BoatBanter.com - Why are we fighting over masks? (as a nation)

On Wed, 19 Aug 2020 12:52:03 -0400, John wrote:

On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 12:02:17 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 04:28:06 -0000 (UTC), Justan wrote:

On 8/16/20 9:22 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 00:10:20 -0000 (UTC), Justan wrote:

On 8/16/20 2:13 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2020 02:53:24 -0000 (UTC), Justan wrote:

On 8/15/20 8:18 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 15 Aug 2020 22:35:17 -0000 (UTC), Justan wrote:

On 8/15/20 1:00 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 15 Aug 2020 13:03:27 -0000 (UTC), Justan wrote:

On 8/14/20 10:16 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:06:58 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 14 Aug 2020 09:09:41 -0400,
wrote:

On Fri, 14 Aug 2020 07:46:40 -0400, John wrote:

On Thu, 13 Aug 2020 12:23:02 -0700 (PDT), Its Me wrote:

On Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 1:35:15 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Thu, 13 Aug 2020 10:27:18 -0400, John wrote:

On Thu, 13 Aug 2020 02:16:48 -0400, wrote:

We aren't even close to the end of the economic damage.

Unemployment is a lot worse than the depression right now.

Landlords are starting to worry about if they can actually hold on to
their rental property if the renters don't have to pay rent.

Lenders are wondering how many defaults they can expect as soon as the
dust settles.

Businesses are folding all over.

GDP in the US sunk by a third in 2q20.

I think that is why they want us to fight over masks, to take our mind
off of the economy.

Who is the 'they' that wants us to fight over masks?

Our government, from Trump down to the most junior congressman.
It is easier to deal with "maskdebaters" than people who talk about
real problems like where will my next meal come from and will I ever
find a job..

I don't see the government inciting the fight. It's as simple as some folks won't wear a mask, and others are ****ed because they are the ones being put at risk, while they are wearing their masks and protecting the asshole that won't.

Sums it up nicely. What we lack in this country is discipline.
--

===

And that is mostly a result of poor leadership.

We haven't had a leader who could get people to blindly do what he
said since Eisenhower and JFK. By the time of LBJ, a significant part
of the population, mostly young people, said "you are not the boss of
me" and that still prevails. If you look at where the spike in
infections really is, you see the 40 crowd. In spite of the spike in
infections in Florida the death rate is down and the number of
hospitalizations is down. Less than a quarter of the people in the Lee
hospital system (our biggest conglomerate) are there for Covid.

The hype greatly exceeds the reality. What seems to be happening is we
are building the herd immunity in the millennials and younger the old
fashioned way. They get it, they get over it and they move on. Just
don't kiss your grand daughter if you are worried about it.

===

True leadership requires laying out a well reasoned plan of action
that people believe in, and will follow willingly.
What percentage of the population have to be true believers and lemmings, to
qualify true leadership? Our country is too diverse to reach consensus on
most any topic. Which God like human could ever do what you say. Ronald
Reagan was the last American to come even close.

There was still a significant part of the population that was not
going to do anything "Ray Guns" wanted them to do.

What is the highest percentage of the population that you would consider
insignificant?

41 million people voted against Reagan in 80 and 37.5M in 84.

Most never changed their minds about him and many were quite vocal
about it.

Thats not what I asked. You are beginning to sound like Fat Harry.

After watching what the minuscule minority can do I would say there is
no "insignificant" population as long as they can get support from the
media and the majority is ignored.
Is that what you asked?
I suppose the point is the media is the leader and the politicians
only need to appeal to that narrow minority who run the 4 big media
companies to look like leaders but they are not really leading
anything.
In the case of this Covid, other than lockdowns, quarantines and
travel restrictions, there is really no effective strategy, proven so
far so they try to placate us with masks so we think we are doing
something. In the mean time our economy is circling the bowl and the
"leaders" are trying to take our minds off of it because they don't
have a plan for that either.
John points to the reopening guidelines but that just tells us why we
have to keep our knee on the neck of the economy. It is not a plan to
fix the economic problems. If the country was totally open tomorrow,
there is still trillions of dollars of damage done that may never be
recovered. I still think Sweden has the right idea. They may lose a
lot of people compared to Denmark but I think in the long run they
will be better off economically and physically.

I guess any number greater than 0 is a significant number. I dont understand
what point you were making.
Any strategy the administration employs will be picked apart by the
democrats and liberal media because that's what the do. A ton of money was
spent and decisions were made that slowed the economy and put people out of
work, in order to save lives. You say it would have been better to leave
things alone and hope herd imunity would be our savior. Would you be
critical of the administration if they had taken that path?

I think the path may have been overreaching. At a certain point
Sweden's idea may not turn out to be that horrible. If you are just
flattening the curve but dragging out the misery for 2 years and
ending up pretty much where you would have been if you took less
draconian measures, was that the right path?
Would a less draconian path had less impact on the economy?

We really won't know until this is over but at our present trajectory
that could be years. The question will be if there is an economy left
to reopen. I know business people who said they were prepared for a
rainy day but this is Noah's flood and if you remember that fable,
only 2 of every species survived. Every other living thing died.

I think flattening the curve allowed the medics to catch up and keep up with
the demand for their services and use of their facilities. Nobody was able
to come up with a plan to do this without damaging the economy. Politics
might have stood in the way of managing this pandemic better. And that's
very sad to even imagine.

I think that was oversold too for most of the country. New York was
pretty much the worst case scenario and the hospital ship we paid a
hundred million to send there went pretty much unused. As scary as the
headlines were Florida never ran out of hospital beds. Some particular
buildings may have been slammed but there were other beds available.
In most cases it wasn't even the beds they were short of, it was staff
because we typically send them up north in the summer or lay them off.
Our biggest hospital was still only about 40% covid patients when they
were approaching the staff limit. They just brought in more staff.

So are you suggesting our attempt (and success) at flattening the curve was
unnecessary? No matter how steeply the curve climbed our medical system could
have handled it? That's bull**** and you know it.

I just wonder how little we really needed to do to accomplish that.

Of course if you are right, we could still have been at the gym, disco
or Easter services if we just had a mask. :-)