(08-17-2020 11:57 AM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]When people can't act responsibly (more specifically, when putting others in danger), the ones acting responsibly eventually vote for representatives and laws to protect themselves against the irresponsible.
That might suck for your libertarian sensibilities, but this is how society works.
Want to put yourself in danger without risking others? I couldn't care less.
![[Image: 029156aa778a9884a6dd92c244db0b7c.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/02/91/56/029156aa778a9884a6dd92c244db0b7c.jpg)
Within the constraints of The Constitution, right? Or do you prefer that we just disregard that ancient drivel?
(08-17-2020 12:50 PM)Justanodufan Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:40 PM)EverRespect Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:31 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:28 PM)EverRespect Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:23 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]Because this is how community spread occurs.
If everyone got wasted at the bar and went out to drive, they're now putting the community in danger. Same concept.
You didn't answer his question. His restaurant poses no risk to anyone not willing to take that risk themselves.
It not only poses a risk, it poses an extreme risk to the community.
Are his customers going to stay there after contracting the virus? Don't we make sure our friends sober up before driving?
Think of the virus as being drunk (except you can spread the drunkenness).
Everybody accepts some level of risk. On one extreme is those that stay home, get groceries delivered, quarantine their mail, not let anyone in your house, etc. On the other end is someone willing to do anything. His restaurant being open has absolutely nothing to do with the level of risk you accept. If you don't wan't his restaurant to be a risk to you, the solution is easy. If Johnny leaves his restaurant and visits grandma, she also accepted that risk. Not sure why the concept is so difficult.
Actually in your scenario, Grandma did not accept that risk. It was a risk forced on her.
Unless Johnny is illegally trespassing against grandma's will (already against the law), grandma indeed accepted that risk by letting Johnny in her residence. That is her choice.
(08-17-2020 12:23 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:20 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ]Seriously, what danger am I to you if I am a restaurant owner and I want to open my restaurant to full capacity? You do not have to enter. You do not have to engage with any of my customers. Why won't you let me run my business the way I want to support my family?
Because this is how community spread occurs.
If everyone got wasted at the bar and went out to drive, they're now putting the community in danger. Same concept.
Not true. Your hypothetical patrons are confirmed to be drunk, which makes them a risk when they get behind the wheel. Your proposed response to COVID is akin to wanting to stop people from drinking at all, because if they did drink too much, and they do get behind the wheel, then they might hurt someone else. Can't you see the difference?
(08-17-2020 01:17 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]I still can't understand the argument it's uncontrollable when nations all over the world were able to control it.
Again, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. And I'm still not buying your argument about "control" when we have poll after poll showing Americans would be ok with it:
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/n...mmigration
Analysis of link above: https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/...oronavirus
Those nations around the world are starting to get their 2nd waves now where our 2nd wave is on its way out. They got the 1st wave before us and for a long time looked a lot worse than we did. The virus is going to run its course everywhere.
(08-17-2020 01:17 PM)mturn017 Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:58 PM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:53 PM)mturn017 Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:40 PM)EverRespect Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 12:31 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]It not only poses a risk, it poses an extreme risk to the community.
Are his customers going to stay there after contracting the virus? Don't we make sure our friends sober up before driving?
Think of the virus as being drunk (except you can spread the drunkenness).
Everybody accepts some level of risk. On one extreme is those that stay home, get groceries delivered, quarantine their mail, not let anyone in your house, etc. On the other end is someone willing to do anything. His restaurant being open has absolutely nothing to do with the level of risk you accept. If you don't wan't his restaurant to be a risk to you, the solution is easy. If Johnny leaves his restaurant and visits grandma, she also accepted that risk. Not sure why the concept is so difficult.
That's absolutely false. The more cases there are in the community the greater the risk for any of us to get the disease.
Let's lay out two scenario's. The first is a town filled with nothing but the first group you layed out. They have very little interaction, stay home, socially distance and wear masks. The second is filled with your second group. Life is normal, bars restaurants, movie theatres, concerts. The same little old lady lives in both towns and has the same habits in both towns. She goes to the Doctor, the Grocery Store and The Pharmacy. She is not assuming anymore risk herself because her actions are the same but she is at risk much more living in town number 2 due to the choices of the people in that town.
These are theoretical towns. And, yes, there may actually be some places in America where the population will agree to comply with voluntary measures. But I can't think of one. And it certainly doesn't look like anywhere I've ever lived. Nor where I live now.
DOesn't matter. It effectively kills the idea that we all decide the level of risk we're willing to accept. I don't expect people to be hermits and we all make our own decisions but if some parts of the community are cranking the threat level up to Defcom 5 that's not fair on the rest of the community and ultimately lead to more restrictions, and shut downs and thus hurt the economy and vulnerable even more. The restrictions aren't punitive, it's one of the only tools in the bag. I have noticed more people wearing masks where I live, so that's good.
If masks work, why would it matter which fictional town you are in? Are you saying I am wearing a mask in the store for nothing?
(08-17-2020 01:36 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]Not really sure how the map shows Northern Virginia controlling the state. We clearly see three separate population centers (NoVA, Richmond, HR) with collective control of the state.
That map does not show Hampton Roads controlling anything. The two largest cities in the state, which make up half of the population of Hampton Roads, are both red along with 80% of the rest of the state. You take NOVA and its giant disparities out of the equation and it is not even close to a blue state.
(08-17-2020 02:04 PM)Monarchblue Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 01:36 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]Not really sure how the map shows Northern Virginia controlling the state. We clearly see three separate population centers (NoVA, Richmond, HR) with collective control of the state.
That map does not show Hampton Roads controlling anything. The two largest cities in the state, which make up half of the population of Hampton Roads, are both red along with 80% of the rest of the state. You take NOVA and its giant disparities out of the equation and it is not even close to a blue state.
All it really shows is how effective the GOP Gerrymandering campaign was over the last decade.
(08-17-2020 01:58 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]I guess voters will decide in November what national policies they want.
IMO, ignoring things that kill people is not a good way to win elections. But we'll see.
I've been mostly giving Democrats the benefit of the doubt that their insistence on shutting down our nation was not political, at least not primarily, but instead was an honest-but-deluded sense that they could somehow control the virus. And that would be understandable, given the very irresponsible play that has been given this issue in the media - - driven much more by a desire to contradict our repulsive president than to actually address the concerns in front of us. But if the Democrats don't wake up, and if the general population comes to the conclusion that this shutdown was mostly a political calculation, the Democrat Party will be finished for years, if not decades.
And that will be a very bad thing for our country. We need reasoned debate on the important issues that confront us. The Democrat Party, in my view, has put itself out on the ledge of a cliff with its politicized response to the pandemic. If it insists on plunging off of that cliff because it cannot and will not accept that it has gotten this virus response badly wrong, it will be putting itself in a very bad spot - - and our country will be even worse off than we are now.
The new term that in vogue among the cool set is "red-pilled". It's apparently not meant as a compliment. I'm obviously a lost cause for the party that used to have my vote on a near-automatic basis. No big deal. I'm old, and very few people care what I think anyway.
But the Democrats do need to think carefully before they lose whole sections of their voting constituencies to being "red-pilled". Unnecessarily forcing compliance on the American population, simply to mollify favored special interests (teachers' unions, for instance), is a very bad political bet.
(08-17-2020 02:18 PM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 01:58 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]I guess voters will decide in November what national policies they want.
IMO, ignoring things that kill people is not a good way to win elections. But we'll see.
I've been mostly giving Democrats the benefit of the doubt that their insistence on shutting down our nation was not political, at least not primarily, but instead was an honest-but-deluded sense that they could somehow control the virus. And that would be understandable, given the very irresponsible play that has been given this issue in the media - - driven much more by a desire to contradict our repulsive president than to actually address the concerns in front of us. But if the Democrats don't wake up, and if the general population comes to the conclusion that this shutdown was mostly a political calculation, the Democrat Party will be finished for years, if not decades.
And that will be a very bad thing for our country. We need reasoned debate on the important issues that confront us. The Democrat Party, in my view, has put itself out on the ledge of a cliff with its politicized response to the pandemic. If it insists on plunging off of that cliff because it cannot and will not accept that it has gotten this virus response badly wrong, it will be putting itself in a very bad spot - - and our country will be even worse off than we are now.
The new term that in vogue among the cool set is "red-pilled". It's apparently not meant as a compliment. I'm obviously a lost cause for the party that used to have my vote on a near-automatic basis. No big deal. I'm old, and very few people care what I think anyway.
But the Democrats do need to think carefully before they lose whole sections of their voting constituencies to being "red-pilled". Unnecessarily forcing compliance on the American population, simply to mollify favored special interests (teachers' unions, for instance), is a very bad political bet.
I'm going to disagree with you here. Both Dem and GOP Governors took similar actions to control the spread in their states. Trump, he's the one that went out on the limb and it seems to be breaking underneath him. He called it a hoax, said it would just go away, endorsed untested treatments (and refused to back down), etc. while numbers kept climbing. All he had to do was get out of the way, let Fauci talk, say some platitudes about American perseverance and how we've faced harder challenges and prevailed and BOOM. He's rolling on to reelection because there's nothing really better than a crises such as this for an incumbent president. But he showed the people he's not a leader you want when the going gets tough.
You likely are right. In the ten presidential elections that I have voted in over my lifetime, I've cast my ballot for the winning candidate exactly once. Not a particularly good track record (although a couple of those were 3rd-party protest votes).
As smudge points out, we'll see in November.
(08-17-2020 02:36 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]Imagine if Trump told people to wear a mask and social distance from the beginning? He'd probably have gone down as one of the greats, saving tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans and successfully steering the economy through a national crisis.
As much I dislike Trump, in an alternate history where the US successfully navigates the pandemic, he probably goes on to win a 2nd term. Naturally though - and unsurprisingly - the man can't get out of his own way.
Some cloth and six feet lay between him and greatness.
Let's pump the breaks there a bit. But he would likely have had much better shot at reelection if he even appeared to give a ****.
(08-17-2020 02:36 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]Imagine if Trump told people to wear a mask and social distance from the beginning? He'd probably have gone down as one of the greats, credited with saving tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans while steering the economy through a national crisis.
As much I dislike Trump, in an alternate history where the US successfully navigates the pandemic, he probably goes on to win a 2nd term. Naturally though - and unsurprisingly - the man can't get out of his own way.
Some cloth and six feet lay between him and greatness.
To be fair to Trump, at the beginning of this, the experts' research had decided masks weren't effective. He would have been going against the science at the time.
Some of you are ridiculously out of touch.
(08-17-2020 02:46 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 02:38 PM)mturn017 Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 02:36 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]Imagine if Trump told people to wear a mask and social distance from the beginning? He'd probably have gone down as one of the greats, saving tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans and successfully steering the economy through a national crisis.
As much I dislike Trump, in an alternate history where the US successfully navigates the pandemic, he probably goes on to win a 2nd term. Naturally though - and unsurprisingly - the man can't get out of his own way.
Some cloth and six feet lay between him and greatness.
Let's pump the breaks there a bit. But he would likely have had much better shot at reelection if he even appeared to give a ****.
I mean think about it though: Presidents are often remembered for one, maybe two important moments in their Presidency. The national policies are forgotten in time except to historians.
IMO, Trump was a disaster before the pandemic but this was his defining moment. Congress doesn't make for a great unifying symbol so it is often the President - elected by all 50 states (we can argue the process later) - who is a nation's symbol of unity...both at home and to the world.
I can't imagine anyone failing harder than Trump has during this pandemic. It'd be comical if so many people weren't dying because of it, but that's his legacy now.
You do realize that the media and the Dems take the opposite position of the President on everything, right? If the President had come out like a ham handed dictator mandating that businesses close, and sent the Federal Mask Police to every city in America to enforce universal masking all the Dems and all the media would be screaming from the mountain top about what a terrible dictator he is.
(08-17-2020 02:41 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 02:36 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]Imagine if Trump told people to wear a mask and social distance from the beginning? He'd probably have gone down as one of the greats, credited with saving tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans while steering the economy through a national crisis.
As much I dislike Trump, in an alternate history where the US successfully navigates the pandemic, he probably goes on to win a 2nd term. Naturally though - and unsurprisingly - the man can't get out of his own way.
Some cloth and six feet lay between him and greatness.
To be fair to Trump, at the beginning of this, the experts' research had decided masks weren't effective. He would have been going against the science at the time.
There are a couple of problems with this. First, the experts recommended against masks for the general public in order to ensure sufficient supplies for medical workers. Second, when recommendations changed, Trump didn't change with them. He stayed his course.
(08-17-2020 06:24 PM)Chillie Willie Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 02:41 PM)ODUCoach Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 02:36 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ]Imagine if Trump told people to wear a mask and social distance from the beginning? He'd probably have gone down as one of the greats, credited with saving tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans while steering the economy through a national crisis.
As much I dislike Trump, in an alternate history where the US successfully navigates the pandemic, he probably goes on to win a 2nd term. Naturally though - and unsurprisingly - the man can't get out of his own way.
Some cloth and six feet lay between him and greatness.
To be fair to Trump, at the beginning of this, the experts' research had decided masks weren't effective. He would have been going against the science at the time.
There are a couple of problems with this. First, the experts recommended against masks for the general public in order to ensure sufficient supplies for medical workers. Second, when recommendations changed, Trump didn't change with them. He stayed his course.
I agree that Trump did not change with the recommendations, but initially, we were told masks don't work outside a clinical setting. They made reference to medical workers needing them, but specifically said, "They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus,"
But, whatever...if our Governor, who happens to be a doctor, can walk the boardwalk without a mask, two days before issuing a state mask mandate, you're not gonna convince me a reality-tv star turned President is supposed to know when to wear a mask and when not to.
(08-17-2020 08:49 PM)TheDancinMonarch Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 06:57 PM)bluelight Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 04:02 PM)Monarchblue Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 02:46 PM)smudge12 Wrote: [ -> ] (08-17-2020 02:38 PM)mturn017 Wrote: [ -> ]TRUMP HAD THE CAPABILITY TO INFORCE FASK COVERINGS AND DISTANCE MONTHS AGO. HE WAS JUST A BIGOT WHO WOULD NOT LISTEN TO OTHER PEOPLE. HIS LACK OF TURNING EVERYTHING TO THE STATES, WAS A MISTAKE. HE HAD THE ABILITY TO TAKE NATIONAL CONTROL, FROM THE BEGINNING, INSTEAD HE DID NOT, NOW HE WANTS TO PUT ALL THE BLAME ON CONGRESS AND THE DEMOCRATS AND STATE GOVERNORS. ON ANY ISSUE, TRUMP FEELS HE IS NOT TO BE BLAMED AND I AM NOT A DEMOCRATE, ONLY FOR THE PERSON I THINK IS BEST FOR THE COUNTRY. IF NEITHER WOULD HELP THE COUNTRY, THEN I LOSE MY RIGHT.
Let's pump the breaks there a bit. But he would likely had much better shot at reelection if he even appeared to give a ****.
I mean think about it though: Presidents are often remembered for one, maybe two important moments in their Presidency. The national policies are forgotten in time except to historians.
IMO, Trump was a disaster before the pandemic but this was his defining moment. Congress doesn't make for a great unifying symbol so it is often the President - elected by all 50 states (we can argue the process later) - who is a nation's symbol of unity...both at home and to the world.
I can't imagine anyone failing harder than Trump has during this pandemic. It'd be comical if so many people weren't dying because of it, but that's his legacy now.
You do realize that the media, who are the Dems, take the opposite position of the President on everything, right? If the President had come out like a ham handed dictator mandating that businesses close, and sent the Federal Mask Police to every city in America to enforce universal masking all the Dems and all the media would be screaming from the mountain top about what a terrible dictator he is.
FIFU
Haha. True.
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