Poll of the Day > Conservatives DON'T want masks, social distancing, shutdowns OR Vaccines.....

(+) Yeah! (+)

what exactly do they want then to stop the spread? what is their strategy?

if not a vaccine which trump is pedaling, it appears millions of his base aren't going for that either..so if trump can't convince them, what do they want?

their strategy can't be just let the virus spread to everybody and let survival of the fittest reign in is it??

https://i.imgur.com/orHI9gX.jpg
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Conservatives don't think it's real. They think it's a conspiracy invented by George Soros and Justin Trudeau and all the people that have died from it are just actors.

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A health official in my state said its a Russian plot to turn America communist. Seriously. Conservatives are absolutely unhinged.

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> Conservatives DON'T want masks, social distancing, shutdowns OR Vaccines.....

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTkVYcw9smjfPz0k2V3daAY0NGK2xEZd6uWKw&usqp=CAU

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I really have to shake my head at the people who advocate for pursuing herd immunity while in the same breath saying a vaccine isn't likely to work (a claim which is itself based purely on the fact that a successful coronavirus vaccine hasn't been produced before, which is obviously nonsense). If a vaccine won't work, herd immunity won't either.

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Herd immunity requires everyone to be exposed and with a 1.9% mortality rate in the US, that's about 6-1/4 million deaths. A "normal" year sees about 2.8 million deaths in the US.

And that doesn't account for all the people who will die from other, treatable diseases and accidents because the medical system will have collapsed. And 1.9% mortality is with functioning hospitals. Once all the beds are full and the doctors and nurses are infected, that rate will likely skyrocket. The mortality rate in Mexico is 9.4%. A similar rate in the US would give us at least 30 million dead. You think shutdowns are bad for the economy?

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captpackrat posted...

Herd immunity requires everyone to be exposed

That varies by illness, actually. You don't need the entire population to develop immunity simultaneously, just a high enough percentage that those without immunity are virtually guaranteed not to be exposed. The threshold depends on a number of factors, including how easily the disease is transmitted (easier=higher threshold), the mortality rate (lower=higher threshold), and the potential for asymptomatic transmission (present=higher threshold).

Off-hand, the only threshold I know is that for measles, which requires somewhere around 90% of the population to be immune to effect herd immunity. Considering how many of the above factors are true of covid (highly transmissible, relatively low CFR, asymptomatic transmission), it stands to reason that Covid's threshold will also be at least that high, and will probably actually be more in the 95%+ range. It's not quite everyone, but it's pretty damn close, and that's a whole lot of bodies.

And, again, if herd immunity is possible, then - axiomatically - a vaccine is possible. If a vaccine can't confer long-term immunity, then neither can natural exposure, so herd immunity will never happen naturally.

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That's actually an excellent point, Duckbear. I never hear any suggestions for solutions from Republicans, just complaints about suggested solutions from everyone else. Masks? Muh freedoms. Social distancing? Muh freedoms. Vaccines? Muh freedoms.

Yet the house presented a bill this week to decriminalize cannabis federally, and guess how many 'muh freedom' Republicans voted in favor of freedom? Zero. Not a one. Muh freedoms my ass. They just want their useful idiots to keep the money flowing.

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If you explain things ratiionally and encourage people to consider the situation themselves then they may reach the conclusion you want them to.
If you tell people they must do something and they are morally deficient if they don't then they almost certainly won't.

If the situation really were so dire wouldn't that on it's own convince people to take precautions? Yet it appears that those most concerned don't believe this themselves. And those who are in authority calling for the restrictions of personally liberties are often caught not applying this to their own action. This leads to skepticism about what the real motivations are since it's evidently not the health risk.

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Be afraid Shitizen, be very afraid!

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"If they don't like it they should leave this great country! "


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I don't think that mentality is limited to political views.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

If the situation really were so dire wouldn't that on it's own convince people to take precautions?

See, you'd think that, but you'd be wrong about a large portion of people, and thats the exact problem.

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It's getting to the point of Covid fatigue. We have color levels now. Once DHS/TSA got color levels, have we ever seen "green"? Did they ever stop fondling our nethers to get on airplanes? Did we ever stop seeing patsy's set up by an alphabet agency trying to get firecrackers on a flight every time a budget bill was in the works? When islamic fundamentalism took over formerly sane and rational nations, did the face coverings ever stop being a thing?

There's a bigger picture here at this point and I'm sick of being surrounded by fear porn over a disease that's only killing people that are literally older than the average age of all people that die..

There's a much bigger agenda in play, and as long as we can be kept bickering over Karens and muzzles nobody is going to see through this bullshit Clownworld.

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Conserving should be a priority if you call yourself a conservative. They need to rebrand themselves. I nominate Crazebillies.

Raddest_Chad posted...

Conserving should be a priority if you call yourself a conservative. They need to rebrand themselves. I nominate Crazebillies.

Liberty should be a priority if you call yourself a liberal. They need to rebrand themselves. I nominate The high and mighty totality of knowing what's better for you.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Liberty should be a priority if you call yourself a liberal. They need to rebrand themselves. I nominate The high and mighty totality of knowing what's better for you.

I'm not a liberal XD... My pick would be executive monarchy (not executive like a corporate executive, for anyone stupid enough to think that - it's what Liechtenstein and Jordan have, among others)

People saying "no masks, muh freedom" may as well say "no red lights, muh freedom" and drive right through them. It's just as selfish and idiotic. If it were up to me, the cops (with nurses) would be vaccinating everyone whether they liked it or not. It's a matter of public safety. Condoning anti-maskers is no better than condoning drunk drivers.

Liberal is an insult used by progressives for centrist democrat corporate shills.

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Zareth posted...

Liberal is an insult used by progressives for centrist democrat corporate shills.

lol imagine being a centrist democrat corporate shill.

Raddest_Chad posted...

I'm not a liberal XD

Nor am I a conservative. I didn't mean to direct that at you. I just thought the same concept should be applied to both ends of the political map.

Raddest_Chad posted...

People saying "no masks, muh freedom" may as well say "no red lights, muh freedom"

From what I recall, before someone is given a driver's license they have to agree to abide by traffic regulations. Right now there is no such consent given for mask regulations. If we're heading toward some sort of license to buy food or go out in public then maybe we should start examining what else we've been submitting to. If these two things really are alike...


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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

From what I recall, before someone is given a driver's license they have to agree to abide by traffic regulations. Right now there is no such consent given for mask regulations. If we're heading toward some sort of license to buy food or go out in public then maybe we should start examining what else we've been submitting to.

That's just being ridiculous though. It's a matter of protecting the population for its own good. Wearing a mask isn't some slippery slope into Nazi Germany. It's doing what's best for the country and forcing the dough heads to toe the line for everyone's benefit. That counterpoint is like when my friend's brother unironically said he was against gay marriage because it would lead to people marrying horses and buildings. Manslaughter is a thing because someone acts irresponsibly and another person dies. If you ignore health and safety guidelines, infect a person, and they die, how did you not just commit manslaughter? The catch is that the practices of say, mask wearing, needs to be law. It is where I am right now and Karens are getting btfo.

mrduckbear posted...

what exactly do they want then to stop the spread? what is their strategy?

if not a vaccine which trump is pedaling, it appears millions of his base aren't going for that either..so if trump can't convince them, what do they want?

their strategy can't be just let the virus spread to everybody and let survival of the fittest reign in is it??

https://i.imgur.com/orHI9gX.jpg

They have to believe the virus is more deadly than other diseases that we dont do all of that stuff for and many of them dont believe that. Its like trying to get someone to solve a math problem when they wont accept that 2+2=4. Youre at an impasse with a lot of people because they dont believe the virus is real or dangerous in the first place.

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Raddest_Chad posted...

Wearing a mask isn't some slippery slope into Nazi Germany. It's doing what's best for the country

Were the Germans told something different? Was it in not best for China to weld over the exits of peoples homes?
What is best for the country is very much in debate as is how far we should go in that pursuit.

Raddest_Chad posted...

friend's brother unironically said he was against gay marriage because it would lead to people marrying horses and buildings.

There is that video with that one guy and his car. It's not a persuasive argument to me. I'm fine with people doing what they want as long as I'm left out of it. But I see his point.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Were the Germans told something different? Was it in not best for China to weld over the exits of peoples homes?
What is best for the country is very much in debate as is how far we should go in that pursuit.

It's wearing a fucking cloth mask dude. Not asking your neighbor to be complicit in genocide.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Were the Germans told something different? Was it in not best for China to weld over the exits of peoples homes?
What is best for the country is very much in debate as is how far we should go in that pursuit.

The problem is that sometimes there are things that are objectively best for people and it's all or nothing. Having a government with checks/balances and a constitution vs. a dictatorship makes many things incomparable. It's like the whole "look at Venezuela" argument against socialism, when Western Europe is a better metric to go by because it's a lot more culturally/judicially similar to the USA than any Latin American nation. Tangent, but things like pensions, disability, and the like were popularized by autocrat-conservative extraordinaire Otto von Bismarck. He was so far removed from the left the needle broke off. Some things just make sense to strengthen a nation and have to be done. At the time, those moves were very controversial and unpopular in some circles, but they were ultimately good.

As Churchill said, the greatest argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. Not everyone is worth an equal say. Dumb people are a stick in the spokes of the progress bike.

Raddest_Chad posted...

Having a government with checks/balances and a constitution vs. a dictatorship makes many things incomparable.

How has that been working for the US lately?

Appoint a supreme court judge. Sexual misconduct, believe all women, don't question any details, must be guilty.
But accuse a Democrat of the same thing. Of course it has to be investigated, there is due process after all.

What was the president impeached for? Something about withholding foreign aid unless they met a demand which would be to his personal benefit. What did his opponent brag about doing when he was VP? Something about withholding foreign aid unless they met a demand which would be to his personal benefit.

Then there's all those state constitutions. How many govorners are just ignoring that to exercise authority which they don't have?

Doesn't seem a whole lot balanced to me.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

If the situation really were so dire wouldn't that on it's own convince people to take precautions?

This notion relies on two rather shaky assumptions: That most people are intelligent enough to arrive at reasonably optimal solutions based on the information available to them (a dangerously large percentage of the population isn't), and that most people are informed enough to independently draw such conclusions without needing to rely on summaries and interpretations from experts to guide them. The whole intelligence angle is a pretty questionable one to pursue, since fundamentally, "you're too stupid to make your own decisions" has a hell of a lot of potential to be abused quite horrifically, so I'm fine with ignoring that one.

The information aspect, however, is crucial here. The simple fact of the matter is that it is not possible for most people to be sufficiently informed to make good decisions in this matter (at least it wasn't when most of these policies and recommendations were first coming out). The Covid pandemic has been a complex, rapidly-evolving situation with very little precedent to draw on. Staying informed requires one to spend hours every day studying emergent literature on the subject, which the vast majority of people simply don't have the time to do (to say nothing of the scientific literacy, which is also something most people suck at). That means the only sensible course of action is to defer to the advice of professionals who do have that time (because it's their job) and the knowledge and skills needed to contextualize the new information into recommendations. Any other response is foolish. Nobody objecting to these recommendations is doing so because they've actually studied the matter comprehensively enough to form a well-reasoned objection, they're objecting to them because they don't want to have to follow them and will cherry-pick whatever bits of evidence and/or appeals to authority they can find to support the position they wish were true.

And certainly, regardless of whether or not we actually go so far as to say "you're too stupid and/or uninformed for your opinion to matter," we very much cannot base any conclusions on the gravity of the situation on the public's independent response to it. That's just an absurd suggestion.

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I know many conservatives and none of them think it's fake. The way this board talks about conservatives is just exaggerated compared to the everyday real conservatives

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adjl posted...

This notion relies on two rather shaky assumptions: That most people are intelligent enough to arrive at reasonably optimal solutions based on the information available to them (a dangerously large percentage of the population isn't), and that most people are informed enough to independently draw such conclusions without needing to rely on summaries and interpretations from experts to guide them.

Assuming the opposite is also dangerous.

If you conclude that people are too stupid or uninformed to know what's good for them and rely only on instilling fear in them, then you wind up with people who will ingest fish tank cleaner because (according to the news outlets) the president told them to.

Meanwhile the people who have sufficient mental faculties to think for themselves look at the first group wondering why the heck they would ingest fish tank cleaner since the president never said that. And what are they so fearful of since no one tried to inform them in a rational manner.

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You really shouldn't be having a debate with a guy that thinks child porn is okay, adjl.

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EvilMegas posted...

You really shouldn't be having a debate with a guy that thinks child porn is okay, adjl.

If you mean me I assume you're misrepresenting the time I asked how you demonstrate harm against a cartoon character.

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I don't either, I just accept that they're needed.

Frankly it fucking sucks and it makes me think living my life in isolation is something I should just get used to but I don't think more people need to die just because it frustrates me either.

EDIT: Well, okay, I'm not against vaccines. But everything else is killing my soul.

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Muscles posted...

I know many conservatives and none of them think it's fake. The way this board talks about conservatives is just exaggerated compared to the everyday real conservatives

echo chamber

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Muscles posted...

I know many conservatives and none of them think it's fake. The way this board talks about conservatives is just exaggerated compared to the everyday real conservatives

Perhaps there arent a ton that think it isnt real but thinking its so harmless that you dont have to take any precautions against it is just as bad as thinking it doesnt exist because it leads to the same behavior.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Assuming the opposite is also dangerous.

If you conclude that people are too stupid or uninformed to know what's good for them and rely only on instilling fear in them, then you wind up with people who will ingest fish tank cleaner because (according to the news outlets) the president told them to.

Meanwhile the people who have sufficient mental faculties to think for themselves look at the first group wondering why the heck they would ingest fish tank cleaner since the president never said that. And what are they so fearful of since no one tried to inform them in a rational manner.

I can agree with that, but I'll also point out that there has been no shortage of efforts to inform people about this pandemic in a rational, educational manner. The ones that are getting berated now for refusing to wear masks or distance or what have you are the ones that have deliberately ignored the countless efforts to educate them in a less-hostile manner. Heck, there are countless "Karen freakout" videos out there now that begin with politely, rationally asking the Karen in question to put their mask on properly, only to be subjected to a thoroughly irrational tirade about freedoms and rights and how trying to limit the spread of disease is literally Hitler.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

If you mean me I assume you're misrepresenting the time I asked how you demonstrate harm against a cartoon character.

It was just about loli? In that case, I agree. Child porn is bad because it hurts kids, and consumption of it is lumped into that because it drives production. Loli, on the other hand, doesn't hurt anyone. There's room for debate around the question of whether allowing pedophiles a harmless outlet for their urges does more harm than good (though not very meaningful debate because there's very little real data on the subject due to how difficult it is to study), but the knee-jerk reaction of treating loli the same way as actual child porn is definitely not reasonable.

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I see conspiracy theorists on the Left and the Right, in my own country. I do think the 'right' (and most places) in the USA have a strong 'follow the leader' mentality, and many of them follow certain leaders within the right in disavowing anything that infringes upon their 'personal liberties'. I do think there is more nuance though than just saying "Conservatives DON'T wear masks", and presenting it with those media-style statements meant to provoke. I have gotten a lot more willingness to listen from people pushing into fringe territory if I say thinks like "I can see where you're coming from, however...".

Well, everyone has a pretty strong 'follow the leader' attitude these days regardless...always be pointed and critical of yours leaders!

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This is a disgusting far left topic, I'm 100% conservative/right wing and wear a mask in stores and public areas.. so do all my friends.

adjl posted...

I'll also point out that there has been no shortage of efforts to inform people about this pandemic in a rational, educational manner.

I disagree. I've not seen these efforts. Quite to to the contrary I've seen deaths far fewer then expected and yet the president is said to have acted too leniently while at the same time the ones making this claim were opposed to the measures he did take. I've seen those in authority make a show of going into quarantine only to be spotted somewhere else. I've seen those calling for the lockdown act like it doesn't apply to them. They want people to take precautions that they won't take themselves. Apparently they don't think it's that serious of a threat either. They aren't persuaded by their own information.

The news reporters broadcasting the message of fear will point out when other people don't wear a mask and remove their own as soon as they think the cameras are off.

Then there was the "civil unrest". The lockdown doesn't apply to you if you're "peacfully" setting fire to a civic building, looting stores, or toppling statues so long as it's for a cause your local politician agrees with. They may call a wedding a super spreader event but there's no risk of contagion here.

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Still shaking my head at people who make broad generalizations about a whole group of people just because of how a few members of that group act. Very narrow-minded way of thinking. Hard to find thinking individuals nowadays.

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xjayguyx posted...

This is a disgusting far left topic, I'm 100% conservative/right wing and wear a mask in stores and public areas.. so do all my friends.

Although I consider these kind of reactions almost as reactionary as the language used in the original topic. lmao. Take a breath everyone.

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Who cares what they want. It's up to us as individuals to protect ourselves and if you choose to follow the advice of those idiots, then by all means do so at your own risk.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

I disagree. I've not seen these efforts.

I listened to one on Saturday when my provincial government gave a briefing to update people on the current state of the second wave we're in the midst of (and again a few days prior to that, and so on). You can read one on the Covid information pages offered by countless public health agencies, including the CDC. I personally exert such efforts pretty much every time I talk about the subject, and I'm far from alone in that regard.

If you haven't seen those efforts, you haven't been looking for or listening to them. If you refuse to listen to people's efforts to rationally inform you, you don't get to complain that nobody's rationally informing you. For the most part, the people complaining that nobody's rationally informing them of the situation are either deliberately ignoring any rational explanations that don't yield conclusions they like, or they think sternly worded admonitions of their current behaviours are the same thing as being irrationally yelled at. Yes, there are people that have been treating them with unnecessary, counterproductive hostility since the whole thing began, and that's not good, but the fact that one person sharing this information was mean to them doesn't mean they shouldn't listen to anyone else that agrees with the meanie.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

They want people to take precautions that they won't take themselves. Apparently they don't think it's that serious of a threat either. They aren't persuaded by their own information.

A whole lot of people need to learn a very important lesson about the world: Somebody being a hypocrite means they're an asshole, but it doesn't indicate that they're wrong. Yes, there are many people that will publicly claim to be in favour of the precautions and then neglect them when they think nobody's looking. They should follow the precautions better. That doesn't mean the precautions don't matter, as is very obvious to anyone that takes the time to understand why they're being implemented.

It's also worth noting that a whole lot of the "look what a hypocrite Fauci is because he's not wearing a mask in this one picture" sort of accusations are less a matter of actually demonstrating hypocrisy or a lack of commitment to the recommendations and more a matter of these people being subjected to constant scrutiny by people that are desperate to catch them slipping up so they can discredit them (generally because they've decided a priori that they don't want the recommendations they don't like to be valid). People make mistakes. Nobody's perfectly compliant with these rules, and even those who believe in them completely will bend them from time to time if they feel following them is going to be particularly inconvenient or unnecessary (such as going the wrong way down an empty aisle in a store). That indicates absolutely nothing about whether or not they believe in the recommendations in general, and indicates even less about the validity of the recommendations.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Then there was the "civil unrest". The lockdown doesn't apply to you if you're "peacfully" setting fire to a civic building, looting stores, or toppling statues so long as it's for a cause your local politician agrees with.

I want you to find me three examples of people actually saying that the BLM protests did not present a Covid transmission risk. I encourage you to ensure that your examples are people in positions of authority and/or obviously possess reasonable competence on the matter, to make them more difficult to dismiss outright. I also encourage you to ensure those examples come from May/June so they aren't enjoying the benefits of hindsight, since the fact of the matter is that those protests have defied all expectations and not resulted in the massive spikes everyone was preparing for. Apparently, consistent mask use, being outside, being cognizant of distancing, and being aware enough of the disease risk to stay home if sick and get tested regularly actually did a very good job of ensuring that the protests were fairly safe.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

They may call a wedding a super spreader event but there's no risk of contagion here.

They only call weddings super spreader events when it is determined that the disease has spread superbly because of them. Typically, the only weddings that stand a chance of achieving such status are indoors, with few people wearing masks and little regard for distancing.

In contrast, the BLM protests have not been observed to be super spreader events. This surprised virtually everyone, but most people present were following public health guidelines reasonably well, and combining that with being outside seems to have been enough to prevent massive spread.

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Even once you get Covid, the antibodies don't stick around. Even the miracle vaccines we're being promised buy you 90 days.

The masks are never going to go away any more than being groped at the airport went away after we got OBL.

The boot eternally stamping the human face is the new normal, and we already have people wearing passive-aggressive masks that say "it goes over your nose".

This IS the new normal, and plenty of people are actively begging for it.

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Appropriate, given that Din Djarin was raised by a sect of zealots after all.

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LuciferSage posted...

Even once you get Covid, the antibodies don't stick around. Even the miracle vaccines we're being promised buy you 90 days.

Booster shots, yo. Short-lived natural immunity is nothing new for immunologists, and there's no shortage of ways to work around that with a vaccine.

Furthermore, what are you even trying to suggest by saying that? If vaccines are hopeless because the immunity granted doesn't last long enough, herd immunity can never be achieved. Give up on trying to contain the virus at all so life can go back to normal, and it will kill a very sizable portion of the population because it's not going to stop until we have a population density too low to sustain it. Sure, the vast majority of people will survive their first infection, and their second, and their third, but with only three months of immunity, they can expect to catch it 3-4 times a year. You can only roll the dice so many times before you get double snake eyes. The only way out of that outcome is if it spontaneously mutates to be less lethal, and there's really no reason to expect that such a mutation would spread throughout the viral population because there are no evolutionary forces pushing it (given the already-low lethality, there's virtually no selective pressure to promote becoming less lethal). I dunno about you, but I'd rather wear a mask than leave the future of humanity to some infinitesimal chance that the virus decides to leave us alone for no reason.

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adjl posted...

Booster shots, yo. Short-lived natural immunity is nothing new for immunologists, and there's no shortage of ways to work around that with a vaccine.

Furthermore, what are you even trying to suggest by saying that? If vaccines are hopeless because the immunity granted doesn't last long enough, herd immunity can never be achieved. Give up on trying to contain the virus at all so life can go back to normal, and it will kill a very sizable portion of the population because it's not going to stop until we have a population density too low to sustain it. Sure, the vast majority of people will survive their first infection, and their second, and their third, but with only three months of immunity, they can expect to catch it 3-4 times a year. You can only roll the dice so many times before you get double snake eyes. The only way out of that outcome is if it spontaneously mutates to be less lethal, and there's really no reason to expect that such a mutation would spread throughout the viral population because there are no evolutionary forces pushing it (given the already-low lethality, there's virtually no selective pressure to promote becoming less lethal). I dunno about you, but I'd rather wear a mask than leave the future of humanity to some infinitesimal chance that the virus decides to leave us alone for no reason.

That's a lot of words you posted, and I still can't tell if you're trying to prove my point, or disprove it.

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LuciferSage posted...

That's a lot of words you posted, and I still can't tell if you're trying to prove my point, or disprove it.

"Booster shots, yo" rather completely dismantles it, so...

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adjl posted...

"Booster shots, yo" rather completely dismantles it, so...

Are we reading the same post? What childhood vaccine did I miss that had to be taken every 3 months for the rest of my life?

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captpackrat posted...

Herd immunity requires everyone to be exposed and with a 1.9% mortality rate in the US, that's about 6-1/4 million deaths. A "normal" year sees about 2.8 million deaths in the US.

And that doesn't account for all the people who will die from other, treatable diseases and accidents because the medical system will have collapsed. And 1.9% mortality is with functioning hospitals. Once all the beds are full and the doctors and nurses are infected, that rate will likely skyrocket. The mortality rate in Mexico is 9.4%. A similar rate in the US would give us at least 30 million dead. You think shutdowns are bad for the economy?

Survival rates are over 99%.

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