The Vaccination/Infection/Political Divergence Where I Am
The Vaccination/Infection/Political Divergence Where I Am
In Virginia, cities and counties are separate, not one containing the other as in most of the US. So I live in the City of Harrisonburg, population about 53,000, which is surrounded by Rockingham County, population about 82,000, both in the Shenandoah Valley about 120 miles southwest of Washington.
In the past Harrisonburg, which contains James Madison University, tended to politically almost perfectly mirror statewide voting outcomes. However, since 2008 essentially it has become solidly liberal Democratic in its voting patterns and who controls the local government. We used to have GOP mayor not long ago, although they were of the moderate “mountain-valley” type who were holdovers from the days of Abe Lincoln when the valley was fairly anti-slavery, and Lincoln’s father was born in the county here (I have met a member of the family, who is tall and lanky and very progressive, working to help out refugees, Tom Lincoln).
OTOH, the county is very Republican, about 3 to 1 in recent voting. It used to moderate mountain-valley but has pretty much gone Trump-mad like most of the party and neighboring West Virginia.
I do not have the exact vaccination numbers, but I know the rate is much higher in the city than in the county. Previously infection rates and so on were about the same between the two, but not anymore.
For July so far, the city has had 6 new cases, but the county has had 64. That’s it.
Barkley Rosser
The stupid. It burns.
That’s the experience all over the south. The cities are heavily liberal and the rest of the states are Trump mad. It seems to be getting worse. We already have Trump 2024 flags going up on poles and anti-vax propaganda being spiuted from the streets. And in listening it has nothing to do with health concerns to get the vaccine and everything to do with someone telling folks they should do it. The harder the liberals yell from their cities about how dumb the country folk are the more both side dig in. It’s become harder and harder to be someone who analyzes each policy and then makes an educated decision. Being a centrist gets you called a “hypocrit” and both sides are forcing you to chose what color your t-shirt should be.
Strange times indeed.
Do you mean that getting vaccinated is beneficial but fundamentally a personal decision? Is that your idea of a centrist on vaccination? Such a position has no negative associations that I can observe in the Green Bay area. I have not met an unvaccinated person that thinks adults should not be allowed to take the vaccine, but many think it is a bad choice.
You can lead a horse to water but not make them drink.
Michael,
Although I do not really like these times, I must admit that I sort of like it. I am retired now, so no one forces me to do shit (although my wife might argue that). I did not have to be forced to get vaccinated. I was anticipating it from the start (Jan. 2020).
First off, liberals suck at intimidation. Country folk are not dumb, but a lot of them are pussies just like the liberals nowadays. My redneck bona fides exceed what the local population is accustomed to. My roots go back to Old Rag Mountain moonshiners and Cherokees. I have never had time nor patience for stupid. The people that make liberals uncomfortable, I make uncomfortable. It’s fun. The Trumpsters mostly admire me as an archetype alpha dog, but then I break their heart – but only a little bit. I barely tolerate liberals, but I do not tolerate dumb ass at all.
What liberals need to learn is that for looking down on others to work as one would want it to, then first one must command the respect of those that one wants to apply the peer pressure to. One seen as an enemy has no peer pressure to apply, but one seen as an archetype of all that is desired and respected by the target group has great weight behind their POV. So, just be the one that they hate to love.
Good advice. The more I hear “pick a side” the more I choose to stand still and continue to listen to the wind.
Yes, that too. The wind is older and wiser than men so listen to its call.
Ron – The problem with your assessment is that it is founded on the belief that those rural folks are not stupid. Anyone that chooses to not trust doctors but instead get their medical advice from partisan television programming is a “got dam” idiot.
Alpha-dogs tell it like it is and I refuse to suffer fools.
Liberals do not look down on rural folks, they simply are dumbfounded by the anti-intellectualism on display. They suck at intimidation because they do not need to be intimidated to do the intelligent thing to do.
Which explains why Ron Johnson is a Senator from Wisconsin.
The fear factor for COVID is not very high even with the best efforts of public health officials and most of the news media trying to make people fear it more. There simply are a whole lot more Americans whose personal experiences have been with quite mild cases than with serious illness. It doesn’t surprise me much that emergency vaccines have about the same response as seasonal flu shots. Every year some get it wrong about the severity of the flu and that will repeat here. I’d suggest a push on the J&J about now. Sure, you can bemoan the situation where millions might believe DNA is getting altered, but maybe easier to simply tell them J&J is not that kind of vaccine. I went J&J simply to get it in one shot, which is another advantage.
Well, Wisconsin elected Robert LaFollet, so I don’t understand your point.
Meanwhile Ron and Michael Smith seem to be making the point I have been trying to make.
The stupidity it burns, but you might be surprised at how evenly stupidity is distributed across political lines. There’s no shame in that. ALL human intelligence is quite limited…even among Harvard graduates. People learn from their own experience…including what they hear from their neighbors and the media liars who tell them what they want to hear. Left no different than Right. I assume the Left is on the side of the angels, but not because they are smarter, but because their line of influence descends from people who found better solutions to moral questions hundreds of years ago…people who almost by accident got into power under the New Deal. But even those people were not particularly smart. It took Roosevelt himself to keep them from turning Social Security into welfare as we came to know it.
So be of good cheer, my friends. And try to love your enemies. I might make exceptions in the case of Ron Johnson and his ilk. Even Jesus thought there was a sin that could not be forgiven. It had nothing to do with sex. It did seem to have something to do with lawyers telling the people that good was evil and evil good.
Ron,
Ah, so the only people who can tell hyperpartisanized rednecks what to do is a smart fellow redneck and everybody else should just shut the eff up? Maybe.
Actually on this matter I am more inclined toward the jackboot notsee view. I was in first grade when the Salk polio vaccine arrived, and they took us out and lined us all up and jabbed all of us.
OK, willing to grant exceptions for the small percent who can’t for immunological reasons and maybe a few with super hard core religious objections. But otherwise, if not outright line them all up, do not allow the rest of the unvaccinated into any public or private facility until they do it. Line the motherf—–s up.
Oh, I have redneck cousins, by the way.
You are a good egghead, Barkley Rosser, a very good egghead. When it comes to lining them up and shooting them all, their choice of weapon, then I am all with you. That is not typical liberal thinking though. Any redneck worth their salt should understand it well enough. Their whole freedom thing is why I think they are pussies instead of real rednecks. I was drafted into the army in 1969 as I should have been. Vietnam was a poor choice of fronts for the US, but the draft was a very good thing.
We moved to Orange County when I was a high school senior. My dad did a little work for Marion DuPont Scott and got to know her some. She was a force of nature. The Internet has much more on her equestrian interests now than her influence in the community, especially against racism. My dad was himself quite racist politically, coming from KKK country and being illiterate. I am sure that he knew better than to present himself as such to Marion, which was easy enough since he was generally a very humble guy except when with his hunting pals.
While he lived in Orange County though, he had at least as many black friends as white since blacks there were rural folk like himself with interests and skills in fishing, gardening, hunting, corn liquor, masonry, and rough carpentry. He also had a lot more friends living in Orange with people like himself than when we lived in Manassas Park, back then just a bedroom community of low to median income subdivisions with a single strip mall. My mom was raised by her nanny in Stafford County, who taught her cooking, sewing, and house keeping, so her views on race were much different from dad’s and they never discussed them in front of me.
My life has informed me that few people are as two dimensional as their adversaries would want to picture them. No, liberals do not need to just shut up on my account. I could care less myself. OTOH, as Dale Coberly frequently expresses, when one is in a deep hole then the first thing to do is stop digging.
Yeah, it is certain that those “mild cases” will not have any effects on people going forward. Not.
Let’s face facts, if you choose not to get the vaccine then you are stupid.
It is a 1 + 1 question, and many have failed to answer it correctly.
EMichael
it may be the case that failing to ge vaccinated is “stupid.” but calling people stupid will not change their minds.
it will lead them to seek validation from people they would not ordinarily vote for.
i keep trying to make this point. you and others keep missing it…not disagreeing with it. just missing it. if I didn’t know better I might call that…. er something I am trying to persuade you is not effective argument.
another way to say stupid.
when people who otherwise are smart enough to hold jobs keep failing to give your correct answer to your 1 + 1 question, you might begin to suspect there is something else going on that you aren’t thinking of.
Cob,
Really? Stupid people can’t hold jobs?
This decision was far easier than the decision on climate change, and the deniers were all stupid.
Cob,
There is no way I can convince these vaccine deniers to take the vaccine. So I avoid them, and call them stupid.
There’s a post above that claims people believe that a couple of the vaccines alter DNA. I’m sorry, that is stupid. There is no other word for it.
So, according to Ron, the only person who can convince a redneck of something is a smarter redneck. I have redneck cousins, but I shall not claim I have any such ability.
Actually, I am more in the Not See jackboot camp on this issue. Line em up and jab em, unless they have a good health excuse (some do) or a serious religious objection (some do). I was lined up in first grade to get the polio shots and I think it was a good thing.
OK, we are not going to literally line the motherf——s up, but I am all for banning people without a good excuse from entering public facilities or other things to really pressure the heck out of them to get it. This has been all too namby-pamby. When public health is involved, like with drunk driving, all this drivel about “freedom” can just go somewhere.
“…This has been all too namby-pamby. When public health is involved, like with drunk driving, all this drivel about ‘freedom’ can just go somewhere.”
[Totally, Dude. Trying to convince them by calling them stupid though, does not get it done. Actions speak louder than words. Rednecks know this, real rednecks at least.]
well, i can think of another word for it: misinformed. you’d be surprised how easy it is to make people smart just by changing who they listen to.
of course you can’t change their minds. i can’t change yours. and you can’t change mine. something about minds… even college educated ones. even people who might otherwise be geniuses.
and yes, i often use the word stupid the way you do. i suggested “able to hold a job” to differentiate that kind of “stupid” from “lacking normal (biologically determined) intelligence.”
i have gotten into trouble by calling someone’s idea “stupid.” they thought i was calling them stupid, and nothing I could say would enable them to let go of the insult they thought they suffered.
i think the cat may be out of the barn on that by now.
Rosser
well, you backed off the jackboot instinct, then reimbraced it. i hope that helps you understand why they might feel the same.
Rosser said
“according to Ron, the only person who can convince a redneck of something is a smarter redneck. I have redneck cousins, but I shall not claim I have any such ability.”
So, what’s your point? [the logic holds?: only a smarter redneck can P/ I am a redneck/ I can’t P/Therefore …I am not a smarter redneck?]
If you actually want to have a political conversation with someone I suggest trying to start with knowing what you agree about. It may not seem like time well spent, but letting someone hear you call the stupid (or call their ideas stupid) is not spending your time usefully either.
During 2017 I could find lots of people who agreed that they did not want to vote for either candidate in 2016. Abortion is a terrible form of contraception. There are people who take advantage of government programs. It’s hard to find a good handyman.
Arne,
in case i was not clear, i actually agree with you. my experience calling an idea stupid did not lead to good results.
trouble is, for me, that i have never been good at diplomat-speak. now, if i could only find someone who IS diplomatic to tell the people that they can keep their SS forever by just paying an extra dollar per week for it…
well… if shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater doesn’t work, try calling the fire department when the smoke appears after closing time in a government office. i got reprimanded by a diplomat-speak person because “that’s a decision for management to make.”
if the connection is not clear… well, try “you can’t win” for a conclusion. I have been spoken to in the most vile language by highly educated and diplomatic people. They get very excited when they realize you are not going to agree with them even if they are more important than you are.
79% college educated who are vaccinated
59% ‘less than college’ who are vaccinated
86% Dems who are vaccinated
52% Reps who are vaccinated
On this site it seems people agree that getting vaccinated is the correct decision. That would imply that deciding not to get the vaccine implies having bad information or poor reasoning skills (with a few exceptions*).
One could assert that choosing to ignore better information is a sign of poor reasoning, but I do have a question. Are people with better reasoning skills (if you have a meaningful measure) more likely to choose to be Democrats?
* anyone have a number for people with good medical reasons not to vaccinate?
Dear Mr. Moderator,
The site preview is a new, but not really appreciated feature.
Arne,
You appear to be missing my point at least, which is surprising since I am making the same point you made with me re trolls on my SS posts: My point has been that calling the unvaccinated names will not get them to get vaccinated but instead drive them into the arms of the Trumpists. As to whether or not they are intelligent, I try to say you can’t really tell. Human intelligence is not up to the job, so people resort to tribal identification or other less than rational processes… and that includes all of us who think we are so smart because we think vaccinations are a good idea. Furthermore setting ourselves up to be the judge of “good medical reasons” puts us into the Facist mind-set.
If you disagree with what I believe that does NOT imply either bad reasoning skills or bad information, We have to make decisions for ourselves, and we can try to influence others’ decisions, but we need to have a far better grasp than we seem to have of where we should NOT make other people’s decisions against their will.
If you don’t believe in forced abortions or forced no-abortion, you should not believe in forced vaccination or forced non-vaccination.Currently I am mostly on the side of the Democrats not because they have better ressoning skills, but because they tend to agree with me. That’s a different thing altogether. I suspect they agree with me because that makes it more likely I will vote for them. I certainly don’t agree with them about wars or what to do about Social Security, or a whole host of other details that make me think they don’t think at all…except about how to win elections.
“…If you don’t believe in forced abortions or forced no-abortion, you should not believe in forced vaccination or forced non-vaccination…”
[Sorry, but back when I was a worker bee, then my core competency was actually mathematics rather than large systems technology although I had extraordinary depth in the latter for someone that was working in finance doing technology asset management. Having also served in the 101st Airborne Division Admin Company in Phu Bai RSVN, then I am also familiar with the concept of body count. In terms of the potential body count, then the two are not the same thing, not even close. One person, one decision, and generally one dead body versus one person, one decision, and potentially a great number of dead bodies is not the same. Like Martin Gore of Depeche Mode wrote “Everything counts in large amounts.”]
Without the use of force then the Earth would neither rotate on its axis nor revolve around the sun. Convicts would not stay in prison either. Neither women nor liberals would be safe on the streets. …And worst of all I could not open a cold beer. So, the use of force is not absolutely a bad thing, but a matter of who controls the force and to what ends it is applied. In the end subjective reasoning is all that there is. If we do not know where we are going then we will never know when we get there.
Dale,
I was making my own point, not responding to your point.
This sounds nice and democratic and accommodating, but sometimes I actually do know better. If someone’s opinion about Social Security is based on “facts” which are wrong, then what they believe can be wrong even if it is an opinion.
You will note that in my 10:01 comment I prefaced the “bad information or poor reasoning skills” with a logical premise rather than a “fact”. That particular wording was important. It does turn it into “if you disagree with facts” instead of “if you disagree with me.”
I don’t think it takes a fascist to recognize that there are good medical reasons (such as being immune compromised) to not get vaccinated even if you can assume that a pure statistical analysis of the risks versus benefits can give you the “correct” answer for a representative sample of the population. The “line them up” solution is flawed. However, I am willing to judge that “Someone might think I was a Democrat” is not a medically based reason at all.
Arne
I am having real trouble following your argument. Probably I am just tired.
Of course it does not take a Fascist to recognize that there are good medical reasons to not get vaccinated. It does take Facist-thinking to decide that you have the right to decide what are good medical reasons to not force someone to get vaccinated against his will. (which is the same as saying you have the right to force etc…no doubt for good public reasons.
“that would imply that [that] implies is a difficult logical construction. Most people mean by “that would imply” that that does indeed imply. Of course, in casual argument imply does not mean what imply means in strict logical argument. i think in casual argument “imply” means “suggests”, so if you are saying P suggests p therefore q, that is not the same as P therefore p therefore q, or P suggests p suggests q… i end up not know what the hell you are saying.
What I (even I) meant was that if you disagree with me I do not think “therefore” you must be stupid or ill informed.
I don’t even think it suggests you must be stupid or ill informed. I think it means “you disagree with me.” I confess that sometimes I might think someone who disagrees with me is stupid or ill informed, but I try to resist thinking that….and even if I should fail in my vigilance, I can’t see why you (generic you, not anyone named Arne) should feel bad because I (even I) think you are b or ii…that’s my problem. If I think you are pink with black stripes that does not make you pink with black stripes… Back in grade school we had a word for this: “sticks and stones…”
well, i have gone on too long. just wanted to say it is very dangerous to force people beyond a certain point, or even to think that your knowledge of good medical reasons trumps their “heart has reasons that reason knows not”
anyway, it’s just a thought.
i was tireder than i thought. don’t bother trying to parse that. too many typos.
Ron
” as Dale Coberly frequently expresses, when one is in a deep hole then the first thing to do is stop digging.”
yes, it’s like Mark Twain said about smoking: “it’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it hundreds of times.”
Coberly,
Have a great day! My wife and I have learned two things from Covid-19. Life is short and we enjoy spending time together with just us. I learned long ago (c. 1965) that people are mostly stupid, but it does not help to tell everyone about it. My wife learned this around 2008 or so. So, love the time that you have and the people that you have to spend it with, because the world really does not get any better with the passing of time, not any more at least. Prior to 1968, then I might have thought otherwise.
Ron
certainly i agree about calling them stupid. but i go a bit further on the public health question.
Certainly allowing a witch to live was a public health question. and I am sure any good nazi would have said the same about jews. i really hate to see American liberals edging toward that degree of certain knowledge.
Coberly,
Got yer point, without changing mine. During the Great Plague people thought cats were witchs’s familiars. Certainty can be dangerous when one is wrong. There is no substitute for knowing what one knows and knowing what one does not know and knowing the difference. Anything else is foolish. One can be certain that foolishness abounds throughout time. However, one can also be certain that there is a distinction between knowledge and feelings. If one would rather have knowledge than feelings, then their life will be less full of friends, but also much less full of errors in judgement. Of course it is far easier to be certain about feelings than it is to be certain about knowledge. Being certain about knowledge is very hard work for which few people have the capability even when equipped with the access to information. Not many have that access either. So certainty is elusive with regards to knowledge of many things. However, there is little in life that is more certain than death. Death is certain and it is permanent. When ones own life is all that is at stake, then they can fiddle around with their feelings as much as they want, but when the health and safety of the entire general population around one is put at risk because of their feelings, then the luxury of those feelings should be confiscated.
What really confuses the discussion differentiating knowledge from feelings is our cultural acceptance of some feelings as fact. I.e., all men are created equal has never been more than a feeling regardless of how many times it is codified into our governmental processes. Human beings are neither created nor equal. Diversity is actually a good thing, because it eliminates the risk of social homogeneity in response to uncertain circumstances.
A little more evolution would be a good thing too.
coerce: “persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats”
Is there a term for persuade someone with consequences? You cannot do A unless you do B first. At what point do economic consequences become threats? If I say you cannot come to my house unless you are vaccinated, that is not a threat. If I say you cannot come to my business unless you are vaccinated, is that different? According to wedding cake bakers, it would seem it is (although that may depend on which state you are in).
I doubt that most people would think of the threat of prison for murderers as coercion, but from a pure definition, it would seem to me it is.
Arne,
What does the IRS have to say about our inalienable right to be free from coercion? If “Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society,” then appropriate immunization for highly contagious potentially lethal disease is just another tax. OTOH, if people do not want to be civilized then we could just go all Nazi on them.
Me: “I don’t think it takes a fascist to recognize that there are good medical reasons (such as being immune compromised) to not get vaccinated even if you can assume that a pure statistical analysis of the risks versus benefits can give you the “correct” answer for a representative sample of the population. “
Dale: “I am having real trouble following your argument. “
When I try too hard to express nuance and end up with such a convoluted sentence, I should not be surprised if you have trouble following.
There are good reasons not to get the vaccine. There are also bad reasons not to get the vaccine. I am unable to help myself from believing that people who cite what I think are bad reasons are stupid. I am willing to admit that here even if I would not say that to someone I was trying to persuade.
It is one thing to be a brother to all men, another thing to be a father to all men, and yet another thing to be a motherf….
Arne
I think I would draw the line at coercion that invades my body or threatens my life. That last may include the threat of prison.. which threatens your life one day at a time.
I don’t much believe in jail time for any crimes that are not life threatening.
Even in the case of murderers I don’t think capital punishment is something we should do to ourselves [i can no lon should do to ourselves. But I would agree we may need to protect ourselves from people we can reasonably regard as dangerous to us. Still, I would be very careful about making imprisonment “punishment” and try to provide conditions that amount to torture.
Some of this might seem impractical at the moment, but might be worth working toward. I certainly think society has a right to protect itself from unvaccinated, unmasked, or un-socially distant. It also has a right to tax or impose monetary fines that are not crippling. There is a difference between “coercing” and invasion of life and body. Just as “turning the other cheek” does not mean passively accepting a beating or watching passively while someone else is assaulted. I’d like to be able to say that “common sense” should teach us the difference.. but I have less faith in common sense than I’d like to have.
Arne
as for wedding cake bakers… i think their religious freedom objection is stupid and dishonest and unchristian. on the other hand, i don’t see any reason for the government to force the to bake cakes for people they don’t like.
this is different from “no negroes allowed” in public restaurants. gay people can find other caterers easily.
Ron
me and Socrates think that thinking you know something for sure is a dangerous thing. that’s why they killed him.
Coberly,
Well, after you updated certainty to mean moral certainty then that puts me on the opposite side of you from where I was. I have little use for morality and absolutely none for moral certainty. Scientific certainty is something I carefully search for and only cautiously accept. Hell, just understanding the meaning of words used by others in tangled and narrow ways is difficult enough.
I do not know where it comes from at all, but the number I have seen thrown around a bit for the percent who have immunological problems preventing them from getting vaccinated is about 2 percent.
Regarding the abortion issue, it simply does not have the externality issues that vaccinations in a pandemic due. If somebody does or does not have an abortion does not affect anybody else particularly, but not getting vaccinated is a health risk to others as well as oneself, just as driving drunk is, which is why the latter is illegal.
Ron
“all men are created equal” is neither a fact nor a feeling. it is a political program. of course the law in its majesty makes it equally illegal for a rich man to sleep under a bridge as for a poor man to sleep under a bridge.
we progress toward being human, but sometimes we don’t.
Coberly,
Political programs are no more than a reflection of our feelings about living with each other under the supervision of a shared state, which we tacitly acknowledge assigns power to others over our own lives such that equality is completely impossible. More simply it is the pandering of shepherds to the sheep reassuring the sheep that they will be just sheared rather than slaughtered. In any case, man created state; not the other way around. The state was formed by how we feel about others having power over us whether by cruel coercion of warrior kings or delegated by republican means.
Arne @ 11:42
that’s about where I am too. on both convoluted sentences and thinking “stupid” but not saying it…
or taking it upon myself to force them at peril of their life to do what I think is a matter of public health…we have been down that road before, even if we can’t recognize it when we are in the driver’s seat.
Ron
Contrary to Ayn Rand your money is not your life.
your money is not even your money: render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.
Coberly,
In math, if A=B and B=C, then A=C.
So then, if my life equals my wife and my wife equals my money, then my life equals my money. QED
Seriously, I never though my life equaled my money. I don’t even know where you got that from. OTOH, realistically my life would be a lot different if I had a lot less money. That is kind of how it works under an economic system of capitalism with a republican state sponsored by the rich and elected under first past the post rules.
Turtles
your comment is what i have in mind when i say i am distraught that liberals make such good little fascists.
your self righteous takes my breath away, just like kneeling on my neck.
Rosser and Ron
the road to hell is paved with moral certainty.
Coberly,
Morality is a luxury for pacifist eunuchs since their lives are so dull.
Ron
yeah, i know all about the force of gravity. damn near killed me the other day. i also know about the force of cops. damn near killed me before i learned to say “yes, officer.” I wouldn’t have lasted ten minures in Nazi Germany…or Nazi America, whether hi populorem or lo populhihem.
I hav been known to use force myself at times…but not lethal force. Still, the decision to use force makes one too stupid to see better ways to accomplish the same thing. The January 6 crowd was using force to Save America. The stolen election was a Fact that threatens all of us with Slavery and Death.
We hang mutineers because they threaten the safety of the country.
Witches are a mortal threat to the colony.
Jews are a disease like plague rats.
Negroes will rape your wife and daughter if not taught a lesson.
I can’t even rely on you to recognize that the foregoing are examples of past moral certainty, not my own beliefs.
Coberly,
Ignorance and certainty are meant to separate when mixed in a suspension. Unfortunately too many people ingest them together in dry powdered form. OK, metaphor alert. Just think about it a while.
Life is a battle. To win one must stay liquid. Eventually though, we all still die. So, most of all, then enjoy the ride. In the end it will still seem too short no matter how much time that you have. Winning in life means that one has fun themselves while also bringing fun into the lives of those close around them. There is no more than this.
This thread has gathered many comments because it is really quite nuanced.
There are Republicans who are saying that Democrats are coercing people into getting the vaccine. Going door-to-door is not coercion. There is a lot of misinformation out there.
On the other hand, preventing nurses from working unless they are vaccinated is coercion. There are different levels of coercion. We don’t really like to use the word for those forms we find acceptable, but economic threats are coercion. <humor> I found the definition of the internet, so it must be correct. </humor>
I found the definition of coerce on the Internet.
The Internet thinks nuance means “a subtle distinction or variation”, but I think it means disagreeing with me does not mean you are stupid.
Certain knowledge.
You mean like trickle down economics is a stone cold lie?
You mean like there was no voter fraud in the election?
You mean like the belief that POC have advantages white people do not?
You mean like Covid was a Chinese attack?
You mean like vaccines are a liberal plot?
You mean like Obama was not an American?
List goes on and on and has been present for over 50 fen years.
Yeah, that means they are stupid. And trying to engage them in conversation is a total waste of time. Or as Mark Twain said:
“Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
Arne
just so you know: i am not responding here to R claims the D’s are coercing people. I am talking about the statements of some here that i understand to be in favor of coercion to the point of forcing them on pain of imprisonment… or just “force feeding.” The R’s are liars. The people who believe them are idiots. That doesn’t make it a good idea to call them idiots or to propose forcing them to get vaccinations.
Requiring nurses to get vaccinated is not force. It’s a condition of employment at a place that specifically requires vaccination. Don’t want the vax, don’t work there. Not a big deal. not like being tied down and injected while kicking and screaming and crying. I lost lots of jobs because i refused to do what management wanted…. usually break the law, laws intended to help people. found something better. but i’d live in the desert and eat rattlesnakes before i’d sell my soul…which is a phrase you should understand even if you don’t believe in “religion.”
EMichael
apparently you have been arguing with a stupid person all this time. your list of certainties looks bipartisan…or are they lies? or a mixed bag?
i believe that some things people believe are stupid beyond belief… or that some things Rs say are stupid beyond belief, but i would not bet my chances of heaven against any of them. moral certainty is more dangerous than stupidity.
Social Security is going broke, my children will not ever receive anything from it.
Figure it out
I’ve run into two types of people who are vaccine “hesitant”.
One type is just nervous and often misinformed. They are easy to deal with: No, the vaccine won’t destroy your sense of smell, but getting COVID can. No, the mRNA doesn’t get turned into DNA, but if you’re still worried get the J&J vaccine. No, the side effects aren’t that bad, even for young people, especially when compared to getting even a “mild” case of COVID. The rumors going around are pretty amazing. I have an old integrated circuit I use to explain what a “chip” actually is.
The other type is just basically nasty and evil and exist on this earth for the harm that they can do. If you suggest that, maybe, they shouldn’t crap on the sidewalk, they’ll crap on the sidewalk just because it makes a problem for someone else. A lot of liberals don’t believe in evil, and they’ll make up backstories to justify evil people as if we need to know about The Joker’s problems with his mom and dad.
coberly thinks that moral certainty is a bad thing (oooh, see what I did there?), and it may be that nothing snotty elitists say to rednecks refusing to vaxx will make any difference, but I for one agree that calling people “stupid” is not going to get anywhere, even if many of them are in fact exactly that, stupid.
Rather I think a slightly better chance to get to them, albeit also likely to annoy and turn many off is in fact to appeal to them on moral grounds. Because of the externality aspect of this, that unvaxxed people can end up spreading the disease, makes it in fact like drunk driving where other peoples’ lives are endangered. Many will not like this comparison, but it is accurate, and an appeal to morality has a serious basis even if coberly thinks we cannot say anything is immoral (mass murder is not to be criticized, coberly?).
So, don’t tell them they are being stupid, tell them they are being evil.
Hi Barkley:
Beyond calling one stupid or their actions being akin to drunk-driving; it is imperative they be told directly they should be vaccinated. Not just to prevent death or long term illness with a chance of life time bodily organ damage (to themselves) which appears to happen more so than death, their illness can threaten kin as well as neighbors. It should be made as a personal effort to protect people related and around them too.
I think morality may be a word too difficult to comprehend.
Just ask two questions:
1. What would you do to someone that was threatening the lives of your family?
2. OK then, would you rather be shot with a gun or a syringe?
OK, just two questions was an early AM brain fart. Not appropriate since Vax replaced just masks.
A year ago then the anti-masks were putting others at risk, but with few exceptions among those Vax intolerant for medical reasons, then the anti-Vax clan is just putting themselves at higher risk. Since realism is often the best framing within which understanding communication is possible then the best anti-Vax response would then be “Good; I hope you die.”
Then there is this twofer approach to say to anti-Vaxers, “I am sure that you have long believed that stupid people just die and now is your chance to prove it.”
Of course this is all hypothetical since I do not actually know anyone too dumb to take the vaccinations for Covid-19.
kaleberg
i must not be a liberal then, because i believe the R’s are evil.
On the other hand, I hate to see the liberals turning to evil because they believe the people who are fooled by the Rs are evil and deserve to be treated that way.
Coberly,
My in-laws all vote Republican. My wife is a switch-hitter Obama, then Romney, then no one, then Ordinary Joe. I know my wife’s family well and they are not evil. They are educated bright enough, but common sense bright is a tad more elusive to them. Also, they are more business and finance than math and science. They really are not complex or deep thinkers, but few people are. I have had a great many liberal friends and they got there by feelings and comfort zones rather than intellect just as much as my wife’s family became conservative that way. Also, they inherited it from their parents who spoiled them far more than mine did, which goes the same for both liberals and conservatives that I have known well. We are each mostly just what our lives shaped us into from the cradle to the grave.
When it comes to elites, then I do not trust any of them, but the liberal elite utilize a more refined class of pandering.
Republicans are not strange or unknown to me, but anti-Vaxers are something that I only see on TV.
My working theory on the spoiled child is that they grow up to be self-absorbed, intellectually lazy adults. That seems to fit the known data precisely. It is a condition entirely independent of political and ideological orientation.
friends,
well, this has gone on too long and is not getting [me] anywhere.
funny thing is i agree with you mostly, but you don’t seem to understand what i am trying to say. maybe it doesn’t matter.
i may come back later and try again, just for practice.
EMichael @ 9:25
do you have any idea how cryptic this is? if you are thinking that “Social Security is going broke…” ia a lie that establishes there is such a thing as lies, of course I agree with you. But note some people believe that lie, and they have “moral certainty” in their belief. Just as I have moral certainty in my belief. I also have some mathematics…in which I have moral certainty.
While I not propose changing their minds at the point of a gun, ultimately their lie will lead to millions of people being harmed…essentially at the point of a gun, which is what “the law” is.
i do not see how this applies to what we have been saying here, but of course I wouldn’t.
“they” could argue that forcing them to pay into Social Security is ultimately at the point of a gun. They would be right… but taxes and traffic laws are a long way from forcing people to let you inject something into their bodies.
the idea that all government force is immoral is pretty much what the Right believes. I don’t think it helps us to prove their case for them by taking whatever power we have and threatening them with something much closer to home than taxes.
“they” are very good at conflating reasonable fear [body invasion] with unreasonable fear [taxes and traffic laws].
apparently the Left is perfectly willing to do the same thing .
so what is “unreasonable fear”? i guess that is something we can argue about, until it comes to point where we are willing to kill and die for our unreasonable fears. i am just trying to point out it might be worth trying to make a distinction before we get that far.
That’s enough for me.
Ron
you are correct to point out that any vaxxers (some of them) are also anti maskers and anti social distance-ers.
which tell us someting about the nature of their insanity/stupidity/dishonesty.
but note we got along before the vaccine with masks and social distancing…to the extent we could enforce it.
i am not arguing against any of the things you all seem to think I am arguing against. you seem to agree with me that calling them stupid doesn’t help. but when i argue against resorting to what are ultimately threats of lethal force you don’t agree with me. ultimately you may be right. but we are a long way from needing that now, and entertaining use of force and variations on our Righteousness are very dangerous , to ourselves mostly, but also to what happens when two Righteous forces decide to kill each other. we saw a taste on Jan 6.
Run
you are absolutely right. “morally” is a word difficult to comprehend.
“moral certainty” appears to be another one: try “self righteous”. sometimes it allears as “scientific certainty” where it turns out the certainty part is not scientific at all, but just another disguise for moral certainty. its easy to recognize in others.
Rosser
you said [Italics are coberly. plain type is Rosser]:
“coberly thinks that moral certainty is a bad thing (oooh, see what I did there?)
no, i don’t see. do you know what i mean by moral certainty?
and it may be that nothing snotty elitists say to rednecks refusing to vaxx will make any difference, but I for one agree that calling people “stupid” is not going to get anywhere, even if many of them are in fact exactly that, stupid.
well, I did not call anyone a snotty elitist and while many of them may be stupid, some of them are not. are you qualified to sort them out?
Rather I think a slightly better chance to get to them, albeit also likely to annoy and turn many off is in fact to appeal to them on moral grounds.
Probably not. They are as certain of their moral grounds as you are of yours.
Because of the externality aspect of this, that unvaxxed people can end up spreading the disease, makes it in fact like drunk driving where other peoples’ lives are endangered.
well, i think you may have some problem recognizing the “externalities” of proposing forced vaccination. similar to the externalities of denying [or forcing] abortion.
Many will not like this comparison, but it is accurate,
“But it is accurate” is insufferably solipsist: “it is accurate because I believe it is.”
and an appeal to morality has a serious basis even if coberly thinks we cannot say anything is immoral (mass murder is not to be criticized, coberly?).
but coberly does not think that. i appeal to morality when i argue against “moral certainty” (aka self righteousness). lots of things are immoral.. the Right’s program of anti-vaccination is immoral, but “moral certainty” is an immoral response to it…or in any case a stupid response. does that help make it clearer? by the way ONE murder is immoral.
do you count “collateral damage” as mass murder?
So, don’t tell them they are being stupid, tell them they are being evil.
well, if you think that will help… [ it won’t. trust me. but between you and me the Right’s lies are evil. I would hate to see the Left falling into the same trap.]
Rosser: i tried to keep this polite, but i don’t know how to answer a person who misunderstands my words and projets them into nightmare fantasies which he can easily refute.
Ok, coberly, I have had it with you here. When did you turn into such a piece of worthless scum?
This is what one should say to those who refuse to get vaccinated. Go to hell.
BTW, nobody talks about it, but Kubler-Ross found that a small minority, 5-15% do not get the “wonderful light” experience when they almost die and are out of body, blah blah blah. They go to an awful darkness that is awful. It looks like maybe there really is a hell after death, although most are quiet about it, because, well, looks like some small minority of “losers” end up there.
Those not getting vaxxed are way too many to be in that 5-15%. But, hey, not getting vaxxed, leading to others dying horrible deaths, well, that is not going to move one closer to getting that wonderful “light” experience after death that the vast majority of people apparently get when they die.
Sorry, but it looks like hell might exist, although against the vast majority of the world’s religions that claim that only those who believe in their sect will be saved, heck, even atheists “see the light,” or most of them, when almost dead.
Got my paragraphs out of order, but I am going to let this comment stand. Frankly I have become disgusted by large amount of the commentary on this thread.
Barkley:
I had open heart surgery 2012(?). I never had a heart attack like you see on TV, just chest pains. Cholesterol at 104, runner, backpacker, doing everything right.
Being put to sleep is not high on my list of things to do. The last words I heard when I descended into a darkness so deep, it is unimaginable. An induced sleep.
Was “this one is crying.” Submitting is not in my nature.
Obviously, I came out of this.
My first words to my wife was “I thought I would never see you again.”
There is a terrifying darkness.
The removal of the ventilator tube woke me as they pulled it from my throat. The nurse called to me while I was half asleep and starting to react. I fell back into a deep sleep after hearing her.
It is just the experience of submitting to another’s care which is terrifying when you can do nothing. Why risk the experience it when you can mostly avoid it with a shot?
The good news (kind of – sort of) is that thee public administration sphere in the US is of no mind to engage in Brinkmanship over individual Covid-19 vaccinations, but most states are all for allowing businesses and school boards to carry that weight for themselves. “Thee” was initially a typo that I corrected before considering, laughing, and restoring to its natural semantic and adding emphasis.
Run
i am afraid to say anything because it seems to get misunderstood.
but just in case it helps:
i wouldn’t take that darkness too seriously. There are similar experiences that people have with “natural” or “scientific” explanations….none of them any more certainly true than “mystical” or “religious.”
I notice you are not going where Rosser is going with his intrepretation of what he read (?) about such experiences,
but just in case: the idea of “hell” is more likely (i think) a human extrapolation of such an experience [nightmare,bad dream, sleep apnea…), by free association, taking the experience and adding in “normal” fear of the dark, fear of death, fear of loss, guilt, and anger etc until arriving at a “story” about “eternal punishment” for “crimes against god” [again, don’t take me too seriously.] but while i find (found) the idea of “god” more likely than the idea of “no god” i can’t imagine any “god” so trivial he spends his time punishing people for “sins.”
be of good cheer. try to cheer up Barkley (and EM and Joel). My take…and forgive me for saying it…is that they are responding to the ideas they have acquired in life that attach meanings to things that in themselves have no such meanings. [ “in themselves” = in the ideas. the meanings are in “them”=the persons having the ideas.]
there is no hell. i think—please note i say “i think” not “you must think”– that if life means anything other than some kind of self-caused accident in empty (truly empty…containing nothing, not just containing “no” thing)* then it is entirely possible “hell” is what we create for ourselves by entertaining…encouraging…thoughts that cause us pain.
*[rosser may notice this is a bit of a play on something stupid Bertrand Russel once said about “religion.”]
of course my doctrine is no more likely to be “true” than yours or rossers or any of about 8 billion others and counting. but i can (try to) assure you — all — that what you are making of my efforts to change your minds about a few small things bears no resemblance to what i think i am saying.
incidentally, “science” says we understand each other far less than we imagine, and it matters far less than we imagine.
I’m vaccinated and relaxed about associating with people of unknown vaccine status. It has been about 16 months since most of saw those “balls bouncing around in the box” simulations. I’m now one of the inert balls that is supposed to be in circulation providing collision potentials for the live balls left out there. The idea of vaccine segregation feels destructive as an easily predictable result of it is to make unvaccinated interactions more likely…..’let’s all go down to Freddy’s on 9th where they aren’t dicks about this’. Anyone who thinks that many commercial places are not going to make that business decision is likely to be sorely disappointed.
I would also suggest that anyone who thinks that there is a real political dimension to the choices of the unvaccinated should consider if addressing their more significant political alienation(s) is worth doing to get them more likely to vaccinate.
For example, I think it is fair to say that there is a significant partisan disagreement on a lot of the aspects of looking at events of January 6, 2021. Would President Biden ask Speaker Pelosi to retract her veto of Republican nominees to the House select committee on the basis that it serves to further alienate people who might yet accept the vaccine? How about immediately providing the normal law enforcement transparency on the lethal use of force employed on Ashli Babbit, including a clear explanation of why it did not happen in far more typical timeframe, such as recently in Minnesota or in the past in Ferguson, MO. A public hearing on why the House decided to use a entirely false account of Officer Sicknick death in the second Impeachment trial. Essentially, how important is vaccination versus the kinds of things that bother a lot of people.Eric
I think you are on the right track, but don’t expect it to lead anywhere soon.
I should tell you that people who should know tell me that a vaccinated person
in a crowd of unvaccinated people is more likely to get Covid than an unvaccinated
person in a crowd of vaccinated people.
Another post demonstrating why Ron Johnson is a Senator from Wisconsin.