Yes, you'd have to do the whole thing over, so the workaround seems sensible.



I think they have less reason to feel bitter this time. Biden won because Dems want him not because the DNC conspired against Bernie etc. As Hanover loves to point out, America is a conservative country on the whole. There were certain states where Bernie just had no chance and that was enough to tank him.

Registered American voters only, please. — Relativist

Fair enough. If I were one, I would vote for whoever the Green Party nominate. You need the option "other" in there.

That parade was organized by the city authorities. I'm asking if it had been privately organized, how would have that made a difference? One way or the other, the local government had the power to either let it go ahead or stop it.

What? So, if the parade had been privately organized, the government shouldn't have stepped in and stopped it if they knew it would likely cause thousands of deaths?

I think any citizen who was concerned about his health, given sufficient education, may avoid public gatherings without first being told to do so by some bureaucrat — NOS4A2

Yes, they may, but we've just established that in practice, they don't. And you've agreed the bureaucrats (government) would have been right to step in and shut down the parade in the example I gave. Again, your position is self-contradictory.

I’m not sure why a government would hold a parade during a pandemic of such proportions. I can only wonder how it might have been had they not done so — NOS4A2

It might have been that most of those people wouldn't have died. So, yes, the government should have stopped it because they, not the citizenry, are ultimately responsible for decisions regarding public health and safety. And the citizenry should be able to reasonably presume if events such as this are given the go-ahead, they're relatively safe. In other words, the government are in a better position to combat pandemics because they have the power cut through confusion and misinformation and act decisively for the public good.

I would argue that the citizenry can do better to suppress the spread of the virus than a government. But given that entire generations since then have been raised in a cradle-to-the-grave environment, perhaps these days dependency on authority is stronger than self-reliance. — NOS4A2

So, your position doesn't seem coherent to me. It's part of a government's job to combat massive threats to public safety. Individuals are responsible for their own safety to a large degree obviously, but they can only enact this responsibility in the social and legal context the government creates for them. For example, if the government tells you you can stay home from work, your ability to protect yourself from a pandemic greatly increases. That is not dependency, that's a properly functioning society.

Which is depending on government to deal with a pandemic, no?

Yet you said earlier:

The profound dependence on governments to deal with pandemic is to me more frightening than the pandemic itself. — NOS4A2

But you simply cannot avoid the fact that coordination is absolutely crucial. — ssu

That's where government comes in. Look how bad Italy is now and imagine what it would be like if they hadn't been put on lockdown (even more so re China). The danger is of a whole health system collapsing. Not just for Covid sufferers, but for everyone. And panic, looting, and so on. The infection curve is exponential and if you don't catch that quick enough with coordinated and enforced government action, you could end up with social collapse. That's not hyperbole. It's a real possibility and sacrificing a few freedoms in the short term is a small price to pay to prevent it becoming a reality.

Look at the graph comparing the Spanish Flu outcomes in Philadelphia and St Louis. Many more died in Philadelphia because the government failed to take action to stop the parade during the pandemic. Should they have acted or not?

I think it's absolutely wrong to play politics, especially delusional politics, with a life and death situation like this. But it's obvious what he's doing, and it's fairly easy to counter if you have the stomach for dealing with him. You can also report his posts. If a consensus develops in the mod team that @NOS4A2 is indeed a troll with an agenda, action will be taken. (And that goes for anyone who's reported. Now let's get back on topic).

The Spanish Flu killed tens of millions. And here's an example from the time of why strong government intervention is necessary.

"In 1918, the city of Philadelphia threw a parade that killed thousands of people. Ignoring warnings of influenza among soldiers preparing for World War I, the march to support the war effort drew 200,000 people who crammed together to watch the procession. Three days later, every bed in Philadelphia’s 31 hospitals was filled with sick and dying patients, infected by the Spanish flu.

By the end of the week, more than 4,500 were dead in an outbreak that would claim as many as 100 million people worldwide. By the time Philadelphia’s politicians closed down the city, it was too late."

https://qz.com/1816060/a-chart-of-the-1918-spanish-flu-shows-why-social-distancing-works/

This really is enough to highlight the inanity of the type of things @NOS4A2 is saying. No doubt he will continue to say them anyway.

People are dying because of that kind of ignorant attitude. Please don't play politics with this and go crawl back under the rock you crawled out from under.

Here's the reality folks. If Italy had acted sooner, this may not have happened. Death rate there stands at 6%.



https://nypost.com/2020/03/12/italian-actor-luca-franzese-pleads-for-help-in-video-showing-dead-sister/

Absolutely. It's all very relative to the economic context.

A prelude to the entire election campaign. Just imagine the ads.

Yes, been through this.

that's why I am more concerned with electibility. — Relativist

So you consider a weak, obviously mentally impaired, candidate who will be mauled in the debates against Trump to be more electable than one of the best speakers around who could fight him on his own populist ground? Yes, the name "Biden" is more electable in theory, but this is what you're putting up. And it's only going to get worse.



So, @Artemis is bang on. The electability argument is going to look very foolish come November.

The problem is when there's a national crisis you need someone serious in office to deal with it not a moron. All those who thought it was fun to vote for an ignorant clown to run the country are having their circus thoroughly pissed on.

I was being somewhat tongue in cheek there.

I don't think even Biden can stop the Biden juggernaut now. And he's winning fair and square, so no complaints. It's bizarre considering he's barely awake most of the time. But there you go.

If money's their aim, they should never have kids, never marry, and never hire Hanover to do their taxes. But no, the point you just made isn't objectionable to me.

Anyway, weren't we talking about Bernie? It could be all over for him in a few hours.

Oh, and @BitconnectCarlos, Brookings isn't left-wing, it's not even liberal.

"Brookings states that its staff "represent diverse points of view" and describes itself as non-partisan, and various media outlets have alternately described Brookings as "conservative", "centrist" or "liberal".
...
As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Brookings describes itself as independent and non-partisan. A 2005 academic study by UCLA concluded it was "centrist" because it was referenced as an authority almost equally by both conservative and liberal politicians in congressional records from 1993 to 2002."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookings_Institution

I'll put that down to ignorance as well.

American conservatives are not allowed tell people not to have children or not to get married. It goes against Family values™. Hence why this is ideologically-loaded garbage.

(My rules for staying out of poverty:

1) Don't have children
2) Don't get married.

It's that easy.)

The study was done by brookings institute... it's a left wing think tank. — BitconnectCarlos

Ron Haskins: The guy who wrote the study:

"Beginning in 1986, he spent 14 years on the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee and was subsequently appointed to be the Senior Advisor to President Bush for Welfare Policy.... Haskins previously co-chaired the Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission appointed by Speaker Paul Ryan."

https://www.brookings.edu/experts/ron-haskins/

A conservative, and not just any conservative, an activist anti-welfare conservative who wrote, amongst other things, a book called "Work Over Welfare".

I'll just charitably assume you were ignorant of all that when you tried to pass this off as left-wing.

So, what prevented them with coming up with the rule: Don't have children. Period? Oh, I know, that would conflict with conservative ideology, which is what this is obviously really about.

Yes, better stay away from Hansover anyway unless you like the view from under the floorboards.

Foiled again.

You need to tighten up before you go bonkers. Qualify yourself for something. Get a job. I believe @Hanover gives live-in courses in ambulance chasing. He's in Atlanta. You can get there by Greyhound. Do it.

What's a lazy question since it got brought up? — Shawn

That.

How about "lazy questions"? Is that less above your pay grade?

Thanking you. :halo:

Both. It just depends.



We stopped it for him.

All Biden has to do to win is not lose his mind completely before November. Americans don't vote primarily on issues, they vote for who they'd most be willing to sit down and have a beer with.

(The problem is you don't listen to us. At the same time we don't want to ban you. The way that conundrum is eventually dissolved is down to you.)

Here's a moderation philosophy for you: "everything in moderation".

He wasn't looking for a gf. I can tell you that much.

Most recently there was this.

You really want 80 lashes, don't you? ;-)

If you plead that you are only a slave, and they believe you, then the lashing will be reduced to just 40. ;-)

I would love to watch that: 80 vigorously administered lashes. Remember Michael Fay? He got four strokes of the cane in Singapore. If you keep saying that kind of things to random people then one day or the other you will be able to say hello on my behalf to the vigilante who will lash your butt to smithereens! ;-) — alcontali

And no it's not a joke. He had already been warned for religious misogyny etc.



You're next on the list for continuously posting low-effort OPs in the main categories. I've had to delete four or five in just the last few days. For the very last time, stop doing that.

Banned @alcontali for religiously-inspired extremism.

@fishfry suffers from a particularly virulent form of LDS (left derangement syndrome). Red man = bad. Reading his posts at least gives an insight into how the powered and privileged have convinced much of the country that everything not in the interests of a tiny wealthy elite is "socialism" Mao! Stalin! Castro! :scream: There is no vaccine for that except the ability to think.

Make that 2 pages.