2020 American Political Scene

[GVChamp]

Officials almost everywhere are indeed idiots, or rather have spectacular blind spots and require constant challenging to actually produce meaningful results.

If you're coming out of 2020 with an attitude that you should blindly trust our society's Pharisees, I feel sorry for you. This entire year has been a repudiation of the Western technocratic priestly class.

[DOR]

Trump reverses, the Cancellation of Wreaths Across America.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...gton-cemetery/

I wonder why the Wreaths Across America's first 12 news items -- on it's own website -- don't mention The Trumpet at all.
Maybe, like so many of us, they're embarrassed by him ...

[Albany Rifles]

The recent for the cancellation was because Wreaths Across America brings an absolute CRUSH of visitors to the Cemetery to help and to watch. There is no way to safely isolate individuals nor test in sufficient numbers ahead of time t ensure safety.

That is the reason for this intelligent decision. The turn around places people at risk needlessly. The dead will still be honored.

And as for it being outside and therefore not a problem....keep in mind Sturgis was an outside event yet it caused COVID to spread.

[astralis]

GVChamp,

Officials almost everywhere are indeed idiots, or rather have spectacular blind spots and require constant challenging to actually produce meaningful results.

If you're coming out of 2020 with an attitude that you should blindly trust our society's Pharisees, I feel sorry for you. This entire year has been a repudiation of the Western technocratic priestly class.

there's probably a middle ground between "blindly trust our society's Pharisees" and "blindly trust whatever dumbass theory that pops up on Youtube and Facebook". or, for that matter, "blindly trust our President/Vice President."

IE right now the worst hotspots in America are rural areas like South Dakota -- which is impressive in a bad sort of way because they've got space and population density working for them, not against them.

between Fauci and "this will magically disappear" or "there isn't a coronavirus second wave", if I -had- to blindly trust someone, you tell me whom it oughta be.

[TopHatter]

Officials almost everywhere are indeed idiots, or rather have spectacular blind spots and require constant challenging to actually produce meaningful results.

While there is some truth to what you said, we were talking about a specific group of officials. These particular idiots were erring on the side of caution and science in the face of a pandemic, with the aim of saving lives, by not holding commemorative event. Important to be sure, but not worth causing more deaths.

If you're coming out of 2020 with an attitude that you should blindly trust our society's Pharisees, I feel sorry for you. This entire year has been a repudiation of the Western technocratic priestly class.

I'm not entirely sure how you're extrapolating that from my previous post. It's more than merely a stretch to make that kind of connection, it's downright asinine.

As Eric said, there's probably a middle ground between blind trust and taking simple precautions like "not hosting a potential super-spreader event" for something that is non-essential in this current reality of ours.

This entire year has been a repudiation of the Western technocratic priestly class.

Yes, and this country has 250,000 dead Americans, and counting, to show for that repudiation. All because simple things like "wear a mask" and "keep your distance" were too hard for the snowflake class.

[TopHatter]

And as for it being outside and therefore not a problem....keep in mind Sturgis was an outside event yet it caused COVID to spread.

Sturgis? Causing COVID to spread? Don't be so absurd. It's not as if North Dakota is leading the entire f--king world in COVID mortality rates

between Fauci and "this will magically disappear" or "there isn't a coronavirus second wave", if I -had- to blindly trust someone, you tell me whom it oughta be.

Fauci is that "Western technocratic priestly class" that's been repudiated this year, in favor of "miracles". Pretty smart tradeoff, apparently.

[tbm3fan]

Officials almost everywhere are indeed idiots, or rather have spectacular blind spots and require constant challenging to actually produce meaningful results.

If you're coming out of 2020 with an attitude that you should blindly trust our society's Pharisees, I feel sorry for you. This entire year has been a repudiation of the Western technocratic priestly class.

I do love grand rounds where we can go over cases. You know what might we have here and what are the differentials to consider. Now right here we have a case in how Covid affects the mind and thinking of human beings. Although there are a few differentials to consider, some of which might have been underlying symptoms, and could enhance the Covid effect.

I can see it now a new routine for Abbott and Costello. Just update the old "Susquehanna Hat Co" with "Covid-19" and watch people go nuts.

[Bigfella]

Fauci is that "Western technocratic priestly class" that's been repudiated this year, in favor of "miracles". Pretty smart tradeoff, apparently.

Our political leaders across the board have taken the advice of the "Western technocratic priestly class" on the issue of COVID, sometimes in the face of politically selective attacks from Murdoch media & their water carriers in the political class. Mask wearing is now the norm, thogh I can see it declining as numbers saty low and temperatures rise. A lot of people who can work from home are doing so. Public transport is regularly deep cleaned. Widespread testing is still going on. Governments are pumping money into everything from individual pockets to whole industries to make sure the economy bubbles along until things pick up.

People like Fauci can only dream of governments as sensible as ours.

My home state, which was hardest hit & locked down tight for 3 months, has had 3 weeks of 0 deaths & 0 cases. Another state just held a sporting event with a crowd of something like 50,000 and other states have been holding events with smaller crowds for months. Life in most states is close to normal. One state has just gone into a hard lockdown for a week to deal with a cluster of about 20.

We currently have 900 dead. In total. Almost 800 of those resulted from a failure to properly implement a technocratic process that has worked where done properly. Most, if not all, Australians will have a normal Christmas. No waiting for miracles here, just listening to those priestly technocrats.

[Albany Rifles]

In a word, Pete, science.

[Firestorm]

Our political leaders across the board have taken the advice of the "Western technocratic priestly class" on the issue of COVID, sometimes in the face of politically selective attacks from Murdoch media & their water carriers in the political class. Mask wearing is now the norm, thogh I can see it declining as numbers saty low and temperatures rise. A lot of people who can work from home are doing so. Public transport is regularly deep cleaned. Widespread testing is still going on. Governments are pumping money into everything from individual pockets to whole industries to make sure the economy bubbles along until things pick up.

People like Fauci can only dream of governments as sensible as ours.

My home state, which was hardest hit & locked down tight for 3 months, has had 3 weeks of 0 deaths & 0 cases. Another state just held a sporting event with a crowd of something like 50,000 and other states have been holding events with smaller crowds for months. Life in most states is close to normal. One state has just gone into a hard lockdown for a week to deal with a cluster of about 20.

We currently have 900 dead. In total. Almost 800 of those resulted from a failure to properly implement a technocratic process that has worked where done properly. Most, if not all, Australians will have a normal Christmas. No waiting for miracles here, just listening to those priestly technocrats.

Governments can do everything right and things can still go wrong. Eventually it depends on how sensible and careful the average person on the street is. Several state governments in the US did react well and put in measures to check the spread, including restrictions on movement, businesses, collecting in groups etc. but things are still bad. Or they improved for a while but are deteriorating again. Blaming state governments or the Trump admin may be justified in some cases but eventually you have to face the reality that the average American is simply less sensible about these things than the average Australian or New Zealander etc. You wouldn't imagine a bunch of heavily armed men picketing outside the office of the Premier of New South Wales because they were asked to stay inside would you? But it did happen in Michigan. People in the US proudly violate mask and lockdown orders and portray it as a battle for freedom. Others just say fck it and do whatever they want because they are personally young and in good health and unlikely to die of covid. Others celebrate birthdays with their families in their homes because technically that is not prohibited and the group size was less than 10 or whatever and then mourn when their elderly parents and everyone else there contracts covid from that one sibling who was asymptomatic. There is little governments can do when their people are determined to be as stupid as possible.

This is by no means limited to America of course. Other countries have faced similar issues. The average human in general suffers from a lack of mental capacity to understand the seriousness of the situation, the good sense to listen to subject matter experts (and discount random theories floating around on social media) or the consequences of his/her actions even if they do understand it. But some countries fare better than others because of the level and type of education they provide their citizens.

If Biden had been in charge instead of Trump this year, the US may have fared a little better but not by much because of these realities. It may have even been worse because the conspiracy theories of this all being a Democratic hoax would be even louder and the urge to defy the federal government higher as well in certain areas and demographics.

[JRT]

...it depends on how sensible and careful the average person on the street is. Several state governments in the US did react well and put in measures to check the spread, including restrictions on movement, businesses, collecting in groups etc. but things are still bad. Or they improved for a while but are deteriorating again...

I expect that large crowded extended family get-togethers and related endurance feasting activities during the upcoming holiday season are going to badly exacerbate the situation. Those events will mix many households, and nobody will be wearing masks. Grandmothers will be giving and receiving hugs from grandkids not careful in avoiding infections.

When the parties are over, there will be many more soon dead, especially the old and the obese. And there might not be much emergency health care and hospital critical care unit capacity remaining for anyone suffering stroke, heart attack, gunshot wound, etc.

The fuse has been lit on a bigger virus bomb that has not yet gone off.

[Bigfella]

Governments can do everything right and things can still go wrong. Eventually it depends on how sensible and careful the average person on the street is. Several state governments in the US did react well and put in measures to check the spread, including restrictions on movement, businesses, collecting in groups etc. but things are still bad. Or they improved for a while but are deteriorating again. Blaming state governments or the Trump admin may be justified in some cases but eventually you have to face the reality that the average American is simply less sensible about these things than the average Australian or New Zealander etc. You wouldn't imagine a bunch of heavily armed men picketing outside the office of the Premier of New South Wales because they were asked to stay inside would you? But it did happen in Michigan. People in the US proudly violate mask and lockdown orders and portray it as a battle for freedom. Others just say fck it and do whatever they want because they are personally young and in good health and unlikely to die of covid. Others celebrate birthdays with their families in their homes because technically that is not prohibited and the group size was less than 10 or whatever and then mourn when their elderly parents and everyone else there contracts covid from that one sibling who was asymptomatic. There is little governments can do when their people are determined to be as stupid as possible.

This is by no means limited to America of course. Other countries have faced similar issues. The average human in general suffers from a lack of mental capacity to understand the seriousness of the situation, the good sense to listen to subject matter experts (and discount random theories floating around on social media) or the consequences of his/her actions even if they do understand it. But some countries fare better than others because of the level and type of education they provide their citizens.

If Biden had been in charge instead of Trump this year, the US may have fared a little better but not by much because of these realities. It may have even been worse because the conspiracy theories of this all being a Democratic hoax would be even louder and the urge to defy the federal government higher as well in certain areas and demographics.

We have had anti-lockdown protests here, but they are a fringe phenomenon. They are smaller & less well armed thjan the US version. In several states right wing parties have tried to play politics with the restrictions with dire political consequences. The difference here is that this is largely a debate over degrees rather than overall approach. There is zero constituency among mainstream politicians for the 'hoax' BS. Things weren't perfect here, but our failings have been a great deal less spectacular than other places.

I agree that it is possible to do the right thing and not get the desired result, but not doing the right thing guarantees failur. I would rather try & fail than simply write off thousands of Australians. Sadly conservative political culture in America has become so badly deformed that the idea of compassion is derided and attacked. Letting people die needlessly in the name of an utterly selfish concept of 'freedom' is almost seen as a badge of honour. That is as dysfunctional a political culture as it is possible to imagine.

[Bigfella]

In a word, Pete, science.

Science is the word Buck. To that we added 'compassion'.

We decided that protecting the vulnerable was the most important thing to do and we followed the path best able to achieve that. Temporary pain for a substantial gain. Personally I am very fond of the family & friends who would be considered 'vulnerable'. A few months of restrictions seems a small price to pay to have them with us.

[GVChamp]

GVChamp,
there's probably a middle ground between "blindly trust our society's Pharisees" and "blindly trust whatever dumbass theory that pops up on Youtube and Facebook". or, for that matter, "blindly trust our President/Vice President."

IE right now the worst hotspots in America are rural areas like South Dakota -- which is impressive in a bad sort of way because they've got space and population density working for them, not against them.

between Fauci and "this will magically disappear" or "there isn't a coronavirus second wave", if I -had- to blindly trust someone, you tell me whom it oughta be.

Yeah, if you are going to blindly trust someone, but you shouldn't have to blindly trust anyone if you're regularly using something with an internet connection and graduated from the American university system with a theoretical liberal education. "Believe Science (TM)" is opiate of the masses boilerplate. It's not useful. And I can tell you for a fact that plenty of the "Believe Science" folks are still coming down with COVID, and I can tell you that plenty of the people that "Believe Science" are not adhering 100% to public health guidelines. Maybe the Dakotas would be better off, but Minnesota and Illinois and New York are still going to have outbreaks.

Plus, you know, South Dakota is plenty dense enough to sustain disease transmission when you have people crowding around indoors.

While there is some truth to what you said, we were talking about a specific group of officials. These particular idiots were erring on the side of caution and science in the face of a pandemic, with the aim of saving lives, by not holding commemorative event. Important to be sure, but not worth causing more deaths.

Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
If you're coming out of 2020 with an attitude that you should blindly trust our society's Pharisees, I feel sorry for you. This entire year has been a repudiation of the Western technocratic priestly class.
I'm not entirely sure how you're extrapolating that from my previous post. It's more than merely a stretch to make that kind of connection, it's downright asinine.

As Eric said, there's probably a middle ground between blind trust and taking simple precautions like "not hosting a potential super-spreader event" for something that is non-essential in this current reality of ours.

Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
This entire year has been a repudiation of the Western technocratic priestly class.
Yes, and this country has 250,000 dead Americans, and counting, to show for that repudiation. All because simple things like "wear a mask" and "keep your distance" were too hard for the snowflake class.

I am extrapolating that because you are blindly trusting "officials" because they are "official." It's the obvious interpretation of your post. I don't necessarily give a damn about THIS particular event. I DO care when there are discussions about school closings or restaurant closings, because "officials" in those cases are not omniscient computer algorithms. They are biased meat machines subject to blindspots and political pressures, and THEY are making the key decisions. NOT Trump.

I also don't know why your preferred political enemies are the ones solely violating social distancing and mask requirements. We need to maintain vigorous social distancing and mask enforcement because our heavily Hispanic facility has different norms around food-sharing, hugging, kissing, etc. and COVID requirements impact all of those. I am 100% confident you do not intend to lump these people in with your "snowflake" description.

Our political leaders across the board have taken the advice of the "Western technocratic priestly class" on the issue of COVID, sometimes in the face of politically selective attacks from Murdoch media & their water carriers in the political class. Mask wearing is now the norm, thogh I can see it declining as numbers saty low and temperatures rise. A lot of people who can work from home are doing so. Public transport is regularly deep cleaned. Widespread testing is still going on. Governments are pumping money into everything from individual pockets to whole industries to make sure the economy bubbles along until things pick up.

People like Fauci can only dream of governments as sensible as ours.

My home state, which was hardest hit & locked down tight for 3 months, has had 3 weeks of 0 deaths & 0 cases. Another state just held a sporting event with a crowd of something like 50,000 and other states have been holding events with smaller crowds for months. Life in most states is close to normal. One state has just gone into a hard lockdown for a week to deal with a cluster of about 20.

We currently have 900 dead. In total. Almost 800 of those resulted from a failure to properly implement a technocratic process that has worked where done properly. Most, if not all, Australians will have a normal Christmas. No waiting for miracles here, just listening to those priestly technocrats.

Australia does not have a more sensible government than France or Germany, who also thought they had kicked their COVID problems when they had several weeks in a row of moderate temperatures. Turns out that was a delusion. Australia, fortunately, will likely have a a vaccine before we acid-test your belief, which will most likely turn up being just as delusional.

You can, of course, go into full lockdown again....if you can sustain it. Taking that as a given is foolish.

The nations doing the best are not led by Western technocrats and are not filled with Westerners.

We have had anti-lockdown protests here, but they are a fringe phenomenon. They are smaller & less well armed thjan the US version. In several states right wing parties have tried to play politics with the restrictions with dire political consequences. The difference here is that this is largely a debate over degrees rather than overall approach. There is zero constituency among mainstream politicians for the 'hoax' BS. Things weren't perfect here, but our failings have been a great deal less spectacular than other places.

I agree that it is possible to do the right thing and not get the desired result, but not doing the right thing guarantees failur. I would rather try & fail than simply write off thousands of Australians. Sadly conservative political culture in America has become so badly deformed that the idea of compassion is derided and attacked. Letting people die needlessly in the name of an utterly selfish concept of 'freedom' is almost seen as a badge of honour. That is as dysfunctional a political culture as it is possible to imagine.

Several nations have had anti lockdown protests larger than the US, including Germany and Spain.

Your preferences are irrelevant to American preferences, and even in states like IL and NY, which are NOT conservative, you would be well out of step with the median. This is neither "anti-science" nor "anti-compassion," and it certainly isn't "conservative."

[TopHatter]

I am extrapolating that because you are blindly trusting "officials" because they are "official." It's the obvious interpretation of your post. I don't necessarily give a damn about THIS particular event. I DO care when there are discussions about school closings or restaurant closings, because "officials" in those cases are not omniscient computer algorithms. They are biased meat machines subject to blindspots and political pressures, and THEY are making the key decisions. NOT Trump.

I also don't know why your preferred political enemies are the ones solely violating social distancing and mask requirements. We need to maintain vigorous social distancing and mask enforcement because our heavily Hispanic facility has different norms around food-sharing, hugging, kissing, etc. and COVID requirements impact all of those. I am 100% confident you do not intend to lump these people in with your "snowflake" description.

I don't even know where to begin with this mess.

You're making all kinds of bullshit assumptions about me to suit your own purposes, so there isn't a damn thing I can do about that.

Surfgun brought up a commemorative event and that's ALL that I was referring to. You decided to jump in and suddenly broaden the scope of it far past an event at Arlington. You can discuss school closings and restaurant closings all you want but that's not what I was referring to, period.

And if you think Trump isn't making key decisions and heavily influencing practically everything else, then you're either utterly delusional or you haven't been paying any attention to what's been going on for the past year.

As far as this heavily Hispanic facility you suddenly brought up goes, you're wrong. I'm talking about the MAGAts that are screaming about they're living in a dictatorship because they have to do something as simple as wear a mask, to protect other from a disease that they are absolutely certain doesn't exist in the first place, oh the HORROR!