddenly occupy the high moral ground of political methodology. Half of the people crying out for Trump's post-presidency impeachment should rightfully be in prison right now, and probably would be if the election had gone the other way.

Anyway, again, not looking to start some big debate. We all know nobody here is going to change anyone else's mind about politics. But let's not act as if Republicans have the monopoly on political temper tantrums. If anything, they are mere plebs compared to the Democrats when it comes to showing one's ass.

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A few points.

1) In a two party system it is easy to fall into the either/or trap. I don't know that the Democrats have been presented here as 'the good guys', if you care to read back through a lot of posts you will find I have been critical of the party. Do both parties benefit from Gerrymandered districts? Yes. Do both parties run their machines free of corruption? No (name me one party anywhere in the world that does not habitually bend or break the rules). Do both parties manipulate the procedures in Congress to their own benefit? Yes, as in, that's the nature of Congressional politics.

2) The agument that the Democrats never accepted the result of the 2016 election on one level is factually wrong, as filghy2 points out Hillary Clinton conceded the election to Trump, and moreover, attended the 2017 Inauguration ceremony. The obvious problem, one that your election system can present at times, is that Clinton won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College, which to some Americans, is a challenge to legitimacy -yes, you have this system, but it has rarely produced two different results, and you have no mechanism to resolve the contradiction.

3) Legitimacy -what has been unique in the Trump dilemma, is that the legitimacy of the 2016 result has been challenged because Trump himself not only broke the 1971 Election Campaign Law when he twice in one day publicly solicited the help of the Russian Governmen in his campaign, the evidence of the Mueller Enquiry and the Senate Intelligence Committee is that the Trump campaign met with Russians close to the Russian Government more than 100 times, at the same time that the Russians were hacking the computers of the DNC. Call it co-operation if not collusion, then ask how many members of that campaign ended up in Prison for what they did? How many members of Democrat campaigns over the years ended up in prison for breaking the law?

It looks to me like there is a case for treason if it can be established that at the very momen the Russians were attacking the USA, the Trump campaign, which had a moral and a legal duty to reject Russian offers of help, moreover, to inform the FBI/CIA that such offers had been made, chose instead to join the Russian attack against the USA.

If you factor in the basis of the Impeachment, that the US President sought the help of a foreign government in his election campaign against a fellow American, then you have the deep suspicion that Trump and his campaign have used and relied on foreign support unike any other President or Presidential campaign in US history -that is the measure of the challenge to Trump's legitimacy problem, underlined even more when sitting next to Vladimir Putin, Trump publicly endorsed the views of Russian, rather than American intelligence.

Has any US President ever publicly undermined the Intelligence Services of his country in favour of a Foreign Government, and, moreover, one viewed as hostile to the USA?

4) yes, we can agree that as a man, Trump is ignorant, stupid, vulgar, vain, a liar and a racist, but that's just tough luck on the US. But ask yourself how many Presidents have lined their pockets with tax-payers money as Trump has done, playing golf only at places he owns, knowing the cost will benefit his business? Obama played golf too, but never made a dime from it, Trump has made millions from it, and with a security detail for life has a guaranteed revenue stream as long as he only plays golf in places he owns. Trump might have done the US a favour by deliberately undermining the Office of the Presidency by breaking its norms and values, if it means Congress fine tunes the law on what a President can and cannot do.

5) You might suggest that just as the Republicans have their QAnon supporters, the TEA Party, Armed Militias, 'Christian' Fundamentalists and the Koch Brothers, the Democrats have BLM, Wall St and other Billionaire backers -presumably Bill Gates and George Soros-and a motley group of Feminists, Radical Feminists, Green/Environmental activists, LGBT+ activists -but is it not the case, that these groups are all working within the US political system to extend its remit, its inclusiveness, rather than against it?

Republicans actively purge voter rolles, suppress the vote, and spent more than 40 years filleting the Voter Regstration Act of 1965 as part of the Cancel Culture they accuse Democrats of. They have made every atttempt they can to Cancel Roe-v-Wade and have succeeded at the State level in doing so through the re-definition of term limits.

Thus, even if you set aside the assault on the Capitol, of the two parties, neither of which are perfect, only one has actively sought to de-legitimise the electoral process, to exclude Americans from voting, and that is the Republican Party. It has reached a point where not only is the US system in a fragile condition, so too is the Republican Party, now tearing itself apart because it cannot decide who its leader is, what its policies are and should be, and to whom it is appealing for support. The Democrats are divided too, but their divisions are shaped by policies not personalities, which makes them more congenial to the open debate that is what enables Liberal Democracies to survive.

For now the fundamental question is this: does the Republican Party believe Liberal Democracy is the best system of Government for the USA? And it is the only one of the two parties asking the question, and appearing in some cases to reply, 'No' -this is the core dilemma now for those who vote for and support the Republican Party, and that 'other America' they ignore, who must live with the consequences of four destructive years that resulted in 25 million people infected with Covid-19, over 400,000 deaths and a President who didn't care.

Wow looks like I've dropped myself right into the middle of a hornets' nest here.

But if you guys would be willing to accept just one simple fact, I think we can all get out of here alive. That fact is that you are looking at the world through liberal-colored spectacles, and I am looking at it through conservative-colored spectacles.

It's not much more complicated than that. I saw what Trump did. I'm pretty sure he was in bed with Putin. I'm 100% sure he used the office of the Presidency to enrich himself and his family. And certainly, from one perspective, it could easily be said that he handled the pandemic crisis poorly - although for myself I've maintained all along that it was more damaging to the USA to shut down the economy than it would have been to allow the virus to simply run its course and cull the weak, which pretty much happened anyway and would have happened despite our best efforts. I.E., we have yet to parse the number of deaths that can be attributed directly to the impact of the economic shutdown rather than the virus itself, but I'm guessing...comparable numbers. Point being that Trump and I are in agreement on how he should have handled the pandemic.

And in summary to my original point, the things you see as problems, I see as clever. For example, I don't see the big problem with the "Russian election interference" issue. The Russians interfere in every election, whether you know that or not - and so does every other first-world nation with an intelligence service. They all have their preference in an American election. It bothers me more that Putin preferred Trump over Clinton than it does that he helped get Trump elected. But it doesn't bother me that Trump used all the pieces already in play to secure his victory.

Trump was no more poorly-behaved than any other President, but his flaws were amplified constantly by the media. I won't say this is unprecedented, George W. Bush got quite a bit of that treatment but he got it in the days before social media was omnipresent.

So I'm a little brainwashed right now, guys. And so are you. We probably agree on a lot of fundamental issues but we'll never know it, because now we're all just pawns of the media, suckling at the giant corporate teat of information, misinformation, disinformation, spin, outright lies and under-reported truths.

Unfortunately what we've had for the past 4 years is a uniquely 4-branched government that has been forced to concede to the (mostsly) liberal media on several occasions. No other President in history has encountered such vigorous opposition from the press, and the average American citizen, bless his little pea-sized brain, is now essentially unable to discern the difference in media spin and hard truth.

The very definition of "divisive" is up for grabs right now. Was Trump divisive? Sure, I guess, if you call "winning when a bunch of people didn't want you to win" divisive. Seems like the Democrats are totally willing to throw the word "divisive" out there to describe any action with which they disagree, so who's actually doing the "dividing?"

Anyway, I'll tell you guys right now, I am not even a little upset that Biden won. It's nothing more than the usual ebb and flow of politics. If you want my opinion on what's going to happen over the next 4 years, here it is: The LGBT community is going to get everything it wants. Blacks, Hispanics, Women, and Immigrants are going to get everything they want. Inflation is going through the roof, that will be unavoidable. Unemployment will rise as business regulation increases. By the end of Biden's 4 years we will be living in a borderline dystopia in which everyone is equally fucked.

Then in 2024, amidst the economic shambles, we'll elect another Republican. He'll reverse a lot of Democratic policies, kill Obamacare (again), and fix the economy. HOPEFULLY that will keep him too busy to cater to the Religious Right, and everyone who has obtained their human rights during this coming Democratic administration will be allowed to keep them.

There is no happy ending, guys. Just a continuous back-and-forth cycle of opposing ideas. We could hash all those out here and now. But for me, I'm prepared to simply agree to disagree at this point. Frankly, the USA is giving me a headache.

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

although for myself I've maintained all along that it was more damaging to the USA to shut down the economy than it would have been to allow the virus to simply run its course and cull the weak, which pretty much happened anyway and would have happened despite our best efforts. I.E., we have yet to parse the number of deaths that can be attributed directly to the impact of the economic shutdown rather than the virus itself, but I'm guessing...comparable numbers.

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The choice wasn't between shutting down the economy and herd immunity by infection. In fact, carefully tailored health measures in a bunch of countries resulted in fewer deaths and less economic loss. People could have been encouraged to wear masks instead of being told by the President well after April 3 (when there was a consensus about presymptomatic transmission) that the verdict was still out on whether they're effective. Or being told that the virus was like the flu, would magically disappear, that hydroxychloroquine works, or any number of pseudo-scientific things.

We have 450,000 deaths from covid and our excess deaths this year are in that range. Excess death data will tell you with some reasonable probability whether you have an additional cause of death in a given year and whether it's consistent with the deaths you attribute to a new cause of death. Do you have any evidence that anywhere close to 450,000 deaths have been caused by the "economic shutdown"?

I focus on this part of your post because it's the part that isn't just vague characterizations about how everyone is biased, both sides are the same, one man's insurrection is another man's disagreement etc.

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

Trump was no more poorly-behaved than any other President, but his flaws were amplified constantly by the media. I won't say this is unprecedented, George W. Bush got quite a bit of that treatment but he got it in the days before social media was omnipresent.

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Someone else can maybe address this, though that's not a demand if you think it's pointless. Before I saw Nick responded I was going to write a paragraph about how the fact/opinion distinction is not always conceptually clear. Facts can be made to look murky by bad faith and opinions can be almost universally agreed upon. Whether someone's behavior is poor is a matter of opinion but to the extent most people have similar criteria for it I don't think this is true. I also don't see any way to resolve this except by listing behaviors of Trump, describing why they're "poor" and asking you to name comparably bad behaviors of previous presidents that aren't mischaracterizations.

Nick tldr: there is no such thing as a fact and everything is reducible to opinion. Black is white, white is black, and there isn't any difference because it's all subjective and that's part of the game. Vice is virtue, Trump is good, but so is corruption. Also, here are a bunch of opinions, each one of which can be easily rebutted but the rebuttal is simply an expression of your bias.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

We have 450,000 deaths from covid...

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Exactly. And the exact same people who would be wearing masks if there was a nationwide mask mandate from the first sniffle in Wuhan are wearing masks, and the same people who won't wear masks even if it means not being allowed into a grocery store are still not wearing them.

I've been alive long enough to recognize a half-measure when I see one - the kind of measure governments take when they're expected to do something but don't know what the fuck to do. The mask thing is a farce IMO, just another token half-measure by a government that is in truth helpless against this pandemic.

Now, at the same time I feel that way, I also respect YOUR right to buy into the mask mandate. I respect it so much that I wear a mask, Bronco. Even though I don't think it helps, I stifle my face with one of those hot, uncomfortable pieces of recycled garbage every time I get out of my car. EXCLUSIVELY out of respect for YOUR opinion.

Now that's the kind of bi-partisan, across-the-aisle cooperative effort that's going to lead humanity hurtling full-speed into the current light at the end of the current tunnel. :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

If you want my opinion on what's going to happen over the next 4 years, here it is: The LGBT community is going to get everything it wants. Blacks, Hispanics, Women, and Immigrants are going to get everything they want. Inflation is going through the roof, that will be unavoidable. Unemployment will rise as business regulation increases. By the end of Biden's 4 years we will be living in a borderline dystopia in which everyone is equally fucked.

Then in 2024, amidst the economic shambles, we'll elect another Republican. He'll reverse a lot of Democratic policies, kill Obamacare (again), and fix the economy. HOPEFULLY that will keep him too busy to cater to the Religious Right, and everyone who has obtained their human rights during this coming Democratic administration will be allowed to keep them.

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If your previous over-confident predictions fail, why not make some new equally over-confident predictions. How many of your predictions in this thread proved to be correct? http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...trannies+trump

I'm not going to waste time addressing your points because it's all just a false equivalence game. As long as you kind find examples of things other politicians have done that resemble what Trump has done in some way you can say "see, he's no worse than others", but you're asking us to ignore the degree and overall pattern of his behaviour.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

And certainly, from one perspective, it could easily be said that he handled the pandemic crisis poorly - although for myself I've maintained all along that it was more damaging to the USA to shut down the economy than it would have been to allow the virus to simply run its course and cull the weak, which pretty much happened anyway and would have happened despite our best efforts.

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You're ignoring the obvious point that the USA is around the bottom 10 out of more than 200 countries in terms of death rates per capita. https://virusncov.com/ If there was nothing that could have been done to achieve a better outcome, how do you explain the fact that so many countries have done much better?

It's also not true that countries have succeeded in controlling the virus only at the expense of their economies - in fact, the countries with lower virus numbers have generally done better economically.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economy
https://theconversation.com/data-fro...chotomy-150533

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Nick tldr: there is no such thing as a fact and everything is reducible to opinion. Black is white, white is black, and there isn't any difference because it's all subjective and that's part of the game. Vice is virtue, Trump is good, but so is corruption. Also, here are a bunch of opinions, each one of which can be easily rebutted but the rebuttal is simply an expression of your bias.

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The other element is that all degrees of wrongdoing are equivalent. If most people sometimes twist the truth, then a President who constantly tells outrageous lies is no worse. If most people sometimes bend rules to their own advantage, a President who puts himself above the law and tries to overturn an election is no worse. If most people are inclined to think less favourably of their opponents than their own side, a President who makes 'us versus them' hate-mongering his political credo (to the exclusion of any policy platform) is no worse.

I think you made this point before, but it used to be the right who criticised the left for moral relativism - the idea that there are no absolute rights or wrongs and it all depends on where you are coming from. Conservative values aren't what they used to be, it seems.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by filghy2

The other element is that all degrees of wrongdoing are equivalent. If most people sometimes twist the truth, then a President who constantly tells outrageous lies is no worse. If most people sometimes bend rules to their own advantage, a President who puts himself above the law and tries to overturn an election is no worse. If most people are inclined to think less favourably of their opponents than their own side, a President who makes 'us versus them' hate-mongering his political credo (to the exclusion of any policy platform) is no worse.

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Great point. If one is not perfect they are as bad as the worst offender. And since nobody is perfect, then the most egregious offender is no worse than anyone. And once they've used whataboutism to claim Trump's behavior hasn't been exceptional, those who think it is are left explaining all of the degrees of difference.

I can't put this in a category but I've often noticed when someone wants impunity for a person they support, they will require one single smoking gun to condemn them. If you have ten circumstances each highly suggestive of corrupt behavior they will not look at the combined probability. Or even consider what the combined effect of all of these instances says about the person's conduct in general.

It's not as much a Republican thing but a tactic I've noticed that is hard to break through because it challenges people's ability to hold all of the incriminating instances in their heads at the same time. It also means that if there's an occasional frivolous accusation by someone they can focus on that and pretend it's characteristic of every other complaint.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

It's nothing more than the usual ebb and flow of politics.

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You have expressed this so what? view of politics before, but it begs the question -has anything changed, is the US still 'merely' dominated by a two-party system? Right now, it appears that the Republican Party is in such a deep crisis many of its long-standing supporters are leaving it while a new cohort of conspiracy-based and militia linked people are moving in -but this must means the GOP is not longer the 'Party of Lincoln' -indeed the 'newbies' probably detest Lincoln as an 'Imperial President'-, while the mere concept of Fiscal Resposibility that Eisenhower was associated with presents itself as somewhere between satire and ridicule. Add in the fact that even in 2016 Trump said he would accept the result of the election 'If I win' and the means by which he attempted to reject the actual vote in 2020 with all its attendant lies, violence and the -prior to 1812- unprecedented attack on the Capitol, and you can see that the US is in danger of moving away from what is left of a Consensual system -it may not be bi-partisan these days, but the two main parties have adhered to the view that there are three brances to American Government, not One, whereas Trump never seemed to even understand how a system of checks and balances work.

So on the one hand, you may be right, but on the other, it remains to be seen what damage Trump has done to the Republican Party and the American system, and that is without an assessment of the long term damage caused by domestic and foreign policy.

It is not just Liberals who are concerned at the direction that Trump is taking his party in, but many of the people who enabled him to do it four years ago. Incredible as it might sound, it is reported that Mitch McConnell thought Trump's inflamed rhetoric before and during the 6th of January was 'just buster', a stunning lapse of judgment which suggests McConnell deliberately ignored a lot fo what Trump said for four years, or just didn't care as long as he got the judges and tax cuts that were his priority. Sounds like someone saying of the driver of the car or the bus, 'he may be drunk, but he will get us there faster' -assuming there is no fatal collision on the way. But the drunk is still in the driver's seat, and there is little McConnell can do about it.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

If your previous over-confident predictions fail, why not make some new equally over-confident predictions. How many of your predictions in this thread proved to be correct? http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...trannies+trump

I'm not going to waste time addressing your points because it's all just a false equivalence game.

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In my defense, Flighty, I can only say that I absolutely did NOT foresee the global pandemic or what my friends and I like to call the Retard Riots.

>says he's not going to waste time addressing my points
>proceeds to address my points over the course of three additional posts

If you'll recall, Flighty, I'm just fine with not addressing anyone's points. It'd just be the same old inflexible assholes rehashing the same old arguments. On both sides.

I will be very specific for you, though, regarding the pandemic and how I feel about it.

First of all, while simultaneously believing that masks do not help the problem, I also understand fully the benefit of the mask. Scenario: I have the virus, and I am wearing a mask. You do not have the virus and you pass in front of me as I cough or sneeze or simply exhale. The mask prevents the moist, virus-carrying particles exiting my mouth from reaching you and infecting you with the goddamn Covid.

But guess what? You're still going to get it. There's a good chance you've already HAD it.

Think of it like a cum shot, Flighty - if you're there, in front of the dick, and the cum starts flying, you're going to get some on you, no matter how you might try to avoid it. The only way to avoid the cum is to get away from the dick altogether, which in this analogy translates to complete isolation from the rest of the human race.

Some people have gone that route. For most people that isn't a viable option.

I personally am immune to the thing. So far I've been in direct contact with it 3 times I'm aware of, including nursing both my parents through it, so either I had it and was completely asymptomatic (making me a "super-carrier"), or I'm immune. Either way I've got no dog in this hunt.

Nonetheless I could have solved this whole problem had I been in charge of operations when it happened. The solution is so obvious that any well-heeled bureaucracy could accomplish it.

Each person would be responsible to decide whether or not he/she is at risk. Old people, frail people, lungers, etc., would be allowed to apply for assistance. If they do fall into an at-risk category, they'd be allowed to self-quarantine, and the taxpayers would kindly foot the bill for their sustenance until the pandemic has passed. At that point, they command their own destiny. If they stick to the program and don't leave their house, they'll be fine. Also, obviously, if people apply for quarantine who in fact do NOT fall into an at-risk category, sorry, denied, get back to working for a living. There'd be a lot of screening with my plan.

This way you've taken all your high-risk individuals and given them the tools they need to survive. And everyone else can just get back to business as usual. Sure, there'd be some deaths among the general population, people who should have applied for quarantine but didn't, out of pride or stupidity. But they'd be minimal, what you'd have more than anything would be a lot of people getting sick but then getting over it. And it would have been OVER by now.

I know, I know, Flighty, I'm a goddamn genius. The irony is, you don't even have to be a genius to be smarter than the government.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

First of all, while simultaneously believing that masks do not help the problem, I also understand fully the benefit of the mask. Scenario: I have the virus, and I am wearing a mask. You do not have the virus and you pass in front of me as I cough or sneeze or simply exhale. The mask prevents the moist, virus-carrying particles exiting my mouth from reaching you and infecting you with the goddamn Covid.

But guess what? You're still going to get it. There's a good chance you've already HAD it.

---

You know there are serological tests that people can get to see if they've had it? Detectable antibodies wane but there are people called epidemiologists who estimate the prevalence of infection and it is nowhere near inevitable that people get covid, even here.

There are also estimates about how common asymptomatic infection is that you can look up. I have not had covid and my mother who is recovering from cancer has not had it but she has survived to get her first shot of a covid vaccine. My father who has had a stroke has also not had covid. In fact, he had an antibody test a couple months after he was under the weather to see if he'd had covid, and he did not have have antibodies. But he has now survived to get a vaccine.

Your analogies are also completely misguided about how risk works. Even when risks aren't reduced to zero, decreasing risky activities like maskless rallies or congregating with hundreds of people indoors, will reduce one's chances of getting the virus. Anyhow, I have nothing against you but I wouldn't trust you to manage a parking lot.

Here is a link to some of the people who have died or gotten very sick from covid. Perhaps it will make you less glib about the subject or not. https://twitter.com/SusanSchutte2

And just random points that don't have to do with your overall argument but are not entirely logical: coming into contact with someone who has covid does not guarantee you get it. Even three people. It is not known what the infectious dose of the virus is or even whether these people were shedding a lot of virus. The amount of virus people with the disease shed is highly variable. If you had it and were a true asymptomatic it wouldn't make you a super-spreader. Asymptomatic people can spread the disease, but typically people who eventually develop symptoms spread it more readily. You also say that you might be immune. If you had it that's possible, but cross-immunity from other pathogens is unlikely to be completely protective. And immunity from covid wanes as antibody levels are not nearly as high after infection as they are after vaccination. While vaccine immunity will not last forever and might have variable protection against new variants, here are some key numbers so far https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/statu...79020878786561

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

But guess what? You're still going to get it. There's a good chance you've already HAD it.

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While I don't know filghy's exact latitude and longitude I would say this is extremely unlikely. I live in a county with 1000 new cases per million and so while I'm fairly certain I haven't gotten it I can't guarantee I won't. Curious how many new cases there were yesterday where filghy is from....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broncofan

You know there are serological tests that people can get to see if they've had it? Detectable antibodies wane but there are people called epidemiologists who estimate the prevalence of infection and it is nowhere near inevitable that people get covid, even here.

There are also estimates about how common asymptomatic infection is that you can look up. I have not had covid and my mother who is recovering from cancer has not had it but she has survived to get her first shot of a covid vaccine. My father who has had a stroke has also not had covid. In fact, he had an antibody test a couple months after he was under the weather to see if he'd had covid, and he did not have have antibodies. But he has now survived to get a vaccine.

Your analogies are also completely misguided about how risk works. Even when risks aren't reduced to zero, decreasing risky activities like maskless rallies or congregating with hundreds of people indoors, will reduce one's chances of getting the virus. Anyhow, I have nothing against you but I wouldn't trust you to manage a parking lot.

Here is a link to some of the people who have died or gotten very sick from covid. Perhaps it will make you less glib about the subject or not. https://twitter.com/SusanSchutte2

And just random points that don't have to do with your overall argument but are not entirely logical: coming into contact with someone who has covid does not guarantee you get it. Even three people. It is not known what the infectious dose of the virus is or even whether these people were shedding a lot of virus. The amount of virus people with the disease shed is highly variable. If you had it and were a true asymptomatic it wouldn't make you a super-spreader. Asymptomatic people can spread the disease, but typically people who eventually develop symptoms spread it more readily. You also say that you might be immune. If you had it that's possible, but cross-immunity from other pathogens is unlikely to be completely protective. And immunity from covid wanes as antibody levels are not nearly as high after infection as they are after vaccination. While vaccine immunity will not last forever and might have variable protection against new variants, here are some key numbers so far https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/statu...79020878786561

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You know how my parents got it? Them either. They might come into contact with 3 people in a month if it's a heavy birthday month, otherwise they never leave the house. All their friends are dead. They're both borderline hypochondriacs who have been wearing masks, packing hand sanitizer, and skipping church since they first heard the word "pandemic."

But sure enough, about 3 months ago, I got the call - "We've both got the Covid!"

So that's MY perspective. I don't think people are escaping it, I think you're either disposed to getting it or you're not, and if you're disposed that way, you're going to get it unless you TRULY quarantine yourself, which most people can't. Again, all this mask stuff is just a virtue-signaling half-measure from a government whose hands are basically tied, IMO.

I'm not a doctor obviously. But I know what I see. I see a lot of people taking every recommended measure not to get the damn virus and getting it anyway. I see entire sectors of industry shut down and the economy suffering, all for no better purpose than prolonging the inevitable.

I'm sorry, Bronco, but I see this thing panning out exactly as it was always going to pan out - everyone who's going to get it is going to get it. And everyone who isn't, ain't. Frankly, that's not much less information than the entire medical community can provide you.

You don't seem to understand how probabilities work. Someone can take lots of precautions and though they have a small percentage chance of getting it, if it's not zero they might get it. Someone can take lots of risks and not get it. When these behaviors are magnified across millions of people those who have more exposure to the virus get sick more often. Over time they increase the risk of even people who are being careful.

The fact that there's some randomness and efforts to suppress the virus are slightly porous is one reason it takes some time to get the virus under control (I can see you losing a hand in hold 'em poker with pocket aces and concluding pocket aces isn't really the best hand preflop). You seem to be ignoring not just what the medical community is saying, which is considerably more and different from what you say, but also empirical results from the rest of the world. It's not a surprise that the country that had a charlatan telling people things all epidemiologists disagreed with ended up having lots of viral spread.

You don't think it's possible anyone's escaping it? The highest estimate I've seen of the percent of the US population that has had covid is something like 88 million or 27%. Maybe there are higher estimates. That is with one of the worst public health efforts in the world. Most countries are probably around half of that and some a fraction of that. And btw, I saw a graph yesterday...countries that have completely suppressed the virus barely have excess deaths. In fact, excess deaths seem to correlate very well with deaths reported from covid in every country I've seen data from.

If you really don't want to read or think about this stuff, why not just defer to epidemiologists and virologists? Are they wrong occasionally? Yes. Are they more likely to be wrong than you? Definitely not. What they're not unanimous? Can you find their opinions sort of coalesce around certain commonly held views? Sure. Don't go with the outliers.

Edit: Just going by mortality rate from cruise ships where everyone is tested and other estimates of ifr, you can estimate number of infections based on number of deaths. I did it earlier and it would come out to roughly 64 million which is less than twenty percent of the US population.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broncofan

You don't seem to understand how probabilities work.

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Funny, that's what they said to me last time I went to Vegas.

Trust me, Bronco, I'm much thinker than you smart I am. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal evidence. You gave yours and I was giving mine.

I don't really trust any of the numbers that get thrown at me about this thing - from any source. The problem with lying government is, you never really know when they're lying and when they aren't. The problem with medicine for profit is, you never really know whether a doctor is being paid by the government or Big Pharma or SuperHospoCorp for his opinion or if he's actually giving sound medical advice.

And let me ask you something, Bronco, and I want you to give this some serious thought, try to look at it from all angles - There is a LOT of evidence that this virus was cooked up in a lab in China. There is scientific evidence and eyewitness testimony. There's a Chinese lab technician in hiding.

So where's the outrage? Where's the investigation? China is the 2nd-richest nation on the planet. They've stopped calculating the global cost of Covid-19 in trillions because it has entered the realm of incalculable.

I've read stories before, in American newspapers, about men going to prison for decades for stealing $10, or $4, or $37, or whatever. We are not a forgiving society. But China owes the world...well, what do they owe the world? And we're not even TALKING about it anymore? "Oh yeah, China inflicted this on the world by negligence at a minimum, and possibly even on purpose, but we're just gonna let that go."

Uh-uh. Doesn't work that way unless there's a larger picture. Globalist conspiracy IMHO.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broncofan

While I don't know filghy's exact latitude and longitude I would say this is extremely unlikely. I live in a county with 1000 new cases per million and so while I'm fairly certain I haven't gotten it I can't guarantee I won't. Curious how many new cases there were yesterday where filghy is from....

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No new cases for the last 6 months, apart from a few people returning from overseas who went into quarantine. But according to Nick's idiot logic that can't possibly be right, so they must be faking the data.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

In my defense, Flighty, I can only say that I absolutely did NOT foresee the global pandemic or what my friends and I like to call the Retard Riots..

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You are like the man who refuses to take out insurance, then when he is ruined says in his defence that he didn't expect his house to burn down. You want to claim good luck to your credit, but make excuses if you get bad luck.

Sensible people know that bad things can happen, even if they can't predict them exactly. That is why sensible people don't make over-confident predictions.

Sensible people also have plans for how to respond to unfortunate events. The possibility of a global pandemic was not unpredictable, as experts have been warning of it for many years.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

I don't really trust any of the numbers that get thrown at me about this thing - from any source. The problem with lying government is, you never really know when they're lying and when they aren't. The problem with medicine for profit is, you never really know whether a doctor is being paid by the government or Big Pharma or SuperHospoCorp for his opinion or if he's actually giving sound medical advice.

And let me ask you something, Bronco, and I want you to give this some serious thought, try to look at it from all angles - There is a LOT of evidence that this virus was cooked up in a lab in China. There is scientific evidence and eyewitness testimony. There's a Chinese lab technician in hiding.

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Nick, your posts are rather like watching The Third Man, or Tom Cruise in Collateral dismissing human endeavour as having the importance of a fly on the back of an elephant. The statistics are there to try and give an accurate profile of how the virus has affected us, and it is no surprise that some sectors of the population are more adversely affected than others, because just about every epidemic and pandemic has recorded the impact poverty has on disease, in terms of illness and death. Frank Snowden's Naples in the Time of Cholera (1995) is an exemplary study of its kind.

But what your cynical post also asks is for your view on vaccinations. Immunology has been one of the most successful branches of medical science, eradicating Smallpox, all but eradicating other diseases such as Polio, Measles, Tuberculosis, and so on, to the benefit of mankind in general. In the UK the NHS has administered millions of doses of vaccines in early childhood to late maturity and it costs the patient nothing because they pay or have paid for it through their National Insurance. And yes, the Pharmacauetical Companies make billions in profit, but they are also among the very few industries that spend vast amounts of their own profits on R&D where in most industries this is farmed out (Computing is the other top ranked R&D industry).

I might be wrong, but why would you support vaccinations of any kind? We fall sick, and we either recover or we die, that seems to be your position. Florida has a Governor who seems to think there is little or nothing that can be done to tackle Covid-19. Result?
1.74 Million infections, 26, 821 deaths. Tough shit?

As for the Wuhan Lab theory, the question is, why? Labs in many countries, including yours, have been conducting experiments on bats and other creatures to help tackle zoonotic disease, it is not part of a weapons programme.

We are an enquiring species, and have developed the science that has proven illness and disease can be resolved or even eliminated. I see that as a cause of comfort and celebration, as the demonstration that for all its flaws in morality and behaviour, we humans can do good things that benefit us all, just as we need to show more care for the planet we live on. You can dismiss that as 'Virtue Signalling' if you choose to, but to me, like music, good food and human company it is what gives life its meaning and purpose, all of it threatened by Covid-19. And if the politics was so simple -'let the virus take its course', are you going to take responsibility for the millions of deaths and infections with long term complications that is just as likely if not more so, to damage the economy? I am at least fortunate that you are not in government.

I'm kind of at a loss Nick with your last post. This is not even close to the first zoonotic disease and also not the first disease to be subject to conspiracy theories about its origins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis

There have now been three deadly coronaviruses that have infected humans in the last 20 years. There was Sars-1, which is so closely related to the pathogen that causes covid that I heard a biologist estimate that their lineages may have separated as recently as 800 years ago.

There was also MERS or Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome which originated in camels in Saudi Arabia and can infect humans. It is extremely deadly but it has an r0 of less than 1 which means even when it spills over and kills people it eventually burns out.

Since both Sars-1 and Sars-2 originated in China I guess I can ask you how you account for MERS? Is Saudi Arabia in on the conspiracy or is it mere coincidence that it's in the same class of virus as the other two?

Why didn't China let Sars-1 spread if they created it? Why is it so easy to account for the ability of the government to suppress Sars-1 but not Sars-2? We know why public health efforts are easier in the first case even though the virus is more deadly.

If we accept that Sars-1 was not created in a lab (given that China suppressed it and they'd have no incentive to suppress a virus they cooked up as a biological weapon) and MERS was not created in a lab doesn't it make it look like there's a trend for coronaviruses to mutate and infect humans?

You sound like Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani with their conspiracy theories about the election. I do think we should investigate the virus' origins because we'd like to know the cause.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Why didn't China let Sars-1 spread if they created it?

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The argument that China created this deliberately to damage their opponents is particularly silly. If so, why would they have launched it first in their own country?

There's no doubt that China has behaved poorly in terms of transparency, and continues to do so in limiting the WHO investigation. However, what are people who say they should be held accountable for the costs really proposing - that we invade the country and force them to pay reparations?

Anyway the US hardly has clean hands when it comes to inflicting harm on other countries by deliberate choice or by negligence. How much harm has been caused by the decision to invade Iraq on false pretences? How much harm was caused by the global financial crisis, which originated in the USA?

I agree there is no way to make them pay and possibly no reason to. They might not have been negligent. Had the virus originated anywhere else can we be certain it wouldn't have left the country?

They have behaved poorly in terms of transparency in the aftermath and it is probably to suppress information about when they knew there was a problem v when they let everyone know.

I don't know enough about international law to know whether there's an enforcement mechanism but I do think if it's found to have originated in a wet market China has less grounds to claim maintaining these markets is only a domestic matter. That's a hell of a negative externality for a non-essential food source. Wouldn't the rest of the world have some grounds to insist they stop butchering food in a way that risks the creation of zoonotic diseases, at least prospectively?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick Danger

I don't really trust any of the numbers that get thrown at me about this thing - from any source. The problem with lying government is, you never really know when they're lying and when they aren't. The problem with medicine for profit is, you never really know whether a doctor is being paid by the government or Big Pharma or SuperHospoCorp for his opinion or if he's actually giving sound medical advice.

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When I listen to medical experts it's not based on blind faith. Typically they can provide reasons that are coherent and the research that underpins their views is peer-reviewed. It reminds me of when other liberals were saying they would not take a vaccine that was approved under Trump. I thought, even if you don't trust the agency that approves it there is data available that is not always easy to interpret but not overly difficult either. There are experts at our universities who could offer opinions about safety and effectiveness. One should start with experts because they can help you interpret data and the consensus among experts is usually correct. But you should also try to understand their reasoning.

In the mind of a conspiracy theorist everyone is disqualified by bias of some sort. People can have minor conflicts that do not affect their conclusions. I think disclosure laws are important and if someone has a conflict I'd like to know about it. Occasionally a conflict is so significant that a person should avoid being involved in something. But this idea that you can't trust anyone because everyone has a conflict (is it the same conflict?) and even the data is unreliable is intended, whether consciously or not, to avoid acknowledging truths you don't want to acknowledge. It might irritate you to hear what you are unintentionally doing but the majority of scientists don't have an agenda other than advancing human knowledge.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broncofan

People can have minor conflicts that do not affect their conclusions.

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Not to mention the fact that someone with a bias can bring to light a fact that you initially don't trust but which can then be independently verified. Facts exist independent of their source.

Once a fact can be independently verified any bias is irrelevant but conspiracy theorists will still argue one person's proximity to something or other has a magical effect that puts everything under a cloud. It's not logical but to them nothing ever has to do with what is true but rather what "they" do or don't want you to think.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Not to mention the fact that someone with a bias can bring to light a fact that you initially don't trust but which can then be independently verified. Facts exist independent of their source.

Once a fact can be independently verified any bias is irrelevant but conspiracy theorists will still argue one person's proximity to something or other has a magical effect that puts everything under a cloud. It's not logical but to them nothing ever has to do with what is true but rather what "they" do or don't want you to think.

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What is a "conspiracy theorist," Bronco? Me? No, I'm a mechanic. I do have some theories though, about some of the things that happen in the world, and sometimes those theories involve multiple people executing some evil plan for profit, which meets the qualifications for a "conspiracy." But nobody pays me to do that, they pay me to be a mechanic.

It's interesting to me when people weaponize those words. If you are a "conspiracy theorist" you are automatically suspected of mental illness. Never mind that many so-called conspiracy theories have proven to be true as time passes and the conspirators die off. JFK? Is that a "conspiracy theory?" Because as even the government itself has admitted at this point, Oswald didn't act alone. The Military-Industrial Complex, conspiracy theory, or has 70 years of continuous warfare finally convinced people that there actually IS a not-entirely-public group of powerful people intent on keeping this country at war for profit? FBI complicity in the 1993 WTC bombing - conspiracy theory, or proved true by the New York Times in this article - https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/31/n...-dealings.html ?

I guess my real question is, when did gullibility become a virtue? How does NOT believing a steaming pile of lies make me the sucker?

Perfect example, the Sandy Hook incident. I can tell you with near 100% certainty that no children were killed in this incident and in fact, the entire incident was completely fabricated, never happened at all, was entirely staged. How can I say this? Because I've studied the matter at length. I've seen the Robbie Parker video in which he is enjoying a nice belly laugh before stepping up to the podium, completely changing his facial expression, and discussing the slaughter of his daughter less than 24 hours prior. I've seen video of parents who had supposedly just lost their children to a crazed killer, yet somehow not a single tear was shed. I saw these same parents being interviewed on television immediately after the event, and every single one of them immediately wanted to advocate gun control - not a SINGLE PARENT was of the opinion that it would have been better if someone at the school had been armed and able to address the problem of the lone gunman, they were ALL gun control proponents, to the extent that the issue of gun control was more important to them than grieving over their lost children. I watched as the Connecticut legislature IMMEDIATELY sealed all records of the event, so that at this point, it is no longer even possible to prove that these children existed, let alone that they were murdered. I saw the famous "firehouse circles" video in which paid actors walked in a continuous circle into, out of, around, and back into the nearby firehouse in order to portray the image of a lot of activity. I saw the indisputable hard-drive evidence that the news story about the event in the local paper was written THE DAY BEFORE THE INCIDENT.

I saw all this, I saw a motive for staging exactly such an incident, I saw tons of evidence that it was indeed staged, and I determined it was not real.

Now, I am not theorizing about a conspiracy here. I KNOW it didn't happen, and every single solitary piece of evidence that still exists about this thing (which of course doesn't include bodies of victims, the body of the alleged perpetrator, the school itself, the weapons used, or even a single reliable piece of eyewitness testimony) agrees with me.

In the real world, I'm absolutely correct about this thing, and I can prove it to a much greater extent than you can try to prove me wrong. But in THIS world, the one we actually live in, I'm considered to be the crazy one. All the world's dipshits are aligned against me - of course it really happened, didn't you read the government story? What are you, a crazy conspiracy theorist?

It's funny in a clownish way, but ultimately those who speak out against "conspiracy theories" are merely stupid, easily manipulated, and live in constant fear of any data that doesn't confirm their own media-centric world view.

There is a "They," Bronco. The government does lie. The media lies. People lie. For reasons. And some other people prefer sifting through all these layers of bullshit and trying to parse out those reasons over silent acceptance of the lies. Those people are your "conspiracy theorists." Or, as some of us prefer to be called, your mechanic.