COVID-19 (Aka China Virus)

[HossHarris]

9 hours ago, Pooter said:

Yeah I get that, I'm more confused how a single federal judge (there are 1700+) can overrule the executive branch thereby reversing nationwide policy. And if all we had to do was find a single federal judge who didn't like the rule and sue in that court why tf did it take this long. 

I’d guess that the vast majority of judges actually take their profession seriously …. 

[pawnman]

14 hours ago, brickhistory said:

I remember which is why I asked him if he's happy that another unnecessary mort is occurring due to the goatrope that ensued.  The ending of the mask mandate (mostly) is just a last gasp of the stupidity that occurred.

Lest we forget...

 

I'm happy that this idiot who has equated getting the covid shot with a religion is gone, yes.

I continue to be baffled that a group of military aviators seems to think lawful orders can be disregarded based on your personal opinions, but here we are.

[dream big]

19 hours ago, disgruntledemployee said:

This feels like a Berlin Wall moment.  Way too much momentum to change it back and if they try, by the time they do, data will probably show no difference.  Someone will probably show the executive branch, "look, the people are happy," change it back and you will lose elections.   

They can’t go back now, there would be rebellions across the country.  Some of my leftist friends are confused why people are making such a big deal about masks. “It isn’t that inconvenient?” It isn’t about the damn mask, it’s about government overreach, which has to stop.

[BashiChuni]

2 hours ago, pawnman said:

I'm happy that this idiot who has equated getting the covid shot with a religion is gone, yes.

I continue to be baffled that a group of military aviators seems to think lawful orders can be disregarded based on your personal opinions, but here we are.

Are you still wearing a mask on planes? We all want to know. 

[pawnman]

17 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

Are you still wearing a mask on planes? We all want to know. 

Not without the mandate.

What a nerd, following aviation rules and regulations, right?

[BashiChuni]

But I don’t understand if you think these mandates are morally correct and Keeping people safe it makes sense that you’d be firm in your belief and continue wearing a mask according to your convictions!

[pawnman]

9 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

But I don’t understand if you think these mandates are morally correct and Keeping people safe it makes sense that you’d be firm in your belief and continue wearing a mask according to your convictions!

I don't have a conviction to wear a mask. I'm thrilled the mandates are being dropped. But I also haven't tied my whole personality to the idea that mask mandates are tyranny.

[BashiChuni]

The entire COVID mandates were absolutely tyranny. “Take this shot or lose your job.” Tyranny.
 

the fact is this vax has been proven to NOT stop the spread of COVID. It has lowered the chance if you catch COVID it will be severe. For military members who are young and healthy they had a 99.998….% chance of having a very mild reaction. Why the need for a mandate? What a stupid order. 
 

much like the masks. What a stupid mandate that was PROVEN to do NOTHING. These mandates did nothing at all, and smart thinking citizens rightfully questioned them. It’s healthy and wise to maintain a level of skepticism when big government attempts to dictate terms to its citizens. 

it’s also healthy to question why big pharmacy is pushing their product on a population demographic who has been PROVEN to not be at risk from the disease. 

Edited April 20, 2022 by BashiChuni

[tac airlifter]

Pawn, I like you and I think you’re smart, so please indulge me in this long reply.   There are three schools of thought with rule following:

1. Follow them all, all the time.  They are right, rule breakers are wrong.

2. Follow only those which are right and just.  I am the sole arbiter of deciding what is right.

Those are two extreme and opposite sides.  There’s a third, middle way:

3. Follow rules, but recognize those which don’t make sense and work to change them.  Comply if you must, resist when & how you can. 
 

1 is almost always wrong.  Schools love it, because it’s blind obedience.  Dictators love it too.  I don’t love it, I don’t even like it when people obey my rules without critical thought, because eventually they hit a situation where following those rules leads to a worse outcome than the rule was designed to prevent.  Example: stand in this line.  Circumstance: now there’s a fire.  Outcome: standing in that line is obviously a terrible idea; would we support yelling at people to get back in line under those circumstances? No.  Judgment and critical thought are implied.

2 is interesting.  At first glance it seemingly leads to chaos.  Within the right cultural context though, it has historically been a common mechanism of governance in developing societies.  “Lex iniusta non est lex” is the Latin expression for the ancient concept that an unjust law is no law at all.  Surprisingly, even rule following early  societies like feudal China had a similar concept.  Once a ruler passed a threshold of capriciousness, he was said to have “lost the Mandate of Heaven” and a coup was justified.  However I concede that in modern democratic societies, and certainly in the modern American military, 2 is an impractical way of operating.

 3 covers the full gamut from “I will comply while working this lawsuit through the system using established legal means” all the way to “I will not comply with this specific thing but I will rigorously comply with everything else thereby convincing you that I’m not a rebel, this certain thing is just wrong.” Think about the civil disobedience mechanism Martin Luther King Jr utilized in championing the civil rights movement.  Has there been a better example than 1960s America of people who were justified in noncompliance with laws, and conducted their noncompliance righteously?  

All that background to say this: the spectrum of 3 is where most of us were for COVID mandates, while you are stuck on 1 despite thinking we are advocating 2.  Hopefully this long post adds clarity to these various reactions you’re observing.  It’s easy to look at the situation and say, I am following a lawful order why is there even a discussion about this?  Those discussions dance around the concept of questioning if the order itself was lawful. And of course the people giving it will say yes, but is it? There might be a deeper authority than the whims of dictates by transient management.

[Boomer6]

In regards to the vax effectiveness discussion. I know two fighter squadrons that have had 95% of their ppl contract COVID at one point or another. Around 50% contracted it at some point prior to getting vaccinated. After being fully vaccinated + boosted about 60% have contracted it. All of those that have contracted it twice (before and after being vaccinated) have had no change in symptoms from the pre/post vaccinated cases. You can make the argument that the symptoms weren’t as bad the second time because they had antibodies, and to be honest that doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter because the trope were being pushed is we need to get vaccinated to maintain readiness. When 60% of the bros contract COVID after being fully vaccinated + boosted and get taken down for 10 days of quarantine the readiness argument doesn’t hold up. The vaccine is not effective at preventing our demographic from contracting it, which is all that matters for the readiness discussion.

[pawnman]

51 minutes ago, Boomer6 said:

In regards to the vax effectiveness discussion. I know two fighter squadrons that have had 95% of their ppl contract COVID at one point or another. Around 50% contracted it at some point prior to getting vaccinated. After being fully vaccinated + boosted about 60% have contracted it. All of those that have contracted it twice (before and after being vaccinated) have had no change in symptoms from the pre/post vaccinated cases. You can make the argument that the symptoms weren’t as bad the second time because they had antibodies, and to be honest that doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter because the trope were being pushed is we need to get vaccinated to maintain readiness. When 60% of the bros contract COVID after being fully vaccinated + boosted and get taken down for 10 days of quarantine the readiness argument doesn’t hold up. The vaccine is not effective at preventing our demographic from contracting it, which is all that matters for the readiness discussion.

Well, there's also the ability to base in countries that are requiring vaccines to cross their borders.  I'd call that one a readiness issue.

[Standby]

44 minutes ago, pawnman said:

Well, there's also the ability to base in countries that are requiring vaccines to cross their borders.  I'd call that one a readiness issue.

That’s not a readiness issue, that’s a political issue…easily conflated.

[08Dawg]

There's been an amusing amount of leftist pearl clutching and reaching for smelling salts over the speed at which the mandate went away.  The Vice article I read last night had the headline "the World's Worst People Partied Mid-Flight" (linked here for your reading amusement). 

[HeloDude]

2 hours ago, 08Dawg said:

There's been an amusing amount of leftist pearl clutching and reaching for smelling salts over the speed at which the mandate went away.  The Vice article I read last night had the headline "the World's Worst People Partied Mid-Flight" (linked here for your reading amusement). 

From the article

“Here we are, trapped in the sky with our 8-month-old unmasked baby (you can’t actually mask a baby that young) under the supposition that everyone who can be masked would be masked, and the flight 325 crew has taken our choices away from us,” one Twitter user said. “Very very angry about this.”

So apparently, if you give people the choice to wear masks or not, you’re actually “taking away choices” from others.  This only makes sense if you’re a progressive.

[BashiChuni]

Biden administration going to appeal the mask ruling. I hope this is political suicide for the democrats this fall

[HeloDude]

2 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

Biden administration going to appeal the mask ruling. I hope this is political suicide for the democrats this fall

What’s one more nail in the coffin?

[FLEA]

37 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

What’s one more nail in the coffin?

 

3 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

Biden administration going to appeal the mask ruling. I hope this is political suicide for the democrats this fall

What'd Id really like to see is a Republican legislator come in that realizes we have given the executive far too much power for rulemaking, and retake their rightful constitutional powers to be the lawmakers in the country. Would be great to see some reforms passed to relimit executive power and thats something both parties could benefit from. 

[kaputt]

Their decision to appeal certainly proves they had zero intent of letting the mandate expire after their latest two-week extension. 

[brabus]

7 hours ago, FLEA said:

Would be great to see some reforms passed to relimit executive power and thats something both parties could benefit from. 

I should be smarter on this, but was there ever a limit on scope/number of EOs the exec branch had in years past? Regardless of party in the WH, I agree we shouldn't be seeing rule by EO. But they're needs to be some capability for the times Congress is gridlocked and accomplishing nothing (which seems most of the time these days). I don't know what the "right" scope/number is, but I do know we need less govt power immediately.

Edited April 21, 2022 by brabus

[Blue]

On 4/19/2022 at 10:34 AM, Pooter said:

Yeah I get that, I'm more confused how a single federal judge (there are 1700+) can overrule the executive branch thereby reversing nationwide policy. And if all we had to do was find a single federal judge who didn't like the rule and sue in that court why tf did it take this long. 

I'm with Pooter.  It's been a long time since high school, and even then, it's not like we went into the minutia of how the federal courts work vs state courts, the power of the federal judiciary below the Supreme Court, etc.

I get that it happened, and I'm thrilled that it did.  I'm just equally surprised at the scope of thing (a single federal judge overturning a Presidential EO), the long timeline, etc.

Again though, glad that it was overturned.  And, surprising no one, all the typical players are taking the typical sides, using the typical talking points.  Such as:

NPR: The judge who tossed mask mandate misunderstood public health law, legal experts say

You see, she made the cardinal sin of the Church of Covid.  The judge didn't listen to "the experts."  Also, it was just her that did it.  This one judge.  Not like there is an entire legal system behind her.  It was just the one rouge judge who is determined to kill us all. [/sarcasm]

NPR: What to know about Judge Kathryn Mizelle, who struck down the travel mask mandate

Another article looking at the judge herself.  Nominated to the bench by Trump in Sept 2020, when she was only 33.  Some questions raised at the time about her limited experience, but ultimately she was confirmed.  Some comments about her right leaning views, because, surprise surprise, right leaning presidents tend to nominate right leaning judges.

She's a....she, so it must be so frustrating that Judge Mizelle can't be Kavanaugh-ed out with some salacious #meetoo accusation.  Although maybe they'll dredge up some law school classmate (male or female) with an accusation of impropriety.

But when you can't use sexism, go to racism, homophobia, and the newest bugaboo, trans-phobic!

Quote

It said that she helped dismantle many civil rights protections during her tenure as counsel to the associate attorney general in 2017 and 2018, including: rescinding Title IX guidance that protected transgender students, filing a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that businesses have the right to discriminate against LGBTQ customers.......

It's all so fucking tiresome.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Blue

[Blue]

On 4/21/2022 at 6:35 AM, brabus said:

I should be smarter on this, but was there ever a limit on scope/number of EOs the exec branch had in years past? Regardless of party in the WH, I agree we shouldn't be seeing rule by EO. But they're needs to be some capability for the times Congress is gridlocked and accomplishing nothing (which seems most of the time these days). I don't know what the "right" scope/number is, but I do know we need less govt power immediately.

Increased power in the Executive Branch is something that has been creeping along for some time, at least since the 1970s.

There are many examples.  Executive Orders are one thing.  The War Powers Act of 1941, along with the War Powers Resolution of 1973 moved the balance of power in declaring and executing war from Congress to the Executive Branch. 

The 1976 National Emergencies Act cemented a lot of power in the Executive Branch related to declaring "National Emergencies."  I think most people would be surprised to hear that, in addition to the National Emergency declared for Covid, there are currently 42 National Emergencies in effect, each renewed yearly by the President.

Biden just declared his latest National Emergency last week: Invocation of Emergency Authority Relating to the Regulation of the Anchorage and Movement of Russian-Affiliated Vessels to United States Ports.  Ostensibly to prohibit Russian-affiliated vessels from entering into United States ports.  It's Biden's  6th declaration of a National Emergency......

Checks and Balances between the three branches of government is a cornerstone of our form of government.  For sure, there will always be some messiness and fuzziness around the edges.  How does the old saw go, something about "Our government is a terrible form of government, the only thing worse is the 100s of other forms of government that have been tried and failed?"

It's a crucial problem in government that needs to be addressed, and I don't know what the answer is.

[Blue]

On 4/18/2022 at 2:37 PM, dream big said:

Probably the same people that wear it outside or alone in their car, you know, the ones that have it on for their Facebook picture.

On 4/18/2022 at 7:39 PM, Standby said:

I know you like a good bet…over/under on the increase of pre-departure altercations caused by the Branch Covidians trying to deliver street-mask-justice for the non-believers of the recycled Hanes skid mark underwear mask?

On 4/19/2022 at 5:36 PM, HeloDude said:

Go read some FB comments concerning the news story on the “mainstream news outlets”…the progressives are upset at the ruling and believes that this will kill people.  Oh and they say that the federal judge shouldn’t even be a judge (was “unqualified”), people that won’t wear masks are selfish, blah blah blah.  Same nonsense people have been spewing on here for the last 1.5-2 years.

On 4/20/2022 at 7:38 AM, dream big said:

Some of my leftist friends are confused why people are making such a big deal about masks. “It isn’t that inconvenient?” It isn’t about the damn mask, it’s about government overreach, which has to stop.

On 4/20/2022 at 3:48 PM, 08Dawg said:

There's been an amusing amount of leftist pearl clutching and reaching for smelling salts over the speed at which the mandate went away.  The Vice article I read last night had the headline "the World's Worst People Partied Mid-Flight" (linked here for your reading amusement). 

On 4/20/2022 at 6:29 PM, HeloDude said:

“Here we are, trapped in the sky with our 8-month-old unmasked baby (you can’t actually mask a baby that young) under the supposition that everyone who can be masked would be masked, and the flight 325 crew has taken our choices away from us,” one Twitter user said. “Very very angry about this.”

So apparently, if you give people the choice to wear masks or not, you’re actually “taking away choices” from others.  This only makes sense if you’re a progressive.

The vast majority of American's don't want any kind of mask mandate, and are happy the airline mandate went away.

The minority of people supporting the mask mandate are:

• The current crop of Democrats
• Most of the mainstream press
• That minority of grown-ass adults who are impressionable and struggle with critical thinking, who buy into everything they are told by the government and the media.  Those are the people in your Facebook feed, and quoted in such esteemed rags as The Atlantic and the NYT.  White women tend to be overrepresented here, but that's a topic for another time.

A special mention goes out to every mid-level white collar employee out there who has been able to seamlessly transition from poking at their laptop in an office building, to poking at their laptop in their home office, while wearing their pajamas.  The so-called "Laptop Class."

These are the people who are comfy in their homes, and only have to don a mask when going out for groceries, hitting the local Home Depot, or maybe the occasional trip to a restaurant.  These are the people who haughtily say "What's wrong with you, masks aren't so bad!!!"  They retreat home, with no thought for the rest of the populace out there working masked-up all day long in the grocery stores, restaurants, factories, and elsewhere.

The midwits of the world can angrily post to Facebook all day long.  No one fucking cares, except their fellow zealots.  Everyone else has moved on.

[FUSEPLUG]

Went throught LGA today and was thrilled to see that despite NY state keeping the public transit mask mandate, the majority of pax and crew members I saw chose to ignore the automated mask requirement announcements.  

Good luck trying to turn that shit back on when cases start “up-ticking” before the mid-terms. 
 

 

[ecugringo]

18 hours ago, Blue said:

The vast majority of American's don't want any kind of mask mandate, and are happy the airline mandate went away.

The minority of people supporting the mask mandate are:

• The current crop of Democrats
• Most of the mainstream press
• That minority of grown-ass adults who are impressionable and struggle with critical thinking, who buy into everything they are told by the government and the media.  Those are the people in your Facebook feed, and quoted in such esteemed rags as The Atlantic and the NYT.  White women tend to be overrepresented here, but that's a topic for another time.

A special mention goes out to every mid-level white collar employee out there who has been able to seamlessly transition from poking at their laptop in an office building, to poking at their laptop in their home office, while wearing their pajamas.  The so-called "Laptop Class."

These are the people who are comfy in their homes, and only have to don a mask when going out for groceries, hitting the local Home Depot, or maybe the occasional trip to a restaurant.  These are the people who haughtily say "What's wrong with you, masks aren't so bad!!!"  They retreat home, with no thought for the rest of the populace out there working masked-up all day long in the grocery stores, restaurants, factories, and elsewhere.

The midwits of the world can angrily post to Facebook all day long.  No one ing cares, except their fellow zealots.  Everyone else has moved on.

LOL this is basically me.  But I have to travel to meet clients when needed and go to my main office in Houston occasionally.

Not everyone can work from home.  They arent mature enough of they need the social interaction.  We are trying to get ppl in but its come in when you need to.  The commute is pretty bad for a lot.  I also moved out of CO and cashed in and moved to the south east.  My clients are all over hte US so it didnt matter really where I was.  I think having a Mil background helped maintain discipline for me.

I am surprised the Dems seem to push ppl back into the cities though.  The work from home option seems to be a helper for climate change and help with congestion.  Fewer care=less pollution?  Or is the whole global warming scare a farce for voters?  Seems like an arrow in your quiver if you care that much.

[glockenspiel]

On 4/20/2022 at 5:25 AM, pawnman said:

lawful orders

Be careful Pawn... EUA drugs cannot be mandated without presidential waiver. This General said the quiet part out loud: https://fb.watch/c40sAzGDis/

But he's probs just an armchair lawyer.