Politics and General Debates Thread

[RedCowboy]

There's nothing wrong with a government mask RECOMMENDATION or an advisory, but a mandate is not how we do things in America, no if we the people discover that wearing masks in public is necessary for the good of public safety, then we pass a law, a mask law, we can do it pretty quickly too, but a mandate bypasses the voters and lets a single President/Governor act as a King.

 

[Unown (WILD)]

Here's the thing. You and I pretty much see eye to eye but I have to say that the mask mandates are necessary because some people are selfish inconsiderate pricks. They don't take into consideration that there's a pandemic nor do they give a crap. A lot of these people are patriotic too. This one old guy with the american flag pin on his shirt that had the rough all american I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude wouldn't stop standing inches away from me at the market. Why? Because it would mean he would have to consider someone else but himself.
That's the kind of people who need to be told to wear a mask because they don't give a crap and will spout "freedom" and "rights" when they're asked to be considerate.
I'm tired of these people especially during this pandemic. They think everyone should bend over for them while they do nothing in return under the guise of being all american or some nonsense. I asked this jerk nicely... in fact all of the incidents I had I was nice to the point where I felt a tumor forming when in reality I wanted to mop the floor with their mangled head hair and they still didn't have the decency to comply.
So I say f-k em. Force the mandate.

 

[RedCowboy]

I wear a mask everywhere I go, well not in my car, but when I go to wal-mart I wear a mask because even if it's only a 20% reduction in risk I'll still take it, plus some of us can carry and spread without having any symptoms, so I wear mine but I don't bother other people who don't, COVID just isn't that bad, I'm sure that I had it and it was no big deal......that said, when I hear someone coughing I walk away, no need in trying to catch something.

However to force mask on kids in school when they are not impacted like older people and without weighing the negative effects is wrong and lets be honest, kids in school wearing masks or not are going to share every virus there is among themselves, kids are in too close of contact and they don't wash their hands throughout the day or take adult precautions, plus COVID today which is mostly Omicron is not a big deal, but it is very transmissible ( comparable to measles ) rendering masks very ineffective when people are in close contact such as a classroom.

Omicron is spreading at lightning speed. Scientists are trying to figure out why

The burning questions: What makes this newly identified variant so transmissible? And what does it mean for preventing spread?

www.npr.org

p.s. If there's a clear case that masking will save the world then we need to pass a mask law, we don't want government getting the least bit comfortable with making mandates, because they will once we let it get started and they will make mandates about things you and I like that don't seem fair to you and me.

We are a nation of laws, not Royal Decrees or federal mandates.

Also mandates don't carry the weight of law, if a person is refusing to wear a mask in ABC Grocery then the manager of ABC Grocery has to ask them to mask up or leave, so maybe they mask up for a minute or two.........now if they refuse to mask and refuse to leave when asked to, then police can arrest them for trespassing.......but a mask law would be much more effective, so if it's really that important, shouldn't there be a mask law ?

 

[Unown (WILD)]

Good points good points. Wish everyone had a level headed head

 

[RedCowboy]

There's also the political factor, keeping people afraid of COVID gives dems control over many things, hell just look at China and even Australia where a handful full of people were given great power to control peoples movement/lives and they don't want to let it go.

I'm know Democrats in America would love to exploit a COVID variant to push more " temporary emergency voting law changes " just like they did in the 2020 election, they made voting law changes without a vote by the citizens in each State which is unconstitutional and a violation of State laws.......COVID was exploited and Biden claimed to have a plan, Biden did jack shit, COVID has mutated itself down to common cold strength yet Biden still failed to even meet testing needs, something dems raked Trump over the coals for and still failed to do.

Democrats would rather children suffer the ill effects of forced masking than let go of the power they wield under an emergency status.
If Republicans were in power and pushing mask mandates on children at this point in the progression of COVID, then Democrats would be crying bloody murder about child abuse, child endangerment, child torture and more.

 

[Ears and Eggs]

What would cross the line for me in a situation like that is if the person was standing right on top of me and wouldn't back off. It's one thing if they decide to not wear a mask, but are respectful about it, kept 6 feet away from others and maintained distance. In the case of someone standing right on top of people without a mask to make a point - they should absolutely be told by security cut it out, or they'll be thrown out of place on their ear. If they still won't comply at that point they can be arrested, removed, and banned from the premises for trespassing.


I'm generally pretty libertarian in situations like this and don't like blanket rules imposed on everyone because of the stupid actions of a small minority. I've been working throughout the pandemic and have found 99% of people have been very good and respectful. Hopefully we can find a way to deal with the small percentage of idiots without more government restrictions on the vast majority who are doing the right thing.

 

[bostjan]

This is a touchy subject, mainly because, for such a long time, it was unknown, even to the medical and scientific communities, whether surgical masks were effective. Even now, two years into this, we still don't really know if surgical masks are effective "enough," because we don't really have the clearest understanding of how much is enough and there are still some pretty large error bars coming along with the data we have.

On one side of the mask debate, you have people saying that we have to do something as long as it helps, and then on the other side, you have people saying that we have no clue if wearing a mask will make any impact on safety.

At the end of the proverbial day, this virus is going to be endemic. That means, whether you wear a gas mask, or a level A breathing apparatus with a sealed suit, or just go raw faced out into Times Square, you are almost certain to eventually get exposed to this virus. Early efforts were to put it off as long as possible, so we could develop a vaccine and a treatment. We now have the vaccine and we might have a somewhat promising treatment already (but we don't know yet). If we could stretch things out a little longer, maybe just a few months, it'd still be beneficial, but even then it's a "who knows for sure" kind of thing.

So I guess both sides of the argument are correct, but both sides might ultimately end up being incorrect in the long run. It's impossible to say until we know. Certainly until we do know enough, the best thing we can do is to stay away from other people as much as we can without having more of a negative impact on us than the virus would, wear a mask whenever possible, assuming that they might not work, but might be better than nothing, and get vaccinated as long as you are confident that the vaccine won't cause you more problems than an infection likely would. Maybe most of all, getting boosted, since, if you got the vaccine and it didn't seriously imperil you, the booster will be extremely unlikely to hurt you, yet it will boost your immunity and make it less likely that you'll have to visit the ER whenever you inevitably do end up getting exposed to the virus.

Chances are, ten years from now, we will all look stupid now. Either scrambling for a treatment when there might never be one, or struggling so hard to find that treatment which might end up being something ubiquitous and obvious in retrospect - or whatever, I'm sure someone at some point in the future will look back at us now and firmly place the palm of their hand into their face (unless if facepalming ends up being the #1 way covid spread LOL).

I don't envy our leaders at this time. They have to run the gambit of either doing nothing, because we don't know enough, or doing something that ends up being the wrong call, because we didn't know enough. Honestly, Trump was pretty stupid about the way he handled this, but Biden is faring no better. The only thing I can say for sure at this point in time is that there are multiple possible wrong ways to handle the social situation around covid. I can't even say with confidence that there would be any right way do handle it - it might be a no-win situation. Trump's lockdown of international travel in early 2020 was smart, but we now know it was too late. At the time, we had no way to know that yet, though. Trump dumping money into ordering vaccines was probably the smartest move by the government in the pandemic. Maybe this whole at-home test thing by Biden will end up being super effective, too, but I have a lot of doubts - but those doubts aren't based on anything concrete that I know, just a spongy block of information with some hard facts forming minimal structure with huge holes and a lot of "it seems" or "my gut tells me" sticking things together. I'm not a virologist, but I did study it in college a long time ago for all of one semester. But, in my defense, only the professionals at the bleeding edge of this know enough for anyone to take what they say very seriously, and the mainstream media doesn't think anything those people are saying is sexy enough to broadcast without heavy editorialization.

 

[RedCowboy]

WASHINGTON — President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.
The move would signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which up until recently was taking a restrained stance on Ukraine, out of fear of provoking Russia into invading. But as President Vladimir V. Putin has ramped up his threatening actions toward Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy.
In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Mr. Biden with several options that would shift American military assets much closer to Mr. Putin’s doorstep, the administration officials said. The options include sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about internal deliberations.


I wouldn't be surprised to see the Biden admin. get us into a skirmish to draw attention away from his failures, it could become a real disaster making the US look even more impotent if mismanaged.

 

[paul1598419]

I wear a mask everywhere I go, well not in my car, but when I go to wal-mart I wear a mask because even if it's only a 20% reduction in risk I'll still take it, plus some of us can carry and spread without having any symptoms, so I wear mine but I don't bother other people who don't, COVID just isn't that bad, I'm sure that I had it and it was no big deal......that said, when I hear someone coughing I walk away, no need in trying to catch something.

However to force mask on kids in school when they are not impacted like older people and without weighing the negative effects is wrong and lets be honest, kids in school wearing masks or not are going to share every virus there is among themselves, kids are in too close of contact and they don't wash their hands throughout the day or take adult precautions, plus COVID today which is mostly Omicron is not a big deal, but it is very transmissible ( comparable to measles ) rendering masks very ineffective when people are in close contact such as a classroom.

Omicron is spreading at lightning speed. Scientists are trying to figure out why

The burning questions: What makes this newly identified variant so transmissible? And what does it mean for preventing spread?

www.npr.org

p.s. If there's a clear case that masking will save the world then we need to pass a mask law, we don't want government getting the least bit comfortable with making mandates, because they will once we let it get started and they will make mandates about things you and I like that don't seem fair to you and me.

We are a nation of laws, not Royal Decrees or federal mandates.

Also mandates don't carry the weight of law, if a person is refusing to wear a mask in ABC Grocery then the manager of ABC Grocery has to ask them to mask up or leave, so maybe they mask up for a minute or two.........now if they refuse to mask and refuse to leave when asked to, then police can arrest them for trespassing.......but a mask law would be much more effective, so if it's really that important, shouldn't there be a mask law ?

There are the recommendations of the CDC. They are telling everyone that masking children in schools is the best practices right now. Virginia did pass a law that the government recommendations be followed while many Republicans refuse to do so. That is why school districts there are now suing the governor. So, don't give me that "we can pass laws" BS as that has been done.

 

[RedCowboy]

Virginia also has Youngkins " parents choice " so don't give me that authoritarian " we gotta let big brother dictate communist " BS

You can't pass a law that government recommendations or mandates be treated as law, well you can but it will be overturned.
Because it circumvents our Constitution....remember YOU said we are a nation of laws, the SCOTUS will end up ruling on that if it even gets that far.

 

[bostjan]

WASHINGTON — President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.
The move would signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which up until recently was taking a restrained stance on Ukraine, out of fear of provoking Russia into invading. But as President Vladimir V. Putin has ramped up his threatening actions toward Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy.
In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Mr. Biden with several options that would shift American military assets much closer to Mr. Putin’s doorstep, the administration officials said. The options include sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about internal deliberations.


I wouldn't be surprised to see the Biden admin. get us into a skirmish to draw attention away from his failures, it could become a real disaster making the US look even more impotent if mismanaged.

Putin as a military leader vs Biden as a military leader would be like LeBron James versus Bill Gates in a game of basketball. Sure, maybe Gates could hire a team of the very best, but LeBron probably could assemble just as good a team and could coordinate them better. As much as I hate to see Ukraine get trampled by Russia, honestly, Putin could probably decide today that he wants to reassemble the USSR, and I don't know that any outside force could stop him.

The UN would have to deliberate and form a bureau to set up meetings to discuss what was happening and then petition the security council to do something, which a) Russia would veto, and b) the USSR would be back together before the first UN subcommittee meeting anyway.

I'm not sure that the USA is in a position to really throw its hat in the ring.

Unless a bunch of powerful nations can quickly form a coalition, I don't see Russia getting much opposition if they expand into central Asia or Eastern Europe.

 

[RedCowboy]

I find it ironic how thanks to Biden's Executive Order the US is buying so much Russian oil to prop up the green new steal sham, yet he talks about sanctions, shouldn't we stop buying Russian oil like Right Now if we are even half way serious ? LOL

We can let American companies meet that need and produce our own like they were before Biden signed his radical progressives wishlist of Executive Orders which I doubt he even read.

The Green new Steal, shutting down our pipeline and giving our money to Russia who is no cleaner at producing oil, this is stupidity at it's finest.

 

[paul1598419]

Seven school districts in Virginia are suing the governor over his maskless "freedom for students" order. It is expected to go to the state supreme court where they may not even rule on the Constitutionality of his order. Many parents in these school districts are very concerned about the health of their children. In schools in Loudoun County many maskless students are being separated from the student body until they agree to wear their masks.

 

[RedCowboy]

 

[paul1598419]

Calling the CDC Democratic is as much nonsense as saying they are against the science. Republicans are antiscience.

 

[RedCowboy]

Nope.
Republicans are anti tyranny and pro science.
You are only pro " democratic science " which is not real science.