polite requests to mask, distance and vax, — James Riley

That's laughable. My employer's "polite" request was "Get the vaccine or get fired, and fuck all the times you had our back." Getting fired means no income, because the employer is the entire province, so no job, no house, no pension, and I would have to move. All in, it would have cost me about 2.7 million to stand on my ethics and refuse the injection. SO yeah, in light of losing everything I have spent the last 30 years working for if I said no, I got the injection. It won't do shit anyway, but I get to keep working. Only now I have less respect for my employer, and I would love to park my truck on the CEO's face.

And that is company morale there.

30 years of "Do not discriminate" messaging and programs and the government puts in the mother of all discrimination programs. I hope Covid gets them all, short sighted bastards.

Well said!

, "progressive liberal" — Harry Hindu

Yep. They just want handouts.

Collectivism is not about government handouts. — frank

Indeed. Much like in my example, it is about coercion, bribery and indoctrination.

(sorry, "left" and 'right" just cause confusion. It's collectivist and liberal.) — frank

I prefer the term "authoritarianism", for which collectivism is a euphemism. If 'liberal' means freedom-loving, then by all means I am a liberal.

Collectivism is not about government handouts.
— frank

Indeed. Much like in my example, it is about coercion, bribery and indoctrination. — Tzeentch

Collectivism definitely has a dark side, but at base, it's a natural feature of the human potential.

I prefer the term "authoritarianism", for which collectivism is a euphemism. — Tzeentch

No, there's authoritarian liberalism. A collective can be democratic in theory. You'd just need citizens who aren't selfish pricks (and I mean that affectionately).

Let it run. — Book273

Let SARS-CoV-2 replicate propagate mutate unchecked with no containment efforts, leaving whatever in its wake?

[...] I got the injection. It won't do shit anyway, but I get to keep working. Only now I have less respect for my employer, and I would love to park my truck on the CEO's face. — Book273

:D So you got the jab and are still around to whine about it huh huh...

Did you grow an extra arm yet? (pix or dint happen)

No, there's authoritarian liberalism. — frank

That seems like an oxymoron to me. I think someone who is considered an authoritarian liberal is in fact just simply an authoritarian.

A collective can be democratic in theory. — frank

And democracies can be authoritarian or tyrannical, if the system or the majority has rotten enough.

That seems like an oxymoron to me. I think someone who is considered an authoritarian liberal is in fact just simply an authoritarian. — Tzeentch

Hayek said he favored authoritarian liberalism in some circumstances, but he thought democracy should always be tempered because it's too easy to subvert. When a democracy has been taken over completely by one faction in society, he calls that totalitarian.

And democracies can be authoritarian or tyrannical, if the system or the majority has rotten enough. — Tzeentch

Exactly.

So we will never defeat Covid unless 100% of the world's population is vaccinated? Then Covid will never be defeated because you will never reach 100% world vaccination. — Harry Hindu

Look into polio, small pox, etc.

My employer's "polite" request was "Get the vaccine or get fired, — Book273

Only because too many people refused to mask and distance when politely asked. It will step up from here, and really get draconian if people don't accept polite requests. It already has. Some people have died, while others are incapacitated.

I got the injection. — Book273

Good. Now mask and distance. You can still catch and spread even though you are vaxxed. It's not 100%.

If government governs effectively, it is oppressive.
If government governs ineffectively, it is incompetent.
If government does not govern at all, it is incompetent.
If government is obstructed by individuals, it is oppressive and incompetent.

It reminds me again, of children (and some of the arguments made on TPF) who hate their parents for bringing them into this world, against their will, without any choice, and then believe their parents thus owe them for the rest of their lives. The parents can't teach those kids anything, once they become adults. It is always some other person that teaches them. And it's usually the hard way.

Government is just a big meanie. :cry:

We do not. Let it run. ALL of our attempts to control it thus far have resulted in epic failure, — Book273

What do you mean by "we" and "our"?

"Our" epic failure is because "we" didn't do shit. "We" sat around and complained and didn't do anything until someone threatened "our" privilege, and even then "we" reluctantly went out and got a vax. But "we" are probably still not masking or distancing because "we" are sticking it to the man.

Polio, Small Pox, etc. Not so much. That was "we" and "our". There is no "we" or "our" any more. "We" are now all rebels without a cause.

Basic civics according to Mussolini.

“There is a Liberal theory of freedom, and there is a Fascist concept of liberty. For we, too, maintain the necessity of safeguarding the conditions that make for the free development of the individual; we, too, believe that the oppression of individual personality can find no place in the modern state. We do not, however, accept a bill of rights which tends to make the individual superior to the state and to empower him to act in opposition to society. Our concept of liberty is that the individual must be allowed to develop his personality in behalf of the state, for these ephemeral and infinitesimal elements of the complex and permanent life of society determine by their normal growth the development of the state. But this individual growth must be normal. A huge and disproportionate development of the individual of classes, would prove as fatal to society as abnormal growths are to living organisms. Freedom therefore is due to the citizen and to classes on condition that they exercise it in the interest of society as a whole and within the limits set by social exigencies, liberty being, like any other individual right, a concession of the state.”

Jackboots, brown shirts, service. — NOS4A2

^ I think this is a home run. The same people who use “fascism” as a catch-all term for everything bad have straightforwardly adopted it as their politics.

To add, a while ago I read The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton; I remember he emphasises in fascism the role of war-waging as way of giving the chosen collective its purpose, and how it uses the fervency war generates as fuel for the fascist program. And what is the popular analogy for this situation we’re in? We’re fighting, so we’re told, a war...

We’re fighting, so we’re told, a war... — AJJ

Yeah, against a virus. And we're losing because so many people support the virus. Good thing we won the war against polio, small pox etc. Or did we? Hmmmm.

You’re a fascist, Harry.

You’re a fascist, Harry. — AJJ

Fascism, like white supremacy and Covid, was not wiped out in WWII and the Civil War and now. So yeah, now we have to keep dealing with the variants: Neo-Nazis, White Power and Delta. There's a lesson in there somewhere, but since we are human, there's no sense hoping we'd learn.

Now it’s you. Read the Mussolini quote; read Robert Paxton’s book; your politics appear unambiguously to be fascist.

Now it’s you. Read the Mussolini quote; read Robert Paxton’s book; your politics appear unambiguously to be fascist. — AJJ

By his definition, all states are fascist. What's next, no true Scotsman? What's you're recommendation? No state?

They are now, because they offered it to us and you accepted.

They are now, because they offered it to us and you accepted. — AJJ

You have to put your comments in context or they cannot be understood. Who is doing what now, because they offered what to us and I accepted what? I thought we were talking about a Mussolini quote?

Since the vaccines don't prevent transmission of the virus, I'm not sure if they reduce the risk of mutations.

On the one hand, yes, people who have been vaccinated get infected at lower rates. On the other hand, evidence from livestock shows that partial immunizations that reduce the severity of a disease but still allow transmission between the immunized tends to make diseases more lethal. Variants that would otherwise die out due to killing their hosts too quickly are allowed to proliferate.

Marek's disease is a classic example. Through the 1950s it rarely killed chickens. Industrial scale vaccination allowed highly lethal variants to survive. The result is that the mortality rate for MDV climbed from less than 1% to virtually 100% in unvaccinated birds over 70 years.

COVID is somewhat similar in that countries with very high rates of inoculation are now seeing the highest spread of the disease.

So, the risk in the long term would be that you turn a not particularly lethal disease that overwhelmingly effected the elderly significantly into a more generally lethal disease. However, the cat is already out of the bag on immunizations so the best option would be to develop a vaccine that actually prevents transmission and holds up longer than a few months. And it's worth noting that chickens don't die off from waves of MDV, they just have to be vaccinated. But it does create a problem where disruptions in vaccine supply chains that weren't a major problem before can become dire.

The Mussolini quote describes your own view. Paxton’s book emphasises a feature of fascism that we’re finding in rhetoric such as yours.

Agreed. As a more recent example, too much ink was spilled about the rise in authoritarianism in the lead up to the pandemic, how it was such a threat to liberal democracy. But they were wrong about where it would come from. They never predicted that it would come from the institutions of liberal democracies themselves.

The Mussolini quote describes your own view. Paxton’s book emphasises a feature of fascism that we’re finding in rhetoric such as yours. — AJJ

Like I said, the Mussolini quote is so broad as to be meaningless, hence the "no true Scotsman" reference. I suppose you would want a state to destroy itself on the whims of an individual? Oh, wait, that's what Mussolini and Hitler did. So I guess you were wrong. The fact I use seat belts, don't speed, get a small pox and polio vax makes me a fascist? :roll:

They never predicted that it would come from the institutions of liberal democracies themselves. — NOS4A2

They were right. It didn't.

It’s not that broad.

It’s not that broad. — AJJ

The quote is that broad. Individualism = good but individualism can't threaten collective. That is literally every single group on earth. If you want to walk into a bar in Wyoming, you mind your manners.

Liberty and individual growth in behalf of the state. Freedom a concession of the state. A “Fascist concept of liberty”. It isn’t that broad.

Liberty and individual growth in behalf of the state. — AJJ

What part of "allowed to" did you not understand?

And:

For we, too, maintain the necessity of safeguarding the conditions that make for the free development of the individual; we, too, believe that the oppression of individual personality can find no place in the modern state. — NOS4A2

We are experiencing this, now:

A huge and disproportionate development of the individual of classes, would prove as fatal to society as abnormal growths are to living organisms. — NOS4A2

But it's the 1% and the Libertarians that are the parasites. Can you say Trump?

Freedom a concession of the state — AJJ

Again, you are free to walk into a bar in Wyoming, but the freedom to do so is a concession of the owners and the local yokals. You mind your fucking manners or you'll get your ass beat. Don't like it? Feel free to exercise your freedom to stay out and go somewhere like Somalia or Afghanistan where the evil state doesn't exist.

You’re agreeing with and providing support for rhetoric spoken by Mussolini.