2020 Election MEGAthread

[douglas1999]

Originally Posted by Jibartik [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But i have explained in very clear terms why to take covid restrictions and apply it to influenza is both irrational on both a medical/scientific level, but also on a political and rational level.

Like so many times, so it bums me out when you say the logical conclusion of me wanting masks is to take my argument to it's absurd, after we've gone through all that!

Again to be clear, what you are accusing me of being authoritarian is the president using this language. "Masks will really have the best impact on us controlling this outbreak, so we can open our economy up sooner, get the schools open, and get us out there continuing to build the greatest economy in the world! So stand back (6 feet) and stand by (with a mask on)!"

That is all I wanted the president to say during this friggen last year.

Yeah and that is reasonable, but the effective of masks is not definitely shown. At first, even fauci was saying not to use them, that they only offer minor protection and that a mass rush on buying them by the general population would deplete the supply for essential workers, who arguably need them more. I think that this is true, because infection rates in other countries who *have* had hard imposed masking mandates, have still seen infections on par with the US and in many cases more. Masks don't seem to help very much at all, but I personally still wear one cause it takes two seconds and I don't want to get screamed at by the mask gestapo in public.

My main gripe is with lockdowns, and that's why I keep bringing up the flu comparison. Covid is, thankfully, proving to be less lethal as we understand more about it than the flu by many metrics. Economic lockdowns have already permanently shuttered tens of thousands of small businesses, and have only enriched major corporations like walmart and amazon even further. You can't support local businesses if they all close. So, even assuming covid is more dangerous than the flu, the question becomes how *much* more dangerous is it, and are the economic impacts of lockdowns somehow sensible collateral damage? On top of the increased suicides and drug overdoses and alcoholism, which further tax the medical system? I think those are extremely important questions, but the news cycle at the moment treats donald trump and literally anything he does as the work of the devil, and anything democrats do as the work of benevolence. The left is becoming a creepy, pseudo-religion and it's driving me further and further away. If trump cured cancer, rather than saying "Ya know I don't like him but... that was a pretty good achievement curing cancer and all" like a sane decent person, Pelosi would be on TV frothing at the mouth saying "Why didn't he do it sooner!! If Joe Biden had been in office, we would have cured cancer four years ago!!".

[Jibartik]

we already talked about fauci that was because the messaging from the white house was not to panic, hnnngggg

ckdowns have already permanently shuttered tens of thousands of small businesses, and have only enriched major corporations like walmart and amazon even further. You can't support local businesses if they all close. So, even assuming covid is more dangerous than the flu, the question becomes how *much* more dangerous is it, and are the economic impacts of lockdowns somehow sensible collateral damage? On top of the increased suicides and drug overdoses and alcoholism, which further tax the medical system? I think those are extremely important questions, but the news cycle at the moment treats donald trump and literally anything he does as the work of the devil, and anything democrats do as the work of benevolence. The left is becoming a creepy

dude, my argument this whole time was we have not been able to deal with any of that because the messaging from the white house was anyone who believed in this was a libtard!

All that stuff is "what happens when disaster strikes" and it is also "all of the stuff that is the presidents job to make sure we dont panic set in and we riot for 100 days"

if you want to go on about "the presidents job" no dont.

he is our leader, and he led us by saying "everyone panic because everything is a mirage, and I'm going to lie to you so you dont panic" all so the economy would not collapse, and it did anyway.

I have said that more than once to you ITT!

[BlackBellamy]

Originally Posted by douglas1999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's a reductio ad absurdum, you take the apparent logic of something and point out the extreme example in order to point out an internal inconsistency of the original argument.

I mentioned it before, it's an appeal to purity. He claims you took an extreme position and argues against that. You can tell people do that when they restate the claim in their opening, like when they say "so what you're saying..." and then they gaslight you about what you claimed.

It's similar to Patriam going "oh so we should withdraw from the world" when I said we didn't have any international problems to solve.

I don't think it's particularly insulting to say argument techniques like that are immature.

It's naive to think you can overcome the basis of someone's ideological argument by providing a 'gotcha' example. You're insulting the intelligence of your opponent because you're basically accusing them of having such a basic or incomplete understanding of their own position that they are now vulnerable to such a basic attack.

Like I've been a conservative for three decades and I'm going to listen as someone tries to explain the basic tenets to me and convince me I'm wrong about the thing I've really thought long and hard about.

[Jibartik]

So you're saying me asking you to defend yourself against a claim that I say you support, is me gas lighting you, but you telling me I am a draconian communist because I think masks during a pandemic should be widely encouraged isnt?

Im just being humorous, but I seriously dont think you are conservative, I think you are more radical than conservative, I don't think trump is conservative, I don't think he is even close to it, he's radical.

You may share opinions on the left, and society, and religion with various sects of conservatives, but to argue that trump is conservative is just changing what conservative means.

You cant give me 6 examples about why you think trump is conservative. And why the way he went about doing it followed conservative values.

Ive given like 100 examples as to why we should wear masks lol

[Morton Jr]

Originally Posted by Patriam1066 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So let the Armenians die AND starve iranians into submission. Great foreign policy guys

You created an undemocratic Iran. You might as well bomb it and get it over with. They’ll never submit

As for it being “the worst place to move to,” Iran has taken 100,000 Christian refugees from Syria, Armenia, and Iraq. It’s easily a more tolerant country than our current Muslim allies. But whatever, that has little and less to do with Trump being a dumb ass who is about to tank the GOP and usher in the most liberal congress since FDR. Maybe you guys will learn when you see actual liberal policies enacted, instead of the milquetoast centrism under Obama

Not our business dude, none of that shit.

[Woke Locc]

Originally Posted by BlackBellamy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I mentioned it before, it's an appeal to purity. He claims you took an extreme position and argues against that. You can tell people do that when they restate the claim in their opening, like when they say "so what you're saying..." and then they gaslight you about what you claimed.

It's similar to Patriam going "oh so we should withdraw from the world" when I said we didn't have any international problems to solve.

I don't think it's particularly insulting to say argument techniques like that are immature.

It's naive to think you can overcome the basis of someone's ideological argument by providing a 'gotcha' example. You're insulting the intelligence of your opponent because you're basically accusing them of having such a basic or incomplete understanding of their own position that they are now vulnerable to such a basic attack.

Like I've been a conservative for three decades and I'm going to listen as someone tries to explain the basic tenets to me and convince me I'm wrong about the thing I've really thought long and hard about.

Need to resurrect Bill Buttley to exile y'all Birchers again[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

DOVAHKIIIIIIN

[FatherSioux]

Jib have you defined what you believe is conservative? Can you give a few examples of past actions presidents have made that are conservative?

[Jibartik]

Here is six things I think make him radical

Trump has broken with some U.S. postwar traditions. - this is a very beat of a different drummer way to do things, and its a riskey move, its hardly something the conservatives would have ever fought for before trump. It's a new fresh take.

Burns through military leaders like they're yule logs - When maddog goes up, everyone cheers, when maddog goes down, everyone jeers.

He uses twitter - he is no holds bard (I have no idea how to use that phrase I just realied) he has no restraint with his public outreach, he'll say anything and walk it back wherever you ask him to, he has no filter.

He drone striked an iranian general despite being told not to - I mean come on that is as radical as it gets sans a skateboard.

Abraham accords - this is like, so left field the world is scrambling to keep up with it.

Draining the swamp - this is about as radical as it gets!

[Jibartik]

Originally Posted by FatherSioux [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Jib have you defined what you believe is conservative? Can you give a few examples of past actions presidents have made that are conservative?

Yeah conservatism is about holding traditional values, not embracing new ones. Trump is all about new ideas, new ways to do things, they just are branded as traditional. He wants to do business with leaders around the world in whole new ways, and turn us into isolationists, that's not unique to conservativism too, sanders wanted us to be isolationists too!

Conservativism takes every day realism and applies it to politics.

It's not like some cross you burn into your chest, that's what people seem to mix up.

You're like progressive libertarians, you want libertarian values, on a progressive's scale. Which is why I conced you guys are maybe actually libertarians, but id call you radical libertarians.

Edit: As for traditional values as examples from former presidents: Idk maybe I am wrong.. every republican since Nixon pretty much was radial.

I guess I consider democrats to be conservative.

So yeah, ok here's my ruling: Trump is a radical libertarian, democrats are conservatives, and everyone else has had it with you two lol

[BlackBellamy]

For everyone discussing Covid myself included please note that we all have the benefit of hindsight that almost no one who was making any decisions had in February or March.

I want to remind everyone that in the early part of the year almost no one had any idea what was going on and if you remember the general media and political sentiment varied wildly from one day to the next as people seized upon founded and unfounded fears and hopes.

Having said that, this is what happened:

Chinese virologist Yan Li-meng found proof of human-to-human transmission, how virulent it was, and that her own government was suppressing the information. Horrified, she tried to raise awareness but was threatened with death. She fled to the US in April.

But...before that, she contacted a Chinese blogger trying to get the word out (he's the one that advised her to flee to the US) and the Chinese blogger contacted Steve Bannon because they shared some friends. Bannon passed the Yan Li-meng information to Trump so Trump could decide for himself. Trump gathered his top men and everyone decided that while they couldn't be sure if the Yan Li-meng documents were real, many of the claims were being rapidly confirmed by independent observation. Appraised of the waning stock of PPE and the general unreadiness of the US healthcare system to deal with what could be a very virulent episode, Trump decided not to disseminate the Yan Li-meng information at that time and play the virus down to prevent any panic should the documents become public anyway. Immediately after, he began to restrict Chinese travel and started to get the PPE/ventilator industry going as hard as it could because he understood the chokepoint, to use an ungraceful analogy, was the hardware and the hospitals, not whether people went out or washed their hands because if the virulence was what was being claimed, that would not matter much.

But the virus was not that virulent after all. I mean yeah somewhat contagious, but lets all admit it - the death rate is a fraction of what we thought it was, and also importantly a fraction of what it was in the beginning.

Was Yan Li-meng a CCP plant after all? Did she and her documents arrive to panic us all when the CCP knew it wasn't that bad? Those are valid questions to ask, but now we know China was completely freaked out by this too at the time and we know for a fact they had a much higher death rate than they admit. So maybe she was just a humanitarian trying to do the right thing.

Steve Bannon told me all this. We hang out.