brenthutch

First of all I complained about nothing. Second I never said lockdowns don’t save any lives. Finally I just pointed out Westerly’s simple failure in logic. I think it is HILARIOUS that my posting of a congressman’s article has spun up such a shit storm. I just held up the mirror, it’s not my fault if you guys don’t like what you see.

Westerly responded to Crenshaw’s claim that lockdowns were of “limited benefit” with “saving MILLIONS of lives is a limited benefit?” I just pointed out that our failure to lock down has not resulted in millions of deaths so a lockdown could not have saved millions of lives.

It would seem the most sensible course of action would be to make the curfew and alcohol ban permanent. Sure, some folks might complain about not being able to have an occasional beer and thousands of jobs will be lost, but those people are just being selfish and want people to die.

No, just simple logic. If locking the country down would have saved millions of lives. We would have had to have lost millions of lives in the first place.

Correct it is our fault. Our population is full of sedentary, overweight, diabetic, hypertensive exercise adverse smokers and vapers. We want the right to eat and drink everything our hearts desire yet lack the responsibility to mitigate those behaviors.

I don’t know where you got the “ saving millions of lives” notion. It is not based on any rational assessment. As far as blaming us goes, here in State College PA (think of it as the Austin TX of Pennsylvania) we have universal mask requirements (enforced by the police) Bars are closed, restaurants were closed during the holidays and are now operating at greatly reduced capacity or take out only, municipal services have been curtailed, schools are closed, Penn State students have not been allowed to return and the deeply blue population is almost universally compliant. Yet our COVID is spreading more than it ever has been. It might be comforting to think a mask will make everything better.... but the data would suggest “the virus is going to virus.”

And this is where, “After all, rational discussions become impossible with someone who views you as morally inferior.” Comes in.

As I said it is written from his point of view. One can easily rephrase it as: Conservatives are reckless and uncaring and Liberals are careful and compassionate.

I just went back and re-read the Crenshaw article and could find nothing about it that said conservatives were better than liberals. Just different. Sure it was presented from his point of view, but the same set of observations could have just as easily been spun by the left. It was an attempt at explaining our differences. Much better than the typical “the Right are idiots and the Left are Pu**ys” paradigm I thought.

I just think it is noteworthy (and a bit funny) that the guys who take umbrage over the lefties-like-lockdowns post extol the virtues of a lockdown in their reply. ”How dare you make the outrageous claim that Left leaning people prefer lockdowns masks, government mandates and collective action! Anyway, had we ALL just locked down, instated police enforced mask mandates and lived off of government checks for a few months this would have all been behind us now”

Early on in the pandemic our leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” So unless you have a time machine, your plan wouldn’t have worked.

Wow, even name calling now....must have really hit a nerve.

That is just one example. I always make it a point to notice the bumper stickers on the back of cars with mask wearing solo drivers (because it is so ridiculous) and if there is one, it is invariably a Bernie, Biden, BLM, HRC or otherwise Left leaning festoonment. Crenshaw must have hit pretty close to home given the number of excited responses it has generated.

He is a neighbor, teaches at the university, has a Biden for President and BLM sign in his yard (still) and drives a “Smart” car. Pretty safe assumption that he is not a member of the John Birch Society.

It is pretty self evident I don’t see a need to defend it.

If you were paying attention you would have noticed the quotation marks and the attribution to Dan Crenshaw. If have any questions, I suggest: https://crenshaw.house.gov/

Shut down Pharmaceutical companies? Grocery stores? Gas stations? Farms? Food processors? Banks? Trucking? Hospitals? Power plants? Police? Ambulance services? Fire department? Water purification? Hardware stores? Plumbers? Mechanics? What about the supply chain required to support the aforementioned? Pretty soon your complete shutdown isn’t so complete allowing the virus to persist while destroying the lives and fortunes of millions. Three months latter, when the shutdown is ended, the virus is on the rampage again.

And that is why they wear their masks in their car when they are by themselves.The need to virtue signal must be overwhelming

New Zealand is not facing a large spike right now.

Less than a half a degree of warming since ‘98 and much of that can be attributed to the natural warming we have been experiencing since the end of the Little Ice Age. Again, is worth noting there has been ZERO warming in the last half decade while CO2 levels have continued to skyrocket.

By Dan Crenshaw ”Lockdowns are back. To many of us, it would appear as if the entire human race has learned absolutely nothing in the past 8 months. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the cost of lockdowns far outweighs the limited benefits, many policymakers lack the backbone or creativity to come up with any alternative. Internet memes have shrewdly asked: If a lockdown worked the first time, why are we doing it again? If a lockdown didn’t work the first time, why are we doing it again? One of the most striking observations of the pandemic is that our society’s reactions have fallen almost completely along partisan lines. Conservatives tend to be anti-lockdown and anti-government mandates, while liberals take the opposite view. Conservatives seek to contextualize COVID-19 data on deaths and infections with additional considerations, such as age, risk factors, and proportionality (i.e. total numbers versus cases per 100,000). Liberals obsess over total deaths and case counts, but nothing else. The initial explanation for such stark differences was a familiar one — whatever Trump favors, the left opposes. While this is often true, it doesn’t offer a full explanation. Over the past 8 months, I have seen for myself who is truly frightened and who is not, and who is asking the government for more action and who is not. I have seen how the demeanor of New Yorkers and New Englanders differs to that of my fellow Texans. In Washington, D.C., I regularly see people wear masks while walking alone in a park. In Texas, I almost never observe this, probably because there is no scientific basis for it. I presume the well-educated population of D.C. also knows there is no scientific basis for wearing a mask outdoors with no-one around you (only to take it off when you’re finally seated at your favorite restaurant), and yet they do it anyway. Why? The why is the more interesting question. Why do liberals favor lockdowns, aided by sensationalist headlines? Why are many genuinely more fearful of the virus? Opportunistic anti-Trump partisanship simply cannot explain many of the real and non-political reactions I have witnessed. This is more than just a childish symptom of Trump Derangement Syndrome. This is indicative of deeper cultural and psychological differences between the left and the right. At the heart of the disparity regarding our attitudes to the COVID-19 response is the subject of risk assessment. The perception of risk differs widely between liberals and conservatives, as well as the decisions made when confronting risky situations. Research shows that Democrats and Republicans differ in the neural mechanisms activated during risk-taking exercises, specifically in the amygdala region. This demonstrates measurable physiological differences when confronted with risk. But what about the actual choices we make? To assess risk tolerance, a better indication might be the careers that liberals and conservatives choose. Conservatives overwhelmingly fill the ranks of physically riskier jobs such as the military, law enforcement, and loggers. This is all a lengthy way of explaining this simple observation: conservatives appear to be less risk averse to physical threats, and therefore far less likely to favor more extreme actions to mitigate that risk. This leads us to the next major cultural division, which is the extent to which government should involve itself in societal problem solving. The essential disposition of the liberal mind is a belief that almost anything can be solved by government. Conservatives reject this as unmitigated hubris resulting in unrealistic goals and excessive costs. The liberal favors action, even at a high cost, and even better if that action is collective in nature. Rhetorically, everything becomes the moral equivalent of war — the war on poverty, the war on inequality, the war on COVID-19 — because only in war do we plan and execute with feverish collectivism. This preference for collective action means that the need for proper cost-benefit analysis is cast aside. Rational questions about the effectiveness of lockdowns, or whether their benefit exceeds their cost, are ignored and even considered offensive. “If it saves one life!” is the battle cry of the left, because their language is the language of (assumed) morality and compassion, not proper risk analysis or rational decision-making. And this surfaces yet another major difference between conservatives and liberals: our moral preferences. Performing hundreds of thousands of surveys across different countries, social psychologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt consistently found that liberals overemphasize “caring” and “fairness” above other moral considerations. Conservatives, on the other hand, favor all moral categories more equally, placing emphasis not just on compassion, but on fair processes, moral authority and tradition, liberty, and loyalty. Conservatives are more morally balanced, while liberals measure the worth of an action by its corresponding measurement of signaled compassion. So, it is no surprise that liberals routinely denigrate contextualized COVID-19 data — such as accounting for age and co-morbidities when assessing fatalities — as “downplaying the virus” or “covering for Trump’s failures.” After all, rational discussions become impossible with someone who views you as morally inferior. Psychological dispositions matter. Cultural differences matter. They lead to vastly different policy outcomes. If we are to successfully persuade someone of our view, it behooves us to understand these differences and attempt to frame the debate accordingly. Only then can we answer the profound question of the internet memer we discussed earlier. If lockdowns didn’t work the first time, why are many Americans calling for more? And why are so many “leaders” in government obliging?“

My first post was in response to the recent charges against former MI Governor Snyder for his mishandling of the flint water crisis. I asked if Snyder should be charged when a handful of folks died, what should we do about Cuomo and company who were responsible for the deaths of thousands? I was advised to start a new thread and did so. I can see how you would think i was pursuing an agenda without this context. I should have been more clear on my OP.

2020 same as 2016? No warming for a half a decade? Looks like another pause to me.

DeSantis, didn’t order nursing homes to accept COVID patients, nor did other governors, many with a D after their names. While we didn’t know everything about the virus, EVERYONE knows that the elderly are particularly vulnerable to pathogens of any sort.