When Bureaucrats Gather

Richard Epstein brings his encyclopedic knowledge to help break down some of the pivotal matters being debated in Congress and before the Supreme Court. Plus, James and Rob look back on the Covid lockdowns four years later, along with Minneapolis’ move against Uber and Lyft.

 

 

 

 

  • Sound this week: Rep. Mike Gallagher (R – WI 08) on the Ingram Angle (FNC) speaking on TikTok

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  1. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth.  

    They lied. They kept it quiet that they knew it wasn’t going to stop the spread, and then when August 1 came around they made a big deal out of it. From what I can tell, they technically said it wouldn’t stop the spread around April, but everybody in the government and all of the leftist talking heads said it would. There was no reason for so many people to get the shot. They should have just made it clear that if you were over a certain age or had certain comorbidities, it was stupid to not get the shot. Like I said, I got three shots and a year later I got sick as hell from COVID-19. 

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Do we have core principles, or not?  One such principle is the freedom to assemble.

    If they literally could stop the spread with government force, that is not a big deal. in fact, it’s what the government should do largely. That is public health is for. Instead, they totally lied about it.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent.  

    No argument from me.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    I don’t think this is accurate. They can step in with government force if they can genuinely improve serious situations like a contagion.

    • #31
  2. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    The idea that it was the government’s job to ensure we don’t have overrun hospitals was always a non-starter for me. Nevermind the fact that we DO have overrun hospitals every single flu season.

    Most years, it only takes 50% of the populace to get the flu shot to kill it off.

    If they can actually manage the situation, they should usually do it. Instead they lied about it, top to bottom.

    • #32
  3. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    • #33
  4. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an “unwanted ill.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

    • #34
  5. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    The idea that it was the government’s job to ensure we don’t have overrun hospitals was always a non-starter for me. Nevermind the fact that we DO have overrun hospitals every single flu season.

    Most years, it only takes 50% of the populace to get the flu shot to kill it off.

    If they can actually manage the situation, they should usually do it. Instead they lied about it, top to bottom.

    https://www.science.org/content/article/why-flu-vaccines-so-often-fail

    • #35
  6. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth.

    They lied. They kept it quiet that they knew it wasn’t going to stop the spread, and then when August 1 came around they made a big deal out of it. From what I can tell, they technically said it wouldn’t stop the spread around April, but everybody in the government and all of the leftist talking heads said it would. There was no reason for so many people to get the shot. They should have just made it clear that if you were over a certain age or had certain comorbidities, it was stupid to not get the shot. Like I said, I got three shots and a year later I got sick as hell from COVID-19.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble.

    If they literally could stop the spread with government force, that is not a big deal. in fact, it’s what the government should do largely. That is public health is for. Instead, they totally lied about it.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent.

    No argument from me.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    I don’t think this is accurate. They can step in with government force if they can genuinely improve serious situations like a contagion.

    No technology currently exists to stop the spread of a respiratory virus.  The govt must abide by core principles that the people’s right to assemble, travel, etc. shall not be infringed upon, or we might as well give up now. 

     

    • #36
  7. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    • #37
  8. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an “unwanted ill.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

    Did the others insist on going around and working and infecting others?

    • #38
  9. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    The idea that it was the government’s job to ensure we don’t have overrun hospitals was always a non-starter for me. Nevermind the fact that we DO have overrun hospitals every single flu season.

    Most years, it only takes 50% of the populace to get the flu shot to kill it off.

    If they can actually manage the situation, they should usually do it. Instead they lied about it, top to bottom.

    https://www.science.org/content/article/why-flu-vaccines-so-often-fail

    What did I say is inaccurate?

    Should we stop giving out the flu vaccine or what is your recommended policy?

    • #39
  10. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth.

    They lied. They kept it quiet that they knew it wasn’t going to stop the spread, and then when August 1 came around they made a big deal out of it. From what I can tell, they technically said it wouldn’t stop the spread around April, but everybody in the government and all of the leftist talking heads said it would. There was no reason for so many people to get the shot. They should have just made it clear that if you were over a certain age or had certain comorbidities, it was stupid to not get the shot. Like I said, I got three shots and a year later I got sick as hell from COVID-19.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble.

    If they literally could stop the spread with government force, that is not a big deal. in fact, it’s what the government should do largely. That is public health is for. Instead, they totally lied about it.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent.

    No argument from me.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    I don’t think this is accurate. They can step in with government force if they can genuinely improve serious situations like a contagion.

    No technology currently exists to stop the spread of a respiratory virus. The govt must abide by core principles that the people’s right to assemble, travel, etc. shall not be infringed upon, or we might as well give up now.

     

    It depends on what it is. Are you really gonna let people with Ebola do whatever they want? They have a measles outbreak in Chicago because the idiot immigrants don’t get measles shots. It’s the most contagious respiratory virus there is. you are implying that vaccines never stop any respiratory viruses. That is not true. If we had a serious situation, I could care less if they forced people to do stuff at gunpoint if it actually stopped it..

    • #40
  11. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    I love Richard, but I may have found my first point of disagreement in his statement that “work should be a little painful.”  While this isn’t completely wrong (i.e. a challenge at work is infinitely better than boredom), oh how many companies are taking advantage of this attitude + the fact that there is no longer any divide between work life and home life for many jobs, thanks to technology.  I just assume much “incompetence” I see is understaffing.  Case in point a dept manager near me used to have 16 people and now has 5, with more workload than ever.  She needs to go out for carpal tunnel surgery in both hands, but puts up with the pain because “there’s no one to pick up the slack.”  Another person left the company and someone else was given her job in addition to the one she already had, permanently.  This is normal in corporate life, as are 16-hour days and canceled vacations.  Who has time to raise a family?  You’re lucky if you remember your kids’ names.

    • #41
  12. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an “unwanted ill.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

    Did the others insist on going around and working and infecting others?

    “No one else was forcibly confined.”

    • #42
  13. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth.

    They lied. They kept it quiet that they knew it wasn’t going to stop the spread, and then when August 1 came around they made a big deal out of it. From what I can tell, they technically said it wouldn’t stop the spread around April, but everybody in the government and all of the leftist talking heads said it would. There was no reason for so many people to get the shot. They should have just made it clear that if you were over a certain age or had certain comorbidities, it was stupid to not get the shot. Like I said, I got three shots and a year later I got sick as hell from COVID-19.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble.

    If they literally could stop the spread with government force, that is not a big deal. in fact, it’s what the government should do largely. That is public health is for. Instead, they totally lied about it.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent.

    No argument from me.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    I don’t think this is accurate. They can step in with government force if they can genuinely improve serious situations like a contagion.

    No technology currently exists to stop the spread of a respiratory virus. The govt must abide by core principles that the people’s right to assemble, travel, etc. shall not be infringed upon, or we might as well give up now.

     

    It depends on what it is. Are you really gonna let people with Ebola do whatever they want? They have a measles outbreak in Chicago because the idiot immigrants don’t get measles shots. It’s the most contagious respiratory virus there is. you are implying that vaccines never stop any respiratory viruses. That is not true. If we had a serious situation, I could care less if they forced people to do stuff at gunpoint if it actually stopped it..

    Ebola generally makes people so ill that while there is some spread, infected people aren’t out ballroom dancing and infecting others.  Better funeral practices in African countries would help a lot.  Measles outbreaks also happen in very wealthy areas, where people have made the choice not to vaccinate.

    Ebola and measles are both entirely different animals from flu or COVID, and no, neither have been eradicated by vaccines, nor are they likely to be.

    We do not agree on what the Constitution was written for, then.  It should be enforced even more when everyone is scared.

    • #43
  14. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an “unwanted ill.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

    Did the others insist on going around and working and infecting others?

    “No one else was forcibly confined.”

    Not the point.  Did anyone else NEED TO BE forcibly confined?

    Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), commonly known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born American cook believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever. The infections caused three confirmed deaths, with unconfirmed estimates of as many as 50. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogenic bacteria Salmonella typhi.[1][2] She was forcibly quarantined twice by authorities, the second time for the remainder of her life because she persisted in working as a cook and thereby exposed others to the disease.

    • #44
  15. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    The idea that it was the government’s job to ensure we don’t have overrun hospitals was always a non-starter for me. Nevermind the fact that we DO have overrun hospitals every single flu season.

    Most years, it only takes 50% of the populace to get the flu shot to kill it off.

    If they can actually manage the situation, they should usually do it. Instead they lied about it, top to bottom.

    https://www.science.org/content/article/why-flu-vaccines-so-often-fail

    What did I say is inaccurate?

    Should we stop giving out the flu vaccine or what is your recommended policy?

    The flu comes and goes because of seasonality, not vaccine uptake.  If that were true, countries like Japan would not have a flu season anymore.  I think we should be honest with people that the flu vaccines really don’t work very well and are probably not worth taking for most people.

    • #45
  16. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an “unwanted ill.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

    Did the others insist on going around and working and infecting others?

    “No one else was forcibly confined.”

    Not the point. Did anyone else NEED TO BE forcibly confined?

    Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), commonly known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born American cook believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever. The infections caused three confirmed deaths, with unconfirmed estimates of as many as 50. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogenic bacteria Salmonella typhi.[1][2] She was forcibly quarantined twice by authorities, the second time for the remainder of her life because she persisted in working as a cook and thereby exposed others to the disease.

    They harbored the same organism.  Why weren’t they treated the same way?  Do you really think none of them got anyone else sick?

    • #46
  17. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Ebola and measles are both entirely different animals from flu or COVID, and no, neither have been eradicated by vaccines, nor are they likely to be.

    They forced almost everybody in the United States to get a measles vaccine and it worked because it works. Same thing with polio. 

    When people want to ignore something like that, they are perpetrating illegitimate force on everybody else. Public health is stopping disease transmission with government force when there is no other option. That is literally all I am talking about. 

    • #47
  18. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    The flu comes and goes because of seasonality, not vaccine uptake.  If that were true, countries like Japan would not have a flu season anymore.  I think we should be honest with people that the flu vaccines really don’t work very well and are probably not worth taking for most people.

    I have never heard this. The flu has a R0 (spread efficacy)  that is easily interrupted with the shot–gotten by fewer than 50% of the population– nine years out of 10 or something like that. 

    • #48
  19. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an “unwanted ill.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

    Did the others insist on going around and working and infecting others?

    “No one else was forcibly confined.”

    Not the point. Did anyone else NEED TO BE forcibly confined?

    Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), commonly known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born American cook believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever. The infections caused three confirmed deaths, with unconfirmed estimates of as many as 50. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogenic bacteria Salmonella typhi.[1][2] She was forcibly quarantined twice by authorities, the second time for the remainder of her life because she persisted in working as a cook and thereby exposed others to the disease.

    They harbored the same organism. Why weren’t they treated the same way? Do you really think none of them got anyone else sick?

    I would want evidence that any others were wantonly/deliberately infecting others the way “Mary” appeared to be.

    Were any of the others occupied as cooks?  If any were, were they willing to give up that occupation due to its apparent ability to spread the virus much more than other occupations?

    Mary was apparently a cook, and refused to give it up even knowing what it meant.  She behaved differently, so she was treated differently.

    • #49
  20. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    The flu comes and goes because of seasonality, not vaccine uptake. If that were true, countries like Japan would not have a flu season anymore. I think we should be honest with people that the flu vaccines really don’t work very well and are probably not worth taking for most people.

    I have never heard this. The flu has a R0 (spread efficacy) that is easily interrupted with the shot–gotten by fewer than 50% of the population– nine years out of 10 or something like that.

    https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00386/japan-gripped-by-major-flu-outbreak.html

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22414740/

    • #50
  21. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Ebola and measles are both entirely different animals from flu or COVID, and no, neither have been eradicated by vaccines, nor are they likely to be.

    They forced almost everybody in the United States to get a measles vaccine and it worked because it works. Same thing with polio.

    When people want to ignore something like that, they are perpetrating illegitimate force on everybody else. Public health is stopping disease transmission with government force when there is no other option. That is literally all I am talking about.

    Why do you see a communicable illness as “perpetrating illegitimate force”?  Vaccines are not fool-proof, nor do they lack a risk profile.  Where is the agency?  One of the worst things we did during the pandemic was tell people it was their fault if someone they knew died of a communicable illness. https://www.brandinginasia.com/dont-accidentally-kill-someone/

    • #51
  22. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an “unwanted ill.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

    Did the others insist on going around and working and infecting others?

    “No one else was forcibly confined.”

    Not the point. Did anyone else NEED TO BE forcibly confined?

    Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), commonly known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born American cook believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever. The infections caused three confirmed deaths, with unconfirmed estimates of as many as 50. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogenic bacteria Salmonella typhi.[1][2] She was forcibly quarantined twice by authorities, the second time for the remainder of her life because she persisted in working as a cook and thereby exposed others to the disease.

    They harbored the same organism. Why weren’t they treated the same way? Do you really think none of them got anyone else sick?

    I would want evidence that any others were wantonly/deliberately infecting others the way “Mary” appeared to be.

    Were any of the others occupied as cooks? If any were, were they willing to give up that occupation due to its apparent ability to spread the virus much more than other occupations?

    Mary was apparently a cook, and refused to give it up even knowing what it meant. She behaved differently, so she was treated differently.

    They weren’t locked away.  Therefore, you can safely assume they got other people sick.

    • #52
  23. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):

    Whew, 10 minutes in and where to start?

    1. No one gets a pass for the initial COVID lockdowns, which broke societal norms and natural rights. If they had worked, we’d be obligated to do them forever (and we almost did), and if they didn’t they were a huge waste of time and money (they were).

    2. The vaccines did little to nothing. Seasonality and Omicron made the pandemic go away. The vaccines only ruined what little reputation pharma companies had, and destroyed medicine.

    3. The job of the govt is to calm the populace.

    This is very good, but the problem is, all they did was lie about almost everything. The risks to the populous were very limited and obvious. They should have operated in that sense. The way they were talking – and I mean all of them – that the vaccine was going to stop the spread. It didn’t do anything to stop the spread. There were areas with huge vaccine and mask compliance getting destroyed in what is effectively their outdoor season, two months after the vaccine came out. It didn’t go down at all because of the vaccine.

    I tend to be libertarian on everything, but public health is a legitimate government function. They need to not lie, and they need to stick to things that can be ***accomplished*** with government force. It’s just unbelievable that we are even talking about this stuff. Government is ridiculous at best and evil at worst.

    It’s fair to note that govt and pharma talked about what they hoped was true and presented it as the truth, rather than speaking the truth. But for me, that’s almost irrelevant. Do we have core principles, or not? One such principle is the freedom to assemble. Another is the freedom to travel in our country without getting govt permission. Both violated. We should never have violated those, as now the govt will violate them for a much smaller emergency, because precedent. Public health’s job is to give advice (which we can use as we please) and then shut up.

    So, would you say “Typhoid Mary” should not have been quarantined, and instead allowed to continue freely infecting people, many of whom died?

    “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an “unwanted ill.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/

    Did the others insist on going around and working and infecting others?

    “No one else was forcibly confined.”

    Not the point. Did anyone else NEED TO BE forcibly confined?

    Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), commonly known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born American cook believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever. The infections caused three confirmed deaths, with unconfirmed estimates of as many as 50. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogenic bacteria Salmonella typhi.[1][2] She was forcibly quarantined twice by authorities, the second time for the remainder of her life because she persisted in working as a cook and thereby exposed others to the disease.

    They harbored the same organism. Why weren’t they treated the same way? Do you really think none of them got anyone else sick?

    I would want evidence that any others were wantonly/deliberately infecting others the way “Mary” appeared to be.

    Were any of the others occupied as cooks? If any were, were they willing to give up that occupation due to its apparent ability to spread the virus much more than other occupations?

    Mary was apparently a cook, and refused to give it up even knowing what it meant. She behaved differently, so she was treated differently.

    They weren’t locked away. Therefore, you can safely assume they got other people sick.

    Or they may have isolated themselves in ways that Mary didn’t.  Just being out in public isn’t the same risk as cooking for people.  And if they associated with people who knew their status, that’s also something that Mary didn’t do.

    • #53
  24. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    I knew these things already – Mary refused to stop activities that spread the disease (i.e., working as a cook), she refused to believe that she was a carrier as she’d been healthy herself, wouldn’t even wash her hands regularly, and used various false names to escape detection – but this article I found today presents it all in a way that might be more convincing:

     

    https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-typhoid-mary

    • #54
  25. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22414740/

    Fewer than 50% get the flu shot and how many years out of 10 do you ever see emergency coverage of a widespread outbreak in the news? Maybe one. Those are just facts. They mess up the flu vaccine about one year out of 10 or something. I suspect that research is public health propellerheads, doing the same thing they did during the COVID-19 outbreak. 

     

    • #55
  26. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Why do you see a communicable illness as “perpetrating illegitimate force”?

    If people could ***actually*** do something to not kill or maim others with a highly communicable disease, I don’t care if they get forced to do it.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Where is the agency?

    This is not an example of agency. 

    You are making assumptions about public health behaving badly. I don’t see why that has to happen, but it definitely did during COVID-19.

    • #56
  27. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Bush 42 read a book about contagions, and he got all of the state health authorities to produce a plan to deal with it. Think of how long ago that was. They had the plan and then they ignored everything they planned out.  

    They should have let COVID-19 spread like crazy among the healthy, and then let it die out on its own. They knew that and they didn’t do it. Supposedly, locking people up in their homes actually made it spread worse anyway. I suppose this was somewhat complicated by the risk of running out of medical resources in some areas at some times but look at all of the damage they created. They were still running out in some areas two months –during their outdoor season – – after the damn shot was being spread around. These people are idiots. 

    • #57
  28. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    kedavis (View Comment):

    I knew these things already – Mary refused to stop activities that spread the disease (i.e., working as a cook), she refused to believe that she was a carrier as she’d been healthy herself, wouldn’t even wash her hands regularly, and used various false names to escape detection – but this article I found today presents it all in a way that might be more convincing:

     

    https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-typhoid-mary

    That’s a more fair article.  We can’t ignore the context that immigrants, especially Irish, were looked upon poorly at that time in history.  But I also don’t believe that the hundreds of other people with the same health status somehow magically managed not to infect a single person.

    Typhoid Mary’s story, to me, is a warning to check references.

    • #58
  29. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22414740/

    Fewer than 50% get the flu shot and how many years out of 10 do you ever see emergency coverage of a widespread outbreak in the news? Maybe one. Those are just facts. They mess up the flu vaccine about one year out of 10 or something. I suspect that research is public health propellerheads, doing the same thing they did during the COVID-19 outbreak.

     

    Reporting depends on who is President, and whether other narratives need to be pushed, such as climate change.

    • #59
  30. JuliaBach Coolidge
    JuliaBach
    @JuliaBach

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Why do you see a communicable illness as “perpetrating illegitimate force”?

    If people could ***actually*** do something to not kill or maim others with a highly communicable disease, I don’t care if they get forced to do it.

    JuliaBach (View Comment):
    Where is the agency?

    This is not an example of agency.

    You are making assumptions about public health behaving badly. I don’t see why that has to happen, but it definitely did during COVID-19.

    If you charge public health with *stopping* infectious respiratory disease outbreaks, public health is guaranteed to “behave badly”.

    What gives the govt the right to force people to participate in public health campaigns?  Where does that right stop?  Does it have any boundaries?

    • #60
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