We've been putting up with this bullshit for decades now. Second hand smoke studies turn out to be nonsense? Too bad, still can't smoke in bars. TSA hasn't stopped a single terrorist attack? Shut up and take your shoes off.
The only way this stops is when a critical mass of people just stop complying. We're not going to vote our way out: none of this stuff was ever part of any electoral platform in the first place. We're not going to get public health safetyists fired: those are entrenched bureaucracies that operate with total independence from any form of democratic oversight, staffed by myopic fanatics who could care less what the public thinks. We're not going to convince the NPCs.
The only way out is cultural. We need to develop an ethos of simply ignoring everything the state says, such that their fatwas become about as meaningful as a mullah's pronouncements against immorality in downtown Vegas.
Not true ... not for the past anyway. Academics are that died in Tiananmen Square or protested against civil rights violations. Just the current academics aren't very bright
I guess you count as high IQ these that are in charge? They don't have high IQ they have high IGnorance and tick skin. Also high IQ ones can think for themselves and don't take the brainwashing BS at face value
Smart people are just as susceptible to social pressures as anyone else, maybe more so since they often have larger egos that require constant reinforcement. The first requirement for learning is the humility to admit we don't know it all.
You don't even need to be very smart, just some common sense is usually enough to spot the BS (some prior experience helps a lot of course, so people coming from Eastern Europe's communist countries or Latin America's dictatorships have an advantage)
It's a question of experience, and ability to learn from each experience. Some people live cloistered lives and don't get many experiences. Some just don't learn very well from their experiences, but that's more rare. A lot of experience can be gained vicariously, by reading or listening to others' experiences. That's the traditional way to teach "common sense" in every culture. Too many people are drawing their experience from fiction like video games and dysfunctional lessons like TV "dramas" and network news.
We don't need to hope for stupid rulers, we have them in abundance. Unfortunately, what we do have is inpenetrable bureaucracies, that cannot be easily controlled or dismantled.
Those bureaucrats get paid. The solution for bureaucrats is to cut their pay. Government tends to grow, producing more bureaucrats and increased entrenchment. An out of control government like ours demands budget reductions more than anything else. The bureaucrats and their dependents demand growth so the politicians controlling the budgets get enormous pressure. We need to produce greater pressure to reduce. Big government is entirely our fault. Lincoln described it as government of the people and by the people. If we ignore government, we're abdicating our responsibility.
You are right, because statistically we say that neding more than 100 IQ to manage in becomming a doctor, by why are nearly almost all of the doctors not understanding what's going on, and besides by "vaccinating" killing patiens ; or is it caused by money?
I certainly wish you truly understood the truth behind those words and what character and personality is a function of. It is not environment, although environment can give it mass and energy.
I would submit that thinking for oneself and critical thinking abilities are the most desired for those of us immune to becoming life-long slaves to some lofty IQ-robotrons.
There are more variables than just IQ. I probably couldn't name them all but many exist. My husband is an ivy league grad, his dad was one, his mom was one and his grandfather taught at MIT as well as Standford. Highly intelligent family. I am a state university grad 1st generation. We are all on the same page. No shots. Freedom and Liberty. Conservative values and a moral compass. It didn't take academics to understand the issues we face. The wrong direction started long time ago when common sense, principles, and moral fortitude began to be progressively seeded. Oh, and Happy Father's Day to all the Fathers and Father Figures who were grounded in their responsibility to lead children into adulthood.
Congratulations to you and your family, who kept their common sense while being book=thaught! Many people who study seem to loose the possibility of thinking for themselves. But you did not!
Sadly, a critical mass of people will quickly diminish the first time a disobedient person gets roughed up by the Stasi. The only answer which has been true for eternity is extermination of an enemy. Believe it or not, a person’s character is largely in their genetics. You certainly won’t get a scientist or geneticist to certify that, especially one whose funding comes from the faceless kings indicting us with this misery before they implement their final sentencing. It is not a function of the environment or the influence of wayward human associations. Our personal characteristics and traits are innate. Frankly, this fact has been known by the dominion holders since life was established in this realm.
That's pretty much how Romania came apart in the late 1980's. People just stopped listening to their overlords and openly mocked them. That gave the vast majority of the crowd that is too scared to fight back some sort of life to do so. It all starts with a step in the right direction.
Are you Romanian by any chance as I remember it slightly differently? It's true, I was barely seven but I don't remember that many people having the temerity to openly mock the government before the revolution.
The Romanian revolution happened because the second fiddle ruling class, the secret service together with some young communists in high positions, figured out that they would be able to make a lot more money if they would overthrow Ceausescu. The entire revolution was staged. Some idiots died and the rulers changed. The masses got more freedom at the expense of economic stability. All the well-connected uneducated idiots that used to collaborate with the secret service during communism managed to steal plenty and got themselves reasonably rich while the smart guys in charge of the secret service sold everyone including themselves to uncle sam and are now ruling the country through a series of politicians compared to whom biden, pelosi, blinken and the rest of the american political mafia look like highly educated gentlemen.
i don't have a big problem with people making personal requests like this, and I don't smoke anymore myself (well, not *that* often), but the banning of smoking from bars and coffee shops changed an important aspect of the culture here, on the basis of paper-thin arguments about the dangers of secondhand smoke, which I think is pretty unfortunate.
Changing the culture was entirely the point, everywhere it was done. It had the effect of limiting social engagement while accustoming people to arbitrary diktats. There's a direct line between the smoking bans of the 90s/00s and the lockdowns of the 20s.
Even if it's not affecting other people's health (which I doubt) smoking is unpleasant for non smokers so considerate people would avoid doing it to others (the way considerate people don't fart in closed public places, but then we all've been in a plane :-)
Not masking is unpleasant for covidians. Dealing with drunk people is unpleasant for teetotalers. Heavy metal is unpleasant for classical music afficiandos. Obesity is unpleasant to my fucking eyeballs.
Why would you assume that your personal tastes should dictate what is permitted in every corner of public space?
Personally, I really don't care about bars one way or the other (I never go to such places), but back when I was growing up, smoke was everywhere. Even doctors and nurses smoked in hospitals (yes, really). I'm quite glad I no longer have to deal with that, the wrath of smokers notwithstanding. As I see it, smoke control is much like noise control. You may love your wonderful stereo system, but your neighbors don't. So, keep it down. Same with smoking.
A lot of that is by choice. Teetotalers can avoid being around drunks. Classical music aficionados don't have to listen to heavy metal. You can avert your eyes from fat people.
I suppose you could also say that non-smokers don't have to go to places where people smoke. Which is what I used to do. I guess the non-diktat solution would be to let each business decide for itself whether it allows smoking or not. Vote with your feet. In the early days before laws addressed it, that's how it was done. Where I lived, the non-smoking restaurants were very popular. And every bar employee I knew celebrated when bars went non-smoking.
There was nothing wrong with individual establishments deciding not to allow smoking. A private business can do as it pleases and free people can self-segregate as they choose. It's when you start demanding that all spaces follow your particular tastes that we have an issue.
All I ask is that you consider the possibility that your support for these policies, is precisely identical to support for lockdown measures. "Oh god, the dirty unvaxxed are here? They're not wearing masks? They're exposing me to a deadly virus! Make them comply!"
The problem is, I can't go around and ask every smoker in a bar or cafe to stop for the time I'm there. The consequence is that I don't visit these places if smoking is allowed because I hate the stink.
Now, nobody needs smoking to live. And they can always smoke in privacy. They can go to places that advertise that smoking is tolerated. But it should not be permissible by default in my opinion!
You don't need alcohol to live either, and I rather suspect you're not exactly the kind of person to frequent such establishments. If smoking bothers you, you can drink alone in privacy.
To pile on: no one needs sufferage to live, no one needs women to be allowed outside the home without a chaperone to live, no one needs cars to live, no one needs modern medicine to live, no one needs cell phones or tampons or needle nose pliers to live, no one...
What is this, people? Logical fallacy open mike night?
There are actual arguments against smoking in establishments, so let's see them instead! (Hat off to John Carter for keeping it civil, I sure can't in the face of such almost Covidian stupidity.)
You really missed the point. If the smell bothers you, stay home. I don't like rap so I don't go to rap clubs; I don't demand that rap be banned in case my ears be assaulted. Your insistence that others stay home, that the entirety of public space conform to your preferences, is extremely selfish, particularly as it fails to recognize that it doesn't bother many in the slightest ... but oh boy, is it ever bothersome putting up with the bitching and nagging. The emotional pollution you're guilty of is at least as bad as air pollution.
No one ever forced bars to allow smoking. So where were the bars that banned it on their own, to satisfy the delicate sensibilities of the Ede's of this world? But no; instead, you applauded the use of regulatory fiat because it matched your personal preference.
Since you're commenting here I assume you're at least a bit critical of lockdowns etc. That you don't see the connection speaks volumes. It isn't enough for covidians to wear their masks and socially distance and stay home and get their jabs; everyone else has to be forced to do what they think is correct. The mindset is identical.
I am almost sure that the kind of people that are in favor of forbidding smoke in bars are those that would oppose the right of bars to ban smoking unilaterally, if it was not mandated by governments. They would argue, who is the owner of the bar to tell his patrons whether to smoke or not?
At the end, this is the problem. Are we tolerant or are we not?
Tolerant societies work harmoniously, people respect the liberty of other people to do thing that they might not like, but don't directly harm them. They don't feel insulted, simply go to a place in which they are more comfortable.
Intolerant societies are in a never ending frenzy of changing directives, depending on what particular minority of idiots has been more vocal in their demands to forbid something that they dislike. And the factions that have not been successful in imposing their equally irrational demands feel frustrated. It is really boring.
I can't go around to every person in every bar and ask them to go and wash of the AXE Bodyspray, since no one needs it to live, and they can always wear it in privacy.
Hear hear! It never ever ends with smoking and people just don't seem to understand that. Case in point...where we are right now compared to two years ago.
My only problem with smokeless bars, etc was the fact that a business owner wasn't allowed to make that decision for their business. Just like everything else, it was mandated. When I used to go to bars, clubs, or taverns as a non smoker I knew there would be smoke there and it was a "risk" I was willing to take to congregate with lots of people with differing views. Leave it to the state to destroy what used to be a fun experience. Once again putting us all in their prefabricated box for our "health and safety".
Meanwhile here in NYC we had the air at Ground Zero declared safe by EPA who then ended all future data collection on all pollution releases.If the results contradict official decree just stop collecting data and there's nothing bad to see.
In 2020 Scorecard, recognized as the global authority for chemical safety was pulled offline by UC Davis who maintained it. A splash page replaced the database saying "This project has ended we thank the group for the help it has provided."
Dumping "known" carcinogens when most chemicals have never had safety testing so the unknown toxic load is anyone's guess but sure second hand smoke is worse than WTC asbestos showers.. first responders w epic illness only got injury related health care in 2010 thanks largely to public humiliation by Jon Stewart.
Last data 2001 -
Over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals are released by industry into the nation's environment each year, including 72 million pounds of recognized carcinogens. Scorecard can give you a detailed report on chemicals being released from any of 20,000 industrial facilities, or a summary report for any area in the country. Scorecard spotlights the top polluters in the U.S., and ranks states and counties by pollutant releases.
If an industrial chemical is allowed by law to be released into the environment, most people assume that it must have been tested and evaluated for its potential risks. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Keeping chemical hazards under control requires information about what kinds of hazards each chemical poses. If the basic tests to check on a chemical's toxicity haven't been conducted, or if the results aren't publicly available, current laws tend to treat that chemical as if it were perfectly safe. For the chemicals being used in large quantities, Scorecard tells you whether or not eight basic types of tests for health and ecological effects have actually been conducted, based on the public record.
Information Needed for Safety Assessment
Could government assess a chemical's safety or risk? For most of the important industrial chemicals in U.S. commerce, government lacks the information to draw any scientifically based conclusion about the degree of risk--or lack of risk--that a chemical may pose when used.
Scorecard site is gone & only Wayback captures remain. ..
13 years ago a team of scientists from UC Berkeley set out to create a tool to help guide consumers to more informed buying decisions. GoodGuide was built on the belief that educated consumers make better choices, who would in turn drive the development of safer, healthier, and more sustainable products.
Along the way, our team reviewed and rated more than 500,000 products and served more than 10 million consumers who were searching for product information.
GoodGuide is taking a break
The GoodGuide site will be offline beginning June 1, 2020.
While change is always hard, our team is eager to explore additional ways to bring GoodGuide's technology to the market.
A previous commenter pointed out that the Scorecard had been taken down in 2020. Thus the only place you can find it now is on the Wayback Machine (at archive.org). The link above has two URLs. The second is the address of the Scorecard. Go to the Wayback Machine and enter the second URL. You will get a list of dates for which that site was scanned. Pick one before June 2020, and voila there is the Scorecard.
Ironically, smoking became popular due to the false testimony of doctors on TV and radio, insisting smoking is beneficial to health, when exactly the opposite is true. Then, people on the lower end of the economic scale smoke and rely on public subsidies for necessities while they continue to buy their smokes (I used to watch this transaction of food stamps for food and cash for cigs and booze in groceries as a child), then these same people rely on public health services for cancer and emphysema (if they hadn't already burnt their houses down falling asleep with a lit cigarette). I was accidentally burned more than once as a child in cliwded places by careless smokers. So I 'm not interested in the "cultural change on the basis of paper-thin arguments." It's a straw man, Big pHarma followed a similar playbook to Big Tobacco. I'm glad that's changed, were better for it. Mask wearing doesn't hurt others (yet, we'll see how carcinogenic those things are later), doesn't infringe on others' rights and doesn't cost society money. And the wearers tend to be more than able to absorb the costs. Apples to oranges.
Look, sorry you get uncomfortable sometimes, and sorry you think mask wearing is ok; I feel mask wearing is soft and weak and all but screams "compliant", which generally means the wearer is less likely to question authority, and less likely to fight back if/when those questions become urgent. Plus let's not forget: masks are brutal on children. I'm
surprised you don't know that. Oh, and I'm a smoker who makes a hefty income.
Sure. Can you recognize the difference between "Do you mind if I smoke?" and angrily demanding that people not do so under any circumstances? Or does courtesy extend in only one direction?
Context is highly relevant too. A bar, for instance, is not a church or a hospital. I don't recall anyone in bars caring that much, whether they smoked or not. In fact, during the brief period in which bars had both no-smoking and smoking areas, the former were generally empty while the latter were packed, which says it all as to how much people who go to bars were actually bothered.
You should get an analysis of the ambient air where you are. Way worse than a little tobacco smoke. We're born with pretty effective filters for airborne contaminants. Hiding from those contaminants weakens your defenses, increasing your vulnerability to future more serious contaminants. So, yes, those who smoke near you are doing you a favor.
Smoking STINKS! It STINKS! The place, the clothes, the hair!
I hated it as a child of a heavy smoker, I hated it yesterday, I hate it today, I will be hating it tomorrow still.
Everybody should be able to smoke as they want, just not in the presence of people who might not like it. It's rather offensive otherwise. And I don't want to run around constantly asking people not to do it. It isn't such a tall order, is it?
Maybe a mask would help. Sprinkle perfume on it if you wish, but many people think your perfume stinks. It's always a tall order to impose your preferences on others. You'll find better success in learning to adapt to others' imperfections.
The free market would have handled this. We didn't need a government pointing a gun at business owners and telling them what kind of customers they are allowed to have. In fact, in states that were late to the banning game, there were more and more businesses catering to non smokers without any mandate. And then look at the example of the newer casinos in Vegas and elsewhere where smoking is allowed... you don't even realize that people are smoking unless you are right next to them because of incredible new air exchange and filtration systems. I don't have the right to tell anyone they have to stop a behavior for my benefit anymore than they have the right to tell me.
You must love cigar bars. They are still allowed in Virginia, as long as the restaurant has at least one space that is completely smoke-free, they can have smoking rooms. The 219 in old town Alexandria even sells cigars. Incidentally, during the COVID restrictions, they also had the lowest compliance of any restaurant establishment, with tables and seating packed in tight.
Ok, got it. While I'm a free-speech absolutist and strong supporter of individual rights, allowing a business owner to ban me for, say, my covid vax or mask status, a slogan on my clothes, or -- had the government not already outlawed it -- my sex, race, or age, seems really detrimental to a healthy society.
On the other hand, had the government refrained from telling us how to run our own businesses (and lives), the market would still be able to convince business owners when they attempt a bridge too far.
Courts aren't interested in sharing, or getting along, only compliance with the laws, which are generally written by venal idiots. It's absolutely wrong, and clearly unconstitutional, to require anyone to bake anything for anybody. But it's neurotically self defeating to refuse to take anyone's money for any service you're qualified to provide.
If a child molester wants a cake with child characters on it, he'll get one, because he doesn't flaunt his pedo fetish. Every business does business with a lot of unlikeable people. It's how business is done. Picking out one group of disreputable people to ban is silly.
I own my house - no mortgage since we scraped and saved for 15 years to be able to buy one straight up. To not do so is a choice, and people choosing to let the race of bankers and usurers own their residence have made their choice.
Here, a residential property is not taxed to the state (federal to the US).
I think in most places on the globe, if you don't pay your property tax you will eventually lose your home. Certainly in the two very different countries where I have homes.
Well said. Politicians and bureaucrats are not really humans. They cannot be reasoned with. They will probably not ever be brought to justice. The only practical way to fight back is to “secede”. If everyone took just a few simple steps (e.g. Linux instead of Microsoft / Apple, Privacy Badger, no social media, no Amazon, no Netflix, no credit cards), we would be in a much better position. Let them rule the hollow shells of their technocratic paradises. I will not be a part of it.
Don‘t forget, you can also always vote with your money. Don‘t buy stuff you don‘t need. Lead a simple but meaningful life with your loved ones. Work less and pay less taxes.
You took the words right out of my mouth. My family plans to continue saying NO to insanity until the bitter end. There are things worse than death from a virus or "warm weather", and living in a dystopian nightmare locked in our homes wearing masks and waiting for a government to give us permission to die on their terms is *not* gonna fly with us. We've had it with the whole thing.
I beg to differ on the secondhand smoke thing, but not because of health issues. Many, if not most, of us who are non-smokers are completely miserable breathing cigarette smoke. Air is necessary for life. It seems really unfair for a smoker to negatively impact everyone around them to such a great extent.
And yet, no one made an issue of it before the 90s. Your memory may be short, or maybe you're just too young to remember, but I recall no long faces of abject misery in the bars of the era.
Well, at age 69, I'm not too young to have been around, and I do remember very well how all the bar employees, when the idea of non-smoking regulation came up, spoke favorably about it. At the time my spouse-equivalent played in a bar band, and he said a lot of musicians felt the same way.
You may not recall any long faces of abject misery because you weren't looking. You probably weren't affected by smoking, or smoked yourself. But I know every time my boyfriend came home he had to take a shower and burn his clothes so as not to stink up the whole house. (Yes, I exaggerate slightly, but that's how we joked about it.)
I understand the cognitive dissonance between objecting to, say, mask mandates, but being in favor of non-smoking regulations. I get it. I don't know what a good answer is. I would be happy counting on good manners rather than law. Not optimistic about how effective that would be.
Funnily enough, I recall quite a few bar employees hating it and thinking it was ridiculous. It probably broke down along smoker vs nonsmoker lines.
To bring this back to the original point: the smoking bans were not justified based on "some people dislike the smell." They were justified on the basis of studies that purported to show that second hand smoke was a potent carcinogen. Those studies failed to hold up, but they gave the anti-smoking lobby just enough plausibility to ram through what amounted to their aesthetic preference.
Parallels with COVID measures are pretty obvious. Everyone who supported the smoking bans established the precedent that enabled our liberties to be taken away over the last two years on a flimsy pretext. Saying "I don't like the smell tho" doesn't change that.
There's more to it than disliking the smell. But I'll concede your point. I was thinking about this a lot yesterday, and of course the best solution is for each business to decide on its own. If you mull over this, you will realize that each business will lose quite a bit of business over it, no matter which way they go.
I was a computer consultant. I took apart a smoker's laptop once to install a new drive. The amount of resinous goo in there was appalling. You may have evidence it doesn't hurt people, but secondhand smoke sure isn't good for computers. I'm just grateful I never had the urge to smoke.
It's complicated. When I was a child, no-one in my household smoked. However, my parents would allow all their smoking friends to smoke in our apartment. In front of me and my sister, no less. Why? Because the culture dictated that asking your friends to refrain from smoking so that you and your kids wouldn't be exposed to smoke was unacceptable. It took a while for the concerns of non-smokers to be taken at all seriously.
As for businesses deciding for themselves: the problem, again, is cultural. If you're in a mixed company (smoking and non-smoking), are the smokers supposed to refrain from smoking, or are the non-smokers supposed to just deal with the smoke? For a long time, the default was that the non-smokers shut up and put up with it. This has changed. Luckily.
I strongly suspect there's a significant genetic component. It's like with cilantro: it's either delicious, or it tastes like soap, depending on one's genes. There's no middle ground. Just so with tobacco: it's either very pleasant or absolutely repellant. If you're in the latter group, it's absolutely baffling why anyone would use it.
If you look at the history of it, that controversy has been see-sawing through the culture from the very beginning of its introduction. The smoking bans of the modern world are nothing new: some countries used to execute people for being caught using tobacco. Generally, the most stable solutions have involved designating certain spaces as being acceptable, and others not. Like all compromises it doesn't fully satisfy everyone, while conceding enough ground to keep everyone basically content.
Just don't complain if I show up in front of your house at 2am and blast away some heavy metal using a professional grade stereo system. How many of those studies showing the harmfulness of loud noises and lack of sleep will hold up once you carefully examine them? Gee. It would probably take a few decades to properly work it out. In the meanwhile, don't complain about the noise.
As far as smoking in bars and restaurants, there was an easy solution (as mentioned earlier by John Carter), having smoking and non-smoking areas. This could have been driven by customer demand. Instead, the government here in NZ banned smoking in these venues. It is now against the law to smoke in your car when children are in it. Many local authorities are now banning smoking in public playgrounds and parks, outdoor spaces where the supposed risk or annoyance to non-smokers is nil.
This no longer a problem in NZ .Police to busy trying to control gang drive by shootings and large amount of ram raids to worry about "illegal" smoking... Masking has made it easier for criminals. Helps hide their identity.
Yep. With smoking, smokers took it way too far in the past, smoking essentially wherever they wanted. The move to ban smoking was largely fueled by that. That has itself been taken to irrational extremes.
I've often felt the 19th century solution - dedicated smoking rooms, where those so inclined could retire after a meal - was an eminently reasonable compromise.
Creating separate smoking and non-smoking areas would be very difficult for a small business, because it would require probably-expensive ventilation systems. I remember when they first had non-smoking sections in restaurants. That was a joke. Sort of like counting on masks to protect you from an aerosolized killer virus while sharing a car with others. Air moves around.
Making the smokers go outside was the only practical solution for many establishments.
Unlike many on these boards, I'm not a libertarian. I oppose mask mandates not on the grounds of them being mandates, but on the grounds of them causing discomfort for essentially no benefit. When mask mandates first appeared, I didn't like them, but I figured it was acceptable since they stopped the spread. Well, they *seemed* to stop the spread: over here, mask mandates were adopted very early, and there were almost no cases. And da experts (TM) said the two were related. Well, that was incorrect, as people who study this sort of thing for a living should have known already, but I didn't know. I now have a hard time believing them about much else, which is not the same as saying that the people saying the opposite of what da experts (TM) are saying are right. It just means it's much harder to make sense of the world. Thanks, WHO (not).
So, the only "benefit" of mask mandates is that people whose neuroses were caused/exacerbated/channeled by government propaganda get to feel more comfortable. That's all. The completely obvious downside is that masks are uncomfortable for many people who wear them. There may be other harms as well (we'll see what the studies show, though you'll have to forgive me for being a bit skeptical of studies in general, after all that's happened).
Smoking is a very different story. I didn't need any government propaganda to tell me I don't like having smoke puffed into my face. I don't like my clothes smelling like smoke, either. A colleague puffing away in the office is just as uncomfortable as a colleague playing heavy metal while I'm trying to work. This sort of thing (puffing away, not heavy metal) used to be routine, and thankfully, it isn't anymore.
I'm no libertarian, but as of the last two years I'm not much of a liberal anymore either.
I think mandating something that clearly doesn't work is stupid.
I'm sorry I got us off onto the unproductive side track of smoking. I find it hard to believe that secondhand smoke is not a health hazard, but whatever.
The subject of personal freedoms was brought home to me in a rather immediate way when I moved to my tiny rural community (pop 300) and somehow I got on the planning commission. Some people want to move here and do whatever they want. Other people want to impose all kinds of rules (gentrification is a problem). The biggest arguments we have are over things like how many horses or cows or pigs you can have on your 5-acre lot. Currently, we have somewhat generous allowed numbers of livestock, especially considering our fragile and inhospitable environment.
Some people can keep the maximum number of animals and manage them well enough so they don't bother anybody. Others can have a very small number yet because of poor management their neighbors are miserable A lot of communities impose strict managerial standards on animal owners. We prefer not to do that. But if you go for the lowest allowed numbers, that's not fair to the good managers. If you allow higher numbers, that's an opportunity for abuse, and we've actually had people sell up and move away because of inconsiderate livestock owners next door.
There are lots of complicating factors, but my point of all this is that if everybody was reasonably considerate of their neighbors in the management of their lives, everything would be hunky-dory. Unfortunately humans come in all flavors, including those with complete disregard of the people around them. It's the job of government to walk the fine line between the freedom to do what you want, and the freedom to enjoy your property in a reasonable state of non-miserableness. Government doesn't always do a very good job, as we've seen.
I'm absolutely certain that second-health smoke is a health hazard (just to take a relatively extreme example, don't tell me that an asthmatic child won't be affected by a parent who routinely smokes at home). It is, however, perfectly possible that the harms were exaggerated. They even started talking about "third-hand smoke" (that's when you find yourself in a room that someone smoked in a day - or a year - before). I really don't like smoke, but I'm extremely skeptical of the claim that "third-hand smoke" will increase my odds of cancer in any way that's worth worrying about.
But anyway, a cultural norm of "whatever's not explicitly banned is permitted" is going to lead to highly restrictive legislation.
I wish it was as easy as ignoring their demands . I did and had to deal with court cases for about 8 month until they let me go . If mandates are in place as there where and still are in many places ,one would have to carry on a palaver and confrontation at every door or bus stop .If one is older as I a'm 86 one has not the energy to fight and win .From day one I knew that the cold some people got some time,was made to show us who was boss and who was slave . By the way the terror is far from over , much of it will be permanent and much worse is still coming .
Though there are far more contemporary sources, I like to revisit Etienne de la Boetie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, just to remind me how eternal the notion is, and how humans in every age may rediscover it:
"Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed."
What is this, "I know you are but what am I?" You can look away from "my obesity," your emotional distress is clearly going to be with you forever, and you're being deliberately obtuse to see no difference between your other examples and smoking. Smoke with people who don't mind. Revealed preference tells me that most people do mind, or you'd be smoking in public somewhere.
Actually, no. Before smoking bans - which were not voted on, but emanated from the regulatory state - no one was stopping bars from banning smoking. They didn't. Why? Because revealed preference was that drinkers don't care.
But please, tell us more about how the hypochondria of middle aged women shutting the world down because they're scared of catching the cold is totally different from a vocal subset of moralists inventing bullshit studies about secondhand smoke in order to force their preferences on everyone else.
Actually, drinkers do care - they just don't care enough to stay out of the bar over a little smoke, and enough drinkers smoke that it was worth it for the bar to allow smoking. Now that the accepted norm is to smoke outside, even bars that have separate sections, so they could allow smoking, don't. Only places that actually make money off selling cigars at your table allow smoking in any part of the restaurant.
I don't want your cigarette smoke in my face or dirtying my clothes in a bar, thank you very much. And you say it's "discredited"? Smoke from your cancer sticks can even make people throw up, but you claim it's fine. Don't add your own stuff to the discussion, exploiting that people are upset after reading about corona measures.
There is nothing more damaging to the economy than the threat of lockdowns. Who starts a business knowing you could be completely wiped out at the whim of an idiot politician? Unless this power is taken away from them, this is a purposeful demolition of the economy and pauperization of the masses.
The invisible economic damage caused by the uncertainty of lockdowns is probably severely underappreciated. Threats of unexpected school closures make it difficult for parents to work, as they never know if they'll need to take off or scramble for childcare. Meanwhile, vacations get postponed, event tickets don't get purchased, and contracts with ongoing services like gyms and education aren't signed - who knows, after all, what will be open in five months? And, of course, businesses don't get opened.
Perhaps worst of all, none of this is visible in a way so immediate and obvious that it will cause the public to demand it stop. The damage caused by actions NOT taken, no matter how serious, is hard to quantify and easy to blame on a thousand other things.
Yes, uncertainty is I believe the single largest factor. It is paralyzing to not know how to plan the future. All of society and life becomes crippled if we can't plan for the future.
And, as you say, allows actions to be nebulous and without defined end, so as to prolong the purgatory of bad policies.
Xiden's regime has made uncertainty into an art form, even unilaterally yanking oil drilling permits, which will suppress investment for years to come.
Lockdowns are horribly damaging, but they now spark a strong reaction. Even in China the CCP recognizes they are on increasingly borrowed time. I would argue the threat of lockdowns is more damaging because of its insidiousness. It completely avoids the strong reaction a lockdown inspires, while still destroying society.
Their ability to enact martial law "for the sake of public health" or whatever excuse needs to be fought with as much passion as an actual lockdown.
Be of good cheer. Life can't be stopped. Crush people as much as you can, there's still gonna be kids born who refuse to color within the lines no matter how often you rap them on the knuckles.
I'm sure the people sitting in the midst of the Roman Empire falling on their heads thought the end of civilization was a completely done deal, and yet eventually we had the Western Enlightenment.
I'm really grieved for my adult child and my adult child's friends, that they must endure this, but my grandma and her parents and siblings endured pogroms and the Russian Revolution and the loss of family to the slaughter in Uman 80 years ago, and yet here I am, a woman come to adulthood in what had been a reasonably free country where I could read anything I wanted and where at the moment I am a living breathing apostate to two religions who don't take kindly to that. Life can't, as I said, be stopped.
Yep. So many of my friend still 100% brainwashed. Still, they would have never believed the dystopia we live in today if a time traveler has told them just three years back.
Exactly. I recently was told by a friend that another friend ranted on and on about the why they were so sick despite being vaxxed, that it was all a big con job, etc. This angry person is someone who I really tried to persuade of the danger and lack of efficacy of the vaccines in many long conversations. And to me he pretends that he wasn't really that sick and that his epiphany never happened. Go figure.
Thank God for the United States of America. Are we insane here? Of course we are. Are our geriatric clown "leaders" clueless? Mes certainment! But I will effing guarantee that no masks will be worn in Florida and Texas, no gatherings verboten in heatwaves and once we have a solidly Republican Senate, some of the worst Covid policies instigators will be called upon to answer (already happening with Senator Paul and Fau Xi) And try as they might, no government will be able to completely disarm us and castrate our will to resist
Eeaah, I wouldn't bet much that "some of the worst Covid policies instigators will be called upon to answer" ... republicans never pursue punishment for past misconduct, never. And keeping in mind Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are calling the shots, democrats have NOTHING to worry about
There are a lot of other places outside of Texas and Florida where common sense still reigns supreme and where people remember that we’re not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. Granted, the out-sized federal government and entrenched administrative state will continue to try and push for more power. But at as I see it right now, they’ve pushed too far too fast and are about the get a whoopin’ come the mid-term elections the likes of which we’ve not seen in my lifetime (I’m 63). If that doesn’t happen somehow, then I fear for our freedom, our economy, and the whole world’s economy. They’ll keep pushing, but when the masses really start worrying about food shortages and dealing with unsustainable inflation (me thinks we’re still early in the inflation process), they’ll find the determination and courage to tell our clueless overlords where they can shove it.
Come to south Florida, there is a strong contingent of forever maskers down here. It’s nuts. I see people double masked on the daily. But as long as we got Desantis it will be voluntary idiocracy only 100%
It isn't just governments, quasi-official associations and other health-management organisations which are prolonging the covid "clap-trap". It's those laypeople who see themselves as meriting some sort of special status, which involves all the paraphenalia of masks, sanitisation, distancing and, of course, "vaccinations". Right down at the lowest level, the mysophobics are complicit in prolonging the farce. Forcibly and reluctantly, the people who saw through the whole charade during late 2019 to early 2020 and beyond, had to pander to the snowflakes, bed-wetters and hypochondriacs. Do the latter categories realise what sort of great jackboot of authoritarianism they have allowed to force the door of privacy, enterprise and common sense?
This was so predictable. Back at the beginning of the hysteria called the pandemic, in March 2020, I wrote that because there will always be diseases, the pretexts used to justify control measures will always be available, and that "temporary" measures would therefore be likely to become permanent. This was during the days of "two weeks to flatten the curve." It will never end, so long as we as a society enthrone risk minimization as our most sacred value.
Of course, in the long view, the things we do to keep people healthy end up making us sicker than ever. Whose idea of health is it, to live in isolation?
Exactly. The demonic mentality behind this whole narrative is destroying life under the guise of preserving it. The spell must break before this ever changes but the trouble is people still think that the “virus” is to blame for the destruction of our lives when it’s every self- righteous, self absorbed, narcissistic, proud, short sighted ignoramus that is perpetrating this whole global scam .
What is so baffling about all this is that by now there is evidence that a) there is a very clear risk profile concerning COVID and b) masking has its disadvantages -so why would anyone promote general mask mandates? Why? WHY?
My relatives in Holland begged for “hard” lockdowns. The state news reported that the PM was receiving pressure to go easy (this was Nov 21). They sat on the edge of the couch and hissed: “Let it be hard”.
I'm so glad that I lived most of my life without this lunacy. I don't know how younger people can deal with it, outside of perhaps vowing to fight the madness.
Also, these lunatics are apparently never going to be held to account for the years of life they have needlessly stolen from everyone. The younger any person is, the more they've been robbed.
And that is something that simply cannot be replaced.
Masks have not been required by my uni employer since mid-March but the majority of my coworkers still wear them. They're all vaxxed and most are boosted. Only 1% of our campus received exemptions from the vaxx.
You nailed it again, E.: „hyperchondriac superstitious behaviours of elderly urbanites who watch too much state television”. Sadly, the only way out of this craziness is to wait for those people to die. Go extinct. Like the dinosaurs.
I'm afraid there are fresh bodies coming up the ranks. I regularly see otherwise healthy-looking young women of both sexes wearing masks outside where I live, and it has been 95 degrees Fahrenheit the past three days.
20% isn't a lot of people. It's, what, about 17 million of the German population? But yeh, they're mentally retarded at this point. What your idiots do, our idiots copy. That's the problem.
20% is enough to achieve substantial parliamentary representation, and they're proportionately in the major centre-left and centre-right parties (CDU / SPD) which means these views will have a large voice in government.
- rabid, fanatical ZERO/NO COVID people with a platform and plenty of followers on twitter
- people who are invited to speak at talkshows
- people who are in their mid-sixties and/or have a lot of elderly constituents, and whose risk assessment might be skewed or who might not want to offend elderly constituents
Unfortunately, this gives them an over-representation in politics and media coverage.
Actually, the advocates and directors of the mask fetish and other useless demonstrations of obedience are less than 20%, they're just more aggressive. Opposition of less than 20% can prevail if they do it right.
Watch the latest episode on The Highwire. Del interviews the person who coined mass formation. Very interesting conversation. He says 30% are in the hypnotic mass, 60% go along to get along and 5-10% are impervious to mass formation.
Two things give me hope. The people in most neighboring countries to Germany are done with Corona and their politicians appear to have gotten the message. And almost nobody is being vaccinated in Germany anymore. Although people should be if they believed the government and state media messaging.
Yes, yes, I know, many Germans have a very special relationship with their FFP2 mask, following every stupid rule and making sure everyone else dose too. But I think it the situation is shifting. For fun I read the comment section in Zeit today, and even the very left-wing readers were (refreshingly) against mandatory masking.
This is good news indeed. I read br24 forums, and there, the populace are getting restless, so to speak. Not a lot who stick to the approved narrative any more.
I see you did a podcast and I am sending it around on socials.
Any chance you'd do ours -- its audio only. We've been working hard on the C-19 skeptic's beat for nearly two years and would love, love, love to have you on.
I am a former CBC investigative reporter who has seen the light -- happy to alter your voice .
We've been putting up with this bullshit for decades now. Second hand smoke studies turn out to be nonsense? Too bad, still can't smoke in bars. TSA hasn't stopped a single terrorist attack? Shut up and take your shoes off.
The only way this stops is when a critical mass of people just stop complying. We're not going to vote our way out: none of this stuff was ever part of any electoral platform in the first place. We're not going to get public health safetyists fired: those are entrenched bureaucracies that operate with total independence from any form of democratic oversight, staffed by myopic fanatics who could care less what the public thinks. We're not going to convince the NPCs.
The only way out is cultural. We need to develop an ethos of simply ignoring everything the state says, such that their fatwas become about as meaningful as a mullah's pronouncements against immorality in downtown Vegas.
Well, the "critical mass of people" requires that many have at least triple digit IQ, and we are going in the wrong direction lately
Not really. IQ doesn't seem to be the dominant factor. What counts is character and personality.
We are in a spiritual war. Good vs. evil. And fighting it without God is like fighting with a blindfold on and an arm tied behind your back.
Absolutely.
I totally agree with you, Resist the mandates.
Blessings.
No.
How do you think we got to where we are?
Fighting cults with cults is rather a poor strategy.
Agree. Repentance is needed.
Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
https://narrowpath.substack.com/p/love-means-never-having-to-say-youre?r=171xjv&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct
Academics are the most obedient of all sheep
Not true ... not for the past anyway. Academics are that died in Tiananmen Square or protested against civil rights violations. Just the current academics aren't very bright
I guess you count as high IQ these that are in charge? They don't have high IQ they have high IGnorance and tick skin. Also high IQ ones can think for themselves and don't take the brainwashing BS at face value
Smart people are just as susceptible to social pressures as anyone else, maybe more so since they often have larger egos that require constant reinforcement. The first requirement for learning is the humility to admit we don't know it all.
You don't even need to be very smart, just some common sense is usually enough to spot the BS (some prior experience helps a lot of course, so people coming from Eastern Europe's communist countries or Latin America's dictatorships have an advantage)
It's a question of experience, and ability to learn from each experience. Some people live cloistered lives and don't get many experiences. Some just don't learn very well from their experiences, but that's more rare. A lot of experience can be gained vicariously, by reading or listening to others' experiences. That's the traditional way to teach "common sense" in every culture. Too many people are drawing their experience from fiction like video games and dysfunctional lessons like TV "dramas" and network news.
Intelligence is not just "being smart."
Intelligence, NOT MERE INTELLECT, is what makes a human react quick, being aware, knowing what to do.
INTELLECT IS JUST A TOOLBOX.
INTELLIGENCE IS HOW YOU USE IT.
Hitler's IQ has been estimated in the 140s. Hope for stupid rulers. They're easier to manage.
We don't need to hope for stupid rulers, we have them in abundance. Unfortunately, what we do have is inpenetrable bureaucracies, that cannot be easily controlled or dismantled.
Those bureaucrats get paid. The solution for bureaucrats is to cut their pay. Government tends to grow, producing more bureaucrats and increased entrenchment. An out of control government like ours demands budget reductions more than anything else. The bureaucrats and their dependents demand growth so the politicians controlling the budgets get enormous pressure. We need to produce greater pressure to reduce. Big government is entirely our fault. Lincoln described it as government of the people and by the people. If we ignore government, we're abdicating our responsibility.
Worse, bureaucrats have to "find problems" to "fix" it n order to justify their existence and importance.
Well, come in USA and enjoy it then
We have one in the WH right now!
Sure, but he wasn't the best artist, was he. ; )
Character is paramount in all things.
You are right, because statistically we say that neding more than 100 IQ to manage in becomming a doctor, by why are nearly almost all of the doctors not understanding what's going on, and besides by "vaccinating" killing patiens ; or is it caused by money?
Principles and morality as well.
I certainly wish you truly understood the truth behind those words and what character and personality is a function of. It is not environment, although environment can give it mass and energy.
good old common sense is better than IQ. I have several former friends with high studies and high intelligence but no common sense. Needle worshipers.
I would submit that thinking for oneself and critical thinking abilities are the most desired for those of us immune to becoming life-long slaves to some lofty IQ-robotrons.
There are more variables than just IQ. I probably couldn't name them all but many exist. My husband is an ivy league grad, his dad was one, his mom was one and his grandfather taught at MIT as well as Standford. Highly intelligent family. I am a state university grad 1st generation. We are all on the same page. No shots. Freedom and Liberty. Conservative values and a moral compass. It didn't take academics to understand the issues we face. The wrong direction started long time ago when common sense, principles, and moral fortitude began to be progressively seeded. Oh, and Happy Father's Day to all the Fathers and Father Figures who were grounded in their responsibility to lead children into adulthood.
NOTHING is absolute so we use generalizations to try and explain patterns. If one has no critical thinking s/he can not fight fine tuned propaganda
Congratulations to you and your family, who kept their common sense while being book=thaught! Many people who study seem to loose the possibility of thinking for themselves. But you did not!
Too many boosters…
Most of those invaders have sub-80 IQs. Somalis, much less.
Sadly, a critical mass of people will quickly diminish the first time a disobedient person gets roughed up by the Stasi. The only answer which has been true for eternity is extermination of an enemy. Believe it or not, a person’s character is largely in their genetics. You certainly won’t get a scientist or geneticist to certify that, especially one whose funding comes from the faceless kings indicting us with this misery before they implement their final sentencing. It is not a function of the environment or the influence of wayward human associations. Our personal characteristics and traits are innate. Frankly, this fact has been known by the dominion holders since life was established in this realm.
Bingo!
That's pretty much how Romania came apart in the late 1980's. People just stopped listening to their overlords and openly mocked them. That gave the vast majority of the crowd that is too scared to fight back some sort of life to do so. It all starts with a step in the right direction.
Are you Romanian by any chance as I remember it slightly differently? It's true, I was barely seven but I don't remember that many people having the temerity to openly mock the government before the revolution.
The Romanian revolution happened because the second fiddle ruling class, the secret service together with some young communists in high positions, figured out that they would be able to make a lot more money if they would overthrow Ceausescu. The entire revolution was staged. Some idiots died and the rulers changed. The masses got more freedom at the expense of economic stability. All the well-connected uneducated idiots that used to collaborate with the secret service during communism managed to steal plenty and got themselves reasonably rich while the smart guys in charge of the secret service sold everyone including themselves to uncle sam and are now ruling the country through a series of politicians compared to whom biden, pelosi, blinken and the rest of the american political mafia look like highly educated gentlemen.
I don't want you to smoke in my company. Would you be so courteous?
i don't have a big problem with people making personal requests like this, and I don't smoke anymore myself (well, not *that* often), but the banning of smoking from bars and coffee shops changed an important aspect of the culture here, on the basis of paper-thin arguments about the dangers of secondhand smoke, which I think is pretty unfortunate.
Changing the culture was entirely the point, everywhere it was done. It had the effect of limiting social engagement while accustoming people to arbitrary diktats. There's a direct line between the smoking bans of the 90s/00s and the lockdowns of the 20s.
Even if it's not affecting other people's health (which I doubt) smoking is unpleasant for non smokers so considerate people would avoid doing it to others (the way considerate people don't fart in closed public places, but then we all've been in a plane :-)
Not masking is unpleasant for covidians. Dealing with drunk people is unpleasant for teetotalers. Heavy metal is unpleasant for classical music afficiandos. Obesity is unpleasant to my fucking eyeballs.
Why would you assume that your personal tastes should dictate what is permitted in every corner of public space?
Personally, I really don't care about bars one way or the other (I never go to such places), but back when I was growing up, smoke was everywhere. Even doctors and nurses smoked in hospitals (yes, really). I'm quite glad I no longer have to deal with that, the wrath of smokers notwithstanding. As I see it, smoke control is much like noise control. You may love your wonderful stereo system, but your neighbors don't. So, keep it down. Same with smoking.
I've been trying to think of a reasonable analogy. Endlessly barking dog next door might be a good one.
A lot of that is by choice. Teetotalers can avoid being around drunks. Classical music aficionados don't have to listen to heavy metal. You can avert your eyes from fat people.
I suppose you could also say that non-smokers don't have to go to places where people smoke. Which is what I used to do. I guess the non-diktat solution would be to let each business decide for itself whether it allows smoking or not. Vote with your feet. In the early days before laws addressed it, that's how it was done. Where I lived, the non-smoking restaurants were very popular. And every bar employee I knew celebrated when bars went non-smoking.
There was nothing wrong with individual establishments deciding not to allow smoking. A private business can do as it pleases and free people can self-segregate as they choose. It's when you start demanding that all spaces follow your particular tastes that we have an issue.
All I ask is that you consider the possibility that your support for these policies, is precisely identical to support for lockdown measures. "Oh god, the dirty unvaxxed are here? They're not wearing masks? They're exposing me to a deadly virus! Make them comply!"
See, that's the type of people I don't like ... the answer is "because I can do VERY unpleasant things to you too"
The problem is, I can't go around and ask every smoker in a bar or cafe to stop for the time I'm there. The consequence is that I don't visit these places if smoking is allowed because I hate the stink.
Now, nobody needs smoking to live. And they can always smoke in privacy. They can go to places that advertise that smoking is tolerated. But it should not be permissible by default in my opinion!
You don't need alcohol to live either, and I rather suspect you're not exactly the kind of person to frequent such establishments. If smoking bothers you, you can drink alone in privacy.
To pile on: no one needs sufferage to live, no one needs women to be allowed outside the home without a chaperone to live, no one needs cars to live, no one needs modern medicine to live, no one needs cell phones or tampons or needle nose pliers to live, no one...
What is this, people? Logical fallacy open mike night?
There are actual arguments against smoking in establishments, so let's see them instead! (Hat off to John Carter for keeping it civil, I sure can't in the face of such almost Covidian stupidity.)
like
Other people drinking doesn't bother me. Stinking up the place does!
You really missed the point. If the smell bothers you, stay home. I don't like rap so I don't go to rap clubs; I don't demand that rap be banned in case my ears be assaulted. Your insistence that others stay home, that the entirety of public space conform to your preferences, is extremely selfish, particularly as it fails to recognize that it doesn't bother many in the slightest ... but oh boy, is it ever bothersome putting up with the bitching and nagging. The emotional pollution you're guilty of is at least as bad as air pollution.
No one ever forced bars to allow smoking. So where were the bars that banned it on their own, to satisfy the delicate sensibilities of the Ede's of this world? But no; instead, you applauded the use of regulatory fiat because it matched your personal preference.
Since you're commenting here I assume you're at least a bit critical of lockdowns etc. That you don't see the connection speaks volumes. It isn't enough for covidians to wear their masks and socially distance and stay home and get their jabs; everyone else has to be forced to do what they think is correct. The mindset is identical.
This is the situation: I want John Carter to smoke anywhere he wants, just not where I am currently.
There must be a solution to this. Even if it is something like "Saturday is smoking day". I don't care...
We had that solution. It was called 'smoking areas' and 'non-smoking areas'.
I am almost sure that the kind of people that are in favor of forbidding smoke in bars are those that would oppose the right of bars to ban smoking unilaterally, if it was not mandated by governments. They would argue, who is the owner of the bar to tell his patrons whether to smoke or not?
At the end, this is the problem. Are we tolerant or are we not?
Tolerant societies work harmoniously, people respect the liberty of other people to do thing that they might not like, but don't directly harm them. They don't feel insulted, simply go to a place in which they are more comfortable.
Intolerant societies are in a never ending frenzy of changing directives, depending on what particular minority of idiots has been more vocal in their demands to forbid something that they dislike. And the factions that have not been successful in imposing their equally irrational demands feel frustrated. It is really boring.
I can't go around to every person in every bar and ask them to go and wash of the AXE Bodyspray, since no one needs it to live, and they can always wear it in privacy.
See what the problem is?
Hear hear! It never ever ends with smoking and people just don't seem to understand that. Case in point...where we are right now compared to two years ago.
My only problem with smokeless bars, etc was the fact that a business owner wasn't allowed to make that decision for their business. Just like everything else, it was mandated. When I used to go to bars, clubs, or taverns as a non smoker I knew there would be smoke there and it was a "risk" I was willing to take to congregate with lots of people with differing views. Leave it to the state to destroy what used to be a fun experience. Once again putting us all in their prefabricated box for our "health and safety".
Meanwhile here in NYC we had the air at Ground Zero declared safe by EPA who then ended all future data collection on all pollution releases.If the results contradict official decree just stop collecting data and there's nothing bad to see.
In 2020 Scorecard, recognized as the global authority for chemical safety was pulled offline by UC Davis who maintained it. A splash page replaced the database saying "This project has ended we thank the group for the help it has provided."
Dumping "known" carcinogens when most chemicals have never had safety testing so the unknown toxic load is anyone's guess but sure second hand smoke is worse than WTC asbestos showers.. first responders w epic illness only got injury related health care in 2010 thanks largely to public humiliation by Jon Stewart.
Last data 2001 -
Over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals are released by industry into the nation's environment each year, including 72 million pounds of recognized carcinogens. Scorecard can give you a detailed report on chemicals being released from any of 20,000 industrial facilities, or a summary report for any area in the country. Scorecard spotlights the top polluters in the U.S., and ranks states and counties by pollutant releases.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120213000438/http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/us-map.tcl
Basic Testing to Identify Chemical Hazards
If an industrial chemical is allowed by law to be released into the environment, most people assume that it must have been tested and evaluated for its potential risks. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Keeping chemical hazards under control requires information about what kinds of hazards each chemical poses. If the basic tests to check on a chemical's toxicity haven't been conducted, or if the results aren't publicly available, current laws tend to treat that chemical as if it were perfectly safe. For the chemicals being used in large quantities, Scorecard tells you whether or not eight basic types of tests for health and ecological effects have actually been conducted, based on the public record.
Information Needed for Safety Assessment
Could government assess a chemical's safety or risk? For most of the important industrial chemicals in U.S. commerce, government lacks the information to draw any scientifically based conclusion about the degree of risk--or lack of risk--that a chemical may pose when used.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120917041002/http://scorecard.goodguide.com/chemical-profiles/chems-profile-descriptions.tcl#basic_testing
Does the scorecard site not work or something??
Scorecard site is gone & only Wayback captures remain. ..
13 years ago a team of scientists from UC Berkeley set out to create a tool to help guide consumers to more informed buying decisions. GoodGuide was built on the belief that educated consumers make better choices, who would in turn drive the development of safer, healthier, and more sustainable products.
Along the way, our team reviewed and rated more than 500,000 products and served more than 10 million consumers who were searching for product information.
GoodGuide is taking a break
The GoodGuide site will be offline beginning June 1, 2020.
While change is always hard, our team is eager to explore additional ways to bring GoodGuide's technology to the market.
Thank you,
The GoodGuide Team
http://scorecard.goodguide.com/
A previous commenter pointed out that the Scorecard had been taken down in 2020. Thus the only place you can find it now is on the Wayback Machine (at archive.org). The link above has two URLs. The second is the address of the Scorecard. Go to the Wayback Machine and enter the second URL. You will get a list of dates for which that site was scanned. Pick one before June 2020, and voila there is the Scorecard.
Ironically, smoking became popular due to the false testimony of doctors on TV and radio, insisting smoking is beneficial to health, when exactly the opposite is true. Then, people on the lower end of the economic scale smoke and rely on public subsidies for necessities while they continue to buy their smokes (I used to watch this transaction of food stamps for food and cash for cigs and booze in groceries as a child), then these same people rely on public health services for cancer and emphysema (if they hadn't already burnt their houses down falling asleep with a lit cigarette). I was accidentally burned more than once as a child in cliwded places by careless smokers. So I 'm not interested in the "cultural change on the basis of paper-thin arguments." It's a straw man, Big pHarma followed a similar playbook to Big Tobacco. I'm glad that's changed, were better for it. Mask wearing doesn't hurt others (yet, we'll see how carcinogenic those things are later), doesn't infringe on others' rights and doesn't cost society money. And the wearers tend to be more than able to absorb the costs. Apples to oranges.
Look, sorry you get uncomfortable sometimes, and sorry you think mask wearing is ok; I feel mask wearing is soft and weak and all but screams "compliant", which generally means the wearer is less likely to question authority, and less likely to fight back if/when those questions become urgent. Plus let's not forget: masks are brutal on children. I'm
surprised you don't know that. Oh, and I'm a smoker who makes a hefty income.
mask wearing hurts the wearer and everybody else too.
Yes, 1950s ad campaigns account for the popularity of tobacco, such dates to several centuries prior in Europe alone.
The arrow of time is a thing, you know.
Damn those 16th century TV ads! Must be their fault I had a 40-a-day when I was young and worked outdoors!
Sure. Can you recognize the difference between "Do you mind if I smoke?" and angrily demanding that people not do so under any circumstances? Or does courtesy extend in only one direction?
Context is highly relevant too. A bar, for instance, is not a church or a hospital. I don't recall anyone in bars caring that much, whether they smoked or not. In fact, during the brief period in which bars had both no-smoking and smoking areas, the former were generally empty while the latter were packed, which says it all as to how much people who go to bars were actually bothered.
Exactly! Well said!
You should get an analysis of the ambient air where you are. Way worse than a little tobacco smoke. We're born with pretty effective filters for airborne contaminants. Hiding from those contaminants weakens your defenses, increasing your vulnerability to future more serious contaminants. So, yes, those who smoke near you are doing you a favor.
Smoking STINKS! It STINKS! The place, the clothes, the hair!
I hated it as a child of a heavy smoker, I hated it yesterday, I hate it today, I will be hating it tomorrow still.
Everybody should be able to smoke as they want, just not in the presence of people who might not like it. It's rather offensive otherwise. And I don't want to run around constantly asking people not to do it. It isn't such a tall order, is it?
You sound like you're fun at parties.
How is it possible that you don't understand that your mindset is identical to covidianism?
Maybe a mask would help. Sprinkle perfume on it if you wish, but many people think your perfume stinks. It's always a tall order to impose your preferences on others. You'll find better success in learning to adapt to others' imperfections.
The free market would have handled this. We didn't need a government pointing a gun at business owners and telling them what kind of customers they are allowed to have. In fact, in states that were late to the banning game, there were more and more businesses catering to non smokers without any mandate. And then look at the example of the newer casinos in Vegas and elsewhere where smoking is allowed... you don't even realize that people are smoking unless you are right next to them because of incredible new air exchange and filtration systems. I don't have the right to tell anyone they have to stop a behavior for my benefit anymore than they have the right to tell me.
You must love cigar bars. They are still allowed in Virginia, as long as the restaurant has at least one space that is completely smoke-free, they can have smoking rooms. The 219 in old town Alexandria even sells cigars. Incidentally, during the COVID restrictions, they also had the lowest compliance of any restaurant establishment, with tables and seating packed in tight.
A public bar is an extension of someone's home?! What fresh hell is this ... or have I misunderstood you?
Ok, got it. While I'm a free-speech absolutist and strong supporter of individual rights, allowing a business owner to ban me for, say, my covid vax or mask status, a slogan on my clothes, or -- had the government not already outlawed it -- my sex, race, or age, seems really detrimental to a healthy society.
On the other hand, had the government refrained from telling us how to run our own businesses (and lives), the market would still be able to convince business owners when they attempt a bridge too far.
People can set rules in their home. Everywhere else they have to share.
Courts aren't interested in sharing, or getting along, only compliance with the laws, which are generally written by venal idiots. It's absolutely wrong, and clearly unconstitutional, to require anyone to bake anything for anybody. But it's neurotically self defeating to refuse to take anyone's money for any service you're qualified to provide.
If a child molester wants a cake with child characters on it, he'll get one, because he doesn't flaunt his pedo fetish. Every business does business with a lot of unlikeable people. It's how business is done. Picking out one group of disreputable people to ban is silly.
John Carter speaks the truth. Do not contribute to the state's coffers. Do not comply. Do not be party to the state's Great Plans.
Parallel, outside, off the books, barter, and above all: loyalty to family, kin, friends and people first.
I own my house - no mortgage since we scraped and saved for 15 years to be able to buy one straight up. To not do so is a choice, and people choosing to let the race of bankers and usurers own their residence have made their choice.
Here, a residential property is not taxed to the state (federal to the US).
What a coincidence. Imagine you having exactly the right anecdote to support your initial presumptious statement.
Please try again.
I think in most places on the globe, if you don't pay your property tax you will eventually lose your home. Certainly in the two very different countries where I have homes.
Well said. Politicians and bureaucrats are not really humans. They cannot be reasoned with. They will probably not ever be brought to justice. The only practical way to fight back is to “secede”. If everyone took just a few simple steps (e.g. Linux instead of Microsoft / Apple, Privacy Badger, no social media, no Amazon, no Netflix, no credit cards), we would be in a much better position. Let them rule the hollow shells of their technocratic paradises. I will not be a part of it.
Don‘t forget, you can also always vote with your money. Don‘t buy stuff you don‘t need. Lead a simple but meaningful life with your loved ones. Work less and pay less taxes.
You took the words right out of my mouth. My family plans to continue saying NO to insanity until the bitter end. There are things worse than death from a virus or "warm weather", and living in a dystopian nightmare locked in our homes wearing masks and waiting for a government to give us permission to die on their terms is *not* gonna fly with us. We've had it with the whole thing.
I beg to differ on the secondhand smoke thing, but not because of health issues. Many, if not most, of us who are non-smokers are completely miserable breathing cigarette smoke. Air is necessary for life. It seems really unfair for a smoker to negatively impact everyone around them to such a great extent.
And yet, no one made an issue of it before the 90s. Your memory may be short, or maybe you're just too young to remember, but I recall no long faces of abject misery in the bars of the era.
Well, at age 69, I'm not too young to have been around, and I do remember very well how all the bar employees, when the idea of non-smoking regulation came up, spoke favorably about it. At the time my spouse-equivalent played in a bar band, and he said a lot of musicians felt the same way.
You may not recall any long faces of abject misery because you weren't looking. You probably weren't affected by smoking, or smoked yourself. But I know every time my boyfriend came home he had to take a shower and burn his clothes so as not to stink up the whole house. (Yes, I exaggerate slightly, but that's how we joked about it.)
I understand the cognitive dissonance between objecting to, say, mask mandates, but being in favor of non-smoking regulations. I get it. I don't know what a good answer is. I would be happy counting on good manners rather than law. Not optimistic about how effective that would be.
Funnily enough, I recall quite a few bar employees hating it and thinking it was ridiculous. It probably broke down along smoker vs nonsmoker lines.
To bring this back to the original point: the smoking bans were not justified based on "some people dislike the smell." They were justified on the basis of studies that purported to show that second hand smoke was a potent carcinogen. Those studies failed to hold up, but they gave the anti-smoking lobby just enough plausibility to ram through what amounted to their aesthetic preference.
Parallels with COVID measures are pretty obvious. Everyone who supported the smoking bans established the precedent that enabled our liberties to be taken away over the last two years on a flimsy pretext. Saying "I don't like the smell tho" doesn't change that.
There's more to it than disliking the smell. But I'll concede your point. I was thinking about this a lot yesterday, and of course the best solution is for each business to decide on its own. If you mull over this, you will realize that each business will lose quite a bit of business over it, no matter which way they go.
I was a computer consultant. I took apart a smoker's laptop once to install a new drive. The amount of resinous goo in there was appalling. You may have evidence it doesn't hurt people, but secondhand smoke sure isn't good for computers. I'm just grateful I never had the urge to smoke.
It's complicated. When I was a child, no-one in my household smoked. However, my parents would allow all their smoking friends to smoke in our apartment. In front of me and my sister, no less. Why? Because the culture dictated that asking your friends to refrain from smoking so that you and your kids wouldn't be exposed to smoke was unacceptable. It took a while for the concerns of non-smokers to be taken at all seriously.
As for businesses deciding for themselves: the problem, again, is cultural. If you're in a mixed company (smoking and non-smoking), are the smokers supposed to refrain from smoking, or are the non-smokers supposed to just deal with the smoke? For a long time, the default was that the non-smokers shut up and put up with it. This has changed. Luckily.
I strongly suspect there's a significant genetic component. It's like with cilantro: it's either delicious, or it tastes like soap, depending on one's genes. There's no middle ground. Just so with tobacco: it's either very pleasant or absolutely repellant. If you're in the latter group, it's absolutely baffling why anyone would use it.
If you look at the history of it, that controversy has been see-sawing through the culture from the very beginning of its introduction. The smoking bans of the modern world are nothing new: some countries used to execute people for being caught using tobacco. Generally, the most stable solutions have involved designating certain spaces as being acceptable, and others not. Like all compromises it doesn't fully satisfy everyone, while conceding enough ground to keep everyone basically content.
Just don't complain if I show up in front of your house at 2am and blast away some heavy metal using a professional grade stereo system. How many of those studies showing the harmfulness of loud noises and lack of sleep will hold up once you carefully examine them? Gee. It would probably take a few decades to properly work it out. In the meanwhile, don't complain about the noise.
As far as smoking in bars and restaurants, there was an easy solution (as mentioned earlier by John Carter), having smoking and non-smoking areas. This could have been driven by customer demand. Instead, the government here in NZ banned smoking in these venues. It is now against the law to smoke in your car when children are in it. Many local authorities are now banning smoking in public playgrounds and parks, outdoor spaces where the supposed risk or annoyance to non-smokers is nil.
This no longer a problem in NZ .Police to busy trying to control gang drive by shootings and large amount of ram raids to worry about "illegal" smoking... Masking has made it easier for criminals. Helps hide their identity.
Honestly, the managerial tyranny has gotten so soul-crushingly oppressive that I'd welcome a bit of enthusiastic gangsterism.
Well, they haven't been very successful, have they? Busy charging people who defend themselves against violent criminals.
To say nothing of vaping being prohibited wherever smoking is.
Ha ha, I was going to include this in my comment but decided to keep it simple.
As with most things, people get carried away and take it way too far.
Yep. With smoking, smokers took it way too far in the past, smoking essentially wherever they wanted. The move to ban smoking was largely fueled by that. That has itself been taken to irrational extremes.
I've often felt the 19th century solution - dedicated smoking rooms, where those so inclined could retire after a meal - was an eminently reasonable compromise.
Creating separate smoking and non-smoking areas would be very difficult for a small business, because it would require probably-expensive ventilation systems. I remember when they first had non-smoking sections in restaurants. That was a joke. Sort of like counting on masks to protect you from an aerosolized killer virus while sharing a car with others. Air moves around.
Making the smokers go outside was the only practical solution for many establishments.
Unlike many on these boards, I'm not a libertarian. I oppose mask mandates not on the grounds of them being mandates, but on the grounds of them causing discomfort for essentially no benefit. When mask mandates first appeared, I didn't like them, but I figured it was acceptable since they stopped the spread. Well, they *seemed* to stop the spread: over here, mask mandates were adopted very early, and there were almost no cases. And da experts (TM) said the two were related. Well, that was incorrect, as people who study this sort of thing for a living should have known already, but I didn't know. I now have a hard time believing them about much else, which is not the same as saying that the people saying the opposite of what da experts (TM) are saying are right. It just means it's much harder to make sense of the world. Thanks, WHO (not).
So, the only "benefit" of mask mandates is that people whose neuroses were caused/exacerbated/channeled by government propaganda get to feel more comfortable. That's all. The completely obvious downside is that masks are uncomfortable for many people who wear them. There may be other harms as well (we'll see what the studies show, though you'll have to forgive me for being a bit skeptical of studies in general, after all that's happened).
Smoking is a very different story. I didn't need any government propaganda to tell me I don't like having smoke puffed into my face. I don't like my clothes smelling like smoke, either. A colleague puffing away in the office is just as uncomfortable as a colleague playing heavy metal while I'm trying to work. This sort of thing (puffing away, not heavy metal) used to be routine, and thankfully, it isn't anymore.
I'm no libertarian, but as of the last two years I'm not much of a liberal anymore either.
I think mandating something that clearly doesn't work is stupid.
I'm sorry I got us off onto the unproductive side track of smoking. I find it hard to believe that secondhand smoke is not a health hazard, but whatever.
The subject of personal freedoms was brought home to me in a rather immediate way when I moved to my tiny rural community (pop 300) and somehow I got on the planning commission. Some people want to move here and do whatever they want. Other people want to impose all kinds of rules (gentrification is a problem). The biggest arguments we have are over things like how many horses or cows or pigs you can have on your 5-acre lot. Currently, we have somewhat generous allowed numbers of livestock, especially considering our fragile and inhospitable environment.
Some people can keep the maximum number of animals and manage them well enough so they don't bother anybody. Others can have a very small number yet because of poor management their neighbors are miserable A lot of communities impose strict managerial standards on animal owners. We prefer not to do that. But if you go for the lowest allowed numbers, that's not fair to the good managers. If you allow higher numbers, that's an opportunity for abuse, and we've actually had people sell up and move away because of inconsiderate livestock owners next door.
There are lots of complicating factors, but my point of all this is that if everybody was reasonably considerate of their neighbors in the management of their lives, everything would be hunky-dory. Unfortunately humans come in all flavors, including those with complete disregard of the people around them. It's the job of government to walk the fine line between the freedom to do what you want, and the freedom to enjoy your property in a reasonable state of non-miserableness. Government doesn't always do a very good job, as we've seen.
I'm absolutely certain that second-health smoke is a health hazard (just to take a relatively extreme example, don't tell me that an asthmatic child won't be affected by a parent who routinely smokes at home). It is, however, perfectly possible that the harms were exaggerated. They even started talking about "third-hand smoke" (that's when you find yourself in a room that someone smoked in a day - or a year - before). I really don't like smoke, but I'm extremely skeptical of the claim that "third-hand smoke" will increase my odds of cancer in any way that's worth worrying about.
But anyway, a cultural norm of "whatever's not explicitly banned is permitted" is going to lead to highly restrictive legislation.
I wish it was as easy as ignoring their demands . I did and had to deal with court cases for about 8 month until they let me go . If mandates are in place as there where and still are in many places ,one would have to carry on a palaver and confrontation at every door or bus stop .If one is older as I a'm 86 one has not the energy to fight and win .From day one I knew that the cold some people got some time,was made to show us who was boss and who was slave . By the way the terror is far from over , much of it will be permanent and much worse is still coming .
Though there are far more contemporary sources, I like to revisit Etienne de la Boetie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, just to remind me how eternal the notion is, and how humans in every age may rediscover it:
"Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed."
I recall reading about that essay (book?) some time ago. Truer words, etc.
Perfectly said, from Downtown Las Vegas,.
John, your second hand smoke is an externality that bothers other people. Your mask wearing doesn't. Nice try.
Your obesity bothers my eyes. It causes intense emotional distress.
Your shitty music bothers my ears.
Your demand that the bars stay closed and everyone maintain 6 feet of antisocial distance because you're scared of a virus destroys my social life.
Negative externalities are everywhere. Welcome to life.
What is this, "I know you are but what am I?" You can look away from "my obesity," your emotional distress is clearly going to be with you forever, and you're being deliberately obtuse to see no difference between your other examples and smoking. Smoke with people who don't mind. Revealed preference tells me that most people do mind, or you'd be smoking in public somewhere.
Actually, no. Before smoking bans - which were not voted on, but emanated from the regulatory state - no one was stopping bars from banning smoking. They didn't. Why? Because revealed preference was that drinkers don't care.
But please, tell us more about how the hypochondria of middle aged women shutting the world down because they're scared of catching the cold is totally different from a vocal subset of moralists inventing bullshit studies about secondhand smoke in order to force their preferences on everyone else.
Actually, drinkers do care - they just don't care enough to stay out of the bar over a little smoke, and enough drinkers smoke that it was worth it for the bar to allow smoking. Now that the accepted norm is to smoke outside, even bars that have separate sections, so they could allow smoking, don't. Only places that actually make money off selling cigars at your table allow smoking in any part of the restaurant.
I couldn't disagree more when it comes to second-hand smoke. Why should we non-smokers have to breathe your noxious sick-making fumes?
Who said you have to?
100% Agree.
The kind of person I like: a non-smoker vigorously opposing banning smoking in bars.
Why? Because they demonstrate that they are intelligent people that know that the road to hell is always paved with good intentions.
I also like smokers that oppose banning smoking, but they have to give me further proof that they are the right kind of people.
I dislike anyone than favors banning smoking in bars. You know who you are.
I don't want your cigarette smoke in my face or dirtying my clothes in a bar, thank you very much. And you say it's "discredited"? Smoke from your cancer sticks can even make people throw up, but you claim it's fine. Don't add your own stuff to the discussion, exploiting that people are upset after reading about corona measures.
Maybe you should build your own bar, and run it by whatever rules you like?
I've literally never seen anyone throw up because of second hand cigarette smoke.
There is nothing more damaging to the economy than the threat of lockdowns. Who starts a business knowing you could be completely wiped out at the whim of an idiot politician? Unless this power is taken away from them, this is a purposeful demolition of the economy and pauperization of the masses.
The invisible economic damage caused by the uncertainty of lockdowns is probably severely underappreciated. Threats of unexpected school closures make it difficult for parents to work, as they never know if they'll need to take off or scramble for childcare. Meanwhile, vacations get postponed, event tickets don't get purchased, and contracts with ongoing services like gyms and education aren't signed - who knows, after all, what will be open in five months? And, of course, businesses don't get opened.
Perhaps worst of all, none of this is visible in a way so immediate and obvious that it will cause the public to demand it stop. The damage caused by actions NOT taken, no matter how serious, is hard to quantify and easy to blame on a thousand other things.
Yes, uncertainty is I believe the single largest factor. It is paralyzing to not know how to plan the future. All of society and life becomes crippled if we can't plan for the future.
And, as you say, allows actions to be nebulous and without defined end, so as to prolong the purgatory of bad policies.
Xiden's regime has made uncertainty into an art form, even unilaterally yanking oil drilling permits, which will suppress investment for years to come.
Excellent insight on the hidden and massive cost of uncertainty.
I agree that there is "nothing more damaging to the economy than the threat of lockdowns". Other than actual lockdowns.
Lockdowns are horribly damaging, but they now spark a strong reaction. Even in China the CCP recognizes they are on increasingly borrowed time. I would argue the threat of lockdowns is more damaging because of its insidiousness. It completely avoids the strong reaction a lockdown inspires, while still destroying society.
Their ability to enact martial law "for the sake of public health" or whatever excuse needs to be fought with as much passion as an actual lockdown.
Be of good cheer. Life can't be stopped. Crush people as much as you can, there's still gonna be kids born who refuse to color within the lines no matter how often you rap them on the knuckles.
I'm sure the people sitting in the midst of the Roman Empire falling on their heads thought the end of civilization was a completely done deal, and yet eventually we had the Western Enlightenment.
I'm really grieved for my adult child and my adult child's friends, that they must endure this, but my grandma and her parents and siblings endured pogroms and the Russian Revolution and the loss of family to the slaughter in Uman 80 years ago, and yet here I am, a woman come to adulthood in what had been a reasonably free country where I could read anything I wanted and where at the moment I am a living breathing apostate to two religions who don't take kindly to that. Life can't, as I said, be stopped.
I have to admit that I love when those that called me crazy now admit I was right about everything all along.
Lucky you.
Yep. So many of my friend still 100% brainwashed. Still, they would have never believed the dystopia we live in today if a time traveler has told them just three years back.
Wow, yeah lucky you. I've yet to have a single person admit I was right about anything
Exactly. I recently was told by a friend that another friend ranted on and on about the why they were so sick despite being vaxxed, that it was all a big con job, etc. This angry person is someone who I really tried to persuade of the danger and lack of efficacy of the vaccines in many long conversations. And to me he pretends that he wasn't really that sick and that his epiphany never happened. Go figure.
Pride. Humility is willing to admit your mistake and it's not so easy. Be happy that your friend at least had the epiphany.
Congrats. Now put your mask back on.
OR fight back
You have extraordinary friends. None has yet admitted to me yet that I was right. I believe nobody ever will.
It's all organized by gangsters, I said to my younger brother. He was happy to hear that I too had come to that conclusion.
Really? I'd love to meet those people.
Thank God for the United States of America. Are we insane here? Of course we are. Are our geriatric clown "leaders" clueless? Mes certainment! But I will effing guarantee that no masks will be worn in Florida and Texas, no gatherings verboten in heatwaves and once we have a solidly Republican Senate, some of the worst Covid policies instigators will be called upon to answer (already happening with Senator Paul and Fau Xi) And try as they might, no government will be able to completely disarm us and castrate our will to resist
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Eeaah, I wouldn't bet much that "some of the worst Covid policies instigators will be called upon to answer" ... republicans never pursue punishment for past misconduct, never. And keeping in mind Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are calling the shots, democrats have NOTHING to worry about
There are a lot of other places outside of Texas and Florida where common sense still reigns supreme and where people remember that we’re not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. Granted, the out-sized federal government and entrenched administrative state will continue to try and push for more power. But at as I see it right now, they’ve pushed too far too fast and are about the get a whoopin’ come the mid-term elections the likes of which we’ve not seen in my lifetime (I’m 63). If that doesn’t happen somehow, then I fear for our freedom, our economy, and the whole world’s economy. They’ll keep pushing, but when the masses really start worrying about food shortages and dealing with unsustainable inflation (me thinks we’re still early in the inflation process), they’ll find the determination and courage to tell our clueless overlords where they can shove it.
Come to south Florida, there is a strong contingent of forever maskers down here. It’s nuts. I see people double masked on the daily. But as long as we got Desantis it will be voluntary idiocracy only 100%
You are deluded.
Perhaps. But I think one can only push others so far before they resist.
It isn't just governments, quasi-official associations and other health-management organisations which are prolonging the covid "clap-trap". It's those laypeople who see themselves as meriting some sort of special status, which involves all the paraphenalia of masks, sanitisation, distancing and, of course, "vaccinations". Right down at the lowest level, the mysophobics are complicit in prolonging the farce. Forcibly and reluctantly, the people who saw through the whole charade during late 2019 to early 2020 and beyond, had to pander to the snowflakes, bed-wetters and hypochondriacs. Do the latter categories realise what sort of great jackboot of authoritarianism they have allowed to force the door of privacy, enterprise and common sense?
They probably welcome it, Neil
This was so predictable. Back at the beginning of the hysteria called the pandemic, in March 2020, I wrote that because there will always be diseases, the pretexts used to justify control measures will always be available, and that "temporary" measures would therefore be likely to become permanent. This was during the days of "two weeks to flatten the curve." It will never end, so long as we as a society enthrone risk minimization as our most sacred value.
Of course, in the long view, the things we do to keep people healthy end up making us sicker than ever. Whose idea of health is it, to live in isolation?
Exactly. The demonic mentality behind this whole narrative is destroying life under the guise of preserving it. The spell must break before this ever changes but the trouble is people still think that the “virus” is to blame for the destruction of our lives when it’s every self- righteous, self absorbed, narcissistic, proud, short sighted ignoramus that is perpetrating this whole global scam .
Well said.
Welcome to Planet Crazy!
What is so baffling about all this is that by now there is evidence that a) there is a very clear risk profile concerning COVID and b) masking has its disadvantages -so why would anyone promote general mask mandates? Why? WHY?
I imagine they imagine it is easier to "mask up" that "fess up". They are wrong, though; Confession is way easier and so freeing.
Not a pinch, Jane, I will not burn a pinch to their irrational goddess.
Gagging & jabbing... lol! So true
My relatives in Holland begged for “hard” lockdowns. The state news reported that the PM was receiving pressure to go easy (this was Nov 21). They sat on the edge of the couch and hissed: “Let it be hard”.
Ugh. Sorry, but those relatives are shite.
Had the call come to turn us in they would have done so with quivering excitement
I know similar people. They have willingly participated in the formation of a new and disgusting form of totalitarianism.
I'm so glad that I lived most of my life without this lunacy. I don't know how younger people can deal with it, outside of perhaps vowing to fight the madness.
Also, these lunatics are apparently never going to be held to account for the years of life they have needlessly stolen from everyone. The younger any person is, the more they've been robbed.
And that is something that simply cannot be replaced.
Masks have not been required by my uni employer since mid-March but the majority of my coworkers still wear them. They're all vaxxed and most are boosted. Only 1% of our campus received exemptions from the vaxx.
And their excuse will be "you are still more free than most of the world"
I don't want to be more, I want to be really free, so back off tyrants!
You nailed it again, E.: „hyperchondriac superstitious behaviours of elderly urbanites who watch too much state television”. Sadly, the only way out of this craziness is to wait for those people to die. Go extinct. Like the dinosaurs.
I'm afraid there are fresh bodies coming up the ranks. I regularly see otherwise healthy-looking young women of both sexes wearing masks outside where I live, and it has been 95 degrees Fahrenheit the past three days.
"Young women of both sexes... " lol!
it's like a berka or a hoodie...they can hide
It's definitely some kind of weird style for the weak.
well, the clot shots are appearing to be taking care of the extinction, selective elimination.
All it takes is willing sheeple and the tyrants never give up power.
20% isn't a lot of people. It's, what, about 17 million of the German population? But yeh, they're mentally retarded at this point. What your idiots do, our idiots copy. That's the problem.
20% is enough to achieve substantial parliamentary representation, and they're proportionately in the major centre-left and centre-right parties (CDU / SPD) which means these views will have a large voice in government.
These 20% in politics and the media consist of
- rabid, fanatical ZERO/NO COVID people with a platform and plenty of followers on twitter
- people who are invited to speak at talkshows
- people who are in their mid-sixties and/or have a lot of elderly constituents, and whose risk assessment might be skewed or who might not want to offend elderly constituents
Unfortunately, this gives them an over-representation in politics and media coverage.
They tend to skew older I'm guessing, who are typically the more valued voters (because of consistency).
Unfortunately I think 20% is more than enough to sway a society. The other 80% really don't want to offend and go along to get along.
I agree, every policy anywhere in the world starts to normalize stupidity and makes it easier for everywhere else to do the same.
Imagine how great the traffic would be if those 20% did the right thing and stayed home, hidden under their couch.
Actually, the advocates and directors of the mask fetish and other useless demonstrations of obedience are less than 20%, they're just more aggressive. Opposition of less than 20% can prevail if they do it right.
Watch the latest episode on The Highwire. Del interviews the person who coined mass formation. Very interesting conversation. He says 30% are in the hypnotic mass, 60% go along to get along and 5-10% are impervious to mass formation.
Two things give me hope. The people in most neighboring countries to Germany are done with Corona and their politicians appear to have gotten the message. And almost nobody is being vaccinated in Germany anymore. Although people should be if they believed the government and state media messaging.
Yes, yes, I know, many Germans have a very special relationship with their FFP2 mask, following every stupid rule and making sure everyone else dose too. But I think it the situation is shifting. For fun I read the comment section in Zeit today, and even the very left-wing readers were (refreshingly) against mandatory masking.
Yes, nothing lasts forever.
This is good news indeed. I read br24 forums, and there, the populace are getting restless, so to speak. Not a lot who stick to the approved narrative any more.
Thanks for this.
I see you did a podcast and I am sending it around on socials.
Any chance you'd do ours -- its audio only. We've been working hard on the C-19 skeptic's beat for nearly two years and would love, love, love to have you on.
I am a former CBC investigative reporter who has seen the light -- happy to alter your voice .
info@trishwoodpodcast.com
i will write to you :)
Thanks!