Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Dr. Fauci and icuaF .rD
Gateway Pundit is crying AWFUL! Disgusting Dr. Fauci UNLOADS on Trump on EASTER SUNDAY — “Lives Could Have Been Saved!” (Video). Well, yeah, kind of, maybe. Dr. Fauci has become a presence in our lives. He has his admirers and he has his detractors. Some see him as a political operative and part of the Deep State. Others see him as a pure and virtuous civil servant who is selflessly putting in grueling hours at an age where he could be off enjoying (from his isolation) a comfortable retirement.
Gateway Pundit has been waging a jihad against Dr. Fauci for awhile now. They credit him for scuttling the economy and putting President Trump’s re-election in doubt. They see him as a duplicitous agent of evil who is succeeding to do what Clinton-Comey-Mueller-Schiff-Pelosi-Schumer and the MSM could not heretofore accomplish. They publicize his effusions in the past for Hillary and his supposed hand-signaling to press members who give the President difficulty.
The truth is that Dr. Fauci is both credentialed and accomplished in the way we have admired for decades. He is a part of the elite that many have come to suspect are the ground troops of the progressive movement. And his calling — public health — is a progressive domain. His worldview no doubt is closer to Hillary Clinton than to Donald Trump. But the only question we should be concerned about is whether his advice to the President is calculated to destroy him politically as opposed to being sound public policy that incidentally carries with it political risk.
I don’t think Dr. Fauci is manipulating the President. No doubt his advice is not much different from his public pronouncements. And judging from those, the good doctor hedges any statement that makes a headline in a way that makes it plausible that he was advocating completely the opposite of what was broadcast, or that any result is consistent with what he predicted.
President Trump is probably as adept as anyone in resisting manipulation. As Bill O’Reilly documents in his book The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America, President Trump trusts no one except for family. His critics would say that his own schemes and manipulations make him look for schemes and manipulations in others. That could be fair, but recent history also suggests he has received a Master Class in opposition scheming and manipulation, regardless of whatever karma he gathered before running for public office. So I don’t believe that President Trump is overly influenced by Dr. Fauci’s agenda (whatever that is) and looks instead to how the advice he gets should be acted upon or rejected.
As a lawyer by training, I am well aware of the reputation we have for equivocation:
Dr. Fauci may have a medical degree, but he apparently has earned an honorary law degree because he has mastered the two-handed approach.
[Note: Links to all my CoVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Published in General
If the governors let loose, then people can resume their activities to the degree they care to. But at the moment this not allowed in our state.
Actually, nobody can open the economy, not even people. The economy is an abstraction and not subject to opening or closing.
Do you think “trust” is an appropriate relationship to have with our government?
Just so. The federal guidelines gave political cover to governors to impose restrictions on economic activity in their state. A federal revision of the guidelines will put political pressure back on governors to remove restrictions consistent with the federal guidelines. Let’s make no mistake, the governors are abridging civil rights as an emergency measure. Most courts will not grant relief to any claimant if the emergency is clear, the restrictions are consistent with the needs of government to meet the emergency, and if the government does not extend the restrictions beyond the period of time rationally required by the emergency. As the data becomes more clear that the peak of the epidemic is passed in a given location, the governors will be under increasing pressure to lift restrictions and at some point a court will order them to do so.
If your default position is that if Trump says its raining outside you will happily run outside without an umbrella just to prove him wrong, then I suggest you check your assumptions.
Nope. His clear agenda is making sure the fewest deaths and illnesses occur due to Covid-19. Nothing else. He’s never said one work about the heath effects or risks from people being in unhealthy homes, subjected to domestic abuse, losing money which has health risks itself up to suicide. So Trump should commission another task force to make predictions where the suicide rate will be if we don’t open the economy. And yes, these authorities and authoritarians DO have the ability to open things up. People didn’t exactly self-isolate before.
I trust gut instincts of someone who’s lived a very diversified life over Fauci’s so called science. His models were wrong. He’s been as wrong as anyone if you go back to January and, Guess Who was right about so much. China itself, globalism, open borders, these silly trade deals. Sometimes common sense looks like “gut instincts” to people who place way too much value in voices of authority.
Our phones and Internet have been down for close to six days – I turned on the TV to see a story about Trump possibly firing Dr. Fauci via a “tweet rant”. If that is the case, I will seriously question my re-election vote of Trump. I am not kidding – I won’t vote for Biden. I’ll stay home. But I am very sick and tired of negative tweets and threats of firing anyone that disagrees with Trump. If he fires Fauci, I will not vote for Trump unless he terminates his Twitter account – and that’s that.
If we’d only allowed MacArthur to nuke the CHICOMs when they crossed the Yalu, we’d’ve stopped this virus in its tracks.
Yeah, but there might be zombies from the mutations.
Nuke ’em again!
Not government, but policy decisions. And yes, trust is a very important thing to have in a relationship with a government. In particular, a democratic government.
I trust the government insofar as it explains its reasons, answers objections to my satisfaction, provides verifiable information, and institutes checks, balances, and other means to which we can have recourse when it is wrong. But I never simply trust it.
So, the government is only to be trusted once it has your approval? In a democratic government, many actions will be taken, and policies will be implemented, with which I do not agree. But unless you trust the process, you can not be a friend of democracy.
So you’re playing Cathy Newman?
Agreeing with the policies has nothing to do with it. The process I trust is the one in which I’m allowed to be skeptical and mistrustful. It has been the American way since the beginning. Soldiers in the American Revolution, for example, were remarkable for the way in which they expected officers to explain what and why. They didn’t just march into enemy fire blindly. Others were not like that, or were not allowed to be like that. I was raised by my parents and teachers to follow the American way in this regard.
No. Questioning, certainly. Mistrustful? No.
You legislators are your fellow citizens. Who have chosen to serve all of us. And to listen to all of us. This is why there are lobbyists, to present the case for a collection of citizens to the legislators. Rare are those actions of the legislature which are not fully open, it is why C-SPAN exists. There are very detailed government websites which detail the legislative process, you can literally watch a bill word for word as it goes through the process.
HaHaHaHaHa! —Snort—cough—snort—hiccup— Hahahahaha!
Yeah, right. Maybe for a scattered few, but nasty jokes about politicians are popular because they cut really close to the bone.
We were talking about government, so why are you suddenly changing the topic to the legislature, which is relatively unimportant these days?
I’m with Ronald Reagan. Trust but verify.
I think I was 16 or thereabouts when I first heard an expression of trust in our government. A distant relative said that the government wouldn’t allow food-something-or-other if it was harmful. Blew my mind that anyone would think that way, as it wasn’t the way I was raised, but at least I learned that there really were such people.