All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (1 Viewer)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[insidejob]

Guess this can go here
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…..Turn on Fox today and you’ll find one host after another — Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson — waxing poetic on the noble cause of the “Freedom Convoy."

This is a group of Canadian truckers who descended on the capital city of Ottawa to protest a requirement that those who cross back and forth over the U.S. border be vaccinated.


Not only have they shut down large portions of the city, but they’ve also been honking their horns at all hours, in an apparent attempt to drive residents out of their minds.


Now Republican politicians are getting into the act: After GoFundMe announced that it would be returning money raised for the truckers, whose ranks include a variety of far-right cranks, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas announced they’d be mounting investigations of the company.

And of course, Donald Trump — who as president loved nothing more than sitting in a truck like a big boy — expressed his support for the truckers.

It’s somewhat ironic that DeSantis would come to the defense of these protesters, because in the past he hasn’t looked on the exercise of that particular right with a great deal of sympathy.

Last April, he enthusiastically signed a bill that makes it a felony to block traffic in a protest and “grants civil legal immunity to people who drive through protesters blocking a road," as the Orlando Sentinel put it.

A similar law passed in Texas, as it has in a number of conservative states. Oklahoma’s version gives drivers both civil and criminal immunity for injuring or killing protesters.

But of course, that was when everyone considered blocking traffic to be a protest tactic associated with the left, including demonstrations after George Floyd’s murder.

When right-wingers do it, it’s entirely different!


The animating idea here appears to be that the value of free speech and the forms it takes should be judged solely on whether they’re motivated by ideas you agree with.

Perhaps DeSantis should include a provision to that effect the next time he signs a law dictating what teachers are and are not allowed to say in the classroom……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/08/american-right-canadian-truckers/

A few paragraphs after what Optimus teased the article with:

It’s important to understand that Canada, where people tend to be sensible and polite, has had nothing like the partisan polarization around the pandemic that we’ve seen here. According to their government, nearly 83 percent of Canadians over age 5 have been fully vaccinated; the number in the United States is 64 percent. And while the Conservative Party is a bit more hesitant about public health mandates than the ruling Liberal Party, the differences have been relatively small, and there has been far less of the identity-based demagoguery we’ve seen from prominent Republicans in the United States.

There are a couple of interesting things going on here. The first is that the American right increasingly sees itself as part of a transnational movement, embodied in its embrace of both bottom-up populist protests like the truckers, and top-down authoritarianism like what we see in Hungary or Russia.


The second is that the party of “law and order” has come to fully embrace law-breaking and disorder, as long as it’s performed by people the party has sympathy for. Led by Trump, more and more Republicans have come to see the Jan. 6 insurrection as a noble feat of patriotism, not a thuggish betrayal of American democracy.
Just imagine if a bunch of Black Lives Matter protesters shut down half of D.C. with their vehicles, then sat on their horns for hours on end. What do you think Carlson would say about them? What sort of tactics would DeSantis suggest might be used to clear the area?

We all know the answer.

 

[el caliente]

A few paragraphs after what Optimus teased the article with:

From the final part of that paragraph it seems we know how politicians and the media should be treating these truckers based on how they treated the BLM protestors less than 2 years ago.

 

[brandon]

What’s the difference between the trucker situation and the summer of 2020 (other than how it’s being covered)?

One was because a black man was murdered in cold blood in broad daylight by a police officer, the latest such event to occur in a seemingly unending series of murders of people of color at the hands of those who are sworn to protect them.

The other is because needles are ouchy.

 

[el caliente]

One was because a black man was murdered in cold blood in broad daylight by a police officer, the latest such event to occur in a seemingly unending series of murders of people of color at the hands of those who are sworn to protect them.

The other is because needles are ouchy.

That’s a pretty simplistic view of a very complex issue.

The truckers being interviewed are vaxxed, so “needles are ouchy” isn’t the entire story.

 

[brandon]

That’s a pretty simplistic view of a very complex issue.

Sometimes less is more.

 

[el caliente]

Sometimes less is more.

True, but that’s like someone asking what happened in the NFC Championship game, and someone responding, the Saints lost.

There is more to it than just “they lost”.

 

[CoolBrees]

Um how about one happened in America and the other is in Canada? So maybe different laws and stuff?

Besides, what is complex about a tiny fraction of a group of a single occupation refusing the vaccine?

In our wonderfully free county they would summarily and unceremoniously be fired without recourse or need for justification. But they have federal protections like we used to before everyone took stupid pills and voted to be Right to Work states.

I would argue trying to impose American’s ideals of “Freedom” on another country is simplistic and narrow minded.

 

[el caliente]

Um how about one happened in America and the other is in Canada? So maybe different laws and stuff?

Besides, what is complex about a tiny fraction of a group of a single occupation refusing the vaccine?

In our wonderfully free county they would summarily and unceremoniously be fired without recourse or need for justification. But they have federal protections like we used to before everyone took stupid pills and voted to be Right to Work states.

I would argue trying to impose American’s ideals of “Freedom” on another country is simplistic and narrow minded.

Maybe if they took a knee Justin would get behind them (instead of vilifying them).

Justin Trudeau takes a knee at Black Lives Matter demonstration on Parliament Hill

The Canadian prime minister took a knee alongside protesters in a show of soliarity.

amp.cnn.com

Who in that tiny fraction is refusing to get vaccinated? I would like to see the numbers as to how many trucks (long and short haul) are vaccinated, but that would require some sort of tracking which is what these guys are protesting against (they are done with vaccine passports, fines, and mandates).

Either way, if their numbers are dwindling, why is there a fear that truckers in the US will do the same here? Is it because these folks have power that the government can’t take away without looking like hypocrites?

 

[CoolBrees]

So if you read the article posted by Chuck, it DOES tell you how many are vaccinated:

“Just 10% of cross-border drivers refused the jabs, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), meaning that from 15 January they can no longer cross back into Canada without quarantine.

The CTA, along with other major industry organisations, has disavowed the protest. The protesters don’t represent the vast majority of lorry drivers, nor are they representative of public sentiment towards vaccines in Canada – a country where 84% of the population, children included, have received at least one vaccine dose.”

As I said, a small fraction of a single occupation.

 

[el caliente]

So if you read the article posted by Chuck, it DOES tell you how many are vaccinated:

“Just 10% of cross-border drivers refused the jabs, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), meaning that from 15 January they can no longer cross back into Canada without quarantine.

The CTA, along with other major industry organisations, has disavowed the protest. The protesters don’t represent the vast majority of lorry drivers, nor are they representative of public sentiment towards vaccines in Canada – a country where 84% of the population, children included, have received at least one vaccine dose.”

As I said, a small fraction of a single occupation.

10% refused the jab (how accurate that is is up in the air). So this isn’t about “needles are ouchy.” If that was the case the number of drivers who refused the jab would be much higher. The protest is about much more than that.

As for a small fraction of a single occupation, so what? Because their numbers aren’t larger their concerns shouldn’t be considered? That’s pretty elite. They aren’t calling for anarchy, or for the disbandment of government, they are asking for a lift on mandates imposed by the government.

Now it’s starting to make sense why folks don’t want such a protest here in the US. Can you imagine the government being okay with one group protesting, and not another?

 

[CoolBrees]

Of course their concerns should be heard. Just not necessarily accepted.

They are asking the government to change their international border rules for them. Let’s keep the ask in it actual context. They are saying to the Canadian Government- waive your quarantine requirement that you have at your borders for less than .1% of your population. Cmon.

 

[el caliente]

Of course their concerns should be heard. Just not necessarily accepted.

They are asking the government to change their international border rules for them. Let’s keep the ask in it actual context. They are saying to the Canadian Government- waive your quarantine requirement that you have at your borders for less than .1% of your population. Cmon.

Yes, however the tiny fraction of drivers happen to be long haul drivers, so yeah, the mandates will impact them more than most truck drivers.

 

[CoolBrees]

Look. As an American citizen I don’t want unvaccinated aliens entering the country. Especially delivering goods.

This isn’t about them getting to keep their jobs. shirt, it isn’t even about the freaking truckers. It is about Canada having a requirement to serve a quarantine if you are unvaccinated and enter their country. These truckers are pissed that they would have to serve their quarantine AFTER their delivery. As in not getting paid for it any more. There is no requirement entering the US. There is one entering Canada. You can’t complete an international OTR round trip while working for the (government run) truckers union - or any person entering Canada for that matter- and not serve a quarantine without a vaccine. It isn’t hard.

 

[el caliente]

Look. As an American citizen I don’t want unvaccinated aliens entering the country. Especially delivering goods.

This isn’t about them getting to keep their jobs. shirt, it isn’t even about the freaking truckers. It is about Canada having a requirement to serve a quarantine if you are unvaccinated and enter their country. These truckers are pissed that they would have to serve their quarantine AFTER their delivery. As in not getting paid for it any more. There is no requirement entering the US. There is one entering Canada. You can’t complete an international OTR round trip while working for the (government run) truckers union - or any person entering Canada for that matter- and not serve a quarantine without a vaccine. It isn’t hard.

But we just learned that only ~10% of those drivers aren’t vaccinated, so aren’t we hurting the vaccinated in this process as well?

 

[CoolBrees]

Making the working man’s life harder? Are you being serious?

You are a good guy, and I am as pro worker and union as they come. But I also know a country isn’t going to change their policy in this situation so they are yelling at the ocean.

And if they were being threatened with termination, I would possibly feel different. But they aren’t. They are being told you have to follow the country’s border rules. That is it. Don’t want to vaccinate and want to drive OTR into our country? Fine, it will be a 7 day waiting period. They aren’t punishing them. If an unvaccinated American went to Canada should they have the rite to make them quarantine? So why would this be any different? They have to follow all of the other OTR rules and have to stop at weigh stations and tare out. They can’t bring fruit into their country for jeebus sakes why do you think they would allow a novel virus? I just don’t get it.

 

[el caliente]

Making the working man’s life harder? Are you being serious?

You are a good guy, and I am as pro worker and union as they come. But I also know a country isn’t going to change their policy in this situation so they are yelling at the ocean.

And if they were being threatened with termination, I would possibly feel different. But they aren’t. They are being told you have to follow the country’s border rules. That is it. Don’t want to vaccinate and want to drive OTR into our country? Fine, it will be a 7 day waiting period. They aren’t punishing them. If an unvaccinated American went to Canada should they have the rite to make them quarantine? So why would this be any different? They have to follow all of the other OTR rules and have to stop at weigh stations and tare out. They can’t bring fruit into their country for jeebus sakes why do you think they would allow a novel virus? I just don’t get it.

But only ~10% aren’t vaccinated, so what are the other ~90% protesting? It’s not the quarantine post delivery.

 

[CoolBrees]

They aren’t protesting. The vast majority, including the union have disavowed their cause and their tactics.

 

[el caliente]

They aren’t protesting. The vast majority, including the union have disavowed their cause and their tactics.

Then what are the other ~90% doing out there?

I’m not trying to be obtuse or confrontational. If the article reads that ~10% of the protestors are unvaccinated then that must mean that ~90% of the protesters are vaccinated, which would lead me to believe that they aren’t upset about mandates that don’t apply to them.