Don't bother my poor children. After all the time he spent attacking the Hunter Biden and others who did not even work in the government.
I did find this headline interesting... Apparently Daddy is okay with Donald Jr being molested in the showers... But not his Ivanka...
"Michael Cohen says Donald Trump told him if one of his kids had to go to prison to 'make sure' it was Donald Jr., not Ivanka"
If you are curious why Donald is so worried that his family maybe wearing matching striped outfits... Here are some recent headlines:
- Business Fraud, Abuse of Power and/or Inciting Violence
- NY Fraud Court Filings
- Scotland Course Valuation
- GA "Find Me 11,000 Votes"
- SCOTUS Allows House to Have Trump Documents
- Civil Liability Cases
And if the they are not in prison, I am certain there are going to be a lot of investors / banks who are interested in suing for damages. This is interesting.
My question is: Does anyone think Trump is innocent of sexual assault, improperly inflating / deflating property valuations, trying to pressure GA SOS to commit fraud, inciting violence, other?
87 comments:
Here is a list of investigations and suits
GOP paying legal bills
I think the kids should be off limits. I'm not interested in how much Hunter wants to sell his paintings for, just as I am not much interested in how much Don, Jr. gets for renting rooms. But when Hunter advises his father on political matters, he should be open to questions.
In the cases of both Biden and Trump, if you don't want you kids involved in politics, don't involve them in politics.
--Hiram
I agree with your last sentence absolutely...
Where as Trump immersed them in his questionable business dealing and politics.
The issues surrounding Trump's business dealings are fascinating, at least to me. They raise questions, not just about politics, but about how business is done in America. The Elizabeth Holmes Theranos case does to, and many of the issues are similar.
The issue raised in both cases, have to do with deception. Is it okay to lie? Is it okay to say things that are not true if all parties know or should know they are not true? Should the consequences be different depending on the context, whether we are talking about politics, civil or criminal contexts.
I start from the position that Trump doesn't tell the truth. I think that assumption is widely shared. It's why banks won't loan him money. I believe Trump's TV show was an ironic commentary on wealth in the immediate post September 11th. I thought the show was by a broke guy playing a wealthy guy on TV. Was I wrong in any of those assumptions? And if I were right, how can I accuse Trump of lying when he was simply acting a part? After all, we don't really think the father of the actor playing Hamlet was just murdered by his Mom's husband, no matter what he goes on about on stage.
--Hiram
Personal greed does seem to make people believe the unbelievable.
As WC Fields says...
Whipsnade says that his grandfather Litvak's last words, spoken "just before they sprung the trap", were: "You can't cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump."
Apparently though grandfather Litvak paid for that lifestyle with his life... :-O
Trump is a con man, and con men are notoriously likable. And con men have a peculiar appeal to Americans. As I am fond of saying our fondness for the con explains why the musical isn't called "Marian the Librarian". Just between you and me, I kind of like Trump. But I would never buy a bond from him. What I don't understand, is that other people who wouldn't buy a bond from him were and are willing to entrust the presidency to him.
--HIram
That is the odd thing...
Most sane people would never borrow the man money or leave their daughter alone with him...
And yet they want him in the White House.
Maybe they think they will gain from Trump's corrupt ways?
Again forgetting that Trump only thinks of Trump.
I am watching a course on WW II. In this morning's episode about the lead up to the war, the professor said that whenever pointed out the inconsistency or impossibility of any of the Nazi's positions, they would respond simply by saying, "We will make it work." We will overcome any obstacle through the power of our will. I think that's Trump's answer to the concerns raised. The past doesn't matter, politics doesn't matter, not even his past as a tawdry con man matters. What matters is the power of his will. Has he even now, been proven wrong? Hitler was proven wrong when the Red Army arrived outside Berlin. Will something of a similar nature be required to prove Trump wrong now?
--Hiram
I don't know what would sway people like Jerry?
167 Pants on Fire rulings and he still trusts Trump's words...
I am sure if Trump goes to jail, Jerry will be claiming it was all political.
I don't think identifying problems with Trump sways his supporters because they knew what he was going in. Trump would argue that he would clean up the tax system and that he was well suited for that because he knew how to benefit from what the tax system got wrong. Well, of course, that disappeared the moment he took office, if not before. And what we have learned since is that what Trump benefits from isn't exactly problems with the tax laws, as it is problems with tax enforcement.
--Hiram
One of my greatest frustrations was that he promised to work down the National Debt...
Instead he added $7.5+ Trillion. :-O
And that was just in 4 years... Imagine if he had had 8. :-O
off topic link:
The republican agenda:
https://wapo.st/3tUjWd8
Trump was risk averse. Reducing the national debt really means reducing defense spending. And that is incredibly hard to do. Trump could have reduced health care spending, but it's hard to do that without reducing health care. In both cases, there is no positive support for those reductions. Nobody is contributing to political campaigns to spend less, because they aren't the ones who spend money.
I have often talked about The Terminator as an attractive political model. It got Arnold Schwarzenegger elected governor of California twice. The Terminator is implacable and incorruptible. Nobody lobbies The Terminator. The Terminator doesn't care how he polls. The Terminator gets things done. We would like our politicians to be like that, and a lot of people thought Donald Trump would be like that. I would have wanted to him be like that. But like in California we elected an archetype, and got an actor.
--Hiram
Laurie,
The piece asked a good question.
What do the Republicans in the Senate want?
And it sad that McConnell apparently does not want to say.
After that it somewhat went off the rails.
It seems to me that it summed out the GOP agenda pretty well. Which of the bullet points from the article do you disagree with?
They want to protect the super-rich from paying more taxes,
They would like to do away with the child tax credit that cut child poverty by 40 percent.
They are in favor of forcing women to continue pregnancies and giving birth, even in cases of rape and incest.
They oppose new subsidies for green energy, measures to phase out of coal and higher car mileage standards (ie doing things to combat climate change)
They are devoted to making voting harder and giving Republican lawmakers the ability to elbow out nonpartisan election officials so they can control vote-counting.
There were a few other points from the article that I left out of this summary.
President Biden at his news conference last week asked the question that the media should have been asking Republicans for months: “What are they for?”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) won’t say. Asked last week what was in Republicans’ agenda if they regain control of Congress, McConnell told reporters: “That is a very good question. And I’ll let you know when we take it back.”
Consider the arrogance and disdain for voters inherent in that answer. Responsiveness to the voters? Solutions to the problems they complain about, such as inflation? Only suckers would care about such things, Republicans seem to believe. They prefer to spend their time concocting cultural wedge issues, spreading conspiracy theories and obstructing progress on issues for which there is broad, bipartisan consensus (e.g., a path to citizenship, reasonable gun laws).
But it would be misleading to say Republicans are not for anything; they certainly do have an agenda. The problem is that it is so unpopular they dare not remind voters about their plans.
Republicans have clear views on taxes. They want to protect the super-rich from paying more taxes, even though billionaires became 62 percent richer during the pandemic and many pay practically no federal income taxes. And Republicans really don’t want corporations to pay their fair share either. They favor keeping the corporate tax rate at 21 percent, even though corporate income taxes make up a mere 7 percent of federal revenue. (The Tax Policy Center reports: “Revenue from [corporate taxes] has fallen from an average of 3.7 percent of GDP in the late 1960s to an average of just 1.4 percent of GDP over the past five years, and 1.1 percent of GDP most recently in 2019.”)
Republicans are also for underfunding the Internal Revenue Service so that the agency does not have adequate resources to enforce existing tax laws. And they would like to do away with the child tax credit that cut child poverty by 40 percent. It is not a stretch to say Republicans actively promote income and wealth inequality.
Republicans are in favor of forcing women to continue pregnancies and giving birth, even in cases of rape and incest. They also delight in incentivizing Americans to spy on pregnant women whose reproductive choices don’t match the party’s religious doctrine and to turn them in for bounties. Meanwhile, they strenuously favor protecting anyone who refuses to be vaccinated or wear a mask. In other words, Republicans favor “personal choice” when it comes to preventing the spread of a deadly disease, but not when it comes to a woman’s body.
Republicans are all in when it comes to keeping in place monuments to the slave-owning traitors of the Confederacy; removing anything from school curriculum that might make White people feel uncomfortable, including Martin Luther King Jr. and the KKK; and stopping the FBI from investigating death threats against school board members and other public officials. No wonder white supremacists are so enamored with the GOP these days.
Republicans are also the best friends of climate change. Why else would they oppose the Paris accords, new subsidies for green energy, measures to phase out of coal and higher car mileage standards? They are, however, all for emergency aid when extreme weather strikes — but only for their own states.
And now we know Republicans are devoted to making voting harder and giving Republican lawmakers the ability to elbow out nonpartisan election officials so they can control vote-counting. They are definitely for respecting election outcomes — only when they win.
You don’t have to be a mind reader to figure out why McConnell wants to conceal Republicans’ agenda for as long as possible. What’s not to like?
They want to protect the super-rich from paying more taxes
Republicans really don’t want corporations to pay their fair share either.
Republicans are also for underfunding the Internal Revenue Service so that the agency does not have adequate resources to enforce existing tax laws.
And they would like to do away with the child tax credit that cut child poverty by 40 percent.
Republicans are in favor of forcing women to continue pregnancies and giving birth,
protecting anyone who refuses to be vaccinated or wear a mask
Republicans are all in when it comes to keeping in place monuments to the slave-owning traitors of the Confederacy;
removing anything from school curriculum that might make White people feel uncomfortable,
Republicans are also the best friends of climate change.
All for emergency aid when extreme weather strikes — but only for their own states.
Republicans are devoted to making voting harder.
Giving Republican lawmakers the ability to elbow out nonpartisan election officials so they can control vote-counting.
Laurie,
It is true that the DEMs believe in extreme government intervention to fix all evils in the USA / world. Usually at the expense of folks who learned, worked, saved and invested. Where as the GOP is very different.
For better or worse, we usually tax on profits, capital gains or income earned. It is true that the GOP does not to change this, where as the DEMs want to go after wealth / savings. :-O
Corporations can and do move if the USA is not tax competitive. And corporations generate a LOT of taxes from salaries, dividends, capital gains, property taxes. Remember that we want US Corporations strong and profitable for many reasons.
Personally I have never understand why we tax payers are paying people to have and raise kids in this over populated world? If you can not afford them... Do not have so many...
Yes GOPers do not support stilling the beating heart of a baby that is in essence on a biological life support systems. Never quite understood why DEMs are?
Stopping a beating heart vs wearing a mask / vaccinated... Really?
They think statues are history... Something I disagree with.
Seems a non-issue if schools are not teaching "Critical Race Theory". Which I keep being told they are not.
They think States and Businesses should fix things... Where as DEMs want to spend a large amount of money in hopes that it fixes less than it harms... I think the best path is somewhere in the middle.
I think every state gets disaster aid. Not sure why the FEDS need to bail out States so often?
I agree that the GOP is on the wrong side of the voter issue.
so it sounds like you support most of the the GOP agenda, as listed by Jennifer Rubin.
I wonder if any GOP candidates will campaign on these policy proposals.
The reason we use exaggeration isn't true but because it works. I think it's pretty obvious that Republicans who immediately call anything Democrats say is part of their "extreme left wing agenda" haven't conducted a careful and measured examination of what is being proposed. They are simply quotes a well compensated political consultant found worked well in polling and focus groups. Meanwhile, like the Virginia governor, they restrict teaching in schools of anything that might make students sad.
Maybe the extreme choices are the right choices. Certainly, balancing the budget if that's what we want to do would require a number of them. Prior to WW II our military budget didn't threat to bankrupt us. It doesn't have to do it today, and in fairness I hear right commentators make that point. That's one of the things "America First" means after all. So does withdrawal from Afghanistan.
--Hiram
Hiram,
The Defense budget is a small portion of the total government spend... ~5% of Federal Budget. <5% of Total Government Spend... And I think we have many more threats to the homeland than in 1929...
Laurie,
I am not sure I agree with the GOP positions, however I do disagree with Jennifer's wording of the positions. And I am pretty sure that is exactly what the GOP will run on.
It seems aligned with their platform. Or do you disagree?
Defense spending is about a quarter of the budget. If you had health care and pensions, to defense spending, that constitutes more than three fourths of the budget. This is why the federal government is sometimes described as an insurance company with an army. To balance the budget without increasing revenue, you have to cut spending. That is doable of course, but can it be done in a way that doesn't involve accusations about pursuing an extreme agenda?
--Hiram
Compare the increase in defense spending this year versus the projected annual deficit impact of BBB (hint: BBB is lower, especially if you use Treasury's estimate of the impact of IRS reforms). Which one have we debated more?
"And I think we have many more threats to the homeland than in 1929..."
More threats? Certainly. I would argue, though, that we're in a better security place than we were then. We're the unquestioned superpower right now. No one would be in position to defeat us militarily -- the best they could hope for is mutually assured destruction. And no amount of defense spending could protect us from that fate.
One of the great things about The Terminator was that he was immune to criticism. the Terminator doesn't care what people say about him. The Terminator doesn't worry about being laughed at. In the terms of the second movie, The Terminator is okay with being a dork. We wanted Trump to be that way, but strangely he wasn't. Trump, who had been a figure of fun all his life, a clown of capitalism, once he came into office became obsessed with criticism and that the possibility that he would be laughed at. One reason his response to the the pandemic was fear of what the Democrats might say. Of our population of over three hundred million people, only Donald Trump is afraid of what Democrats might say.
--Hiram
Hiram, Source please.
Sean,
BBB is only a small part of our social security feeding trough... Let's compare the Defense expense to the whole "wealth redistribution system" if you want compare apples to apples.
I am fine with reducing the role and funding of the Defense dept, but let's remember that if they are not fighting over there... We may be fighting more over here.
"Let's compare the Defense expense to the whole "wealth redistribution system" if you want compare apples to apples."
I am comparing apples to apples. I'm comparing change in deficit as a result of discretionary policy choices.
Sean,
Any source that explains your comparison?
Here is an interesting piece that explains Defense spending, Past and Present.
CBO BBB Analysis
Your CBO source says "CBO estimates that enacting this legislation would result in a net increase in the deficit totaling $367 billion over the 2022-2031 period, not counting any additional revenue that may be generated by additional funding for tax enforcement."
That's an average of $36.7B per year, and doesn't include revenue that would be gained from Biden's proposal for increased IRS enforcement. Some estimates of how much money that could raise make BBB deficit-reducing, all of them reduce the cost significantly. (CBPP: Build Back Better Would Save About $2 Trillion in Second Decade)
Meanwhile, "President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, authorizing $768.2 billion in military spending, including a 2.7% pay raise for service members, for 2022.
The NDAA authorizes a 5% increase in military spending, and is the product of intense negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over issues ranging from reforms of the military justice system to COVID-19 vaccine requirements for soldiers."
PBS: Biden authorizes $768.2 billion in defense spending, a 5 percent increase
A 5% increase that results in a $768.2B defense budget is an increase of $36.6B.
I am sorry, but I am hard pressed to see the "pay back" of the expenditure...
"BBB would address important issues facing the nation, such as climate change, child care and education, housing, paid leave, immigration, poverty, and income inequality, making sorely needed federal investments and raising revenues from the well off and large corporations. Any assessment of the bill should focus mainly on the merits of these policies."
Wouldn't we better off just giving additional funding to the IRS and raising some taxes?
Then we could truly decrease the deficit?
There are lots of charts out there. I think one difference Din the percentage of defense spending is due to what else is included. Are we talking about overall spending or just discretionary spending? Does spending include income shifts? The government issues Social Security checks, but that's really nothing more than money shifting between payroll taxes and recipients, and it's not discretionary.
Basically, to make a significant dent in the deficit, without delving into mandatory spending for which there is no political support, you have to cut health care spending or defense spending. Both can be done, but not in ways that won't be painful, or in ways that can't be described as someone's extreme political agenda.
At the moment, we might very well be in the early stages of going to war in Ukraine, what Neville Chamberlain might call "A far away country about which we know nothing." I have been getting vibes from right wing sources that we shouldn't do that. Whether or not I agree with that, I don't think that is unreasonable. But if we don't do things like defend Ukraine, what will be the impact on our alliances? And why exactly do we maintain an extremely expensive military if we are unwilling to use it?
--Hiram
Sean,
Per your PBS source, it sounds like a LOT of negotiation occurred before they passed the Defense bill.
Hiram,
Unfortunately we tend to use the military more than we would like to.
That is why so much of the funding goes to pay for old and injured veterans. :-(
Not sure why we all just don't let Russia and China expand as they wish?
Seems like something the DEMs would support.
"Per your PBS source, it sounds like a LOT of negotiation occurred before they passed the Defense bill."
OK. So what?
Sean,
I am not trying to make light of your comparison.
I am just trying to make sure we are comparing apples and apples.
BBB includes expenditures, benefits and tax increases.
The on going budget includes expenditures (defense), benefits and revenue increases.
The Defense budget increased by a bit less than the inflation rate.
Meaning it stayed the same.
The revenues that pay for it increased with the GDP increase.
Not sure how to compare these... Unless we wanted to not raise the defense budget for inflation?
Unfortunately we tend to use the military more than we would like to.
Cutting the budget deficit is going to mean making choices we don't like. That's why people who want to reduce the deficit speak in abstract terms. They talk about numbers, not what the numbers mean. And whenever possible they shift both the tough choices, and the burden of those tough choices on to others. They don't come to grips with the policies themselves.
We could address the budget deficit by cutting back on defense. But those who want to do that must say that and take responsibility for it. They must go back to their districts and their constituents who lost their jobs at the local defense plant, and explain to them, the reason why they lost their job is that the budget must be balanced. I have never seen much enthusiasm among politicians for doing things like that.
--Hiram
Yep... Most adult citizens have a vested in the government spending more than it collects. :-(
Unfortunately the bill will come due for the USA sometime. :-O
Revenue issues are different from spending issues. They are not the same thing or mirror images of each other. We see this in household economics. The activities we engage in to bring money into our personal economies don't necessarily have much to do with how we send money out. In times of crisis they may literally have no relation to each other.
In government tax policy isn't linked to spending policy, at the federal level. Federal politicians who appear on the state level, our former congressman who is now a governor, sometimes have a difficult time grasping this. Our state budget must be balanced. There is a process in place for doing that. There is no such process on the federal level.
--Hiram
And I am certain most of our adult citizens are very thankful for that...
If adults were in charge, government would run deficits during recessions and surpluses during booms.
Unfortunately that would require more taxes and less spending...
Now who here other than me would vote for those politicians... :-O
I should say that Minnesota can't run a deficit. They can run a surplus as they are doing now.
In theory, taxing and spending policy should reflect prevailing economic positions but because all tax increases are politically unacceptable, only spending policy can be changed.
--Hiram
Unfortunately spending just seems to keep changing by going up
Spending increases because we are growing older. The way to reduce those increases is to stop growing older. We could die earlier, but we could also bring in younger people.
--Hiram
No. We can just stop giving older people more than they paid in...
My thought would be just to reduce the cost of care. Trump proposed cutting the cost of prescription drugs by 70%. I supported him in that.
--Hiram
When someone propose a drastic change like that...
I always wonder what the unintended consequences will be...
Maybe Biden should just order inflation to stop?
Balancing the budget by cutting health care costs is a drastic change and will have all sorts of consequences. Now, of course, we can cut health care costs somewhere besides drug costs, but those will have drastic an unintended consequences too. And all such policies will be labelled as "extreme" and as either socialist or fascist.
--Hiram
I agree. I think we should cut costs by just making citizens pay for their own healthcare costs...
I assume that new hip won't look so inviting as a cane for folks if they have to pay $20,000... :-)
400,000 of these each year?
"According to the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS), the cost of a hip replacement in the US ranges from $30,000 to $112,000. Your doctor will be able to provide the Medicare-approved price for the specific treatment you need."
No wonder Medicare costs so much
I agree. I think we should cut costs by just making citizens pay for their own healthcare costs...
that's who pays for them now. Doctors don't work for free. Who else would pay for health care? The hip replacement fairy?
--Hiram
That is an interesting name for Medicare and Medicaid...
"The Hip Replacement Fairy"
The idea that we should provide hip replacement surgeries only to those who can pay for them, is certainly interesting. I look forward to seeing it in campaign lit this fall.
--Hiram
As I said, few would vote for lower spending and higher taxes...
They are okay spending more than they pay...
What happens, at least in my world, is that people just walk away from high hospital bills. The costs of that are just passed on to everyone else. No doctor I know of, is going to put back an appendix just because he wasn't paid for removing it.
--Hiram
Yes Bad Debts and Bankruptcy are part of the system...
A good reason for people to pay their insurance premiums...
Insurance is how we pay for health care. We spread the cost around.
As it is, the system takes bad debt into account. It's an intended consequence of the health care system we have created by default. Decisions by default don't require a consensus.
--Hiram
For many Americans, we pay for healthcare with tax dollars.
Therefore the recipients have little money vested in watching their diet, exercising, etc...
Therefore many Americans are obese and in general unhealthy...
For many Americans, we pay for healthcare with tax dollars.
Sure. We pay for health care in a number of different ways. We just don't manage the way we pay for it. What I suspect that means is that way we pay for it is inefficient and adds to th cost. And I don't think anyone thinks that makes sense. We do it that way because we can't agree on an alternative.
Providing incentives for living healthy seems like pushing on the string to me. That often is the case with incentive based policy. I don't think people are fat because being thin doesn't save them money on their taxes.
--Hiram
Ah... But it is does make sense to reward healthy living people with lower premiums...
Unlike the government systems that give the same benefits for the same costs to the health conscious and the unhealthy folks.
No wonder WE are #1 among the OECD countries...
Then we wonder why our healthcare is so expensive... :-O
But it is does make sense to reward healthy living people with lower premiums...
What makes sense depends a lot on what the goal is. Incentives make sense if they affect the choices people make. Insurance companies often use incentives and they do it in many ways. For insuring a factory, they may require certain safety measures be in place, for example. But what I would suggest is the more seriously they are about those policies, the greater risk they are assuming, and the more confident they are that their policy affects choices actually made.
The basic nature of insurance is to encourage us to do risky things. While one could argue that it make sense that insurance should cost less if less risk is undertaken, it is possible to reduce the cost of insurance to zero just by not engaging in the risky behavior at all. That's an extremely powerful incentive. For me, a powerful incentive for not living in Florida is that if I don't, I don't have to pay for hurricane insurance.
--Hiram
In terms of incentives, some hospitals are putting the unvaccinated on the bottom of the priority list for organ transplants. Incentive policy can take all sorts of different forms.
--Hiram
Living is inherently risky... Many of the risks being outside one's control.
One's genetics may hold a time bomb just waiting to go off.
If it is not hurricanes, it may be tornadoes, hail storms, other.
Therefore insurance usually makes sense unless you are wealthy enough to bear the potential cost of loss. Or willing to risk a future bankruptcy.
And I do agree that if premiums are too low, it may encourage risky behaviors.
The biggest example of this was / is government subsidized flood insurance...
And I do agree that if premiums are too low, it may encourage risky behaviors.
Premiums must be priced to cover the cost of damages along with a profit. The deal with any insurance is that the transaction must be such that you would rather not have a claim than have a claim. To work, insurance is a bet you would rather lose than win.
More generally, it's common for people to argue that any attempt to reduce risk provides an incentive for risky behavior. I know it's an argument I hear all the time in a lot of different contexts. Seat belts encourage risky driving, hockey helmets encourage risky play, that sort of thing. These days I often hear that measures designed to stop Covid, cause more harm than good. It's just a way that many people think.
--Hiram
Have you ever tried to force a horse to drink?
The trick is not to get to that point. It is in the nature of things that there will always be those who reject prevailing views. From the moment scientists figured out the world was wrong, there were people who would argue ever more ferociously that it is flat.
I never anticipated that there would be political resistance to the vaccine. Missed that one. But I wasn't at all surprised that there would be an urge to normalize the virus, to accept this as just one additional cause of death. That form of argument is very familiar to me. In the Kubler Ross stages of grief, that is the acceptance stage, and it is inevitable. What you try to do is put that stage off as long as possible, to not surrender to the disease.
In political terms, the framing was interesting. The vaccine, after all, was developed during a Republican administration. When he claims credit for it, Trump is not at his most implausible. Through gritted teeth, I was am prepared to give him a certain amount of that credit. But the fact that those things don't make a difference to Republicans is itself disturbing. It suggests that he is losing control of the forces he set in motion assuming that he ever had it.
--Hiram
I agree that it was odd that the same GOPers
who insisted it was the "Trump Vaccine"
refused to be inoculated...
Of course trying to force them strengthened the resistance...
They are stubborn and not so smart.
Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. Malcolm MacDowell is not being forced to listen to Beethoven. But we can choose to see it that way. And as we have seen, there are lots of people very eager to see political authority, as a form of force, just as there will always be people who will argue that the world is flat. And let's face it, maybe there was time when it was the recalcitrant, the resistant to authority who were the ones who argued the world was round.
--Hiram
I did say "trying to force"...
And I would say that "inject yourself with this or lose your livelihood" is about as forceful as it gets in the USA.
Force is force. Things that aren't force aren't force. Nobody forced the tennis player to take the vaccine and no one was forced to play with him. Just because false arguments seem more compelling than true arguments, that's no reason why they should be accepted.
We have a crisis. To respond to a crisis, effectively, I believe, we must understand it's nature. From the beginning, our leaders identified it as a political and economic crisis, and they responded to it that way. The results are economic consequences that weren't quite as severe as many people expected, and millions more dying who didn't need to die. It's a tradeoff.
--Hiram
Force... 3: violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing
Those who do not respond to kindness must yield to force.
Yes the wealthy tennis player made choices.
Now what about a struggling mother who lost her job because she feared the side effects of the vaccine?
Or if she relents to the force, gets the shot and now lives in fear of the long term consequence?
"Now what about a struggling mother who lost her job because she feared the side effects of the vaccine?"
For a guy who's been pretty consistent on the idea of employers having pretty unlimited right to hire and fire (even over things like dress and hair) and that people should take responsibility for their own decisions, this seems odd. If I'm a small business owner, I want my staff vaccinated because I can't afford to shut down my business for a period of time due to COVID wiping out everyone. If I'm a hospital, I can't take the risk of my employees spreading a respiratory virus among people who are already health-challenged.
Sean,
I am personally fine with a companies right to enforce a vaccine mandate for the good of their company, personnel and customers.
I am not so gung ho regarding Federal government vaccine mandates. At least not for something like COVID.
Mostly I was just disagreeing with Hiram's. "Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything."
The reality is that mandates are a form of force...
Just as making abortion illegal forces some very difficult choices...
The question as always is how far and when do we want the government twisting our arm to do the "right thing"?
If people are compelled to do things, they do them.
--Hiram
compelled: "to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly"
Or they resist with ever greater fervor.
Just think of all the rebellions that have been fought because of that "one mandate, tax, rule, etc" too many.
I just think of Malcolm MacDowell in "A Clockwork Orange".
--Hiram
Yes you are obsessed with his apparent compliance.
Not everyone is like a character in a science fiction film.
MacDowell didn't make a choice to comply. He was conditioned to apply. But what I am obsessed with here is the force that was used.
All choices have consequences. If we see those consequences as force, all choices are forced. The logic is impeccable.
--Hiram
Hiram,
That is definitely the victim mentality which many Americans share...
Thoughts regarding the Mother's choice?
Now what about a struggling mother who lost her job because she feared the side effects of the vaccine?
Or if she relents to the force, gets the shot and now lives in fear of the long term consequence?
Is it okay for a government to force / condition its citizens for the good of the country?
Now what about a struggling mother who lost her job because she feared the side effects of the vaccine?
It's her choice. Why would she want to work knowing she would be jeopardizing the health of others?
--Hiram
It is not her choice if they fire her for not being vaccinated...
Her only choice will be comply or be fired.
Which as Sean noted is something I am fine with.
However often Liberals are not.
I just posted a lot of irrational but real reasons in the comments over here.
Somebody is going to be forced to leave their workplace. It's just a question of whom. I know when there was no vaccine, I was forced not to go to a lot of places I would have liked to go to.
--Hiram
Were you "forced"... Or did you choose to not go there?
Did it impact your ability to pay your bills?
My only point is that government mandates are a form of force, and they should be used rarely.
Were you "forced"... Or did you choose to not go there?
Not according to my definition, but certainly according to yours. We can define terms broadly or narrowly but once we do we may end up with the consequences of that choice. It's possible to define "force" broadly, but then it will lose it's negative connotations. And the negative connotations were why the term was chosen and applied.
--Hiram
Was it because you were scared of contracting COVID?
or
Because the government mandated that the business be closed?
I think that is a pretty significant difference.
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