191–200 of 363 posts
In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails. The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you do…
> People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). It’s hard to find persistent daylight between those two things. (For the record, I wear masks outside and in grocery stores, which are the only shops I go to. I find this at least 75% common sense.) When it comes time though to force some…
At some point in dire situations, as a government, you have to save your citizens from themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Banning people from traveling, meeting each other, and working to earn a living and support themselves, are very much erosions of liberty, and people have been seriously impacted (particularly the poor). You are right, however, that they are not directly erosions of democracy. However, there are plenty of direct erosions of democracy, even here in the United States. Our democracy in the US is applied through the rule…
The court didn't find that Whitmer acted arbitrarily or capriciously, they simply ruled that she lacked the authority for the actions she took. (for instance, the first finding speaks of the initial 28 day declaration being within the authority of the governor) https://courts.michigan.gov/Courts/MichiganSupremeCourt/Cler... I'm being pedantic, but you are implying a narrative that doesn't exist.
Specifically, it found that that emergency powers act under which she acted was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority; the fundamental error the Court found was by the legislature, in not crafting an emergency powers law with sufficiently defined boundaries (or, alternatively, by not availing itself of the process to amend the Constitution to create broad emergency powers.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you do…
> People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead -- We're already doing this. > because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. Until when? The shutdowns were supposed to be about making sure that hospitals have time to prepare, research has time to be done, society has time to adapt. This has a…
Really? Because all the video's I've seen indicate politicians of a certain political persuasion (and their family members) doing the utmost to avoid wearing masks in situations that they should have known better.
>Until when? The shutdowns were supposed to be about making sure that hospitals have time to prepare, research has time to be done, society has time to adapt. This has already taken place.
Stop building this up into a strawman. Nobody is arguing that lockdowns should last forever.
> Should a layman be expected to know what a common sense response is for a pandemic? If such knowledge were that ubiquitous, we wouldn't be seeing these kinds of issues, so calling it "common sense" serves only to insult people who don't agree with you here.
Is wearing a mask so that your drops of saliva and nasal discharge doesn't reach and infect others that hard to understand?
> Except the virus was thought to be much more deadly at first, and the efficacy of cotton masks has been and is still a controversial subject.
It isn't controversial at the very least, see my post above. It doesn't take a genius to see how a barrier that slows or blocks droplets in and out of your orifices can help to prevent the spread of respiratory disease.
> If you truly believe it is "common sense" to do things differently, you might be inclined to think there's some kind of conspiracy going on.
Nice of you to bring up "conspiracy". And here I am thinking that it was incompetence and politicisation all along.. silly me.
In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails. The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.
I agree with you completely. I get regularly downvoted here for promoting free speech and denouncing all forms of web censorship. Websites and their obscure “Terms of Service” and “Community Guidelines” are eroding those rights and should be fully compliant with the first amendment if operating in the United States, similar to how websites operating in the EU must comply with the GDPR. I forgot how the United States…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Every single time I was told that I was throwing my vote away or voting for one of the major party villains. The refrain essentially is that you must vote for the candidate we say is most likely to win and if you don't, then you're helping the next runner up. I believe that if we no longer reported polling results and had election results reported at the same time, then the problem I describe above would be signifi…
Reduced? Probably. Meaningfully? I don't think so. It's baked in to the system: if your equivalent (nth party voter) on the other side of the political spectrum switches their vote to the mainstream party and you don't, then the mainstream party you're more aligned with is disadvantaged. There's nothing subjective here; it's just how the system works. We desperately need a voting system that allows you to express you…
It's also unlikely to ever happen, because the only ones with the power to do it are the ones that would be displaced.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you do…
>People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Whether you agree with it or not, how would a mask mandate not be an authoritarian restriction?
If "authoritarian" includes every rule that affects how we interact with each other in public you've pretty much gone into nihilistic territory it seems to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you do…
>People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Whether you agree with it or not, how would a mask mandate not be an authoritarian restriction?
How about a mandate to clear the pavement/sidewalk in front of your house of snow so that pedestrians don't fall and break their hip?
Having laws doesn't mean you're being oppressed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Banning people from traveling, meeting each other, and working to earn a living and support themselves, are very much erosions of liberty, and people have been seriously impacted (particularly the poor). You are right, however, that they are not directly erosions of democracy. However, there are plenty of direct erosions of democracy, even here in the United States. Our democracy in the US is applied through the rule…
The court didn't find that Whitmer acted arbitrarily or capriciously, they simply ruled that she lacked the authority for the actions she took. (for instance, the first finding speaks of the initial 28 day declaration being within the authority of the governor) https://courts.michigan.gov/Courts/MichiganSupremeCourt/Cler... I'm being pedantic, but you are implying a narrative that doesn't exist.
On the other hand, you can go next door to Ohio and find a ruling using that language in Rock House Fitness et al v. Amy Acton and Lake County General Health District. I decline to enumerate further suits at this time; I need to stop somewhere or I'll be here all day and it won't do anyone any good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What Moody's think is irrelevant to a sovereign nation with its own currency. It's rather arrogant of them to think they have anything relevant to say on the matter.
Also Venezuela is a sovereign nation with its own currency. We live in a globalized world where those things do matter. The best you can achieve by isolationism is North Korea.
What is the UK pegged to? What alternative denominations are UK bonds in?
There is literally no mechanism by which UK sovereign bonds cannot be changed back into Sterling. None.
So it can only matter in the minds of those people who haven't a clue how currencies actually work.