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Just to be clear, you are calling people with three page vaccination sheets who do not want this particular experimental vaccine “anti-vaxxers?” And you are calling the huge number of Democrat voting minorities electing not to receive the COVID vaccine “Trump supporters?” Do you think those with natural immunity should be forced to vaccinate? Do you think it makes you sound smart to falsely label people? Or is name-calling just a sad outlet to vent frustration in lieu of cogent thought? I am vaccinated, still got COVID, and am 100% against forcing my kids to get this injection. There are idiosyncrasies here that should be considered rationally.

While the fall out for Biden will be hilarious to watch, I am in huge support of this. Maybe we can take off our masks for good, at least on base. Nothing is more BS than being vaccinated yet having to wear a mask again.

What makes you think any of us will be able to take our masks off?

Thats not true. The vast majority of people with covid either dont know they ever had it or have mild symptoms. Some people get flu like symptoms that kick their ass for a few days, but the # of people hospitalized vs + cases does not support your statement.

If I get COVID, I have a 99.9% chance of living (source: CDC, my age group). It’s actually higher than that since that includes all the comorbidity deaths, but close enough for discussions sake. VAERS is reporting 0.27% rate of adverse events amongst my age group. So from a statistical standpoint, I incur more risk of an adverse event from the vaccine than I gain in decreased risk of death. Now, we’re splitting RCHs like you read about (well, before the 2013 purge anyways), so maybe that’s the point…there’s so little to be gained (statistically) for a healthy individual when it comes down to an unemotional risk vs. reward standpoint. Now before you stop reading, know this is a baseline assessment - throw in factors like high risk family members at home, you’re not a healthy individual (whether your fault or not), etc. can logically out prioritize the above. Now throw in more subjective factors: - knowing people who have died, or are currently suffering long term negative effects, from the vaccine (anecdotal, but you can’t discount that factor in someone’s thought process) - suppression of information/voices that cast negative light on, or question the vaccine - The very authoritarian way the govt has pursued vaccination with a shocking rate of goal post moving, “experts” being completely wrong an inconceivable amount of times (but you should still completely follow what we say without question), etc. - No longterm data on this vaccine…that’s a fact, but subjective on the definition of “long term” So, it’s not hard to see how people make a very rational decision to not get the vaccine in the near term. Just the same as people make a rational decision to get the vaccine for various reasons. But, to make a statistical-based argument for healthy people to get the vaccine (without knowing their personal situation) is just pissing into the wind. Even worse is refusing to acknowledge this and attacking those who chose opposite of you. I believe people can choose either way while doing so logically and rationally, depending on their specific life circumstances.

And the taxpayers are forced to pay for it at the end of the gun

Dude, you’re wasting your time. Your view may be based on the facts but those facts are counter to the political narrative of the current administration, and more disappointingly the counter-American service members on this forum. You’ll never get them to admit they’re perfectly fine admitting illegals to the country en masse because it will ensure their party has a better chance at maintaining power. The illegals are simply a tool to facilitate the agenda, any consequence of their leeching off of the country can easily be rectified with higher taxes.

Politics today. A governor getting recalled, another one about to get legitimately impeached, state legislators on the run, a shell president who is losing his mental capacities, trillions and trillions of dollars being spent, inflation at a 13 year high, open borders, unnecessary lockdowns, people getting paid more to stay home, etc. I’d say things are going really well!

US-Mexico border arrests in June are highest in at least a decade - CNNPolitics After Border Patrol release, asylum-seekers test positive for Covid in Brownsville, Texas (nbcnews.com) The border remains an absolute shit show and I honestly think its the hot button item that pisses me off the most about this administration. Open borders and shipping COVID positive illegals around the country meanwhile lecturing the rest of the American public about how we need to keep up the fight against COVID. If you cared so much about COVID maybe you wouldn't let hundreds of thousands of people stream across our border in less than 6 months. It's become quite obvious that the border is being purposely left open as there has literally been zero action to stop this. And it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that its likely a democrat plan to use demographic change to ensure votes. Actually pretty disgusting when you really think about it and its really infuriating that it seems this administration cares more about non-citizens than actual Americans.

Clearly you did not actually read most of the posts from the "anti-vax crowd." Most of them had absolutely nothing to do with spite. And most of them had nothing to do with politics or "owning the libs." Such a position would be a bit strange, considering Trump was the main reason the vaccines were rolled out so quickly in the first place... Agree, this thread has become a complete waste of time, particularly because of people like you who are gaslighting the hell out of everyone and saying things like people who have some rational hesitancies towards the vaccines think of themselves as "William Wallace fighting the British Vaccination squad."

Shack. At the end of the day this thread is nothing but a bunch of strangers throwing web links at each other and calling each other idiots. I don't take medical advice from strangers I meet on the sidewalk. Nothing here is going to change my mind. On the other hand I have been entertained by all the deranged socialists foaming at the mouth at every post that doesn't fall in line with the Ministry of Truth.

Why do people on the left/Democrat party think they have the market cornered on accusing people of being conspiracy theorists??? That’s ALL that went on leading up to Trump’s election, during his Presidency and even now. Russia, Russia, Russia!!!!!!!

We're currently pushing it to the CAF...

This might be an area were those of us in disagreement can have a constructive conversation if we all assume the best of each other. I’ll start: no I do not think mask mandates are some weird DOD mind control experiment. I think DOD bureaucrats are doing what all bureaucrats do: curry favor and survive by knowing which way the political winds blow. I also don’t think masks have an appreciable difference on the spread of Covid. We can disagree about how the statistics read, but when I look at numbers & spikes worldwide that is my opinion. Let’s not bother debating it, we probably disagree, just realize I hold that opinion in good faith. so what is my answer to your question? I think the mask debate is a giant distraction in order to divide us against each other as a population. divided, we’re all at each other‘s throat‘s about who’s fault these episodic spikes are. And none of us are able to look up and give the obvious answer about who’s fault it is: the Chinese and the idiot scientists at NIH. Our government accidentally funded a Chinese military bio weapon that was released on our population. Think for a moment about the implications of that statement. And then realize nobody’s doing anything about it, we’re all busy talking about whether or not third graders should wear one mask or two and yelling at Floridians for wearing none. The Chinese are loaded with cash. They have bought our media, many of our politicians are in their pocket. These are not fringe conspiracy theories. What do we do? World War III? That’s not going to happen. An FBI investigation of NIH or some kind of bi-partisan origins probe would be helpful. But none of those things are going to happen either, and is there any good reason why not? I think our adversary, the Chinese, are deliberately waging information warfare against us. The CDC and NIH are focused on the small shit and these smalltime debates because they are complicit in the origins of this pandemic. Whether you agree or not, many people have a good reason to believe there is some weird ass hypocrisy going on: Americans are being blamed for choosing not to vaccinate their children By the same people importing Covid positive illegal immigrant children. Church in CA = jail but BLM riots are encouraged to stop the “white supremacy pandemic.” “Scientists” are saying these things, I mean seriously what the fuck? Every mandate and piece of information is suspect coming from people obviously playing politics. You’re a smart dude, tell me honestly d you not at all understand why rational people have serious reservations about what’s happening and are hesitant to just shut up and obey?

That line has nothing to do with "papers please" Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

The more I approach this forum as a real time sociology exhibit, the more I feel at peace. I don’t know how you guys function believing everything is a conspiracy, from vaccines to immigrants to cabals. But I’ll join - Down with the Illuminati! Down with Gates! Down with Antifa who are personally driving drug cartels into America!

It seems failing/washing out has been pushed to the FTUs

Drop on request vs. Self Initiated Elim, same right? Failing/washing out another matter, ref. rated aircrew is voluntary duty going in...presently...until draft

Kinda funny, arrests of illegal immigrants (by government employees, mind you) are at a high - you choose to interpret it as the gov doing nothing.

Posted for a hilarious look back.

I started at almost 28. I was in pretty good shape and that helped. UPT will wear you down physically due to the long hours. It's harder to recover as you get older, so show up as fit as you can manage and then do your best to maintain.

Interesting. Figured they’d wait until it was off emergency authorization.

Unknown if true. I don’t think this is exactly going to endear the President to the armed forces. But if they say I need it, I’ll get it. Just think it’s a little bullshit.

But you’ve got old balls

Okay! This is at least a data point. I appreciate you. Here's my counter argument. VAERS adverse reaction rates vs covid death rates isn't an apples to apples comparison. Those stats are measuring two entirely different things. It would make more sense to compare adverse vaccine reactions to adverse covid reactions. And in that department I think you will find adverse covid reactions to be way way higher because an "adverse event" for covid would basically be any symptomatic case. The other problem with this data point is that vaers reporting adverse vaccine reactions is simply a mechanism to report any significant health issues people get after they've had vaccine. Doctors, healthcare workers, and individuals can all submit reports so it is important to understand that vaers is a gigantic, low fidelity data dump that they use to guide further medical research. A condition being listed on vaers does not mean it was caused by the covid shot. The CDC site explains this: If a health problem is reported to VAERS, that doesn’t mean that the vaccine caused the problem. It warns vaccine safety experts of potential problems that may need investigation and alerts them to take further action, as needed. Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines. Other than rare reports of severe allergic reactions, analysis of VAERS reports has not detected any patterns that would indicate a safety problem with COVID-19 vaccines.

Fuck yeah. I think there are incredibly few people who flew mil aircraft and truly regretted it. Sure you may punch at 10 because it became “not worth it” anymore, but even if that happens, you got your ticket to the airlines paid for (if that’s your longterm goal) and you’ll still have awesome experiences and memories that no civilian will ever have. Im sitting equal with guys who threw bags, flew night freight, then slung gear in the regionals for peanuts for a decade…there’s not a bad day in the AF that could make me wish I had that guy’s path instead of mine. To each their own.

I don’t think ClearedHot was in the “vulnerable demographic” either when he almost died from it.

As much fun as this highly productive conversation is.. I'm still waiting for a single shred of reputable scientific evidence that points to the vaccine being unsafe in any way. We've heard an awful lot of anecdotal and hypothetical concerns with precisely zero evidence to back any of it up. You guys keep saying you've poured over the data and made highly personal risk/reward calculations which led you not to get the vaccine. Except not a single one of you can cite data on these risks you keep talking about. The only hard stats anyone seems to have is the endlessly repeating "I'm not in the vulnerable demographic" argument. But that isn't how you do a risk analysis. You're forgetting about the whole other side of the equation where there's an extremely low risk mitigation measure (the vaccine) which can reduce whatever covid risk you do have by 90+ percent.

i'm getting a real bad feeling about the next few months as fall and winter set in and schools re-start and counter to obvious evidence a large cohort still refuses the vaccine. And a large part of the world is still awaiting supplies. This bug could have been stomped flat but as usual a subset of the population won't cooperate. One of my pals has had every bugshot known to the military but squawks about one more.."it's made of poison and carries micro-chips". It's a volunteer military but these are the volunteers? You gotta be pretty old to remember when the airlines furloughed about every other pilot and guys were begging for alert lines...fighter drags..C-5 and 141 cargo jobs and temps with the FAA. I hear that yet again the airline biz is starting to fade. Fortunately a lot of the true business leaders are demanding that employees get the shot or adios. You have to believe that airline CEO's will be right in there. Who wants a herd of Captains and stews and rampies spreading the bug around the world OR bringing it back as some horrid mutation? Then all bets are off...Just asked the wife to begin stocking up again....Maybe this go around a heady little muscatel....

Yup. Maybe you should think on that a bit.

Ad hominem attacks are usually a great way to make sure the argument you’re making is solid.

For those still unclear on how mRNA vaccines work, here is a well done video that’s easy to follow: FWIW mRNA is the future of vaccination and may help humanity tackle everything from AIDS to the common cold. Will the pharmaceuticals make billions as a result? Probably. That doesn’t negate the fact that these vaccines are safe and effective. Besides, I thought we were all about the free market in this country.

I'm starting to remember why I tapped out of this discussion a few pages back. People happy to use analogies when it suits them, bitch about analogies when it doesn't. I cannot fucking wait for this vaccine to be mandatory. I hope a bunch of you put your money where your mouth is and get out when it happens. For people who decided to sacrifice for the greater good and take on a dangerous profession, you all sure are gun shy about something far lower risk that protects more people that dropping bombs in the middle of Afghanistan.

Ha! The government doesn’t force you to to buy a gun, force you to get a drivers license, force you vote, or force you to immigrate here. And for fucks sake, you tried to argue that immigration is right!! Article one, section 8, US Constitution gives the authority of immigration law to Congress!! I see why they keep you in the back of jet. I also see why you got passed over the first time, makes perfect sense now.

"Yeah but those are probably a bunch of out of shape civilian fatties with a million co-morbidities , not absolute STUDS like all of us military types are." -can't run 1.5 miles without a borderline medical emergency -polishes off a 6 pack, 10 ZYN pouches, and a juul cartridge per day -survives workday on a diet of white monsters, coffee, corn, and assorted snacko candies -running on 5 hrs of sleep -blood pressure absolutely through the roof

Completely irrelevant to any point. Nice attempt at deflection though. If you would like to have a productive conversation about vaccines, in particular the covid vaccine, and the governments role in that, I am happy to have a healthy debate. If you want to deflect any productive conversation into a keyboard warrior pissing match, I’m not interested. Based on all your previous responses to other people, I’m guessing you will be choosing the later route. I encourage you to take a step back and attempt constructive conversation instead of deflecting any post that differs from your opinion. Edit to add-Immigration isn’t a right btw, Constitution specifically grants Congress the power to make immigration law.

This is the fundamental disconnect. Some agree with you. Some think the primary purpose of government is protect its citizens rights.

Yes but you are talking in such low probabilities right now its insignificant. Seriously, if you really cared about probabilities this low, you would be telling your Airman not to drive to work every day. Accidents still remains the #1 cause of death of young adults, pandemic or not. Furthermore, you are making an assertion that you know what is best for them and their lives. That's a very dangerous line of thinking.

Some bases are back to masks for everyone without regard to vaccination status, so that incentive is gone, at least temporarily.

"Why do you think government can force vaccines on us?" "Well, here's a long list of other things government does in the name of public safety" "Stop talking about government, we're talking about the vaccines". It hurts my heart that people this stupid are flying militarily aircraft.

There’s little point in having a rational discussion here fellas. As the anti-vax crowd on this forum has pointed out (weird to be called that, huh), they need literally no justification other than spite. Which is about all the justification they have. Any sort of appeal to emotion or point about helping mankind will be lost. This issue has been politicized to where they think of themselves as William Wallace fighting the British Vaccination squad, when in reality it’s nothing more than folks that are, ironically, doing what they’re told by misinformation and false news. To the “objective” “statistical” data that was presented above, it’s all hogwash. VAERS actually presents a significantly higher chance of adverse reactions if you want to actually look at data (contained below for all COVID shots). It’s actually closer to 100% than 0% that you’ll have an adverse reaction if you want to read these statistics. For the record, VAERS records things like “headaches,” “myalgia,” “pyrexia,” or “chills” as an adverse reaction. Mind you, this is with literally everyone knowing that if you get the shot, you get sick for 1-2 days - I.e. have an adverse reaction. The 0.27% number, I wouldn’t be surprised at this point, if it was entirely made up. Or they are misrepresenting a category of reactions titled “vaccination complication,” the 215th most prevalent adverse reaction. https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D8;jsessionid=D93E73A304E0219C83B64E8FE404?stage=results&action=sort&direction=MEASURE_DESCEND&measure=D8.M2 The actual truth, when you stop distorting the facts, is that the vast majority of people with COVID suffer complications as well. And there are mounds of data that show that getting COVID when vaccinated is significantly less severe than the alternative. But that’s not part of the calculus because of “spite” disguised as “liberty.” I’m glad we got to that in the last couple of days, because that’s the root cause. It’s not any sort of scientific or measurable reason. It’s to “own the metaphorical libs,” and that’s it.