Earlier quoted context omitted.
no, the federal government exists to defend the interests of the states, and resolve disputes between them. it's not meant to be a higher level of authority.
> no, the federal government exists to defend the interests of the states, and resolve disputes between them. Clearly, yes. > it's not meant to be a higher level of authority. The Supremacy Clause fairly explicitly disagrees.
South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
341–350 of 521 posts
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's significant risks to wearing masks: https://twitter.com/MarkChangizi/status/1296837214429683714?...
No there are not
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#343My wife and I just moved from Orange County, CA to Detroit, MI this last August. We decided to drive the northern route. Heading through Vegas, Utah, Yellowstone and Montana. Then onward through the plains of North Dakota and Minnesota. Turning north we entered Wisconsin and finally the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan. After a few days exploring we turned south to Detroit. In Vegas the concern for masks started to w…
It's actually the state governments that's at fault here. Not the specifically the people. Let me tell you I was in back-country Oregon recently, some of the MOST republican places within Oregon, not going to name drop the county. Anyway, the Oregon state government is very much democratic (cause you know Portland). But because of that, even the republican counties are under a mask order. And the extremely red counti…
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#344My wife and I just moved from Orange County, CA to Detroit, MI this last August. We decided to drive the northern route. Heading through Vegas, Utah, Yellowstone and Montana. Then onward through the plains of North Dakota and Minnesota. Turning north we entered Wisconsin and finally the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan. After a few days exploring we turned south to Detroit. In Vegas the concern for masks started to w…
It's actually the state governments that's at fault here. Not the specifically the people. Let me tell you I was in back-country Oregon recently, some of the MOST republican places within Oregon, not going to name drop the county. Anyway, the Oregon state government is very much democratic (cause you know Portland). But because of that, even the republican counties are under a mask order. And the extremely red counti…
That's not even mentioning that it's the people who are electing governments which don't require these basic public health requirements.
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oregon’s cases are skyrocketing: https://covid-19.direct/state/OR Much of this is in Portland: https://covid-19.direct/county/OR/Multnomah
I think we can pretty safely conclude that any data saying blue cities have it worse than bumfuck nowhere towns must be misleading or manipulated. It just doesn't line up with what we know about education levels and compliance levels.
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much of it is due to private gatherings without masks, gyms, and maybe bars and restaurants. From what I can tell (I'm just staying home), people maybe did backyard gatherings when it was nice enough out, but moved indoors and that's gotten a lot of people sick.
> Much of it is due to private gatherings without masks, gyms, and maybe bars and restaurants. Prove it. When cases go down, it’s because of masks. When they go up in the same place, it’s because people suddenly stopped wearing them , but no proof is provided for either assertion.
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#347My wife and I just moved from Orange County, CA to Detroit, MI this last August. We decided to drive the northern route. Heading through Vegas, Utah, Yellowstone and Montana. Then onward through the plains of North Dakota and Minnesota. Turning north we entered Wisconsin and finally the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan. After a few days exploring we turned south to Detroit. In Vegas the concern for masks started to w…
rather than moralizing angrily ('fucks'), why not try to hone in on what you're worried about exactly? were you really in danger? if you'd have focused more on the lack of distancing indoors, that might have been a legitimate concern. but masks are for show in most places, at most times, and your focus on them indicates a retreat to symbolism rather than effect. the primary appeal of masks is for quelling fear and an…
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
The effectiveness of non-medical masks is not all that great. Bandannas, near zero. N95, quite good.[1] Cloth masks are all over the place depending on material, weave, etc. CDC: "During a pandemic, cloth masks may be the only option available; however, they should be used as a last resort when medical masks and respirators are not available". Ordinary medical masks are easy to get now. N95 masks are still hard to ge…
For those that say the president has no power: This is were the federal government can step up and use its emergency powers to mandate N95 mask production
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The state" refers to the governing apparatus, not a particular state within the union. I understand there may be some confusion if you are not familiar with the US government and typical ways of talking about it.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-10/ Please cite me where the power to enact a requirement to wear masks is explicitly granted to the federal government. I'll wait.
We need to start by recognizing that, although the Constitution is an important original source in understanding how our government functions, we have over 200 years of Constitutional interpretation that lies on top of it. You are welcome to make a Constitutional argument that goes against the existing jurisprudence, and Constitutional interpretation does change over time, but it does so only slowly. One of the most important principles in Constitutional interpretation is that of stari decisis, or issues which have already been decided. In almost all circumstances, courts adhere to precedence. This isn't always the case, but when you are fighting against the current understanding of the Constitution, you need to realize that you're fighting an uphill battle, and frame your arguments as such.
So where are we in our understanding of these issues? First, the Supreme Court has literally ruled that the Tenth Amendment is useless. Specifically, in US v Sprague (1931, SCOTUS ruled that the Tenth Amendment is a "truism" that "added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified."[1] It was later used to create an anti-commandeering understanding, which in this circumstance just means that the federal government can't pass a law that requires states to enforce a federal mask mandate. There might be a public health exception to that though, but that's where the tenth amendment would be relevant.
You also need to understand that SCOTUS has repeatedly expanded the commerce clause to cover basically everything. The federal government can pass pretty much any law they want, say it affects interstate commerce, and win. You don't have to like that interpretation, but everyone follows it. It was only during the Rehnquist Court that a few exceptions were carved out, but they're very, very narrow. The most famous example was that the court ruled that the federal government couldn't ban handguns in schools under the commerce clause. But for anything even vaguely interstate, and a contagious virus certainly counts, the federal government is allowed to pass pretty much any law it wants.
The courts also tend to be pretty generous towards allowing emergency powers to deal with a genuine crisis. I expect that the federal government could do pretty much anything it wants to deal with COVID. I'm sure they'd allow a national lockdown by executive order right now. A legislative mask mandate would be completely non-controversial from a Constitutional perspective.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_... - Yes, this is Wikipedia, but I don't feel like reading a SCOTUS case to write a HN comment
Re: South Dakota nurse says many dying patients still insist Covid-19 'not real'
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just Taiwan, it's all of East Asia. At this point it's beyond irresponsible for people to keep comparing the US's handling to other Western nations – EA showed how it's done (in both democratic and autocratic societies), but we have some weird cultural blind spot that makes us not want to see.
The problem is, there is no “how it’s done” to point to. All of the east asian countries did radically different things. Taiwan slammed it’s borders shut before cases got into the country, and hasn’t done much else. Korea adopted large-scale contact tracing and isolation interventions. China uses authoritarian rule to lock people up when they have it. Japan hasn’t tested much at all, kept offices and restaurants open…
Characterizing quarantines as “locking people up” seems to me the root cause of the mass deaths in the West. The iconography of individualism has trumped the idea that walking around expelling a cloud of deadly material makes you a threat against the life and liberty of others.