My parish is falling apart

ArmyMatt said:

what are the actual numbers of the ballots in question vs the total number that a President Biden received? I didn't ask how unlikely something was or how certain conservatives reacted. I asked for the numbers.

and you don't need to tell me that President Trump was in the lead, I am well aware of what happened in battleground states.

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When you ask about the specific numbers, I find it highly irrelevant. The numbers at the time were an ongoing thing, I can’t remember the exact numbers, and see as FAR more important the fact that the numbers were ranging from at least more than sufficiently, to wildly in Trump’s favor AT THE END OF THE DAY until the steal was conducted in the middle of the night after the traditional midnight cutoff. And now you can’t even get straight data from the controllers of the mass media, who quash via censorship any effort to openly question the elections. That’s my answer to you on numbers.

I say that it is essentially IMPOSSIBLE for that to have happened without fraud. Perhaps you fail to see that. That’s what I see. It’s not mere “disappointment”. It is outrage that the system is now openly a pretense, that voting does not, and will not produce what the mass of ordinary people want. It’s the end of the dream that was America, and we are living through it. The plutocrats have re-established their control, and will not relinquish it again save by brute force.

The longer this goes on, the more violent and destructive the ultimate backlash will be. I would prevent that if I could, but I can’t. I went to a lot of trouble to vote from overseas, and now see that unless there is a revolution of normal folk against the insane rulers, and power re-established in the grass roots, there will be no point in voting again. We are fast becoming the Soviet Union that we once professed to oppose. It begins in abandoning God, and ends in losing sanity and finally the republic itself.

That’s something we are bound to come to conflict over, as political positions lead to persecution of the faithful. So I agree with Chesterton (our fellow TAW member) that everything is coming to a point and people will have to choose sides, including where light is and where darkness is. Our challenge is to try to keep open ears and hear real and legitimate concerns and sympathy toward those we do not agree with, and that is going to be mighty darn hard.

rusmeister said:

When you ask about the specific numbers, I find it highly irrelevant. The numbers at the time were an ongoing thing, I can’t remember the exact numbers, and see as FAR more important the fact that the numbers were ranging from at least more than sufficiently, to wildly in Trump’s favor AT THE END OF THE DAY until the steal was conducted in the middle of the night after the traditional midnight cutoff. And now you can’t even get straight data from the controllers of the mass media, who quash via censorship any effort to openly question the elections. That’s my answer to you on numbers.

I say that it is essentially IMPOSSIBLE for that to have happened without fraud. Perhaps you fail to see that. That’s what I see. It’s not mere “disappointment”. It is outrage that the system is now openly a pretense, that voting does not, and will not produce what the mass of ordinary people want. It’s the end of the dream that was America, and we are living through it. The plutocrats have re-established their control, and will not relinquish it again save by brute force.

The longer this goes on, the more violent and destructive the ultimate backlash will be. I would prevent that if I could, but I can’t. I went to a lot of trouble to vote from overseas, and now see that unless there is a revolution of normal folk against the insane rulers, and power re-established in the grass roots, there will be no point in voting again. We are fast becoming the Soviet Union that we once professed to oppose. It begins in abandoning God, and ends in losing sanity and finally the republic itself.

That’s something we are bound to come to conflict over, as political positions lead to persecution of the faithful. So I agree with Chesterton (our fellow TAW member) that everything is coming to a point and people will have to choose sides, including where light is and where darkness is. Our challenge is to try to keep open ears and hear real and legitimate concerns and sympathy toward those we do not agree with, and that is going to be mighty darn hard.

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I don't fail to see anything, rus. I said you can make the argument for fraud and irregularities this election. evidence has not been shown that it is enough fraud to overturn the results.

There is more that unites us that tears us apart.

ArmyMatt said:

I don't fail to see anything, rus. I said you can make the argument for fraud and irregularities this election. evidence has not been shown that it is enough fraud to overturn the results.

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I say the evidence was shown and has been buried by determined people with a lot of power and resources, including effective control of the courts. (What was the word used to throw out Texas’s claim that perfidy in the battleground states affected them?) Demanding that I personally have it and reproduce it at will when I saw it is like asking a man who was mugged to produce evidence when the security cameras that captured the mugging have been taken and erased. He was mugged, he remembers it, his empty wallet and bruised face and own memory is evidence enough for him. I’m not impressed with your demand. My memory is good enough. I have seen enough, and because you didn’t, we disagree. So no, evidently now you cannot be convinced, despite your claim otherwise. The mugging is over, the evidence has been removed, the criminals got away, the end. We have division. You may choose to accept the results because you didn't see the steal. Others of us did, and we don’t. Stalemate. Schism not resolved.

Rus, I thought you gave up on voting in the general elections years ago, saying voting didn't mean much?

rusmeister said:

I say the evidence was shown and has been buried by determined people with a lot of power and resources, including effective control of the courts. (What was the word used to throw out Texas’s claim that perfidy in the battleground states affected them?) Demanding that I personally have it and reproduce it at will when I saw it is like asking a man who was mugged to produce evidence when the security cameras that captured the mugging have been taken and erased. He was mugged, he remembers it, his empty wallet and bruised face and own memory is evidence enough for him. I’m not impressed with your demand. My memory is good enough. I have seen enough, and because you didn’t, we disagree. So no, evidently now you cannot be convinced, despite your claim otherwise. The mugging is over, the evidence has been removed, the criminals got away, the end. We have division. You may choose to accept the results because you didn't see the steal. Others of us did, and we don’t. Stalemate. Schism not resolved.

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you assume I didn't see the shift in votes, and you'd be wrong. I stayed up to keep watching the election. so, that's not why we disagree. I don't really care if you are impressed or not.

Dorothea said:

Rus, I thought you gave up on voting in the general elections years ago, saying voting didn't mean much?

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Yes, but the 2016 election showed a hole in the control of the controllers. It showed even them that they could not rely on simply converting future generations by controlling the schools (a winning strategy, strategically). They realized that they could be set back 8 years or more by a revanche of the people they seek to dominate in a global tech-dominated world. Trump was an upstart they expected to lose then. They realized their mistake and used the media they control (which is most of it, even Fox is not really the friend of the common man) as plan A, and when that was clearly failing, turned to plan B, for which there has been a ton of evidence, from Steve Crowder and James O’Keefe’s investigations to the State Farm video. Never mind the level of statistical improbability approaching flat-out impossibility of magically producing tens of thousands of ballots after midnight, well over 90% for the losing candidate.
Again, Occam’s razor provides the simplest explanation. Demanding a kind of evidence that anyone can produce on the spot is like saying one will believe in Christian faith if one “sees enough evidence” - when the evidence is literally in everything around you, not merely in a few neat and clear documents and a couple of public confessions (though we had those, too).

ArmyMatt said:

you assume I didn't see the shift in votes, and you'd be wrong. I stayed up to keep watching the election. so, that's not why we disagree. I don't really care if you are impressed or not.

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I’m sorry if I sounded in any way snarky. I didn’t mean to make it seem that you should care whether I am impressed or not. I meant that there is definite division that you are not going to solve (as I am equally not going to solve) by declaring a definite position, that trying to hash out these differences in a thread like this will fail, and only underscore the OP’s point of division.

rusmeister said:

Yes, but the 2016 election showed a hole in the control of the controllers. It showed even them that they could not rely on simply converting future generations by controlling the schools (a winning strategy, strategically). They realized that they could be set back 8 years or more by a revanche of the people they seek to dominate in a global tech-dominated world. Trump was an upstart they expected to lose then. They realized their mistake and used the media they control (which is most of it, even Fox is not really the friend of the common man) as plan A, and when that was clearly failing, turned to plan B, for which there has been a ton of evidence, from Steve Crowder and James O’Keefe’s investigations to the State Farm video. Never mind the level of statistical improbability approaching flat-out impossibility of magically producing tens of thousands of ballots after midnight, well over 90% for the losing candidate.
Again, Occam’s razor provides the simplest explanation. Demanding a kind of evidence that anyone can produce on the spot is like saying one will believe in Christian faith if one “sees enough evidence” - when the evidence is literally in everything around you, not merely in a few neat and clear documents and a couple of public confessions (though we had those, too).

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Okay. I see what you're saying, explaining your POV on that issue.

Here's my problem with what you're saying, Rus, and this isn't your usual style---You're telling people essentially how open we should all be to the other side, but the reality is you're 100% entrenched in the conspiracy and refuse to budge. I could show you a video tape footage montage of counting each vote, and if you really really really want to believe the conspiracy, you'll tell me the ballots were fake, or from a dead guy, or somehow spoiled ballots counted twice. You've made up your mind. And when you tell me I "threw in the towel" it has a connotation of surrender and weakness on my part that I'm sad you see in me. I think I've made it clear that I HATE to accept this election. But you refuse to accept Trump-appointed judges because they aren't agreeing with you, and that concerns me. You are convinced this couldn't have happened. I share your disgust, but I don't share the approach to talk myself into it all being a sham dream concoction. For days and days and days I felt this election was stolen. I just couldn't accept it. But ultimately when the data came through, when the Trump-appointed judges, when VP Pence and other people on Trump's side accepted these results, I felt compelled to do the same. It was not a weakened surrender on my part, but rather what I felt was a sad, but real election.

When you hurl mail-in ballots to millions of Americans who normally would NEVER vote, you're bringing in Americans who are more likely to vote Democrat. Those big urban environments are loaded to the hilt with deadbeats that normally don't participate in democracy. Make it easy with this simple ballot and a stamp, and you have millions of essentially "new" voters. Black folks tend to vote democrat and despite my disgust toward Biden, a man I find beyond disgusting, he is extremely popular in black circles. Why he's been able to convince them through the years that he cares about them is beyond me. But the end result is the black vote went his way and this election did something new---it brought in an entire tapestry of new voters. And they did not, as the guardian said in Indiana Jones, "choose wisely."

rusmeister said:

Matt, at midnight, Trump was clearly winning. The State Farm video was real, the observers were really kicked out, and boxes and boxes of ballots were really pulled out with, surprise, surprise! Votes for just one candidate (at least 93%, a statistical impossibility) and it was obviously not an isolated case. There were 6 states in question, and Trump was ahead in 5 of them. Believing that the sudden turn-around that happened AFTER the polls were supposed to be closed was a legitimate change is like believing in a fairy-tale (a bad one). The problem you have is convincing ME that the ballots produced after midnight were legitimate, as well as the general legitimacy of mail-in voting. I don’t believe that they were, based, not on certain media sites or talking heads, but my own knowledge and life experience. The election should be reheld. The results were illegitimate. I don’t recognize them. Your judges don’t convince me; conservatives who threw in the towel (like you, Gurney) don’t convince me, because I know that things like this just plain don’t happen, and that fraud is the Occam’s razor explanation for what did happen.

I think this thread ought to be about hearing people we disagree with, and I do hear you guys, but we both think the case of the other is not as strong as we obviously think our own.

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This is how I see it, Dot....

We're all in this together. At least, that's how it should be. If we are to create herd immunity, it means we all do our part. We build immunity everywhere we can....with the elderly, with seniors, with middle aged folks, with twenty-somethings, with our teens, etc. The more folks build up the defense, the herd immunity shoots this vile beast down. I think that's basic science. I see this as an unselfish act. My kids wanted the shot very much. They wanted to do their part to stop the spread. You don't have to worry about our family catching and spreading it. Not everything in this fight is about death and dying. It's about Americans, in my case, Californians, trying to stop a plague.

In my part of the country, Dot, people were dropping like flies. No joke. My wife was part of it. And, I say this with all respect because there isn't anyone in TAW whom I don't love and adore (I think the world of you and Rus, and I seriously mean that), nobody in here knows as much about this as my wife. My wife was on the front lines. She watched death with COVID. The public has this idea that kids can't die from it. Wrong. Only old people die from it. Wrong. It's just a flu. Wrong. It'll go away of its own accord. Wrong.

My wife watched a fellow nurse catch it, get thrown onto a ventilator, worsen, and then get flown in a helicopter to a bigger hospital where she died a day later. This gal was in her thirties and fairly healthy. She wasn't saddled with comorbidities.

We had children at my school catch COVID. Did they die? No. Thank God! But not everything is about death and dying. Some things are about lasting issues and damage. My wife knows several people who caught COVID who never shook pain in their stomachs and sides and in their kidney areas. Why? My wife has a few folks, nurses, who were out for six weeks after having COVID only to have zero sense of smell or zero taste buds! Months later, they caught it again!!!! And all this time later, no taste buds and no smells! I have met people with those issues. Scientists are speculating what damage this disease could do to girls' and boys' reproductive systems. What could it do to their kidneys, liver, and most especially their hearts? My wife has heard speculation and even experiences from virologists at the hospital from CVC that they have seen reproductive and other long-term damage as a consequence.

Do I want my beloved daughter to not bear kids or have pregnancy issues? Do I want my boys to be sterile or have kidney or heart problems? Everyone focuses on what the VACCINE will do, but I submit what will the DISEASE do!? My wife is a nurse practitioner now, and she worked with CDC folks, immunologists, virologists, and the hospital in general to fight this wretched plague. My wife determined very strongly the opinion that NOT getting vaccinated is riskier than getting the vaccine. So, to answer your question, I listened to my wife. I don't play doctor. I live with one! NP's are like the low sodium version of a doctor. My wife is highly educated and her instincts are never wrong. Whose gut do I listen to---healthcare professionals or just folks who have a feeling or a nagging thought about the shot?

I always get flu shots. I don't want the flu. They work well for me. This shot was not a vaccine containing the virus itself, but rather it provokes a protein spike response to the virus. Based on what I read about it, what doctors and my wife tell me, I see no reason to fear it. I take my children's health very very very seriously. Nobody is more precious than my kids to me. Nobody. I would never get them vaccinated without exploring this with the utmost nit-picking scrutiny.

They now are fully-vaccinated and doing GREAT! My daughter was tired the next day, slept most of the day, had a great night's sleep that following night, and she just went with me to walk the dog a while ago. She's tip-top. My two boys didn't even get tired.

Frankly, the fear-mongering is strong in our country and I think it influences a lot.

I don't think you yourself are a conspiracy nut. I don't agree with your conclusion about vaccination, but I don't think it makes you a lunatic. But for our family, and for my priest and his family, we're trying to all work together to destroy COVID with herd immunity.

My area was deep in the purple all year. Through masks, another thing our country couldn't come together about (another politicized mess), and vaccination, my county is now in the orange and COVID is dying FAST! It's on its way out. Businesses are opening back up, a lot of us are only wearing the masks in certain places, and things are calming. I truly believe if we hadn't had harsh mask mandates around here, the death toll would've been catastrophic and our medical system completely overwhelmed. You would've had to been here. It was INSANE!

Dorothea said:

See, this is what confuses me. Please forgive me, gurney, but it's just one of those subject matters that eats at me. Why are children getting those shots when their chances of getting deathly ill or dying from Covid are very, very, slim? Somewhere around 99.99 something or other percent aren't affected by the virus, so I don't see the purpose of them getting the shot.

As far as anti-vaxxers go, ever since the start of this virus coming about, it's been a rather knee-jerk accusation towards folks who actually have had and are up to date on their vaccines, but those who are quick to point the blaming finger haven't bothered to ask if the person has had any vaccines in their lives. These people who have had plenty of vaccinations just don't see a reason to get this shot. For me, I see no reason to get it. I don't get the flu shot either because I grew up getting the flu at least a handful of times and don't feel I need the shot. Also, it's touch and go on the flu shot because of the many variants of the flu. In any case, because I don't choose to take those shots, I would be labeled an anti-vaxxer. Never mind that I've had all the shots I was supposed to have growing up and just had my every-ten-year tetanus shot last month.

Just my thoughts that seem to be considered "extreme" or in the minority.

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This is completely atypical of your reasoning and usual thought process. The opening "I say" already presupposes speculative certainty, an oxymoron. You see it as "I'm pretty sure" and then it moves to certitude. You have no proof that the truth was buried by anyone?

The mugging analogy couldn't be a worse one. It's apples and oranges on veritable steroids!? Millions upon millions of people voting in a massive election of staggering proportions across a massive swath of the electorate in a tremendously large democracy in different states with different laws in an unprecedented mail-in election with all these various claims of fraud would demand hard proof. Recounts have taken place over and over, and the tiny amount of fraud discovered showed, as Father Matt said, not even a drop in the bucket of the numbers needed to help our boy, Trump, to win? Comparing that unique and bizarre situation and the hard evidence needed with a guy getting mugged who actually saw the event (nobody "saw" the fraud take place) is just not a good comparison in my mind.

The burden of proof (emphasis on the word "proof") requires some kind of evidence and it hasn't been met. Attorney General Bar investigated, and if anyone had a reason to find fraud, it was Barr, and he declared there was insufficient evidence. Chris Krebbs, a Republican, was the Homeland Security Infrastructure and Cyber Security guru in charge and after his investigation, he claimed there was zero evidence or even a whiff of anything to prove a 'steal.' Trump then poop-canned him for not being a sycophant. People like Linn Wood and Sydney Powell and Mike Lindell, they just brought embarrassment on the Republican Party. It was just embarrassing. Saying that Pence should be tried for treason. Some were saying he should be hanged. These folks thought Pence should refuse to certify and guys like Flynn wanted to "suspend" the Constitution and create a bizarre coup of sorts. Trump was high-pressuring governors to refuse to certify. He telling people to "find" votes that were there. He was even considering confiscating the voting machines by the U.S. Military! It was embarrassing. The optics Americans received was a president and a cabal of his closest allies who had a hit list of enemies and a grand plan to overturn votes. It was not pretty.

Recounts in places like Arizona proved fruitless. You hear commissioners and other voting process leaders who are lifelong Republicans saying this conspiracy nonsense and QAnon-inspired "steal" are absolutely beyond the pale.

I don't believe people can have their own truths. That is what is destroying the country---alternate facts. People say, "I speak my truth, you speak your truth." There is speculation and there are facts. Until something is proven, it's just that---speculation. Any attempt to dress it up with Chesterton-style old metaphors are just not salient to the issue. If it was a steal, it must be shown to be true in some fashion. If it can't be, the old saying goes "suck it up, buttercup." As a Trump voter and a Republican, I'm not liking the flavor of what I'm having to suck up.

rusmeister said:

I say the evidence was shown and has been buried by determined people with a lot of power and resources, including effective control of the courts. (What was the word used to throw out Texas’s claim that perfidy in the battleground states affected them?) Demanding that I personally have it and reproduce it at will when I saw it is like asking a man who was mugged to produce evidence when the security cameras that captured the mugging have been taken and erased. He was mugged, he remembers it, his empty wallet and bruised face and own memory is evidence enough for him. I’m not impressed with your demand. My memory is good enough. I have seen enough, and because you didn’t, we disagree. So no, evidently now you cannot be convinced, despite your claim otherwise. The mugging is over, the evidence has been removed, the criminals got away, the end. We have division. You may choose to accept the results because you didn't see the steal. Others of us did, and we don’t. Stalemate. Schism not resolved.

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rusmeister said:

I’m sorry if I sounded in any way snarky. I didn’t mean to make it seem that you should care whether I am impressed or not. I meant that there is definite division that you are not going to solve (as I am equally not going to solve) by declaring a definite position, that trying to hash out these differences in a thread like this will fail, and only underscore the OP’s point of division.

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it's not about division, it's about the facts that have been shown. will more stuff be found in later years to show the election was stolen? maybe. the problem is that needed to be shown legally between Election Day and Inauguration Day and it wasn't. the Trump legal team wasted a lot of time by NOT going to the courts, but by going to state legislatures and doing press releases. Powell has yet to even show publicly the massive evidence she claims to have had.

rusmeister said:

Again, Occam’s razor provides the simplest explanation. Demanding a kind of evidence that anyone can produce on the spot is like saying one will believe in Christian faith if one “sees enough evidence” - when the evidence is literally in everything around you, not merely in a few neat and clear documents and a couple of public confessions (though we had those, too).

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these are just assertions, rus. Occam's razor says we don't multiply explanations beyond necessity. you can't claim Occam's razor but then refuse to show hard evidence to support that what you are saying actually is the simplest explanation.

gurneyhalleck1 said:

Here's my problem with what you're saying, Rus, and this isn't your usual style---You're telling people essentially how open we should all be to the other side, but the reality is you're 100% entrenched in the conspiracy and refuse to budge. I could show you a video tape footage montage of counting each vote, and if you really really really want to believe the conspiracy, you'll tell me the ballots were fake, or from a dead guy, or somehow spoiled ballots counted twice. You've made up your mind. And when you tell me I "threw in the towel" it has a connotation of surrender and weakness on my part that I'm sad you see in me. I think I've made it clear that I HATE to accept this election. But you refuse to accept Trump-appointed judges because they aren't agreeing with you, and that concerns me. You are convinced this couldn't have happened. I share your disgust, but I don't share the approach to talk myself into it all being a sham dream concoction. For days and days and days I felt this election was stolen. I just couldn't accept it. But ultimately when the data came through, when the Trump-appointed judges, when VP Pence and other people on Trump's side accepted these results, I felt compelled to do the same. It was not a weakened surrender on my part, but rather what I felt was a sad, but real election.

When you hurl mail-in ballots to millions of Americans who normally would NEVER vote, you're bringing in Americans who are more likely to vote Democrat. Those big urban environments are loaded to the hilt with deadbeats that normally don't participate in democracy. Make it easy with this simple ballot and a stamp, and you have millions of essentially "new" voters. Black folks tend to vote democrat and despite my disgust toward Biden, a man I find beyond disgusting, he is extremely popular in black circles. Why he's been able to convince them through the years that he cares about them is beyond me. But the end result is the black vote went his way and this election did something new---it brought in an entire tapestry of new voters. And they did not, as the guardian said in Indiana Jones, "choose wisely."

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Gurney, the only thing I think I can successfully say here is that we don't agree, that there IS something splitting us all apart; we see different things. You and Matt ask for evidence now: I have been seeing piece after piece of evidence for months, not even counting election night itself. I wonder how you missed O'Keefe. I wonder how you missed Crowder. They demonstrated election fraud solidly, and yet they are suppressed by big tech. I wonder a lot of things. But you are yourself entrenched in a view that hates the election results, but accepts them as legitimate. We all seem to be entrenched in something or other. I know for a fact that there is such a thing as conspiracies. I know they really exist. Everything you have said here suggests that you do not; your pronunciation of the word is synonymous with "foolish", "silly" and "deluded". By that standard, Guy Fawkes didn't exist. (a page from English history that we Americans mostly missed) So while I understand that you believe there is no conspiracy here, as I believe there is, I do wonder whether you admit that the idea of conspiracy itself is not merely a silly concept for gullible people.

What I could hope to achieve is an admission from you folks that I am wrong, but I AM reasonable, as I hope and think you are equally wrong, but reasonable. We could start getting somewhere by granting that. That's why I don't really want to argue, let alone quarrel, over issues we cannot resolve, be they elections or masks or vaccines. We all believe things and hold positions on them, and we all think we have evidence that supports our position, evidence that the others reject for whatever reasons. Then maybe, as we manage to do that with each other here, we could bring that into our parishes, and to some small extent, prevent more acrimonious splits and encourage more friendly relations in spite of sharp disagreement about important matters.

ArmyMatt said:

it's not about division, it's about the facts that have been shown. will more stuff be found in later years to show the election was stolen? maybe. the problem is that needed to be shown legally between Election Day and Inauguration Day and it wasn't. the Trump legal team wasted a lot of time by NOT going to the courts, but by going to state legislatures and doing press releases. Powell has yet to even show publicly the massive evidence she claims to have had.

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I do agree on this one point; the sudden silence of Powell. I can think of sinister explanations for it, but it would just be speculation. I understand why she held back as long as it looked like a case going to court, but one would think that she would have come out with it when it became clear that nothing was going to go to court.
I don't agree on needing to "legally show" everything, though. I raised the excellent question of Texas not having (I forget the legal term meaning that another state's actions in a federal election didn't affect Texas, an absurdity on the face of it). If the courts dismissed legitimate challenges on spurious bases, why should I believe that their decisions are good and correct?

But my main answer to you is in my response to Gurney. I seriously doubt either of us will move the other, and so my concern becomes, how can any good be achieved in all this division?

rusmeister said:

I do agree on this one point; the sudden silence of Powell. I can think of sinister explanations for it, but it would just be speculation. I understand why she held back as long as it looked like a case going to court, but one would think that she would have come out with it when it became clear that nothing was going to go to court.
I don't agree on needing to "legally show" everything, though. I raised the excellent question of Texas not having (I forget the legal term meaning that another state's actions in a federal election didn't affect Texas, an absurdity on the face of it). If the courts dismissed legitimate challenges on spurious bases, why should I believe that their decisions are good and correct?

But my main answer to you is in my response to Gurney. I seriously doubt either of us will move the other, and so my concern becomes, how can any good be achieved in all this division?

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the issue with the Texas case is that it really opens a can of worms we don't want to open. and the courts dismissed it because only states internally have the right to determine how they vote. so, it's really not an excellent question.

rusmeister said:

You and Matt ask for evidence now: I have been seeing piece after piece of evidence for months, not even counting election night itself. I wonder how you missed O'Keefe. I wonder how you missed Crowder. They demonstrated election fraud solidly, and yet they are suppressed by big tech.

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I already said you can make the argument for fraud and irregularities. what I have not seen is enough to overturn the election results.

gurneyhalleck1 said:

This is how I see it, Dot....

We're all in this together. At least, that's how it should be. If we are to create herd immunity, it means we all do our part. We build immunity everywhere we can....with the elderly, with seniors, with middle aged folks, with twenty-somethings, with our teens, etc. The more folks build up the defense, the herd immunity shoots this vile beast down. I think that's basic science. I see this as an unselfish act. My kids wanted the shot very much. They wanted to do their part to stop the spread. You don't have to worry about our family catching and spreading it. Not everything in this fight is about death and dying. It's about Americans, in my case, Californians, trying to stop a plague.

In my part of the country, Dot, people were dropping like flies. No joke. My wife was part of it. And, I say this with all respect because there isn't anyone in TAW whom I don't love and adore (I think the world of you and Rus, and I seriously mean that), nobody in here knows as much about this as my wife. My wife was on the front lines. She watched death with COVID. The public has this idea that kids can't die from it. Wrong. Only old people die from it. Wrong. It's just a flu. Wrong. It'll go away of its own accord. Wrong.

My wife watched a fellow nurse catch it, get thrown onto a ventilator, worsen, and then get flown in a helicopter to a bigger hospital where she died a day later. This gal was in her thirties and fairly healthy. She wasn't saddled with comorbidities.

We had children at my school catch COVID. Did they die? No. Thank God! But not everything is about death and dying. Some things are about lasting issues and damage. My wife knows several people who caught COVID who never shook pain in their stomachs and sides and in their kidney areas. Why? My wife has a few folks, nurses, who were out for six weeks after having COVID only to have zero sense of smell or zero taste buds! Months later, they caught it again!!!! And all this time later, no taste buds and no smells! I have met people with those issues. Scientists are speculating what damage this disease could do to girls' and boys' reproductive systems. What could it do to their kidneys, liver, and most especially their hearts? My wife has heard speculation and even experiences from virologists at the hospital from CVC that they have seen reproductive and other long-term damage as a consequence.

Do I want my beloved daughter to not bear kids or have pregnancy issues? Do I want my boys to be sterile or have kidney or heart problems? Everyone focuses on what the VACCINE will do, but I submit what will the DISEASE do!? My wife is a nurse practitioner now, and she worked with CDC folks, immunologists, virologists, and the hospital in general to fight this wretched plague. My wife determined very strongly the opinion that NOT getting vaccinated is riskier than getting the vaccine. So, to answer your question, I listened to my wife. I don't play doctor. I live with one! NP's are like the low sodium version of a doctor. My wife is highly educated and her instincts are never wrong. Whose gut do I listen to---healthcare professionals or just folks who have a feeling or a nagging thought about the shot?

I always get flu shots. I don't want the flu. They work well for me. This shot was not a vaccine containing the virus itself, but rather it provokes a protein spike response to the virus. Based on what I read about it, what doctors and my wife tell me, I see no reason to fear it. I take my children's health very very very seriously. Nobody is more precious than my kids to me. Nobody. I would never get them vaccinated without exploring this with the utmost nit-picking scrutiny.

They now are fully-vaccinated and doing GREAT! My daughter was tired the next day, slept most of the day, had a great night's sleep that following night, and she just went with me to walk the dog a while ago. She's tip-top. My two boys didn't even get tired.

Frankly, the fear-mongering is strong in our country and I think it influences a lot.

I don't think you yourself are a conspiracy nut. I don't agree with your conclusion about vaccination, but I don't think it makes you a lunatic. But for our family, and for my priest and his family, we're trying to all work together to destroy COVID with herd immunity.

My area was deep in the purple all year. Through masks, another thing our country couldn't come together about (another politicized mess), and vaccination, my county is now in the orange and COVID is dying FAST! It's on its way out. Businesses are opening back up, a lot of us are only wearing the masks in certain places, and things are calming. I truly believe if we hadn't had harsh mask mandates around here, the death toll would've been catastrophic and our medical system completely overwhelmed. You would've had to been here. It was INSANE!

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Thanks for taking the time to explain where you're coming from. I do understand your perspective and why you chose the route you did. I really do think each person has a different experience with regard to exposure to Covid, depending on where you live and if you are often around or have family members with serious medical issues or immune-compromised systems. Like my best friend's husband and mentally-ill son are very high risk, and so she and family all got vaccinated (given the shot...I really don't think it's a vaccine because Dr. Fauci (although he flip flops on quite a few issues) says it just lessens symptoms and he isn't sure it stops transmission, which has been proven with the "break-out" cases. Anyway, I certainly understand everyone has a different experience with this virus. I'm in an area that really wasn't that bad throughout the whole time the virus has been around. Hence, this is why our area is back to normal, meaning everything is voluntary now.

In any case, I appreciate your response and respect it.

ArmyMatt said:

the issue with the Texas case is that it really opens a can of worms we don't want to open. and the courts dismissed it because only states internally have the right to determine how they vote. so, it's really not an excellent question.

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I absolutely want to open it.
But in the end, I think the Republic will fall, whether or not you see the steal. I see it, and so speak accordingly. I think I understand why you don't.
We have abandoned God as a nation; that dooms us, whether or no you see the extent of corruption that they truly will stop at nothing to secure their (lust of) power. We have abandoned Him as individuals, and so, because we embrace some sin or falsehood or another, and privately reject actual Christian teaching and craft our own version of it in our own heads justifying ourselves (almost wrote "our elves" ), and so, the parishes crack.