Author Topic: coronavirus  (Read 746502 times)

rightleft22

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2550 on: November 16, 2020, 01:55:37 PM »
I agree he did not cause the virus. But he is responsible for his own downplaying of the severity of the virus, his lack of preparation for what he really knew early on was going to be a pandemic, and his refusal to set an example by wearing a mask and selling using a mask as a patriotic duty.  His followers would wear a mask if he told them to. If he told them it was the main way to keep the economy open and running.  if he put it as a selfless sacrifice on par to what previous generations have done to help one another.  If had appealed to the basic goodness of people.

Would all of them have followed?  Of course not.  But do you think a good portion of them would have, Hell yes.  We could be heading into winter with a much lower infection rate with at least 2 vaccines due on the horizon.  Less than one year of sacrifice, and we would have made it through with less than 400,000 dead (which is where I think we are going to be, easily, by the end of Feb. 2021).

And in all likelihood had Trump been capable of such a appeal to the basic goodness of people he would have won the election.

msquared

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2551 on: November 16, 2020, 02:02:44 PM »
I agree.

Fenring

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2552 on: November 16, 2020, 02:34:51 PM »
We need a leader that will work to finding a way to solve it not exasperate it.

Well, sure. When I suggested Trump was a symptom, this includes the fact that he's essentially 'like ordinary people' insofar as he does and says whatever he feels like with no regard for a bigger picture. That is unfortunately for a President, but on the other hand it makes him no more responsible as a agent as any individual is. The fact that he has a super-important job is an issue for the voters; but as what we might call a citizen's duty if he's as bad as everyone else then my position is that everyone else needs to own that and better themselves, rather than wish they had a better leader. I'm not saying strong leadership wouldn't have helped; it would have. But to be fair it's not a politician's fault that the people have messed up priorities, nor is it something we can change at the immediate moment that most politicians are going to say whatever will rally their base. That's a problem with the political system, and it all feeds back into itself. We are far removed from what I would call the aristocratic concept of the elite telling the people they'd better shut up and take their medicine. I kind of wish a bit more of that was in the mix, tbh.

rightleft22

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2553 on: November 16, 2020, 03:28:23 PM »
We need a leader that will work to finding a way to solve it not exasperate it.

Well, sure. When I suggested Trump was a symptom, this includes the fact that he's essentially 'like ordinary people' insofar as he does and says whatever he feels like with no regard for a bigger picture. That is unfortunately for a President, but on the other hand it makes him no more responsible as a agent as any individual is. The fact that he has a super-important job is an issue for the voters; but as what we might call a citizen's duty if he's as bad as everyone else then my position is that everyone else needs to own that and better themselves, rather than wish they had a better leader. I'm not saying strong leadership wouldn't have helped; it would have. But to be fair it's not a politician's fault that the people have messed up priorities, nor is it something we can change at the immediate moment that most politicians are going to say whatever will rally their base. That's a problem with the political system, and it all feeds back into itself. We are far removed from what I would call the aristocratic concept of the elite telling the people they'd better shut up and take their medicine. I kind of wish a bit more of that was in the mix, tbh.

I had to read that over a few times and I think I understand. 
“Every nation gets the government it deserves.” - Joseph de Maistre

We see the world as we are not as it is and we see in Trump ourselves - our shadow or savior. 

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2554 on: November 16, 2020, 03:48:13 PM »
I'm not saying strong leadership wouldn't have helped; it would have. But to be fair it's not a politician's fault that the people have messed up priorities,
Whut?  He had knowledge that his followers didn't.  Not only that, he had the ability to educate his followers in ways that nobody who wasn't also their leader simply did not: he could have changed the priorities of many of his followers.

So no, I disagree - it absolutely is Trump's fault that, in this particular case, on this particular issue, many people "have messed up priorities". Especially since Trump was directly responsible for messing up their priorities in the first place.  "Free Michigan!", "Free Virginia!"; mocking people for wearing masks; mocking the scientists warning about the pandemic; the list goes on and on.

Fenring

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2555 on: November 16, 2020, 04:01:52 PM »
So no, I disagree - it absolutely is Trump's fault that, in this particular case, on this particular issue, many people "have messed up priorities". Especially since Trump was directly responsible for messing up their priorities in the first place.  "Free Michigan!", "Free Virginia!"; mocking people for wearing masks; mocking the scientists warning about the pandemic; the list goes on and on.

Well I would suggest the question you need to ask is whether a large percentage of people are willing to sacrifice their own image, or comfort, or tell people things they don't want to hear because it's the right thing to do - or whether they will try to concoct a narrative or delude themselves that what they want is also some kind of reality. Did Trump do that? Let's say for argument's sake he did. Taking that into account, when I see people walking on the street, long after everyone has been informed about the pandemic and there is no longer any mystery, and I see them uncaringly walking right past people (or worse, jogging past them with sweat flying), walking right up to customers in stores with no space, not moving out of the way when a baby stroller is approaching, and unwilling to follow arrows in stores and supermarkets because it inconveniences them; take all of these things into account and then tell me these people are doing their best and were misled by a bad leader. No, they really want to not believe reality, and perhaps Trump is just another one of those regular people who would rather keep up 'his thing' rather than do the right thing. Maybe he's no more of an adult than all these people I see who on some level just don't care. Like I said, it's unfortunate that a President should be like that, but the people don't have a right to complain if they're the same. I mean, they're not literally the same since Trump is a kind of rare bird, but the same insofar as what you, Donald, might think of as intuitively obvious needs of the many kind of thinking, is like a foreign language to people who live by "as long as I get mine." That their attitude means they potentially won't even get theirs is what we might call a mechanical error on their part. What I am saying is a people have no right to expect better than they will actually do themselves out of their own virtue. It's not some leader who should usher people toward virtue (to put this in classical terms); it's a strong democratic and socially minded people that demand better government that represents their rational interests. If their interests are not rational then anyone (perhaps like you and me) sane is going to be upset at the result.

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2556 on: November 16, 2020, 04:37:01 PM »
No, they really want to not believe reality
That's really not how cognitive dissonance works.  Do you really think wmLambert wants to think the way he does?  Maybe, but it's far more likely that he is simply incapable of thinking otherwise.

Like it or not, there are people - and I am talking about millions if not tens of millions - who would believe if Trump told them, and will not believe so long as he tells them otherwise.

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2557 on: November 16, 2020, 04:42:17 PM »
Oh, and who can forget: "but I've heard very different stories on masks" - I don't think the belief in the efficacy of masks is nearly as universal as you make out.

TheDrake

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2558 on: November 16, 2020, 05:06:36 PM »
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Like I said, it's unfortunate that a President should be like that, but the people don't have a right to complain if they're the same.

What? So we can't hold a leader to a higher standard than some random individuals?

Leaders tell people uncomfortable truths. Sometimes they pay a dear personal price.

"Ask not what your country can do for you"
"Many of those jobs are never coming back"

And so on.

As Reagan said, "The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things."

rightleft22

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2559 on: November 16, 2020, 05:39:59 PM »
If I'm reading Fenring correctly he's saying the Trump is symptomatic of the current reality (that is split in two)
He holds limited responsibility for being what 70+ million people want and 70+ million fear.

Trump isn't responsible for not appealing to the peoples 'better selves' or the greater 'good' verses individual 'good'/'freedom because the people choose to follow a person that does not have that compacity. Trump is a reflection of the people/system and therefor not 'to blame' or held accountable.

Trump is incapable of transcending the times in which he chose to lead because it is not possible for him or anyone to do so as Leadership embodies the broken system that created it?
Until the system is corrected, leadership is off the hook in transcending 'itself' and any moment that might help correct the system?

Yet history shows that in such times those we think of as Great leaders transcend the moment. Begs the question: What role does Leadership play in how we act and think about our selves.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2020, 05:44:24 PM by rightleft22 »

cherrypoptart

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2560 on: November 16, 2020, 05:51:14 PM »
I think we see in Europe a bit of what Fenring's talking about. Trump could have done a better job on masks. But the European leaders did a better job. They did a great job on taking the virus seriously, recommending masks and social distancing, doing a shutdown, and all of it. And still much of their population is ignoring their leaders and even openly rebelling against common sense to save lives.

rightleft22

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2561 on: November 16, 2020, 05:57:56 PM »
I think we see in Europe a bit of what Fenring's talking about. Trump could have done a better job on masks. But the European leaders did a better job. They did a great job on taking the virus seriously, recommending masks and social distancing, doing a shutdown, and all of it. And still much of their population is ignoring their leaders and even openly rebelling against common sense to save lives.

One wonders how many of those in Europe were encouraged by what they saw was happening in the US?
If the G20 leadership were all on side with the same message and encouraged to do by its most influential leaders   

TheDrake

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2562 on: November 16, 2020, 06:39:52 PM »
I think we see in Europe a bit of what Fenring's talking about. Trump could have done a better job on masks. But the European leaders did a better job. They did a great job on taking the virus seriously, recommending masks and social distancing, doing a shutdown, and all of it. And still much of their population is ignoring their leaders and even openly rebelling against common sense to save lives.

One wonders how many of those in Europe were encouraged by what they saw was happening in the US?
If the G20 leadership were all on side with the same message and encouraged to do by its most influential leaders

That's a stretch. But they don't have to go as far as North America to see bad leadership examples. Boris was insisting that kids didn't have to wear masks at schools for quite some time. Plenty of other examples.

TheDeamon

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2563 on: November 17, 2020, 12:02:10 AM »
As a dog whistle the crying out for 'FREEDOM' is quite effective. When used in such a manner you usually don't have to look very deep to find that someone is attempting to create boundaries/laws to limit a some groups rights, often even those who will be doing the fighting and dying to this 'FREEDOM' only they will never see it that way until its to late.

When you say rights, I'm left to wonder if you don't mean "entitlements" instead. You might want to say they're the same thing, but they're not when approached from the perspective of Natural Rights.

Where for the purpose of Natural Rights, an entitlement is "the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment" due to (insert reason here).

And that is where the dictionary turns everything into word salad because they also want to make an entitlement:
"The fact of having a right to something."

Which is not completely correct.

Healthcare is an entitlement, not a natural right.
"Government assistance" in basically anything is an entitlement, not a natural right.

The list goes on an on.

I don't have problems with people asserting their natural rights.

What I do have a problem with is people asserting that they are entitled to things which are not natural rights and that they have done little or nothing to earn through either personal efforts on their own part, or use of their own personal resources by whatever means they obtained them(trust funders anyone?).

So in that respect. Yes, I have no problem with groups seeking to limit the entitlements that other groups may seek in order to grant themselves advantages over other groups.

The entitlement system in general needs to be dismantled and/or otherwise seriously overhauled in this country. The last thing it needs is further expansion. If someone can point to entitlement programs that place "white people" as a systemic advantage over others, we can address how to address that issue specific issue. But simply crying foul about something (Jim Crow laws) that was made illegal over 60 years ago doesn't fly anymore, and crying about slavery 160 years ago is even more of a lead balloon.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2020, 12:10:24 AM by TheDeamon »

Aris Katsaris

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2564 on: November 17, 2020, 09:43:30 AM »
As a dog whistle the crying out for 'FREEDOM' is quite effective. When used in such a manner you usually don't have to look very deep to find that someone is attempting to create boundaries/laws to limit a some groups rights, often even those who will be doing the fighting and dying to this 'FREEDOM' only they will never see it that way until its to late.

When you say rights, I'm left to wonder if you don't mean "entitlements" instead. You might want to say they're the same thing, but they're not when approached from the perspective of Natural Rights.

Where for the purpose of Natural Rights, an entitlement is "the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment" due to (insert reason here).

For this purpose do you use 'privileges' and 'special treatment' as something that's applicable even when these 'privileges' and this 'special treatment' is given to everyone?

Because that tends to be the opposite of what 'privileges' and 'special treatment' means in normal conversation. If ones says "every child has the right to an education", that's different than saying "the children of aristocrats have the right to an education". One would normally think that 'privileges' and 'special treatment' are about the latter sentence, not about the former.

Similarly if one says "Every accused person has the right to a trial by a jury of their peers" vs if one says "Every accused nobleman has the right to a speedy trial by a jury of his peers"

The latter is 'special treatment' and a 'privilege', on account of their birth, but applying the same words to the former, sounds a bit strange.

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Healthcare is an entitlement, not a natural right.

"Government assistance" in basically anything is an entitlement, not a natural right.

If a person is being mugged in an alley, and cries for help from a passing policeman, is he seeking an 'entitlement' from the government?

Fenring

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2565 on: November 17, 2020, 10:23:38 AM »
Trump is incapable of transcending the times in which he chose to lead because it is not possible for him or anyone to do so as Leadership embodies the broken system that created it?
Until the system is corrected, leadership is off the hook in transcending 'itself' and any moment that might help correct the system?

Thanks for taking the time to parse what I wrote. I guess it's not such an obvious concept, but yes, it's hard to place blame when it was 100% clear going in what America was getting. And worse, when was people asked for was a dark mirror of what they had already become. I personally don't believe in demanding that someone else steps up and transcends the norm when you are not willing or able to do the same. To the extent that some people here may transcend the norm and therefore feel entitled to make this demand, my suggestion again is that the demand is better placed toward ordinary people. Despite what some Ancient Greeks believe, I do not agree - and certainly not in a democratic republic - that the responsibility of educating the public is in the great leader, the Pericles. But let's not confuse this with the fact that I do agree that I do view leading as a massive responsibility that requires self-sacrifice.

yossarian22c

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2566 on: November 17, 2020, 10:30:25 AM »
Is there any justification for Trump not coordinating with the incoming Biden administration on the vaccine approval and distribution plans?

msquared

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2567 on: November 17, 2020, 10:33:58 AM »
Trump won the election. What else do you need?

rightleft22

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2568 on: November 17, 2020, 10:37:37 AM »
Trump is incapable of transcending the times in which he chose to lead because it is not possible for him or anyone to do so as Leadership embodies the broken system that created it?
Until the system is corrected, leadership is off the hook in transcending 'itself' and any moment that might help correct the system?

Thanks for taking the time to parse what I wrote. I guess it's not such an obvious concept, but yes, it's hard to place blame when it was 100% clear going in what America was getting. And worse, when was people asked for was a dark mirror of what they had already become. I personally don't believe in demanding that someone else steps up and transcends the norm when you are not willing or able to do the same. To the extent that some people here may transcend the norm and therefore feel entitled to make this demand, my suggestion again is that the demand is better placed toward ordinary people. Despite what some Ancient Greeks believe, I do not agree - and certainly not in a democratic republic - that the responsibility of educating the public is in the great leader, the Pericles. But let's not confuse this with the fact that I do agree that I do view leading as a massive responsibility that requires self-sacrifice.

I don't disagree. Yet I have to ask what role leadership plays in aiding or hindering the 'ordinary people' to transcend the moment and or their biases and restore a balance to the system.
I feel its circular. If leadership is a reflection of the system and can't be asked to transcend the system or be held accountable for their role in the system and the people follow that leader how is that not self perpetual?   I don't know how we get out of the current divisions.

rightleft22

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2569 on: November 17, 2020, 10:53:47 AM »
As a dog whistle the crying out for 'FREEDOM' is quite effective. When used in such a manner you usually don't have to look very deep to find that someone is attempting to create boundaries/laws to limit a some groups rights, often even those who will be doing the fighting and dying to this 'FREEDOM' only they will never see it that way until its to late.

When you say rights, I'm left to wonder if you don't mean "entitlements" instead. You might want to say they're the same thing, but they're not when approached from the perspective of Natural Rights.

Where for the purpose of Natural Rights, an entitlement is "the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment" due to (insert reason here).

Actually I was thinking of one segment of the population attempting to impose there values (not rights but often viewed as rights) onto another group and call it freedom.
Slavery for example or the evangelical that wish to impose their values as it concerns marriage on everyone feeling they are being discriminated against (not free) when they can't. Enforcing their values on others isn't using the government to enforce values (which they hate)  its living from a place of faith and beliefs = freedom. Of course for those that do not hold to those belief it feels like anything but freedom.  But to this they are unaware.

I probably screwed up that up - its the paradox that the exercise of 'freedom' always involves setting boundaries which means their are going to be people in side and those outside.
In a democracy we try to balance this as best as we can which requires compromise. 

TheDeamon

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2570 on: November 17, 2020, 02:18:07 PM »
As a dog whistle the crying out for 'FREEDOM' is quite effective. When used in such a manner you usually don't have to look very deep to find that someone is attempting to create boundaries/laws to limit a some groups rights, often even those who will be doing the fighting and dying to this 'FREEDOM' only they will never see it that way until its to late.

When you say rights, I'm left to wonder if you don't mean "entitlements" instead. You might want to say they're the same thing, but they're not when approached from the perspective of Natural Rights.

Where for the purpose of Natural Rights, an entitlement is "the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment" due to (insert reason here).

For this purpose do you use 'privileges' and 'special treatment' as something that's applicable even when these 'privileges' and this 'special treatment' is given to everyone?

The quote of "the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment" came from asking google to define the term. Further poking says that statement was a bit redundant. As it defines "privilege" as being "a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group."

But given the "available only to a particular person or group" which is how I would have defined it on my own, that renders the "given to everyone" option as n/a. If everyone has that privilege, it isn't a privilege.

Likewise, if everybody is "special," nobody is. So "special treatment granted to everyone" is either self-contradictory, or being applied in a very narrow and context sensitive way. Although in most of those contexts, other kinds of selection criteria are in play such that the "granted to everyone" criteria is not met.

For example, a business may provide "special treatment" with regard to its customers when compared to comparable operations... But the barrier for receiving such treatment is the ability to be considered one of their customers in the first place.

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Because that tends to be the opposite of what 'privileges' and 'special treatment' means in normal conversation. If ones says "every child has the right to an education", that's different than saying "the children of aristocrats have the right to an education". One would normally think that 'privileges' and 'special treatment' are about the latter sentence, not about the former.

Similarly if one says "Every accused person has the right to a trial by a jury of their peers" vs if one says "Every accused nobleman has the right to a speedy trial by a jury of his peers"

The latter is 'special treatment' and a 'privilege', on account of their birth, but applying the same words to the former, sounds a bit strange.

From a Natural Rights point of view, Public Education is an entitlement, and a jury trial(or justice system in general) would be an entitlement as well. "Natural law"(not to be confused with Natural Rights) only understands "might makes right," but "enlightened peoples"  obviously make distinctions and compromises with regard to "Natural Law" which is where distinctions get made into what is considered a right, and further establishes systems to protect those rights at the expense of standing in defiance of Natural Law.

In any case I've only rarely heard anyone try to declare formal education to be a right, although I guess I have seen people attempt to do so with regards to getting governments to pay for the college educations of various people(and often themselves/their children--and/or they work for one of the institutions which would benefit).  Public education is a public good, up to a point, for a multitude of reasons. That society has enshrined it as such makes it an entitlement to which people have been granted the privilege of use, which gives them a "little R" right to said services, but doesn't make it a Right.

Jury Trials are a very grey area. Considering the Natural Right of freedom of association/assembly can create a defacto "jury"(but more likely to be an angry mob), the Natural Right of speech(likely to be abused by the people at the head of said mob), and the Natural Right to defend oneself(everybody involved). Something resembling a "trial by a jury of your peers" certainly did/does exist in nature.

However, the specific formalized system we have in place is unnatural in a number of ways and certainly for the better. But that does mean the specific implementation certainly is an entitlement derived from natural rights, but not a natural right of its own.

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Healthcare is an entitlement, not a natural right.

"Government assistance" in basically anything is an entitlement, not a natural right.

If a person is being mugged in an alley, and cries for help from a passing policeman, is he seeking an 'entitlement' from the government?

Yes, he is. But I do find it odd that you'd think the policeman is the only person who might respond to the call for help.

They already have the natural right to defend themselves. They don't have a "natural right" to be defended by others. Thankfully enlightened societies don't hold to "every man for themselves" on things like this, and it may not even be the police who intervene on their behalf.

Fenring

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2571 on: November 17, 2020, 02:35:19 PM »
From a Natural Rights point of view, Public Education is an entitlement, and a jury trial(or justice system in general) would be an entitlement as well. "Natural law"(not to be confused with Natural Rights) only understands "might makes right," but "enlightened peoples"  obviously make distinctions and compromises with regard to "Natural Law" which is where distinctions get made into what is considered a right, and further establishes systems to protect those rights at the expense of standing in defiance of Natural Law.

Just a correction, but this isn't what natural law means, either conversationally or in political philosophy circles. It usually means something like that there are inherent rights and properties baked into our nature (historically it was understood that these came from God, but it doesn't have to imply that) and that they exist whether or not we happen to affirm them. The operative element in natural law is that a government has the ability to recognize and respect these facts, but cannot dispense them because they objectively exist and are true. I think what you are talking about is something like 'the law of the jungle', which ironically is almost as far as one can get from natural law. Natural law is more in line with Aquinas type thinking, and that of some of the Ancients, whereby we must use some combination of logic and investigation to determine what the natural law is, and even to verify whether it's immutable or whether it's transient.

I know the general tenor of your argument is to make distinct the idea of things that are good for people, versus things that we are required to provide to them without being morally in violation; but it's worth noting that if natural law really exists, then so does a score of corollaries (and also no doubt other premises in play at the same time) that will also dictate what our natures demand and what is proper, versus what is just icing. The fine line you want to draw between an entitlement versus a right is only even potentially negotiable if we're going to recognize just what exactly is in this natural law; or in the absence of a universal natural law, at minimum what propositions are going to be considered moral axioms.

Take a moral system which at first glance is simple, like the precepts in the NT: take care of your fellow man, the poor, orphans and widows, the sick, etc. Do these precepts act as laws; i.e. spend your time doing these things or you are a criminal? Or are they good deeds, but you can still be good if you don't do these but do other things as well? In a case like the the 'law' side of it becomes murky because there's also a distinction between whether you fail to adhere to a morally binding edict, versus what a civil society should be actively punishing you for failing to do. For instance it's perfectly coherent to argue that things that you want to call 'entitlements' are actually absolutely binding under some absolute moral law, but that nevertheless civil society should not be mandating these at the point of a gun. That doesn't mean they're not a right; but may mean that it's not the government's place to enforce or control it. So these are not clear lines of distinction in my opinion.

TheDeamon

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2572 on: November 17, 2020, 03:04:09 PM »
As a dog whistle the crying out for 'FREEDOM' is quite effective. When used in such a manner you usually don't have to look very deep to find that someone is attempting to create boundaries/laws to limit a some groups rights, often even those who will be doing the fighting and dying to this 'FREEDOM' only they will never see it that way until its to late.

When you say rights, I'm left to wonder if you don't mean "entitlements" instead. You might want to say they're the same thing, but they're not when approached from the perspective of Natural Rights.

Where for the purpose of Natural Rights, an entitlement is "the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment" due to (insert reason here).

Actually I was thinking of one segment of the population attempting to impose their values (not rights but often viewed as rights) onto another group and call it freedom.

This gets a big "it depends" with regards to "imposing their values" upon others. As we get lost in the weeds of defining a wide number of things. For example: Almost everyone agrees that murder is wrong. What everyone doesn't agree on is what constitutes "a murder" for legal purposes. Examples on this front range from the use of contraceptives("Life begins at conception") to abortion in general, to even fighting wars(where they will view soldiers as murderers if they killed anyone in combat).

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Slavery for example or the evangelical that wish to impose their values as it concerns marriage on everyone feeling they are being discriminated against (not free) when they can't. Enforcing their values on others isn't using the government to enforce values (which they hate)  its living from a place of faith and beliefs = freedom. Of course for those that do not hold to those belief it feels like anything but freedom.  But to this they are unaware.

This is going to be a little hard to wrap your head around, but the original conception of the United States of America did not involve a monolithic or homogenous society/culture as we'd understand it today. They expected South Carolina to always be a unique and distinct part of the Union when compared to New York City, and NYC to be different from Boston as well. They did not expect all three to turn into carbon copies of one another. It's part of why "state identity" was such a big thing(and not just for the South) up until the advent of the Civil War.

It's also why the Mormons moved to what became Utah for that matter.

The founders had a conception of "community standards" where the local community defined what most of those standards were supposed to be. If you didn't like how you were treated somewhere, either move to somewhere else, or start the process of bringing the community over to your side of things. Don't try to use the cudgel of outside powers to impose your way of life on them.

Now things like the Jim Crow Laws demonstrated on why that ideal didn't hold up over the generations. Abominable behavior brought that to an end, for good reasons. But doing so has now opened the doors to those same levers being used to perpetuate abominable behavior.

I'll quite happily sit in the middle ground on this one. Living in "Mormon Central" I have inklings of what the Bible Belt is probably like. What the self-righteous among their numbers would try to impose on everyone else in the pursuit of demonstrating how very pious they are is not something to be encouraged. The practice is deplorable and disgusting.

But what also needs to be realized is that there likewise are efforts working to accomplish the reverse as well, imposing secular standards and practices on religious groups in pursuit of various other agendas. That too is deplorable and disgusting.

You have the right to ignore people you find intolerable. People also have the right to ignore "you" if they find "you" to be intolerable.

Neither group should have the ability to require the other to become subservient to the wants and desires of the other. As long as they are not actively seeking to meaningfully harm the other party, that should be the end of thing. none of this "micro-aggression" bull#$^&.
 
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I probably screwed up that up - its the paradox that the exercise of 'freedom' always involves setting boundaries which means there are going to be people in side and those outside.

It isn't so much a paradox. It is a very fine balancing act, and it is more challenging in communities where said balancing act means one side or the other is realistically looking at potentially being deprived of services. That is where things become a challenge with regards to how do you draw the line between the rights of Person A where it relates to the rights of Person B.
 
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In a democracy we try to balance this as best as we can which requires compromise.

This is where I go "thank god the United States is an indirect democracy" for the most part. Democracies have a nasty habit of simply doing whatever it is the Majority/plurality wants to do. Even when what the majority/plurality wants isn't in the interest of the majority of its people.

TheDeamon

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2573 on: November 17, 2020, 03:39:48 PM »
Just a correction, but this isn't what natural law means, either conversationally or in political philosophy circles. It usually means something like that there are inherent rights and properties baked into our nature (historically it was understood that these came from God, but it doesn't have to imply that) and that they exist whether or not we happen to affirm them.

I'll somewhat concede that. In the classical sense "Natural Law" could in a more modern sense be instead rendered as "divine law" which would would be inline with the Declaration of Independence citing "Endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights" which for them was invocation of "natural law"
 as God is the creator of nature.

So I'm doing a slight definition shift to make "Natural law" a distinct thing from "natural(divine) rights" which more truly reflects how "natural systems" are understood to operate. So I'm being a bit more literal in my use.
 
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The operative element in natural law is that a government has the ability to recognize and respect these facts, but cannot dispense them because they objectively exist and are true. I think what you are talking about is something like 'the law of the jungle', which ironically is almost as far as one can get from natural law. Natural law is more in line with Aquinas type thinking, and that of some of the Ancients, whereby we must use some combination of logic and investigation to determine what the natural law is, and even to verify whether it's immutable or whether it's transient.

See above, while I know it's playing fast and loose with the definitions, the classical "Natural Law" construct is predicated around divinity, so it's been shunted into the "divine law" category, and "law of the jungle" gets to claim the "natural" title. In either case, divine law and natural law both will largely agree on a number of "(natural) rights" all the same. The specifics of how they get there being another matter. The "divine" side of thing may dictate additional requirements beyond what the Jungle would demand, but that easily moves into the "enlightened (self-interest)" side of things.
 
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I know the general tenor of your argument is to make distinct the idea of things that are good for people, versus things that we are required to provide to them without being morally in violation; but it's worth noting that if natural law really exists, then so does a score of corollaries (and also no doubt other premises in play at the same time) that will also dictate what our natures demand and what is proper, versus what is just icing. The fine line you want to draw between an entitlement versus a right is only even potentially negotiable if we're going to recognize just what exactly is in this natural law; or in the absence of a universal natural law, at minimum what propositions are going to be considered moral axioms.

Agreed.

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Take a moral system which at first glance is simple, like the precepts in the NT: take care of your fellow man, the poor, orphans and widows, the sick, etc. Do these precepts act as laws; i.e. spend your time doing these things or you are a criminal? Or are they good deeds, but you can still be good if you don't do these but do other things as well? In a case like the the 'law' side of it becomes murky because there's also a distinction between whether you fail to adhere to a morally binding edict, versus what a civil society should be actively punishing you for failing to do. For instance it's perfectly coherent to argue that things that you want to call 'entitlements' are actually absolutely binding under some absolute moral law, but that nevertheless civil society should not be mandating these at the point of a gun. That doesn't mean they're not a right; but may mean that it's not the government's place to enforce or control it. So these are not clear lines of distinction in my opinion.

The thing about the New Testament has a larger context that people tend to overlook. Help others, but do not put yourself in distress while doing so. More importantly don't "neglect the Master's vineyard."

The biggest thing is to remember you're also not supposed to be "setting traps for your neighbors" to fall into. Which would be a proscription against a great many predatory practices common in business today(and a lot of things the self-righteous also like to do). Or that matter that "good stewards" also take care of those who work under them. "Got mine" and "every man for himself" is not a Christian practice, but something a secularist unconcerned about "enlightened self-interest" could happily embrace.

In any case, I'd prefer to try to build the construct on secular grounds rather than needing to fall back to 'because (the) god(s) said so."

Fenring

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2574 on: November 17, 2020, 03:48:55 PM »
Just remember that natural law (which is a subset of moral realism) is not strictly predicated on those rights coming from a god/God. It could be somehow coded into the universe as a physics of some kind; or immutably true based on biological principles. So when you want to talk about entitlements as being distinct from rights, a whole lot of legwork needs to go into the proposition structure to defend even the definition of that. Not trying to bog you down, but I do think the notion of "people have no right to what they didn't earn" is not only too pat to have a clear meaning, but is almost certainly doomed to end in self-contradiction with other premises that necessarily go into a natural law type thinking.

rightleft22

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2575 on: November 17, 2020, 04:17:38 PM »

So with the the question of wearing masks and the idea of freedom.
Does freedom found in the great good of the many or the individual? (the question assume masks provide some protection)

TheDeamon

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2576 on: November 17, 2020, 04:49:23 PM »
Just remember that natural law (which is a subset of moral realism) is not strictly predicated on those rights coming from a god/God. It could be somehow coded into the universe as a physics of some kind; or immutably true based on biological principles. So when you want to talk about entitlements as being distinct from rights, a whole lot of legwork needs to go into the proposition structure to defend even the definition of that. Not trying to bog you down, but I do think the notion of "people have no right to what they didn't earn" is not only too pat to have a clear meaning, but is almost certainly doomed to end in self-contradiction with other premises that necessarily go into a natural law type thinking.

That's where you end up with enlightened self-interest entering the picture, especially as things become more advanced(yet simpler in other ways).

And some of it gets into splitting some hairs. Like there is a "natural right to education/training" as that can happen in nature through a large number of ways.

But that doesn't mean people have a "natural right" to having a teacher/mentor assigned to them, or that they're entitled to a classroom learning environment and so on. Those are entitlements, and arguably ones that children mostly haven't earned. But they've been granted out of that whole enlightened self-interest side of things. Everyone benefits in a number of ways by ensuring that the next generation is properly and adequately prepared for the world they will be joining upon maturity. (And it is something we've been failing at)

Arguments can be made about benefit vs cost, and many of the finer points, but the "social contract" also plays into that mix. I'd still hold that Formal Education as a "natural right" is a bit of a misnomer, part of it is, but a large portion of it is not. Nothing can stop a person from learning, but nothing natural obligates others to teach besides self-interests. Much like nothing obligates someone to render medical care to other except some form of self-interest.

Other things become more challenging as these different things start to intersect. Such as there arguably being a "Natural right to sexual activity" at least as it pertains to solo activities, but becomes complicated when it comes to sex with others, where it can result in invoking the Natural right of self-defense and the natural right to freedom of association.

Just because you want to engage in sexual acts somewhere doesn't mean everyone else has to agree with your choice to do so, and imposing penalties through their association(s) as a consequence of getting it on in the town square for instance.

Likewise, freedom of association means others are not obligated to accept your advances. If you choose to ignore their desire to not participate, that escalates into their being able to defend themselves from you.

But it can be complicated by the matter that freedom of association does mean your associates can still penalize you for having consensual sex with others if they are so inclined. Even though you "have that right."

And really when you get down to it, that last example kind of gets to the core of the recent round of problems in the United States of America. If freedom of association is a Natural Right, a number of measures many activists want to undertake immediately fail. Because for those measures to work, you have to force people to associate in ways they would not otherwise do. And not just in regards to people's sex lives.

Except the closest that "freedom of association" came to being codified in the Constitution was through the "the right of the people peaceably to assemble."

TheDeamon

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2577 on: November 17, 2020, 05:02:25 PM »
So with the the question of wearing masks and the idea of freedom.
Does freedom found in the great good of the many or the individual? (the question assume masks provide some protection)

SCotUS is a little mixed on this one.

The decision to not wear a mask a mask can easily be taken to be "political speech" and/or "personal expression" and as both items have been interpreted to fall under "freedom of speech" that creates a challenge for the judges to rule on without overturning a lot of prior jurisprudence in the process.

Except SCotUS has ruled in favor of abridging or "suspending" certain rights for certain specific situations. The most notable of which be that Commercial Air Travel renders 5th Amendment protections as being rather muted. Except their rationale there was that "other alternatives exist" and since you chose to get on the plane, you consented to Airport Security searching you.

It'll be interesting to see if they manage to conjure any "alternatives" that may exist for those who refuse to wear a mask in public. It isn't like they're going to have designated mask-free grocery stores for them to patronize. Sure in some areas they could use door-dash or other delivery services, but that comes with a cost, which means they'd then need to rule on that being a "tax" or something else. The list goes on and on and on, such as what about areas where such services are not available?

Alternately, they could just take the cop out of "emergency measures for emergency situation" but the challenge is they're dealing with a public health crises with an indefinite duration.... So the Judges have to be mindful of not creating a legal means to suspending constitutional rights for an indefinite duration for spurious reasons. If they can suspend part of the 1st Amendment in order to combat Covid19, why can't they do so during a flu season where CDC's flu shot turned out to target the wrong strain?

yossarian22c

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2578 on: November 17, 2020, 05:31:29 PM »
What’s next is the SC going to tell me I have to wear pants and a shirt to go shopping? Swinging free is freedom and free speech. 🙄

TheDeamon

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2579 on: November 17, 2020, 05:43:54 PM »
What’s next is the SC going to tell me I have to wear pants and a shirt to go shopping? Swinging free is freedom and free speech. 🙄

"Community standards" apply there, and plenty of rulings on that topic to support your need to wear shorts at a minimum.

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2580 on: November 17, 2020, 05:58:05 PM »
SCotUS is a little mixed on this one.
This seems unlikely.

Any law mandating the wearing of a mask does not restrict the actual content of what you wish to express - at best, it imposes a "time, place or manner" restriction - so such a law would need to pass intermediate scrutiny. All that would need to be shown is that the law in question furthers an important government interest by means that are substantially related to that interest. Specifically, any such law would need to meet the following:
  • Is the restriction within the constitutional power of government?
  • Does restriction further important or substantial governmental interest?
  • Is the governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression?
  • Is the restriction narrowly tailored – no greater than necessary?
  • Does the restriction leave open ample opportunities of communication?
The answer to all of these questions is unambiguously "yes". 

And that is not even getting into other conditional restrictions on basic rights - and here I am thinking of the most basic, that one's exercise of rights must not endanger others (and in so doing violate their rights) or the public welfare.

Aris Katsaris

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2581 on: November 17, 2020, 06:26:56 PM »
If a person is being mugged in an alley, and cries for help from a passing policeman, is he seeking an 'entitlement' from the government?

Yes, he is. But I do find it odd that you'd think the policeman is the only person who might respond to the call for help.

They already have the natural right to defend themselves. They don't have a "natural right" to be defended by others. Thankfully enlightened societies don't hold to "every man for themselves" on things like this, and it may not even be the police who intervene on their behalf.

Don't annoy me by putting words in my mouth, I never said I "think the policeman is the only person who might respond to the call for help." If I give you an example of something, and ask you your opinion, does that somehow mean I don't believe different examples can happen? Don't do this thing, okay?

But if you want to know, the reason I gave that particular hypothetical example about the policeman, was so I could figure out whether the police is also part of the entitlement system that "needs to be dismantled", i.e. whether you therefore also share in the anarchist desire to 'abolish the police'.

Anyway, I am not a libertarian (nor an anarchist), and generally don't share your view on 'natural rights' vs 'entitlements', and don't see much value in that categorization. The categorization of rights in accordance to the model of the layers of Freedom/Equality/Solidarity makes better sense to me.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2020, 06:29:07 PM by Aris Katsaris »

yossarian22c

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2582 on: November 18, 2020, 08:39:30 AM »
What’s next is the SC going to tell me I have to wear pants and a shirt to go shopping? Swinging free is freedom and free speech. 🙄

"Community standards" apply there, and plenty of rulings on that topic to support your need to wear shorts at a minimum.

And why would community standards not apply to masks? Its just another article of clothing that allows for sanitary public interaction.

If you want to discuss the SC being cautious about limits on gatherings, forced business closures, and other actions then there is a conversation to be had. But mask mandates are an easy no brainer during a pandemic. As you said there is already plenty of case law that allows states to force the wearing of pants. Why not a mask while indoors in public or in crowds?

TheDrake

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2583 on: November 18, 2020, 12:22:23 PM »
Facebook needs to stop outsourcing to companies that are needlessly forcing moderators to return to the office.

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Facebook announced in August an extension of its coronavirus-protection policy, telling employees to continue working from home until July 2021.

But the safeguard was not extended to all of Facebook’s thousands of contractors who are deployed as content moderators around the world to screen out hate speech, misinformation, sexual harassment, child abuse and other harmful content. Many of the moderators, who work for outsourcing firms like Accenture and CPL, have been called back to the office.

On Wednesday, more than 200 moderators and other Facebook workers sent an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive; Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer; and the top executives at Accenture and CPL, criticizing their treatment of content moderators. Workers in Ireland, Germany, Poland and the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Foxglove, a law firm representing the moderators.

dumb dumb dumb

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2584 on: November 18, 2020, 03:56:08 PM »
Daily deaths have been increasing consistently for more than a month now, and in fact the rate of new deaths has been accelerating of late. The seven-day average of daily deaths is now the highest it's been in 6 months (since May 24) and is still increasing.

Given that new-daily cases are setting new records every day, given that new hospitalizations lag new cases by about 10 days and given that the resulting deaths also lag new hospitalizations by about the same amount, there's still 3 weeks of increases in daily deaths already baked into the current new case numbers - which by all accounts also don't seem to be slowing, either in absolute terms nor even in their rate of increase.

It won't be surprising if by the end of the month, daily deaths approach the peak rate seen in April, or if daily deaths exceed the April peak by mid-December.

The only thing that might help would be if, in a whole bunch of hard hit regions, people became ultra serious about reducing their interactions, and about taking proper hygienic measures.

msquared

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2585 on: November 18, 2020, 07:07:03 PM »
And 7 days for the next 10,000.  A quarter of a million people in the US alone in 8 months. And the numbers are likely to be higher for the next month or more.  We could easily see 300,000 by the end of they year.

Just as bad as the flu.  And it will be gone like a miracle.  By Easter/Memorial Day/4th of July/Labor Day/Holloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years.

Nothing to get worried about.

yossarian22c

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2586 on: November 19, 2020, 09:00:00 AM »
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936248527/covid-19-denial-still-rampant-in-some-virus-hotspots

COVID denial. Guessing its the same people with election denial. Trump, Fox News, InfoWars, OAN, and Project Veritas have destroyed people's ability to gather facts about the real world.

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For healthcare workers dealing with misinformation, it can start to feel like they're living in "two different realities," said Joy Prudek, who works for St. Luke's.

At work, they're seeing community members and colleagues get sick with COVID-19. They're seeing people die.

"And then they walk outside and they go to the store and have people look at them with disbelief and anger for wearing a mask," Prudek said.

The disconnect is frustrating, she said, and disheartening.

To try and address conspiracy theories and doubts in the community about the virus's threat, St. Luke's is using every tool at its disposal. Employees are speaking at public hearings. They're pushing out new numbers and information as soon as they get them. On social media, they've posted accounts from frontline workers about what it's like to deal with COVID-19 patients.

Wayward Son

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2587 on: November 19, 2020, 11:34:15 AM »
And here's a story of community pushback for mask wearing from The Washington Post, as summarized by Electoral Vote.com.

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Amber Elliott [is] a public health employee working in rural Missouri. Her job is to save lives. If you think that is not controversial, boy are you wrong. She lives and works in St. Francois County, not far from the Illinois border. The county has had 900 new cases of COVID-19 in the past few weeks. The positivity rate is 25% and rising. The hospital is full and has run out of staff. The virus is spreading unchecked. So what is Elliott's biggest problem? Something like lack of ventilators? No, it is a hostile community.

When her small staff calls people to do contact tracing, half the people they call are skeptical or combative. They refuse to talk. They deny their own positive tests. They hang up. They say they will hire a lawyer. They give fake contacts and fake contact phone numbers. They say they are quarantining at home—with the sound of beeping scanners at the local Walmart in the background.

Elliott was desperate to get people to help stop the spread so she arranged a public health meeting at a local church to discuss whether social distancing and wearing masks might just be something to consider. Over 100 people showed up. Most were opposed, even though she had three doctors and nurses in white uniforms there to explain how important it was. Some of the people brought guns.

Despite the negative reaction, the health board imposed a mask mandate. What happened next was strange cars driving back and forth in front of her house. People followed her to her son's baseball game, took pictures of her kids, and posted them all over social media. She was called a bitch and a Communist. Her daughter asked her: "Mom, why does everybody hate you?"

Is there a happy ending to Elliott's story? Well, it depends on what you mean. She quit her job and took a different (lower profile) job as a nurse. She's happier now. Will the families whose loved ones die of COVID-19 be happier? Maybe, since they know that the loved one died for a good cause (keeping the government from saving lives).

Now this was just about wearing masks. Imagine what is going to happen when Biden tells people that a vaccine is available, it is free, and please take it because it could save your life and those of people you love. In the blue states, most people will probably get it, but in the red states there will be a huge amount of opposition, with all kinds of crazy stories about how the vaccine turns you into a {zombie, lesbian, Communist, vegetarian, Muslim, cow, add your own term here}. If even a third of the population refuses to get vaccinated, the country will take years to achieve herd immunity, which is needed to protect babies and people who are immunocompromised. If asking people to wear masks got this kind of response, asking them to be injected with something made by Big Pharma and approved by Big Government is going to be a Big Challenge for Biden.

And for us all. :(

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2588 on: November 19, 2020, 12:01:37 PM »
Sadly, the only person with the power to save the country is... wait for it... Trump.

TheDrake

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2589 on: November 20, 2020, 01:40:48 PM »
Quote
Supervisors at an Iowa Tyson Foods, a major US meat processor, placed bets on how many workers would become infected with coronavirus as an outbreak raged through the plant this spring, a wrongful death suit alleges.

The lawsuit, filed this week by the son of an employee who died with Covid-19, claims the company demonstrated "wanton disregard for worker safety".

Isidro Fernandez, who died in April, was one of more than 1,000 workers infected amid the plant's outbreak.

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2590 on: November 20, 2020, 06:53:39 PM »
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the country today about responsibility.  Of note: he is warning about COVID-19 cases spiking, by the end of the year, to levels comparable to what the US is currently experiencing.  This could be hard for some to hear - he is not hiding or misrepresenting the current status, he is not sugar-coating the likely immediate future, and he is putting direct responsibility on those to whom he is speaking and asking them to take action.

Here is an excerpt, but it might be worthwhile to watch to the two video clips:

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"They have been heroes. They have been going above and beyond anything they might have thought they were signing up for," he said.

"We need to help them. We need to give them a break. We need to stop this spike in cases. We need to think about them as we think about our loved ones who need medical help, who are vulnerable to COVID-19."

TheDeamon

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2591 on: November 20, 2020, 07:55:33 PM »
Sadly, the only person with the power to save the country is... wait for it... Trump.

Trump can't, and neither can Biden.

Remember when Trump was talking about invoking Federal Laws on the books since the Spanish Flu outbreak and isolating the hotspot states at the state line?

I seem to remember Cuomo threatening war over that.

So Biden can't do that, or Cuomo is a hypocrite.

Which means the Governors need to do it, and get their state legislatures to agree to it. Good luck.

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2592 on: November 20, 2020, 08:18:39 PM »
I thought it was obvious, but Trump's only ability in this situation is to lead. Invoking laws would simply cement sentiments against mask wearing, physical distancing and limiting social contacts.

He has (or at least had) the power to convince people who would listen to nobody else, to lead not just by words but example; to motivate and even inspire his followers - because that is what it would take - involving the populace, and normalizing, across the political spectrum, the things that could slow down the pandemic.

Biden cannot reach those people because they think he has stolen the election from their god, he is a socialist, and a sock puppet for AOC and the other radical communists in the Democratic party.

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2593 on: November 20, 2020, 09:49:14 PM »
Today was the first day where new daily cases reported exceeded 200,000.  Based on the past two days' statistics, it looks like the rate of increase might be slowing, however, the numbers themselves are still increasing.

Daily deaths, however, have reached a level not seen since mid-May; and the number of daily deaths is still increasing and the rate of increase in deaths is itself still increasing - basically, it is still catching up to the increases in daily reported cases from the past several weeks.

TheDrake

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2594 on: November 21, 2020, 08:11:49 PM »
Math problem: How many lives could be saved if Trump tweeted: "Do not travel! Do not gather for Thanksgiving! Stay safe from the Kung Flu!"

No executive order needed, no real hit to the economy, just a very simple 140 characters that probably would save one life per character.

msquared

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2595 on: November 22, 2020, 12:35:40 PM »
So curious.  How long will you continue to wear a mask after the vaccine starts to get distributed?  Assuming tier one people start getting it in Dec and the general population start getting it in late Jan early Feb.

If you do get the vaccine will you stop wearing a mask?  How can people tell if you have been vaccinated?

TheDrake

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2596 on: November 22, 2020, 03:27:49 PM »
So curious.  How long will you continue to wear a mask after the vaccine starts to get distributed?  Assuming tier one people start getting it in Dec and the general population start getting it in late Jan early Feb.

If you do get the vaccine will you stop wearing a mask?  How can people tell if you have been vaccinated?

Quite simple. You stop wearing your mask when CDC and WHO BOTH stop asking. People have had covid and survived, still should be wearing masks.

There's a certain school of thought that says we should never stop wearing masks in certain situations, like public transit.

DonaldD

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2597 on: November 22, 2020, 05:11:38 PM »
Well, at least as long as the health professionals say - but I also know they are susceptible to pressure, so maybe longer.  And there are other reasons to do so.

For instance - say I have had the vaccine, or have recovered, and let's assume it is 100% effective, or it is not possible to be re-infected. If I was to go on public transit while the virus was still actively being spread, I would still wear a mask, because if I didn't, the person sitting or standing next to me might not yet have gotten the vaccine, or might in some way still be susceptible, and they would have no way of knowing whether I was safe, or just being a dick.  In this case, I would actually be both, being aware as I would be that my actions would very likely make other people fear for their own safety.

Also, while the pandemic rages, normalizing the wearing of masks and physical distancing is and will remain important.  Me wearing a mask makes it easier for others to wear masks.

Fenring

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2598 on: November 23, 2020, 12:55:19 PM »
For everyone wanting the leadership on the "don't travel!" front, how far do you think that kind of message should go? For instance, a simple public statement to avoid travel might have some effect; but hypothetically we might imagine that its effect would be minimal. How many people would cancel flights, trip plans, and even local gatherings just because the President says he advises you to do so?

But if you still believe he should say this, do you also believe that there should be more teeth to the 'suggestion' and that in fact it should be prevented by law? If it's so dangerous, why make it voluntary? This is one of those things I really cannot understand about America's response to all this. It's like, so far people just hope that it'll go away on its own, but without actually having to do anything. Cause, you know, doing stuff is a pain, so why change your life at all? So why is there no will to create stern laws about public gatherings, family gatherings, etc?

So I'm just curious whether those wanting Trump to do more - even though IMO this is more a failure of local government and leadership (mostly municipal) - would support strict gathering laws, mask laws, and other measures that would be enforced with strict fines or even imprisonment.

rightleft22

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Re: coronavirus
« Reply #2599 on: November 23, 2020, 01:03:15 PM »
Quote
even though IMO this is more a failure of local government and leadership (mostly municipal)

If a department fails to meet its goals is it the cooperate problem or just the departments'. What advice would you have for the senior cooperate management.  What role do they have in the setting of those goals and the ability of the department/team to meet them?


I think people should be allowed to make informed decisions as it comes to travel.
I would make it mandatory to wear a mask when traveling and expect such guild lines to come down from the top not just the local level. 

I like this article https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54251632