November 25, 2020

Argument not PHRASED properly or powerfully. Should be

It should be stated "Your right to personal freedom ends at the point where it endangers my health".

This is because they DO have a right to personal freedom of not wearing a mask, such as at home for example. In non-pandemic times, they would have a right in public, provided they had not been told they have an infectious respiratory disease with grave consequences. But in these times, of course that right is limited because uncontrolled viral spread is so easy and dangerous with this disease.

Then they will take it to the absurd contention that Covid-19 is some degree of a fabrication. At which point there needs to be societal acknowledgement of the science.

Only when they can be emotionally persuaded out of their emotional attachment to a fantasy, then they can see reality.

So ultimately, yes, they have rights, but they do not have a right to their own set of FACTS.

November 21, 2020

Yes, but data SAYS deaths are rising NOW. That's the TREND now

What happened in April and May is not part of the current trend.

The new cases now are rising way out of control. They are doubling every 18 days. So we can expect deaths to double every 18 days too, soon (with more than 5 day lag).

We are already 2/3 of the way to breaking the April death rate record.

We are already half way to breaking 9/11 (1481 daily on 7 day trailing average). So, 18-21 days from now, three weeks, I expect there to be a daily 9/11.

It may take a week or two longer. Deaths are doubling about every 4 weeks, technically, on 7 day trailing average, but that is starting from a sort of baseline of a few months. They didn't really get started until about Nov 5, 15 days ago. In the last 3 days, the 7 day trailing average made a sharp move upwards.

It seems to me that the new case rate 7 day trailing took off around 6 weeks ago, and deaths took off about 2 weeks ago. That seems like a 4 week lag. So I think that even if the new case rate began dropping today, deaths will still increase at the current rate for 4 weeks. So I expect at least one doubling in the death rate from current levels. Hence a daily 9/11.

I'm confident, sadly, in that grim prediction because a simple extrapolation of current trends does not take into account limitations of the health system. As case loads double in hospitals, so do ICU loads leading to an extra burden of deaths as ICUs get overwhelmed. ICUs are already badly strained.

Unfortunately, I do not expect the new case rate to flatten for a few weeks at least. Red hatters aren't scared enough yet.

Further, the Thanksgiving Virus Giving may be an extra burden above the current trend.

First Bush (R) with 9/11.
Then tRump (TR) with daily 9/11.

What a Republicon legacy.

November 17, 2020

Their fortress view of family is attacked by non-trad gender, working moms, reproductive rights,

... and so much else. If they are white, then right-wingers tend to add People of Colour to the list of attacks they perceive; hence tRump's appeal to suburban white wives with reference to hordes of low income housing dwellers which is a code phrase for PoC.

The all-or-nothing binary thinking, as illustrated about gender/sex, means that every progressive step is fought tooth and nail:

* abolition of slavery
* desegregation
* women's votes
* reproductive rights
* same sex marriage
* fluoridation of water
* vaccination for papilloma virus
* sex education
* drug legalization

You can add things like Obamacare as the "thin edge of the wedge of communism".

You may see those items as progress. They seem them as mortal wounds to "their country" that have to be reversed. They are perpetually stressed and in a defensive crouch all the time. No wondered there is such a large cult of trumpanzees, even to death by Covid.

Republicons have corralled their sheep and jacked up their self-infliced PTSD from modern society to the nth degree.

November 15, 2020

It will heal & come together, but it will take FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE & marginalizing of polar extremes.

The extremes, and most especially hard right wing extremes, will have to be goaded to become even more extreme and thus less attractive. For example, tRump's cult must be (rightly) tarred with racist and QAnon labels whenever possible.

The Republican Party must be always referred to as tRump's party. Honest and responsible conservatives must be made to feel they have no home there. They must be forced to create their own party, egged on in the process by Democrats. Such a party would rise to replace the tRump-Republicon (Greed Over People) party and that is the right wing that can come together with the Democratic Party to heal the nation.

While the right wing is undergoing schizms and agonizing convulsions as it reforms, the Democratic Party will have power for a time to make big important fair reforms to the electoral system to kill voter suppression, kill gerrymandering, and kill dirty tricks. Reforms to make polarization much harder.

Make the center much more attractive than the right wing, especially the hard right. Use media and Internet to make a universal sense of revulsion come over people when tRump-Republiconism is mentioned: "eww, shitty racist QAnons".

Make the left of the center very attractive. (The center of the Democratic Party.)

*** Biden can do it. ***

Harris' personal task must be to avoid being "Hillary'ed". Harris has to move to the center, perhaps a little right of center on law and order, to prevent that angle of attack, and a little left of Biden on climate. If Harris makes common cause with Warren and consults meaningfully with AOC and Sanders, then she can pull it off. Especially since it seems Biden is inclined to move on green deals of various kinds.

November 8, 2020

I propose Abiding Biden. . . . nt