Coronavirus

coachg · Joined: 10 Sep 2000 Posts: 3245

Trust me GT, your Conservative party is nothing like our Conservative party and I doubt your Liberal party has very much in common with our Liberal party as well.

Coachg

mac · Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:55 pm Post subject:

Oh look, the conservatives have moved the goal posts again. Incapable of staying on topic, and determined to repeat WSJ or right wing talking points, the new reasoning is that we liberals are insensitive to the bond between parents and children, and determined to close the schools again. Utter bullshit.

Mlaronde and Isobars have published nonsense stories about vaccines being more dangerous than Covid, and those stories have been amplified by right wing media, and folks like Tucker Carlson. Gybe pivots to claim this is about closing schools, or interfering in the parent child relationship.

First, vaccine mandates have been constitutional in this country for about a century. Blessed by the Supreme Court—I posted the citation. It is not a loss of freedom to require vaccination to attend school, or go to a restaurant. Your freedom to make decisions about your body do not extend to a freedom to infect others with a deadly disease. Settled law, and a serious political party would acknowledge that. Something I learned while still a child.

Second, children remain an important vector for spreading disease—in the case of schools, to teachers. We can blame the teachers for being old and overweight—classic right wing tactics. But the sad fact is that teachers are dying and retiring, and school districts aren’t able to replace them. When I taught children in person, I got far more colds. The price I was willing to pay for teaching kids that need help was aches and pains—not the threat of Covid.

Third, nobody is talking about closing schools. Stanford—a private school that gets the cream of the crop—is talking about starting the semester remotely. In Berkeley, the organization that vets my volunteering required me to get a test and show proof of vaccination—which I gladly did. Schools are using science—both about educational content and about risk minimization—to stay open and teach. Republicans are trying to ban test, mask and vaccine mandates and ignoring the deaths they cause.

Not political? Horseshit.

GURGLETROUSERS · Joined: 30 Dec 2009 Posts: 2620

Thank you Coach, I take your point. Cultural differences are real, but the thing that puzzles many of us over here is the negativity now directed at conservatism. (Our kind of default position, and at odds with most of Europe.)

It is perplexing that your country used to have a solid base of decent Republicans, so why has that changed so relatively quickly?

(A rhetorical question really, because I don't understand how the land of enterprise and opportunity for all became so divided as it is today.)

mac · Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 4:52 pm Post subject:

Vaccine disinformation not political? This is the new Republican party, authoritarians and paranoid, no longer conservative.

swchandler · Joined: 08 Nov 1993 Posts: 10310

GT,

Conservative Republicans in the US are the party of "no". The negativity label kind of fits I think. What we really need to worry about is when they say "yes". Just look back to Trump's presidency.

mrgybe · Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Posts: 5118

mac · Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:57 pm Post subject:

Sharp move to the left? GT--let me give you a few facts about the current GOP. Trump lost every lawsuit challenging the election. There was no fraud. Nonetheless, 147 Republicans voted against accepting the results of the election. Some of them had met with the rioters who attempted a coup. Those are the facts. That is fascism, not conservatism.

J64TWB · Joined: 24 Dec 2013 Posts: 1675

I fail to see how a shift in social policy or for instance, passing an infrastructure bill, should justify being non-decent. Or justify a violent attempt to subvert a free and fair democratic election before such social policies have even been introduced! An election lie which most all republicans have supported. A terrible lie amongst many, many lies.

The republicans have lost their minds. Lost their decency and honor. GT knows the truth. Honorable people know the truth. Honorable people know decency when they see it. They know corruption and excrement when they see it. Trump and his bag of republicans are a slippery bag of disgusting excrement.

Social policy is just that. Social policy. It should be debated and fairly voted on.

MikeLaRonde · Joined: 11 Jun 2001 Posts: 443

mac · Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 9:43 pm Post subject:

Oh look, the drunk Russian troll is back, spreading more lies. Meanwhile, thanks to the vaccine hesitant: