|
American Politics Discussion Thread
|
|
November 9th, 2020, 13:54
(This post was last modified: November 9th, 2020, 14:40 by darrelljs.)
 (November 9th, 2020, 13:41)Charriu Wrote: If you march with neo-nazis and you do: +1 to this. The most charitable thing you can say is Trump is soft on white supremacy. When you are The President that's the same as giving them the green light. The power of the office is more than what's enshrined in The Constitution, you shape the national conversation. I really want someone to build a model of how many lives Trump cost by not wearing a mask, and making fun of those that do. Darrell (November 9th, 2020, 13:36)T-hawk Wrote: Why can't that be handled by the free market? If you're worried about cancer, buy cancer insurance just like house insurance. The government isn't involved in the financials, only in enforcing that the insurer satisfies its end of the contract if necessary. T-Hawk, what I think you may be underestimating is just how many people find themselves in circumstances they cannot overcome. The private sector lacks the scale and in most cases the incentive to help in a systemic manner. You are then faced with the choice of the government stepping in, or allowing the suffering to continue. Its a time investment, but I suggest the documentary Clinica Migrantes to see what happens when the private sector and charities try and solve a problem too big for them. Darrell  (November 9th, 2020, 13:54)darrelljs Wrote: I really want someone to build a model of how many lives Trump cost by not wearing a mask, and making fun of those that do. Zero. Trump killed nobody. The virus cost the lives. (Unless you're arguing someone personally caught it from Trump.) It's the same idea that Bush killed people after Hurricane Katrina. No. The event killed people. A choice in how to respond does not constitute killing. I'd like to see the model of all the other deaths from depression and missed medical treatments. If CNN blared that continuous ticker instead of the Covid ticker, public opinion would flip instantly. (November 9th, 2020, 13:54)darrelljs Wrote: T-Hawk, what I think you may be underestimating is just how many people find themselves in circumstances they cannot overcome. I didn't say anything about the numbers of how many. That has no relevance as to whether this is government's problem at all. All of this is falling into the Politician's Fallacy: "We must do something, X is something, therefore we must do X!" It is never even permissible in discussion (you will get deleted off social media) to even suggest that such perceived problems are not the business or responsiblity of government to forcibly intrude. The left likes to scream about how the entire US has gone so far extremist right -- no, the left lurched so wildly left that the conservative position which didn't change is now described as extremism. And wearing a mask is a political issue because every restriction of someone's liberty is a political issue. You don't get to decide "it's only a small restriction therefore I get to force it on you." I get to decide how much I value that liberty. And treating the 99% of healthy people who aren't sick as presumed-guilty walking diseased germ bomb vectors is absolutely horrendous for society. The left and their scaremongering media mouthpieces have literally now defined openly breathing as far-right extremism. (November 9th, 2020, 14:40)T-hawk Wrote: I'd like to see the model of all the other deaths from depression and missed medical treatments. If CNN blared that continuous ticker instead of the Covid ticker, public opinion would flip instantly. The graphs on number of deaths in a given country rose during the pandemic compared to other years. And that's despite a much lower rate of deaths in car accident, workplace accidents etc. So the virus clearly killed a LOT of people compared to the usual stuff, and measures to reduce the number of death from the virus save lives even if they have a side effect of a minuscule amount of deaths from conditions that would have been treated better in other conditions.
What is the job of a government and where is the line I think is where T-Hawk is going. He is just at some line that conservatives in the 1800s would have been proud of. One of the basic fundamentals of government is that it exists to protect its people. I think most people agree that worker safety is probably something that should be regulated. T-Hawk would argue that well just go work some place that is safer. Except history has shown us that isn't how the world works in those societies that don't have a basic government hand in safety.
Where is the line and how much does it cost in terms of raw money and economic possibility. You can very much argue that as governments and countries become wealthier and more prosperous they can raise the level of safety to its populace. The problem is again where to draw the line of wait what if the government / country isn't in the position to offer that level people have become accustomed to. It is almost impossible to take away something once given. Anyone remember when smoking indoors was a thing. People still willingly went into areas that were horribly unhealthy for them because there just wasn't a lot of choice not to. We then restricted the liberties of smokers to smoke in public spaces for the good of the overall public health. Wearing a mask is way less of a imposition of liberty than telling someone they can't smoke someplace. I would argue the government can make common sense mandates like this for the overall safety of its populace (again safety of the populace is part of a governments job). Obviously this is something that should be closely monitored and scrutinized for abuse. It is a conversation worth having as the populace also needs to be kept safe from the government. It isn't particularly close in this case though......
Do you folks realize the whole government vs liberty thing wouldn't be an issue if you controlled the government and they had responsibility to their constituents, that is the voters, not to the corpo donors?
In the big terrible cuba, every half year, every deputy has to go through an accountability session to it's constituents. And anyone who doesn't do well enough the public can recall any time. And unlike the big beacon of democracy there is massive support for the government's actions because all the bad apples fall out very quickly instead of getting four years of practical impunity. (That campaigning and sponsoring is forbidden, even by the communist party which is more of a culture and book club than anything at this point, so you cant spend 10-14 billion usd on a big election just between the two big candidates, that they have to pay back to the big donors, instead of spending it on fixing public issues like the lead laced water in Flint, prooobably helps.)
November 9th, 2020, 15:45
(This post was last modified: November 9th, 2020, 15:54 by Gustaran.)
 (November 9th, 2020, 13:16)T-hawk Wrote:(November 9th, 2020, 10:56)Gustaran Wrote: Sorry, darrell, but I think this is a lazy comfortable position. It's like Trump saying "There are good people on both sides" when there is a march with Nazi flags and some protesters. 1. Before I address your point, let's remember that one reason for the "Unite the right" rally was about the removal of a Statue of Robert E. Lee, dedicated only in 1924. wikipedia Wrote:According to historian Jane Dailey from the University of Chicago, in many cases, the purpose of the monuments was not to celebrate the past but rather to promote a "white supremacist future".[13] I find it mind-boggling that people still honor a General of a confederacy that enslaved people. It's like Germany would put up statues of World War 2 generals from the Wehrmacht. 2. From your source: TRUMP: I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane. What I’m saying is this. You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch. But there is another side. There was a group on this side, you can call them the left. You’ve just called them the left -- that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is. According to a Guardian reporter, this is not true: I was in Charlottesville. Trump was wrong about violence on the left 3. Trump: But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group -- excuse me, excuse me -- I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. I think Deceptus explained the problem with that very well. I would like to add Wikipedia Wrote:Protesters were members of the far-right and included self-identified members of the alt-right,[12] neo-Confederates,[13] neo-fascists,[14] white nationalists,[15] neo-Nazis,[16] Klansmen,[17] and various right-wing militias.[18] The marchers chanted racist and antisemitic slogans and carried weapons, Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols, the Valknut, Confederate battle flags, Deus Vult crosses, flags, and other symbols of various past and present anti-Muslim and antisemitic groups.[8][10][19][20][21][22][23] The organizers' stated goals included unifying the American white nationalist movement and opposing the proposed removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville's former Lee Park.[22][24] So according to Trump, there were many fine people that were only there to protest the removal of a historical statue. And for some reason these fine people suddenly (probably accidently?) marched alongside the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen and right-wing militias. And they probably had missed that the rally was was called "Unite the Right" and had the goal to unify the American White nationalist movement. And maybe these fine people were also deaf and didn't hear people chanting anti-semitic slogans or were blind and couldn't see the Nazi flags. Sorry, but if you march with the Ku-Klux-Klan, while people wave Nazi flags and chant "Blood and Soil", you are not a fine person, you are an asshole (and possibly in legal trouble in countries that prohibit Nazi propaganda). And I don't care that Trump superficially distanced himself from white supremacy later, his refusal to condemn the whole rally was widely regarded as support for the alt-right, especially by white supremacists themselves. It's just a semantic game for him. We have a similar thing in Germany, people with alt-right views call themselves "concerned citizens" and are outraged when they are called "Nazis". I recommend this short satirical video (English subtitles are available). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvgZtdmyKlI (November 9th, 2020, 14:40)T-hawk Wrote: Zero. Trump killed nobody. The virus cost the lives. (Unless you're arguing someone personally caught it from Trump.) I'm arguing in a universe where Trump wore a mask and urged others to wear a mask, less people died than in our universe. I said "lives cost", I never said he killed them. (November 9th, 2020, 14:40)T-hawk Wrote: And wearing a mask is a political issue because every restriction of someone's liberty is a political issue. You don't get to decide "it's only a small restriction therefore I get to force it on you." I get to decide how much I value that liberty. And treating the 99% of healthy people who aren't sick as presumed-guilty walking diseased germ bomb vectors is absolutely horrendous for society. It's a decision, I never said otherwise. But let's not go here: Darrell |
|
As a French person I feel like it's my duty to explain strikes to you. - AdrienIer |
!
