Is everything now political?
I used to hate it when people would say “everything’s political”. Partly this was because in that case saying “X is political” would be saying precisely nothing distinctive about X. And also because not everything is political. Or at least, in the past not everything was political. But now? It seems like everything’s political:
Uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine has, unfortunately, become partisan like so much else in our society. Almost every Democratic adult (90% to 95%) has gotten a shot, while a little less than two-thirds of Republican adults have. . . .
According to the Ipsos data, 68% of Democrats said they have gotten a flu shot or are very likely to get one. Just 44% of Republicans said the same. This 24-point gap is very similar to the 30-point gap for Covid-19 vaccines. . . .
An AP-NORC poll in February 2020 asked adults whether they had received a flu shot in the last 12 months. In this poll, 58% of Democrats said they had compared to 54% of Republicans. This 4-point gap is well within any margin of error.
A Princeton Survey Research Associates International from the second half of 2016 queried adults about whether they had gotten a flu shot in the past year. This poll looked nearly identical to the 2020 poll with 55% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans saying they had gotten a flu shot in the last 12 months.
In other words, there was no partisan gap.
I can’t even blame this one on TDS, as Trump is not an anti-vaxxer.
I seem to be one of the few exceptions. I don’t let politics have any influence on what I buy, what athlete I root for, what music I listen to, what movie I see, or even what pillow I buy. When thinking about the most important things in my life, politics doesn’t even make the top 20. I was far more interested in the Bucks winning the NBA title this year than in who takes Congress in 2022 or the presidency in 2024.
PS. I wonder what will happen when the amazing new Pfizer drug for Covid comes on the market. Will there also be a partisan gap in its use?
PPS. Shorter version of this post: Get a life.
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16. November 2021 at 16:49
Supposing that the US is heading towards some sort of fascist state in which the right or the left uses the FBI, NSA, CIA, etc. to suppress political opposition. Then the US would be in a kind of de facto civil war for control of the state, with the understanding that whoever loses will be punished by the winners, and hence which side any person is on and which side wins matters a great deal.
Hopefully the people who talk like that and think like that are alarmist, but the mentality that your political opponents must be crushed or they will crush you seems to have pervaded many parts of the US since the rise of Trump.
16. November 2021 at 17:01
Individualists, and independent thinkers, don’t trust government or big pharmaceutical companies. But they do trust data.
Sweden and Japan both recalled and restricted the Moderna vaccine due to myocarditis and contaminated vials. The Vaers reports now show more deaths from the Covid vaccine than all other vaccines combined.
Pfizer has a history of producing bad products; a number of lawsuits – both domestic and foreign – have been filed for a number of different drugs over lack of disclosure, poorly run trials, corruption, etc. India and Philippines are still battling Pfizer’s thuggery in court over thousands of child deaths.
When the WHO says they don’t support vaccinated children from 5-11, but Biden says it’s a good idea, independent data-driven thinkers tend to raise their eyebrow. When lancet articles show inefficacy across the board, the data driven take notice. When you cancel academics and doctors who speak out, the data-driven see your “agenda”.
Sumner reminds me of the Soviet apparatchik who tried to place my family in Gulags. He also reminds me of the Soviet economist who called western data “misinformation” and “conspiracy against Russia”. You could present a soviet economist in the 70s with data, but their bias would not permit them to accept it.
16. November 2021 at 19:04
Lizard, You said:
“the mentality that your political opponents must be crushed or they will crush you seems to have pervaded many parts of the US since the rise of Trump.”
That’s one of the most disappointing aspects of the 21st century. A sad comment on our society. BTW, that’s not true in Canada, is it?
16. November 2021 at 19:39
“Individualists, and independent thinkers, don’t trust government or big pharmaceutical companies. But they do trust data.”
Also says
“The Vaers reports now show more deaths from the Covid vaccine than all other vaccines combined.”
This reminds me of when Aaron Rodgers called himself a “critical thinker,” and then immediately proceeded to say that he used homeopathic medicine and a bunch of other easily refutable bullshit.
16. November 2021 at 19:50
@SSumner
I really don’t know about Canada. My understanding is that Canada does have hate speech laws. Maybe Canadians are just okay with persecuting minority viewpoints? I suspect Europe is much the same.
16. November 2021 at 20:11
“I wonder what will happen when the amazing new Pfizer drug for Covid comes on the market. Will there also be a partisan gap in its use?”
Hope not. Monoclonal antibodies work pretty well. We saw some discrepancy in our network with lower acceptance in our rural areas, but OTOH they were strongly advocated for in Florida. Tired of having people die so I hope people dont start spreading conspiracy stuff about these also.
Steve
16. November 2021 at 20:16
https://twitter.com/Kukicat7/status/1460721504757456911?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1460721504757456911%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.infowars.com%2Fposts%2Fwatch-door-to-door-covid-vaccine-census-caught-on-camera%2F
Take a look at Sumner’s commies going door to door. Making their Nazi lists, and getting their papers ready…
I cannot wait until they get to my door. I have 11 rifles, and 400 rounds. I also have a big family. We’re going to have a blast!
16. November 2021 at 20:29
Lizard Man, why would the establishment in the US want to go to a civil war?
On the surface, it looks like there’s lots of strive between the two dominant parties. But from a broader point of view, it’s a pretty cozy duopoly.
Similar to how eg the big British supermarkets used to make a big deal out of how much price competition there was between them.
And then Aldi and Lidl came along and sucked the profitability put of their industry. (Something similar happened in Australia as well.)
Polarisation is good for the duopoly. Aligning every preference or life decision along the axis between the two poles is good for the duopoly. It prevents people from perceiving that more diversity is possible.
Yes, of course, people will complain about the other party.
Just like grass doesn’t want to be eaten by cows either. But the cows are what’s keeping a forest from growing up instead.
Or how perceived competition between sports teams brings in more customers for sports as an entertainment product.
See also https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
The individual participants don’t need to know that they are participating in this kind of indirect quasi cooperation.
16. November 2021 at 21:12
hmmm…yeah let’s all ignore a world take over of governance, and, like Sumner says, “get a life”. Gulag’s, reeducation camps, let’s just ignore it.
What a loser Robert F. Kennedy jr is – trying to make a difference when he could be watching Bucks games on T.V.
Rubio’s bill that would prohibit products coming from Uigher camps was stifled by communist demothugs. They seem to care more about monitoring our pronouns, then genocide.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opinion/biden-foreign-policy.html?smid=tw-share
And this article is absolutely bizarre.
“People centered” is now the new propaganda term from the left. I suppose “build back better” was too creepy after people realized darth vader (Schwab) was involved. It is a nice rebrand, although it once again shows the ignorance of the left.
According to this lunatic who, not surpringly calls herself ‘CEO’ — certainly not a real CEO that produces a product or a service, but one of those information utopian peddler CEO’s — is now advocating for a world where we no longer have any nation states. In her sick, disgusting, horrifying and twisted view of the world, a “one world government” is actually “more local” and “more just”.
Another clueless product of academy’s that fail to teach history!
But okay, let’s watch the bucks. Because that is more important.
Or instead of watching the bucks we can take the ‘amazing’ new pfizer vaccine that Sumner trusts because the government and Pfizer, and quack CEO’s working for think tanks, say its good to go. We shouldn’t question them. And if someone does, make sure they get canceled.
Sounds like a real utopia. =/
16. November 2021 at 21:24
That is hilarious, Harry. I love it.
I used to like basketball, until I heard rich multi millionaires crying about their country. The U.S. is so oppressive that these oversized ball dribblers are worth 100M.
Can I move to the U.S. and be oppressed so I can earn 100M?
I hear FB is prioritizing H-1B visas to foreigners, instead of hiring locals. At least, that is what their internal docs show via Project Veritas. So I might have a chance. Sorry American guy.
Not surprised Biden went after him. Or was it Kamala, who has a history of raiding her opposition in CA.
I hate Commies. So yes, everything is political. Especially when you come after my liberty.
17. November 2021 at 07:20
The clarifying moment for me was during Sharpiegate, that mostly forgotten incident when Trump mis-tweeted the direction of a hurricane headed towards the US. Instead of correcting himself, he retaliated against NOAA employees that tried to correctly inform the public and doctored a forecast map to mislead the public. And people let him get away with it, his approval rating barely changed. That was when I realized that they love “owning the libs” more than they care about their own lives. Proving Trump right was more important that endangering hundreds of thousands of lives in the path of the hurricane, and more important than needlessly disrupting hundreds of thousands of lives in the states that Trump said would be hit. That’s when I realized there really is no bottom, no threshold when things will change.
17. November 2021 at 08:23
Jeremy, You said:
“That’s when I realized there really is no bottom,”
Yes, and I feel like there have been hundreds of such moments over the past 5 years. How about when Trump said we should cut back on Covid testing because it makes the situation look bad?
17. November 2021 at 08:41
I hope my side comes out in favor of the new Phizer pill, for the sake of some of my relatives.
17. November 2021 at 08:51
Scott,
My understanding is that Canada is not facing these same issues, however I wouldn’t take much comfort in that. I watched Europe closely in the 2000s, with the rise of Berlusconi and a group of corrupt and/or extreme right politicians. I thought that the US was somehow impervious to that type of leadership. I was clearly wrong. I think every society has a segment that is very susceptible to extreme factional thinking. I like to think that I’m a somewhat critical thinker, as do you, but isn’t that exactly what a non-critical thinker would think? Scary times.
On a more important note, Wizards are first in the east. BTW: if you are are a Milwawkee sports fan in general, check out Daryl Morsell with Marquette. Transferred from MD to play for Shaka.One of the most likable players of I’ve ever watched. I’ll be a Marquette fan this year.
17. November 2021 at 10:24
The vaccine fear is weird. The virus is killing lots of people. Trump is pro-vaccine. Vaccines have been around in some form since the days of Paul Revere. We’ve all had to do get vaccinated for one disease or another in our lives (DPT, small pox, polio and so on and if you were travelling some places overseas, cholera etc.) mRNA vaccines don’t even include the virus. The evidence that they work is impressive.
It’s like some random dude selected an ideological purity test and millions of people signed up to take it even though nobody really remembers who the dude was or why he chose this test.
17. November 2021 at 12:07
Sumner is a joke economist, and nobody should listen to him. Think about the things he says:
1. He published a book list and movie list for the entire year. In this list, he read ONLY twenty books, but watched 40 movies. How does an academic only read twenty books a year? Your whole existence, and entire profession, revolves around reading. To put it bluntly, that is your job! I read 120 books last year and I own a business that takes a great deal of my time. Pretty crazy to claim you are “informed” and everyone else who disagrees is “not informed” when you only read 20 books per year.
2. He ignores all data and independent studies that are not CDC & pharma funded.
3. He says Trump wants “more government”, when all of Trumps policies put power back into the hands of the community.
4. He believed in the steel dossier because one party said it was true and not to question anything in it. It turns out none of it was true.
5. He claims he supports free speech, but labels anyone who disagrees with him a “conspiracy theorist”.
6. He laments not being able to “blame trump” for everything (not very impartial).
His intellectual pursuits involve watching archaic movies, digressing about subject matter he knows little about, and watching bucks games.
But we should trust his opinion about the Federal Reserve? The one agency who has the worst track record in Washington? He wants us to believe that printing money forever, to ease “conspicous consumption” and “irrational exuberance”, thereby removing any risk the banking industry has, is better than letting those behemoths collapse under their shitty investments?
Please do explain. I’m waiting with bated breath.
17. November 2021 at 15:20
Scott,
I’ll say it again.
1. We know from CDC that polling results do not accurately reflect actual vaccination rates.
2. Even if the polling data reflected actual vaccination rates, unless you normalize for urban/surburban/rural (and other demographic factors), it does not tell you anything about causality.
17. November 2021 at 16:54
If >10% of people people get the flu shot between mid-November and February (which seems likely), then Republicans will be about the same as the previous year; if Democrats deviate from trend upward, well that’s interesting, and a good thing I assume. I’m not sure what the problem would be though (assuming my prediction is right and the gap as of February is merely due to higher rates among Democrats).
17. November 2021 at 19:55
“I can’t even blame this one on TDS, as Trump is not an anti-vaxxer.”
I wonder if there’s a clue in this observation. Many of our decisions may not be political in the sense that they are driven by party affiliation, but they may be cultural or sociological and – due to the ‘sorting’ phenomenon – may correlate with party affiliation. For example, if I drink spirits, it’s usually clear spirits, which are apparently much more popular with Democrats than Republicans.
17. November 2021 at 20:05
BTW, Janice’s comment is hilarious, and confirms that Ray is not a one-off. The internet has truly disrupted the entertainment industry. Why would I ever attend live comedy or even watch standup on TV when the weirdness and wittiness of everyday people is available for free, right here on a macroeconomics blog? The creativity and talent out there is amazing and drives home to me that no matter how poorly-paid entertainers were (on average) in the past, they were still overpaid relative to the underlying scarcity of their skills.
18. November 2021 at 00:14
For those who are driven by data, you may be interested in knowing that the FDA recently denied an FOIA request concerning Pfizers trials – after a whistleblower in texas raised serious concerns over how those trials were conducted.
After failing to produce said documents, they were then sued by a group which includes Yale epidemiologist Harvey Risch. The FDA filed a motion in response to this suit asking the court to let them release 500 pages per month over the next 55 years.
So somehow the FDA (lazy libtards) processed 350,000 pfizer documents in fewer than 120 days, but want 55 years to release that information to the public.
Sounds like real transparency. But Sumner wants us to trust Pfizers “amazing drug”, a drug he knows nothing about.
18. November 2021 at 02:42
I do wonder if the 10,000 woman who sued Pfizer for failing to disclose an increase in breast cancer in the drug “Prempro” would call their new drug “amazing”. Pfizer settled that suit for 1B.
Or how about the 55M settlement over failing to disclose Kidney damage in stage three clinical trials for their drug “Protonix”.
They paid 288M to settle a lawsuit for “Chantix” after 3000 people sued them for “neurological damage”.
There are 7,800 testosterone therapy lawsuits that are currently active against the company. Symptoms reported in these lawsuits which were not disclosed to the public after trial include “blood clots”, “strokes” and “heart attacks”.
In 1996, Pfizer conducted an unapproved clinical trial (for a new vaccine) in Nigeria killing 11 children. 11 out of 200.
These are just a small sample. It would takes days to list all of the lawsuits.
Go to any country in Africa or Southeast Asia and the name Pfizer strikes fear into the hearts of men and woman alike.
18. November 2021 at 10:04
Rajat, The funniest thing about all those conspiracy nuts is that they keep saying “Sumner believes X” and in most cases I believe the opposite of what they claim. It’s like they are confusing me with someone else. Or they have canned comments that they put on many different blogs.
They favor all sorts of big government restrictions on our freedom (drug wars, prostitution bans, trade restrictions, immigration restrictions, zoning rules, restricting corporate decisions on free speech and vaccines, abolishing democracy, etc., etc.), and I favor many fewer government restrictions on freedom.
dtoh, I could write the exact same post even if the only difference is in response to poll questions, not actual vaccinations. Why let politics influence the way you answer a question like that? It’s bizarre. People need to get a life, and stop being so obsessed with politics.
As far as demographics, I doubt the drop in GOP people saying they’ve been vaccinated for flu is due to the party suddenly becoming dominated by the young.
And again, we know that Covid vaccination rates are much lower in GOP areas, even adjusting for age.
19. November 2021 at 06:04
Prof. Sumner,
You created the devil. Get used to it. This is capitalism. It won’t be better in any foreseeable future. It’s the same everywhere in the world with varying outcomes.
19. November 2021 at 13:02
Prof Sumner,
Countries that adopted test trace isolate had 100 times less deaths per person than lockdown+vaccinations. Even countries with mixed approach 10 times less per person.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54504785
“The Chinese city of Qingdao is testing its entire population of nine million people for Covid-19 over a period of five days. The mass testing comes after the discovery of a dozen cases linked to a hospital treating coronavirus patients arriving from abroad. In May, China tested the entire city of Wuhan – home to 11 million people and the epicentre of the global pandemic. The country has largely brought the virus under control. That is in stark contrast to other parts of the world, where there are still high case numbers and lockdown restrictions of varying severity. In a statement posted to Chinese social media site Weibo, Qingdao’s Municipal Health Commission said six new cases and six asymptomatic cases had been discovered.”
The Delta variant, which spreads faster, has required changes to that strategy, but it is still pretty good. Is that COMMUNISM? 🙂
19. November 2021 at 13:23
The “zero COVID” countries imposed much fewer and weaker restrictions: people could travel, shop, work, got to parties and restaurants, quite freely, (with some occasional limited exceptions), and with death rates 10-100 *times* lower (*times*, not percent).
The endless discussions about passport/no-passport, mask/no-mask, hard/soft lockdown distract from the really big point, that the strategies (“fatalistic liberalism” according to a recent article on “The Guardian”) used so far by Johnson in England, Sturgeon in Scotland, Starmer-Drakeford in Wales, with the full endorsement of Davey, have resulted in death rates per 100,000 so far 100 (or even just 10) times higher than in countries that have adopted different variants of test-trace-isolate:
* 211.70 Italy, 197.74 Poland, 192.25 United Kingdom, 184.48 United States, 166.01 France, 142.25 Sweden, 127.05 Switzerland, 109.95 Germany, 101.71 Ireland
* 17.63 Finland, 14.85 Norway, 11.92 Cuba, 11.72 Japan, 8.03 Iceland
* 3.20 Thailand, 2.89 China-Taiwan, 0.63 Singapore, 0.53 New Zealand, 0.35 China-mainland, 0.09 Vietnam
Korea-south, it is also Australia (a bit hamfisted), China-mainland, New Zealand, China-Taiwan, and to a lesser degree Iceland, Norway, Finland, etc., with death rate 10-100 times lower than the UK, Italy, USA, etc.; and they have had no or negligible loss of jobs and income as another result.
But it is an ideological story: half-baked lockdowns and then complete reliance on vaccination are very important for establishing that public health is the responsibility of individuals and can fixed by products from megacorps, not of the public health system run on state funds (“Fatalist liberalism”).
https://twitter.com/thatalicewu/status/1330287079708893184
“Then again, they haven’t had a case in 200 days. And everyone has been living their lives freely since February. A note on contact tracing: I’m no expert, and historically a proponent of privacy, but if you have a credit card, or downloaded any number of apps, it seems “they” already have your info. So in a gosh-darn pandemic: sign up for contact tracing! Again, not an expert.
But again: EVERYONE IN TAIWAN HAS BEEN LIVING THEIR LIVES FREELY SINCE FEBRUARY! I mean yes, people voluntarily wear masks in public places, but otherwise, restaurants, subways, etc are packed.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/27/five-ways-the-government-could-have-avoided-100000-covid-deaths
«While the number of UK deaths has entered the hundreds of thousands, New Zealand has recorded only 25 deaths from Covid-19 so far. Taiwan has recorded seven, Australia 909, Finland 655, Norway 550 and Singapore 29. These countries have largely returned to normal daily life. […]
Countries that managed to effectively contain Sars-CoV-2 implemented screenings of new arrivals and 14-day quarantines for those entering the country.»
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53816511
«But Wuhan has not had a local coronavirus case since mid-May, and about 9.9 million people in the city have been tested for the virus. There are no bans in place on large gatherings.»
https://twitter.com/MarkDGeorge/status/1330509190507364352
«Mark George @MarkDGeorge
Greetings from Thailand, population 70 million, not an island, <4,000 cases, 60 deaths, no local transmissions in months.
Andrew Cornelio* @andrewcorn
Strange that Thailand is never mentioned in the list of countries that have successfully managed the pandemic. We’re living our lives practically normally now. Masks are mandatory. We haven’t had a local case in over 3 months.»
https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/a-guide-to-2021-covid-vaccines-stimulus-sanity
“China, which clamped down on Covid with compulsory mask wearing isolation of the sick, and effective contact tracing. Chinese are blithely eating in restaurants, sitting in theaters, attending school, and going back to work.
On Jan. 18 the government reported GDP grew 2.3% in 2020, which makes China the only major economy to to avoid a contraction for the year.»
19. November 2021 at 13:50
Sven, You said:
“This is capitalism. It won’t be better in any foreseeable future. It’s the same everywhere in the world with varying outcomes.”
So you are saying that the outcome in “capitalist” North Korea differs from the outcome in capitalist South Korea? Who knew?
Kester, You said:
“The “zero COVID” countries imposed much fewer and weaker restrictions: people could travel, shop, work, got to parties and restaurants, quite freely, (with some occasional limited exceptions), and with death rates 10-100 *times* lower (*times*, not percent).”
Yup. A point I’ve made many times.
“Is that COMMUNISM?”
As you undoubtedly know, China is not communist. It’s a mixed economy.
19. November 2021 at 19:19
OT: Do you see Sumner = Keynes = Friedman = Statist below? From the excellent book “The Price of Peace” by Z. Carter (2020) “Harry Johnson, Friedman’s colleague at the University of Chicago, recognized the similarities, telling Friedman that his monetarism “does manage quite skillfully to avoid mentioning Keynes’ contribution to the theory of demand for money, and any suggestion even that he existed.” Johnson saw Friedman as being engaged in a politicized intellectual proxy war of “liberal-Keynesian-Democrats versus the radical-anti-Keynesian Republicans,”31 playing with words and labels to make his position sound more revolutionary than it was. And indeed, adherents of the radical Right who could identify the Keynesian scaffolding in Friedman’s framework were uncomfortable with his new line of attack, seeing it as Keynes in sheep’s clothing. A nonplussed Hayek told an interviewer, “Milton’s monetarism and Keynesianism have more in common with each other than I have with either.”32 For Hayek, who believed that depressions simply had to burn themselves out, even monetary therapy was dangerous. Then there were the technical problems. Friedman couldn’t settle on a single consistent definition of either money or the money supply. He dodged empirical questions about the correlation among interest rates, unemployment, and the quantity of money by insisting that time lags in central banking operations made such observations difficult. Low interest rates, he said, were “a sign that monetary policy has been tight”—rather than a sign that it was tight at any given moment.”
20. November 2021 at 03:37
“The “zero COVID” countries imposed much fewer and weaker restrictions: people could travel, shop, work, got to parties and restaurants, quite freely, (with some occasional limited exceptions), and with death rates 10-100 *times* lower (*times*, not percent).”
Scott: Yup. A point I’ve made many times.”
What point? Other than an island nation in the middle of nowhere, what zero Covid countries are you comparing to non-zero Covid countries? You must have run across the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy at some point.
20. November 2021 at 06:50
Prof. Sumner,
You said; So you are saying that the outcome in “capitalist” North Korea differs from the outcome in capitalist South Korea? Who knew?
Bringing North Korea to the table is very disappointing. No one denies productive power of capitalism. What I meant was deflationary pattern of capitalism. Once the deflationary forces become so powerful both economic and political dynamics get out of control. Ultra low interest rates lead to the erosion of accountability, which maybe the most important aspect of Democracy, in Democratic countries. Trump in America, Brexit in UK, rising authoritarianism all over the world are the clear evidences of this pattern.
I hope you would think about this. Two world wars, post-1929 period and post-2008 period are not coincidental issues.
However, a well-functioning market economy is possible without falling to deflationary trap.
20. November 2021 at 08:06
I don’t have the time to research and write about everything Janice wrote above, but I do want to respond to one of her claims. She wrote:
5. He claims he supports free speech, but labels anyone who disagrees with him a “conspiracy theorist”.
There are two problems with this statement.
First, Scott doesn’t label anyone who disagrees with him a “conspiracy theorist.” He might use the term too much, but it’s easy to find many examples of people he disagrees with whom he doesn’t call that.
Second, even if Scott did call anyone who disagrees with him a conspiracy theorist, that would not at all contradict his support of free speech. Supporting free speech means simply that one opposes all government attempts to regulate it. I’m pretty sure Scott does oppose all such attempts.
20. November 2021 at 19:34
If 90% of Democrats and 2/3 of Republicans make the same decision, then maybe it’s not so political after all. The differences on other issues seem to be greater and more opposed.
I have far too many vaccine deniers in my practice in Germany, no question about that. Their political affiliation is pretty inhomogeneous though: They can be supporters from the extreme left spectrum, or from the extreme right spectrum, or from the Green Party. By far the largest group, however, I would say 70-80%, are are non-political.
I have to say, the Covid pandemic has shaken my world view like rarely any event before. My belief in rationality, free will, and voluntary continuing education has taken a big hit.
We still have institutions in my region where 50% of nurses and geriatric nurses are not taking up vaccination, even now in November. The conversations are often comparable with talking to a wall.
We’ve reached a point where voluntarism and talking is not going to cut it anymore. Too many people in too many responsible positions are just plain stupid. We obviously need mandatory vaccination, at least for professions that have actually sworn to protect the health of their entrusted. If you’ve sworn to do something but you don’t keep it, then you have to be forced or you have to be fired.
Austria is now even considering universal mandatory vaccination by February. Tu felix Austria. Tu es melior off.
20. November 2021 at 22:46
Communists in America are now trying to convince you that “white men” are a disease. Remember, that the only way communists can obtain power is to find some way to divide you. They need an “enemy”, no matter how fictitious.
Take this masterpiece of stupidity following the Rittenhouse trial. Printed, of course, by the CCP propaganda outlet CNN.
“This angry White man has been a major character throughout US history. He gave the country slavery, the slaughter of Native Americans, and Jim Crow laws. His anger also helped fuel the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.It’s this angry White man — not the Black or brown man you see approaching on the street at night — who poses the most dangerous threat to democracy in America.”
Correction:
The greatest threat to America – and to the world – are arrogant academics, suffering from the historical disease “excessive hubris”. By attempting to impose their half-baked conceptions on others, they cause war after war after war. In other words, keep your self righteous indignation and “god-complex” to yourself. It’s almost certain that you are NOT smarter than those who have come before you. You are not going to create a utopia through micromanagement of others, and you are NOT capable of spending other people’s money better than they can. You continue to propagate nonsense and, in the process, brainwash and inspire foot soldiers to do your bidding.
The jury wasn’t racist. The judge wasn’t racist. The journalists covering the story at MSNBC and CNN are brainwashed activists, no doubt inspired by their “passions”, and the NYT and Washington post should be both sued into oblivion for stating his supposed guilt before the trial commenced.
When brainwashed thugs threaten your life, you have every right to shoot their brains out on the side of the street. And you also have every right to carry a weapon and defend yourself, especially in today’s environment when the mob feels “entitled” to your property, and, therefore your labor. Only selfish pricks, and totalitarian thugs, feel it necessary to steal someone else’s labor.
I’m not surprised that such thugs are predominate in the academic community.
21. November 2021 at 08:01
Even Alan Dershowitz, a moderate democrat, calls CNN and MSNBC “racist thugs”.
In Dershowitz’s own words:
“You can watch yourself crying on TV and then you see those jerks attacking him, saying it was staged,”
“It is racism, pure and simple. There’s no way of getting around it.”
“I support any lawsuit that he tries to bring against the intellectual thugs at CNN who persists in lying, persistent lying about the case,” Dershowitz said. “If you listen to CNN, this is a young man who came across state lines carrying an illegal gun and caused the confrontation and never had anything in his life endangered.
“All of those are lies, and they keep repeating them over and over and over again, even after the verdict. You just cannot believe anything you see on CNN or on CNBC or MSNBC. It’s just a scandal.”
And he’s a moderate!
It’s good to see Americans waking up to this marxist plot, which I think is a deritivative of MNC’s taking over governance. Any country that doesn’t buy into the centralization of government and the monopolization of industry, as put forth by the wacko’s over at the WEF, are harrassed in the media. They are also harrassd by organized crime. The same strange bricks that were found stategically located around cities in the U.S. during BLM riots (denver, sfo, nyc, l.a. chicago), were also found in Minsk, Belarus.
Nobody knows who is actually funding it. But it’s definetly organized.
Just a few words for the Marxists:
Don’t mess with Texas!
21. November 2021 at 09:10
“Communists in America are now trying to convince you that “white men” are a disease.”
The wife says I am an affliction but I haven’t reached disease status yet. Maybe i need to try harder.
Steve