Prozac

How many dead Americans does that equal if we allow everyone to be exposed to the virus organically? I don't know the answer, but in many communities even limited outbreaks have lead to morgues and hospitals being overwhelmed. So while the statistical odds of death and hospitalization may seem slim, letting the virus "run its course" will lead to many, many, otherwise preventable deaths. How many dead Americans are we willing to accept? A million? Two million? More? Are we willing to sacrifice the old and the overweight who would continue to live if not for COVID in the name of Darwinism? If so, why bother treating any disease? Nature selected you for cancer/heart disease/stroke....sorry, not sorry, only the strong survive! Some of you seem ok with that position, but that is not the society I want to live in.

Wow, holy shit! I mean there's over a million doctors in the United States and you're telling me that there is a wide variance of opinions amongst them? Mindblowing! FWIW, I don't recall the wider medical community as a whole supporting large gatherings for any reason during the pandemic. But that's really here nor there because your post seems to be more about "whataboutism" and less about anything germane to the discussion at hand which is whether ivermectin is a good substitute for vaccination (it's not).

I’m sorry, but the ivermectin thing has me scratching my head. I’m all for any treatment that can reduce the severity of COVID-19 symptoms & help our society return to normal. Is ivermectin such a treatment? Well, maybe, but just like any other drug, it has to be tested and proven to be safe and effective in that role before it can be approved. As of right now, the FDA does not recommend ivermectin be used to treat Covid-19: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19 Somebody correct me if I’m wrong here: Many people who do not want to get a vaccine that has been fully approved by the FDA because they feel the testing was rushed are now willing to put a drug in their bodies that has not been tested or approved for the purpose of fighting this disease? Not only that, but some who’s doctors are not willing to prescribe this dubious drug are willing to get it from the feed store and figure out their own dosage? There seems to be a pretty big disconnect in the logic that would lead one to decline an approved and effective treatment in favor of an unapproved and questionably effective one. Let’s let professionals, you know, TEST these drugs before we put them in our body. I kinda thought that sort of thing was a big deal to the Tucker crowd.

Agree that it’s not a zero risk & that there are sticky questions that arise. Put yourself on the side of the employer for a moment though. Let’s say you run a cruise line. Is a COVID outbreak on board one of your ships not a major threat to your continued existence as a company? Shouldn’t you be able to do everything in your power to avoid that outcome? There’s also plenty of legal precedent that says an employer can require vaccination. I don’t think there’s much chance that those resisting employer mandates get their way here.

Fair ‘nuff. Here’s a well written & easy to digest article: https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210719/covid-19-vaccines-not-gene-therapy For the vaccines to alter a person's genes, Offit explains, the mRNA instructions would have to enter the cell's control center, the nucleus. The nucleus is walled off from the rest of the cell by its own membrane. To get past that membrane, the mRNA would have to have an enzyme called a nuclear access signal, Offit says, "which it doesn't have."

We’ll, for one, it’s not “gene therapy”. I’m sorry you wrote so many words that are now moot because you started off with a completely bunk assumption.

I think that’s a pipe dream for republicans. But…..2024 isn’t that far away. I count myself as a moderate Democrat who isn’t necessarily opposed to voting R. So who’s gonna run? Trump? Sorry, but that’s as much a no-go for the left as Hillary was for the right. Desantis? Same shit, slightly diluted. Put up a sane, rational, non-octogenarian and you might find a lot of Americans are game.

Typically no. You’d be surprised at the number of straight up anti-vax (and not just COVID) batshit crazy, supposedly educated conspiracy theorists that have outed themselves lately. There are a handful of outfits that fly into underdeveloped areas that have always required certain vaccinations. I guess the anti-vaxers have avoided applying at those places.

Pics? Throw a little inspirational material to the rest of us bro!

Thanks for posting this. Nice to see someone rationally explaining their viewpoint for a change.

SD is a great American city. Yes, it probably has the best climate in the country & offers some of the best scenery anywhere (yes, that kind of scenery too). But what it really has going for it that so many cities have lost in recent decades is real diversity of thought. The Navy and Marines & a great many veterans are represented in force, most of them very conservative. So are some of the most liberal people in the nation. And somehow everybody seems to be able to get along. They surely don’t agree with each other’s politics, but there seems to be a mutual respect. It really seems to be one of the last great cities where people haven’t sorted themselves into one tribe or another & it’s all the better for it.

Hadn’t heard Trump had promised continued air cover. Do you have a source? Not that I don’t believe you, but a quick google search isn’t turning up anything. Airpower may have indeed made a difference, but everything I saw from the previous admin leads me to believe they were capable of fucking this up as badly as anyone. Not that any of it matters. We agree that the current admin & senior military leadership have handled things objectively badly.

I’ll bite. Agree the situation has been handled poorly. I seriously doubt the Trump admin would’ve done any better (I’m sure many here will disagree). The pentagon attempted to slow roll Trump when he decided on a complete withdrawal & they used the same strategy with Biden. When he insisted (as Trump in all likelihood would have as well), senior military leadership was obviously ill prepared to carry out the order. Pandemonium has ensued. The only likely difference is that CJCS would likely have been fired by now under Trump which is a move I didn’t support at first, but I have to admit it’s not a good look for the Biden admin to continue this debacle without demanding accountability from the Pentagon.

CGOs & NCOs knew the score in 2009 (and probably even before that). The fact that it’s taken this long to come to terms with reality speaks volumes to the fact that our military is way too top heavy with far too much insulation of senior leadership from shit any troop with half a brain knows to be truth (also ref. pilot shortage/bonus).

Pic stolen from another thread… The Air Force isn’t a bunch of 4 stars in the pentagon. It’s not some politically appointed civilian SecAf and it’s not Curtis LeMay rolling in his grave. If there’s one thing I learned during my time in the AF it’s that Airmen, NCOs, and CGOs are the really important people who make the whole thing work. The Air Force is you guys and you guys do some really good shit every day. I’m proud of all of you and even more proud to have served with many of you.

The Soviets sure as shit didn’t have any restrictive ROE and they couldn’t civilize that place. The Chinese, in my experience, are a clown show & I can’t see them doing much better.

I don’t think there’s any argument that we should’ve avoided boots on the ground from the get go. I had just finished up in tweets & watched the second plane hit the trade center live from the TV in the flight room. At that moment there was was no doubt in my mind that a good chunk of my military career would be defined by the ensuing conflict. And I was more than ready and willing to join the fight. But we accomplished what we initially showed up to do within a few years. The Taliban was defeated militarily. Al Quaeda was forced underground and rendered largely impotent, at least to conduct large scale operations in American soil. Then we got distracted by Iraq & Afghanistan got placed on the back burner for half a decade. Instead of developing any semblance of an exit strategy, we largely ignored the theater & lo and behold things started a downward trend. It is unconscionable that senior civilian and military leadership would let things devolve to the point that we were involved in a never ending conflict with no clearly articulated goals. We should’ve declared victory in 03 or 04 and packed our shit and left. Maybe leave a few small footprint forces in the region to deal with terror threats as they popped up. Instead we committed a huge chunk of our conventional forces, built Pizza Huts & Baskin Robins’ and chose to ignore the implications of expending people and machines with no clear or worthwhile goal in mind. Once we went down that road, the end result was preordained.

That’s an excellent way to put it. Have a link to said piece?

I mostly agree, but I do think the pentagon needs to come to terms that it shares some of the blame here. We’ve rotated so much leadership through the AOR over the years it’s no wonder that continuity of purpose has been virtually non existent. I can remember the expeditionary WG/CC on my first deployment giving a hung-ho pep talk to us about how we were the tip of the spear & truly making a difference. Over the years, I deployed to the same location, listened to the same speech given by new leadership, stayed in the same Qs, ate the same food, flew the same jets in the same airspace against the same enemy. A decade later, several WG/CCs had cycled through, we called the enemy by a different name even though we were fighting the same people, and that pep talk had barely changed. It was clear that everybody just wanted to get through their deployment and back to life. Progress didn’t matter. We were running in place. Biding our time. Nothing was ever going to change appreciably. Senior military leadership failed to internalize the lesson of Vietnam. In their own careerist pursuits, they yielded to clueless civilian leadership that insisted on committing troops without a clearly defined end goal/exit strategy. I hope our military can take a hard internal look after this debacle. Twice now we have suffered the pain and humiliation of walking away from hugely costly conflicts with little to nothing to show for it except broken human beings. The small number of patriots who volunteer to serve this country should have the assurance that their toil and sacrifice will not be wasted. The responsibility for that assurance lies with senior pentagon leaders & they failed spectacularly this time around.

Can’t wait to see what the Chinese experience in Afghanistan looks like. Like Moose above, I’m surprised at how willing they appear to be to work with the taliban. They don’t exactly have a history of embracing radical (or not so radical) Muslim groups in their hinterlands. An “Islamic State of Afghanistan” in a country that they see as a geographic key to their belt and road initiative poses a lot of problems for them. Afghanistan has repeatedly proven to be a major resource suck for the world’s great powers. China may find that they just can’t build as many islands as they used to once they’re embroiled in the Afghanistan quagmire.

So the VA reaching out to veterans who may be distressed over current events is a joke to you? If you’ve been around for a while, I’d be willing to bet you’ve lost at least one or two squadron mates to suicide. If you’re new and you haven’t, steel yourself because you very likely will. Personally, I’ve seen my fair share, including a couple of friends for whom I never would’ve thought that would be an option. I’m all for ANYONE who reaches out & promotes veterans’ mental health.

Wouldn’t work. That’s a snake that can grow new heads.

I don’t think there are many countries that have the cultural tolerance to spend 20, 30, 40 or more years in a place like Afghanistan in order to shape it in their image. From the very outset the Taliban knew the same thing the Viet Cong did: all they had to do was wait long enough and the country would be theirs once again. Going after Al Quaeda was a valid mission. The moment we morphed the mission into nation building, we sealed the fate that is playing out today.

Great post. Helps put it all in perspective. What a fucking waste.