The Hypocrisy of the Left

     We do not know whether the accusations that Tara Reade has leveled against Joe Biden are true or false. That is a question of evidence and of inquiry that might be answered as time rolls on. We do know, by contrast, that the double standard that has been exhibited by Biden’s campaign and by the political press in tandem is a national disgrace. Both culturally and legally, due process must be habitually applied to nobody or to everyone. If, upon the most frivolous and protean of pretexts, it is routinely accorded to one faction while being denied to another, it is effectively lost.


      During the summer of 2018, with Brett Kavanaugh under the national spotlight, Biden was unequivocal in his demand that Americans must believe women as a matter of unwavering reflex. “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally,” Biden argued, “you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time.”

      Similar questions must be posed to the media, which have displayed an extraordinary and unjustifiable double standard in this case.  Two years ago, when Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused of teenage sexual misconduct, the press focused breathlessly on the charges, reporting without caveat anything that came across the transom. Nothing was too ridiculous to repeat — including the claim that Justice Kavanaugh had been involved in a “gang-rape” ring — and what little hard evidence was available was willfully supplemented by weaselly “opinion” pieces in which it was insinuated that the experiences of other people confirmed the specific accusations against Kavanaugh himself. Worse still were the presumptions that undergirded the media’s focus. For some writers, the mere fact that Kavanaugh had been accused was sufficient to tank his nomination, given the “cloud” that it would allegedly create around his tenure. For others, the vehemence of his denial was an indication of his guilt and unsuitability.

 The actress and #MeToo leader Alyssa Milano, for example, has suddenly discovered due process now that a candidate she favors stands accused. “We have to societally change that mindset to believing women, but that does not mean at the expense of not giving men their due process and investigating situations,” Milano said in an interview. “It’s got to be fair in both directions."  “I just don’t feel comfortable throwing away a decent man that I’ve known for 15 years in this time of complete chaos without there being a thorough investigation,” Milano said in an interview to which she linked. The backlash was swift: Progressives and feminists accused Milano of being a hypocrite. 
 Actress Rose McGowan, who accused Weinstein of rape, tore into Milano on Twitter, saying, “You are a fraud. This is about holding the media accountable. You go after Trump & Kavanaugh saying Believe Victims, you are a lie. You have always been a lie. The corrupt DNC is in on the smear job of Tara Reade, so are you. SHAME.”


      After making it more socially acceptable for sexual assault survivors to come forward and helping bring down dozens of powerful men, the #MeToo movement is facing a new challenge: how to grapple with the allegations against Biden without tearing itself apart.




     We are of the same view today as we were in 2018, and as we were before that. We believe that sexual assault is a hideous crime and that we should punish only people who are guilty of it. It is monstrous when the perpetrators of evil get away with their acts. But it is also monstrous when the innocent lose their good names. Our preference for due process derives from a desire to avoid either outcome.  More practically, we believe that our political system itself benefits strongly from the presumption of innocence. If the mere introduction of an accusation is sufficient to prompt a candidate’s withdrawal, the incentives for false charges will grow legion. Joe Biden is a hypocrite and an opportunist, but that is no reason to treat him any differently than we would treat anybody else.

     But in many ways, this story isn’t really about Joe Biden. It is about how nearly everyone in the political/media realm is a total and obvious hypocrite. #MeToo supporting Democrats are pretending this allegation has no merit because they don’t want to harm Biden’s chances against Trump.  And news media outlets of all stripes are deciding, as usual, to shift their editorial standards not based on what the truth is, but on which narrative best fits their particular agenda.

End the Lockdowns

     Just to be clear, of course, lockdowns decrease the fatality rate from COVID-19, just like they would do so with the flu or any other infectious disease. You could decrease flu deaths every year by keeping society locked down. You could also cut down on the huge number of motor vehicle accidents each year. In the United States alone about 32,000 people are killed, and 2 million injured, from car crashes every year. 
But we don’t shut society down to prevent car crashes, or the annual flu, because the overall costs to individuals and society as a whole would far outweigh the benefits of doing so.
Epidemiologists are concerned only with how to prevent or limit the spread of an infectious disease. They are not qualified, or concerned with, assessing the overall costs to society of a lockdown.
The purpose of democracy is to allow individuals to make their own decisions, based on their own judgments, about the best course of action for themselves and their families.  If you give up on people to make that sort of decision, especially in times of crisis, you have given up on the entire idea of democracy.

The results of the lockdown are as follows:

    *In less developed countries, where many people live hand to mouth and governments can’t afford massive aid, and food chains have been shut down, many people will starve to death.

    *In developed countries, the deaths from heart disease will skyrocket, and heart disease is a far greater killer than the virus.

    *Economies around the globe have been shut down, with literally hundreds of millions of people becoming unemployed.

    *In the US, politicians, facing an election year, have enacted staggering stimulus programs – over $200,000,000 for every single death in the US, and this includes only the first stimulus program and none of the actions of the Fed to increase liquidity in financial markets. These programs will saddle future generations with debts that are impossible to pay.

    *The massive amounts of handouts will completely corrupt the small business system, as corruption and fraud will be far more profitable than actually trying to restart businesses.

    *Hundreds of millions of children around the globe will be denied a complete education.

    *Dramatic increases in domestic violence and Divorce.

    *Perhaps most importantly, the lockdown shows the complete failure of educational systems to ingrain reasoning skills, to analyze information within a context, and not to have judgments skewed by sensationalized news reports. The vast majority of people support the lockdowns, and that is a sad commentary on the ability of power-hungry politicians and the media to sway public opinion.

    *Around the world, we’ve been shown how vulnerable democratic institutions really are. People have been imprisoned like animals, massively, all in the name of an “emergency”. Where did leaders of the democratic world take their lead on how to handle the crisis? From Communist China, a ruthless dictatorship that allows no challenge to authority at all.

   * We’ve also been shown how weak non-governmental institutions really are, even in “advanced democracies” like the US. There has been no real challenge to the government mounted by lawyers or non-profit institutions.

    *Everyone has meekly submitted. Democracy has lost the great battle, at the first big test of a new century. Now that politicians and big media realize how much they can get away with without being challenged, they hold the whip hand. Democracy won’t recover.

    *Social Media and all forms of modern media have how shown they have an ability to transmit fear, but not really help or solutions, as people chose the crudest possible path; huddling by themselves, shutting down, and avoiding all contact with other people.

    *Human beings have shown themselves for what, at root, they really are; a great mass of organisms unwilling or unable to think for themselves, following whatever leader screams the loudest and offers the easiest, crudest solutions. Really, like dumb animals, but without any of the dignity or beauty of animals in the wild.

     This is no justication for sweeping government policies, lacking any and all nuance, that destroy the lives, jobs, and businesses of Americans.  Anyone who supports lockdown has been the victim of mind control. Your fear has been used to control you with many begging to be locked down. It’s easier to fool a man than to convince him he’s been fooled. Being alive is not the same as living. Life without meaning or quality is worthless. Living means taking risks. Let’s open this country and get to living again. I’m tired of just being alive. The pandemic is serious, but the response is wrong; you don’t save lives by treating the whole world as a prison, and you don’t win a war by imprisoning your own troops. 


     The mainstream media is, as usual, united in bringing everyone a single point of view; that a total world lockdown is vital, at any cost to freedom, personal choice, and the economy. We think there’s room for a different point of view, and we want to make sure those other points of view are known. In some cases, we’ll link to sites we’ve created, and sometimes to those of total strangers; whatever gets the point across.  Our main point is that the costs of a lockdown have to be considered as well as the benefits. Will the lockdown save some lives? Yes. But at a horrendous cost.



      Protect senior and people with pre-existing conditions -have them isolate from the rest of the population. Allow young and healthy people to live normally and get infected to develop herd immunity in the population. Shutting down country is inept government.

     Anyone that says the people that are not isolating will make it last longer is lying. The virus will last to one of two things happens : have a vaccine (10 years later still no Sars vaccine) reach herd immunity. There is no other way out!

Essential Workers in America

    

      It’s become increasingly common to hear people say that America has been shut down by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This isn’t really true: Large sectors of the American workforce have been asked to function as close to normally as possible, and the rest of the country has been leaning on these workers more heavily than ever.  The coronavirus has turned many workers into essential employees. But requiring workers to go into work despite their health concerns has thrust the industry's inequalities and unfair practices into the limelight.

     A letter from Ryan:

 

   "  I work at a Big Box Retailer and have for a while now.   It's not the best job in the world, but it's the best I can get for right now.  I lost my good job and have been unable to find another.  Life goes on, and I can't just look for work, so I have to take any job available.  So I take a job working at a store.  The pay is low, but it does barley pay my rent and bills.  The hours are good, I start early and get out early.  I have to wear a ridiculous outfit: that the company only gave me two of: the rest I had to buy with my own money.  My boss is a typical two faced type: who acts friendly and then stabs you in the back.   Often he will blame the company and say there is nothing he can do about anything.  My co-workers are a mix of good people, ones that just do the bare minimum, and jerks.  Naturally my store is full of favoritism and unfairness.  On the whole though, it's a job I can live with, for now.

     Then the coronavirus pandemic hits, and suddenly I am an "Essential Worker".  Nothing at all though changes at my store: it's still the same job everyday.  Except now I might get exposed to a deadly virus.  Though a lot of other things are getting a spotlight on them.  I only have two sick days and no vacation days.  My boss is clear that I can't use my sick days, because he needs everyone at work: except the ones he shows favoritism to that come and go as they wish.    Over time is still rationed to the favorites, but what little is offered I have to take: not only do I need the money, but they might black list me for no future overtime.  The store provides us with no PPE or anything else.  We have to pay for that out of our own pockets, with the small amount of money we make.  Less money now as the store has cut hours too, and only the favorites are guaranteed their 40 hour work week.  All of that and customer rudeness and dissatifaction are at all time highs.

     And with all that: I still can't quit.  I need a job.  I need money to live and have bills to pay.  Even if I could find a place that was hiring I'd have to start out at less then I'm making now.  And the people would change, but the job would not change much.  I'm trapped."

     The coronavirus has also exposed how differently wealthy and poor people are weathering the crisis.  Rich people have been flying via private jets, escaping coronavirus hotspots to go to vacation homes, and spending thousands of dollars stockpiling.  Meanwhile, low income have been struggling to pay the bills and had difficulty getting to grocery stores to buy food for their families because of their hours at work. The gaps became clear almost immediately, when companies and governments began advising employees to work from home. Bankers and corporate employees could go remote. People working on the front lines of the restaurant and retail industries could not, especially as stores were flooded with panicked people stockpiling pre-isolation. 

     Millions of white-collar workers are telecommuting from home to stay safe as the coronavirus extends its terrifying reach across America. But millions of other workers — supermarket cashiers, pharmacists, warehouse workers, bus drivers, meatpacking workers — still have to report to work each day, and many are furious that their employers are not doing enough to protect them against the pandemic.

     These workers are demanding what everyone else wants during the worst epidemic in a century — safety. They feel their companies are taking them and their safety for granted, and they don’t want to risk their lives for a paycheck, often a meager one. Many workers are angry that while their employers are doing a lively business, they haven’t given them raises or hazard pay, which some other companies have provided.  “We’re not getting nothing — no type of compensation, no nothing, not even no cleanliness, no extra pay,”  The United States is the only wealthy nation that doesn’t have a national law guaranteeing workers paid parental leave and paid vacations. And until the recent passage of an emergency coronavirus law, it was one of the very few industrial nations not guaranteeing workers paid sick leave.

     On TV their are ads from walmart, ford....etc. proclaiming how much they care and want us to be safe. For years these companies have had disdain for their employees and treated them like garbage...in the middle of a crises the still treat employees like trash......now they want us to believe they care about anything more than making another billion bucks.

     The silver lining in this dark corona cloud is that, finally, society gets to see who really keeps our economic engine and creature comforts running -- and it ain't the owners and bosses. Not to say they don't play a role, but they are nothing without the workers they too often exploit with low wages and no benefits. They treat them as virtually worthless, but now, finally, these workers are seeing that they are not worthless, they are critical!  No American should work 40 hours a week and not be able to afford a comfortable life. All workers deserve a living wage, paid sick leave, paid vacation, health care, and (especially now) a safe working environment. (BTW, Democrats support these things, while Republicans pretend tax cuts for the rich will some day trickle down, but in the meantime, get busy pulling on those bootstraps and don't dare ask society for help!)  

There's an expression: "an honest day's work for an honest day's pay." Too many people in this country do the honest day's work, but they are not compensated with an honest day's pay.