HR 6666

[eclipsenow]

Do what you feel is right. I will not turn in my friends and family to be traumatized.


Spotlight on Freedom: Impact of Coronavirus on Basic Freedoms

I was surprised to see Freedom House get HIGH on the media reporting index, but at least we can all tell it's Right Centre in political bias. At least not looney tunes out with Alt Right!

But why is 'freedom' more important than being alive?
Why is a common sense, scientifically verified, temporary ban on public gatherings and a temporary shutting down of certain high-risk parts of the economy 'bad'?

Right to Life beats Right to party.

Here's another example from my blog. It's why I hope Australia continues to protect HUMAN RIGHTS through the democratic process and social policy of politicians voting in parliament and our other checks and balances on that process, rather than going down the route of getting a self-entitled Bill of Rights that outsources so many political decisions into the realm of judges. (When was the last time you voted on a Supreme Court decision?) From my blog:-

I call this page "No Bill of Rights - Democracy instead!"

1. A Bill of Rights is stuck in an ivory tower and is not specific or real!
We all want the right to privacy, right? Let’s just have Australia sign the Bill of Rights and be done with it. Pass the champagne. As long as we stay in the abstract like this we are happy.

But let’s see what happens if we take it out on the road for a test drive. While we can all agree on a right to privacy in the abstract, when we get specific in the real world, people will disagree. For instance, I’m quite happy with Random Breath Testing (RBT). Australian police have the power to pull you over and ask you to count to 10 on their breath analyser. I only get tested about once a year, but it means I’m on statistically safer roads. When I explained RBT to an American friend he exploded in outrage – “But what about your right to privacy?” My argument is what about my right to life? I want to live on safer roads where my family is less likely to be wiped out by a drunk driver, and will gladly submit to the law and do RBT as required.

Or now that we have a global pandemic, I’m happy to download a government app that helps track and trace my random street contacts in an anonymous digital bluetooth handshake for the next year or so and warns me if I met anyone that turned out to have the virus. The data is protected by law, and deletes every 21 days. When the crisis passes I will do a factory reset on my phone and delete the app. Also, anyone worried about a collection of anonymous Bluetooth handshakes should REALLY worry about using Siri or Google Maps! But in the meantime, doesn’t my right to life outweigh my right to privacy? Shouldn’t we all be prepared to give up some things in order to beat a global pandemic and then get the economy back on track?

We can all agree on a right to privacy, but once we get specific the battle lines are drawn up. RBT and tracing apps are not the point — the fact that we can so easily disagree about RBT and tracing apps is. I see it helping my right to life but others see it attacking their right to privacy. We can all agree on a vaguely worded, sugar-and-spices bill of rights sitting in a shiny showroom, but take it out on the streets for a drive in the real world and we suddenly discover all sorts of problems.

So what do we do about it? Once we get into the mucky business of getting specific we discover that smart, educated people disagree. The rest of this page is about how best to protect our rights in a society that must adapt to new technologies, changing cultures, and above all, have a process for protecting our rights even when people disagree. I believe Australia already has those mechanisms in place, but we simply don’t appreciate them for what they are because too many of us feel we need a parchment of fine sounding words, without asking what all these fine sounding words actually mean in our daily lives.

As ‘Big Ideas’ said:

The language of human rights is arguably the dominant language of moral discussions in today’s world, but does this language alter a State’s scope for action? According to today’s guest yes it does. He argues that the language of human rights can achieve a sort of bogus consensus because it deals in moral abstractions that are so abstract and so couched in emotively appealing connotations and generalisations that just about everyone can sign up to it. And that the definitions of human rights are contestable and contested, debatable and debated every day and all of the time.
Canadian Professor James Allen

 

[wing2000]

Traumatized.

...traumatized by a local health worker asking questions?

 

[lasthero]

Is a special prayer for America. I also pray for the world.

Why not just once for the world?

 

[dogs4thewin]

How rarely?
We've all shown you the statistics.
But statistics are anonymous.
Let's talk about your friends and family.

Now imagine the top 100 people you know and care about? See their faces. Family, cousins, second cousins, distant aunts and uncles, and friends from church. Your minister and his family. Your youth minister. Some of these people will be aged. Some will have compromised health.

Now you need to choose 10 of these people to be hospitalised for weeks and go through horrific trauma. Some will come out with compromised lungs that may NEVER recover. We just don't know.
Do you have 10 family or friends ready for this honour?
Now you need to select one special friend or family member.
Flip a coin in front of them. Heads they live. Tails they die.

Or you could just realise that previous generations have been through horrific suffering and soldiers have laid down their lives for you to remain free and not under the Nazi Reich or something even worse. They died for you. Jesus died for you. But you can't even wear a mask for other people? For family or friends?

Is wearing a mask going to mark you out as a Communist to your friends? Have Republicans now gone full circle and turned into sensitive snowflakes? Please, say it isn't so! I'm just trying to understand?

Well percentage wise it is rare. If you get it you have about a 98% chance f recovering.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Why do you choose to comply with a business requirement but think you’d resist a government mandate to wear masks?

because I frankly trust a private business a HECK of a lot more than I trust the government.

 

[dogs4thewin]

I forgot something.
The people that get it but never know it?
That's not something to make you scoff at this virus - but should concern you even more!
It's what makes this beast so sneaky, such an easy spreader.
Young people could have it, never know, and kill their grandparents.

In that sense it is scarier, but it is better in the sense that if there is really any herd immunity at all ( even if it is not perfect ) more people have had it means more people with antibodies means fewer people left to get it.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

because I frankly trust a private business a HECK of a lot more than I trust the government.

Why?

 

[eclipsenow]

Well percentage wise it is rare. If you get it you have about a 98% chance f recovering.

You didn't answer the questions - who did you choose amongst your friends and family and fellowship to die? Just so you could go about your business without any trace of inconvenient masks or physical distancing? And how does any of this square with your Christian duty to love your neighbour?

 

[eclipsenow]

In that sense it is scarier, but it is better in the sense that if there is really any herd immunity at all ( even if it is not perfect ) more people have had it means more people with antibodies means fewer people left to get it.

But again, you're not getting it. About 1 in 6 will NEVER get symptoms - which means they can be serial killers and not even know it. Most carriers will get symptoms, but will also have an early period where they are infectious and don't know it. This is a sneaky bug. You think that's a good thing? Get back to me on that when it's killed 500,000 Americans - or will that be a million? You're at over 55,000 cases per day. Our state government of Victoria is panicking and putting parts of Melbourne back into lockdown because they reached 77 new cases a day! Apparently the Victorian government don't want this thing to spread exponentially, doubling every week or so, so that 1 to 2% of the population die. Apparently that's a bad thing in their minds. Apparently a leftist Australian Labor State government experiences compassion for their citizens.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Why?

because I do not want them to have this go on longer than the pandemic.

 

[dogs4thewin]

You didn't answer the questions - who did you choose amongst your friends and family and fellowship to die? Just so you could go about your business without any trace of inconvenient masks or physical distancing? And how does any of this square with your Christian duty to love your neighbour?

I did not say that I wanted to lose anyone. I also did not say that I purposefully go to crowded places ( in fact I have stated that I rarely go out at all.

 

[dogs4thewin]

But again, you're not getting it. About 1 in 6 will NEVER get symptoms - which means they can be serial killers and not even know it. Most carriers will get symptoms, but will also have an early period where they are infectious and don't know it. This is a sneaky bug. You think that's a good thing? Get back to me on that when it's killed 500,000 Americans - or will that be a million? You're at over 55,000 cases per day. Our state government of Victoria is panicking and putting parts of Melbourne back into lockdown because they reached 77 new cases a day! Apparently the Victorian government don't want this thing to spread exponentially, doubling every week or so, so that 1 to 2% of the population die. Apparently that's a bad thing in their minds. Apparently a leftist Australian Labor State government experiences compassion for their citizens.

Serial killers good luck proving that.

 

[eclipsenow]

Serial killers good luck proving that.

Good luck proving that? I'm sorry? What part of this do you not understand?

Here are the 2 things you've told me. On the one hand you say this virus is so easy, not a drama at all, because so many people hardly experience any symptoms at all.

On the other hand you're willing to admit it only has a 98% survival rate, so will kill 2 in 100 people or 1 in 50. I think that's a bit high, the statistics are more like 1 in 200 IF you have a functioning health system.

So - easy virus for some to carry - and they're going to be 'super-spreaders' that can carry it around and spread it on to people who will spread it on to people in a chain reaction that just keeps on growing, and the virus will kill around 1% of people.

Easy to spread.
Kills people.
Are you getting how these 2 fit together to make 'serial killers' as I have described? I said nothing about intent - just effect. But if you wear a mask, it will reduce the spread even if you are infected - or worse - a super-spreader that just doesn't know it!

 

[eclipsenow]

I did not say that I wanted to lose anyone. I also did not say that I purposefully go to crowded places ( in fact I have stated that I rarely go out at all.

So if you don't want to lose anyone, stop resisting and start telling everyone you know to comply with government guidelines and best practices to stop this virus spreading! If we stop it spreading we kill it instead of letting it kill someone we know and love.

 

[dogs4thewin]

So if you don't want to lose anyone, stop resisting and start telling everyone you know to comply with government guidelines and best practices to stop this virus spreading! If we stop it spreading we kill it instead of letting it kill someone we know and love.

It will still be around heck I do not know if I would trust a vaccine. Now it may spread slower, but unless we get it like small pox we will not kill it.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Good luck proving that? I'm sorry? What part of this do you not understand?

Here are the 2 things you've told me. On the one hand you say this virus is so easy, not a drama at all, because so many people hardly experience any symptoms at all.

On the other hand you're willing to admit it only has a 98% survival rate, so will kill 2 in 100 people or 1 in 50. I think that's a bit high, the statistics are more like 1 in 200 IF you have a functioning health system.

So - easy virus for some to carry - and they're going to be 'super-spreaders' that can carry it around and spread it on to people who will spread it on to people in a chain reaction that just keeps on growing, and the virus will kill around 1% of people.

Easy to spread.
Kills people.
Are you getting how these 2 fit together to make 'serial killers' as I have described? I said nothing about intent - just effect. But if you wear a mask, it will reduce the spread even if you are infected - or worse - a super-spreader that just doesn't know it!

serial killers in the states require intent. Even if someone say went out KNOWING they had the virus it would still be hard to say that they MEANT to infect a particular person who later died ( for one because you would have to prove that they infected the person as opposed to any number of other people who did not know.

 

[eclipsenow]

It will still be around heck I do not know if I would trust a vaccine. Now it may spread slower, but unless we get it like small pox we will not kill it.

The aim is to get as many people as we can through the next year till we get a vaccine.
The aim might even be to reduce the spread to the point where it eventually dies off without a vaccine - but from the look of it, I doubt America can even consider that.
Vaccines don't have to work 100% of the time to work. It's like herd immunity - if say somewhere between 60% to 70% of a population has immunity, it will stop spreading. It's mathematics and statistics. But what you want to ask yourself is do you think it is a moral policy to just let this virus run rife through your society killing 1% of 60% (we'll be conservative) of your population?
330 million Americans * 0.6 * 0.01 = 1.98 million Americans dead to achieve herd immunity that way.
Or we could have restrictions & socially distance & wear masks & clean our hands & do everything the government tells us to do and wait for the vaccine. Oh, and the 1%? Remember it goes higher if you flood your healthcare system.