I agree that we should take statements at face value and try not to infer what might not be there. Otherwise it's too easy to talk past each other or create strawmen.


I should've asked my teacher this the last time I failed a math test.

Yeah, I mean politicians, specifically, have no interest in lying or trying to create a place where they can be all things to all people to try and maximize votes. And we definitely shouldn't try to infer the meaning of their actions or true intent. They never talk out of both side of their mouth and should not be held accountable for it, even if those words or actions could cost lives.

SI

No one (to my knowledge) is saying that the government should ban Paul or others from speaking. No one (to my knowledge) is suggesting that he be jailed or otherwise punished for speaking.

Many people are simply not letting him get away with saying wrong bullshit and are calling him out on it.

Despite what the "OMG Cancel Culture!" folks would have you believe, having free speech does not mean that you should be immune from criticism.

Nobody is saying Paul's speech should be banned. Conversely, to SI's point, nobody's saying it shouldn't be criticized either.

What some people *are* saying is that we can judge the motives of one side of a debate, and that side only, based on things they didn't actually say. That we can assume he's not getting vaccinated to make a political statement, but it's not a problem at all if others *do* get vaccinated to make a political statement. That we can assume nefarious motives for the other side of the debate, but that it's unfair to do so if it's something 'our' side says.

That's what I object to. Anybody who so much as posts on this forum, much less is a public figure like a Senator, definitely ought to have what they say examined and criticized. That's what debate is for.

So we're required to believe that voting suppression efforts are about voting security?

Nah, that's stupid. Taking what they say at face value about vaccines and COVID is also stupid.

I agree that people should be given the benefit of the doubt, but that ends at some point when the person proves they are not sincere. That point was long ago passed by Rand Paul. What people have said and done in the past should clearly be factored into whether or not their current statements are truthful.

You're not required to believe anything about the why. Leaving the why entirely to the side and engaging with what people actually say is what I'm advocating for.

Otherwhise we just end up in a situation where each side ... sides differing somewhat depending on the issue ... assume the other side is debating in bad faith because they don't trust them. I.e. so-and-so is against mask mandates to own the libs, Biden's spending bills are about turning the US into a socialist utopia rather than making necessary investments in the future, etc. It's easy to say 'we' don't trust Rand Paul, but 'they' don't trust Biden/Democrats and they think they have good reasons for doing so.

The only way out is to not assume we know what's beneath the surface.

Paul is absolutely anti-vax and has been for many years. He has also supported the proliferation of the virus.

I agree with albion that I doubt his stock picks motivated his pro-COVID stance, but I do think there is a political motivation behind it. And him being really dumb.

THESE PEOPLE ARE BAD AT RESEARCH https://t.co/lt8Tpvkkiy

— Alex Edelman (@AlexEdelman) August 12, 2021

One of our town councilmen, a GOPer, posted an update from the county board of health and boy, did it bring out the crazies.

Actually new report is it was the first time Paul had traded an individual stock in 10 years so definitely some insider trading.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/08/12/...mpression=true

Proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative test result required to attend New Orleans Saints games

Good on the Saints. You want to enjoy things like a football game…go get vaccinated

The U.S. Supreme Court will not block Indiana University's vaccine mandate. Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected the plea without even asking the university for a response or getting her colleagues to weigh in. Justices often act on their own in such situations when the legal question isn't particularly close. Barrett handles emergency matters from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which includes Indiana.

Supreme Court Won't Block Indiana University's Vaccine Mandate

As a guy who just returned to campus full-time after my 18-month Pandemic StayCation, and a guy whose job duties include producing detailed immunization compliance stats, I'm glad that the Supreme Court agrees that these students in particular can go fuck themselves.

But I feel that way about everybody who creates unnecessary work for me when I've got more important things to do.

I would be willing to take what they said at face value if they hadn't burned those trust bridges and shown many times over. They have shown that they are not interested in the betterment of society in general. Being wrong was frowned upon starting in first grade, and that's a standard that we teach our kids from early on. To believe otherwise is to normalize low education standards. If we know it's wrong, it's wrong, and we strive to be right


Paul never had to eat his words on his fearmongering over Ebola either. He was out there ramping up the transmissibility of it and stroking fears over the dangers that the greater US was in mostly to troll Obama.

He also added this gem in 2014{ Paul expressed concern about the lack of security at the border, saying an insecure “border is not only a danger for national security purposes, it is also a danger for a world-wide pandemic should it occur.” }, yet when we had an actual pandemic with a president who was hyper focused on the border he decided to focus on the people who were trying to contain, and he supported the guy who thought we could solve it with bleach and light.

You can't know someone isn't interested in the betterment of society. There's no way to determine, without being that person, whether or not they take a position because they are simply wrong or because they take it for ulterior motives.

I'm 100% with you on education and correcting wrong assessments, but that's a completely different matter from concluding what someone's motivations are. In every field of study there are highly educated, trained, and dedicated people who come to impressively wrong conclusions - because we are all biased as human beings and aren't robots.

At some point, when a person continues down the same wrong paths again and again, it is fair to ascribe to them the worst of motives. Because if they cared about being wrong and challenging their beliefs and assumptions, they would do something different.

Unless, of course, his actions have showed us again and again what his true motives likey are. But, of course, we can't know it a complete 100%. What are you even arguing again, Brian? That Paul has repeatedly shown he's a craven political weasel, but we can't prove for certain he's not taking the vaccine for political purposes? That's he may be an... "a-hole but he's not, and I quote, '100% a dick'"? I can't even figure out what hair you are trying to split here.

SI

Would like to add that a lot of the Vaccine hesitancy is fomented by Russian social media farms. Lemmings aren't excused and apparently, there's a group of people who seem to more easily be led down the conspiracy rabbit holes...but naw.... it's all a lie and it's an even split because "Who are you gonna believe data or your lyin' eyes?"

This, it's not a clean slate each and every day. Eventually, you can see a pattern unless of course, you don't want to.

This kind of crap is why mandates are a must. Similar to last year when my daughter would come home from school and say she found out someone was likely positive but she had to keep it quiet because if it gets out, sports will be shut down for 2 weeks and she doesn't want to be blamed and take the heat for it at school.

Oh wow. More than 80 students were potentially exposed to COVID-19 on the first day of class in Reno, NV, on Monday after a parent sent their child to attend school, despite both the parent and child receiving a positive COVID test just 2 days earlier. https://t.co/8EpPnJ1mKd

— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) August 13, 2021

I saw a school district in MS, without a vaccine or mask mandate, now has over 400 students in quarantine after only a week.

I hear that disclosing such information is a personal decision.

Is DeSantis'es political window closing along with this covid wave? Any kind of long term political predictions seem like a fool's game these days, but he seemed like a legit GOP front-runner just a couple months ago, yet has slipped so far so fast he seems just as likely to get tossed out with yesterday's trash or sacrificed as some kind of scapegoat as he is to move up in the presidential power rankings.

I'm still sticking with my original statement that whoever emerges, if not Trump, will be someone that isn't an obvious choice right now.

I believe it's a HIPPA violation.

That seems like a pretty good assumption. In this environment it seems like publicly chasing Trump's affections and/or getting your name in the news for any kind of Covid response is high risk/low reward. I have a friend who insists Paul Ryan has been actively playing the long, quiet game.

If (when?) the tide turns on Trumpism, the only thing that will bring people who have abandoned the party back into the fold is someone who can't be directly tied to supporting Trump and all of the "stop the steal" nonsense. I just don't know if that happens by 2023 when you've got to announce your intentions. If Paul Ryan is playing the long game, 2028 or 2032 may be the target.

Paul Ryan has a tough job overcoming his years of statements about cutting Social Security and Medicare. One thing I'll give Trump, he realized that shit was toxic to voters.

I know this isn't supposed to be a political COVID thread, but this is some funny stuff from The New Yorker:

DeSantis Losing Support Among Voters Opposed to Dying

In a potentially ominous development for the Florida governor, a new poll shows Ron DeSantis hemorrhaging support among voters who identify as opposed to dying.

According to the poll, DeSantis’s favorability numbers are plummeting among Floridians who describe themselves as “somewhat,” “very,” or “strongly” opposed to being dead.

Asked to name the issue most important to them, an overwhelming majority of anti-dying voters cited “continuing to exist,” with the economy and immigration placing a distant second and third.

Harland Dorrinson, an aide to the Governor, dismissed the poll numbers as “a distraction” and said that “this obsession with not dying is the kind of political correctness the people of Florida are tired of.”

“Governor DeSantis has had a very strong pro-dying message, and that’s not going to change,” the aide said.

That is hilarious.

Satan for 2024!

Pat Robertson with Satan's hand stuck up Pat's ass like a puppet as a runningmate?

Checked worldometers. Even with the recent increase of infections, deaths are still well under 1000 (for now).

Was interested to see how it compares to the "flu". At the current run of approx 700 deaths, still well above the flu.

I see what you did there :cool:

SI

I thought we were at the point in the pandemic where we all pretty much know deaths are a trailing indicator (and that having a 50ish% vaccinated population will drastically cut down on deaths).

SI

I love on FB how some of my Realtor cohorts claim to need more information while at the same time sowing misinformation and lack of trust in science. They also fail to be able to see how they consistently fall in line to the talking points that the Right wing conspiracy gang feeds them through OAN and Newsmax and Parler all the while all of the money and everything is tested back to Russia and foreign entities that are watching and loving how the Christian Conservative Right Wing idealogues have fallen hook line and sinker. It's actually fuckin' incredible and if this isn't some sort of alien social experiemtn on us in a test tube what else could it be. Are people really this stupid? Perhaps we don't deserve freedom if this is what happens to a huge subsection of the populace. I mean a dude just killed his kids over it and he isn't the first nor will be the last idiot.

I'm not sure how I managed to be unclear. I'm not trying to split any hair; my point is much larger than Paul. I'm simply saying that you can't know someone's motivations, full stop.

** As an aside, modern neurological science is backing up what some philsophical and religious traditions have taught for millenia, namely that it goes much farther even than other people's motivations. That is, humans can't reliably assess their *own* motivations for actions, much less what someone else whose thoughts we aren't privy to might be.

Let's consider the implications of this. Someone can't be consistently wrong while still trying to be right? That flies in the face of human experience. Even in modern times, we have plenty of examples of intelligent, successful, and otherwhise well-adjusted people, wanting to be convinced otherwhise but compelled by what they know of the available evidence that the Earth is flat. Including people who once found that idea as ludicrous as presumably all of us on this forum do.

I think there's a great underestimating of the level of bias that all of us as humans have going on here. History is strewn with examples of people who dedicated themselves to finding the truth of a subject and were wrong about their whole lives despite this goal, even with better information readily available to them. And as mentioned, it also exposes 'our' side to accusations of hypocrisy/bad faith every time 'they' find an issue where we are consistently pounding a note they think is obviously wrong.

what? realtors?

Sometimes it really is as simple as when someone shows you who they are believe them.

Absolutely. That can tell you a lot about of what people do, which is visible for everyone to see. It can't tell you about their motivations, i.e. true reasons for doing it. That's the difference.

I'm in the industry so my FB group via my networking has a bunch in my FB "Friends".

Except when they're literally caught on camera lying about it. Ie. Trump, et al. With that I find it rich that some then want to give the subject a 'benefit of the doubt' that their words are representative of their motivations at face value.

It's kind of like statistics. You can draw the conclusions from the statistics or start parsing, spinning and doubting the validity of the statistic but the facts are the facts no matter how twisted in a pretzel you are.

No, I mean you made those comments seemingly (?) to refute whomario calling Paul anti-vax after he listed some things Paul has said and done things to undermine vaccines. So what specific point are you trying to make about Rand Paul?

SI

It was the same point. whomario made statements assigning various motivations to Rand Paul, I said his statements should be taken at face value and we shouldn't assume he meant something else by them. People objected to that, and here we are a page later :).

The catch is that they are then fools if they are consistently wrong despite "better information being readily available to them." So you choose... bad actor or fool? Either way, a person that has shown this level of incompetence or bad faith should have no role in running the country. Or my county, for that matter.

We are all fools in that sense. There's some of this in all of us.

Again same crap of equivalency, excuses, and statistic ignorance/manipulation

It’s unbelievable

They literally catch people on camera or on audio telling you their true motivations yet you say take them at the word that they said and ignore the hot mic? The hot mic is the truth… what they said when they thought they could curate was the farce.

Same with statistics… I’m sure this lady is a lefty lib

https://twitter.com/jerrijamz/status...255106049?s=21

BS for BS


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