Clinton, eh? I don’t understand the whataboutism but it’s not surprising given that you fell for and helped propel a conspiracy theory for a few years. Finnish meddling, I suppose. If there was an American civil war I already know which side you’d take.

Why ask me?

You said the riot was incited to keep him in power. Surely you know if anyone has been charged with inciting the riot, and their intentions to keep him in power.

It wasn't.

Was anyone charged and convicted of inciting a riot or insurrection?



Your definition says nothing about halting democratic processes, though, so I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

Trump was in power on the 6th.

Were the riots outside of the Whitehouse in 2020 an insurrection, then?

Do you believe it was a violent uprising against the government?

They didn’t need to fabricate conspiracy theories to do it. All they had to do was get Clinton alone with an intern and give him a microphone.

Right, “an attack on democracy”. A no more fatuous string of words can be uttered.

The only insurrection and coup attempts were the activities of the deep state and anti-Trump forces in both parties and in the media, who spent the majority of their time trying to stifle, discredit, and remove Trump from office during his presidency, the will of the people be damned. Right now they are actively attempting to prohibit him from running again. So much for democracy.

The notion of “incitement” is magical thinking. Such a view of the nature of man and expression represents an overestimation of the power of speech. This is also true with any assumption like the one that expression can “bring about change”, even if the most rousing homily could never move a feather, let alone anything of greater significance.

We ought not to censor people for the simple reason we do not need to. We control speech, not the other way around.

I’m a registered independent. This party has yet to deceive me. If there is evidence of any insurrection I’ll be sure to doff my hat.

“Mostly peaceful protest”.

At worst, a riot.

Warren, who had received three shots of a coronavirus vaccine, added that she was experiencing only mild symptoms and was “grateful for the protection provided against serious illness that comes from being vaccinated & boosted.”

Booker said Sunday that he first felt symptoms the previous day and that they were “relatively mild.”
“I’m beyond grateful to have received two doses of vaccine and, more recently a booster — I’m certain that without them I would be doing much worse,” Booker said in a statement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/19/sen-warren-tests-positive-coronavirus-says-she-is-grateful-protection-vaccines-booster-shot/

More examples of fully vaccinated people with boosters spreading the virus. Now we know the claim that a vaccinated (and now boosted) populace will bring us out of the pandemic was a false promise. Politicians lied and people died.

There was no insurrection.

Of course. Only retired officers open their mouth ...and for a reason. Basically it's the Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that speaks on behalf of the armed forces in this kind of issues. And he has had to make points that usually one doesn't make. Like mentioning that the armed forces is there to defend the constitution and doesn't pledge allegiance to any person (like you do).

The retired Obama and Clinton-supporting generals weave media articles with their own fears in order to knit an anti-Trump narrative, which will surely become another self-fulfilling prophesy, like the Russia hoax and the insurrection hoax. There is no military involved here. It’s politics, and they’re trying to convince congress to punish their political opponents.

Hey, if you're a 36-year old mom and your 4-year old daughter is with the grandparents at another city for the weekend, you go with your husband to parrrty!!!

Not if you’re leading a country and should be avoiding contact with others, as your own government recommends.

In Canada you cannot vote for the leader of the country and the military pledge allegiance to the Queen of England. Yeah, it’s real great. At least In Finland your leader gets to go clubbing.

That's called doing their job.

They were retired.

The article is a trifle piece of deep-state dinner-theater, as are the others. But the generals finally get to the meat of the matter when they suggest odious state and military tactics to silence dissent and mutiny. It’s no good when the military meddles in politics.

It’s clear to me that these kinds of restrictions created a false sense of security among the compliant. But if the omicron variant is involved, it’s not clear social distancing measures would have stopped anything.

The omicron variant has been identified in two coronavirus cases in a Hong Kong quarantine hotel where scientists believe the virus spread through the air in a hallway.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/24/hong-kong-valve-face-mask-covid/

Cornell University reports more than 900 Covid-19 cases this week. Many are Omicron variant cases in fully vaccinated students

"Virtually every case of the Omicron variant to date has been found in fully vaccinated students, a portion of whom had also received a booster shot," said Vice President for University Relations Joel Malina in a statement.

As of result, the school has decided to shut down its Ithaca, New York, campus, where it has about 25,600 students. Cornell's overall vaccination rate among students is 97%.

[ … ]

The school has a mandatory vaccination policy for students, with exemptions for religious or medical issues. All unvaccinated students and many vaccinated students are required to take part in surveillance testing. Mask wearing indoors is compulsory.

Employees must be vaccinated by January 18. Ninety-seven percent of people on campus are fully vaccinated, the university says on its website.

"Cornell is not requiring members of our community to receive a booster at this time; however, as breakthrough cases continue to occur, we encourage you to consider receiving a booster," officials said.

An institution with a mandatory vaccination policy, compulsory mask policy, and surveillance testing has become a den of superspreaders. So what will they think of next?

For me it’s a matter of conscience. Weigh the good (the exposure of war crimes, transparency, knowledge of how the govt. spends our money, election meddling) with the bad (not sure what the bad is). If I ask myself if Assange deserves this treatment the answer is clearly “no”.

2. I noticed he's not in U.S. custody. So there's that. Here he'd be on easy street and he'd probably be out by now after community service; or found not guilty.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years. When the corrupt US justice system investigates, charges, and sentences someone under The Espionage Act, it is no joke. The history of the act itself is littered with free speech and human rights abuses.

By any moral measure, not only did Assange do nothing wrong, he was doing good. The United States government, it’s allies in Europe, are the bad guys in this affair.

This pre-print is interesting, though I wouldn’t know enough to dispute or confirm either way.

Evaluating the number of unvaccinated people needed to exclude to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmissions

Background:

Vaccine mandates and vaccine passports (VMVP) for SARS-CoV-2 are thought to be a path out of the pandemic by increasing vaccination through coercion and excluding unvaccinated people from different settings because they are viewed as being at significant risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2. While variants and waning efficacy are relevant, SARS-CoV-2 vaccines reduce the risk of infection, transmission, and severe illness/hospitalization in adults. Thus, higher vaccination levels are beneficial by reducing healthcare system pressures and societal fear. However, the benefits of excluding unvaccinated people are unknown.

Conclusion

Vaccines are beneficial, but the high NNEs suggest that excluding unvaccinated people has negligible benefits for reducing transmissions in many jurisdictions across the globe. This is because unvaccinated people are likely not at significant risk – in absolute terms – of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to others in most types of settings since current baseline transmission risks are negligible. Consideration of the harms of exclusion is urgently needed, including staffing shortages from losing unvaccinated healthcare workers, unemployment/unemployability, financial hardship for unvaccinated people, and the creation of a class of citizens who are not allowed to fully participate in many areas of society.

...by participating in a show trial with a kangaroo court. It's the kind of "investigation" that has its own twitter account and youtube channel, and the members are all chosen by Nancy Pelosi. Now insurrection conspiracy theorists get to watch her try to embarrass her critics by releasing their texts to the public, all on their favorite social media platforms. Meanwhile, real investigations have turned up nothing.

No, Chaney is proving to be nothing more than an arrogant megalomaniacal neocon like her father.

I was only saying I don’t think you were necessarily speaking about defending society, but another group, the State.

Presuming that dissent and nonconformity will be punished, this necessarily leads to the censorship and punishment of some members of society, probably a minority, for the benefit of another. If the minority is a part of society, their suppression will only serve to suppress a part of society rather than defend the whole of it. It reminds me of the expression “Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face”.

As such, far from a society adopting the unwritten format, it will need to be perpetually forced. How a society should force such a format on itself is not made clear but we do know we have tried to change man with law, compulsion, and religions of various kinds throughout history, and the result is nothing to be proud of.

Exactly.

U.S. study suggests COVID-19 vaccines may be ineffective against Omicron without booster

It’s not looking good. I suspect that they’ll widen the goal posts, determine that those who are fully vaccinated are in fact not, and exclude the vaccinated from various aspects of normal life until they get the next Pfizer wonder drug.

Yikes, people are getting angry their conspiracy theories are being criticized. They await further orders from Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, and Chris Cuomo.

Do you think there is some magical spell that stops the virus?
It's about stemming the tide, containing, tracking, learning.

Some of your comments can't be differentiated from paranoia.

No. You can only stop a virus by not letting is spread to others. But there is no evidence governments can accomplish this task. So why let them?

The irresponsible fear of President Trump using the military to "steal the election" was regnant in the press leading up to Jan. 6th, so much so that acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller testified that the hysterics lead him to refuse to send National Guard troops to the capitol building (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lht8T3VDUPE). This same hysteria differed little from the QAnon conspiracy theories, and probably fuelled it, even though Trump declared such reporting as "fake news".

Ex-head of Capitol Police Steven Sund asked for national guard help from security officials in both the house and senate, but was refused due to "optics", just he was when he had a joint call with the Pentagon. It wasn't until around 3pm that Defense Secretary Christopher Miller finally deployed the National Guard, who finally arrived after 5pm.

Within that time Trump made a series of tweets and videos asking the rioters for peace, to stop the violence, to respect law and order, and to go home. The press secretary also said the National Guard and federal law enforcement were deployed at Trump's request. Out of all the powers involved—the mayor of DC, house and senate security officials, the pentagon—Trump was the only one to mobilize forces.

Further investigation reveals FBI finds scant evidence U.S. Capitol attack was coordinated, so any notion of coup or insurrection are derived from the same hysteria that hindered the military, security officials and law enforcement in the first place.

So what is your version of events?

Do you mean to say in this particular case or during all or most outbreaks of disease?

In relation to this pandemic, compulsory vaccinations, and vaccine passports.

Is that the extent of your argument, Tim? blind and baffled rage?

I don't see anyone in these texts desiring the events that unfolded that day. It appears no one desired it, and in fact actively worked to stop it. It's no strange wonder that the president called in the national guard, mobilized federal law enforcement, and worked swiftly to end it. Far from "attacking our democracy", they protected it.

I don't consider the unvaccinated special, but governments worldwide consider the unvaccinated special enough to keep them out of participating in many aspects of the market, their jobs, in some cases denying them access to free healthcare (Singapore), to board a plane (Canada), to shopping in malls and other retail, and even hospitals (France). In Austria, one can be fined $4000 a month by virtue of the absence of Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZenica in his blood.

Of course if you threaten to fire people because they do not want a vaccination, or deny them access to any facet of a free society—dining, entertainment, shopping, travel, free healthcare—many will fall in line. Coercion and threat and state force are powerful means to get people to do what you want. The point is it is morally wrong for a government to coerce people by threatening to take their rights away, and if they do not abide, to take their rights away.

I’m not fond of speaking in such groups and groupthink, but I am capable of it. At any rate, I do not believe such groups have moralities or a collective conscience and are nothing more than loose aggregates of individuals.

Those texts really throw the insurrection theory out the window. It’s kind of weird they’re making a big deal of it.

Generally "discriminatory" is considered an unjustified distinction, like race, age, or sex. Refusal to participate in a public health matter is a justified distinction even if considered disagreeable. The threshold for keeping an endemic wave from spiking is pretty sensitive and the R value of the mutations seems to be increasing. Lastly, people just aren't used to having to manage outbreaks of infection. Power granted to the government regarding matters of public health have been understood to be necessary for centuries. If a man wants to live as an island then he ought not complain when finding himself on one.

One can show prejudice against any category of people, of whatever status. This category of people in particular, for whatever reason, do not want these chemicals injected into their body, as is their right. Other categories of people are required to prove their medical history, which is no one else’s business. But because of their status the unvaccinated are being denied access to many components of ordinary life, even if they are at relatively no risk of illness, or have antibodies, and have zero coronavirus on their person.

None of it stops the spread of coronavirus.

Okay, I'm going to break my rule in the OP by mentioning a venn diagram. (Yes, I know I promised no use of other means) But here's the thing -- the majority of the member of society dictate the morality of that society. There are the minority, which include the dissenters, those who engage in crimes against society. And yes they are part of the society. And what did we just accomplish by stating the obvious that they are part of society? We've accomplished saying more words that don't add to this discussion.

The morality of any group of individuals in society is the morality of any group of individuals in society, but not of society itself. By stating the obvious we make clear that we are not talking about society’s right to defend itself, but of a group of people’s right to enforce their morality on others, thereby fracturing society and putting it against itself.

The mandates I speak of are official orders from governments. These orders require private establishments to enforce discriminatory government policy, or risk fine and other punishments. These policies have been implemented around the globe, if you weren’t aware.