Is there a "post-truth" majority in the US?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:There was no science when the pandemic hit. The scientists were working off data from SARS and MERS, which were in the same family but never at a global scale of impact. We did lockdowns so that hospital wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I feel like a lot of conservative are making calls in hindsight with known data, which wasn’t available information in the Spring/summer of 2020. So yes looking back, they could have possibly changed a few actions, like having kids return in the fall of 2020 to schools.

That only explains the first couple of weeks of lockdowns, and not the behavior months and years afterwards. It doesn’t explain the very specific facts I mentioned about the lack of a scientific basis for example for extended school closures, distancing, mandated child vaccinations and cloth masking. The entire time those decisions were coming down, we had evidence out of European countries (that were managing things differently) that was discarded.

For all of the leftist worship of European socialism, they are remarkably good at frantically silencing the hard, solid science that comes out of those countries. They did it in the pandemic with respect to evidence concerning school closures and distancing, and they’re doing it now with respect to medicalized gender transition for children. It’s almost as if they want the socialist dream and propaganda without the accompanying state-sponsored science.

Poor baby. Try to get over your anger. What’s happened is over. We can’t go back in time and change it. The pandemic is over; move on.

Shrug.

“Believe science. Oh wait. Not that science. We don’t like that science.”

That’s fine if you want, but don’t expect people not to see through you.

Sorry hon, YOU are the one disregarding 98% of the science while cherrypicking the tiny handful of items that you think somehow give credence to your broken anti-vaxxer, anti-mask beliefs.

You are speaking to multiple posters, HON. And there’s no “98 percent of the science” when it comes to COVID data, yet again you are making that up, and we all see through it. There is NO “pro science” political party.

Ignoring 98 percent of the science is referring to "ohh I have my Cochrane study of lab-only tests and influenza that I think proves masks don't work and therefore I am going to completely ignore the hundreds of other papers out there which say otherwise despite those studies being more specifically focused on covid and real-world effectiveness."

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The gold standard Cochrane meta analysis of over 78 rigorous studies showed that mask mandates don’t work. “The review’s authors found “little to no” evidence that masking at the population level reduced COVID infections, concluding that there is “uncertainty about the effects of face masks.” That result held when the researchers compared surgical masks with N95 masks, and when they compared surgical masks with nothing.” (Tayag)

If you haven’t been following the science, then maybe just sit this discussion out.

The Cochrane study was only "gold standard" in terms of limiting itself to randomized controlled trials, it did not not capture real-world effectiveness as well as observational studies, and beyond that it has other flaws, for example it included pre-COVID studies of influenza, which has different transmission dynamics than COVID. However even that said, the Cochrane review nonetheless still concluded that there was "low to moderate certainty" evidence that masks provide a small reduction in viral respiratory infections based on RCTs - which contradicts your suggestion that masks were totally ineffective and worthless. Even the Cochrane study can't back that claim up.

There are links above to several other meta-analyses which were not as constrained and flawed as the Cochrane study, which found that effectiveness of masks can be influenced by the timing of implementation, adherence rates, and public compliance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread and consistent mask usage combined with other measures (social distancing, hand hygiene) did in fact play a crucial role.

Studies linked earlier in this thread specifically focused on COVID-19 (not influenza as in the Cochrane study) have shown that masks, particularly in combination with other measures, can in fact significantly reduce transmission. For instance, the Lancet systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrated that face masks could result in a large reduction in infection risk. Likewise, real-world data from Kansas and Germany indicated that mask mandates and usage correlated with reduced infection rates and growth. Weird that you would want to disregard European studies (Germany) while falsely claiming we are the ones disregarding European studies.

It’s laughable to compare a single study from Kansas to a 78 study meta analysis. At this point you are really grasping for straws. You are mixing theoretical mask data (Lancet) with real world, mandate results. It’s the difference between lab data and real world. Give it a rest. The data speaks for itself, as does how the left handled the debate at the time.

Cochrane WAS NOT real-world, mandate results. Lancet was not "theoretical" unless you are confusing it with a totally different paper. The paper in Lancet was likewise an extensive meta-analysis, which was actually far more inclusive of real-world data than Cochrane was. And likewise, Germany, Kansas and others WERE real world studies.

Get your act together. You are the one grasping at straws and flailing wildly.

You yet again are confusing mask data with mask mandate data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:There was no science when the pandemic hit. The scientists were working off data from SARS and MERS, which were in the same family but never at a global scale of impact. We did lockdowns so that hospital wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I feel like a lot of conservative are making calls in hindsight with known data, which wasn’t available information in the Spring/summer of 2020. So yes looking back, they could have possibly changed a few actions, like having kids return in the fall of 2020 to schools.

That only explains the first couple of weeks of lockdowns, and not the behavior months and years afterwards. It doesn’t explain the very specific facts I mentioned about the lack of a scientific basis for example for extended school closures, distancing, mandated child vaccinations and cloth masking. The entire time those decisions were coming down, we had evidence out of European countries (that were managing things differently) that was discarded.

For all of the leftist worship of European socialism, they are remarkably good at frantically silencing the hard, solid science that comes out of those countries. They did it in the pandemic with respect to evidence concerning school closures and distancing, and they’re doing it now with respect to medicalized gender transition for children. It’s almost as if they want the socialist dream and propaganda without the accompanying state-sponsored science.

Poor baby. Try to get over your anger. What’s happened is over. We can’t go back in time and change it. The pandemic is over; move on.

Shrug.

“Believe science. Oh wait. Not that science. We don’t like that science.”

That’s fine if you want, but don’t expect people not to see through you.

Sorry hon, YOU are the one disregarding 98% of the science while cherrypicking the tiny handful of items that you think somehow give credence to your broken anti-vaxxer, anti-mask beliefs.

You are speaking to multiple posters, HON. And there’s no “98 percent of the science” when it comes to COVID data, yet again you are making that up, and we all see through it. There is NO “pro science” political party.

Ignoring 98 percent of the science is referring to "ohh I have my Cochrane study of lab-only tests and influenza that I think proves masks don't work and therefore I am going to completely ignore the hundreds of other papers out there which say otherwise despite those studies being more specifically focused on covid and real-world effectiveness."

OMG what is confusing you about the idea that one way masking works and yet government mask mandates don’t? This is the what, the third time you’ve mixed this up? Even at the time this is exactly what Republican governors were saying when they dropped the mandates in their states and the Democrats put out absurd hyperbolic press releases about how they were going to kill their residents (which of course didn’t happen).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The gold standard Cochrane meta analysis of over 78 rigorous studies showed that mask mandates don’t work. “The review’s authors found “little to no” evidence that masking at the population level reduced COVID infections, concluding that there is “uncertainty about the effects of face masks.” That result held when the researchers compared surgical masks with N95 masks, and when they compared surgical masks with nothing.” (Tayag)

If you haven’t been following the science, then maybe just sit this discussion out.

The Cochrane study was only "gold standard" in terms of limiting itself to randomized controlled trials, it did not not capture real-world effectiveness as well as observational studies, and beyond that it has other flaws, for example it included pre-COVID studies of influenza, which has different transmission dynamics than COVID. However even that said, the Cochrane review nonetheless still concluded that there was "low to moderate certainty" evidence that masks provide a small reduction in viral respiratory infections based on RCTs - which contradicts your suggestion that masks were totally ineffective and worthless. Even the Cochrane study can't back that claim up.

No.

Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84 to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials, 13,919 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence).

Again, Cochrane relied only on RCTs. Experts argue that relying solely on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) may not capture the full picture. Observational studies and modeling have shown that mask mandates and widespread mask usage correlate with reduced transmission rates. A study published in JAMA in 2023 reinforces this, noting that observational data and policy evaluations provide critical insights into the effectiveness of masks in real-world settings​ https://www.everydayhealth.com/coronavirus/the-evidence-is-clear-wearing-a-mask-does-reduce-the-spread-of-covid-19/

And that said, there are newer RCTs which DO show that masks are effective. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi9069

A study published in February 2022 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that compared with those who reported never wearing a mask, those who reported always wearing a cloth mask, surgical mask, or N95 or KN95 respirator in indoor public settings had 56 percent, 66 percent, and 83 percent lower odds, respectively, of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result. There was some protection among people who reported sometimes wearing a mask or respirator. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm

A matched cohort study of 400 U.S. counties published in February 2022 in Health Affairs showed that enactment of a mask mandate was associated with a 25 percent reduction in COVID-19 incidence four weeks later. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01072

Stop trying to claim we are anti-science. The one and only citation you've given is the flawed Cochrane study whereas others have been posting study after study, RCTs, meta-analyses, real-world observational studies and more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was no science when the pandemic hit. The scientists were working off data from SARS and MERS, which were in the same family but never at a global scale of impact. We did lockdowns so that hospital wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I feel like a lot of conservative are making calls in hindsight with known data, which wasn’t available information in the Spring/summer of 2020. So yes looking back, they could have possibly changed a few actions, like having kids return in the fall of 2020 to schools.

That only explains the first couple of weeks of lockdowns, and not the behavior months and years afterwards. It doesn’t explain the very specific facts I mentioned about the lack of a scientific basis for example for extended school closures, distancing, mandated child vaccinations and cloth masking. The entire time those decisions were coming down, we had evidence out of European countries (that were managing things differently) that was discarded.

For all of the leftist worship of European socialism, they are remarkably good at frantically silencing the hard, solid science that comes out of those countries. They did it in the pandemic with respect to evidence concerning school closures and distancing, and they’re doing it now with respect to medicalized gender transition for children. It’s almost as if they want the socialist dream and propaganda without the accompanying state-sponsored science.

Poor baby. Try to get over your anger. What’s happened is over. We can’t go back in time and change it. The pandemic is over; move on.

Shrug.

“Believe science. Oh wait. Not that science. We don’t like that science.”

That’s fine if you want, but don’t expect people not to see through you.

Sorry hon, YOU are the one disregarding 98% of the science while cherrypicking the tiny handful of items that you think somehow give credence to your broken anti-vaxxer, anti-mask beliefs.

You are speaking to multiple posters, HON. And there’s no “98 percent of the science” when it comes to COVID data, yet again you are making that up, and we all see through it. There is NO “pro science” political party.

Ignoring 98 percent of the science is referring to "ohh I have my Cochrane study of lab-only tests and influenza that I think proves masks don't work and therefore I am going to completely ignore the hundreds of other papers out there which say otherwise despite those studies being more specifically focused on covid and real-world effectiveness."

OMG what is confusing you about the idea that one way masking works and yet government mask mandates don’t? This is the what, the third time you’ve mixed this up? Even at the time this is exactly what Republican governors were saying when they dropped the mandates in their states and the Democrats put out absurd hyperbolic press releases about how they were going to kill their residents (which of course didn’t happen).

Actually, they did. Excess mortality rates were higher in red states than in blue states.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was no science when the pandemic hit. The scientists were working off data from SARS and MERS, which were in the same family but never at a global scale of impact. We did lockdowns so that hospital wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I feel like a lot of conservative are making calls in hindsight with known data, which wasn’t available information in the Spring/summer of 2020. So yes looking back, they could have possibly changed a few actions, like having kids return in the fall of 2020 to schools.

That only explains the first couple of weeks of lockdowns, and not the behavior months and years afterwards. It doesn’t explain the very specific facts I mentioned about the lack of a scientific basis for example for extended school closures, distancing, mandated child vaccinations and cloth masking. The entire time those decisions were coming down, we had evidence out of European countries (that were managing things differently) that was discarded.

For all of the leftist worship of European socialism, they are remarkably good at frantically silencing the hard, solid science that comes out of those countries. They did it in the pandemic with respect to evidence concerning school closures and distancing, and they’re doing it now with respect to medicalized gender transition for children. It’s almost as if they want the socialist dream and propaganda without the accompanying state-sponsored science.

Poor baby. Try to get over your anger. What’s happened is over. We can’t go back in time and change it. The pandemic is over; move on.

Shrug.

“Believe science. Oh wait. Not that science. We don’t like that science.”

That’s fine if you want, but don’t expect people not to see through you.

Sorry hon, YOU are the one disregarding 98% of the science while cherrypicking the tiny handful of items that you think somehow give credence to your broken anti-vaxxer, anti-mask beliefs.

You are speaking to multiple posters, HON. And there’s no “98 percent of the science” when it comes to COVID data, yet again you are making that up, and we all see through it. There is NO “pro science” political party.

Ignoring 98 percent of the science is referring to "ohh I have my Cochrane study of lab-only tests and influenza that I think proves masks don't work and therefore I am going to completely ignore the hundreds of other papers out there which say otherwise despite those studies being more specifically focused on covid and real-world effectiveness."

OMG what is confusing you about the idea that one way masking works and yet government mask mandates don’t? This is the what, the third time you’ve mixed this up? Even at the time this is exactly what Republican governors were saying when they dropped the mandates in their states and the Democrats put out absurd hyperbolic press releases about how they were going to kill their residents (which of course didn’t happen).

So now we're at "masking works" but "mask mandates don't." Well now there's some truth. The main reason mandates don't work is because some people are just contrarian idiots who also lack the common sense for self-preservation. The anti-maskers are birds-of-a-feather with the people who fought seatbelts and motorcycle helmets. Good for you. Darwin's law in action.

[Anonymous]

Social media is the worst thing that ever happened to humanity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Social media is the worst thing that ever happened to humanity.

I think one of the things social media has done is strip away the veils revealing that there is a non-trivial number of vocal people out there who probably have any number of psychiatric disorders leading them to be overly paranoid and delusional, coupled with a non-trivial number of cynical jerks and manipulators who love feeding into those peoples' weak states of mental health to steer them toward political divides. And ultimately it's doing a lot of damage, for example it caused a lot of preventable deaths across America during the pandemic, and fueled an attack on the US Capitol on January 6th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was no science when the pandemic hit. The scientists were working off data from SARS and MERS, which were in the same family but never at a global scale of impact. We did lockdowns so that hospital wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I feel like a lot of conservative are making calls in hindsight with known data, which wasn’t available information in the Spring/summer of 2020. So yes looking back, they could have possibly changed a few actions, like having kids return in the fall of 2020 to schools.

That only explains the first couple of weeks of lockdowns, and not the behavior months and years afterwards. It doesn’t explain the very specific facts I mentioned about the lack of a scientific basis for example for extended school closures, distancing, mandated child vaccinations and cloth masking. The entire time those decisions were coming down, we had evidence out of European countries (that were managing things differently) that was discarded.

For all of the leftist worship of European socialism, they are remarkably good at frantically silencing the hard, solid science that comes out of those countries. They did it in the pandemic with respect to evidence concerning school closures and distancing, and they’re doing it now with respect to medicalized gender transition for children. It’s almost as if they want the socialist dream and propaganda without the accompanying state-sponsored science.

Poor baby. Try to get over your anger. What’s happened is over. We can’t go back in time and change it. The pandemic is over; move on.

Shrug.

“Believe science. Oh wait. Not that science. We don’t like that science.”

That’s fine if you want, but don’t expect people not to see through you.

Sorry hon, YOU are the one disregarding 98% of the science while cherrypicking the tiny handful of items that you think somehow give credence to your broken anti-vaxxer, anti-mask beliefs.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer and I believe N-95 masks are effective if worn correctly on adults. I do not believe mask mandates are effective at preventing disease spread, because that isn’t well-supported by studies.

Where I differ from you is that I do not reject science that isn’t politically expedient. I am not rejecting the overwhelming science outside of the US showing the failure of medicalized gender transition, unlike the US left, for instance.

You sound weaker and weaker every time you post.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You can't gaslight people into misremembering what happened, which was coordinated efforts by government (leaning hard on social media companies) to shut down discussion. People are not going to forget.

The FACT is that House Republicans tried to have hearings on that but UTTERLY FAILED to prove there was some massive coordinated leaning hard on social media to shut down discussion. You can check the actual CSPAN hearing video for yourself on how it was a failure. If whatever media you follow didn't convey that to you then you are looking in the wrong place for where discussion was shut down.

I don't need a congressional hearing to prove something I experienced personally.

That you posted some sketchy covid conspiracy crap and some mod deleted it (which nobody here denies) is hardly evidence of a grand government coverup. Again, the House Republicans tried proving that and failed. And if they failed in their fervent witch hunt, yours is also by extension a fail. Accept the L and move on. It was some random mod, not a government conspiracy. You do not know more than, or better than the people who had far more resources and access to investigate than you do.

That was a different poster.

People lived through a time when their lives were completely upended and day to day actions and personal health care decisions were dictated by government policies.

The decision to get a vaccine was foisted on people whose employers suddenly had to administer a vaccine mandate from the federal government. Quiting your job suddenly and losing income and stability for your family is not an option for many people. My employer never intruded on my healthcare decisions until Trump and Biden's administrations put in sweeping government covid policies.

People were understandably uncomfortable with a vaccine that was rushed through production and approved on an emergency use basis. Vaccines usually take decades to confirm safety and efficacy. I participated in vaccine trials in college that I learned literally 10 years later hadn't been approved. Then there was the ever changing promises that the vaccine would prevent transmission that were watered down to say, oh no, it'll prevent serious illness and or death. Most demographics were never going to die from covid anyway. It primarily affected the elderly.

Schools were closed, for quite a while, depending on the state. Young families were left to figure out how to work fulltime remotely while simultaneously homeschooling their kids while people screeched about how "school isn't childcare". It is, actually. Our entire economy relies on parents knowing their children are being supervised so the parents can work.

Small businesses were deemed nonessential and had to close while big businesses had the resources to lobby for different treatment.

You STILL have people who are trying to shut down discussion on the government pandemic response, years later.

The "different posters" are all part of the same disease affecting American society - that we are being destroyed from within with willful and malicious disinformation. Disinformation which caused huge numbers of Americans to get sick and die when it should have been preventable.

Meanwhile, nobody died because schools were closed. Nobody died because some message board mod shut down what was, at the time, baseless theories about a lab leak. And do note that school closures were largely a local decision.

Again, it's truly bizarre that people here on this thread, whether you or the different poster alike somehow arrive at the utterly bizarre calculus that somehow "Democrats are worse" or "Democrats are destroying society" when it wasn't the Democrats who were getting Americans killed by the thousands spreading anti-vax garbage.

If you still don't get it, then you're truly hopeless. People dying a horrible death from covid is FAR worse than you being butthurt because some mod locked or took down your post. That's just objective reality.

The law isn't about relativism. The federal government can't be censoring speech through a third-party, like Facebook, no matter how beneficial it would be to the American public.

And House Republicans tried to prove that the federal government was censoring, and failed. And by the way, the First Amendment doesn't actually give unconditional blanket protections and carte blanche to post whatever you like. For example if you post classified information you absolutely will be prosecuted and convicted. Likewise, in most US jurisdictions, it is unlawful to threaten to harm or kill people or destroy their property (terroristic threats), or to falsely hold yourself out to be a physician, police officer, or member of other regulated professions.

So you fail to make your case on the law piece, and you completely failed on the morality and relativism piece. Two fails for the price of one. Congratulations.

It's unclear to me how blind you can be:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/judge-rules-white-house-pressured-social-networks-to-suppress-free-speech/

Further, you seem to be claiming that covid theories are classified information. That's an interesting straw man but not what we are discussing.

First of all, nobody here claimed covid theories were classified information. That was given out as an example of how the First Amendment is in fact not absolute and that the government does indeed have the legal right and authority to suppress information which can trump the First Amendment. So, that's a strawman entirely of your own making. Improve your reading comprehension.

That said, what came out of the GOP hearings was testimony and evidence that Facebook and other social media companies were in fact NOT under undue pressure and that there were MANY instances where either they declined to do anything about instances where the government asked them to look into it. They weren't following government orders, and there were no consequences for not doing so. Zero, none. Additionally, there was a lot of evidence that came out of the hearings showing that in many cases social media companies were suppressing posts entirely of their own accord, for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with the government. I personally can cite the fact that I was banned from Twitter, for no good reason other than the fact that I criticized Elon Musk's blue checkmark program. I was suppressed and the government had absolutely nothing to do with it.

I didn't compare the covid theories to classified information. You did. You didn't make any argument that it was necessary for the government to censor the information. Only that the government can censor free speech, so any time it chooses to do so is legitimate.

The GOP hearings are irrelevant, just like most Congressional hearings. A federal judge told the executive office to stop pressuring social media companies. The companies were rightly afraid of government retaliation. They had no "independent" action at that point.

Just because you were censored by a private company doesn't mean that government censorship doesn't exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was no science when the pandemic hit. The scientists were working off data from SARS and MERS, which were in the same family but never at a global scale of impact. We did lockdowns so that hospital wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I feel like a lot of conservative are making calls in hindsight with known data, which wasn’t available information in the Spring/summer of 2020. So yes looking back, they could have possibly changed a few actions, like having kids return in the fall of 2020 to schools.

That only explains the first couple of weeks of lockdowns, and not the behavior months and years afterwards. It doesn’t explain the very specific facts I mentioned about the lack of a scientific basis for example for extended school closures, distancing, mandated child vaccinations and cloth masking. The entire time those decisions were coming down, we had evidence out of European countries (that were managing things differently) that was discarded.

For all of the leftist worship of European socialism, they are remarkably good at frantically silencing the hard, solid science that comes out of those countries. They did it in the pandemic with respect to evidence concerning school closures and distancing, and they’re doing it now with respect to medicalized gender transition for children. It’s almost as if they want the socialist dream and propaganda without the accompanying state-sponsored science.

Poor baby. Try to get over your anger. What’s happened is over. We can’t go back in time and change it. The pandemic is over; move on.

Shrug.

“Believe science. Oh wait. Not that science. We don’t like that science.”

That’s fine if you want, but don’t expect people not to see through you.

Sorry hon, YOU are the one disregarding 98% of the science while cherrypicking the tiny handful of items that you think somehow give credence to your broken anti-vaxxer, anti-mask beliefs.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer and I believe N-95 masks are effective if worn correctly on adults. I do not believe mask mandates are effective at preventing disease spread, because that isn’t well-supported by studies.

Where I differ from you is that I do not reject science that isn’t politically expedient. I am not rejecting the overwhelming science outside of the US showing the failure of medicalized gender transition, unlike the US left, for instance.

You sound weaker and weaker every time you post.

Weakness us moving the goalposts by changing the subject - we were talking about covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was no science when the pandemic hit. The scientists were working off data from SARS and MERS, which were in the same family but never at a global scale of impact. We did lockdowns so that hospital wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I feel like a lot of conservative are making calls in hindsight with known data, which wasn’t available information in the Spring/summer of 2020. So yes looking back, they could have possibly changed a few actions, like having kids return in the fall of 2020 to schools.

That only explains the first couple of weeks of lockdowns, and not the behavior months and years afterwards. It doesn’t explain the very specific facts I mentioned about the lack of a scientific basis for example for extended school closures, distancing, mandated child vaccinations and cloth masking. The entire time those decisions were coming down, we had evidence out of European countries (that were managing things differently) that was discarded.

For all of the leftist worship of European socialism, they are remarkably good at frantically silencing the hard, solid science that comes out of those countries. They did it in the pandemic with respect to evidence concerning school closures and distancing, and they’re doing it now with respect to medicalized gender transition for children. It’s almost as if they want the socialist dream and propaganda without the accompanying state-sponsored science.

Poor baby. Try to get over your anger. What’s happened is over. We can’t go back in time and change it. The pandemic is over; move on.

Shrug.

“Believe science. Oh wait. Not that science. We don’t like that science.”

That’s fine if you want, but don’t expect people not to see through you.

Sorry hon, YOU are the one disregarding 98% of the science while cherrypicking the tiny handful of items that you think somehow give credence to your broken anti-vaxxer, anti-mask beliefs.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer and I believe N-95 masks are effective if worn correctly on adults. I do not believe mask mandates are effective at preventing disease spread, because that isn’t well-supported by studies.

Where I differ from you is that I do not reject science that isn’t politically expedient. I am not rejecting the overwhelming science outside of the US showing the failure of medicalized gender transition, unlike the US left, for instance.

You sound weaker and weaker every time you post.

Weakness us moving the goalposts by changing the subject - we were talking about covid.

We’re talking about science. Keep up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was no science when the pandemic hit. The scientists were working off data from SARS and MERS, which were in the same family but never at a global scale of impact. We did lockdowns so that hospital wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I feel like a lot of conservative are making calls in hindsight with known data, which wasn’t available information in the Spring/summer of 2020. So yes looking back, they could have possibly changed a few actions, like having kids return in the fall of 2020 to schools.

That only explains the first couple of weeks of lockdowns, and not the behavior months and years afterwards. It doesn’t explain the very specific facts I mentioned about the lack of a scientific basis for example for extended school closures, distancing, mandated child vaccinations and cloth masking. The entire time those decisions were coming down, we had evidence out of European countries (that were managing things differently) that was discarded.

For all of the leftist worship of European socialism, they are remarkably good at frantically silencing the hard, solid science that comes out of those countries. They did it in the pandemic with respect to evidence concerning school closures and distancing, and they’re doing it now with respect to medicalized gender transition for children. It’s almost as if they want the socialist dream and propaganda without the accompanying state-sponsored science.

Poor baby. Try to get over your anger. What’s happened is over. We can’t go back in time and change it. The pandemic is over; move on.

Shrug.

“Believe science. Oh wait. Not that science. We don’t like that science.”

That’s fine if you want, but don’t expect people not to see through you.

Sorry hon, YOU are the one disregarding 98% of the science while cherrypicking the tiny handful of items that you think somehow give credence to your broken anti-vaxxer, anti-mask beliefs.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer and I believe N-95 masks are effective if worn correctly on adults. I do not believe mask mandates are effective at preventing disease spread, because that isn’t well-supported by studies.

Where I differ from you is that I do not reject science that isn’t politically expedient. I am not rejecting the overwhelming science outside of the US showing the failure of medicalized gender transition, unlike the US left, for instance.

You sound weaker and weaker every time you post.

Weakness us moving the goalposts by changing the subject - we were talking about covid.

We’re talking about science. Keep up.

Just admit YOU LOST the covid debate round. Because you did, and everyone saw it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You can't gaslight people into misremembering what happened, which was coordinated efforts by government (leaning hard on social media companies) to shut down discussion. People are not going to forget.

The FACT is that House Republicans tried to have hearings on that but UTTERLY FAILED to prove there was some massive coordinated leaning hard on social media to shut down discussion. You can check the actual CSPAN hearing video for yourself on how it was a failure. If whatever media you follow didn't convey that to you then you are looking in the wrong place for where discussion was shut down.

I don't need a congressional hearing to prove something I experienced personally.

That you posted some sketchy covid conspiracy crap and some mod deleted it (which nobody here denies) is hardly evidence of a grand government coverup. Again, the House Republicans tried proving that and failed. And if they failed in their fervent witch hunt, yours is also by extension a fail. Accept the L and move on. It was some random mod, not a government conspiracy. You do not know more than, or better than the people who had far more resources and access to investigate than you do.

That was a different poster.

People lived through a time when their lives were completely upended and day to day actions and personal health care decisions were dictated by government policies.

The decision to get a vaccine was foisted on people whose employers suddenly had to administer a vaccine mandate from the federal government. Quiting your job suddenly and losing income and stability for your family is not an option for many people. My employer never intruded on my healthcare decisions until Trump and Biden's administrations put in sweeping government covid policies.

People were understandably uncomfortable with a vaccine that was rushed through production and approved on an emergency use basis. Vaccines usually take decades to confirm safety and efficacy. I participated in vaccine trials in college that I learned literally 10 years later hadn't been approved. Then there was the ever changing promises that the vaccine would prevent transmission that were watered down to say, oh no, it'll prevent serious illness and or death. Most demographics were never going to die from covid anyway. It primarily affected the elderly.

Schools were closed, for quite a while, depending on the state. Young families were left to figure out how to work fulltime remotely while simultaneously homeschooling their kids while people screeched about how "school isn't childcare". It is, actually. Our entire economy relies on parents knowing their children are being supervised so the parents can work.

Small businesses were deemed nonessential and had to close while big businesses had the resources to lobby for different treatment.

You STILL have people who are trying to shut down discussion on the government pandemic response, years later.

The "different posters" are all part of the same disease affecting American society - that we are being destroyed from within with willful and malicious disinformation. Disinformation which caused huge numbers of Americans to get sick and die when it should have been preventable.

Meanwhile, nobody died because schools were closed. Nobody died because some message board mod shut down what was, at the time, baseless theories about a lab leak. And do note that school closures were largely a local decision.

Again, it's truly bizarre that people here on this thread, whether you or the different poster alike somehow arrive at the utterly bizarre calculus that somehow "Democrats are worse" or "Democrats are destroying society" when it wasn't the Democrats who were getting Americans killed by the thousands spreading anti-vax garbage.

If you still don't get it, then you're truly hopeless. People dying a horrible death from covid is FAR worse than you being butthurt because some mod locked or took down your post. That's just objective reality.

The law isn't about relativism. The federal government can't be censoring speech through a third-party, like Facebook, no matter how beneficial it would be to the American public.

And House Republicans tried to prove that the federal government was censoring, and failed. And by the way, the First Amendment doesn't actually give unconditional blanket protections and carte blanche to post whatever you like. For example if you post classified information you absolutely will be prosecuted and convicted. Likewise, in most US jurisdictions, it is unlawful to threaten to harm or kill people or destroy their property (terroristic threats), or to falsely hold yourself out to be a physician, police officer, or member of other regulated professions.

So you fail to make your case on the law piece, and you completely failed on the morality and relativism piece. Two fails for the price of one. Congratulations.

It's unclear to me how blind you can be:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/judge-rules-white-house-pressured-social-networks-to-suppress-free-speech/

Further, you seem to be claiming that covid theories are classified information. That's an interesting straw man but not what we are discussing.

First of all, nobody here claimed covid theories were classified information. That was given out as an example of how the First Amendment is in fact not absolute and that the government does indeed have the legal right and authority to suppress information which can trump the First Amendment. So, that's a strawman entirely of your own making. Improve your reading comprehension.

That said, what came out of the GOP hearings was testimony and evidence that Facebook and other social media companies were in fact NOT under undue pressure and that there were MANY instances where either they declined to do anything about instances where the government asked them to look into it. They weren't following government orders, and there were no consequences for not doing so. Zero, none. Additionally, there was a lot of evidence that came out of the hearings showing that in many cases social media companies were suppressing posts entirely of their own accord, for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with the government. I personally can cite the fact that I was banned from Twitter, for no good reason other than the fact that I criticized Elon Musk's blue checkmark program. I was suppressed and the government had absolutely nothing to do with it.

I didn't compare the covid theories to classified information. You did. You didn't make any argument that it was necessary for the government to censor the information. Only that the government can censor free speech, so any time it chooses to do so is legitimate.

The GOP hearings are irrelevant, just like most Congressional hearings. A federal judge told the executive office to stop pressuring social media companies. The companies were rightly afraid of government retaliation. They had no "independent" action at that point.

Just because you were censored by a private company doesn't mean that government censorship doesn't exist.

Nobody compared covid conspiracies to classified info. For the second time, that was given as an example of how the government has the right and the authority, overriding the First Amendment.

Second, it was a clear case of court shopping for the injunction, Republicans they sought out a court in Louisiana (rather than a more relevant venue) with an activist Trump appointed (conflict of interest) judge. A clear abuse of the court system, with impartiality out the window.

Third, just because you were censored by a private social media firm doesn't mean the government was behind it.

And finally, PEOPLE DIED because of the lies told on social media. That alone shows just how far on the wrong side of righteousness and morality you are in defending those malicious lies.

[Anonymous]

I wonder how the posters defending covid lies on social media would feel if for example someone placed a fake call to police saying there was an armed standoff by one of the poster's own family member, prompting SWAT to break down the door and shoot their relative? Do you think making such a call is totally fine and should be defended to the last as a matter of free speech? It was malicious, it was a lie, it caused harm and got someone killed. Shouldn't there be consequences?