By Miguel.GFZ
Semi-retired like Vito Corleone before the heart attack. Consiglieri to J.Kb and AWA. I lived in a Gun Control Paradise: It sucked and got people killed. I do believe that Freedom scares the political elites.
16 thoughts on “I am getting a little fed up with the argumentative jerks.”
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While I understand the point, there is a big difference between surrendering our rights to free travel, free expression, etc… because of a scare, and deliberately ignoring common sense because you want to stick it to the man.
I tend to agree with the libertarians on some of this. Cities are closing sporting goods shops as non-essential, even though they can easily limit customers, and encourage social distancing. Cities are imposing curfews because… lost me…
It is possible to keep a restaurant open with limited seating, or close the bar area of a pub, tables only. But… no. Because…
It is just opinion, but it strikes home.
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/horowitz-time-end-great-american-covid-19-police-state/
A little libertarian attitude is not a bad thing, and I want to see more of it as we pass the peak in the next week or so. Too much is dangerous, regardless of whether there is a pandemic or not.
“It is possible to keep a restaurant open with limited seating, or close the bar area of a pub, tables only. But… no. Because…”
Because letting people congregate in a restaurant will defeat the purpose of having social distancing. How’s the waitress going to stay 6′ away from you? Do you have masks and gloves for all the busboys? How do you prevent multiple parties from sitting at a single table? The whole idea is to temporarily break the physical links created by social circles so as to limit the spread of the virus, so we limit the number of people sick enough to require hospitalization, so we maintain modern standards of medical care, so we don’t get a much higher death rate.
Oddly, the only restaurants closed for all business around here are the Chinese and Japanese places. That’s not a joke — even Chuck E Cheese is offering take-out.
The police state just told me to get into my basement because a tornado has been detected heading my way. Just another “scare”, I’d bet.
Ahhhh… yes, the myth of social distancing.
Tell you what. Prove it.
Besides, what makes you so sure the Door Dash driver isn’t infected?
I cook my meals.
And proving isolation and distance? Really? How far back in history do you want? The black plague and leprosy come to mind.
Just found this one from the Spanish Flu. Alexandria Gazette Nov 26, 1918
Hi Miguel:
The request for proof was to Rob C., but I appreciate your comment.
However, every disease is different. Every century is different as well.
The living conditions and sanitation was a significant contributor to both diseases you mention. With few exceptions, the places in the US with the most restrictive regulations have good sanitation, clean drinkable water, significantly advance health care.
There are going to be a whole host of politicians that will claim they are the saviors of their cities/states because they imposed these restrictions on our liberties. And, their claim is pure speculation.
Bloomberg makes the claim that the world will be safer if we severely restrict gun ownership. He is not wrong if you manipulate the stats in the right manner. Yet, we challenge that claim.
Curious why the gun community is not challenging the social distancing claim. Is it because you cannot see a virus? Or is it because digging through medical databases is tough? Not sure why.
Anyway…
Rob C. laid down the challenge in a less than polite manner. I would very much like to see it backed up with facts, not speculation.
“Tell you what. Prove it.”
Wut.
I mean I was with you for the most part on the first post but you lost me here.
Maybe the your statement lacks sufficient resolution to be meaningful.
Matt:
The response was to Rob C.
The statement that social distancing helped is an unprovable claim.
Every politician that has been using social distancing as an excuse to erode away liberties is going to claim it worked. Yet, they have ZERO evidence whatsoever that it actually made any impact at all.
And… “It’s obvious” is not proof. It is speculation. It is equally obvious that if all guns are taken away, gun crime will go down. (No guns, impossible to commit a crime with one, right?) Suspending our liberties because of “obvious” is absolutely unacceptable when it comes to our right of self defense, but apparently, it is perfectly OK if there is a virus?
I am asking Rob C. to prove that social distancing works. I want him to back up the rant he replied to my comment with. Provide some actual facts, not speculation.
I appreciate the response, but you’ve still lost me.
Just saying prove it to the other guy does nothing to prove your point either.
If this virus is spread from person to person contact, then it is practically a tautology; if you stay away from people you aren’t going to get it from person to person contact…
If you don’t believe the virus is spread from person to person that is one thing. Do you believe that?
If you want to argue the futility of person to person avoidance since it is impossible for any consumable good to avoid human and sometimes animal contact that could spread the virus, that is a totally different thing.
The next relevant question is what do you think the actual goal of all measures taken is?
No one wants liberties eroded be that permanently or temporarily. What has largely amounted to requests and suggestions to stay home if you can and to not congregate in large groups, especially if they are strangers, seems to be hardly anything more than common sense and not a removal of liberties at this time.
Perhaps you take issue with the closure of specific types of businesses etc? I do too, but it doesn’t seem like there was a better way at this point if your goal is to minimize person to person contact.
Is it a sign of more severe things to come? Maybe, but we can’t say until we reach that point.
I have no more faith or trust in the government likely than you do, but so far most information and requests have only been sensible.
Many factors at play here Matt. Oh, and by the way, I appreciate the response. Good questions, and good points.
First of all there is a vast difference between requesting actions be taken, and requiring them. I am also questioning the justification for requiring any of the restrictions that have been placed on the population.
Yes. If you stop personal interaction it becomes impossible to transmit a disease person to person. But, until you stop people from going to the grocery store, you still have the person to goods to person vector.
But… I digress. Back to the important point.
Not arguing that social distancing is useless. Just arguing that it is a poor excuse to require businesses to close, or quarantine people solely because they try to cross state lines.
What is the justification for requiring this social distancing. (not requesting it, or encouraging it, requiring it.)
So far, every study and estimate used by the various governments concerning this disease has been wrong. Not mildly wrong like you would expect from the weather guesser, spectacularly wrong. It is almost as if no one actually vetted the report and asked serious questions about the conclusions. Like they saw a scary number and ran with it.
Then there is the “slowing” of the curve. Not as good of a strategy as it seems like on the surface. Sure, it may reduce the peak requirements, but is extends the time before herd immunity takes over and the disease is controlled naturally.
Further to that, if you do not know when the infection showed up in the US, or the extent of it at the time you draw the curve, what in the world makes you think you have the right curve?
There are (were) three/four flights a week direct from Wuhan to both NY JFK and San Fran SFO. These flights continued for two months after China admitted there was a novel disease. How many hundreds/thousands of infected people got off those planes in the US? However, I am supposed to believe the first infected person in the US was in Seattle, late Jan. If that is a fact, this disease must be nearly impossible to contract.
But, these requirements for social distancing are being imposed because this disease is apparently really easy to contract.
It cannot work both ways.
Reports of COVID-19 like illnesses prior to Jan 27 (report of first confirmed case) abound.
If this virus was in the US population for two/three months, and it is half as contagious as the experts claim it is, we are all infected already.
And, I cannot repeat this often enough, if the hundreds of people each week that were getting off the direct flights to NYC and San Fran were somehow miraculously free of the virus, it must be damned near impossible to catch.
Testing is another issue.
First of all, you do not get a test unless you are showing symptoms sufficiently severe enough to get a doctor to prescribe the test. Yet, for most people, symptoms are mild or not worse than a seasonal flu. But… the hospitalization and death rates are calculated based on number of known (tested) infected patients. How many untested, but infected people are out there? Estimates vary but you can bet your bottom dollar there are several times more infected people than tested people. Which artificially skews the hospitalization and death rates up.
Then there is the test itself.
The test are looking for active virus, not antibodies.
If the tests were looking for antibodies, I would bet every dollar in my wallet that plenty of people in the population have been exposed, but showed no or minimal symptoms. Their immune systems worked they way the should.
No matter how you slice this, the mandatory restrictions are based on “intuition” not scientific study.
I remember the H1N1 outbreak in 2009. Everyone pulled together, washed hands, avoided excessive contact, etc… all without petty tin pot dictators passing edicts restricting movement. Somehow we managed to get through it. Even though millions were infected and tens of thousands died. We do the same thing every flu season. Millions infected, tens of thousands die. But, no tin pot dictators.
We are pushing three months into this pandemic. There are less then half a million people infected in the USA. There is no way (short of divine intervention) that social distancing and shutting restaurants to eat in dining is responsible for that.
And, I want someone to point out the flaw in my logic.
I think we are largely on the same page here at this point and I agree, it seems like there was fear and we ran with it like we do in every other crisis or potential crisis and that has prevented or slowed actual good information from developing and fueled overreaction to some degree. I also agree at some point it is a futile endeavor to try to prevent person to person contact.
The only point I would make is that as far as I understand, contact with the virus or someone infected does not guarantee contracting it or developing immunity to it even if it is “extremely easy to catch/spread” by typical standards. Extremely easy might mean 1/1000 chance or 1/10 chance every time you encounter it for all we know. That is the danger and the justification, right or wrong.
Requirements to close businesses where there is close personal contact in light of the above makes sense. I’d also say all measures are taken to minimize person to person contact and not prevent it because it cannot be prevented and that is something that gets lost in translation. I’m not saying it is right, just that it makes sense in a 2+2 sort of way.
Frankly I just don’t know if it is right or wrong at the moment, and I think we’ll only really know after the fact once we have much more information and that is from a liberty and efficacy point of view. I get it, the non voluntary aspects are what sticks in your craw; it aggravates my banana as well but that is life. Sometimes there is nothing you can do but accept it for a little while and wait for things to get better on their own or the right time to change them yourself.
The mayor of Chicago has shown herself Tobe a little dictator, do something to piss her off and another decree comes out. To many people on a path, close it. Too many people in a food store, close it. Power is very dangerous
The ONE thing that sticks out(well 2things) is no one did all this in 2010 n1h1 and no one EVER did this during flu seasons which many die from each year. All for a “killer virus “ that has a 98% SURVIVAL rate… B) the first case according to cdc was in seattle, how in 3 weeks did it spread nation wide??? I do have a theory…
Making absurd extrapolations of libertarian principles doesn’t prove anything. Sounds as if they’re describing anarchists, not libertarians.
An alternate, libertarian, explanation might read like, “How nice that somebody put that sign up. Oh, look! The bridge is out! In a spirit of cooperative action, I will find a detour around this washed out bridge!”
Alternately, “Hey! It might make sense to stay (X) feet away from everybody else! My employer closed up shop, so, laid off as I am, I’ll simply hang at home, so, in collaboration with my neighbors, we can reduce the size of the herd exposed to this virus. Working together, we can mitigate this!”
Of course, the fly in my hypothetical ointment is that all the “little Eichmanns” are coming out of their closets, dressed for their cosplay, and issuing orders with ill disguised glee. That does, indeed support what appears to CBMTTek’s point
Exactly my point.
There is a difference between voluntarily choosing to assist in stopping the spread, and being required to do so.
I voluntarily choose to keep my firearms secured in my home (with the exception of the ones that I keep ready for use). I will fight any law that requires it.