American Politics Discussion Thread

[Mr. Cairo]

You say that like it's a new thing? How many people spend months or longer in jail before their trial because they're too poor to afford bail? Police can grab you at a protest with any excuse they want, hold you for a day or two, and then release you without any charges.

These aren't good either!  You're using bad abuse of power as precedent to justify more bad abuse of power.  This is exactly the slippery slope that your side keeps saying isn't happening, as we watch it happen.

I wasn't justifying anything at all, and please include the rest of what I said:

You complain endlessly about government overreach and authoritarianism but I don't see you crying out to defund the police, the literal arm of state-sanctioned violence directed against it's own citizens.

It's the hypocrisy that annoys me the most. That and the absurdity of describing these public health measures as a "slippery slope", when THEY AREN'T NEW! You act like this is the first time anyone has ever been required to quarantine for anything. Pandemics and quarantines aren't new.

There is a slippery slope happening in the west, and it has nothing to do with Covid. I see it in every "thin blue line" badge on a police uniform. I see it every time some right-wingers try to get some books banned in schools for simply mentioning that racism and homophobia exist. And I see it every time people like you cast doubt on the legitimacy of any election that your side doesn't win. The west is sliding towards fascism and it has absolutely nothing to do with Covid.

[superdeath]

You say that like it's a new thing? How many people spend months or longer in jail before their trial because they're too poor to afford bail? Police can grab you at a protest with any excuse they want, hold you for a day or two, and then release you without any charges.

These aren't good either!  You're using bad abuse of power as precedent to justify more bad abuse of power.  This is exactly the slippery slope that your side keeps saying isn't happening, as we watch it happen.

I wasn't justifying anything at all, and please include the rest of what I said:

You complain endlessly about government overreach and authoritarianism but I don't see you crying out to defund the police, the literal arm of state-sanctioned violence directed against it's own citizens.

It's the hypocrisy that annoys me the most. That and the absurdity of describing these public health measures as a "slippery slope", when THEY AREN'T NEW! You act like this is the first time anyone has ever been required to quarantine for anything. Pandemics and quarantines aren't new.

There is a slippery slope happening in the west, and it has nothing to do with Covid. I see it in every "thin blue line" badge on a police uniform. I see it every time some right-wingers try to get some books banned in schools for simply mentioning that racism and homophobia exist. And I see it every time people like you cast doubt on the legitimacy of any election that your side doesn't win. The west is sliding towards fascism and it has absolutely nothing to do with Covid.

Dont worry, if the country goes to Fascism ill either be out of the country, or having done my best to protect the country from said Fascism.

[T-hawk]

I think T-hawk started this with his dumb concentration camp remark so he loses.

Fine, I will spell it out for whoever isn't processing enough nuance to connect the dots.

The Australian quarantine camps are equivalent to the early stages of what became the Nazi concentration camps. A government designates some segment of the population as undesirable and condemns them to confinement. The rest of the population cheers on this atrocity since they believe some benefit to their perceived safety or welfare. The population and government escalate their frenzy hand in hand from there. The point of this argument is to cease this atrocity against human rights NOW before it gets any worse.

[A] Pretty sure reckless spread of contagion is a violation of my human right to life out of the three of life, liberty, property.

The valid point in there is, what do you do when life and liberty are in direct conflict. Your perceived right to life does not extend to the right to destroy others' liberty.

I argue in absolutes for the side of liberty, not expecting that to be the result, but because that is the most leverage to drag the Overton window back in that direction against everybody seeking to suppress it.

despite being given convenient ways out (mask, vaccine, iso, etc.) that they're too arrogant or entitled to take

I mean as far as quarantine goes this seems fine, if poorly communicated, but not any kind of slippery slope. Are you really suggesting never to quarantine ever? You can argue it isn't needed, but its just a difference of their government deciding a different appropriate level of death. Things like masks and quarantine are common and effective ways of preventing the spread of disease.

None of those has proven to be any way out at all. Masks don't stop it, vaccines don't stop it, neither is any way to be "safe", they just cut the odds by some fraction if any. Covid is never going away and every single person in the world is always going to be some fractional threat for it.

The burden is on the advocates of restriction - WHEN DO YOU STOP this nonsense? Covid is never going away, it's never going to be "over". I saw this coming by April 2020. Everyone who objected then was decried as a conspiracy-theorist, and yet every step of it came true.

[B] Hilton house arrest isn't imprisonment. It last two weeks maximum as the potential for virus passes

This is absolutely laughable bullshit at this point. Anyone who believes "two weeks" is anything other than complete garbage has no critical thinking skills whatsoever. The world is now on week ninety-three of two weeks to flatten the curve.

No, it doesn't end after two weeks. You may get out then - and then your next possible Covid exposure in Australia throws you right back in. You never have liberty, you have nothing more than temporary government permission to not be locked up.

and the crime is moving across a border without the proper documentation (vaccination, proof of immunity).

One of us is misreading this article or situation. The event in question was being in a public place (a plant store) that someone with Covid had also been. No borders or documentation were involved. They decided (against all science) that vaccination didn't count because it was Omicron.

[C] I assume you have evidence to back up such a weighty accusation? I sure hope nobody would baselessly claim the worst possible case scenario on the slippery slope fallacy of structural similarities; that would certainly lower the credibility about future alarm calls and put us all in danger of a real threat to democracy.

The evidence of what's already happened isn't enough?

We were told distancing would get us back to normal. It didn't.

We were told masks would get us back to normal. They didn't.

We were told vaccines would get us back to normal. They didn't.

We were told mandates would get us back to normal. They didn't.

We were told vaccine passports would get us back to normal. They didn't.

We're now being told boosters will get us back to normal. If you think they or anything else will, you are literally insane, doing the same thing and expecting different results.

If the authoritarians can destroy your freedom in an emergency, what you get is the authoritarians perpetuating a forever emergency.

[Mjmd]

What's your acceptable level of death? You've never answered and I know you never will. Australia clearly has a different level than the US. There is a VAST per capital death difference. Saying these measures don't help prevent death is just willful ignorance even if you think they are extreme. There is ample data on vaccines, masks, and quarantine measures helping to flatten the curve and prevent death. In fact most spikes have occurred after such measures were lightened.

[superdeath]

[A] Pretty sure reckless spread of contagion is a violation of my human right to life out of the three of life, liberty, property.

The valid point in there is, what do you do when life and liberty are in direct conflict.  Your perceived right to life does not extend to the right to destroy others' liberty.

I argue in absolutes for the side of liberty, not expecting that to be the result, but because that is the most leverage to drag the Overton window back in that direction against everybody seeking to suppress it.

Although they are all important, Life>Liberty/happiness. If it can save lives, it SHOULD be done. There are always fine lines between things, and i dont agree with mandating things to the extreme that alot of the RB forum appears to be leaning, but im not quite in the T-Hawk level of "war never changes" attitude on Covid/ect.

[superdeath]

"It's not about how you die but how you live."




Idk, the way you die can be pretty screwed up.

[T-hawk]

What's your acceptable level of death? You've never answered and I know you never will.

I haven't answered that because I haven't acquired the inputs to calculate it. The right approach, compare the quality-adjusted life years lost to Covid itself versus lost to the lockdown. With emphasis on the quality - my own life has become a shithole with everything I strive to do destroyed by this garbage.

It's pretty easy to work out a rough estimate that the lockdown measures have already been far worse than the disease itself. For the US, compare less than a million elderly deaths with an average remaining life expectancy of maybe six years, to a population of 300 million now losing to varying degrees two years of schooling and travel and entertainment with who knows how much more still to come. It's not even close.

Governments can't handle this question because they can't acknowledge the quality factor - they can't treat the elderly as less important, and they can't quantify who gets their lives screwed up and ruined by the lockdown bullshit. Governments can only manage to the cold impartial number of deaths, which is exactly the wrong approach to minimize total harm.

There is ample data on vaccines, masks, and quarantine measures helping to flatten the curve and prevent death. In fact most spikes have occurred after such measures were lightened.

And the latter of those sentences sabotages the former. Masks and quarantine measures do absolutely nothing to stop the virus, they can only ever delay it until whenever you aren't masked or quarantined, and then the exponential curve starts right back up again. By this point, any argument for masks and lockdowns has no exit point, it's just arguing for them forever. I saw this coming as soon as the first mask mandates went on.

For all the parroting about 'tyranny', it's worth remembering this was implemented by a democratic state and can be repealed by that still-democratic state.

The problem was that it wasn't democratic - in the US, all the lockdown garbage came from executive orders, not legislatures. Some states are gradually fixing that, with legislatures voting to terminate or remove their governors' powers of emergency. Some like New York and the west coast keep getting worse with ever more dictatorial orders.

The other problem is when the democratic process chooses fascism. If 51% of people vote to forcibly inject or imprison the other 49%, the 49% are fucked. That's democracy.

A good democracy protects the human rights of a minority against the mob rule of a majority. The US court system has mostly held up with that so far, with the courts denying Biden's attempts at federal vaccine mandates. And this is what's missing from the rest of the world.

[Charriu]

A good democracy protects the human rights of a minority against the mob rule of a majority.  The US court system has mostly held up with that so far, with the courts denying Biden's attempts at federal vaccine mandates.  And this is what's missing from the rest of the world.

And it's a good thing the world is missing things the US does. In fact there are a lot more things I'm happy we are "missing" like for example the imperial system. I for one would never want to live in the US. That state just does not guarantee me enough security to live a free live  

When enough people are vaccinated we can return to a new normal. Unfortunately the willfully unvaccinated deny us that option.

[civac2]

That's doubtful Charriu. Vaccination helps but full repeal of all masking and contact avoidance measure at 100% vaccination would still result in a significant rate of deaths and long term morbidities.

[Charriu]

It's true that 100% vaccination won't bring the death rate and long term morbidities to zero, but with a high vaccination rate the health care system can manage better as the ICUs are not overflowing. Therefore bringing Covid down to a manageable level like other diseases. After all the vaccines do lower the chance of a life-threatening Covid infection significantly.
As other scientist already stated Covid won't go away but rather the pandemic turns into an endemic. Because the disease will stay with us it's clear that there will always be people who die from Covid even under the best medical treatment. But a health care system not under pressure from preventable hard Covid infections can guarantee the best medical treatment. That's also why I said a "new" normal. We can never go back to the "old" normal because we now have Covid staying with us.
I for my part have no problem with most of the measures taking during the pandemic.

- Mask, I will wear them even after the pandemic when I myself am sick and around people or during winter outside. (Really nice to have a warm face/nose during winter)
- Working from home. I personally love it and see no reason to return to work
- Traveling less. I absolutely hate travel so that's a plus for me. Also makes those travels a lot more meaningful, when you do them.
- Reducing contacts to other people. No problem. I am an introvert I love being alone.
- No hand shakes. Glad to get rid of it. Always hated it.

I understand that others have problems with those measures. I get that. But I also see that those measures were lifted somewhat when the numbers are lower. So there is a light on the other side of the tunnel.