American Politics Discussion Thread

[Amicalola]

I might just be out of date on what I've seen, I'm happy to take corrections.

But: Can you move to any place in your country and gather with complete freedom and no medical intrusiveness as in 2019?  If not, then you're still in lockdown.  Do not accept any "new normal" bullshit - once you get the camel's nose in the tent, you're never getting rid of it.

I appreciate the sentiment, but no matter how out of date you are, your claims about Australia are either hyperbolic or simply wrong. 4/6 of the Australian states have never experienced a lengthy (>2-week) lockdown after the initial March 2020 panic. Few have even had restrictions. No state had a lengthy lockdown from October 2020 - June 2021. Two states entered a new lockdown from roughly June/July - October 2021, because of the aforementioned mismanagement. Regardless of the current situation, "Australia under basically endless house arrest" is not a reasonable description of the past 2 years. To be clear, in this case I do not think you lie maliciously. I think your sources are obviously feeding you misleading information (about this certainly, but probably many issues) and this topic is a clear example. 

Some things are limited to those who are double-vaxxed, mostly in these two states. For example, many employers here require workers to be vaccinated. This can be either a governmental or private restriction (my partner is the former, I am the latter). Interstate travel is also more difficult, although not illegal nor impossible. More small-scale events, like seeing family and personal gatherings, are not restricted for anyone. I personally have no issue with this. Vulnerable peoples' right to live safely/normally outweighs anti-vaxxers' right to avoid a harmless vaccine. For example, it is difficult for elderly people to go to a hospital safely with the knowledge that many unvaccinated people are there.

[Mjmd]

We probably aren't getting rid of seat belts, or not having to breath in smoke in restaurants, or a country where preventable diseases run rampant (except you know if lots of people are stupid). You can't take your gun to sports events (maybe in the south unsure), its illegal to drink and drive (except WI where its a slap on the wrist for forever......). Point being there are all sorts of laws and regulations governing our lives. It is worth a discussion so you don't get patriot act levels of government gunk. However, there are lots of things beyond count that the government has chosen to protect people, especially when it could be someone else hurting them.

I find the discussion of voting for the level of government protection fascinating. I once asked some very pro drug people "how many ways of being stupid should people be allowed" and their answer was the same "as many ways as people vote for". So are ballot initiatives an answer? What should be done to protect stupid people from themselves? I'm very pro freedom of speech and was listening to some Republican talk radio as they were talking about misinformation on social media. I'm very pro put a label saying "this is disputed > link to actual facts". One of the hosts was on that side, but the other was playing devils advocate and wondering what you do with people who choose to go down whatever rabbit hole it is. I'm very against government having any pressure or influence of any what kinds of information are out there, but then again the number of people who believe absolute garbage makes me bang my head.

At the end of the day I kind of like this solution. You can be stupid if it affects just you, but we will tax it up the wazoo. However, if it can affect other people then regulation. IE if you aren't vaccinated wear a mask around people and your health insurance premiums go up. You are a smoker go outside to the designated smoking area (and we tax the cigs and your health insurance is higher).

Also, here is a cool graph showing deaths by age group vaccinated vs not vaccinated since your brought up ages.  https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker...ine-status  Edit: evidently it doesn't save selections. Select deaths and by age group.
I will also note this issue is somewhat personal as my un vaccinated father in law was sick with Covid for over a month recently and my wife was very worried as the man had almost never been sick in his life before.

[Mjmd]

So I did want to clarify as I threw around the word "stupid" a lot. Smart people can be stupid about all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. People can justify x stupid thing for many reasons.

I consider my mother in law to be a very smart person. She was a chemist who worked for a company that did a lot of gov contracting and had to handle a whole bunch of negotiations regarding variances in very expensive parts. She also has an insane amount of medical knowledge that has gone into keeping her alive. She has a heart condition that only 20% of the people who were born with it when she was made it to 50 (shes 60 something now and recently underwent a 3rd major surgery for). She has had cancer twice and more other medical issues than I can count. Point being even 100 years ago she would be dead at least 5 times over. But she is full on "natural immunity is good enough for Covid". She also I would assume understand statistics, which I think a lot of people who discuss Covid conveniently ignore. Point being, it's a mind boggling act of mental gymnastics.

So why and how. I haven't asked her, but the main reason is probably that she is very republican and listens to a lot of conservative radio. Going against this one thing would require she has to start second guessing other things politically. Peoples minds don't want to do that. People don't like that kind of mental discomfort or even the edges of it. Why Covid is political would require another post about politics and power I may write later.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

It's absolutely the role of social networks feeding a human centipede's worth of garbage information into the brains of gullible individuals incapable of thinking more than a few steps ahead.

[Jowy]

Be careful what you wish for: All of those "real production" jobs would disappear abroad in a free market. They only exist thanks to subsidies.

Wouldn't you globalists think that's a good thing?  Let's move money to those third world areas.  That would help defeat the inequality and classism that you're all about, right?

Or are you not in favor of globalism when the money is moving away from you?

Second answer to that: Those jobs go abroad because the West pushes them away with minimum wage mandates.  Get rid of that and the jobs don't go abroad.

The capitalist system abusing slave and child labor and poor working conditions is not good, no. I'm for heavy regulations to improve these things, so against your idea of a free market (which, to be fair, does not exist in reality anyway). And I don't think the money is moving away from us, rather we are abusing the people and the natural resources of these countries to create wealth for us.

I thank Trump and his supporters for getting most of the US to sorta-mostly-open status and for holding out against governments dictating your bodily medical decisions.  Or would you prefer to be an Australian under basically endless house arrest?

Where I live we've had a government coalition formed by leftists and centrist parties. Our vaccination rate is much higher than the US. Our death rate per capita by Covid is over 10 times lower than the US'. We have very little restrictions, less than the US. We do sadly have some nutjob antivaxxers holding out thanks to Facebook and other ways that these things spread globally, so thanks for that. Anyway the point is, with a better Covid response, things would be so much better for you. There's absolutely nothing good that came out of Trump's awful horrible response, unless you count him losing the election because of it.

Well, except I guess the billionaires are profiting massively from the pandemic, which is good if you are one of these people: https://inequality.org/great-divide/upda...-pandemic/

[Mjmd]

[quote pid="799006" dateline="1636446486"]
It's not only that. There are plenty of people around me who don't have political convictions (that's possible out of the US, you know ) and there are strong opinions pro and con that seem to be down to personal bias more than anything.
[/quote]

Fear is a powerful force. Its the root of a lot of political power, but that doesn't mean that even when politicians aren't using it that it doesn't exist, it just isn't as well fed. As someone who recently had 3 kids I can still remember that tiny bit of fear about vaccinating my kids with the normal battery of vaccines. Even though I knew that fear was garbage.

It's absolutely the role of social networks feeding a human centipede's worth of garbage information into the brains of gullible individuals incapable of thinking more than a few steps ahead.

So again I want to stress that even smart people can fall prey to garbage and not just the gullible. I say this as a person who doesn't believe themselves to be gullible, but with a penchant for eating more sweets than are good for me.

To connect the two though I do think personal bias heavily impacts what kind of garbage humans intake and accept.

[Jowy]

Irrational fear is one of the few excuses for being antivaxx that I can completely understand. Most people however do not have the self-awareness to realize that their fear is irrational and they will look for any other excuse to support their stance. You never really hear antivaxxers go "I'm just afraid because I don't really understand it" or "I know it's safe but I'm still afraid and I don't know why".

[T-hawk]

I appreciate the sentiment, but no matter how out of date you are, your claims about Australia are either hyperbolic or simply wrong. 4/6 of the Australian states have never experienced a lengthy (>2-week) lockdown after the initial March 2020 panic. Few have even had restrictions. No state had a lengthy lockdown from October 2020 - June 2021. Two states entered a new lockdown from roughly June/July - October 2021, because of the aforementioned mismanagement. Regardless of the current situation, "Australia under basically endless house arrest" is not a reasonable description of the past 2 years. To be clear, in this case I do not think you lie maliciously. I think your sources are obviously feeding you misleading information (about this certainly, but probably many issues) and this topic is a clear example.

Thanks for the information -- but I'm still going to point out the cracks in it. June to October absolutely is lengthy, when the sane US states had already stopped most or all restrictions by June. And going in and out of 2-week lockdowns constantly is not normal - a society can't function when you can't plan ahead for any event that might be destroyed out from under you.

Some things are limited to those who are double-vaxxed ... Interstate travel is also more difficult, although not illegal nor impossible. ... I personally have no issue with this.

You absolutely should have issue with this. Unless you are okay with setting the precedent that the government owns your bodily autonomy in perpetuity. Government never gives up power once acquired.

Voting medical tyranny on everyone else to assuage your own fears feels great! Until the next time when you find your opinion is on the unpopular side and you're the one in need of the freedoms and protections you just burned down.

If you have anything at all that wasn't there in 2019, you are NOT NORMAL and never will be until you rebel against it.

Well, except I guess the billionaires are profiting massively from the pandemic, which is good if you are one of these people: https://inequality.org/great-divide/upda...-pandemic/

The billionaires aren't profiting from the pandemic (besides pharma.) The billionaires are profiting from the lockdown policies that destroyed local businesses and drove everything online.

This situation is absolutely hilarious. The same leftists that scream that billionaires shouldn't exist are the ones that enacted all the lockdown policies that funneled billions of dollars to Jeff Bezos.

[Charriu]

Some things are limited to those who are double-vaxxed ... Interstate travel is also more difficult, although not illegal nor impossible. ... I personally have no issue with this.

You absolutely should have issue with this.  Unless you are okay with setting the precedent that the government owns your bodily autonomy in perpetuity.  Government never gives up power once acquired.

So does that mean you are pro abortion?

[Woden]

Some things are limited to those who are double-vaxxed ... Interstate travel is also more difficult, although not illegal nor impossible. ... I personally have no issue with this.

You absolutely should have issue with this.  Unless you are okay with setting the precedent that the government owns your bodily autonomy in perpetuity.  Government never gives up power once acquired.

Stop pretending that vaccine mandates haven't been around for more than 100 years and that somehow this is a new power grab by the government.