Armory

In a strange way, even the Constitution is slanted to support force over reason; the First Amendment says nothing about using that right for the goal of interpersonal peace (there are limits we later established, such as not being able to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but that isn't the same thing) while the Second Amendment is all about owning firearms for defense (or ostensibly so...some people push the definition of defense to justify their barely restrained aggression). When this mentality is a fundamental part of the nation's makeup, is it any wonder why the police don't behave much better than John Q?

Florida police organization offers to hire cops who were fired or resigned over police misconduct

I should add that we now have evidence that there are many, many cops in service today, who have shown they're unwilling or unable to go beyond that mindset. "Retraining" has probably gone as far for them as it can.

Let America Be America Again
BY LANGSTON HUGHES
 
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
 
(America never was America to me.)
 
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
 
(It never was America to me.)
 
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
 
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
 
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
 
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
 
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
 
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
 
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
 
The free?
 
Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
 
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
 
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
 
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
 
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

I'm left to wonder exactly what you think libertarians believe.  Libertarians have been against police abuse of power since there have been libertarians.  They aren't just another flavor of Republican.

New one up!
 
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1203.html

https://m.startribune.com/fire-department-report-as-he-lay-in-ambulance-george-floyd-was-unresponsive-without-pulse/570806682/

My comment was in the context of Texas where we're currently sitting at 1,546 deaths which is substantially lower than a bad flu season for us.  The area of DFW where I live is currently at 3.3 deaths per 100,000.
 
Compared to the original 2.2 million number that was originally estimated for America Texas would have seen about 200,000 dead.  I feel a tremendous sense of relief that we're at less than 1% of that original estimate.
 
That in now way means that I don't have tremendous sympathy for the areas that got hit much harder (New York, Italy, Spain, etc.).
 

I would literally rather die than live in that world. We absolutely must recover what we have lost, or as much as we can. 
 
Edit: as soon as vaccination or resistance allows us. 

Trying really hard to leave the politics for the political thread here. But I’m very sympathetic with people who are hurting from this crisis, financially and otherwise. I feel as though real people have been forgotten as this plays out. 

Um. I'm the government too? That's actually what I'm talking about. 
 
I don't understand this place sometimes. 

It's time to stop asking nicely and start making the government do its damn job of caring for the citizens.

You're wrong, they only want to get out for a haircut.    (ok that one comment made by not someone here, still burns me)
 
Seemed more people were out this weekend than any recently in my area.  At least, in my area of VA, people might be telling Gov. Northam to do some anatomically implausible things to himself.  
 
Edit: ANyhow, I think regardless of the percentages of who stays where now.  Each passing week will see significantly more people venturing out.  And depending on the area, of course.  If an area hasn't had much (non-economic) devastation, it will be more likely to be fed up with it all.  People can self-quarantine, yes, but the powers that be, didn't seem to contemplate, there was an expiration date.  Quarantine is a 2-3 month option, not an 18 month one.

Millions of people already take the drug as a prophylactic against malaria and for lupus.  The fatal side effect rate has to be pretty damn low.
 
But given the lack of hard evidence that its effective and some that says it is worse than nothing - this seems like a risky route to go.
 
Probably the hardest part of analyzing any of this mess is that the data quality is all over the place and some of it seems intentionally distorted state by state to reflect the narrative that the hometown politicians favor.
 
Multiple states have had to adjust their numbers up or down after getting caught cooking the books.
 
And I'm still pretty PO'd at how the nursing homes were handled by New York (you must take coronavirus infected persons by state mandate into the nursing home.)  Great job Cuomo - thousands died because of this.
 
The Department of Health lady in Pennsylvania also mandated this but simultaneously moved her mother out of the nursing home so she wouldn't die.  Nice - great leadership - the others can die, but not my mom.
 
I also wonder how many people we've saved with the shutdowns (I assume at least 50-100k) and how that will stack up against the massive upswing in suicide, drug overdoses, domestic violence and the one I just heard about today - a potentially 20% higher death rate for new cancer patients as their initial diagnosis are delayed for months.
 
Still - nobody in my family or my wife's (which is ginormous) has gotten the crud yet and the fatality rate remains very low (3 per 100,000).

For the record, Bazza lives in the Northern Territory (Australia), where there is a better chance of being eaten by a crocodile than catching COVID-19.

Make it 14 and I’ll see you at a cinema watching a movie (no doubt socially distanced). 
 

You mean Socialized Medicine? Surely you can't be serious.

If you're suggesting that social distancing and self-isolation should be curtailed earlier, then you plan on it getting a lot worse.  That 250k becomes a joke -- you're back into the millions of deaths....and a greater impact on the economy than the shutdown.

I'm not sure anyone has the patience to wait that long. Or, in many cases, the ability. Everyone needs food, most people need shelter, and the bulk of us unlucky sods need clothing.. How do we meet those needs is a society significantly less productive than we were before the virus hit?

Just spitballing here, but have you guys considered nationalizing your healthcare industry?

It was a dog-whistle to rally his base.

yeah, it isnt exactly a field of expertise for me, so I can only speak in some generalities.  It just seems we hit rural areas with a harsher medication than needed, and my mind tries to figure out how/if it should have been handled some other way.  
 
I just know, economically,  the national quarantine can only be called once at most a generation, and we already fired the bullet.   

I know it might not be necessary all around, but, I will say, nearly everybody I know when Trump said "Chinese virus".  Thought  he was taking a shot at the Chinese govt, or was merely stating that it was the point of origin.  Not that Chinese people in general were responsible.  I can only speak from my own experience, though.

My last couple posts were in response to Old Man's claim that the USA has 1/3rd of all cases on Earth.
 
My point is - No, we don't.

Is it possible the two countries with 8.3x the US population are under-reporting their cases and/or lack the testing resources to test their billion plus person populations?
 
It's one thing to suggest that American misbehavior has resulted in above-average per capita cases and another to just blanketly accept that it is more than 6x the global average.
 
Maybe you just accept at face value that the USA has 16x as many cases as China which has 4x the population and was the source of the outbreak.  Seems unlikely - to put it very mildly.
 
Maybe you also believe that the USA has 19x as many cases as India which also has 4x the population and is geographically adjacent to the source of the outbreak.
 
I don't accept that Americans are pulling down 64x or 76x the per capita case-load of these two global giants.