The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Classic-Xer]

(02-03-2022, 03:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 06:21 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 02:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: It is a battle FOR America, not a battle WITH America.

Dude, a battle FOR America that doesn't involve a battle WITH America is meaningless.

Dude, as you do not have the excuse of being a non-native speaker of English, you have no excuse for such bungling of pronouns. (Pronouns are the trickiest words in foreign languages).

When someone does a horrible deed against one set of Americans (let us say people mowing down members of synagogues or historically-black churches, or for that matter the terrorists who turned commercial jetliners into weapons of mass destruction) one does it against us all. Dylann Roof (who lethally mowed down ten black people in a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina and killed nine) is a tragedy, but he is also a traitor. He may end up paying with his life.  

I recognize Trump supporters all over America as no less American than I. Of course their interpretation of what constitutes America far narrower than mine. I also think that they are wrong in their assessment of Donald Trump. Usually the partisan divide is not so stark at that, but Trump's supporters have made such so. 

Americans have united against those who have done grave wrong to Americans, whether on 12/7/1941, 9/11/2001. or 1/6/2001. With the latter it is slower because the Bad Guys are Americans who have an ideological constituency. Some people want America to go from being an Empire of Liberty to just another evil empire that the world will little mourn upon its passing.

I pretty much repeated what an author said to me and called it meaningless. What's the problem with that? So, what happened on 1/6/2001? I assume that you meant 1/6/2021 right. Damn mistakes, they make you look stupid or foolish in your case. It's kind of like someone writing Covid 19 is as deadly as a rattle snake bite as if it's true. Shall we continue playing the game that I know how to play very well or would you prefer to take a time out?

[David Horn]

(02-03-2022, 09:53 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 04:19 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: OK -- Washington defined the Presidency. Lincoln saved the Union. FDR saved American capitalism and in turn (with Churchill) Western Christian Civilization. For good reason the best five Presidents are typically "Mount Rushmore and FDR". 6th to 12th range from Eisenhower to Obama, and you know how often I compare Obama and Ike.  

I note that the first three best presidents on that list were crisis presidents - Washington, Lincoln and FDR.  They might have been controversial in their times, but history gave them credit for solving the great problems of their time and gave them a superb place in the history books.  Biden and Harris are still in the controversial phase.  With the great problems of the crisis still up in the air, no way will they get the blessing of a history that hasn't resolved yet.  I do half expect it will eventually happen.  The problems will eventually be solved.  Simplifying writing the history books requires giving absurd credit to somebody.

But clearly not yet.

The forces arrayed against change learned well the lessons of the last crisis.  It will be a lot harder to win this time, with the paths to victory blocked at every gate, bridge or tunnel out of this mess.  Worse, the information environment has been coopted to keep things as they are -- or worse.  Are we willing to let things disintegrate before we can rebuild?  If you ask most people, they aren't willing to forego a nice meal out, to say nothing of "bearing any burden".  Don't count on a rise of righteous anger; ennui is much more likely.  

But not all issues can be overcome with guile and lack of conscience.  Calamity may be the future for our children, because AGW simply doesn't care about our politics.  We solve it or it solves us.  Full stop!

[pbrower2a]

(02-04-2022, 03:08 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 03:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 06:21 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 02:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: It is a battle FOR America, not a battle WITH America.

Dude, a battle FOR America that doesn't involve a battle WITH America is meaningless.

Dude, as you do not have the excuse of being a non-native speaker of English, you have no excuse for such bungling of pronouns. (Pronouns are the trickiest words in foreign languages).

When someone does a horrible deed against one set of Americans (let us say people mowing down members of synagogues or historically-black churches, or for that matter the terrorists who turned commercial jetliners into weapons of mass destruction) one does it against us all. Dylann Roof (who lethally mowed down ten black people in a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina and killed nine) is a tragedy, but he is also a traitor. He may end up paying with his life.  

I recognize Trump supporters all over America as no less American than I. Of course their interpretation of what constitutes America far narrower than mine. I also think that they are wrong in their assessment of Donald Trump. Usually the partisan divide is not so stark at that, but Trump's supporters have made such so. 

Americans have united against those who have done grave wrong to Americans, whether on 12/7/1941, 9/11/2001. or 1/6/2021. With the latter it is slower because the Bad Guys are Americans who have an ideological constituency. Some people want America to go from being an Empire of Liberty to just another evil empire that the world will little mourn upon its passing.

I pretty much repeated what an author said to me and called it meaningless. What's the problem with that? So, what happened on 1/6/2001? I assume that you meant 1/6/2021 right. Damn mistakes, they make you look stupid or foolish in your case. It's kind of like someone writing Covid 19 is as deadly as a rattle snake bite as if it's true. Shall we continue playing the game that I know how to play very well or would you prefer to take a time out?

Yes, I meant "2021". 

Typos happen when one posts quickly. Such would never pass a commercial publishing house. I do not have the services of a proofreader or copy-editor behind me. If I had the opportunity, I could be either a copywriter, copy-editor, or proofreader. It would be unwise to have me as the person who does two of such three tasks on my own. Until the Double-Zero decade, federal regulations kept investment banking, retail banking, and insurance separate even though they were all involved in large-scale dealings in money. In 2008, much as in 1929, the failure to separate those led to corruption in the economic order that manifested itself in severe meltdowns of the overall economy. It's almost as serious as saying that physicians, pharmacists, and funeral directors should be kept separate from each other even though they are often involved in situations involving the end of life.  Do you really want your physician owning stock in a pharmaceutical company or an interest in a funeral parlor? 

The statistical evidence suggests that COVID-19 is indeed about as lethal as a rattlesnake bite. At the least I know that a rattler does not want to meet me, a cat (cats are known to kill and eat rattlers after delivering a fatal bite to the neck), or a dog. I back off or the rattler does -- ideally both of us. Rattlers at the least have a rattle to scare off predators (cats and dogs) and heavy-hoofed herbivores (cattle, horses) or creatures that have characteristics of both (humans and pigs). People carrying COVID-19 do not rattle until they give the death rattle.

It is entirely a matter of taste to decide that a rattlesnake bite is worse than COVID-19. Both, aside from lethality, have different consequences. Rattler bites lead to tissue necrosis that can require plastic surgery to undo the ugliness if on the face or to gangrene that forces amputation. But if it is simply a matter of survival and death, then I get whatever inoculations are appropriate and I avoid places known to have rattlers. I used to live in Texas, and I took a dog with me on some long walks. I never saw a live rattler on one of those walks. Was it I or the dog that scared off the rattler? Or both?

[Classic-Xer]

(02-02-2022, 09:55 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 01:11 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-28-2022, 10:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-28-2022, 01:13 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Bluer as in more darker in terms of peoples skin tone or bluer as in more Progressive minded and big government oriented/related like Washington DC? In Minnesota, the rural Democrats are dying off and the rural communities that were controlled by them for several decades are turning into ghost towns. As a result, the more economic minded and more American minded Republicans and their voters are taking over and the economy is becoming more economically diverse. So, are you familiar with what's going on between Buckhead and Atlanta these days? Buckhead has formally declared its independence and is in the process of breaking free from from Atlanta. I think it's a good gauge what's to come and what to expect as time goes on.

Rural areas have always been more conservative in every meaning of the word -- even during the labor movement period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Dogma tends to set-in in more insular communities.  They may get infuriated, but they aren't empowered, unless they decide to bring out the guns.  Then it's open rebellion.  Nothing good comes from that.

The young don't believe it can happen, not even the rural young.  If it does, then the armies are aligned and battlelines drawn.  Youth WILL show up out of pure self-interest.

Dude, the armies are already aligned and the battle lines have already been drawn and the Blue youth that show up out of pure self interest are going to find Themselves being turned against each other and slaughtered. The Blue community seems pretty insular and dogmatic these days don't you think. I suppose that you don't think or view it that way since it's very obvious to everyone else that you're one of Them. Sorry dude, I wish I was a better writer than a businessman. It's the only thing that's  keeping you in the game at this point.

In your scenario, the US Armed Services would divide between your concept of a Real America and the more diverse America. The Armed Services recruit heavily from poor people with the offering of steady work, clear direction, and career training. It is too well-disciplined to splinter. In short the Army is not on any side yet, and it will not end up on any one side unless to suppress sedition -- especially if that manifests itself in 'ethnic cleansing' or religious persecutions.  

You may expect private militias responsible to none but their leaders to establish marauding bands; the Army knows how to deal with such bands. Those bands will be put down swiftly and surely. If those marauding bands leave behind large numbers of dead, then images of such will be powerful tools for discrediting them.

Are you more diverse than me? You may have read a lot more books but I have interacted/communicated/socialized with a helluva lot more people than you and the other three combined. Eric preaches the blue gospel to the blue flock (the blue indoctrinated) David does it too but he's not as committed as Eric. You are a blue demagogue who is in using and spreading propaganda. Bob is too. I don't see much diversity of thought anywhere I look (blue news network) these days. So, did you know that Whoopi was an ignorant racist nigger at the core? I knew it. Did you? It's not like they're not all ignorant blue women and I'm sure there's a racist cracker or spick sitting there too. It's all business nothing personal.

The US Army divided the last time. What makes you think/ feel it won't happen again this time? I know that this is hard for you to swallow but you and the others don't represent America, the American Constitution or core American values and principles . Like I said, you should start thinking about moving to one of the so-called Democratic States before the American States and the American regions declare they're independence and formally recognize the America (US) Constitution as the Law of the Land and swear an oath to keep it and defend it. It's coming dude and you and the others are on the wrong side once again.

[pbrower2a]

(02-04-2022, 05:03 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 09:55 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 01:11 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-28-2022, 10:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-28-2022, 01:13 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Bluer as in more darker in terms of peoples skin tone or bluer as in more Progressive minded and big government oriented/related like Washington DC? In Minnesota, the rural Democrats are dying off and the rural communities that were controlled by them for several decades are turning into ghost towns. As a result, the more economic minded and more American minded Republicans and their voters are taking over and the economy is becoming more economically diverse. So, are you familiar with what's going on between Buckhead and Atlanta these days? Buckhead has formally declared its independence and is in the process of breaking free from from Atlanta. I think it's a good gauge what's to come and what to expect as time goes on.

Rural areas have always been more conservative in every meaning of the word -- even during the labor movement period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Dogma tends to set-in in more insular communities.  They may get infuriated, but they aren't empowered, unless they decide to bring out the guns.  Then it's open rebellion.  Nothing good comes from that.

The young don't believe it can happen, not even the rural young.  If it does, then the armies are aligned and battlelines drawn.  Youth WILL show up out of pure self-interest.

Dude, the armies are already aligned and the battle lines have already been drawn and the Blue youth that show up out of pure self interest are going to find Themselves being turned against each other and slaughtered. The Blue community seems pretty insular and dogmatic these days don't you think. I suppose that you don't think or view it that way since it's very obvious to everyone else that you're one of Them. Sorry dude, I wish I was a better writer than a businessman. It's the only thing that's  keeping you in the game at this point.

In your scenario, the US Armed Services would divide between your concept of a Real America and the more diverse America. The Armed Services recruit heavily from poor people with the offering of steady work, clear direction, and career training. It is too well-disciplined to splinter. In short the Army is not on any side yet, and it will not end up on any one side unless to suppress sedition -- especially if that manifests itself in 'ethnic cleansing' or religious persecutions.  

You may expect private militias responsible to none but their leaders to establish marauding bands; the Army knows how to deal with such bands. Those bands will be put down swiftly and surely. If those marauding bands leave behind large numbers of dead, then images of such will be powerful tools for discrediting them.

Are you more diverse than me? You may have read a lot more books but I have interacted/communicated/socialized with a helluva lot more people than you and the other three combined.

One reads books so that one gets more diversity of thought -- at least if the books are any good. For a huge number of interactions with people one could be an usher at a movie theater or a fast-food counter-person, but those interactions are highly stereotyped. I like to believe that if I start a conversation I make life a little more interesting for at least a minute or more for someone enduring a boring, frustrating life. 

I've been a substitute school teacher, so ask me about meeting diversity.   

Quote:Eric preaches the blue gospel to the blue flock (the blue indoctrinated) David does it too but he's not as committed as Eric. You are a blue demagogue who is in using and spreading propaganda. Bob is too. I don't see much diversity of thought anywhere I look (blue news network) these days. So, did you know that Whoopi was (racist and classist rant deleted, and soon to be reported. No, I am not going to let you get away with  a vile term for Southern white people, either, as it is just as nasty as the other two). It's all business nothing personal.

Any religious, racial, or ethnic slur is a display of personal vileness. People take them personally because they demean people.

Quote:The US Army divided the last time. What makes you think/ feel it won't happen again this time?

161 years ago, when the United States was a weak confederation that the slave-owning interests had recently sought to centralize in the enforcement of slavery. That is over -- way over. More relevant is Spain in the 1930's, where parts of the country were as sophisticated intellectually and culturally (it had Gaudi, Lorca, Picasso, and Miro!) and parts in which people still had medieval minds. That is unstable, and that is very much over in Spain. In America, some people seem to be regressing into backwardness of thought with amazing rapidity. That is much of the "red/blue" divide, and it is consummately dangerous. The only good thing is that time is running out for that as the younger adults of our time seem to be taking on 1T characteristics. That can save us; perhaps it must.  
 

Quote:I know that this is hard for you to swallow but you and the others don't represent America, the American Constitution or core American values and principles . Like I said, you should start thinking about moving to one of the so-called Democratic States before the American States and the American regions declare they're independence and formally recognize the America (US) Constitution as the Law of the Land and swear an oath to keep it and defend it. It's coming dude and you and the others are on the wrong side once again.

Everybody has his opinion about what the Constitution means, at the least on what matters most. By the way -- I'm not going to pretend that Massachusetts is more "American" than Mississippi or vice-versa. Considering what you said about black people and poor whites in the same vile sentence, you might want to stay out of Mississippi, which has the largest percentage of blacks of all states and in which most white people are poor. 

When poor blacks and poor whites recognize that they have the same piggish enemy -- those people who see their own Power, Indulgence, and Gain as the only legitimate objective of life irrespective of the human cost, it is curtains for the neoliberal ideas that you admire.

[Eric the Green]

I thought earlier lists were more accurate. This one seems to lean toward excusing some very bad activities among these some of these presidents, and seems to submit to conservative opinions. Certainly Ike and Reagan are very much over-rated on this list.

To me, the worst is a toss up between GW Bush and Donald Trump. Bush cost 400,000 people their lives for no reason. LBJ is over-rated, having cost millions of lives including about 57,000 American lives for no reason. Although Buchanan was a very poor leader who favored the South in some shady ways, I don't see how he can be blamed for the division in the country that seemed bent on civil war no matter what he did. The best was FDR, despite some bad decisions. Washington didn't do that much, and Lincoln did, although in some tyrannical ways, but he had trouble finding the right general in the right place.

[David Horn]

(02-05-2022, 03:54 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I thought earlier lists were more accurate. This one seems to lean toward excusing some very bad activities among these some of these presidents, and seems to submit to conservative opinions. Certainly Ike and Reagan are very much over-rated on this list.

To me, the worst is a toss up between GW Bush and Donald Trump. Bush cost 400,000 people their lives for no reason. LBJ is over-rated, having cost millions of lives including about 57,000 American lives for no reason. Although Buchanan was a very poor leader who favored the South in some shady ways, I don't see how he can be blamed for the division in the country that seemed bent on civil war no matter what he did. The best was FDR, despite some bad decisions. Washington didn't do that much, and Lincoln did, although in some tyrannical ways, but he had trouble finding the right general in the right place.

I have to fault your view of Washington.  His singular and greatest act was stepping aside after 8 years and retiring from the public square.  That was, to say the least, an unheard-of event in that or any prior time.  The humility and bravery it took to walk away set the standard for the nation.

[beechnut79]

(02-06-2022, 09:31 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-05-2022, 03:54 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I thought earlier lists were more accurate. This one seems to lean toward excusing some very bad activities among these some of these presidents, and seems to submit to conservative opinions. Certainly Ike and Reagan are very much over-rated on this list.

To me, the worst is a toss up between GW Bush and Donald Trump. Bush cost 400,000 people their lives for no reason. LBJ is over-rated, having cost millions of lives including about 57,000 American lives for no reason. Although Buchanan was a very poor leader who favored the South in some shady ways, I don't see how he can be blamed for the division in the country that seemed bent on civil war no matter what he did. The best was FDR, despite some bad decisions. Washington didn't do that much, and Lincoln did, although in some tyrannical ways, but he had trouble finding the right general in the right place.

I have to fault your view of Washington.  His singular and greatest act was stepping aside after 8 years and retiring from the public square.  That was, to say the least, an unheard-of event in that or any prior time.  The humility and bravery it took to walk away set the standard for the nation.

Set the tone for discussion of term limits still going on today. It wasn’t until 1951 that it was mandated for the Presidency. Still we had only one who broke that tradition and maybe two others who attempted a third run. Lincoln had he lived was also planning to retire from public life following his second term.

[pbrower2a]

I welcome this divide on the Right:

Quote:The Republican National Committee has voted to formally censure Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for “actions in their positions as members of the January 6th Select Committee not befitting Republican members of Congress.” This is both morally repellent and politically self-destructive.

The action of the mob on January 6 was an indefensible disgrace. It is deserving of both political accountability and criminal prosecution. Aspects of it are also fit subjects for a properly conducted congressional inquiry. It is wrong to minimize or excuse what happened that day.

Republicans who did nothing to encourage the mob — and there are many such Republicans — need not wear a hair shirt over January 6, but when they choose to talk about it, they should tell the unsparing truth. We commend the example of Mike Pence, who told a Federalist Society gathering, “I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone.”

There is also no conceivable political benefit to the Republican Party or its members — other than Donald Trump — in looking to defend or minimize January 6 rather than simply move on. The American people are never itching to hear a defense of rioters. But the voters have also shown little interest in the Democrats’ obsession over the event.

MORE IN CAPITOL RIOT
January 6 Committee Lawmakers ‘Devastated’ by Jeff Zucker’s Ouster from CNN
Sasse: January 6 Was ‘Shameful Mob Violence,’ Not ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’
Trump’s Continuing Disgrace
Fair-minded people can, of course, criticize some of the responses to January 6. To say that investigation and prosecution are justified is not to defend every aspect of the hundreds of criminal prosecutions, or to bless the Democrats’ norm-breaking partisanship on the January 6 committee. But the RNC has issued a statement, purportedly in the name of the entire party, denouncing “a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” and “Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes.” This will, quite predictably and not wholly unreasonably, be read as an argument that the action of the mob was nothing but “legitimate political discourse” and that nobody should be prosecuted. It will be used against hundreds of elected Republicans who were not consulted in its drafting and do not endorse its sentiment. To the extent that the party did not intend this as the meaning — and RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, already doing damage control, says it was not meant that way — its wording is political malpractice of the highest order coming from people whose entire job is politics.

A censure of this sort is also the wrong remedy, but one that has become all too common from political-party operatives attempting to vent their spleens at popularly elected public officials. In Arizona, for example, the Republican Party issued a bizarre censure last year of sitting governor Doug Ducey, former senator Jeff Flake, and the widow of former senator John McCain. Not to be outdone in self-destructiveness, Arizona Democrats censured sitting senator Kyrsten Sinema. The first rule of party operatives should be “do no harm.” Attacking a party’s own elected officials, through channels that reflect neither the voters nor the people they elect, violates every rule of political sense.

We understand how Republicans think it is wrong for Cheney and Kinzinger to give the committee a patina of bipartisanship it would lack after Nancy Pelosi rejected Kevin McCarthy’s selections to serve and to have enthusiastically embraced the committee’s mission that has gone well beyond any legislative purpose. But there is also, obviously, a need for full accounting of January 6. Again, fair-minded people can disagree here. But Cheney has already been removed from leadership (unwisely, in our view) and faces a primary challenge; Kinzinger is retiring from the House. At least those responses have the virtue of coming from elected officials and the voters.

The RNC bought the entire party a bounty of bad headlines and easy attack ads. It did so for no good purpose, and its action will only encourage those who see riots as legitimate political discourse. A mistake, and worse, a shame.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/02/r...ike-pence/

[Eric the Green]

(02-06-2022, 09:31 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-05-2022, 03:54 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I thought earlier lists were more accurate. This one seems to lean toward excusing some very bad activities among these some of these presidents, and seems to submit to conservative opinions. Certainly Ike and Reagan are very much over-rated on this list.

To me, the worst is a toss up between GW Bush and Donald Trump. Bush cost 400,000 people their lives for no reason. LBJ is over-rated, having cost millions of lives including about 57,000 American lives for no reason. Although Buchanan was a very poor leader who favored the South in some shady ways, I don't see how he can be blamed for the division in the country that seemed bent on civil war no matter what he did. The best was FDR, despite some bad decisions. Washington didn't do that much, and Lincoln did, although in some tyrannical ways, but he had trouble finding the right general in the right place.

I have to fault your view of Washington.  His singular and greatest act was stepping aside after 8 years and retiring from the public square.  That was, to say the least, an unheard-of event in that or any prior time.  The humility and bravery it took to walk away set the standard for the nation.

Sure. I just don't think that makes him number 1 greatest on the list of presidents.

[David Horn]

(02-07-2022, 01:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-06-2022, 09:31 AM)David Horn Wrote: I have to fault your view of Washington.  His singular and greatest act was stepping aside after 8 years and retiring from the public square.  That was, to say the least, an unheard-of event in that or any prior time.  The humility and bravery it took to walk away set the standard for the nation.

Sure. I just don't think that makes him number 1 greatest on the list of presidents.

I'll agree that #1 is probably either Lincoln or FDR, but Washington is not far behind.

[Skabungus]

It's so hard to come back after several years and jump back in on threads that have progressed on into the desert leaving a myriad of dead end trails, gulches and asides.

Instead, I'll tell you a little story.

My dad died in January. He was 85. He had a good life and lived large for most of it. His last 26 years were spent golfing and traveling the world with my mom, and then later, a girlfriend. The past decade he spent in a golf course community in Florida. Eighteen holes a day, and steak and lobster or other rich dishes along with an ample supply of well aged scotch. He was the poster child for Silent generation dreams come true.

A hard right conservative his entire life, he was convinced all this hubub about covid was just that. Liberals trying to use the "new flu" as an excuse for overreach, more regulations and the like. He'd parroted about every right wing dismissal you can imagine, comparing the new plague to ... a flu, a cold, and yes, even a snake or spider bite. He was part of that "there's a pill for everything" generation that simply didn't believe someone should have to modify behavior to stay safe. Medical science had kept him alive since is open heart surgery at 60 and every time he'd developed another disorder, well, the good doctors had a pill for him. Certainly this covid thing would run the same course.

I spoke to my dad in April of 2020 when he came up to see us here in Michigan. He was good enough to grace his children and grand children with a one day visit every year. He'd called on the phone to say he'd be by in the morning to see us, and I had to tell him that we'd been exposed to covid and that were he to come by, he'd have to wear a mask and sit outside with us. Unacceptable. Totally unacceptable in his eyes, so he skipped the visit opting instead to drop some presents for the grand kids on our porch and leave. For the next two years every time I'd speak with him, I'd be brow beaten for having bought into all the liberal fear mongering around covid.

Covid killed his disbelieving ass on January 20, 2022. Actually it just put him in the hospital on life support. I had to fly down and end the ordeal by reading his living will to two doctors and the head nurse, twice.

Getting his affairs in Florida squared away meant I spent about 4 days in the palatial surrounds of his golf course community. I couldn't find a mask on a face. There was much talk about everyone that was dying. There was lively discussion about the amazing benefits of the monoclonal antibody treatments (because, there is a treatment for everything you know) and how everyone seemed to know someone who'd survived it. Yet they were dropping like flies. On my drive back to Ohio, with my dad's girlfriend, we got a call from her Saturday golf gang. Three of the seven had tested positive and the other four didn't feel well, but weren't going to get tested, because, you know, the lines.

WTAF. I still don't know what to make of it. I'm told the same is the case in many of Florida's retirement communities, and we all know it's the same in many rural communities where fear trumps science. The only words that come to mind are mass psychosis, or mass denial. It's something I've really never encountered before, at least on such a scale.

I work with a lot of wildlife biologists. Covid never comes up, because there is nothing to say. It's obvious. Just like EHD, or Chronic Wasting Disease in deer, or whorling disease in trout. It runs it's course. The weak, the aged and the ill equipped are culled from the herd. Nature takes its course. When covid comes up someone will say, "well, we all know what it will take for it to end", which is kind of a joke, because it never ends, it only lessens. Natural selection is an ongoing process.

My son just got over covid. My daughter had it last May and September. No long term effects for either. My ex wife and I have both avoided it by social distancing, masking up and getting all our shots.

I don't really have too many illusions about where this is all going with regard to covid. The disease will do it's thing and then fall back into the background along side antibiotic resistant TB, the flu and a few others. It wont be gone, but it wont be a global killer forever either.

I do have questions about what the reaction to covid says about our future. It is not simply America. My friends in Europe share similar stories.

So I've told you a story, and I've not proofed a word of it.

[pbrower2a]

(02-08-2022, 02:13 PM)Skabungus Wrote: It's so hard to come back after several years and jump back in on threads that have progressed on into the desert leaving a myriad of dead end trails, gulches and asides.  

Instead, I'll tell you a little story.  

My dad died in January.  He was 85.  He had a good life and lived large for most of it.  His last 26 years were spent golfing and traveling the world with my mom, and then later, a girlfriend.  The past decade he spent in a golf course community in Florida.  Eighteen holes a day, and steak and lobster or other rich dishes along with an ample supply of well aged scotch.  He was the poster child for Silent generation dreams come true.

That is never easy. I lost my two parents of degenerative diseases... a mother from Parkinsonism and a father from small-vessel decay. My mother hated the nursing home and did everything possible to get away from it but ended up in an expensive full-care place where the care was not so great. My father and I had to help feed her because the place was understaffed. Both of us did what we could to keep her spirits up. My idea was to have her walk as much as possible so that she would keep physically active and avoid bedsores. She of course died. I continued in largely a near-full-tine caretaker role with my father, who did fall short of having the body for the golf course and the means for surf-and-turf. I encouraged him to get back in touch with church and (maybe I regret that I failed on this) to reconnect with a Masonic lodge -- or at least another one. I made sure that he could take trips.. .I wish that there had been a Detroit Tigers/Red Wings/Pistons game when those teams were still good. But we did go to Grand Rapids and the Thumb. He distrusted big cities as Sodom and Gomorrah (OK, even Detroit has good places to go, like the areas around the sports venues). I made sure that he took his pills, and I gave him his shots for diabetes. But one day he took a tumble while going to the garage for a soft drink, and he broke his pelvis. Then it was off to the hospital and a couple months of recovery. 

His mental condition deteriorated rapidly, and he lost his ambitions. He had been a manager, and one of the basic rules is that you never tear someone down in the presence of others. On Opening Day of the Detroit Tigers' season he called me and asked me to watch the game with him. Justin Verlander was pitching in a typical game for someone headed for the Baseball Hall of Fame , and the game had its interesting play. He demanded that I take him home right then and there even though such would have been medical abuse. I refused. My uncle and his younger son was there and they got to hear him damn me as a coward  and an ingrate. I still had some hope that he might recover, but I would have to rearrange things at home so that he could live there, such as turning a dining area in a split-level house into a bedroom for him. That is tricky, but not impossible. But I could watch him from where I was on the computer and if he did get through the front door, then if he had any problems we have nosy neighbors. 

At age 60 I suddenly had an abusive father, and that was not easy even if he was at a nursing facility. Nursing homes do not perform miracles, but they can certainly drain bank accounts. I had to pay out my life savings to meet the demands, and from then on I have endured the nightmare of being poor in a society that values only the ability to be a Big Spender. My chances of starting over were practically nil... sure, I would tell a recent grad of a fine college  that working in a fast-food place until one gets the first job with real pay is not a bad course of action, but that is a first job and not what one wants as one's last job when one is 60. Poverty for anyone who has known anything else is a nightmare.        

Quote:A hard right conservative his entire life, he was convinced all this hubub about covid was just that.  Liberals trying to use the "new flu" as an excuse for overreach, more regulations and the like.  He'd parroted about every right wing dismissal you can imagine, comparing the new plague to ... a flu, a cold, and yes, even a snake or spider bite.  He was part of that "there's a pill for everything" generation that simply didn't believe someone should have to modify behavior to stay safe.  Medical science had kept him alive since is open heart surgery at 60 and every time he'd developed another disorder, well, the good doctors had a pill for him.  Certainly this covid thing would run the same course.

Yes, many of us were ill-prepared for it because COVID-19 sounds like the sort of thing that ravages poor people (by local standards, which is really poor) in Third-World countries in which sanitation is poor and government services are dreadful. Except for pneumonia associated with terminal diseases such as cancer and congestive heart failure or with such 'medical scum' -- doctors are terrible snobs about such people as IV drug users and late-stage alcoholics, COVID-19 was perfectly made to fit a culture of craven denial as America is. A corrupt government in which the leader is far better at grandstanding than at finding workable solutions  (yes, I put much blame on Donald Trump for bungling the response) was at part at fault, but so is a mass culture that pushes superstition, conspiracy theories, and medical quackery.  

Quote:I spoke to my dad in April of 2020 when he came up to see us here in Michigan.  He was good enough to grace his children and grand children with a one day visit every year.  He'd called on the phone to say he'd be by in the morning to see us, and I had to tell him that we'd been exposed to covid and that were he to come by, he'd have to wear a mask and sit outside with us.  Unacceptable.  Totally unacceptable in his eyes, so he skipped the visit opting instead to drop some presents for the grand kids on our porch and leave.  For the next two years every time I'd speak with him, I'd be brow beaten for having bought into all the liberal fear mongering around covid.  

The sad thing is that we liberals were right. We had practical solutions, like masks, hand-washing, social distancing, and disinfecting surfaces. OK, the latter was excessive and ineffective. 
 

Quote:Covid killed his disbelieving ass on January 20, 2022.  Actually it just put him in the hospital on life support.  I had to fly down and end the ordeal by reading his living will to two doctors and the head nurse, twice.

Getting his affairs in Florida squared away meant I spent about 4 days in the palatial surrounds of his golf course community.  I couldn't find a mask on a face.  There was much talk about everyone that was dying.  There was lively discussion about the amazing benefits of the monoclonal antibody treatments (because, there is a treatment for everything you know) and how everyone seemed to know someone who'd survived it.  Yet they were dropping like flies.  On my drive back to Ohio, with my dad's girlfriend, we got a call from her Saturday golf gang.  Three of the seven had tested positive and the other four didn't feel well, but weren't going to get tested, because, you know, the lines.

And I am one of those people who compared contracting COVID-19 to enduring a rattlesnake bite, with the huge difference that you and the rattlesnake will back off if possible. Such is not so with the two-legged rattlesnake who can transmit COVID-19 without a bite. The mortality rate, I discovered, for those who got COVID-19 was about the same as for those who endured a rattler bite. I turned 65 almost right in time for anyone who was my age or older to get inoculated. I was able to use psoriasis as an excuse because it is an auto-immune disorder. 

I am one of the most militant people around about COVID-19 shots. Maybe I will live to a ripe old age and start living well with the aid of some rich widow (at least by my standard). Surf and turf might be a rare treat, but not having to question the wisdom of buying something other than the cheapest item on the menu at a middle-priced restaurant will be nice again. So will having a car that I am not delaying repairs on because I am broke and getting into trouble for. Who knows? Maybe I might take in some foreign sights.   

Quote:WTAF.  I still don't know what to make of it.  I'm told the same is the case in many of Florida's retirement communities, and we all know it's the same in many rural communities where fear trumps science.  The only words that come to mind are mass psychosis, or mass denial.  It's something I've really never encountered before, at least on such a scale.

I am one of the few people in my community of my age who isn't locked up in jail who has never been to Florida... but it is rural, and I see plenty of Trump banners, rattlesnake flags, and Confederate flags. Paradoxically this community made much of its heritage of fighting on the Union side in the Civil War, so the Confederate flag seems not only offensive but also absurd. And, yes, even banners that read F--K Biden. The more polite ones replace "UC" with a US flag. Some make no substitution.


(OK, here's a rattlesnake flag with which I have some solidarity even if I am not gay):  





OK, I have been gay-bashed, so you can imagine which side I am on with homophobia. It's not my responsibility to prove that I am straight, and I would rather be gay than a gay-basher. At least homosexuality is legal and consistent with a Good Life.  

Quote:I work with a lot of wildlife biologists.  Covid never comes up, because there is nothing to say.  It's obvious.  Just like EHD, or Chronic Wasting Disease in deer, or whorling disease in trout.  It runs it's course.  The weak, the aged and the ill equipped are culled from the herd.  Nature takes its course.  When covid comes up someone will say, "well, we all know what it will take for it to end", which is kind of a joke, because it never ends, it only lessens.  Natural selection is an ongoing process.

...Stupidity has never been a survival value except perhaps under a totalitarian regime in which thought is an act of resistance to tyranny. 

Quote:My son just got over covid.  My daughter had it last May and September.  No long term effects for either.  My ex wife and I have both avoided it by social distancing, masking up and getting all our shots.

I don't really have too many illusions about where this is all going with regard to covid.  The disease will do it's thing and then fall back into the background along side antibiotic resistant TB, the flu and a few others.  It wont be gone, but it wont be a global killer forever either.

They are lucky to have no long-term effects -- or at least none yet detected. 

Among those are:

long-term organ damage
diabetes
cognitive loss (yes, one gets stupider)
sexual dysfunction
stillbirths

Cancer and birth defects are yet to be established, but I would not be surprised.  
 

Quote:I do have questions about what the reaction to covid says about our future.  It is not simply America.  My friends in Europe share similar stories.  

So I've told you a story, and I've not proofed a word of it.

We have as a country made an investment of nearly one million lives in a harsh lesson about smug rejection of science and medicine. People have died because they rejected even the simplest and safest way in which to prevent COVID-19 or make its effect trivial. 

Yes, this country has some very creative, hard-working, rational people... but it also has its dolts. Just as damaging are those with selective blindness. COVID-19 has killed like a badly-bungled war, and many of us excuse those who diverted us with some miracle treatment such as monoclonal antibodies (a desperate solution), a horse de-wormer, and all sorts of quackery. Even faith healing. COVID-19 will enter the collective lore of the American experience. A disease that killed more Americans in one day than did either the Pearl Harbor attack or the 9-11 atrocity in one day should be an object of vehement hatred. 

COVID-19 has yet to show its full cultural effect... but it will have one. I wonder what equivalent we will have to 

Quote:Ring around the rosies,
A pocket full of posies, 
Ah-choo, ah-choo
All fall down!  

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-08-2022, 03:46 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: COVID-19 has yet to show its full cultural effect... but it will have one. I wonder what equivalent we will have to 

Quote:Ring around the rosies,
A pocket full of posies, 
Ah-choo, ah-choo
All fall down!  

Whatever form it will take, it will last as long as the generational memory, or less for the people who shut their minds.  Pandemics come from time to time.  By this time what to do is well known.  Some can be diverted away from common knowledge.

[Skabungus]

I'm right there with you on the "poverty" front pbrower2a.  I was doing well until wiped out in a divorce from my baby mama.  Since that time I've been raising my kids on my own.  They're a few years from college and I'm 60.  I don't plan to stop working, or living the thrifty life any time soon.  

My dad lived large because he felt he deserved it.  He could have paid for my college, but didn't.  He could have helped my disabled brother, but didn't.  He could have been a helpful force in the community but wasn't.  

I've long been considered by many to be a "prepper" since I was well prepared when the shortages hit in 2020. I'd been warning my neighbors for years that they were ill prepared should a disaster ever hit us.  Who knew?  Well, I did.  My prepper nature and sustainable farming practices coupled with our habit of clean living (no drugs, alcohol or TV) really stick out in a rural farming community where row crops and equipment dominate the landscape and wide screen TVs in every living room can be viewed from the road.  I'm the weirdo on the corner.  Or, I was the weirdo on the corner.  Now I'm the guy who had toilet paper in 2020.

My father's life of excess is not something I took on, or passed to my children.  The idea of having a house in the south and one in the north and playing golf and eating out every night is not among my aspirations.  The very thought of "retirement" as something to aspire to sounds downright stupid.  I can not imagine being consigned to simply live for entertainment.  It lacks purpose.  I'm not alone it this either.  I know plenty of people my age (early 60's) that feel the same.  Retirement was an experiment that lasted almost 3 generations and hasn't posted any real benefits to society at large.  

I've heard the arguments that go something like "well, when you retire, you can spend your time doing things with purpose, volunteering or helping your community!"  The track record for people doing this is really poor at best.  I also hear the whole "well, when you are retired you can pursue your passion full time because you won't have to work!!!"  This largely comes from people who have spend their lives working at something they have no passion for, which I find really sad to begin with.

My life choices made my father grimace.  I left a high paying job to pursue my passion and dumped the expensive hobbies and lifestyle to read books, carve wood and fly fish with my kids.  Most of the Boomers and Silents at work (yes, we still have a couple silents!) think I'm bat shit crazy, or part of a religious order that demands simplicity.  I've heard "are you ........ a Menonite?" more than once.  

Yet, I find a good number of people in Xer and Millie culture that think my choices seem pretty reasonable, and a surprising number of them are doing the same thing. 

I have the feeling the large lifestyles will be something we look back on and shake our collective heads about.

[pbrower2a]

Liz Cheney lost her re-election bid.

Kissing up to Donald Trump is nearly a necessity for getting along in Republican politics. We shall see if such is good in the general election.

[Eric the Green]

Shame on the people of Wyoming. I would never want to visit that state.

[David Horn]

(08-16-2022, 10:58 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Liz Cheney lost her re-election bid.

Kissing up to Donald Trump is nearly a necessity for getting along in Republican politics. We shall see if such is good in the general election.

(08-16-2022, 11:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Shame on the people of Wyoming. I would never want to visit that state.

According to an NY Times commentary I just read today, the Wyoming GOP is split between the elites (Cheney, et al) and the Blue Collars who hate them.  This neo-GOP of almost all blue collar voters iis slowly but surely pushing the elites aside and taking over most state and local political positions.  What do they want?  Validation!  In the end, they have stopped doing any of the things that government needs to do, and spend their time on identity politics of all kinds ... and punishing the elites for being, you know, elite.

This may be the first entity with a large enough concentration of hyper-partisans to actually deep six an entire state.  We'll have to see.

[pbrower2a]

(08-16-2022, 11:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Shame on the people of Wyoming. I would never want to visit that state.

Yellowstone and Grand Teton, maybe Devil's Tower, but that's it.

[pbrower2a]

(08-17-2022, 09:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-16-2022, 10:58 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Liz Cheney lost her re-election bid.

Kissing up to Donald Trump is nearly a necessity for getting along in Republican politics. We shall see if such is good in the general election.

(08-16-2022, 11:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Shame on the people of Wyoming. I would never want to visit that state.

According to an NY Times commentary I just read today, the Wyoming GOP is split between the elites (Cheney, et al) and the Blue Collars who hate them.  This neo-GOP of almost all blue collar voters iis slowly but surely pushing the elites aside and taking over most state and local political positions.  What do they want?  Validation!  In the end, they have stopped doing any of the things that government needs to do, and spend their time on identity politics of all kinds ... and punishing the elites for being, you know, elite.

This may be the first entity with a large enough concentration of hyper-partisans to actually deep six an entire state.  We'll have to see.

The blue-collar are heavily involved in energy extraction (oil, natural gas, and open-pit coal mining) or such activities as vehicle repair in which they are dependent upon bosses and scared into compliance on politics. Related are people in restaurants and food retailing who get the worst of both the white-collar and blue-collar worlds and are under the thumb of ownership. 

Not very often do Wyoming voters get to vote against elites, but this time they did, voting out Liz Cheney for trying to hold the political idol of many of them to account for his crimes. Wyoming has no large cities. The largest is Cheyenne, at 65K; Casper is at 59K; and Laramie is at 32K. Most states have suburbs bigger than these "cities".  Indiana, arguably the state in which the concept of "suburb" is least developed for a middling state in population, has Noblesville (69K), Carmel (101K), Merrillville (36K), and Mishawaka* (51K), none of which you would know about unless you had connections to Indiana (especially living there).   

Wyoming is weird in many ways, and few of them positive... if there were a contest to dis-establish states it would probably be the loser due to its small population and lack of cohesion. Its state capitol is located close to the state lines of two states. Only Trenton, new Jersey makes less sense as the location of a state capitol.   Rawlins, Cheyenne and Laramie might as well be in Colorado in view of their orientation in economics and media. Casper would make sense as a city in Nebraska. Jackson seems more connected to Idaho or Montana than to Rawlins, Laramie, Cheyenne, or Casper. Southwestern Wyoming (Rock Springs, Evanston) would fit Utah now that that Mormons have abandoned that polygamy thingie for over a century. The state has no real center. Thermopolis (population 2725 in 2020) is the biggest city in the middle of the state, which tells how empty the middle of Wyoming is. Someone must have thought it cute to have two states with the blandest shape (a rectangle) possible. OK, North Dakota and South Dakota should have been one state. 

* I swear that Mishawaka is the model for the fictional Pawnee, Indiana of Parks and Recreation!