fip & jim

I'm not pretending anything. 
 
You have a very baffling attitude. 

Some people do need to be told what to do. There's a lack of information and guidance on how to deal with a pandemic. Some people don't take it seriously. Some people think it's a hoax. Some people put other people at risk. We are told what to do in many areas of life. Do you object to that? There would be chaos if we didn't have rules and laws. 
 
Having affordable health care and stricter gun laws hardly makes the UK a nanny state. 

I don't know if I would call myself a "true believer" or I need to admit anything. I agree with a lot of what you said. Some people are idiots though and maybe they need to be told what to do. For example, we all need to eat, we all need to go to a store at some point. Every time I go to the store there are people that will not keep their physical distance, for whatever reason, they do not wear a mask, for whatever reason. They are not behaving for the greater good. What is the harm in wearing a mask? I see a different attitude in America and I have tried to understand why. In Britain we have an idea of civic duty, maybe that's what got us through the war. I don't know much about your background or if you've ever visited Europe, so I don't want to presume anything. All the older people I knew back in Britain would talk about the war with affection, like it was the best time of their lives, because everyone pulled together to overcome difficulties and that attitude prevails for the most part. It doesn't cause me any real inconvenience to wear a mask and if it slows the spread of a disease then that's a good thing, and if it doesn't then it's hardly been anything to get annoyed about. 
 
The lockdowns have not been handled well, in my opinion. It's unsustainable and causes harm. It's also very psychologically difficult for humans to isolate. I think there's been missed opportunities to manage the situation and know a lot of us have fatigue of it. There should have been a plan. There are few things that have the potential to cause harm on a global scale - an asteroid hitting earth, nuclear war, and a pandemic. If anything this has highlighted how we need a plan. Looking to countries and communities that have managed to drive cases down shows that we need to be responsive on a local level. Testing is pointless unless we then trace contacts and change our behavior. It's all very well ordering people to isolate but they need support to do that, and that's been left too much to chance here. I think, in general, that Americans strongly object to what they perceive as their liberties being taken away and interference from government. 
 
Unfortunately cases are going to rise. The numbers we see now are only indicative of what was happening a few weeks back. 
 
 

I didn't say that your freedoms are meaningless. And I am very used to having that attitude shown to me. I lived in England and identify as English, but the period of history that you are talking about my ancestors were in Ireland, Scotland and Norway. I'm not sure what you mean by I come from countries where "freedoms mean little for the sake of government instituted comfort". It was pretty nice not to have mass shootings and an affordable healthcare system. Not sure how that equates to having freedom taken away. 
 
Did you mean antiquating? Antiquating would mean making obsolete the constitution by replacing with something new or better. 

I'm so very sorry for your loss, yuna. 
 
And I'm so very sorry for your loss, layla. 
 
It's very difficult to comprehend when we lose the ones we love. I hope you can both find the solace you need. 

The Whitmer EO that forced care facilities to take Covid positive patients.  Apparently, Whitmer was using a different science book at that time.  Btw, I heard this was one of the reasons the hospitals in MI are filling up, care facilities are refusing to do this anymore, so these folks are recovering in the hospitals.

Yep, and losing a first cousin because of the actions of the idiot governor in Michigan is also very different.  The fact is Governor Whitmer has lost all credibility in my eyes, but at least she is following the science.

So to hell with everyone else? 

I agree it's causing more problems. It could have been handled much better. Having an actual plan, for example, instead of the fiasco that's happened. 

Why be so caustic? I don't know you, you don't know me. That is reality for some people. I'm fortunate that I haven't lost anyone or suffered financially from this. It doesn't make me indifferent to others suffering. 

Freedom is an illusion. What makes you think you have freedom?

I'd start with antiquating yourself with the constitution. People don't give up their freedoms just because of some "problem". The Spanish Flu didn't annihilate people's freedoms, and neither did WW1 or 2. You may come from countries where freedoms mean little for the sake of government instituted comfort, but that's not how things work in the US, despite the obvious inroads a certain demographic has made of late in destroying them.
 
I also find it ironic that a British immigrant is trying to tell me, an American, about how meaningless my freedoms are. It didn't work in the 1700s and it doesn't work now.

I still remember after weeks of phone calls my sister made (and me doing some digging) to try and find out what happened to her best friend. When she finally found her at a hospital and one single nurse understood the gravity of the situation and allowed an 'outsider' to speak to her before she was put onto a vent. I remember hearing her voice through that phone and seeing the tears well up in my sister's eyes. Her friend always had a booming voice and was the life of every party.... now reduced to weak and breathless, barely comprehending who or what around her. All she could whimper was her name almost as if she was in a far away place already. My sister desperately didn't want to cry on the phone, but told her she was loved. It was hard to see one of the toughest women I know break down. Horrified at everything this woman went through before she died. Unable to be at the funeral and say goodbye. Unable to hug the people that tried so hard for weeks to save her.
 
We have been through this as a family again and again and again. Friends and family all gone. This virus has taken them and they have died a death I would not wish on anyone. It is soul crushing and it makes me so angry at the shameful attitudes I see. My wish for everyone is that it will never affect you or someone you truly care about.

Well then why don't you define what is a serious problem?  This is what debate is. Maybe I didn't use the correct word when said "serious". I am trying to understand attitudes on here, as an immigrant. It's very difficult for me, as an English person, to understand what the problem is with wearing a mask and practicing distancing. It doesn't make me a liberal, or lefty, or whatever other slur gets put on anyone here. I'm not a citizen, I can't vote, I don't have any political affiliation yet.  

This weekend I couldn't stop thinking again and again about the two women I knew who have been lost to this virus. I thought: what were they, sacrifices? And to what? When I see people act like nothing is happening because it all seems so far away, I get unreasonably angry. And so, so sad. I think of my classmate who I saw dancing in her kitchen one day on Instagram, and gone not even a week later. I will never see her again. I will never see that family friend who was so kind to me when I needed someone to convince me I was worth something after all when my marriage broke down. I can still hear her voice -- it was a funny one, a little scratchy and squeaky around the edges -- and see her freckles and remember how I felt when she held me tight and told me it was all going to be okay. And you know what? It was. 
 
They're gone, no biggie, right? Just two people, two names. They weren't old but they had underlying conditions, so who cares? And who cares about all the people who catch it and survive, but have ongoing health issues? Who cares if those people didn't have risk factors, whatever. It's more important for someone to go sit inside and eat some chicken wings and drink beer and feel the freedom of life with no mask.

Countries like Canada and throughout Europe that even have mask and social distance requirements are still having a second outbreak. This is yet again where the mask obsession isn't about science, or prevention, but about the idiocy of feeling good and the authoritarian desire to have government make people dance when compelled. The cost of lockdowns isn't being considered in this cost-benefit analysis, and deliberately. It really shouldn't be a surprise when people reject what's being sold, the very people in positions of power pushing this as well.. you wind up seeing them at parties and flouting their own "rules", demonstrating they don't take it seriously either, because its not about science (health). 
 
The only thing evident here is the left's blatant hate for freedoms, and moments like this, people's true intentions really show. After this, there's no point in the left playing coy about pretending they actually want to preserve freedoms. Their hand has been played for about the entirety of this year and no amount of trolling or gaslighting is going to work at this point. 

if i had to guess, not enough doctors or healthcare workers to treat the hospitals that are nearing capacity because of all the sick people, especially in rural areas
icus being overwhelmed
frontline workers being mentally, physically, and emotionally drained because they cant help everyone
 
but hey, you do you because freedumb and all that.
go watch the game at a bar
go out and eat wherever you want
have everyone over for the holidays
and most importantly dont bother with masks because they are like chains of oppression, like the chains that slaves wore.
shout it out, spread it far and wide
because USA USA
 
it doesnt matter if someone else catches it and gets sick, its not you, right? so who cares? go out and party!

Well I'd prefer it if my children didn't die, or my husband, just yet. 

I don't know if I would call myself a "true believer" or I need to admit anything. I agree with a lot of what you said. Some people are idiots though and maybe they need to be told what to do. For example, we all need to eat, we all need to go to a store at some point. Every time I go to the store there are people that will not keep their physical distance, for whatever reason, they do not wear a mask, for whatever reason. They are not behaving for the greater good. What is the harm in wearing a mask? I see a different attitude in America and I have tried to understand why. In Britain we have an idea of civic duty, maybe that's what got us through the war. I don't know much about your background or if you've ever visited Europe, so I don't want to presume anything. All the older people I knew back in Britain would talk about the war with affection, like it was the best time of their lives, because everyone pulled together to overcome difficulties and that attitude prevails for the most part. It doesn't cause me any real inconvenience to wear a mask and if it slows the spread of a disease then that's a good thing, and if it doesn't then it's hardly been anything to get annoyed about. 
 
The lockdowns have not been handled well, in my opinion. It's unsustainable and causes harm. It's also very psychologically difficult for humans to isolate. I think there's been missed opportunities to manage the situation and know a lot of us have fatigue of it. There should have been a plan. There are few things that have the potential to cause harm on a global scale - an asteroid hitting earth, nuclear war, and a pandemic. If anything this has highlighted how we need a plan. Looking to countries and communities that have managed to drive cases down shows that we need to be responsive on a local level. Testing is pointless unless we then trace contacts and change our behavior. It's all very well ordering people to isolate but they need support to do that, and that's been left too much to chance here. I think, in general, that Americans strongly object to what they perceive as their liberties being taken away and interference from government. 
 
Unfortunately cases are going to rise. The numbers we see now are only indicative of what was happening a few weeks back. 
 
 

Twilight in cloud cuckoo land

So someone sowed a seed of doubt and then, no matter the evidence, you have at some point chosen to believe that this is fact. They lied and then their further lies prove their first lies? 😂

Do you want to even listen to one of the things that pees me off about you, @JoBri?

I am also right about Sweden contributing the most per capita. I don't need the Paris Agreement explained to me. T-Bone said: 
I was correcting that because that is obviously not a true statement. Sweden contributes $59.31 per capita already. Luxembourg contributes $58.63 pc and will be the largest contributor at nearly $94 pc if it follows through on its pledge. If the US did follow through on its $3 billion pledge it would be in 11th place at $9.41 pc. It's important to put these figures in to perspective because yes, China and India have larger populations than the US, but per capita they pollute less. Saying that "the hit is 100% on the US" is not true.  

Twilight in cloud cuckoo land

Do you want to even listen to one of the things that pees me off about you, @JoBri?