I see a lot of praise and ‘thank you’ in the comment section… my sincerest apologies for not indulging.
Where was this two years ago when we needed it? We’ve known for a fact all of the negative consequences you’re writing about back when the pandemic began. We already had the studies. We knew that children were not at serious risk to COVID from the very beginning. We knew it. But it was more important to the elites, Democrats, and teachers to turn COVID into a political power grab than do what was best for our children. Anyone who had the audacity to question the elites was castigated as not caring about children dying, not believing in science, and was shunned from polite society. Anyone who dared to question the infallible and omniscient Supreme Fauci was portrayed as uneducated rubes who didn’t believe ‘The Science.’
This is the predictable result of decades of granting authority—political, expert, and moral—to a consolidated few. And there’s still a major effort to consolidate the flow of information through censorship. If you engage in outside mainstream information you’re deemed fringe or conspiratorial.
While it’s appreciated that the the truth most of us knew all along be spoken, it’s a little late to receive much applause since the damage is done. We need to stop electing politicians and stop supporting public unions that want to consolidate power. Let’s have an essay about that.
I feel that way about Bari and Andrew Sullivan and Abigail Shrier and the many other liberals who are just now realizing the horror of so many of their policies.
However, castigating them for their past behavior is both unproductive and wrong. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" -- which of us have not championed policies we later regretted (in my own case: the 1986 immigration reform, the War on Terror, the estate tax elimination, among many others.)
Instead, I'm trying to be charitable and welcome them as they move slowly Rightward. Today, some can only see the absurdity of COVID rules -- that's OK. The sane welcome your help in overturning those. Some (like Bari) are beginning to see the damage of "antiracism" and "wokeness" -- that's OK. We welcome your help in making society more just. Hopefully disaffected liberals will embrace the full panolpy of liberty over time. But they won't do it if we spend our time reminding them of their past behavior instead of welcoming their help today.
As I said, this isn't easy for me either, but I'm trying, and I encourage others to as well. Don't gloat. It's counterproductive.
As far as I know, Shrier is not now and has never been a liberal. As a journalist, she has published, and still does, in the Wall Street Journal and other right-of-center media. Her ongoing, heroic work on the trans issue causes apoplexy among liberals. Sullivan has a range of positions based on a kind of liberal conservatism but is not sitting in the middle of the liberal camp. Bari is equally unclassifiable. To those on the far left she's a fascist because of her Zionism, to those on the far right she's a radical because she's a married lesbian. Note that she interviewed Mike Pompeo on her Substack -- not exactly a liberal gesture. And I can't agree that she is just now beginning to see the damage of "antiracism" and "wokeness." She quit the New York Times for just this reason.
My point is that as a country, we've been intellectually crippled by the belief that we have to swear allegiance to a party and an ideology, and then slavishly agree with everything that comes out of that side. I was recently accused of being a racist by someone close to me who knows better, because I had taken the time to educate myself on the facts of the Rittenhouse case and corrected her numerous, media-fuled misconceptions. She assumed that by stating what his true motivations were, I was defending his actions. Complex thinking as a skill is now suspect. Apparently it's better to lie until the end of time, as long as it bolsters one point of view. This is a disastrous paradigm.
I was taught to think critically by my father at our dinner table in the 1950s, though I did not realize it at the time. As a young adult in the '60s, I came to understand that labels were disastrously misleading, and that ideology of any kind required close scrutiny without emotion (though I think emotion animates our lives but not always our judgement). So I am reading this Substack and others with eagerness, because the writing seems honest, skillful, and stimulating. I am so happy not to have to deal with ideologies as the sole basis for what I read or think.
Exceptionally well said, Beeswax, thanks for writing this. Yep, Bari needed a forum to fight Wokeness and other social diseases and the Times wouldn't allow it, so she quit to run her own shop. Took a lot of courage to do that.
I got the same flak over Kyle Rittenhouse. After reading the facts of the case and watching all the videos, I knew at that time he was charged with multiple murders that the prosecution was political, not factual. I said so publicly. Caught a lot of hate for that, but too bad--I have no stake in Rittenhouse's life, nor do I like open carry of rifles. But he did nothing wrong, nothing illegal, and the entire prosecution was a mockery of the justice system.
You know things are bad when the state's own charging document--which I studied--makes all the defense attorneys' points for them.
The Rittenhouse case if truly fully understood should have proven to be the tipping point where most previously unswayed folks could see the evil intent of the MSM. From the truly shoddy reporting of the basic facts through the constant drumbeat of the ugliest of motivations they foisted upon this young man was beyond reprehensible.
That even now after the trial you have many on the left including pols and scribes alike who refuse to admit they were wrong upon reflection of the facts of the case should be sufficient evidence of their nefarious intent. What Kyle did that night was a whole gamut of adjectives but criminal wasn’t one of them and that was clear as day as soon as the video appeared to anyone who isn’t currently brainwashed by the ‘white man bad’ cultists pushing their hate. Add in the fact that killing 2 and injuring 1 dangerous wild eyed white leftist attackers somehow stained him as racist only further cements how how immoral many in the MSM and the left in general have become.
Having said that, the fact that this site exists because of an awakening of folks like Bari and Nellie then hope is not lost. But we desperately need their voices to be ‘loud’ and able to bring those of goodwill (regardless of other differences) into what I see as a coalition of what I’ll call normal good folks. Normal in the sense that we don’t hurt others, we want good lives for our family and communities. A coalition of people who aren’t racist or hateful, who welcome people to come to our home (America) but do expect that they do so lawfully, orderly and not shit upon the blessings those of us who came before built that made this the greatest country in human history.
The melting pot served us extremely well, the mosaic approach only creates a Balkanization where fundamental commonality becomes difficult to find making it difficult to avoid us vs them mentality among different ethnic/religious groups.
Great addition to the conversation, thanks. I will say, however, that you may be giving the die-hard Rittenhouse haters too much credit. I know them personally. It’s not that they know the facts but refuse to accept them (at least, not the people I know). It’s that they don’t want to be put in a position where they might have to admit they were misled, so they refuse to research the subject or even listen to what they automatically assume are spurious “alternative facts.” Their self-assurance and absence of curiosity is impressive.
Also, they’re enabled to remain ignorant by hunkering down inside their news monoculture. The day after the verdict, I heard both the former and current Democratic mayor of New York City intone the “militia member who crossed state lines with a gun in order to to kill Black people” mantra. It’s as if no trial had even taken place.
When I was 16 I decided I would not pick a specific political party to be a part of. I was not political at all, and have no idea why that thought had popped into my head. I never wanted to limit myself or be limited by others through group think and I wanted my beliefs to be flexible and to grow and not be afraid to change my mind or call people out. Probably one of the best decisions I've ever made lol! I am 32 now and still an Independent. I am debating registering as a Republican this year so I can vote in the primary, I want to vote the old cronies out and vote the new populist ones in. Still haven't decided, we'll see!
The estate tax… hmm. You think death should be a taxable event?
This is not a tax it is blatant wealth confiscation.
Support of this tax means that your accumulated wealth over a lifetime is not really yours. The gov’t actually owns it and decides how much your heirs can keep.
"This is not a tax it is blatant wealth confiscation."
Yes, it is. We use the inheritance tax to keep oligarchy to a minimum. Having most of the money in the hands of relatively few people is a power imbalance that hurts everyone else. The inheritance tax is a good way to keep relatively few Americans from having the power of feudal kings and queens because they are so rich they cannot be touched by public authority.
Currently, the tax is so low and filled with so many loopholes that it's essentially meaningless. Time to reverse that. The heirs will have to suffer with only a few million dollars of inheritance exempted from the tax, the poor dears.
Keeping the oligarchy at a minimum has zero constitutional foundation. Taxing for the purpose of reducing a person’s wealth is illegal (and, frankly, totalitarian).
Further, your position creates perverse incentives. Why work hard knowing that anything over X will be taken? It also creates the incentive to move wealth outside the jurisdiction where it is taxable.
Florida used to have a fine luxury boat building industry. Geniuses like you though that they should be taxed heavier because of the luxury. The boat builders left Florida.
Your ideas are wonderful if we want to destroy the incentive to work hard and encourage people to move their wealth.
But mostly, what comes through your comments is a seething jealousy that you do not have “enough” and therefore nobody else should either. The envy and contempt you express is ugly.
Try being happy for your family, friends, and neighbors for being successful rather than gloating at the thought of taking it away.
Aw, Xi, so much bullshit in one little post. Let me count the ways . . .
"Why work hard knowing that anything over X will be taken?"
Funny how the capitalists of the Gilded Age managed to work their butts off despite income tax rates being double to triple today's rates and despite the inheritance tax took a significant chunk of their wealth upon their deaths. Funny how even with all those government jackboots on their throats they managed to build, create, invest, and amass fortunes.
"Why work hard . . ."
That you would be too lazy to work hard if you didn't keep every dime of your money after your death is on you. The rest of us like to work and would do so if the inheritance tax went back to what it was pre-Reagan.
"Florida used to have a fine luxury boat building industry. Geniuses like you though that they should be taxed heavier because of the luxury. The boat builders left Florida."
I thought nothing of the sort, then or not. Luxury taxes are stupid. First, who's to say what's a "luxury"? Second, If someone wants to spend ten million dollars on a yacht, for God's sake, let them do it. The sales tax on that one purchase alone would pay for a lot of social services, and the jobs stay in America. The boat and airplane businesses got creamed by the luxury tax, not the inheritance tax. I detest the former and support the latter. Get your facts right.
"what comes through your comments is a seething jealousy that you do not have “enough” and therefore nobody else should either. The envy and contempt you express is ugly."
I got plenty. My career is a resounding success and I have more money than you do. Who would I be jealous of, exactly?
"Keeping the oligarchy at a minimum has zero constitutional foundation."
Another graduate of Trump University, are you? Of course we can limit the amount of money any one person keeps. That is the very definition of the tax system: society decides what it needs to keep the engine running and takes the money from the people and industries it deems appropriate. If tax cuts are Constitutional--and they are--then so are tax increases. The inheritance tax is Constitutional, then and now.
I prefer the inheritance tax as a revenue-raiser because it doesn't put any additional tax burden on the guy with the money while he's alive. The money only transfers upon his death. It's far more fair to the guy earning the money to tax it upon death than during life, because he can do what he wants with it while he's around the enjoy the fruits of his labors.
Heirs? They have no legal right to the money. No inheritance tax would put them in the poorhouse anyway--the highest inheritance tax we've ever imposed was 70 percent after X amount. Guy leaving his daughter a billion dollars? She'd still get half a billion under the most draconian system we've ever had. Tough to eat on half a billion, I know, but One Must Make Do.
Ultimately, society needs tax money to fund programs good for everyone. Money has to come from somewhere. The inheritance tax is one of the more fair ways to get that money, because it doesn't affect the owner of the money while he or she is alive. It has nothing to do with jealousy--I'm successful, I want everyone to be successful.
But I also understand that a society does not run on good intentions alone--it needs dough. Where does that dough come from? People with money, because the poor don't have any. If the day comes some of my wealth gets taken by government thanks to a rightsized inheritance tax, fine. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization, and I'm dead so I don't care anyway.
The fundamental issue is why should money I earn through work be taxed while money I am gifted by someone's death is not. Estate taxes are not taxes imposed on dead people - they are taxes on what is effectively income for heirs. There is no "work" involved
I agree. In my case, though, what resentment? An estate tax is a way of raising tax money, no more and no less.
If an estate tax were re-imposed as it I believe it should, some of my estate would go the government. The rest would go to my heirs. I'm good with that because this society has been good to me. Somebody's got to pay the bills, and better me when I'm dead than me when I'm alive.
It actually limits competition with the oligarchs we already have, and lets them entrench themselves in more power. What we need is more people moving up the latter, so that more people have "power" and a say. More at the top is better than a few at the top. All the estate tax has done was let the old corrupt cronies pull the ladder up behind them.
Xi, while I don't think this is the time or place to debate this in detail, since you brought it up, yes, I do believe that.
My opinion on the estate tax changed as I watched income inequality rise throughout the West. Hereditary aristocracy is on the rise in America, and the estate tax is a tool that can be used to fight that. It's not ideal or perfect, but removing it from the toolbox was, I think, a mistake.
"Man was not made for the market, the market was made for man" - Saint JP II
St JPII was spot on..... but, "do not hasten the goddamn escaton." Taxing in order to create your utopian vision of wealth equality has plenty of real world examples that resulted in over 100,000,000 dead people. The only way to achieve such goals (excessive taxation) is a police state. Something he spent his life fighting. To cite him in support of confiscatory taxation is a bit rich.
If your motive is based on the greater good then simply give your money rather than demand the money of others by force of law. It is not generous nor altruistic to be forced to give. Given your stated position one assumes you tithe. That tithe is an after tax number (if not, you are tithing to government and thus engaging in idolotry by tithing to them rather than the Church).
“Hereditary aristocracy is on the rise in America”
Is actually a patently false statement. In the US,70% of inherited wealth is gone in 2 generations and over 95% in 3. With few exceptions, dynastic inheritance is NOT the norm in the US as it is in much of Europe. This is why the Gini wealth index in countries like Sweden, Denmark and Norway are so much higher than the US.
Yes. There is old money in the US but it is not “on the rise”.
I’ll just leave this. The constitution authorizes taxes/spending for the general welfare (and as amended income as well). Proposing a tax on the basis that person X should not be allowed to be that rich (or that much richer than others) is covered by either of those and is therefore illegal.
Estate taxes are premised on the notion that money poured into the estate is income.
And we still have an estate tax; it didn’t go away.
Even if such a thing existed (it doesn't - we are a very wealth mobile society) it does not mean it would necessarily be bad. Further, a tax predicated on preventing wealth accumulation (or wealth disparity) has no constitutional basis; it would be illegal.
I appreciate the civility in this response, Xi, and will respond in kind. I disagree that an estate tax is unconstitutional. As you pointed out in another response, we still have an estate tax. My view is that the rate should be much higher than now, because if we need to the money in order to fund public services, it's more fair to harvest it from estates than from living people.
Since the estate tax is not illegal or unconstitutional now, it wouldn't become so merely because the rates were raised. Rates have gone up and down since estate taxes became a thing.
I would agree if you are arguing it would be unconstitutional to impose a 100 percent tax over X amount. It's one thing to take a share for the public good. It's another to say, "you get this much and no more." Under the highest estate taxes in our history, even the richest folks were able to pass along 50 percent of their estates.
Estate taxes are a more painless way of raising needed tax revenue than income, sales, or property taxes, all of which hit the living, who need the money to live, invest, vacation, run a business, or all of the above. The dead have no such concerns.
It's not gloating. It's righteous anger.They were just fine and dandy with all of it, until it turned on them. Stifling and shaming anyone that calls them out on this is counterproductive as well.
Brian, I have been reading Andrew Sullivan's work since the mid-80s. In the last few years, I have been reading the work of Bari Weiss and Abigail Shrier.
None of the 3 are the kind of liberal, meaning progressive, that you describe. They are very much the opposite. It's astounding to me that you classify them as such. So, I wonder, How familiar are you with their writings?
Are you aware that Sullivan has been persona non grata for a couple of decades among many in the gay community (even though it was he who put the issue of gay marriage into public play back in 1989, for which he received from the gay community much opprobrium)? That he was in essence fired from New York Magazine because he wanted to use the word "riot" in an essay describing the riots of 2020 but NY Mag wouldn't permit it and fellow writers considered him an office moral and physical threat...even though, they were working remotely?
Do you have any idea the hell that Abigail Shrier has been put through by media and academia and trans activists for her honesty in writing about the state of gender disphoria and transitioning? Take it you know that her recent talk at Princeton had to be held off-campus due to threats and that if you look at the video of it....student are rarely, if ever pictured, lest they become pariahs and cancelled by the Princeton community?
And in terms of Bari Weiss, go back and read a bit regarding her tenure at the NYTimes and how her co-workers treated her and her work.
I think you bring up an important distinction. I agree. We must not gloat or people will be afraid to change their minds. But we must learn! ...and the only way to learn is to study what we all did, see it, understand it and admit what got us here. We must all examine our conscience and admit our part. Every single one of us.
Castigating for the sake of castigating makes no sense.
On the other hand, castigating someone like today's author makes sense in the context of she (i) still doesn't get it and (ii) she can effect the changes she wants, she just won't because that would cause her discomfort.
Imagine an essay 60 years ago that starts "I am proud to be a Mississippian" and continues later "I wanted to tell my fellow jurors that [lynching victim's name here] life had purpose, too, and we have the unique ability to send a message that killing people has consequences. But I am expected to enforce Mississippi's culture, rules, and customs. But hey, I insisted we deliberate for an hour instead of the usual five minutes before turning in our not guilty verdict. That's something, right."
You'd feel disgust towards that person today. Even though they didn't lynch anyone, even though they didn't ask to get the thankless job of jury duty in that case even though they deliberate for a symbolic extra 55 minutes, even though they - not you, but they - would have to return to their community, their job, their family, their life in Mississippi after the verdict was read - you'd still feel disgust towards that person, not sympathy or understanding or hope that their (and their community's) journey towards enlightment might well continue. Next time with a two hour deliberation, and, what, 20 years on a guilty verdict on some lesser charge and maybe 60 years on an actual murder conviction? Yeah, you'd still feel disgust. And rightfully so.
What the teachers in particular and adults writ large have done to the younger generation the last two years is inexcusable and unforgiveable. And yes, we should welcome people to the side of reason and decency, but we shouldn't be so quick to forgive and we definitely should not forget until these sins of the last two years are eradicated for all time, with no chance - slim or otherwise - of ever being repeated.
We are talking about children wearing masks in a school setting.
My mother was born in 1930, in Berlin Germany. A Jew. Her step-father was not Jewish. During that time, she spent six months hidden in a basement while her parents "were taken away". She and her mother had to go to a Gestapo office to "declare her". Friends' homes were bombed and the friends died. Berlin falls, Russian troops storm her home. Starvation, darkness, death all around her, then more starvation. She had challenges (understatement) but lived and made something wonderful out of her life. She moved to the US around 1950.
How? Because her parents and her family supported her and said she could do it. They encouraged her. They taught her to be resilient.
My mother was not the only one like this.
How is it that masks seem to be destroying society? Maybe it is our reaction to them that is destroying society? Is it because as adults we cannot handle the masks that we are imparting these psychoses on our children?
My buddy the Navy Seal never drowned when he was dumped in the water with his hands tied behind his back and legs hobbled, so I was surprised to hear about the kids who drowned in the swimming pool last night when they tried the same thing. Maybe someone should have taught them to be more resilient.
I mean, more power to your mother and the other survivors who came out the other side of World War 2 to have a wonderful life.
But like Navy Seals are a unique group, I dare say your mother belongs to one as well. And I imagine that many other children of World War 2/the holocaust did not fare anywhere near as well as she did. We just don't hear their stories because they didn't have a successful life with children to tell their stories decades later - they died or had their lives ruined in the moment and never recovered. Gonna go out on a limb and guess that second group outnumbers your Mom's group by a pretty healthy number.
I'm sure in ten or twenty years we'll hear stories of the inventor or entrepreneur or societal disrupter who found the masking in school experience to be a watershed moment that they point to as the foundation of their success.
That doesn't mean it is right or should continue a second longer. Pretty sure there are other ways your mother could have learned resilience besides hiding in a basement for six months and all that came with that. Ditto today and this disgusting mask experiment.
There is a world of difference though between these situations. You cannot equate masks to the holocaust or children drowning themselves. Where do we stop? Do we say that asking children to take PE is the same as forced child labor in the death camps?
My point is that we are inflicting this on the kids by our reaction and behavior.
Oh no, the jack booted liberals are at my front door... They don't like what I am saying. They say I don't like freedom.
Oh no, the jack booted conservatives are at my back door... They don't like what I am saying. They say I don't like freedom.
I don't have much time before I'm arrested.
Let's just do anything we want to do regarding this virus.
I want to hang out somewhere without a mask. You don't like that? Stay home. oh, I'm forcing you to stay home? Too bad.
I want to hang out somewhere with a mask on. But you maskless person, I don't want you to breathe on me. Can you stand more than six feet away. Am also making you uncomfortable because I have a mask on? You need to stay home then. Too bad.
People who want to wear masks should stay home.
And, people who don't want to wear masks should stay home.
Let us compromise. Lets force everyone who wants a mask to live on the east side, and everyone who doesn't want a mask to live on the west side. North side vs south side? North east vs south west?
My choice, I can do anything I like to do. Freedom!
But you are not free because your decisions affect me. So here is what I want to do. I want you to do what I tell you.
If you don't do what I tell you then you are evil.
If you say you don't like that well you don't like freedom. Basically, you don't like my freedom. I don't care about your freedom.
When I was in school we talked about freedom and that it has both rights and responsibilities. We talked about how we can work together to solve problems.
It wasn't sudden for me. Trump's election was a wake-up call before the woke movement. And let's be clear: the right had no place for me as a bisexual. CA offered me a way to live my life and be left alone. I grew up a conservative Christian but my churches refused to come to grips with its queer members. It's not just the left that demonizes people. And I have a lot of sympathy for students who feel like “vectors of disease“ - that's how I felt growing up and afraid to acknowledge my attraction to girls as well as boys. Although I disagree with them about a lot right now, I'll always be grateful for the support I got from my liberal friends when Christians saw me as dirty and perverted. I have maintained my faith, but it wasn't because of conservatives.
I am so sorry that your Christian community treated you that way. I am conservative and I am glad you are here in this community that Bari is building. It is good to hear your voice.
"your side has relished in portraying as culturally retarded, rubes, hicks, and fascists for about 50 years."
Neither side has a monopoly on assholyism: "Libtard! Libturd! Commie! Faggot! Snowflake! Elite!" You can do better and so can we.
"I have little belief the liberals would ever reciprocate any support I give them"
That depends on the liberal, the conservative, and the issue. I'm not going to find much common ground with Trumpers. But I often agree with normal conservatives.
"Liberals are not terribly fond of the Constitution as written"
Please don't confuse normal liberals with the Woke and the far left. Been a liberal all my life, and I like the Constitution just fine, including 1A, 2A, and all the other A's in the Bill of Rights. The unacceptable parts--slavery, lack of voting rights for other than white males, Prohibition (!), have long been amended out of existence. What remains is a good blueprint I wholeheartedly support.
"it's not in their authoritarian and self-righteous nature"
Yeah, we got some of those. You got Trump and he's still calling the shots. I'd call that a wash.
As for being devoured by the Woke and extreme left, I devour them right back. Wokes don't rule this liberal.
Are you off your meds again? I'm not screaming like a banshee, a tornado, a witch, or any other damn thing, and I didn't call you one single name. I was noting that "liberals" are a far cry from "Woke" and "far left," and that normal conservatives and normal liberals agree on much more than they disagree.
I noted that both sides do a lot of name-calling; you know, like "tunnel-visioned ideological high horse." I said both sides can do better, because we can.
I also said that I am a liberal who does not allow the Woke and the far left to devour me; I have never asked for help from the Right to fight my battles for me.
Not a single uncivil word in my comment. You, on the other hand . . . well, I have no idea why you think I was attacking you. I wasn't. I certainly know how if I wanted.
So I hope it's not 'authoritarian' or too 'self-righteous' to suggest that being on the same team can also mean agreeing that elections must not be attempted to be overturned when the Electoral College is counted, in an effort to usurp already verified States' delegations, and that the zealot followers of a losing President (who supported this action) who planned this be prosecuted. For sedition, hopefully. And I'm a Constitutionalist. Quite fond of it, actually.
I would agree with you on the sentiment, Lee, but probably not on the details. Prosecuting former presidents for actions they undertook in office is a dangerous game -- banana republic territory. Nixon was pardoned for a reason; Ford likely feared the consequences for the country of attempting a prosecution. And he was right.
I hope you were equally appalled yesterday when President Biden openly said that unless his bill is passed, the 2022 election would be illegitimate.
Exact quote: "I'm not saying it's going to be legit. The increase and the prospect of it being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed."
"Prosecuting former presidents for actions they undertook in office is a dangerous game."
I respectfully disagree with this. Presidents need to be held criminally accountable when they commit crimes. Either they get arrested and tried while in office, which could be disastrously disruptive to the governing of the nation, or prosecutors hold off till they're out of office.
I choose Curtain No. 2. The next president is in office, the former president can and should face the charges, if any.
Pardons for crimes are exactly the wrong solution, because it sends the message that some people are above the law. Sorry, but Presidents are not above the law. They do the crime, they do the time. Ford was mistaken. He should have let the system work as designed with Nixon. The country would have survived just fine.
So that is a well thought out, respectful answer. Thank you. That's why I'm here, to have a dialogue. Many of the responses I see here between two opposing viewpoints are angry bordering on hostile.
And I agree with your last paragraph on both 'Lies.'
I teach at a private school in CA, and while it has been better than the public schools, I am so angry about this. You are right, and I remember reading study after study stating that kids were not “vectors of disease,“ but they were being told they were responsible for a death if they broke a rule or protested how they were being imprisoned. After vaccination time, we still have masks indoors and out, and we test once a week. We in CA created a mental-health crisis and then wondered why the kids weren't “resilient.“
ah, well, when I shared data and personal commentary on the risks to children and the negative consequences of school closures in April 2020 ( after the initial "flatten the curve" attempt passed and things became a bit more empirically sound ), I was eviscerated on Facebook. I was also accused of heinous things because I suggested, just maybe, folks are mostly scared and confused rather than thinking clearly about public health and relevant trade-offs 🤷
I've now withdrawn from most online forums completely with the sad realization that folks online really want to feel right or appear right than to *do* right.
Me too. This was all completely predictable. I warned about all of these things as we shut down in March of 2020. I also knew it would not be a “pause” and that the threat was not nearly the level of the reaction. But to say anything like that at that time, I was labeled all kinds of things (most puzzling being that having common sense and the ability to think for myself and ask questions with a healthy dose of skepticism meant I was somehow a “Trump supporter”). I am so deeply angry as I have seen my entire career destroyed (when it was poised to really hit new heights around April of 2020… and now I have nothing).
But it’s not even about me - what it has done to children and young adults has been so wildly cruel. The selfishness of older generations and the hubris of the medical establishment have been astonishing, and what has made it so much worse is just how much it was allowed to happen, as people simply believed what they were told and obeyed.
I am sorry to hear you were one of the casualties in this moral panic. I have been sad at all of the good people with good hearts (and honest tongues) be mobbed out of the public square.
It is frightening to think fellow citizens can become so unmoored of reason so quickly, refuse to face facts, refuse to question, insist on blind obedience and extreme measures. I never thought I would see the day, you know?
With all of our modern technology and advanced capabilities, I expected better of modern societies. Turns out, we aren't all that much more sophisticated than societies in the middle ages. It's a strange reality to be facing. I suppose authority likes to posture that it has it all together, has all the answers - but it really doesn't. Ironically, authority has been unmasked as a fraud and we are the ones wearing the masks.
Or, at least more moderate, rational voices are joining the fray. I am reading John McWhorter's “Woke Racism” right now. It is excellent and I recommend it.
I hear you, Andy but there are some good things happening now.
The new governor of Va. Glenn Youngkin, was elected by parents who are fed up with the unions.
And the governor just announced a renaming for the state's Officer of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, to the Officer of Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion !
Further he appointed a conservative on the spot and also listed one of the job requirements as being an "ambassador for unborn children"!
Parents- citizens- elected this man who is nuking the teachers unions' stranglehold on mask mandates, and CRT.
Spot on. The totalitarians in the health and education bureaucracies, who are Nazis in everything but name, have seriously affected our children and grandchildren to enhance their own authority. You're right. We knew it was political BS from the start, but the majority of us were Quislings and collaborated.
William, Please do not use the term Nazi to make a political point. Six million people perished at the hands of the despot Hitler, and their memory should not be tarnished in this manner. Respectfully.
As a Jew I agree 100%. But I'm also not hopeful that we'll ever be able to remove this term from public discourse. Unlike the other "N word," Nazi is so broadly used now that it's been stripped of its historical significance. We Jews may be as much to blame as anyone. Didn't Jerry Seinfeld introduce the term "Soup Nazi" in his sitcom?
I understand the reasoning here, but to proscribe it totally is also not the answer either.
The horrors of Nazism were greater than the Holocaust alone, if one can believe it. Pointing out and denouncing the types of behavior/ideas that led to that reprehensible human tragedy should also be fair game.
48% want you fined or imprisoned for questioning vax efficacy;
45% want you digitally tracked;
25% want your children taken away from you.
Pointing out the similarities between what today's Dems in these polls want and what the Good Germans in 1930's Germany wanted and enforced is absolutely NECESSARY.
I hear you, all things considered. And it’s super hard to ban a word, although in this case I cringe when I hear the word Nazi applied in such a cavalier way. But if off-hand uses of the term are confronted, it becomes a teaching moment, which can be productive.
I actually agree with you. I am not in favor of its cavalier use, either. But we also shouldn't allow that to give us license to avert our gaze if some of the same signs start to bubble up. Especially when you hear people trying to justify the shipment of people to camps against their will as morally good and necessary (Australia.)
The cheapness of language and willful neglect of historical lessons is indeed a much larger problem.
If I can respectfully ask to change one mind at a time when I see it, then I will try. I did this once on FB with someone I know very well and he apologized and said he would no longer use that term in such a context.
Sadly, recently “Nazi” became used much more during the 2016 election between Trump and Clinton. And yes, I saw many Jews calling Trump a Nazi. I tried to tear them a new asshole on FB - but they just ignored my pleas. They are no longer my friends.
YES! You are spot on Andy. This is the point. We knew all along. The data was ALWAYS there and we chose to believe what we were told and not what we saw with our own two eyes. Shame on us all. I am with you.
also, let's not all act like it is some revelation that all this would greatly hurt children, society, us all in many(!) ways. It was always insane to think these abnormal, anti-life, anti-liberty restrictions weren't extremely damaging from day 1.
forgive me for taking a different view. It's a lot easier and more secure when you have experience with the disease and it's management. The early stages of a pandemic have less predictability. It could have turned out lethal to children or they could have inadvertently been harming their teachers and grandparents. Had that been the outcome, there would be just as much blame targeting the people who were too casual with the illness to be less disruptive to their voters. Erring on worst case scenarios for planning prevents irreparable tragedies when the worst case happens. Once the experience has been acquired and predictability of different choices becomes more secure, then reduction in stringency can take place. That's where we are now, and slower than we should be for modifications, but blaming people or parties that you don't like for decisions that were highly defensible at the time doesn't serve anyone properly.
No, we knew this information at the latest by the fall of 2020. I remember doing the research because I was a teacher. Look specifically at the hospitalizations and deaths. We sacrificed our children because we were afraid for ourselves.
With all due respect, what you describe is where we were in the fall of 2020. I agree with your premise that in the early stages of the COVID pandemic there was much uncertainty about the novel virus. By the fall of that year it was well understood that older people with certain comorbidities were the high risk group. It was also understood there was no serious risk from in-person school instruction. What's worse is we were already starting to appreciate the harmful impact on our children. I witnessed it firsthand with three boys. There was even reporting on the subject. Knowing the harm, the education, public health, and political establishment persisted in keeping our children from going to school for another year. These decisions were not following the science and not defensible.
We knew extremely early that children were not at serious risk.
I agree that we should take worst case scenario into consideration and I would argue that psychologically and developmentally breaking an entire generation of children is by far the worst case scenario.
This is why the recommendation of epidemiology health “experts” is not the holy grail of policy decision making. We need to look at the entirety of society and all the various effects of our decisions, including children, the economy, mental health, proliferation of untreated diseases due to people scared to go to the hospital, etc.
But even the mentioning of needing to look at these other factors was met with such vitriol and self-righteousness.
Only holds up if you completely and totally buy into all and every official narrative regarding a "pandemic" with over a 99% survival rate. Otherwise, just more fear porn.
In the beginning, we had no idea what Covid would do and how many people it would slaughter. We learned as we went along. What we did in 2020 was understandable, if exquisite painful--lockdowns, shutdowns, closures were inevitable because thousands of Americans were dropping dead EVERY DAY and government needed to try everything to see what worked.
So, our response in 2020 is perfectly justifiable.
But it made no sense after that, making 2021 was an unnecessary disaster for our kids, our economy, and all of us. 2022 is starting the same way, and there is no excuse for that.
We knew very early, almost immediately, that children weren’t highly susceptible and the elderly were. And yet we chose to force infected people into nursing homes and locked down children. Our governments reaction didn’t make any sense.
Epidemiologists knew within a few months that we didn’t need the lockdowns…remember when they deemed racism as a more dangerous health threat to society?
"It was more important to the elites, Democrats, and teachers to turn COVID into a political power grab than do what was best for our children."
I don't buy that at all. Nobody benefitted from Covid shutdowns--teachers hate teaching remotely, they'd rather be in classrooms assuming those classrooms have enough ventilation and cleanliness. Local, state, and federal governments lost trillions of dollars of tax revenue. Jobs disappeared. Businesses went bankrupt. Ditto landlords. The 1 percent and corporatists? Sure, they made money from Covid and Covid response. But they would have made money had we done just the opposite.
Let's face it: If government had stepped back when Covid first hit and announced, "Sorry, nothing we can do. We're going to let Covid burn through the population, hey, even three million dead is only 1 percent of the population," they would have been lynched. Government responded the only way it could: Try everything, see what works, what doesn't.
Once they found out what did and didn't, though, we should have reopened the schools and economy. I willingly give government a pass for whatever it tried in 2020 and early 2021. After that, when the vaccinations began in earnest, we should have reopened schools and the economy completely. We should have demanded N95 masks for every single person, not the cloth crap that doesn't work. We should have demanded the CDC issue straightforward and clear messaging on what people needed to do.
Nobody in 2020 and early 2021 knew what would work and what wouldn't, we only knew that thousand of Americans PER DAY were dropping dead from Covid. But now that we know better, the closures MUST end and schools MUST GET BACK TO WORK.
There is nothing as easy as denouncing … It don’t take much to see that something is wrong, but it does take some eyesight to see what will put it right again.” – Will Rogers
The essay is 'for' those who are still living in the mass hysteria of fear that their news sources and trusted advisors created. It tells about the consequences that 'they' may not be aware of.
The only way to move forward now is to change the things we can to fix where we are at.
Letting out our anger that we are in the situation is good only if we let it go afterwards, and move forward.
Do you listen when someone rails at you? I don't. I might try to at first, but eventually I just shut down. Righteous anger really only works in an empty room, releasing those feelings so you can figure out what you can do to create change.
It is tough to let go of anger, but it drags us down and keeps us from finding the things we, as an individual, as a member of the human race, can do with the personal gifts we were born with, to make positive change.
Nice try. Real heroes (which this column claims to highlight) are proactive and not reactive. They have skin in the game before it's convenient and relatively safe for them to do so, and almost always experience some real hardship as a result of pushing the envelope for real. Haven't seen a lot of that here. More like a lot of people that have suddenly found themselves inconvenienced by what they themselves eagerly helped to create. Anger and even suspicion directed at people who only got real when the cannon pointed at them is completely justifiable. Besides, no one was saying to hold on to their anger. It's normal during this process even it makes some people uncomfortable enough to try and shame others into burying it. Excluding it from the process because it's disturbing to some people just primes the palette for another class of insufferable, untouchable elites that cannot be called out on anything. In fact, you can already see the obsequiousness forming between some of the lines.
You're exaggerating and oversimplifying. We knew at the beginning that it posed little danger to children who were infected. But the disease can still be passed among asymptomatic people. What we didn't know was that schools wouldn't be huge vectors for outbreaks. You're right that we learned it long ago - it was clear at some point in the fall of 2020. But what we didn't have then was vaccines - which meant that there was still a danger to the elderly of contracting the disease from children. Even though children were largely spared the worst of the disease, they could still pass it to others.
Now that we have vaccines, we should be back to "normal" plus testing and isolation in schools. To the extent we haven't, the teachers' unions are mostly to blame. But the problem isn't that this information hasn't been available in the "mainstream". It has. The problem is that people are scared, and fear makes people overreact. And in places where people have under-reacted, it has caused a plethora of death and devastated our hospitals.
The politicization of this virus hasn't helped. And on that score Republicans are at least as much to blame as Democrats. This pandemic is something we've been figuring out on the fly; there have been few certainties, and every decision we've made has been a matter of choosing the lesser of evils. Anyone so concerned about damage to children from having to wear masks should take a moment to consider the damage to the thousands of children now missing one or both parents as a result of COVID. Let's not get self-satisfied over a single editorial - it's one perspective.
If you look at the death numbers by state adjusted for age, you find little difference in states like CA and FL. The notion that states that under reacted have a plethora of excess deaths is unfounded.
I agree with nearly everything you wrote ,but getting a free press back on line is THEE most important thing that can be done .
Folks need to hear a “ Common Sense” mantra as opposed to the fear that is being promoted! I expect you’d agree that framing Everything through a racial lens is Not the way to responsibly report the news !
I will never forgive those in government (and the teachers' unions) for inflicting this on the youth. The disregard for and willingness to sacrifice the youth for everyone else (which is dubious, at best) is criminal.
I certainly appreciate this article - but I wonder why there is such silence amongst the millions and millions of teachers around the world who must be witnessing this destruction each day. So in answer to the question of "What am I supposed to say?", you are supposed to present facts and data and honesty instead of towing the company line.
My wife is a public school teacher (elementary). The silence is not about union loyalty; it's about fear.
There are a growing number of unsayable things in society today. Don't believe me? Try sending out a memo in a large company that suggests men can't give birth and see what happens. Public school districts are the worst. Try suspending too many black kids as a teacher and see what happens (yes, in CA in 2022, there really are racial quotas for suspensions.) Forget to use the right pronoun for a student and you'll go to the principal's office. Among all the other unsayable things, questioning masks must be punished -- can't have govt servants not on message, especially with the kids. After all, we're doing all this for their safety. Question the prevailing establishment "wisdom" on any of these things and you'll find yourself teaching bonehead 6th grade next year in the room furthest away from the staff bathroom with the 40 year old carpet and the leaky roof.
It's also fair to say that the process of becoming a public school teacher also attracts those who favor safety and security over independence and liberty. A profession which is notoriously hard to get your first job in, full of nepotism, in which you can't choose your clients, and have have limited advancement potential... but provides lifetime job security at a very stable salary. That's an offer that appeals to a particular kind of person, and it's not the kind of person who is likely to rock the boat.
So call it fear, cowardice, or some mix of both. But union loyalty it definitely isn't.
Not directed at your wife or anyone in particular, but I'm wondering what line will the educators not cross? Or is there one? It is really a question everyone must ask themselves, I think. But one that must be asked.
We've seen exactly what not having a definite limit leads to. More and more and more. It started with remote maleducation. Now it's masking kids with tape, isolating them, shunning them, punishing them, forcing them to sit alone in freezing cold, and I don't even know what else. In a prison these would be 8th amendment violations. Frankly, if the line hasn't been hit yet, I'm doubtful there will ever be one.
I do know that when it comes to the doctors who refused to speak out, or who refused to know, and the teachers who complied, and so many others - I would never trust my life or my children to them. I suspect these professions have through their silence lost whatever they thought they were saving regardless.
I've got a daughter who is a teacher who assumes she'll get fired every week because she pushes back. So far, she has been "written up" a few times, but most of her co-workers have bought into the fear porn hook,line and sinker. It is frightening. Mass formation psychosis in front of us. No atrocity would be off the table. 😪
Good for her, Laura! You deserve to be proud. Coming from the parent of 3 teen girls, you did something right. :-)
Alexander Solhenitsyn wrote: "What if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people?"
He obviously faced a far more dire threat than we do today (although Rod Dreher thinks it less distant than it appears), but your daughter is channeling his sentiment perfectly.
That leads into something I've been giving some thought to - creating or finding/helping support systems.
The unions are certainly no help in this, they're even further out over the abyss. For the short term, I wonder if churches wouldn't be a good starting point to try to connect those that need help and those that can help. Even if it's just referrels and helping with moving costs and such. Some people will be caught in a bind, and we need to practice what we preach.
Well not the Catholic Church that’s for sure. They went all in with masking and blocking off pews and shutting down. They rendered to Caesar with all they had. And they still kind of are.
Yeah, I was thinking smaller local churches, myself. I definitely lean towards networks of small independants than anything explicitly national, we've seen how easily corruption spreads with size. Local charity works better in general, although we also do need to be available to people in areas without much local support. Its a tough issue, and one where I have essentially no experience. Small locals already face this in some ways, I think.
It's not just teachers; it's all of us. How many of us would really be willing to lose jobs over this stuff. Bari, that's why we all look up to you -- you put your mouth where your morals were and essentially got canned for it.
Are you willing to have your kids taken away because you won't let them "transition"? Are you willing to throw away a medical career over masks or forced vaccines? Will you throw away a 15 year teaching pension to speak the truth about masks, or gender, or racism?
Most of us aren't Havel's greengrocer; most of us just put the sign in our window and shut up.
There's risk, of course. When the jabs came I'd already made up my mind which made it easier to say no way. And really, I don't want to work for people who issue those types of orders anyway.
At least where I am the gender craze and such hasn't crept in, but then again, I think becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one speaks because no one speaks. So the craziest take over. If this continues, very soon we won't have a voice to speak with.
This is the case in ALL of society now. Don't push or say something contrary to the politically correct message and you get punished. Even among friends! I work as an MD and there was a patient that I was speaking to about masks and said to her that I wasn't comfortable wearing something which forces me to constantly rebreath my own CO2. When of course this person who has a narcissistic streak anyway complained to the higher ups, I was called to the carpet by the Medical Director. Message: Dare to express ANYTHING contrary and get punished. There is an unethical trend now to actually take doctor's licenses away for prescribing HCQ or ivermectin. It's outrageous. Fear is what dominates followed by disgust and ultimately opting out of any participation. "See something, Say something" is the message of the day.
I think you hit the nail on the head. In common with most civil servants it has been my misfortune to know in my practice as a civil engineer for 45 years, most teachers are in it for the "bennies", not the students. If you want your children to have dedicated teachers, send them to a Catholic school or other religious school.
I wouldn't say they're in it for the "bennies". It's good money and great benefits, but most of those who aren't in it for the kids burn out quick. We've all had the occasional "teacher who should have quit 5 years ago", but most of your own teachers were likely decent folks just trying to do their best within the constraints of their system. That hasn't changed.
It's more about the personality type that is attracted to such an industry. That personality type is, as you said, a civil servant personality, which means they are biased to conformity, safety, and security instead of individuality and risk-taking.
It isn't that one type of better than the other. Had COVID turned out to be like smallpox instead of like influenza, conformity and safety would have been the right strategy.
True, but if COVID had turned out to be like smallpox, we would have known that very quickly based on death rates from infection and the rational response would be different then what many are suggesting should have been. As it stands, it wasn't anything like smallpox, which we likewise knew very quickly, which is why the rational response was very different than the approach we actually took.
I agree and have a certain level of sympathy for that. But to stand by in complicit silence as children's lives are purposely and irreparably destroyed is immoral and deplorable.
Many if not most will be harmed, but will be able to overcome it. Some will not recover. Near complete social isolation for extended periods has broken plenty of adults.
Kids aren't experiencing "near complete social isolation" -- they have their families. Moreover, kids today are in almost constant communication with their friends via devices. I doubt that more than a small percentage will have any lasting harm from this shared experience that the entire world has been living through.
Parents can see the immense pain these policies are causing. They can see the unions brazenly leveraging their children's suffering. It's immoral - and they know it. On November 8, they will speak in the voting booth, as they did in Virginia last November.
Um… what specifically are you opposed to in the Voters Rights bills? Making Election Day a holiday so more can vote? Having more access so more voters can vote? Puhlease
For one, I am opposed to anyone voting who cannot show ID.
Despite claims that voter ID discriminates against the poor and the least educated, the poor and the least educated actually show the highest levels of support for IDS: 79% support among those who attended high school but didn't graduate; and 78% among those earring less than $30,00- p/yr.
Additionally, a Rasmussen survey showed that 79% of voters think that it is "very important"to prevent cheating in elections. Another 11% said that they thought it was "somewhat important".
72% of likely black voters support photo voter ID. So too do 79% of those who are neither black nor white.
Support among blacks and whites is virtually identical.
It's hard to see what's racist about voter ID laws.
Even a plurality of Dems ( 61%) and liberals ( 48%) support photo IDs.
Did you know, that NO other country mails out ballots to reserved voters? Most don't even allow absentee ballots.
Well-said Anna. I too believe voters should show I.D. to vote, like the vast majority of Americans of all groups. I also support purging voting rolls of those who've died, moved, etc. on a regular basis, and transparently. Finally, the Dems are pushing ballot harvesting (legal in - where else - California) where activists go door to door to collect ballots from those who will vote their way (both parties have good data on how you'll vote), and they have no problem helping voters "fill out the ballot" if they need progressive guidance. It's not a reform - it's a takeover. Dictators around the world are asking themselves "why didn't I think of that"?
I just went thru what NV. calls a de-registration(my word) i had to sign, even though they had my name Wrong. I always had difficulty voting, since they would not LOOK at my I.D., i never knew why they had such a problem.
I received 3 voters registrations from two States, which i could have used. I did vote under the fourth registration.thanks.
Did you vote in any election before 2020? The system is assuredly not broken, and has generally worked just fine. The Voters Rights Bill is a naked Democrat power grab, and everybody knows it--especially Democrats, which is why they love it so much. Puhleeze, indeed...
So you’re all right with; 15 or more voting rights violations occurred in the state during the previous 25 years and 10 or more violations occurring during the previous 25 years, at least one of which was committed by the state itself; or 3 or more violations occurring during the previous 25 years and a state administered the election?
Voting should happen on election day only, in person and with valid ID. It is not the government's responsibility to make voting convenient. Some minimal effort should be required to exercise the responsibility of voting.
Yes, it is the government's responsibility to make voting convenient. Dropping a hand-signed ballot into a secured and monitored drive-through lockbox in weeks prior to the election is perfectly legitimate. Making sure those lockboxes aren't hours away from voters--as Texas ensured when it changed its system to allow precisely one lockbox per county, even in the most sprawling of counties--is perfectly legitimate. And eight-hour lines to vote is not worthy of a banana republic, let alone the United States.
I can't buy a bottle of wine at the grocery without valid I.D. I can't drive a car without valid I.D. I can't board a plane, write a check to a retailer, take delivery of certain classes of prescriptions, cash a check at a bank branch where the teller doesn't know me. I can't cross a national border without valid I.D. (unless of course I'm a criminal from Guatemala--then I'm welcomed at the Rio Grande!). But Uncle Joe and the Democrats insist that valid I.D. (valid voter registration + valid I.D.) at the polling place is unfair and racist? That insisting that only US citizens get to vote in US elections is an expression of hatred and bigotry? Mr. Norte, do you possess adequate I.D. to vote in any election held in the United States?
So...Esteban has the courage to write a last name on these threads, as do I, and you have the immaturity to comment on that?? Really? That's an ad hominem attack. Does the last name tell you everything about this person? Is it enough to form a judgement on this person? If you have a point to make - make it. Your argument should be strong enough to not have to resort to stupidity like that.
Bigotry much? Assuming from my name that I’m not a citizen? Wow.
I don’t have any problem with requiring IDs to register to vote. But you’re heading off on tangents. There’s no proof of mass voter fraud, and the actual isolated cases don’t amount to a hill of beans.
But the Voters Rights bills have nothing to do with this. Why not discuss your issues with what is contained in the bills? Most Americans support having better and more convenient ways to vote, e.g. mail voting, early voting, make Election Day a holiday, etc. We should be making legal voting easier, not harder.
To start with, how is it a good idea to have members of Congress write the rules for their own reelections? The Constitution framers gave that job to the states for good reason.
Then there's forbidding voter ID, forbidding states to make their voter registration lists accurate, requiring states to allow vote harvesting -- basically eliminating all safeguards against vote fraud.
Please explain to me how many people were not able to vote - the last presidential election showed the most voters ever did it not? - couldn't have been that bad, could it?? This is a power grab and nothing more.
No one is arguing your straw man of wanting to prevent legitimate votes. It's the completely insecure ballots, deliverable well after election day and collected by who even knows that are the problem. Fake votes and insecure elections disenfranchise real voters. And they disenfranchise the poor the most.
As to making election day a holiday, that's great for the professional class but does nothing whatsoever for the working poor. The people who work on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Years Day, and so on. You realize that, right?
Yes, "deliverable well after election day." We have seen that several times in Florida. In fact, we almost had to endure Gillum as governor because of "discovered ballots" that somehow miraculously appeared in Broward County a couple of days after the election. 80,000 ballots to be precise. It was enough to knock out Matt Caulfield for Agriculture Secretary and give us Nikki Fried (D). Fortunately it wasn't enough to take out Ron DeSantis or Rick Scott. They had enough votes to narrowly squeak through. Thankfully DeSantis forced the two worst SOE in the state out. The Broward County lady got to retire and the Palm Beach lady got fired. Broward County could always, in the past, be relied on to "find" boxes of ballots under tables in closets and in car trunks two or more days after an election. Funny about that. We still have 17 counties that use those tabulation machines that were so much in the news last year.
I contend every county should do an audit immediately after every election to show clearly how the election was conducted and what the true vote tallies were. There should be no "fishtails" at 3 am the day after the election.
Whether election day is a holiday or not won't affect the number of people voting. Most places have early voting now which includes at least one weekend day so there is no excuse. What this bill will do is institutionalize the massive voting fraud that took place in 2020.
Commenting on how kids are being negatively affected in school by Covid restrictions and now we're somehow on the subject of voter fraud in 2020? And this 'massive voting fraud' you're talking about - the election was 14 months ago and I haven't seen any evidence of it. Have you? No court has seen any. All I see are Republican Congressman being elected in the same districts Biden carried, with all candidates on the same ballot.
It's perfectly Constitutional. The Constitution specifically says that Congress may dictate the time, places, and manner of elections for U.S. senators and representatives.
Meaning, Congress can make these changes if they wish. States are free to hold elections as they wish for state-only offices--state reps, senators, governor, whatnot--but they are not sovereign over federal elections.
I live in Florida. None of that happened here, except for the beginning of the pandemic. We quickly got our kids back to normal. Time will tell who was right and who was wrong, but I think we all know the answer already.
Yes, we moved from blue Illinois to red Utah in august 2020 so my kids could go to school and play sports. Best decision my family ever made. My community values children.
Two things will rectify the government school problem: 1) voters must support school choice (and tax dollars should follow students to whatever school they choose) and 2) teachers should be allowed to enroll their kids in the districts that they teach in so they are better aligned with parents.
"2) teachers should be allowed to enroll their kids in the districts that they teach in so they are better aligned with parents."
In my area, the children of school employees are allowed to attend either the local school for where they live *or* the school at which the parent works, if that is different. I would like to suggest some mechanism by which teachers' children would have the same school experience as the children they teach, but every idea I have creates additional problems. For instance, if the rules was that the teacher's children go to the school where the teacher works, only people with no children would work in the least successful or most dangerous schools.
Anyway, teachers are rarely the decision-makers on major issues. It's the school administrators and district administrators who bind up burdens hard to bear and lay them on other people's shoulders.
My district is like yours (teachers can enroll their children in the schools) and I think it is a big reason why the schools operated last year and this year despite high COVID cases. It has been tough on the teachers, other staff and the administrators, but they have behaved like all the other first responders who have worked throughout the pandemic. I am grateful to them for their sacrifice. I think my first point covers your worry about “brain drain.” School choice would allow for competition and the worst performing schools would fail.
I agree to some extent. However even in florida so many events have been canceled and not reinstated. And any kids not vaccinated will have a hard time signing up for any summer activities (even though we know the vaccines prevent nothing.) my A student no longer likes school and is anxious and depressed a lot of the time. That is far from normal.
Only time will tell just how affected our kids will be. I am grateful to have been in Florida and not our previous NYC home but to think that even Floridian kids will not feel long-term effects of the non-scientific covid restrictions in schools and their lives is to have your head in the sand. My 15yr old has missed out on precious social interactions, parties, and has lived with unimaginable levels of stress. This will have so many detrimental effects on our children for their whole lives and i mourn for their childhoods. We ALWAYS knew the risks to them were negligible, and yet we let the fear of teachers unions, school boards and petty governmental tyrants determine our children's experience. These critical years in their development are LOST to them.
Please remember, when you go to vote, why you moved to Florida and why Florida is sane. Please vote Republican.
Up until recently Florida was a purple state although we did have a Republican governor and legislature we also had move registered Democrats than Republicans. God help us, we nearly got Andrew Gillum in stead of Ron DeSantis.
Now there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. One-party states are dangerous as we see in California and NY but, for now, Democrats are poison to our republic. Please, please vote Republican.
Vaccines prevent nothing? You’re not serious, are you? Vaccines have prevented thousands and thousands of serious illness and deaths. Please look at literally any chart of statistics and see how hugely different the data on those who have been vaccinated differ from those who have not. It’s not even close.
You go look at the stats for CHILDREN... That is what we are talking about here -- CHILDREN.. Only children with co-morbidities ever needed a vaccine... NOT EVERY CHILD... and not boosters... Along with ignoring immunity from a prior infection - which is what our government (prompted by the pharma companies) has done... Please do show me the evidence otherwise.
So many people can't or won't distinguish between an 80 year old obese man and a school kid. They just can't or won't. They minimize the harm-abuse that their neurosis causes.
No one knows the long term effects from Covid yet, so to argue that it isn’t necessary except for kids with co-morbidities isn’t grounded in anything but wishful thinking. And while it’s true that, so far, the variants we’ve faced have been more sparing of children, this thing isn’t over yet, so kids should absolutely be vaxxed for this just like they are for other diseases.
"Nobody knows the long term effects from Covid yet."
Really? Because study after study after study has shown that the risk of covid to young people is so low as to be difficult to quantify—with a survival rate of roughly 99.995%:
Vaccine creation is generally a decade-long process due to the long-term safety trials that are carried out, except when an emergency is declared of course. We have no idea what the long-term safety profiles of these vaccines are. Clinical trials in children are still ongoing and not set to complete for several years. Giving children, or anyone for that matter, these vaccines is the equivalent of turning them into a science experiment being conducted for profit by serial felons.
You’re conflating acute illness with long term consequences. And, the word is still out on long term effects from Covid.
I’m on a phone so can’t thumb out a response to the rest of your comment and links, but suffice to say, the MRNA works very differently than other vaccines, and, from all reports I’ve read, in a much safer way than traditional vaccines. Yes, longitudinal studies will take time, but data so far indicates that they are overwhelmingly safe.
While we're on the subject, nobody knows the long term effects of these so-called vaccines either. Your thinking is reckless especially when it comes to children.
I’m not going to engage in anti-vaxxer arguments. Guess we’ll have to wait and see whether the vaccines are safe in the long run. But, I didn’t hesitate to have my kids vaxxed, and I’m not worried in the slightest. Do all of you anti-vaxxers eschew other vaxxes too? Along with other medical advances? Don’t take antibiotics? No surgical implants, etc? Good to know
no one knows the long term effects from these vaccines, except now the doctors are saying that too many boosters are showing auto immune issues. "kids should absolutely be vaxxed for this this just like they are for other diseases" HUH? Other "vaccines" prevent illness. These shots do not. For every person, there is a risk/reward analysis done to determine whether or not a certain vaccine makes sense. For children with no co-morbidities, the the risks from taking the vaccine actually outweigh the risks from the vaccines.. This is why the advisory board did not give their approval for boosters for children, but the government went ahead anyway...
These vaccines have absolutely prevented a lot of Covid disease. Are they 100% effective, no. And neither are other vaccines for other diseases, except a few.
I have been a fan of vaccines because I lived through the polio epidemic of the 1950's. The Salk and Sabin vaccines were godsends. The COVID vaccines are not immunizing. They may do more harm than good. They are giving all vaccines a bad name. It's a darn shame.
You all are making me jealous. California today is a chaotic progressive porridge of incompetence. Many of our friends have left the state. Of those still here, leaving is a common topic of conversation. If the grandkids leave, we're outta here as well.
I think it depends where you live in Florida. Some of the school districts have fought the governor tooth and nail to close schools, wear masks and curtail activities.
I've sent my daughter to a private school for a better education. They gave up the masks indoors but now they are back again... All of the clubs have limitations, the closed the cafe and the trips the kids used to take have been canceled, postponed, and even the postponed ones demand full vaccination. My child has had covid and does not want the vaccinations. I have had the first two - but also had covid and have no intention of ever getting a booster. I already have one immune disorder - I'm not looking for another. Our house of worship either wants everyone "fully vaccinated" or you must go get a PCR test ahead of just attending regular services... To say that the insanity hasn't affected Florida - that's just not true. The insanity of vaccinating children will be the shame of this country. If the pharma companies really wanted to stop covid, they would have sent those vaccines to third world countries - from where the mutations would come. No, instead they convinced Western governments that everyone needed the vaccine (so they could make the maximum $$.) And our dumb governments listened. And we stood for it. Only now are we finding out about adverse effects and immune issues. One size fits all was never 'science.' And the old dementia-ridden president is STILL PUSHING THE VACCINES.....
That "one size fits all" regarding vaccines has been a huge issue for decades. Look up the "MMR" scream. A certain percentage of kids never recover after that. And a certain percentage of kids that do recover are plagued by any number of diagnosed debilitating autoimmune type illnesses starting around early adulthood. But of course, like myocarditis, blood clots, guillain-barre, sudden death, etc...that just means the vaccines are working!
We definitely all know the answer. We live in TX. My kids went back to school in August of 2020. No major outbreaks. Some slight changes to protocol for sure, but we've had sports, school events, graduation. My oldest son attends Purdue, which has done a masterful job of managing Covid. It can be done.
Our third son is at Purdue as well, and the Marching Band has been in full swing since August. Mitch Daniel’s has done a masterful job, while the a lot of the other Big 10 universities have really fumbled. I can’t imagine paying full tuition for virtual classes.
That is wonderful. I think places like Florida and California can definitely afford to ease up on Covid restrictions. In colder places, I feel that a bit more caution is necessary.
We love DeSantis in Florida and want to keep him as long as possible. Being governor is fun and allows a fairly normal life. He has three small children and his wife is undergoing cancer treatments. He'll be president eventually but not in 2024.
I have to laugh. I see that DeSantis is biting the hand that fed him. The child scolding his teacher. So now he's in Trump's crosshairs. And all over Covid vaccines. My, my. Isn't that ironic? Who do you think will win?
President Trump and Gov. DeSantis get along just fine. This is fabricated by the MSM. I believe Epoch Times or The Washington Examiner did a piece on this in the past day or so.
Fabricated? Well I saw a video with DeSantis squirming over the question of whether he had a booster. Then I saw Trump say a politician has to own up to whether he took the vaccine or not (and he's right, by the way). Then I saw DeSantis criticize Trump over how he handled the early Covid response (lots of mistakes there!). Hard to fabricate televised responses.
This should NEVER have happened. This is the GREATEST public health disaster in history. Truth: masks are MARGINALLY efficacious if helpful at all; children have a very low risk from this disease. This has been a travesty and we are LONG overdue to end it
That’s where the mask rules fail. Early-on there was a shortage of N95s, so I get why they wanted to conserve those for health care workers. But they should’ve been upfront about it, and the rules should’ve adapted to 95s soon thereafter.
True. For Fauci to say that he said masks weren't necessary because he wanted to preserve them for health care workers simply isn't his job and really undercut his credibility (which I suspect has further to go). What I find interesting so far is that the more robust mask studies, like RCT's like the ones in Denmark and Bangladesh, show little (10% in Bangladesh) to no (Danmask study) benefit. It also fascinates me that people wear masks out of doors where natural dispersion and ultraviolet light quickly degrade the virus. Turns out that handwashing and distancing are arguably more effective.
Agree on the whole erroneous take by CDC about masks, and their failure to admit that they were wrong about airborne transmission being the primary means of infection. I've read about the RCT on masks in Denmark and there were a number of real problems with it. As I recall, they didn't ascertain mask wearing at home, nor whether others in the household wearing masks, and things like that. So, results were not the most reliable. And while outdoor mask-wearing was dumb for earlier variants, with Omicron at least, with its extremely high contagiousness, it isn't imprudent to mask up outside when in closer proximity to others.
Excellent analogy, Max! Chernobyl exposed the corruption and incompetence of Soviet elites; it was a key event on the road to ending the USSR. COVID has done the same for us, exposing our elites and institutions as feckless and untrustworthy. This analogy does not bode well for the future.
The “idiocy” you mention is what is now happening to too many brains of those who caught Covid. We owe it to the kids to protect them from this as much as possible: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm2052
Thank you Bari for publishing Stacey's words and experiences. I'm a college professor and so am a part of the same environment Stacey speaks of...only with older humans. What I can't seem to understand for the LIFE of me is WHY WHY WHY more of these young people aren't standing up and saying something? They thought nothing of calling me or other teachers out nine times a day if they have to, citing various micro-aggressions and whatnot these past couple years. I think the answer to my own question is what Stacey talked about...they have been fed this line of very dangerous HORSE SHIT that they will kill someone or risk someone's life if they take their mask off.
I'm begging my fellow colleagues tho to start standing with me and speaking out against this.
At some point-hopefully SOON-we as sane adults have to grow some backbones and start SPEAKING UP. Not only in schools (even tho this is definitely one of the most crucial) but in restaurants, grocery stores and theatres...where Mask Nazi's (formerly Ushers) hold up paddles that say MASK UP! and apparently tap/hit you if you stray from this rule....
Professor Deb, keep your identity hidden, if your school administrators hear your loose talk you will be labeled a science denier and reactionary kook. Bad career move, the successor ideology brooks no descent 🥴.
Oh I know. I keep my comments very close to the vest. For my sanity, though, I can't keep completely quiet and just speak calmly and reasonably whenever I find a small window to speak....we'll see.
Well, you know what you can do for stats? Compare total deaths from all causes in 2019 to total deaths from all causes in 2021. There’s a huge difference and most of that is from Covid deaths.
Well you know, the stats are highly dependent on who is running the show. Biden's done quite the job on that, any which way you want to look it. I mean, according to your sources and all.
Why don't you find some stats on overall deaths yourself, from sources you aren't convinced are being manipulated, and see what I'm talking about. It's not some secret.
Re the stats, the numbers are going to be revised downward at some point (but not anytime soon given the hubris of our PH officials). A UK FOIA showed how the death counts have been overstated. Check out this video by Dr. John Campbell. He’s an honest broker.
Come on. I’m an adjunct professor, and students are able to discern that their general state of wokeness and public health requirements are two very different things. This Omicron wave is going to blow out fast, and things will start to return to normal fast enough. Then we can go back to complaining solely about all the woke crap.
Normally I'd agree with you. I used to think these kids were way too smart. However I happened to be talking to both a parent of a student and two students themselves the other day, and they all affirmed they are way too afraid to speak up and reject wearing a mask and other such restrictive policies....glad you think it's gonna blow over soon tho. Two years in and hasn't happened yet. Here's hopin!
I think this represents the results of a fundamental change in American culture and to some extent Western civilization over the past two generations.
The power has shifted in the US from citizens with common sense to an administrative class of lawyers and finance people. Neither group has any incentives or training to make informed decisions outside of their areas of competence. In spite of this they wield unaccountable and undeserved power and decision making.
The end result is the cheapest solution and the solution with the lowest possible risk. A summarization is contained within the phrase: "Cover your ass as cheaply as possible".
"...power has shifted in the US from citizens with common sense to an administrative class of lawyers and finance people..."
The free market has a wonderful solution to this problem - it's called failure and bankruptcy. Sadly, it hasn't been permitted to operate for the last 40 years. Central banks everywhere have short circuited this (very necessary) process by printing trillions of Dollars, Euro and Yen. Free money keeps the dumbest and most immoral of operators (including worst of all - government bureaucrats) in clover and in power.
It keeps politicians who are venal and craven in power along with their puppet masters that inhabit the Treasury as "appointed" Civil Servants. Think Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.
It comes down to the power dynamics within groups. It is a bit like the offense someone would take when learning that Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) categorized physicians, ministers, lawyers, Royalty, porters, wait staff and many others into the category of "unproductive labour".
Have you ever noticed in your line of work that you can get a room full of highly intelligent people (MDs, LLBs, PhDs, MSc, etc.,) into a room as a group and the collective intelligence drops by about 30%? I see it a lot because as social animals people subsume a part of their thinking to the group. All cultures experience this (in Japan - the nail that stands up gets hammered down).
People are driven by their incentives and the balance between perceived risk and reward. Were you to read the Congressional Record from July 1, 1999 you would find a letter which Alan Greenspan wrote to John Dingell of Michigan. In it he expressed significant concerns with the House Bill concerning the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (Gramm, Leach, Bliley). He stated that, as written, the bill would incentivize the creation of financial institutions which would be too big to fail. On the floor of the House, John Dingell specifically said that the bill would return the financial system to an environment similar to that which existed prior to the Great Depression. Come Lehman Brothers and 2008, this is precisely what happened.
So when one considers not individuals per se and their character but rather groups of individuals with certain specific incentives think about the long term ramifications.
To support the aphorism above consider:
1. The Great Recession.
2. An unaccountable financial sector.
3. Off shoring of entire manufacturing sectors and the consequent loss of employment and opportunity.
4. No substantive prosecutions of what was very arguably manufactured malfeasance surrounding derivatives trading.
Much of this financial crisis was created by an environment which was entirely the doing of lobbyists, elected officials, and the finance industry. Who keeps finance people out of jail? Lawyers.
I live is Utah, USA. My son is 5 now and was in preschool when the pandemic started. He goes to a private school. They closed for about three months when everything started and did an online version that we didn’t participate in because trying to get a 3 year old to engage was pointless. His school returned to in person schooling in June of 2020. They requested masks but I could tell that the mask policy wasn't being enforced because his bag of reusable masks wasn’t getting smaller. I was appreciative of that fact. Utah stopped the mask mandate for non-public entities at some point in 2020 and then the teachers stopped wearing them as well. My son is almost 6 and doesn’t have a really clear understanding of Covid at all. His teachers don’t talk about it with the kids. He’s heard about it and some of his friends got the vaccine. There has not been one outbreak in his school that I am aware off.
We just got Covid on Monday. I’m sure it’s the lesser omi version because while it is not fun, it’s not horrible. The risk to kids is so minuscule. On day 4 we’ve only heard him cough three times. I’m so happy my sons school didn’t engage in these stupid scare tastics and fill him with fear. I worried enough for both of us.
Start by teaching him by example not to be afraid. A people that lives in fear cannot be free. Show defiance. Show resistance. Show resolution. Show courage. Show that there are more important things than simply surviving. Most important show a free mind and free will. Therapists may or may not help. The teachings of the ages will. Jesus. Marcus Aurelius, the Greeks, etc. Open his mind to truth.
Jennifer, my heart goes out to you. I have 15, 14 and 12 year old girls. We started homeschooling our kids and have discovered this whole closet network of people who refuse to live in fear. That may not be the right thing for you, but don't lose hope.
Whether therapy will help is debatable (keep the therapist on a short leash), but Bruce (above) had a good suggestion. Show your son examples of courage, of people who refused to live in fear. If you're Christian, study the lives of the apostles and early Church fathers. He's a boy -- have him read about the Battle of Thermopylae, or the defense of Constantinople, or the storming of Normandy, or Hacksaw Ridge. History is replete with incredibly courageous men. Use them to help your son. He deserves to not live in fear.
This comes up all the time: in any analysis, it was the electorate that is responsible for all of this. As but one example, when 50 percent of the people CHOSE a pathetic, demented has-been for POTUS (and the rest, all the way down), ostensibly because they just couldn't abide someone their idiot boxes and Facebook accounts told them was Orange Man Bad, or that had (R) next to their name, bad things happen.
Until that changes, this will continue. It will actually be worse and worse, because the choices will be (AOC? Ilhan Omar?). Ultimately, it's hard to have sympathy for problems people choose for themselves.
Thank you for this; it's good to hear a Toronto teacher express frustration and alarm for students' mental wellbeing. We yanked our three children from school this month in Toronto because they (and we) had finally had enough of the backpedaling, the uncertainty around school closures, the torture of remote schooling (anyone who tries to defend Zoom school as a legitimate educational tool for 6-year-olds is not a serious person). But more than that, we were disheartened by the staunch religiosity that teachers enforcing covid rules have adopted. There is something fundamentally different about a teacher like you enforcing rules because she has to and one who truly believes that a plexiglass barrier put up at lunchtime is all that's standing between them and imminent death. Or one who hectors students and tells them that they literally will kill other people if their paw patrol mask isn't pulled above the nose or who tries to enforce social distancing in a classroom of 30 students. The rules are cruel precisely because they are irrational, unscientific, yes, but also impossible to follow. We finally realized we could step off this crazy wheel but it hasn't come without its costs to us personally. I can only imagine what the costs to society at large will be. The future will not be kind to those who treated our children and youth so terribly.
Thank you , thank you, thank you! I too am a teacher of high school students, although teaching in the United States, and this is exactly what I am seeing and working with every day. It is good to know that it's not just me and the few colleagues who are brave enough to admit it when we talk over drinks. What the "experts" did to these children and are still doing will rank among the worst domestic policy decision's of the last one hundred years. I want an apology from the CDC and short of that, get these kids back to a normal school, no masks, no distancing asap.
UK is now leading on this. How far behind will we be. What was Kerry’s famous line about the last soldier to die for a foolish war? This was the “Viet Nam” of public health endeavors.
We live in Maine, which can be a very depressing place much of the year. Early on, we understood that our daughter, then 16, was at little to no risk from the virus and allowed her to continue any activities that were not canceled, as well as maintain her social life and work. Although my husband and I took the vaccines, we did not choose to vaccinate her. She and I both contracted what we believe was Delta in August. We were both sick for two weeks, but she bounced back quicker than I despite our vaccination status. She has largely come through the pandemic ok, despite some initial anxiety when not wearing a mask in public. Lately she has expressed some other unusual anxieties which we are seeking help for her to deal with. I am left to wonder if they are related to the general amount of elevated anxiety in our culture, especially among teenage girls. I believe she will be fine, but my heart breaks for the kids whose parents are uninvolved or exceedingly fearful themselves. We have only just seen the tip of the iceberg, as yesterday's heartbreaking interview illustrated..
Bari, we agree on little politically, but I listen eagerly to every one of your podcasts. Your interviews and the subjects you choose are interesting, fair and thoughtful. I really appreciate your forthrightness in confronting what can be uncomfortable subjects for many journalists. You are bold. Thank you for being unafraid to ask tough questions that sometimes reveal difficult truths. We don't have to agree. We just need to be able to be respectfully honest.
Isn't it perfectly clear by now that we live in an" idiocracy?" A society ruled by idiots. Based on a fierce ideology of guilt, shame and stupidity. And inhabited by a far-too-large segment of servile idiots who refuse to think for themselves and hang on every momentary edict that is contradicted by the next foolish rule. We have mandates and identity cards for vaccines that don't protect against the virus. We have anti-human nature and vastly unconstitutional lockdown mandates that did more harm than good, enforced by authoritarian twits without any jurist having the guts and brains to strike them down. We have destroyed our economies and, worst of all, harmed children. And who are the biggest proponents of this masked insanity. Let's admit it. The woke. And their vast media apparatus that propagates their lies. The vicious fools lifted the health care workers as "heroes" then turned on them when they demurred vaccination. These people are the existential threat. They are no longer to be mocked. They are to be punished and crushed for the damage they have done. To our nation. To our communities and most of all, to our children.
masks were the ultimate virtue signal and we always knew that most masks provided (under the best circumstances - fitted, etc) limited protection even to the OG, less contagious covid and yet like 'pussy hats' they instantly told the world that you were not only virtuous but to the intelligent ones it told them you were pliable and compliant. Even my 15yr old new the fabric masks were for decoration only...
The "woke" are encouraged, massively financed and fully supported by 'corp.gov.msm.' While all of the woke circuses are constantly paraded into our faces, 'corp.gov.msm' conducts business as usual with no room left for any questions about things like child labor, bombed out weddings, shady business practices, massive pesticide and chemical additives injected into everything, elites constantly scheming to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone and everything else, etc. Who has time to deal with any of that when it's a huge 24/7 outrage that Johnny can't use the little girls restroom or your recalcitrant two year old won't keep his mask on while on the plane, or the entire east coast will be under water by 2020. Oh, wait...need some time to rework that one.
“She told me that she didn’t want to get anyone sick or kill anybody. She was worried she would be held responsible for someone dying.”
——————————————
As I was jogging, a 13ish-year-old girl saw me coming and walked 40 feet off the sidewalk onto the grass, towards a wooded area. But I had seen her coming first so I had already moved off of the sidewalk into the road to give her easily 15 feet of space. This is happening outdoors.
Permanent psychological damage. PERMANENT.
Which reminds me of when Joe Biden saw an 11-year-old girl sitting in the front row at a town hall and he said
“Look at her sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed. She looks like she’s 19!!”
😳😳😳
Okay it didn’t really remind me of that, I just bring that up as often as possible. Told the Wendy’s drive thru guy about it yesterday.
I urge everyone to listen to James Lindsay on this issue. Just because ‘communist plot’ sounds conspiratorial, that doesn’t mean *nothing* is a communist plot.
The goal is to destabilize children all the way down to their identity. That’s because destabilized victim groups are easier to convert into revolutionaries.
The people who did this need to be dealt with in the most extreme way that is allowed by law. And this is important by the way. If thousands of people are dragged off to prison that provides clear tangible evidence to the children that they were in fact systematically abused. If nothing happens to the perpetrators the kids will just blame themselves.
There hasn't been a logical, intelligent response to public sector malfeasance since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers FORTY years ago. Even at the time, there were cries he was somehow pissing on the foundations of life itself. However, he was cast from a different mold. It is inconceivable to think today's "leaders" will act in a way that upholds the dignity of the voters. Choices and incentives--always will be. Choose wisely or suffer the consequences.
Prison is nice but they deserve the gibbet. The thought of Fauci's little feet dancing in the air as penance for his treachery and mendacity has been foremost on my mind.
Daughter C has been texting me this morning about some of the things male coworkers at the auto dealership say to her. "You're looking juicy!" "You're mysterious and alluring!" "Those are beautiful kneecaps!" (seriously)
Just like with Joe Biden, no amount of telling them, "We don't do this," makes any difference. I told her to imagine they have tentacles growing out of their noses.
I remember when young girls (and even women my age, unnngh) were wearing pants with "Juicy" on the butt. Daughter C probably wanted to but wasn't allowed, feeding her sense of lifelong grievance and injustice. (To be fair, life in the Real World is knocking that out of her pretty quickly.)
My 12th grade teenaged son finally had enough yesterday. Just said "no" to the teacher when asked to put his mask on. The teacher told him he was being disrespectful of others and could spread disease and then walked away. My son left his mask off.
I told my son I supported him and this nonsense is over now. If he's suspended or expelled, so be it. We're finished with the craziness.
I hope your son was allowed to continue with his classes unabated. The teacher had no choice but to follow the rules, even if they aren't logical. The rule was to say something to him, but apparently it wasn't enforced.
Whenever any rule is imposed, a percentage of people will intentionally break it. Whenever a poll is taken, a percentage of people will give false answers. Usually, it's because these people are "contrary," but after a certain point, most people will rebel.
Your son knows the mask was ineffective and so does his teacher. It is also known that certain drugs "clear" Covid, but are not prescribed because they weren't specifically designed for it, but "everybody knows,"
There are always choices, but some of them will get you fired. Teachers as a group are one thing, because they have a union, but as individuals, not so much. Freely thinking is frowned upon. Wake up! You are supposed to be living in the real world.
See, junior, your teacher could have looked out for you, but they were too busy goldbricking their pension, benefits, sick pay, no show job (you were learning by zoom most of the last two years, after all) and the occasional guest article on substack complaining that they really want to do the right thing but can't to have time for things like your well being.
But don't worry, kids are resilient they tell me (not that I'd know, I didn't have two+ years of school, sports, extracurriculars, social events, etc canceled when I was a kid). I'm sure you'll be fine.
And if nothing else, you'll have learned a great lesson that when adults tell you to be a person of principle, do the right thing, have morals and standards and all the rest it is really all bullshit. That's what they want for you. Their idea of morals, principles, standards and the right thing is a fat pension check after years of a no show job that allows them to preen about all the good things they are doing for society. And if takes crapping on a generation of children to reach your highest moral and principled state?
You have your spiel to make, but you haven't paid attention to what I wrote. You completely missed the point, but your point is to start an argument. Sorry, but your specious game does not interest me. Grow up!
No, I saw what you wrote. You wrote that in a conflict between their students well being and what their paymasters want, the only realistic option for a teacher is to go along with the paymaster.
Now, as far as missing points goes, you have done a helluva job missing mine, but I'm not really expecting you or anyone else with your lack of mental acuity to address it because there is nothing to say. You (plural) know every last thing I wrote is the truth, and you'll do anything you can to avoid it because it makes a moral midget like yourself feel smaller still.
Kids are resilient, though. Not adults. They aren't resilient. They need a teachers union and school bureaucracy to protect them. Kids, on the other hand, whatever we have to throw at them we will. I might get a letter in my file otherwise. Can't have that, No-Sir-Ee.
In my NJ town, the 2 private schools have been opened and functioning pretty much the entire pandemic with the exception of the first few months of lockdown in spring 2020. The public schools here have been closed mostly with remote learning for almost 2 years! The Teacher's Union in this country should be ashamed of themselves.
While I agree with the culpability of the unions, I think we must acknowledge that individual teachers make up the unions, and most of them support this nonsense. What's not to like? The lockdowns (I never blame Covid itself) have provided teachers with an indefinite paid vacation.
Thanks for taking the GUTS to write this heartfelt story.
Unfortunately the facts are pretty much irrelevant. Sane people understood all of this from the start, and still understand it. The insane psychopaths in charge of public "health" departments also understand the facts, even though they've been lying through the media. Their goal is torture and ruination, not health. This is delicious porn for Public "Health" monsters.
I see a lot of praise and ‘thank you’ in the comment section… my sincerest apologies for not indulging.
Where was this two years ago when we needed it? We’ve known for a fact all of the negative consequences you’re writing about back when the pandemic began. We already had the studies. We knew that children were not at serious risk to COVID from the very beginning. We knew it. But it was more important to the elites, Democrats, and teachers to turn COVID into a political power grab than do what was best for our children. Anyone who had the audacity to question the elites was castigated as not caring about children dying, not believing in science, and was shunned from polite society. Anyone who dared to question the infallible and omniscient Supreme Fauci was portrayed as uneducated rubes who didn’t believe ‘The Science.’
This is the predictable result of decades of granting authority—political, expert, and moral—to a consolidated few. And there’s still a major effort to consolidate the flow of information through censorship. If you engage in outside mainstream information you’re deemed fringe or conspiratorial.
While it’s appreciated that the the truth most of us knew all along be spoken, it’s a little late to receive much applause since the damage is done. We need to stop electing politicians and stop supporting public unions that want to consolidate power. Let’s have an essay about that.
I feel that way about Bari and Andrew Sullivan and Abigail Shrier and the many other liberals who are just now realizing the horror of so many of their policies.
However, castigating them for their past behavior is both unproductive and wrong. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" -- which of us have not championed policies we later regretted (in my own case: the 1986 immigration reform, the War on Terror, the estate tax elimination, among many others.)
Instead, I'm trying to be charitable and welcome them as they move slowly Rightward. Today, some can only see the absurdity of COVID rules -- that's OK. The sane welcome your help in overturning those. Some (like Bari) are beginning to see the damage of "antiracism" and "wokeness" -- that's OK. We welcome your help in making society more just. Hopefully disaffected liberals will embrace the full panolpy of liberty over time. But they won't do it if we spend our time reminding them of their past behavior instead of welcoming their help today.
As I said, this isn't easy for me either, but I'm trying, and I encourage others to as well. Don't gloat. It's counterproductive.
As far as I know, Shrier is not now and has never been a liberal. As a journalist, she has published, and still does, in the Wall Street Journal and other right-of-center media. Her ongoing, heroic work on the trans issue causes apoplexy among liberals. Sullivan has a range of positions based on a kind of liberal conservatism but is not sitting in the middle of the liberal camp. Bari is equally unclassifiable. To those on the far left she's a fascist because of her Zionism, to those on the far right she's a radical because she's a married lesbian. Note that she interviewed Mike Pompeo on her Substack -- not exactly a liberal gesture. And I can't agree that she is just now beginning to see the damage of "antiracism" and "wokeness." She quit the New York Times for just this reason.
My point is that as a country, we've been intellectually crippled by the belief that we have to swear allegiance to a party and an ideology, and then slavishly agree with everything that comes out of that side. I was recently accused of being a racist by someone close to me who knows better, because I had taken the time to educate myself on the facts of the Rittenhouse case and corrected her numerous, media-fuled misconceptions. She assumed that by stating what his true motivations were, I was defending his actions. Complex thinking as a skill is now suspect. Apparently it's better to lie until the end of time, as long as it bolsters one point of view. This is a disastrous paradigm.
I was taught to think critically by my father at our dinner table in the 1950s, though I did not realize it at the time. As a young adult in the '60s, I came to understand that labels were disastrously misleading, and that ideology of any kind required close scrutiny without emotion (though I think emotion animates our lives but not always our judgement). So I am reading this Substack and others with eagerness, because the writing seems honest, skillful, and stimulating. I am so happy not to have to deal with ideologies as the sole basis for what I read or think.
Amen, sister.
Exceptionally well said, Beeswax, thanks for writing this. Yep, Bari needed a forum to fight Wokeness and other social diseases and the Times wouldn't allow it, so she quit to run her own shop. Took a lot of courage to do that.
I got the same flak over Kyle Rittenhouse. After reading the facts of the case and watching all the videos, I knew at that time he was charged with multiple murders that the prosecution was political, not factual. I said so publicly. Caught a lot of hate for that, but too bad--I have no stake in Rittenhouse's life, nor do I like open carry of rifles. But he did nothing wrong, nothing illegal, and the entire prosecution was a mockery of the justice system.
You know things are bad when the state's own charging document--which I studied--makes all the defense attorneys' points for them.
The Rittenhouse case if truly fully understood should have proven to be the tipping point where most previously unswayed folks could see the evil intent of the MSM. From the truly shoddy reporting of the basic facts through the constant drumbeat of the ugliest of motivations they foisted upon this young man was beyond reprehensible.
That even now after the trial you have many on the left including pols and scribes alike who refuse to admit they were wrong upon reflection of the facts of the case should be sufficient evidence of their nefarious intent. What Kyle did that night was a whole gamut of adjectives but criminal wasn’t one of them and that was clear as day as soon as the video appeared to anyone who isn’t currently brainwashed by the ‘white man bad’ cultists pushing their hate. Add in the fact that killing 2 and injuring 1 dangerous wild eyed white leftist attackers somehow stained him as racist only further cements how how immoral many in the MSM and the left in general have become.
Having said that, the fact that this site exists because of an awakening of folks like Bari and Nellie then hope is not lost. But we desperately need their voices to be ‘loud’ and able to bring those of goodwill (regardless of other differences) into what I see as a coalition of what I’ll call normal good folks. Normal in the sense that we don’t hurt others, we want good lives for our family and communities. A coalition of people who aren’t racist or hateful, who welcome people to come to our home (America) but do expect that they do so lawfully, orderly and not shit upon the blessings those of us who came before built that made this the greatest country in human history.
The melting pot served us extremely well, the mosaic approach only creates a Balkanization where fundamental commonality becomes difficult to find making it difficult to avoid us vs them mentality among different ethnic/religious groups.
Great addition to the conversation, thanks. I will say, however, that you may be giving the die-hard Rittenhouse haters too much credit. I know them personally. It’s not that they know the facts but refuse to accept them (at least, not the people I know). It’s that they don’t want to be put in a position where they might have to admit they were misled, so they refuse to research the subject or even listen to what they automatically assume are spurious “alternative facts.” Their self-assurance and absence of curiosity is impressive.
Also, they’re enabled to remain ignorant by hunkering down inside their news monoculture. The day after the verdict, I heard both the former and current Democratic mayor of New York City intone the “militia member who crossed state lines with a gun in order to to kill Black people” mantra. It’s as if no trial had even taken place.
Well said, thank you
When I was 16 I decided I would not pick a specific political party to be a part of. I was not political at all, and have no idea why that thought had popped into my head. I never wanted to limit myself or be limited by others through group think and I wanted my beliefs to be flexible and to grow and not be afraid to change my mind or call people out. Probably one of the best decisions I've ever made lol! I am 32 now and still an Independent. I am debating registering as a Republican this year so I can vote in the primary, I want to vote the old cronies out and vote the new populist ones in. Still haven't decided, we'll see!
The estate tax… hmm. You think death should be a taxable event?
This is not a tax it is blatant wealth confiscation.
Support of this tax means that your accumulated wealth over a lifetime is not really yours. The gov’t actually owns it and decides how much your heirs can keep.
"You think death should be a taxable event?"
Yes, it should.
"This is not a tax it is blatant wealth confiscation."
Yes, it is. We use the inheritance tax to keep oligarchy to a minimum. Having most of the money in the hands of relatively few people is a power imbalance that hurts everyone else. The inheritance tax is a good way to keep relatively few Americans from having the power of feudal kings and queens because they are so rich they cannot be touched by public authority.
Currently, the tax is so low and filled with so many loopholes that it's essentially meaningless. Time to reverse that. The heirs will have to suffer with only a few million dollars of inheritance exempted from the tax, the poor dears.
Keeping the oligarchy at a minimum has zero constitutional foundation. Taxing for the purpose of reducing a person’s wealth is illegal (and, frankly, totalitarian).
Further, your position creates perverse incentives. Why work hard knowing that anything over X will be taken? It also creates the incentive to move wealth outside the jurisdiction where it is taxable.
Florida used to have a fine luxury boat building industry. Geniuses like you though that they should be taxed heavier because of the luxury. The boat builders left Florida.
Your ideas are wonderful if we want to destroy the incentive to work hard and encourage people to move their wealth.
But mostly, what comes through your comments is a seething jealousy that you do not have “enough” and therefore nobody else should either. The envy and contempt you express is ugly.
Try being happy for your family, friends, and neighbors for being successful rather than gloating at the thought of taking it away.
Aw, Xi, so much bullshit in one little post. Let me count the ways . . .
"Why work hard knowing that anything over X will be taken?"
Funny how the capitalists of the Gilded Age managed to work their butts off despite income tax rates being double to triple today's rates and despite the inheritance tax took a significant chunk of their wealth upon their deaths. Funny how even with all those government jackboots on their throats they managed to build, create, invest, and amass fortunes.
"Why work hard . . ."
That you would be too lazy to work hard if you didn't keep every dime of your money after your death is on you. The rest of us like to work and would do so if the inheritance tax went back to what it was pre-Reagan.
"Florida used to have a fine luxury boat building industry. Geniuses like you though that they should be taxed heavier because of the luxury. The boat builders left Florida."
I thought nothing of the sort, then or not. Luxury taxes are stupid. First, who's to say what's a "luxury"? Second, If someone wants to spend ten million dollars on a yacht, for God's sake, let them do it. The sales tax on that one purchase alone would pay for a lot of social services, and the jobs stay in America. The boat and airplane businesses got creamed by the luxury tax, not the inheritance tax. I detest the former and support the latter. Get your facts right.
"what comes through your comments is a seething jealousy that you do not have “enough” and therefore nobody else should either. The envy and contempt you express is ugly."
I got plenty. My career is a resounding success and I have more money than you do. Who would I be jealous of, exactly?
"Keeping the oligarchy at a minimum has zero constitutional foundation."
Another graduate of Trump University, are you? Of course we can limit the amount of money any one person keeps. That is the very definition of the tax system: society decides what it needs to keep the engine running and takes the money from the people and industries it deems appropriate. If tax cuts are Constitutional--and they are--then so are tax increases. The inheritance tax is Constitutional, then and now.
I prefer the inheritance tax as a revenue-raiser because it doesn't put any additional tax burden on the guy with the money while he's alive. The money only transfers upon his death. It's far more fair to the guy earning the money to tax it upon death than during life, because he can do what he wants with it while he's around the enjoy the fruits of his labors.
Heirs? They have no legal right to the money. No inheritance tax would put them in the poorhouse anyway--the highest inheritance tax we've ever imposed was 70 percent after X amount. Guy leaving his daughter a billion dollars? She'd still get half a billion under the most draconian system we've ever had. Tough to eat on half a billion, I know, but One Must Make Do.
Ultimately, society needs tax money to fund programs good for everyone. Money has to come from somewhere. The inheritance tax is one of the more fair ways to get that money, because it doesn't affect the owner of the money while he or she is alive. It has nothing to do with jealousy--I'm successful, I want everyone to be successful.
But I also understand that a society does not run on good intentions alone--it needs dough. Where does that dough come from? People with money, because the poor don't have any. If the day comes some of my wealth gets taken by government thanks to a rightsized inheritance tax, fine. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization, and I'm dead so I don't care anyway.
Your greed is embarrassing.
You're the one that had better get facts straight. There was NO income tax during the Gilded Age, Einstein. You're just filled with envy and anger.
So much more bullshit in such a lengthy retort.
The fundamental issue is why should money I earn through work be taxed while money I am gifted by someone's death is not. Estate taxes are not taxes imposed on dead people - they are taxes on what is effectively income for heirs. There is no "work" involved
Resentment is a dangerous emotion.
I agree. In my case, though, what resentment? An estate tax is a way of raising tax money, no more and no less.
If an estate tax were re-imposed as it I believe it should, some of my estate would go the government. The rest would go to my heirs. I'm good with that because this society has been good to me. Somebody's got to pay the bills, and better me when I'm dead than me when I'm alive.
It actually limits competition with the oligarchs we already have, and lets them entrench themselves in more power. What we need is more people moving up the latter, so that more people have "power" and a say. More at the top is better than a few at the top. All the estate tax has done was let the old corrupt cronies pull the ladder up behind them.
Xi, while I don't think this is the time or place to debate this in detail, since you brought it up, yes, I do believe that.
My opinion on the estate tax changed as I watched income inequality rise throughout the West. Hereditary aristocracy is on the rise in America, and the estate tax is a tool that can be used to fight that. It's not ideal or perfect, but removing it from the toolbox was, I think, a mistake.
"Man was not made for the market, the market was made for man" - Saint JP II
St JPII was spot on..... but, "do not hasten the goddamn escaton." Taxing in order to create your utopian vision of wealth equality has plenty of real world examples that resulted in over 100,000,000 dead people. The only way to achieve such goals (excessive taxation) is a police state. Something he spent his life fighting. To cite him in support of confiscatory taxation is a bit rich.
If your motive is based on the greater good then simply give your money rather than demand the money of others by force of law. It is not generous nor altruistic to be forced to give. Given your stated position one assumes you tithe. That tithe is an after tax number (if not, you are tithing to government and thus engaging in idolotry by tithing to them rather than the Church).
“Hereditary aristocracy is on the rise in America”
Is actually a patently false statement. In the US,70% of inherited wealth is gone in 2 generations and over 95% in 3. With few exceptions, dynastic inheritance is NOT the norm in the US as it is in much of Europe. This is why the Gini wealth index in countries like Sweden, Denmark and Norway are so much higher than the US.
Yes. There is old money in the US but it is not “on the rise”.
I’ll just leave this. The constitution authorizes taxes/spending for the general welfare (and as amended income as well). Proposing a tax on the basis that person X should not be allowed to be that rich (or that much richer than others) is covered by either of those and is therefore illegal.
Estate taxes are premised on the notion that money poured into the estate is income.
And we still have an estate tax; it didn’t go away.
My thoughts exactly, Brian, thanks for saying them so eloquently. "Hereditary aristocracy" is a very real issue in this nation.
Even if such a thing existed (it doesn't - we are a very wealth mobile society) it does not mean it would necessarily be bad. Further, a tax predicated on preventing wealth accumulation (or wealth disparity) has no constitutional basis; it would be illegal.
I appreciate the civility in this response, Xi, and will respond in kind. I disagree that an estate tax is unconstitutional. As you pointed out in another response, we still have an estate tax. My view is that the rate should be much higher than now, because if we need to the money in order to fund public services, it's more fair to harvest it from estates than from living people.
Since the estate tax is not illegal or unconstitutional now, it wouldn't become so merely because the rates were raised. Rates have gone up and down since estate taxes became a thing.
I would agree if you are arguing it would be unconstitutional to impose a 100 percent tax over X amount. It's one thing to take a share for the public good. It's another to say, "you get this much and no more." Under the highest estate taxes in our history, even the richest folks were able to pass along 50 percent of their estates.
Estate taxes are a more painless way of raising needed tax revenue than income, sales, or property taxes, all of which hit the living, who need the money to live, invest, vacation, run a business, or all of the above. The dead have no such concerns.
It's not gloating. It's righteous anger.They were just fine and dandy with all of it, until it turned on them. Stifling and shaming anyone that calls them out on this is counterproductive as well.
Brian, I have been reading Andrew Sullivan's work since the mid-80s. In the last few years, I have been reading the work of Bari Weiss and Abigail Shrier.
None of the 3 are the kind of liberal, meaning progressive, that you describe. They are very much the opposite. It's astounding to me that you classify them as such. So, I wonder, How familiar are you with their writings?
Are you aware that Sullivan has been persona non grata for a couple of decades among many in the gay community (even though it was he who put the issue of gay marriage into public play back in 1989, for which he received from the gay community much opprobrium)? That he was in essence fired from New York Magazine because he wanted to use the word "riot" in an essay describing the riots of 2020 but NY Mag wouldn't permit it and fellow writers considered him an office moral and physical threat...even though, they were working remotely?
Do you have any idea the hell that Abigail Shrier has been put through by media and academia and trans activists for her honesty in writing about the state of gender disphoria and transitioning? Take it you know that her recent talk at Princeton had to be held off-campus due to threats and that if you look at the video of it....student are rarely, if ever pictured, lest they become pariahs and cancelled by the Princeton community?
And in terms of Bari Weiss, go back and read a bit regarding her tenure at the NYTimes and how her co-workers treated her and her work.
I think you bring up an important distinction. I agree. We must not gloat or people will be afraid to change their minds. But we must learn! ...and the only way to learn is to study what we all did, see it, understand it and admit what got us here. We must all examine our conscience and admit our part. Every single one of us.
Castigating for the sake of castigating makes no sense.
On the other hand, castigating someone like today's author makes sense in the context of she (i) still doesn't get it and (ii) she can effect the changes she wants, she just won't because that would cause her discomfort.
Imagine an essay 60 years ago that starts "I am proud to be a Mississippian" and continues later "I wanted to tell my fellow jurors that [lynching victim's name here] life had purpose, too, and we have the unique ability to send a message that killing people has consequences. But I am expected to enforce Mississippi's culture, rules, and customs. But hey, I insisted we deliberate for an hour instead of the usual five minutes before turning in our not guilty verdict. That's something, right."
You'd feel disgust towards that person today. Even though they didn't lynch anyone, even though they didn't ask to get the thankless job of jury duty in that case even though they deliberate for a symbolic extra 55 minutes, even though they - not you, but they - would have to return to their community, their job, their family, their life in Mississippi after the verdict was read - you'd still feel disgust towards that person, not sympathy or understanding or hope that their (and their community's) journey towards enlightment might well continue. Next time with a two hour deliberation, and, what, 20 years on a guilty verdict on some lesser charge and maybe 60 years on an actual murder conviction? Yeah, you'd still feel disgust. And rightfully so.
What the teachers in particular and adults writ large have done to the younger generation the last two years is inexcusable and unforgiveable. And yes, we should welcome people to the side of reason and decency, but we shouldn't be so quick to forgive and we definitely should not forget until these sins of the last two years are eradicated for all time, with no chance - slim or otherwise - of ever being repeated.
I wonder about something in perspective.
We are talking about children wearing masks in a school setting.
My mother was born in 1930, in Berlin Germany. A Jew. Her step-father was not Jewish. During that time, she spent six months hidden in a basement while her parents "were taken away". She and her mother had to go to a Gestapo office to "declare her". Friends' homes were bombed and the friends died. Berlin falls, Russian troops storm her home. Starvation, darkness, death all around her, then more starvation. She had challenges (understatement) but lived and made something wonderful out of her life. She moved to the US around 1950.
How? Because her parents and her family supported her and said she could do it. They encouraged her. They taught her to be resilient.
My mother was not the only one like this.
How is it that masks seem to be destroying society? Maybe it is our reaction to them that is destroying society? Is it because as adults we cannot handle the masks that we are imparting these psychoses on our children?
My buddy the Navy Seal never drowned when he was dumped in the water with his hands tied behind his back and legs hobbled, so I was surprised to hear about the kids who drowned in the swimming pool last night when they tried the same thing. Maybe someone should have taught them to be more resilient.
I mean, more power to your mother and the other survivors who came out the other side of World War 2 to have a wonderful life.
But like Navy Seals are a unique group, I dare say your mother belongs to one as well. And I imagine that many other children of World War 2/the holocaust did not fare anywhere near as well as she did. We just don't hear their stories because they didn't have a successful life with children to tell their stories decades later - they died or had their lives ruined in the moment and never recovered. Gonna go out on a limb and guess that second group outnumbers your Mom's group by a pretty healthy number.
I'm sure in ten or twenty years we'll hear stories of the inventor or entrepreneur or societal disrupter who found the masking in school experience to be a watershed moment that they point to as the foundation of their success.
That doesn't mean it is right or should continue a second longer. Pretty sure there are other ways your mother could have learned resilience besides hiding in a basement for six months and all that came with that. Ditto today and this disgusting mask experiment.
I’ll give you that point that many children died.
There is a world of difference though between these situations. You cannot equate masks to the holocaust or children drowning themselves. Where do we stop? Do we say that asking children to take PE is the same as forced child labor in the death camps?
My point is that we are inflicting this on the kids by our reaction and behavior.
We are talking about ma
I appreciate your perspective. I agree.
I have something to say here... wait.
Oh no, the jack booted liberals are at my front door... They don't like what I am saying. They say I don't like freedom.
Oh no, the jack booted conservatives are at my back door... They don't like what I am saying. They say I don't like freedom.
I don't have much time before I'm arrested.
Let's just do anything we want to do regarding this virus.
I want to hang out somewhere without a mask. You don't like that? Stay home. oh, I'm forcing you to stay home? Too bad.
I want to hang out somewhere with a mask on. But you maskless person, I don't want you to breathe on me. Can you stand more than six feet away. Am also making you uncomfortable because I have a mask on? You need to stay home then. Too bad.
People who want to wear masks should stay home.
And, people who don't want to wear masks should stay home.
Let us compromise. Lets force everyone who wants a mask to live on the east side, and everyone who doesn't want a mask to live on the west side. North side vs south side? North east vs south west?
My choice, I can do anything I like to do. Freedom!
But you are not free because your decisions affect me. So here is what I want to do. I want you to do what I tell you.
If you don't do what I tell you then you are evil.
If you say you don't like that well you don't like freedom. Basically, you don't like my freedom. I don't care about your freedom.
When I was in school we talked about freedom and that it has both rights and responsibilities. We talked about how we can work together to solve problems.
Now, I figure they just talk about rights.
There are essays, books, and an entire subset of the legal profession devoted to this.
In a nutshell:
Rights are what you get. Responsibilities are what you give.
Rights are the rules, behaviors, and norms allowed by the society. We have a huge debate right now of what constitutes those rights.
Responsibilities are the commitment of the person to that society. We have a huge debate right now of what constitutes those responsibilities.
In summary: Rights are what you get. Responsibilities are what you give.
It wasn't sudden for me. Trump's election was a wake-up call before the woke movement. And let's be clear: the right had no place for me as a bisexual. CA offered me a way to live my life and be left alone. I grew up a conservative Christian but my churches refused to come to grips with its queer members. It's not just the left that demonizes people. And I have a lot of sympathy for students who feel like “vectors of disease“ - that's how I felt growing up and afraid to acknowledge my attraction to girls as well as boys. Although I disagree with them about a lot right now, I'll always be grateful for the support I got from my liberal friends when Christians saw me as dirty and perverted. I have maintained my faith, but it wasn't because of conservatives.
I am so sorry that your Christian community treated you that way. I am conservative and I am glad you are here in this community that Bari is building. It is good to hear your voice.
Thanks, John! Love being here. I don't want to be in an echo chamber.
By the way, I took 4 years of Latin in a public high school … almost 60 years ago,
"your side has relished in portraying as culturally retarded, rubes, hicks, and fascists for about 50 years."
Neither side has a monopoly on assholyism: "Libtard! Libturd! Commie! Faggot! Snowflake! Elite!" You can do better and so can we.
"I have little belief the liberals would ever reciprocate any support I give them"
That depends on the liberal, the conservative, and the issue. I'm not going to find much common ground with Trumpers. But I often agree with normal conservatives.
"Liberals are not terribly fond of the Constitution as written"
Please don't confuse normal liberals with the Woke and the far left. Been a liberal all my life, and I like the Constitution just fine, including 1A, 2A, and all the other A's in the Bill of Rights. The unacceptable parts--slavery, lack of voting rights for other than white males, Prohibition (!), have long been amended out of existence. What remains is a good blueprint I wholeheartedly support.
"it's not in their authoritarian and self-righteous nature"
Yeah, we got some of those. You got Trump and he's still calling the shots. I'd call that a wash.
As for being devoured by the Woke and extreme left, I devour them right back. Wokes don't rule this liberal.
Are you off your meds again? I'm not screaming like a banshee, a tornado, a witch, or any other damn thing, and I didn't call you one single name. I was noting that "liberals" are a far cry from "Woke" and "far left," and that normal conservatives and normal liberals agree on much more than they disagree.
I noted that both sides do a lot of name-calling; you know, like "tunnel-visioned ideological high horse." I said both sides can do better, because we can.
I also said that I am a liberal who does not allow the Woke and the far left to devour me; I have never asked for help from the Right to fight my battles for me.
Not a single uncivil word in my comment. You, on the other hand . . . well, I have no idea why you think I was attacking you. I wasn't. I certainly know how if I wanted.
So I hope it's not 'authoritarian' or too 'self-righteous' to suggest that being on the same team can also mean agreeing that elections must not be attempted to be overturned when the Electoral College is counted, in an effort to usurp already verified States' delegations, and that the zealot followers of a losing President (who supported this action) who planned this be prosecuted. For sedition, hopefully. And I'm a Constitutionalist. Quite fond of it, actually.
I would agree with you on the sentiment, Lee, but probably not on the details. Prosecuting former presidents for actions they undertook in office is a dangerous game -- banana republic territory. Nixon was pardoned for a reason; Ford likely feared the consequences for the country of attempting a prosecution. And he was right.
I hope you were equally appalled yesterday when President Biden openly said that unless his bill is passed, the 2022 election would be illegitimate.
Exact quote: "I'm not saying it's going to be legit. The increase and the prospect of it being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed."
"Prosecuting former presidents for actions they undertook in office is a dangerous game."
I respectfully disagree with this. Presidents need to be held criminally accountable when they commit crimes. Either they get arrested and tried while in office, which could be disastrously disruptive to the governing of the nation, or prosecutors hold off till they're out of office.
I choose Curtain No. 2. The next president is in office, the former president can and should face the charges, if any.
Pardons for crimes are exactly the wrong solution, because it sends the message that some people are above the law. Sorry, but Presidents are not above the law. They do the crime, they do the time. Ford was mistaken. He should have let the system work as designed with Nixon. The country would have survived just fine.
Do you remember the 2000 and 2016 election rhetoric from the Democrats? Guess not.
RW - an update of planning (and I know this is 6 days late) is the federal indictment of Stewart Rhodes (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/leader-oath-keepers-and-10-other-individuals-indicted-federal-court-seditious-conspiracy-and), and also the documents that are coming out on a nearly daily basis about the efforts taken by President Trump and his lawyers to usurp the counting of the electors. There was planning from both within and without.
So that is a well thought out, respectful answer. Thank you. That's why I'm here, to have a dialogue. Many of the responses I see here between two opposing viewpoints are angry bordering on hostile.
And I agree with your last paragraph on both 'Lies.'
Don’t confuse Liberal with Progressive.
I teach at a private school in CA, and while it has been better than the public schools, I am so angry about this. You are right, and I remember reading study after study stating that kids were not “vectors of disease,“ but they were being told they were responsible for a death if they broke a rule or protested how they were being imprisoned. After vaccination time, we still have masks indoors and out, and we test once a week. We in CA created a mental-health crisis and then wondered why the kids weren't “resilient.“
ah, well, when I shared data and personal commentary on the risks to children and the negative consequences of school closures in April 2020 ( after the initial "flatten the curve" attempt passed and things became a bit more empirically sound ), I was eviscerated on Facebook. I was also accused of heinous things because I suggested, just maybe, folks are mostly scared and confused rather than thinking clearly about public health and relevant trade-offs 🤷
I've now withdrawn from most online forums completely with the sad realization that folks online really want to feel right or appear right than to *do* right.
Me too. This was all completely predictable. I warned about all of these things as we shut down in March of 2020. I also knew it would not be a “pause” and that the threat was not nearly the level of the reaction. But to say anything like that at that time, I was labeled all kinds of things (most puzzling being that having common sense and the ability to think for myself and ask questions with a healthy dose of skepticism meant I was somehow a “Trump supporter”). I am so deeply angry as I have seen my entire career destroyed (when it was poised to really hit new heights around April of 2020… and now I have nothing).
But it’s not even about me - what it has done to children and young adults has been so wildly cruel. The selfishness of older generations and the hubris of the medical establishment have been astonishing, and what has made it so much worse is just how much it was allowed to happen, as people simply believed what they were told and obeyed.
I am sorry to hear you were one of the casualties in this moral panic. I have been sad at all of the good people with good hearts (and honest tongues) be mobbed out of the public square.
It is frightening to think fellow citizens can become so unmoored of reason so quickly, refuse to face facts, refuse to question, insist on blind obedience and extreme measures. I never thought I would see the day, you know?
With all of our modern technology and advanced capabilities, I expected better of modern societies. Turns out, we aren't all that much more sophisticated than societies in the middle ages. It's a strange reality to be facing. I suppose authority likes to posture that it has it all together, has all the answers - but it really doesn't. Ironically, authority has been unmasked as a fraud and we are the ones wearing the masks.
Yes. I never thought it would be the left who would destroy the arts, education, and culture …. But that’s what seems to have happened.
This idiocy is ending finally. I hope that you can regain the opportunity you lost and get back on track in your career. Don’t give up.
Or, at least more moderate, rational voices are joining the fray. I am reading John McWhorter's “Woke Racism” right now. It is excellent and I recommend it.
And, yes - don't give up! :-)
I hear you, Andy but there are some good things happening now.
The new governor of Va. Glenn Youngkin, was elected by parents who are fed up with the unions.
And the governor just announced a renaming for the state's Officer of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, to the Officer of Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion !
Further he appointed a conservative on the spot and also listed one of the job requirements as being an "ambassador for unborn children"!
Parents- citizens- elected this man who is nuking the teachers unions' stranglehold on mask mandates, and CRT.
There are incredibly satisfying things happening!
Spot on. The totalitarians in the health and education bureaucracies, who are Nazis in everything but name, have seriously affected our children and grandchildren to enhance their own authority. You're right. We knew it was political BS from the start, but the majority of us were Quislings and collaborated.
William, Please do not use the term Nazi to make a political point. Six million people perished at the hands of the despot Hitler, and their memory should not be tarnished in this manner. Respectfully.
As a Jew I agree 100%. But I'm also not hopeful that we'll ever be able to remove this term from public discourse. Unlike the other "N word," Nazi is so broadly used now that it's been stripped of its historical significance. We Jews may be as much to blame as anyone. Didn't Jerry Seinfeld introduce the term "Soup Nazi" in his sitcom?
I understand the reasoning here, but to proscribe it totally is also not the answer either.
The horrors of Nazism were greater than the Holocaust alone, if one can believe it. Pointing out and denouncing the types of behavior/ideas that led to that reprehensible human tragedy should also be fair game.
I agree with you, CW.
According to a Rasmussen poll released yesterday,
If you are unvaccinated:
55% of Democrats want to fine you:
59% want you confined to your home;
48% want you fined or imprisoned for questioning vax efficacy;
45% want you digitally tracked;
25% want your children taken away from you.
Pointing out the similarities between what today's Dems in these polls want and what the Good Germans in 1930's Germany wanted and enforced is absolutely NECESSARY.
I see the analogy, I just wish there was a different term to describe the behavior we all disagree with. How about fascist ?
I hear you, all things considered. And it’s super hard to ban a word, although in this case I cringe when I hear the word Nazi applied in such a cavalier way. But if off-hand uses of the term are confronted, it becomes a teaching moment, which can be productive.
I actually agree with you. I am not in favor of its cavalier use, either. But we also shouldn't allow that to give us license to avert our gaze if some of the same signs start to bubble up. Especially when you hear people trying to justify the shipment of people to camps against their will as morally good and necessary (Australia.)
The cheapness of language and willful neglect of historical lessons is indeed a much larger problem.
All the best to you.
Yes, my intent was a teaching moment in as respectful a manner as possible.
Yes, and Jerry was wrong too.
If I can respectfully ask to change one mind at a time when I see it, then I will try. I did this once on FB with someone I know very well and he apologized and said he would no longer use that term in such a context.
Sadly, recently “Nazi” became used much more during the 2016 election between Trump and Clinton. And yes, I saw many Jews calling Trump a Nazi. I tried to tear them a new asshole on FB - but they just ignored my pleas. They are no longer my friends.
Nazis?
I wonder if many of us still remember where NAZI comes from ?
Why not use SOCIALISM instead of this over-sensitive word ?
YES! You are spot on Andy. This is the point. We knew all along. The data was ALWAYS there and we chose to believe what we were told and not what we saw with our own two eyes. Shame on us all. I am with you.
also, let's not all act like it is some revelation that all this would greatly hurt children, society, us all in many(!) ways. It was always insane to think these abnormal, anti-life, anti-liberty restrictions weren't extremely damaging from day 1.
forgive me for taking a different view. It's a lot easier and more secure when you have experience with the disease and it's management. The early stages of a pandemic have less predictability. It could have turned out lethal to children or they could have inadvertently been harming their teachers and grandparents. Had that been the outcome, there would be just as much blame targeting the people who were too casual with the illness to be less disruptive to their voters. Erring on worst case scenarios for planning prevents irreparable tragedies when the worst case happens. Once the experience has been acquired and predictability of different choices becomes more secure, then reduction in stringency can take place. That's where we are now, and slower than we should be for modifications, but blaming people or parties that you don't like for decisions that were highly defensible at the time doesn't serve anyone properly.
No, we knew this information at the latest by the fall of 2020. I remember doing the research because I was a teacher. Look specifically at the hospitalizations and deaths. We sacrificed our children because we were afraid for ourselves.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6939e2.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7036e2.htm
My husband and I went on vacation in the summer of 2020 because we looked at the data and made an informed decision.
With all due respect, what you describe is where we were in the fall of 2020. I agree with your premise that in the early stages of the COVID pandemic there was much uncertainty about the novel virus. By the fall of that year it was well understood that older people with certain comorbidities were the high risk group. It was also understood there was no serious risk from in-person school instruction. What's worse is we were already starting to appreciate the harmful impact on our children. I witnessed it firsthand with three boys. There was even reporting on the subject. Knowing the harm, the education, public health, and political establishment persisted in keeping our children from going to school for another year. These decisions were not following the science and not defensible.
We knew extremely early that children were not at serious risk.
I agree that we should take worst case scenario into consideration and I would argue that psychologically and developmentally breaking an entire generation of children is by far the worst case scenario.
This is why the recommendation of epidemiology health “experts” is not the holy grail of policy decision making. We need to look at the entirety of society and all the various effects of our decisions, including children, the economy, mental health, proliferation of untreated diseases due to people scared to go to the hospital, etc.
But even the mentioning of needing to look at these other factors was met with such vitriol and self-righteousness.
Only holds up if you completely and totally buy into all and every official narrative regarding a "pandemic" with over a 99% survival rate. Otherwise, just more fear porn.
In the beginning, we had no idea what Covid would do and how many people it would slaughter. We learned as we went along. What we did in 2020 was understandable, if exquisite painful--lockdowns, shutdowns, closures were inevitable because thousands of Americans were dropping dead EVERY DAY and government needed to try everything to see what worked.
So, our response in 2020 is perfectly justifiable.
But it made no sense after that, making 2021 was an unnecessary disaster for our kids, our economy, and all of us. 2022 is starting the same way, and there is no excuse for that.
We knew very early, almost immediately, that children weren’t highly susceptible and the elderly were. And yet we chose to force infected people into nursing homes and locked down children. Our governments reaction didn’t make any sense.
Epidemiologists knew within a few months that we didn’t need the lockdowns…remember when they deemed racism as a more dangerous health threat to society?
Hi Andy,
I understand your frustration. You are obviously correct.
However, please remember, we needed the Russians to defeat the Nazis.
Win first. Ask questions later.
Cheers!!
Are you familiar with Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Are those Secret Service passwords for when Biden soils his pants and needs to be rushed to the helicopter?
"It was more important to the elites, Democrats, and teachers to turn COVID into a political power grab than do what was best for our children."
I don't buy that at all. Nobody benefitted from Covid shutdowns--teachers hate teaching remotely, they'd rather be in classrooms assuming those classrooms have enough ventilation and cleanliness. Local, state, and federal governments lost trillions of dollars of tax revenue. Jobs disappeared. Businesses went bankrupt. Ditto landlords. The 1 percent and corporatists? Sure, they made money from Covid and Covid response. But they would have made money had we done just the opposite.
Let's face it: If government had stepped back when Covid first hit and announced, "Sorry, nothing we can do. We're going to let Covid burn through the population, hey, even three million dead is only 1 percent of the population," they would have been lynched. Government responded the only way it could: Try everything, see what works, what doesn't.
Once they found out what did and didn't, though, we should have reopened the schools and economy. I willingly give government a pass for whatever it tried in 2020 and early 2021. After that, when the vaccinations began in earnest, we should have reopened schools and the economy completely. We should have demanded N95 masks for every single person, not the cloth crap that doesn't work. We should have demanded the CDC issue straightforward and clear messaging on what people needed to do.
Nobody in 2020 and early 2021 knew what would work and what wouldn't, we only knew that thousand of Americans PER DAY were dropping dead from Covid. But now that we know better, the closures MUST end and schools MUST GET BACK TO WORK.
There is nothing as easy as denouncing … It don’t take much to see that something is wrong, but it does take some eyesight to see what will put it right again.” – Will Rogers
The essay is 'for' those who are still living in the mass hysteria of fear that their news sources and trusted advisors created. It tells about the consequences that 'they' may not be aware of.
The only way to move forward now is to change the things we can to fix where we are at.
Letting out our anger that we are in the situation is good only if we let it go afterwards, and move forward.
Do you listen when someone rails at you? I don't. I might try to at first, but eventually I just shut down. Righteous anger really only works in an empty room, releasing those feelings so you can figure out what you can do to create change.
It is tough to let go of anger, but it drags us down and keeps us from finding the things we, as an individual, as a member of the human race, can do with the personal gifts we were born with, to make positive change.
Nice try. Real heroes (which this column claims to highlight) are proactive and not reactive. They have skin in the game before it's convenient and relatively safe for them to do so, and almost always experience some real hardship as a result of pushing the envelope for real. Haven't seen a lot of that here. More like a lot of people that have suddenly found themselves inconvenienced by what they themselves eagerly helped to create. Anger and even suspicion directed at people who only got real when the cannon pointed at them is completely justifiable. Besides, no one was saying to hold on to their anger. It's normal during this process even it makes some people uncomfortable enough to try and shame others into burying it. Excluding it from the process because it's disturbing to some people just primes the palette for another class of insufferable, untouchable elites that cannot be called out on anything. In fact, you can already see the obsequiousness forming between some of the lines.
I appreciate your perspective. I agree.
I especially love how Democrats are now trying to blame Republicans for the school lockdowns. George Orwell nailed it.
You're exaggerating and oversimplifying. We knew at the beginning that it posed little danger to children who were infected. But the disease can still be passed among asymptomatic people. What we didn't know was that schools wouldn't be huge vectors for outbreaks. You're right that we learned it long ago - it was clear at some point in the fall of 2020. But what we didn't have then was vaccines - which meant that there was still a danger to the elderly of contracting the disease from children. Even though children were largely spared the worst of the disease, they could still pass it to others.
Now that we have vaccines, we should be back to "normal" plus testing and isolation in schools. To the extent we haven't, the teachers' unions are mostly to blame. But the problem isn't that this information hasn't been available in the "mainstream". It has. The problem is that people are scared, and fear makes people overreact. And in places where people have under-reacted, it has caused a plethora of death and devastated our hospitals.
The politicization of this virus hasn't helped. And on that score Republicans are at least as much to blame as Democrats. This pandemic is something we've been figuring out on the fly; there have been few certainties, and every decision we've made has been a matter of choosing the lesser of evils. Anyone so concerned about damage to children from having to wear masks should take a moment to consider the damage to the thousands of children now missing one or both parents as a result of COVID. Let's not get self-satisfied over a single editorial - it's one perspective.
If you look at the death numbers by state adjusted for age, you find little difference in states like CA and FL. The notion that states that under reacted have a plethora of excess deaths is unfounded.
Why testing and isolation in schools? Children aren’t vectors of transmission. Isolation of children is part of the problem.
Amen
I agree with nearly everything you wrote ,but getting a free press back on line is THEE most important thing that can be done .
Folks need to hear a “ Common Sense” mantra as opposed to the fear that is being promoted! I expect you’d agree that framing Everything through a racial lens is Not the way to responsibly report the news !
Once again Common Sense should be our guide !
#EstablishmentLite4Ever Everyone must color between the new and improved lines. Yay!
100%
I will never forgive those in government (and the teachers' unions) for inflicting this on the youth. The disregard for and willingness to sacrifice the youth for everyone else (which is dubious, at best) is criminal.
I certainly appreciate this article - but I wonder why there is such silence amongst the millions and millions of teachers around the world who must be witnessing this destruction each day. So in answer to the question of "What am I supposed to say?", you are supposed to present facts and data and honesty instead of towing the company line.
My wife is a public school teacher (elementary). The silence is not about union loyalty; it's about fear.
There are a growing number of unsayable things in society today. Don't believe me? Try sending out a memo in a large company that suggests men can't give birth and see what happens. Public school districts are the worst. Try suspending too many black kids as a teacher and see what happens (yes, in CA in 2022, there really are racial quotas for suspensions.) Forget to use the right pronoun for a student and you'll go to the principal's office. Among all the other unsayable things, questioning masks must be punished -- can't have govt servants not on message, especially with the kids. After all, we're doing all this for their safety. Question the prevailing establishment "wisdom" on any of these things and you'll find yourself teaching bonehead 6th grade next year in the room furthest away from the staff bathroom with the 40 year old carpet and the leaky roof.
It's also fair to say that the process of becoming a public school teacher also attracts those who favor safety and security over independence and liberty. A profession which is notoriously hard to get your first job in, full of nepotism, in which you can't choose your clients, and have have limited advancement potential... but provides lifetime job security at a very stable salary. That's an offer that appeals to a particular kind of person, and it's not the kind of person who is likely to rock the boat.
So call it fear, cowardice, or some mix of both. But union loyalty it definitely isn't.
Not directed at your wife or anyone in particular, but I'm wondering what line will the educators not cross? Or is there one? It is really a question everyone must ask themselves, I think. But one that must be asked.
We've seen exactly what not having a definite limit leads to. More and more and more. It started with remote maleducation. Now it's masking kids with tape, isolating them, shunning them, punishing them, forcing them to sit alone in freezing cold, and I don't even know what else. In a prison these would be 8th amendment violations. Frankly, if the line hasn't been hit yet, I'm doubtful there will ever be one.
I do know that when it comes to the doctors who refused to speak out, or who refused to know, and the teachers who complied, and so many others - I would never trust my life or my children to them. I suspect these professions have through their silence lost whatever they thought they were saving regardless.
I've got a daughter who is a teacher who assumes she'll get fired every week because she pushes back. So far, she has been "written up" a few times, but most of her co-workers have bought into the fear porn hook,line and sinker. It is frightening. Mass formation psychosis in front of us. No atrocity would be off the table. 😪
Laura, has your daughter thought about setting up her own "school'?
Offer to teach to kids maybe with a few other teachers, offer this to a group of like-minded parents- I've read of such groups springing up -
Good for her, Laura! You deserve to be proud. Coming from the parent of 3 teen girls, you did something right. :-)
Alexander Solhenitsyn wrote: "What if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people?"
He obviously faced a far more dire threat than we do today (although Rod Dreher thinks it less distant than it appears), but your daughter is channeling his sentiment perfectly.
That leads into something I've been giving some thought to - creating or finding/helping support systems.
The unions are certainly no help in this, they're even further out over the abyss. For the short term, I wonder if churches wouldn't be a good starting point to try to connect those that need help and those that can help. Even if it's just referrels and helping with moving costs and such. Some people will be caught in a bind, and we need to practice what we preach.
Well not the Catholic Church that’s for sure. They went all in with masking and blocking off pews and shutting down. They rendered to Caesar with all they had. And they still kind of are.
Yeah, I was thinking smaller local churches, myself. I definitely lean towards networks of small independants than anything explicitly national, we've seen how easily corruption spreads with size. Local charity works better in general, although we also do need to be available to people in areas without much local support. Its a tough issue, and one where I have essentially no experience. Small locals already face this in some ways, I think.
It's not just teachers; it's all of us. How many of us would really be willing to lose jobs over this stuff. Bari, that's why we all look up to you -- you put your mouth where your morals were and essentially got canned for it.
Are you willing to have your kids taken away because you won't let them "transition"? Are you willing to throw away a medical career over masks or forced vaccines? Will you throw away a 15 year teaching pension to speak the truth about masks, or gender, or racism?
Most of us aren't Havel's greengrocer; most of us just put the sign in our window and shut up.
There's risk, of course. When the jabs came I'd already made up my mind which made it easier to say no way. And really, I don't want to work for people who issue those types of orders anyway.
At least where I am the gender craze and such hasn't crept in, but then again, I think becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one speaks because no one speaks. So the craziest take over. If this continues, very soon we won't have a voice to speak with.
This is the case in ALL of society now. Don't push or say something contrary to the politically correct message and you get punished. Even among friends! I work as an MD and there was a patient that I was speaking to about masks and said to her that I wasn't comfortable wearing something which forces me to constantly rebreath my own CO2. When of course this person who has a narcissistic streak anyway complained to the higher ups, I was called to the carpet by the Medical Director. Message: Dare to express ANYTHING contrary and get punished. There is an unethical trend now to actually take doctor's licenses away for prescribing HCQ or ivermectin. It's outrageous. Fear is what dominates followed by disgust and ultimately opting out of any participation. "See something, Say something" is the message of the day.
I think you hit the nail on the head. In common with most civil servants it has been my misfortune to know in my practice as a civil engineer for 45 years, most teachers are in it for the "bennies", not the students. If you want your children to have dedicated teachers, send them to a Catholic school or other religious school.
I wouldn't say they're in it for the "bennies". It's good money and great benefits, but most of those who aren't in it for the kids burn out quick. We've all had the occasional "teacher who should have quit 5 years ago", but most of your own teachers were likely decent folks just trying to do their best within the constraints of their system. That hasn't changed.
It's more about the personality type that is attracted to such an industry. That personality type is, as you said, a civil servant personality, which means they are biased to conformity, safety, and security instead of individuality and risk-taking.
It isn't that one type of better than the other. Had COVID turned out to be like smallpox instead of like influenza, conformity and safety would have been the right strategy.
True, but if COVID had turned out to be like smallpox, we would have known that very quickly based on death rates from infection and the rational response would be different then what many are suggesting should have been. As it stands, it wasn't anything like smallpox, which we likewise knew very quickly, which is why the rational response was very different than the approach we actually took.
Part of life is unlearning
Fear is a dangerous elixir, I agree. It is very sad that so many teachers are silent because of this fear.
The teachers who did not teach in person still got paid. That is a travesty. The unions who pushed for lock downs should be held accountable.
Bad career move, bad advice, towing the company line is part of the successor ideology, they brook no dissent, you will get fired, they are zealots.
But, it’s all right to inflict and sacrifice those at high risk of dying from Covid 19?
I agree and have a certain level of sympathy for that. But to stand by in complicit silence as children's lives are purposely and irreparably destroyed is immoral and deplorable.
“Irreparably destroyed”?! Hyperbole much? You don’t know that at all.
Believe me they are and I'm a Psychiatrist. Many will claim PTSD later on when the consequences become obvious.
Many if not most will be harmed, but will be able to overcome it. Some will not recover. Near complete social isolation for extended periods has broken plenty of adults.
Kids aren't experiencing "near complete social isolation" -- they have their families. Moreover, kids today are in almost constant communication with their friends via devices. I doubt that more than a small percentage will have any lasting harm from this shared experience that the entire world has been living through.
Ah, yes, the NEETs can show them the way.
Historical constant is the point, humans always do this, we always capitulate even though we know better: always and everyone.
Parents can see the immense pain these policies are causing. They can see the unions brazenly leveraging their children's suffering. It's immoral - and they know it. On November 8, they will speak in the voting booth, as they did in Virginia last November.
Only if we can keep the Democrats from corrupting future elections through their John Lewis voting bill.
Um… what specifically are you opposed to in the Voters Rights bills? Making Election Day a holiday so more can vote? Having more access so more voters can vote? Puhlease
For one, I am opposed to anyone voting who cannot show ID.
Despite claims that voter ID discriminates against the poor and the least educated, the poor and the least educated actually show the highest levels of support for IDS: 79% support among those who attended high school but didn't graduate; and 78% among those earring less than $30,00- p/yr.
Additionally, a Rasmussen survey showed that 79% of voters think that it is "very important"to prevent cheating in elections. Another 11% said that they thought it was "somewhat important".
72% of likely black voters support photo voter ID. So too do 79% of those who are neither black nor white.
Support among blacks and whites is virtually identical.
It's hard to see what's racist about voter ID laws.
Even a plurality of Dems ( 61%) and liberals ( 48%) support photo IDs.
Did you know, that NO other country mails out ballots to reserved voters? Most don't even allow absentee ballots.
Well-said Anna. I too believe voters should show I.D. to vote, like the vast majority of Americans of all groups. I also support purging voting rolls of those who've died, moved, etc. on a regular basis, and transparently. Finally, the Dems are pushing ballot harvesting (legal in - where else - California) where activists go door to door to collect ballots from those who will vote their way (both parties have good data on how you'll vote), and they have no problem helping voters "fill out the ballot" if they need progressive guidance. It's not a reform - it's a takeover. Dictators around the world are asking themselves "why didn't I think of that"?
Opposition to ID requirements on the basis of suppressing minority votes is implicitly racist at worst and patronizing at best.
Anna...i like that, you have common sense.
I just went thru what NV. calls a de-registration(my word) i had to sign, even though they had my name Wrong. I always had difficulty voting, since they would not LOOK at my I.D., i never knew why they had such a problem.
I received 3 voters registrations from two States, which i could have used. I did vote under the fourth registration.thanks.
Did you vote in any election before 2020? The system is assuredly not broken, and has generally worked just fine. The Voters Rights Bill is a naked Democrat power grab, and everybody knows it--especially Democrats, which is why they love it so much. Puhleeze, indeed...
“and everyone knows it…” 🙄
What precisely in their bill do you oppose? Stop talking in absolutes and generalities
So you’re all right with; 15 or more voting rights violations occurred in the state during the previous 25 years and 10 or more violations occurring during the previous 25 years, at least one of which was committed by the state itself; or 3 or more violations occurring during the previous 25 years and a state administered the election?
Voting should happen on election day only, in person and with valid ID. It is not the government's responsibility to make voting convenient. Some minimal effort should be required to exercise the responsibility of voting.
Oh my God I wish I had said that. Voting shouldn't be easy. I applaud you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Yes, it is the government's responsibility to make voting convenient. Dropping a hand-signed ballot into a secured and monitored drive-through lockbox in weeks prior to the election is perfectly legitimate. Making sure those lockboxes aren't hours away from voters--as Texas ensured when it changed its system to allow precisely one lockbox per county, even in the most sprawling of counties--is perfectly legitimate. And eight-hour lines to vote is not worthy of a banana republic, let alone the United States.
I can't buy a bottle of wine at the grocery without valid I.D. I can't drive a car without valid I.D. I can't board a plane, write a check to a retailer, take delivery of certain classes of prescriptions, cash a check at a bank branch where the teller doesn't know me. I can't cross a national border without valid I.D. (unless of course I'm a criminal from Guatemala--then I'm welcomed at the Rio Grande!). But Uncle Joe and the Democrats insist that valid I.D. (valid voter registration + valid I.D.) at the polling place is unfair and racist? That insisting that only US citizens get to vote in US elections is an expression of hatred and bigotry? Mr. Norte, do you possess adequate I.D. to vote in any election held in the United States?
The Dems will allow a vaxx passport to replace any real id! And you won't be able to vote without it! Betcha 5 bucks!
So...Esteban has the courage to write a last name on these threads, as do I, and you have the immaturity to comment on that?? Really? That's an ad hominem attack. Does the last name tell you everything about this person? Is it enough to form a judgement on this person? If you have a point to make - make it. Your argument should be strong enough to not have to resort to stupidity like that.
Bigotry much? Assuming from my name that I’m not a citizen? Wow.
I don’t have any problem with requiring IDs to register to vote. But you’re heading off on tangents. There’s no proof of mass voter fraud, and the actual isolated cases don’t amount to a hill of beans.
But the Voters Rights bills have nothing to do with this. Why not discuss your issues with what is contained in the bills? Most Americans support having better and more convenient ways to vote, e.g. mail voting, early voting, make Election Day a holiday, etc. We should be making legal voting easier, not harder.
To start with, how is it a good idea to have members of Congress write the rules for their own reelections? The Constitution framers gave that job to the states for good reason.
Then there's forbidding voter ID, forbidding states to make their voter registration lists accurate, requiring states to allow vote harvesting -- basically eliminating all safeguards against vote fraud.
TxForg, you don’t know what you’re talking about, Congress can write rules for federal elections, it is not an exclusive state right.
Please explain to me how many people were not able to vote - the last presidential election showed the most voters ever did it not? - couldn't have been that bad, could it?? This is a power grab and nothing more.
No one is arguing your straw man of wanting to prevent legitimate votes. It's the completely insecure ballots, deliverable well after election day and collected by who even knows that are the problem. Fake votes and insecure elections disenfranchise real voters. And they disenfranchise the poor the most.
As to making election day a holiday, that's great for the professional class but does nothing whatsoever for the working poor. The people who work on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Years Day, and so on. You realize that, right?
Al Franken won after enough democrats found ballots in the trunks of their cars.
Yes, "deliverable well after election day." We have seen that several times in Florida. In fact, we almost had to endure Gillum as governor because of "discovered ballots" that somehow miraculously appeared in Broward County a couple of days after the election. 80,000 ballots to be precise. It was enough to knock out Matt Caulfield for Agriculture Secretary and give us Nikki Fried (D). Fortunately it wasn't enough to take out Ron DeSantis or Rick Scott. They had enough votes to narrowly squeak through. Thankfully DeSantis forced the two worst SOE in the state out. The Broward County lady got to retire and the Palm Beach lady got fired. Broward County could always, in the past, be relied on to "find" boxes of ballots under tables in closets and in car trunks two or more days after an election. Funny about that. We still have 17 counties that use those tabulation machines that were so much in the news last year.
I contend every county should do an audit immediately after every election to show clearly how the election was conducted and what the true vote tallies were. There should be no "fishtails" at 3 am the day after the election.
Whether election day is a holiday or not won't affect the number of people voting. Most places have early voting now which includes at least one weekend day so there is no excuse. What this bill will do is institutionalize the massive voting fraud that took place in 2020.
I would gladly take having Election Day be a holiday over early voting or mail in ballots. In a heart beat.
Commenting on how kids are being negatively affected in school by Covid restrictions and now we're somehow on the subject of voter fraud in 2020? And this 'massive voting fraud' you're talking about - the election was 14 months ago and I haven't seen any evidence of it. Have you? No court has seen any. All I see are Republican Congressman being elected in the same districts Biden carried, with all candidates on the same ballot.
Huh? That’s bonkers.
Unlimited, multifaceted and extended "vote harvesting." Puhlease.
It is unconstitutional. States are responsible for elections and the feds try to increase their power.
It's perfectly Constitutional. The Constitution specifically says that Congress may dictate the time, places, and manner of elections for U.S. senators and representatives.
Meaning, Congress can make these changes if they wish. States are free to hold elections as they wish for state-only offices--state reps, senators, governor, whatnot--but they are not sovereign over federal elections.
The Voter Rights Bill will not pass.
I live in Florida. None of that happened here, except for the beginning of the pandemic. We quickly got our kids back to normal. Time will tell who was right and who was wrong, but I think we all know the answer already.
Great and brave leadership there
Yes, we moved from blue Illinois to red Utah in august 2020 so my kids could go to school and play sports. Best decision my family ever made. My community values children.
Two things will rectify the government school problem: 1) voters must support school choice (and tax dollars should follow students to whatever school they choose) and 2) teachers should be allowed to enroll their kids in the districts that they teach in so they are better aligned with parents.
"2) teachers should be allowed to enroll their kids in the districts that they teach in so they are better aligned with parents."
In my area, the children of school employees are allowed to attend either the local school for where they live *or* the school at which the parent works, if that is different. I would like to suggest some mechanism by which teachers' children would have the same school experience as the children they teach, but every idea I have creates additional problems. For instance, if the rules was that the teacher's children go to the school where the teacher works, only people with no children would work in the least successful or most dangerous schools.
Anyway, teachers are rarely the decision-makers on major issues. It's the school administrators and district administrators who bind up burdens hard to bear and lay them on other people's shoulders.
My district is like yours (teachers can enroll their children in the schools) and I think it is a big reason why the schools operated last year and this year despite high COVID cases. It has been tough on the teachers, other staff and the administrators, but they have behaved like all the other first responders who have worked throughout the pandemic. I am grateful to them for their sacrifice. I think my first point covers your worry about “brain drain.” School choice would allow for competition and the worst performing schools would fail.
Very good points.
I agree to some extent. However even in florida so many events have been canceled and not reinstated. And any kids not vaccinated will have a hard time signing up for any summer activities (even though we know the vaccines prevent nothing.) my A student no longer likes school and is anxious and depressed a lot of the time. That is far from normal.
Only time will tell just how affected our kids will be. I am grateful to have been in Florida and not our previous NYC home but to think that even Floridian kids will not feel long-term effects of the non-scientific covid restrictions in schools and their lives is to have your head in the sand. My 15yr old has missed out on precious social interactions, parties, and has lived with unimaginable levels of stress. This will have so many detrimental effects on our children for their whole lives and i mourn for their childhoods. We ALWAYS knew the risks to them were negligible, and yet we let the fear of teachers unions, school boards and petty governmental tyrants determine our children's experience. These critical years in their development are LOST to them.
Please remember, when you go to vote, why you moved to Florida and why Florida is sane. Please vote Republican.
Up until recently Florida was a purple state although we did have a Republican governor and legislature we also had move registered Democrats than Republicans. God help us, we nearly got Andrew Gillum in stead of Ron DeSantis.
Now there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. One-party states are dangerous as we see in California and NY but, for now, Democrats are poison to our republic. Please, please vote Republican.
You're right. Talk about "long COVID" - we have no idea what the long-term effects of the COVID shutdown on our children will be.
Vaccines prevent nothing? You’re not serious, are you? Vaccines have prevented thousands and thousands of serious illness and deaths. Please look at literally any chart of statistics and see how hugely different the data on those who have been vaccinated differ from those who have not. It’s not even close.
You go look at the stats for CHILDREN... That is what we are talking about here -- CHILDREN.. Only children with co-morbidities ever needed a vaccine... NOT EVERY CHILD... and not boosters... Along with ignoring immunity from a prior infection - which is what our government (prompted by the pharma companies) has done... Please do show me the evidence otherwise.
So many people can't or won't distinguish between an 80 year old obese man and a school kid. They just can't or won't. They minimize the harm-abuse that their neurosis causes.
Exactly. And the people who say we must vaccinate, mask and restrict the behavior of children to somehow protect the elderly are immoral.
No one knows the long term effects from Covid yet, so to argue that it isn’t necessary except for kids with co-morbidities isn’t grounded in anything but wishful thinking. And while it’s true that, so far, the variants we’ve faced have been more sparing of children, this thing isn’t over yet, so kids should absolutely be vaxxed for this just like they are for other diseases.
"Nobody knows the long term effects from Covid yet."
Really? Because study after study after study has shown that the risk of covid to young people is so low as to be difficult to quantify—with a survival rate of roughly 99.995%:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-children-risk-of-covid-19-death-or-serious-illness-remain-extremely-low-new-studies-find-11625785260
Kids (ages 0-18) have represented 0.00%-0.27% of all COVID-19 deaths:
https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/children-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/
This is not new information. We've known since very early in the pandemic that covid manifests in children as no different than the regular flu. In fact, kids are more likely to die from the regular flu than covid: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/the-kids-were-safe-from-covid-the-whole-time.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm
And if the vaccines DO NOT PREVENT TRANSMISSION OF THE VIRUS then there's no rationale for forcing it on kids: https://www.stardem.com/news/national/cdc-covid-vaccines-won-t-stop-transmission-fully-vaccinated-can-still-get-spread-delta-strain/article_5f83d0cb-8b0a-535d-bbad-3f571754e5ae.html
Vaccine creation is generally a decade-long process due to the long-term safety trials that are carried out, except when an emergency is declared of course. We have no idea what the long-term safety profiles of these vaccines are. Clinical trials in children are still ongoing and not set to complete for several years. Giving children, or anyone for that matter, these vaccines is the equivalent of turning them into a science experiment being conducted for profit by serial felons.
You’re conflating acute illness with long term consequences. And, the word is still out on long term effects from Covid.
I’m on a phone so can’t thumb out a response to the rest of your comment and links, but suffice to say, the MRNA works very differently than other vaccines, and, from all reports I’ve read, in a much safer way than traditional vaccines. Yes, longitudinal studies will take time, but data so far indicates that they are overwhelmingly safe.
While we're on the subject, nobody knows the long term effects of these so-called vaccines either. Your thinking is reckless especially when it comes to children.
I’m not going to engage in anti-vaxxer arguments. Guess we’ll have to wait and see whether the vaccines are safe in the long run. But, I didn’t hesitate to have my kids vaxxed, and I’m not worried in the slightest. Do all of you anti-vaxxers eschew other vaxxes too? Along with other medical advances? Don’t take antibiotics? No surgical implants, etc? Good to know
no one knows the long term effects from these vaccines, except now the doctors are saying that too many boosters are showing auto immune issues. "kids should absolutely be vaxxed for this this just like they are for other diseases" HUH? Other "vaccines" prevent illness. These shots do not. For every person, there is a risk/reward analysis done to determine whether or not a certain vaccine makes sense. For children with no co-morbidities, the the risks from taking the vaccine actually outweigh the risks from the vaccines.. This is why the advisory board did not give their approval for boosters for children, but the government went ahead anyway...
These vaccines have absolutely prevented a lot of Covid disease. Are they 100% effective, no. And neither are other vaccines for other diseases, except a few.
meant to say that the risks FROM the vaccines, outweigh the risks from the vid.
It's dangerous to COVID vaccinate healthy children. Dangerous. They don't need it.
Sure it is, Esteban. Just look at the infection mortality rate for children and compare it to other diseases and risks. It's not even close.
Remember Chicken Pox? That used to kill more kids in the US every year than COVID did in 2. Same with the flu.
Do you ever leave your house?
It's not a vaccine. It's an "Emergency Use Experimental Gene Therapy."
A must read
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/cult-masked-schoolchildren
I have been a fan of vaccines because I lived through the polio epidemic of the 1950's. The Salk and Sabin vaccines were godsends. The COVID vaccines are not immunizing. They may do more harm than good. They are giving all vaccines a bad name. It's a darn shame.
History is written by the winners.
You all are making me jealous. California today is a chaotic progressive porridge of incompetence. Many of our friends have left the state. Of those still here, leaving is a common topic of conversation. If the grandkids leave, we're outta here as well.
I am very sorry to hear this. I hope things are better soon.
I think it depends where you live in Florida. Some of the school districts have fought the governor tooth and nail to close schools, wear masks and curtail activities.
I've sent my daughter to a private school for a better education. They gave up the masks indoors but now they are back again... All of the clubs have limitations, the closed the cafe and the trips the kids used to take have been canceled, postponed, and even the postponed ones demand full vaccination. My child has had covid and does not want the vaccinations. I have had the first two - but also had covid and have no intention of ever getting a booster. I already have one immune disorder - I'm not looking for another. Our house of worship either wants everyone "fully vaccinated" or you must go get a PCR test ahead of just attending regular services... To say that the insanity hasn't affected Florida - that's just not true. The insanity of vaccinating children will be the shame of this country. If the pharma companies really wanted to stop covid, they would have sent those vaccines to third world countries - from where the mutations would come. No, instead they convinced Western governments that everyone needed the vaccine (so they could make the maximum $$.) And our dumb governments listened. And we stood for it. Only now are we finding out about adverse effects and immune issues. One size fits all was never 'science.' And the old dementia-ridden president is STILL PUSHING THE VACCINES.....
That "one size fits all" regarding vaccines has been a huge issue for decades. Look up the "MMR" scream. A certain percentage of kids never recover after that. And a certain percentage of kids that do recover are plagued by any number of diagnosed debilitating autoimmune type illnesses starting around early adulthood. But of course, like myocarditis, blood clots, guillain-barre, sudden death, etc...that just means the vaccines are working!
We definitely all know the answer. We live in TX. My kids went back to school in August of 2020. No major outbreaks. Some slight changes to protocol for sure, but we've had sports, school events, graduation. My oldest son attends Purdue, which has done a masterful job of managing Covid. It can be done.
Our third son is at Purdue as well, and the Marching Band has been in full swing since August. Mitch Daniel’s has done a masterful job, while the a lot of the other Big 10 universities have really fumbled. I can’t imagine paying full tuition for virtual classes.
Totally agree. Cannot imagine paying college tuition for my kid to do virtual learning.
Blue state politicians have eaten their young to solidify their control. Tragic.
Not just the politicians, their parents in most cases were all too willing.
Yes, I’ve seen that too. That some crazy shit.
In AZ - same. Ducey is no DeSantis but I'm still thankful. Our business and family have been unchanged.
Time will also tell who has fell and who's been left behind...
Same in AZ
That is wonderful. I think places like Florida and California can definitely afford to ease up on Covid restrictions. In colder places, I feel that a bit more caution is necessary.
Oh please. Just stop.
Florida and California's respective responses to this whole thing cannot be more divergent.
Florida doesn't have COVID restrictions. You are mistaken.
President DeSantis has such a great ring to it.
I hope so, too. There is large contingent of Obama-Clinton-Biden-DeSantis voters coming down the pike for the legacy media to scratch its head over.
We love DeSantis in Florida and want to keep him as long as possible. Being governor is fun and allows a fairly normal life. He has three small children and his wife is undergoing cancer treatments. He'll be president eventually but not in 2024.
I have to laugh. I see that DeSantis is biting the hand that fed him. The child scolding his teacher. So now he's in Trump's crosshairs. And all over Covid vaccines. My, my. Isn't that ironic? Who do you think will win?
President Trump and Gov. DeSantis get along just fine. This is fabricated by the MSM. I believe Epoch Times or The Washington Examiner did a piece on this in the past day or so.
Fabricated? Well I saw a video with DeSantis squirming over the question of whether he had a booster. Then I saw Trump say a politician has to own up to whether he took the vaccine or not (and he's right, by the way). Then I saw DeSantis criticize Trump over how he handled the early Covid response (lots of mistakes there!). Hard to fabricate televised responses.
This should NEVER have happened. This is the GREATEST public health disaster in history. Truth: masks are MARGINALLY efficacious if helpful at all; children have a very low risk from this disease. This has been a travesty and we are LONG overdue to end it
Don’t clump all “masks” together. N95s and KN95s are absolutely efficacious. Cloth masks are not.
Probably true. And yet all the mask rules make no distinction - any kind of mask is OK. Most of them are a waste.
That’s where the mask rules fail. Early-on there was a shortage of N95s, so I get why they wanted to conserve those for health care workers. But they should’ve been upfront about it, and the rules should’ve adapted to 95s soon thereafter.
True. For Fauci to say that he said masks weren't necessary because he wanted to preserve them for health care workers simply isn't his job and really undercut his credibility (which I suspect has further to go). What I find interesting so far is that the more robust mask studies, like RCT's like the ones in Denmark and Bangladesh, show little (10% in Bangladesh) to no (Danmask study) benefit. It also fascinates me that people wear masks out of doors where natural dispersion and ultraviolet light quickly degrade the virus. Turns out that handwashing and distancing are arguably more effective.
Agree on the whole erroneous take by CDC about masks, and their failure to admit that they were wrong about airborne transmission being the primary means of infection. I've read about the RCT on masks in Denmark and there were a number of real problems with it. As I recall, they didn't ascertain mask wearing at home, nor whether others in the household wearing masks, and things like that. So, results were not the most reliable. And while outdoor mask-wearing was dumb for earlier variants, with Omicron at least, with its extremely high contagiousness, it isn't imprudent to mask up outside when in closer proximity to others.
Yes indeed, children are at low risk of dying from Covid 19; all the rest, who are at risk of dying from Covid 19, tough luck!
Excellent analogy, Max! Chernobyl exposed the corruption and incompetence of Soviet elites; it was a key event on the road to ending the USSR. COVID has done the same for us, exposing our elites and institutions as feckless and untrustworthy. This analogy does not bode well for the future.
What a great phrase!
The “idiocy” you mention is what is now happening to too many brains of those who caught Covid. We owe it to the kids to protect them from this as much as possible: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm2052
Thank you Bari for publishing Stacey's words and experiences. I'm a college professor and so am a part of the same environment Stacey speaks of...only with older humans. What I can't seem to understand for the LIFE of me is WHY WHY WHY more of these young people aren't standing up and saying something? They thought nothing of calling me or other teachers out nine times a day if they have to, citing various micro-aggressions and whatnot these past couple years. I think the answer to my own question is what Stacey talked about...they have been fed this line of very dangerous HORSE SHIT that they will kill someone or risk someone's life if they take their mask off.
I'm begging my fellow colleagues tho to start standing with me and speaking out against this.
At some point-hopefully SOON-we as sane adults have to grow some backbones and start SPEAKING UP. Not only in schools (even tho this is definitely one of the most crucial) but in restaurants, grocery stores and theatres...where Mask Nazi's (formerly Ushers) hold up paddles that say MASK UP! and apparently tap/hit you if you stray from this rule....
We have lost our minds.
Professor Deb, keep your identity hidden, if your school administrators hear your loose talk you will be labeled a science denier and reactionary kook. Bad career move, the successor ideology brooks no descent 🥴.
Dissent (whoopsie)
Oh I know. I keep my comments very close to the vest. For my sanity, though, I can't keep completely quiet and just speak calmly and reasonably whenever I find a small window to speak....we'll see.
🙏
“will kill someone or risk someone's life” approaching 800,000 deaths from Covid 19.
Bullshit stat.
Right, RJF, your “Bullshit stat.” Comment, Proves your bat feces crazy!
The official narrative is not to be trusted, we are being manipulated and managed
If were "being manipulated and managed" who can you trust?
Bari
Well, we certainly know what your "trusted" news sources are.
Well, you know what you can do for stats? Compare total deaths from all causes in 2019 to total deaths from all causes in 2021. There’s a huge difference and most of that is from Covid deaths.
Well you know, the stats are highly dependent on who is running the show. Biden's done quite the job on that, any which way you want to look it. I mean, according to your sources and all.
Why don't you find some stats on overall deaths yourself, from sources you aren't convinced are being manipulated, and see what I'm talking about. It's not some secret.
Re the stats, the numbers are going to be revised downward at some point (but not anytime soon given the hubris of our PH officials). A UK FOIA showed how the death counts have been overstated. Check out this video by Dr. John Campbell. He’s an honest broker.
https://youtu.be/9UHvwWWcjYw
Come on. I’m an adjunct professor, and students are able to discern that their general state of wokeness and public health requirements are two very different things. This Omicron wave is going to blow out fast, and things will start to return to normal fast enough. Then we can go back to complaining solely about all the woke crap.
Normally I'd agree with you. I used to think these kids were way too smart. However I happened to be talking to both a parent of a student and two students themselves the other day, and they all affirmed they are way too afraid to speak up and reject wearing a mask and other such restrictive policies....glad you think it's gonna blow over soon tho. Two years in and hasn't happened yet. Here's hopin!
No one wants to be on the front line, where you are most likely to go down, bigly.
Well said
I think this represents the results of a fundamental change in American culture and to some extent Western civilization over the past two generations.
The power has shifted in the US from citizens with common sense to an administrative class of lawyers and finance people. Neither group has any incentives or training to make informed decisions outside of their areas of competence. In spite of this they wield unaccountable and undeserved power and decision making.
The end result is the cheapest solution and the solution with the lowest possible risk. A summarization is contained within the phrase: "Cover your ass as cheaply as possible".
"...power has shifted in the US from citizens with common sense to an administrative class of lawyers and finance people..."
The free market has a wonderful solution to this problem - it's called failure and bankruptcy. Sadly, it hasn't been permitted to operate for the last 40 years. Central banks everywhere have short circuited this (very necessary) process by printing trillions of Dollars, Euro and Yen. Free money keeps the dumbest and most immoral of operators (including worst of all - government bureaucrats) in clover and in power.
Not government bureaucrats.
It keeps politicians who are venal and craven in power along with their puppet masters that inhabit the Treasury as "appointed" Civil Servants. Think Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.
Capitalism at its finest!
I consider the following when it comes to the imbalance of power in our civilization:
"Lawyers and finance are the root of all evil."
As a lawyer I am only slightly offended by that statement.
It comes down to the power dynamics within groups. It is a bit like the offense someone would take when learning that Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) categorized physicians, ministers, lawyers, Royalty, porters, wait staff and many others into the category of "unproductive labour".
Have you ever noticed in your line of work that you can get a room full of highly intelligent people (MDs, LLBs, PhDs, MSc, etc.,) into a room as a group and the collective intelligence drops by about 30%? I see it a lot because as social animals people subsume a part of their thinking to the group. All cultures experience this (in Japan - the nail that stands up gets hammered down).
People are driven by their incentives and the balance between perceived risk and reward. Were you to read the Congressional Record from July 1, 1999 you would find a letter which Alan Greenspan wrote to John Dingell of Michigan. In it he expressed significant concerns with the House Bill concerning the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (Gramm, Leach, Bliley). He stated that, as written, the bill would incentivize the creation of financial institutions which would be too big to fail. On the floor of the House, John Dingell specifically said that the bill would return the financial system to an environment similar to that which existed prior to the Great Depression. Come Lehman Brothers and 2008, this is precisely what happened.
So when one considers not individuals per se and their character but rather groups of individuals with certain specific incentives think about the long term ramifications.
To support the aphorism above consider:
1. The Great Recession.
2. An unaccountable financial sector.
3. Off shoring of entire manufacturing sectors and the consequent loss of employment and opportunity.
4. No substantive prosecutions of what was very arguably manufactured malfeasance surrounding derivatives trading.
Much of this financial crisis was created by an environment which was entirely the doing of lobbyists, elected officials, and the finance industry. Who keeps finance people out of jail? Lawyers.
I live is Utah, USA. My son is 5 now and was in preschool when the pandemic started. He goes to a private school. They closed for about three months when everything started and did an online version that we didn’t participate in because trying to get a 3 year old to engage was pointless. His school returned to in person schooling in June of 2020. They requested masks but I could tell that the mask policy wasn't being enforced because his bag of reusable masks wasn’t getting smaller. I was appreciative of that fact. Utah stopped the mask mandate for non-public entities at some point in 2020 and then the teachers stopped wearing them as well. My son is almost 6 and doesn’t have a really clear understanding of Covid at all. His teachers don’t talk about it with the kids. He’s heard about it and some of his friends got the vaccine. There has not been one outbreak in his school that I am aware off.
We just got Covid on Monday. I’m sure it’s the lesser omi version because while it is not fun, it’s not horrible. The risk to kids is so minuscule. On day 4 we’ve only heard him cough three times. I’m so happy my sons school didn’t engage in these stupid scare tastics and fill him with fear. I worried enough for both of us.
Great to hear. We are probably headed your way in the fall.
My 11 year old starts therapy next week. I have tried everything I can think of to help his anxiety. What have we done to our kids?
Start by teaching him by example not to be afraid. A people that lives in fear cannot be free. Show defiance. Show resistance. Show resolution. Show courage. Show that there are more important things than simply surviving. Most important show a free mind and free will. Therapists may or may not help. The teachings of the ages will. Jesus. Marcus Aurelius, the Greeks, etc. Open his mind to truth.
Jennifer, my heart goes out to you. I have 15, 14 and 12 year old girls. We started homeschooling our kids and have discovered this whole closet network of people who refuse to live in fear. That may not be the right thing for you, but don't lose hope.
Whether therapy will help is debatable (keep the therapist on a short leash), but Bruce (above) had a good suggestion. Show your son examples of courage, of people who refused to live in fear. If you're Christian, study the lives of the apostles and early Church fathers. He's a boy -- have him read about the Battle of Thermopylae, or the defense of Constantinople, or the storming of Normandy, or Hacksaw Ridge. History is replete with incredibly courageous men. Use them to help your son. He deserves to not live in fear.
Elect local prosecutors who promise to seek prison time for the administrators.
Elect school boards that promise to eliminate ALL administrative positions. Take the excess millions and give it to the teachers.
Elect politicians who will break apart unions and have teacher pay contingent on, at the very least, appearing in person.
The administrators were either actively involved in pushing this or they were cowards protecting their $100k/yr free money for life pension.
Either way, prison.
This comes up all the time: in any analysis, it was the electorate that is responsible for all of this. As but one example, when 50 percent of the people CHOSE a pathetic, demented has-been for POTUS (and the rest, all the way down), ostensibly because they just couldn't abide someone their idiot boxes and Facebook accounts told them was Orange Man Bad, or that had (R) next to their name, bad things happen.
Until that changes, this will continue. It will actually be worse and worse, because the choices will be (AOC? Ilhan Omar?). Ultimately, it's hard to have sympathy for problems people choose for themselves.
The teachers are a big part of this in more ways than one.
Thank you for this; it's good to hear a Toronto teacher express frustration and alarm for students' mental wellbeing. We yanked our three children from school this month in Toronto because they (and we) had finally had enough of the backpedaling, the uncertainty around school closures, the torture of remote schooling (anyone who tries to defend Zoom school as a legitimate educational tool for 6-year-olds is not a serious person). But more than that, we were disheartened by the staunch religiosity that teachers enforcing covid rules have adopted. There is something fundamentally different about a teacher like you enforcing rules because she has to and one who truly believes that a plexiglass barrier put up at lunchtime is all that's standing between them and imminent death. Or one who hectors students and tells them that they literally will kill other people if their paw patrol mask isn't pulled above the nose or who tries to enforce social distancing in a classroom of 30 students. The rules are cruel precisely because they are irrational, unscientific, yes, but also impossible to follow. We finally realized we could step off this crazy wheel but it hasn't come without its costs to us personally. I can only imagine what the costs to society at large will be. The future will not be kind to those who treated our children and youth so terribly.
Welcome to the ranks of the home educating, the great underground body of parents who refuse to raise their kids in fear. We're glad to have you.
What were the net costs to you personally? That's costs minus the benefits
One of us has to quit working to educate our children, so how do you quantify that? Income loss? Professional mobility?
Private schools in Toronto are required to follow provincial and city laws as well so they're not much better.
Thank you , thank you, thank you! I too am a teacher of high school students, although teaching in the United States, and this is exactly what I am seeing and working with every day. It is good to know that it's not just me and the few colleagues who are brave enough to admit it when we talk over drinks. What the "experts" did to these children and are still doing will rank among the worst domestic policy decision's of the last one hundred years. I want an apology from the CDC and short of that, get these kids back to a normal school, no masks, no distancing asap.
UK is now leading on this. How far behind will we be. What was Kerry’s famous line about the last soldier to die for a foolish war? This was the “Viet Nam” of public health endeavors.
Brian, when do the teachers take a risk and stand up for their students?
We live in Maine, which can be a very depressing place much of the year. Early on, we understood that our daughter, then 16, was at little to no risk from the virus and allowed her to continue any activities that were not canceled, as well as maintain her social life and work. Although my husband and I took the vaccines, we did not choose to vaccinate her. She and I both contracted what we believe was Delta in August. We were both sick for two weeks, but she bounced back quicker than I despite our vaccination status. She has largely come through the pandemic ok, despite some initial anxiety when not wearing a mask in public. Lately she has expressed some other unusual anxieties which we are seeking help for her to deal with. I am left to wonder if they are related to the general amount of elevated anxiety in our culture, especially among teenage girls. I believe she will be fine, but my heart breaks for the kids whose parents are uninvolved or exceedingly fearful themselves. We have only just seen the tip of the iceberg, as yesterday's heartbreaking interview illustrated..
Bari, we agree on little politically, but I listen eagerly to every one of your podcasts. Your interviews and the subjects you choose are interesting, fair and thoughtful. I really appreciate your forthrightness in confronting what can be uncomfortable subjects for many journalists. You are bold. Thank you for being unafraid to ask tough questions that sometimes reveal difficult truths. We don't have to agree. We just need to be able to be respectfully honest.
Isn't it perfectly clear by now that we live in an" idiocracy?" A society ruled by idiots. Based on a fierce ideology of guilt, shame and stupidity. And inhabited by a far-too-large segment of servile idiots who refuse to think for themselves and hang on every momentary edict that is contradicted by the next foolish rule. We have mandates and identity cards for vaccines that don't protect against the virus. We have anti-human nature and vastly unconstitutional lockdown mandates that did more harm than good, enforced by authoritarian twits without any jurist having the guts and brains to strike them down. We have destroyed our economies and, worst of all, harmed children. And who are the biggest proponents of this masked insanity. Let's admit it. The woke. And their vast media apparatus that propagates their lies. The vicious fools lifted the health care workers as "heroes" then turned on them when they demurred vaccination. These people are the existential threat. They are no longer to be mocked. They are to be punished and crushed for the damage they have done. To our nation. To our communities and most of all, to our children.
Social Media is the great enabler of the Idiocracy. People who see what's going on now should permanently boycott it.
Left wingers are idiots, well intended but dumb.
That's needlessly flattering--where are the good intentions?
Good intentions that are felt and deeply undermined by illogic
masks were the ultimate virtue signal and we always knew that most masks provided (under the best circumstances - fitted, etc) limited protection even to the OG, less contagious covid and yet like 'pussy hats' they instantly told the world that you were not only virtuous but to the intelligent ones it told them you were pliable and compliant. Even my 15yr old new the fabric masks were for decoration only...
Please don’t conflate all masks together. My family has only been wearing 95s from the start, and they actually do protect the wearer very well.
Do you think it is The Peter Principle in full view? "People rise to their level of incompetence."
Great analogy. The Peter Principle is on full view in Washington D.C.
Yes: incompetence is enjoying a rebirth, everyone’s opinion must be given it’s due.
The "woke" are encouraged, massively financed and fully supported by 'corp.gov.msm.' While all of the woke circuses are constantly paraded into our faces, 'corp.gov.msm' conducts business as usual with no room left for any questions about things like child labor, bombed out weddings, shady business practices, massive pesticide and chemical additives injected into everything, elites constantly scheming to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone and everything else, etc. Who has time to deal with any of that when it's a huge 24/7 outrage that Johnny can't use the little girls restroom or your recalcitrant two year old won't keep his mask on while on the plane, or the entire east coast will be under water by 2020. Oh, wait...need some time to rework that one.
“She told me that she didn’t want to get anyone sick or kill anybody. She was worried she would be held responsible for someone dying.”
——————————————
As I was jogging, a 13ish-year-old girl saw me coming and walked 40 feet off the sidewalk onto the grass, towards a wooded area. But I had seen her coming first so I had already moved off of the sidewalk into the road to give her easily 15 feet of space. This is happening outdoors.
Permanent psychological damage. PERMANENT.
Which reminds me of when Joe Biden saw an 11-year-old girl sitting in the front row at a town hall and he said
“Look at her sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed. She looks like she’s 19!!”
😳😳😳
Okay it didn’t really remind me of that, I just bring that up as often as possible. Told the Wendy’s drive thru guy about it yesterday.
I urge everyone to listen to James Lindsay on this issue. Just because ‘communist plot’ sounds conspiratorial, that doesn’t mean *nothing* is a communist plot.
The goal is to destabilize children all the way down to their identity. That’s because destabilized victim groups are easier to convert into revolutionaries.
The people who did this need to be dealt with in the most extreme way that is allowed by law. And this is important by the way. If thousands of people are dragged off to prison that provides clear tangible evidence to the children that they were in fact systematically abused. If nothing happens to the perpetrators the kids will just blame themselves.
There hasn't been a logical, intelligent response to public sector malfeasance since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers FORTY years ago. Even at the time, there were cries he was somehow pissing on the foundations of life itself. However, he was cast from a different mold. It is inconceivable to think today's "leaders" will act in a way that upholds the dignity of the voters. Choices and incentives--always will be. Choose wisely or suffer the consequences.
Prison is nice but they deserve the gibbet. The thought of Fauci's little feet dancing in the air as penance for his treachery and mendacity has been foremost on my mind.
You’re very disturbed.
Fauci Derangement Syndrome ("FDS"). Garden Gnomes hit hardest.
Daughter C has been texting me this morning about some of the things male coworkers at the auto dealership say to her. "You're looking juicy!" "You're mysterious and alluring!" "Those are beautiful kneecaps!" (seriously)
Just like with Joe Biden, no amount of telling them, "We don't do this," makes any difference. I told her to imagine they have tentacles growing out of their noses.
So girls don’t like it when you describe them as ‘juicy’ in the workplace?????
🤯🤯🤯✍️✍️
Seriously, what part of New Jersey do you live in?
😂😂🙏🙏
I won't take the New Jersey crack personally.
I remember when young girls (and even women my age, unnngh) were wearing pants with "Juicy" on the butt. Daughter C probably wanted to but wasn't allowed, feeding her sense of lifelong grievance and injustice. (To be fair, life in the Real World is knocking that out of her pretty quickly.)
Glad to see James Lindsay referenced here. I highly recommend people read the book he co-authored with Helen Pluckrose, Cynical Theories.
My 12th grade teenaged son finally had enough yesterday. Just said "no" to the teacher when asked to put his mask on. The teacher told him he was being disrespectful of others and could spread disease and then walked away. My son left his mask off.
I told my son I supported him and this nonsense is over now. If he's suspended or expelled, so be it. We're finished with the craziness.
I hope your son was allowed to continue with his classes unabated. The teacher had no choice but to follow the rules, even if they aren't logical. The rule was to say something to him, but apparently it wasn't enforced.
Whenever any rule is imposed, a percentage of people will intentionally break it. Whenever a poll is taken, a percentage of people will give false answers. Usually, it's because these people are "contrary," but after a certain point, most people will rebel.
Your son knows the mask was ineffective and so does his teacher. It is also known that certain drugs "clear" Covid, but are not prescribed because they weren't specifically designed for it, but "everybody knows,"
"The teacher had no choice."
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
The teacher has a choice. They all do. They'd rather go with conformity over their students' well being. To their everlasting shame.
There are always choices, but some of them will get you fired. Teachers as a group are one thing, because they have a union, but as individuals, not so much. Freely thinking is frowned upon. Wake up! You are supposed to be living in the real world.
Let me fix that for you, Lenny:
See, junior, your teacher could have looked out for you, but they were too busy goldbricking their pension, benefits, sick pay, no show job (you were learning by zoom most of the last two years, after all) and the occasional guest article on substack complaining that they really want to do the right thing but can't to have time for things like your well being.
But don't worry, kids are resilient they tell me (not that I'd know, I didn't have two+ years of school, sports, extracurriculars, social events, etc canceled when I was a kid). I'm sure you'll be fine.
And if nothing else, you'll have learned a great lesson that when adults tell you to be a person of principle, do the right thing, have morals and standards and all the rest it is really all bullshit. That's what they want for you. Their idea of morals, principles, standards and the right thing is a fat pension check after years of a no show job that allows them to preen about all the good things they are doing for society. And if takes crapping on a generation of children to reach your highest moral and principled state?
Well, gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette.
Well, this is a bit cynical in tone. But it's also true...
You have your spiel to make, but you haven't paid attention to what I wrote. You completely missed the point, but your point is to start an argument. Sorry, but your specious game does not interest me. Grow up!
No, I saw what you wrote. You wrote that in a conflict between their students well being and what their paymasters want, the only realistic option for a teacher is to go along with the paymaster.
Now, as far as missing points goes, you have done a helluva job missing mine, but I'm not really expecting you or anyone else with your lack of mental acuity to address it because there is nothing to say. You (plural) know every last thing I wrote is the truth, and you'll do anything you can to avoid it because it makes a moral midget like yourself feel smaller still.
Kids are resilient, though. Not adults. They aren't resilient. They need a teachers union and school bureaucracy to protect them. Kids, on the other hand, whatever we have to throw at them we will. I might get a letter in my file otherwise. Can't have that, No-Sir-Ee.
In my NJ town, the 2 private schools have been opened and functioning pretty much the entire pandemic with the exception of the first few months of lockdown in spring 2020. The public schools here have been closed mostly with remote learning for almost 2 years! The Teacher's Union in this country should be ashamed of themselves.
While I agree with the culpability of the unions, I think we must acknowledge that individual teachers make up the unions, and most of them support this nonsense. What's not to like? The lockdowns (I never blame Covid itself) have provided teachers with an indefinite paid vacation.
Yes yes yes. Do not let the individual teachers off the hook here.
Thanks for taking the GUTS to write this heartfelt story.
Unfortunately the facts are pretty much irrelevant. Sane people understood all of this from the start, and still understand it. The insane psychopaths in charge of public "health" departments also understand the facts, even though they've been lying through the media. Their goal is torture and ruination, not health. This is delicious porn for Public "Health" monsters.