Re: Covfefe-19 The 11th Part: Suck It Up And Die Grandpa I Need A Manicure!!
Jeb, first, thanks for your kind wishes for my family. Much appreciated. No offense but, your last paragraph in post 52 (I've been asked not to actually quote you so that those who've put you on ignore can see what you've wrote) appears to be someone's opinion. Which is fine but, you put it in quotes so, I assume it didn't come directly from you -- obviously you included it because you agree with it. However, it's difficult to assess it in any way since you didn't let us know who said it. It's obviously a continuation of the "the cure can't be worse than the disease" talking point that the right has been putting out since Trump decided he needed to focus on "opening things back up" to change the narrative away from how badly he mismanaged his response to the pandemic. Here's how I addressed this talking point to someone else who raised it in these forums previously:
I want to address your position on the "cure not being worse than the disease" position. The unfortunate thing is, we could have literally stayed as locked down as we were originally -- possibly even as long until we had a vaccine -- IF, emphasis on IF our government would have approached the economics of the situation the way many of the other western democracies did. By paying every adult between $2,000 and $3,000 per month until the crisis was over. AND, if either you or your spouse/partner lost full or even partial employment due to Covid, any student, car, or home loans that either/both of you had the payments would be suspended until we had a vaccine. With the delayed months being added on to the end of those terms. There are a number of respected economists who believe this would have been significantly cheaper for the federal government in the long term than what we have chosen to do.
To your point about how New York and Minnesota have chosen to handle long term care facilities during the pandemic; you're pretty new to these forums and if you go back and read the Covid thread prior to the current one, you'll see almost universal agreement (even from all of us lefties) that those decisions have been significant mistakes. There isn't a single person posting here that doesn't feel we -- the entire world community, including the WHO, the Chinese, the NIH, the CDC, and yes, numerous world leaders/governments -- have made mistakes or gotten things wrong regarding predictions of spread, or best treatments, or whether we should wear masks, or if surfaces are a significant risk for spread. However, most of those mistakes were honest ones by experts and professionals that acted or decided based on the best info available at that moment.
However, of all the people or entities that have made mistakes, the largest and most egregious in regards to direct effect on loss of human life is Donald J. Trump. He was informed in early January by his intelligence experts about the potential effects of the virus and, by mid-February, everyone of his science and medical experts were telling him he needed to shut down the country to minimize the spread. He waited for another month before he finally chose to do it. And, according to the following study published in the New York Times, we would've had almost 40,000 less dead bu May 1st if he would've simply acted a week earlier. Think about that... All because he refused to allow his desire (read...massive freaking EGO) to have a great economy/be re-elected be affected by a virus he refused to believe was a threat.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/us/coronavirus-distancing-deaths.html
We are literally being "lead" by the least intelligent and empathetic human being in the history of the planet. And it's not even close.
I've stated this before but, since your new here I'll say it again. I spent over 20 years in the military, I owned my own business for 15 years, and voted for the following people for president since eligible to vote; Reagan in 84, Bush I in 88, Bush I in 92, Perot in 96, Bush II in 2000, wrote in Powell in '04, McCain in '08, then Obama in 2012, and McMullin in '16. My point being, my political leanings have been FAR more to the right than the left through the years, especially at the national level. But, after Trump was elected, I started to really evaluate what each party was doing. Not saying, but actually putting out legislation to act on.
To be honest, I have to give credit to many of those who post regularly on here who are much smarter than I am. Or at least, much better at researching information than me. I really hadn't ventured into the "Cafe" until the 2016 campaign but, since then I have had my eyes opened about where we really are as a country, who is really fighting for what and, most importantly, what I now know what I want our country to truly stand for and be about. Unfortunately, the Republican Party/right side of the political spectrum isn't doing anything to achieve that outcome. In fact, they are actively working to turn this into a fascist state.