COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Jenni]

I feel like this shithead didn't post anything actually worthy of response, he isn't upholding a level of discourse that is deserving of serious conversation. At the same time I get tired of these twatwaffles acting like they have the right to define me- us, people like us- while refusing to hear what we are actually saying. They skate by on their polite racism pointing at the other party to take the attention off themselves. They never have to answer for all the shit they (the left) do that actually hurts black folks. So-called progressive policies have done almost nothing to help black people and in a lot of cases held them back. So I'm going to respond with the knowledge that Coach can post or delete this as he sees fit. My knickers will remain untwisted no matter the result.

To be honest I felt uncomfortable typing the words "colored folk",

Not uncomfortable enough because you keep typing it. Why not just call them black people? That's what they are, that's what they (mostly) call themselves. Are you afraid of the word black?

You also seem to be using a lot of coded language in your response. Let's just be honest. When you say "gangbangers" and "city" you are more or less saying black/minority. Rural is equivalent to white/Caucasian.

I don't talk in code. I say what I mean. And I guess this means you haven't been to the south because no, those are not really equivalent here. (I'm not sure they are anywhere, I suspect it's myth because even NYC is majority white and that's about as "urban" as one can get.) You got more whites in cities like Oxford and Biloxi and then in a lot of the rural areas like the Delta and Simpson county it's mostly black folks. When I say "gangbangers" I mean gangbangers. That could be Mexican, black, or white. The criminal world is very segregated. Whites hang with the AB, Mexicans with 13, and blacks with the Crips or Bloods. You are too old for me to have to explain that bullshit comes in all flavors and races. Since I apparently don't talk to black folks- how did it go over when the black dude you were listening to fussed about the gangbangers in his aunt's neighborhood and you explained that's "coded" language?

Perhaps he isn't talking about preserving white America as you are alluding to.

That's your issue not mine. It's you that has somehow decided that American values are "white". I don't think they are. I think that's actually one of the great things about this country. The values we said we thought were important applied to all. It's why minorities from other countries still come here, because the playing field is about as level here as it can get. Conservatives (actual conservatives) recognize that positive things, such as freedom, civility, and security of property and family life, are easily destroyed but not easily created. I think you need to think about why you feel those things are "white". Why do you think black folks don't value the same freedom and safety and way of life we white folks do?

Read this carefully. It is completely representative of the Democrat Left.

It is a really good representation of the playbook. Label to try to dictate the parameters on the conversation, decide the other party is beneath you and only the Holy Left know what's good for the poor little minorities (who of course desperately need them and their billion dollar programs) and then avoid any real discourse. They reassure themselves of their own Good Guy™ status because that performance of "virtue" is the thing that matters to them not actually doing anything or making this a better place for all our children. It's an identity to them, not an actual goal. The Left can't let the black folks be free either. Black folks want their guns, too. They want safe city neighborhoods, too. They want real education, too. The liberal aristocracy want them happy to own nothing, too. If they let the black folks speak for themselves that'd be a disaster for the Left. This identity politics shit has let the left get away with not having to produce any tangible improvements for the black folks whose votes they rely on. If they holler "racist" they don't have to answer for why they have so opposed school choice leaving the black children to struggle in failing schools. They don't have to answer for how the oppressive regulations prevent black entrepreneurship. Just use the old "racist" trope and never address how the 15 trillion the "progressives" have spent keeping them and their cronies in comfy government jobs hasn't helped the black folks much at all.

I think there’s something to the subjective point of view, but I think there are also basic principles like “inalienable rights,” without which the coherence of our shared reality and the common good disintegrates. The near equivalence of segregated, and handicapped fountains is a false one. Handicapped people aren’t barred from using regular facilities, they receive no punishment legal or social for doing so. Accommodations for disability are based on removing actual obstacles to a good or service whereas race is like eye color, having no bearing on one’s ability to drink from a fountain or use a certain bathroom.

I think there are basics too but we have to remember when we have these conversations that there are two sides to that coin. My freedom to own a gun (a basic principle) is the flip side of the coin from the liberal aristocracy's freedom to control me (which I have no doubt they feel is their inalienable right.) My theory is that this is why conversations about what should be straightforward inalienable right type shit becomes difficult- we have to remember our freedom and individualism threatens theirs.

I was not equating the two groups the fountains are for but rather the "show" of them. I went to a school built in '38. It didn't have separate fountains. The Jones County Courthouse, however, does. They were installed decades after the courthouse was built. A show. The handicapped fountain at the current courthouse is really low and is only accessible after somehow getting up a flight of stairs and managing to not get one's wheelchair knocked over by a super heavy door (seriously, it's comically heavy.) A show. Both groups have bigger fish to fry that are currently being ignored. Handicapped people are barred from using facilities on a daily basis. If you talk to any Spoonies (you can google spoon theory if you haven't already) you know they face daily battles with basic tasks. It's really- shall we say- on brand- for the left to be concerned with the look of things (like a fountain) rather than the substance of progress. Pointing to the show of separate fountains takes the edge off how the schools in the liberal coastal east are still really segregated. The other part of my point is that a lot of these things done for show by the ruling class had and still have nothing to do with how people actually lived their lives. Yes, things like sundown towns exist but they aren't the norm. The norm was closer to your cousin Becky married a black guy so now you alternate churches on Sunday.

[johnst_nhb]

This is a very important development. We have been talking about the relationship between test and depression for a long time, while Pfizer continues to suck billions out of the pharmacies of the world

Look, if I can contribute anything valuable to this thread, it’s this:

When my ex wife cheated on me when I was 53 (we divorced), I was a total wreck. In an equal split state I still gave her more that equal. Yeah, I did it.

I just felt that was abnormal for me as I went into the negative of “fair”. Then I had a terrible time emotionally dealing with this. We had a fantastic marriage (her admission afterward) but there was this one co-worker…I had no idea until his baby mama contacted me.

Anyway, I could not figure out why I, a guy who has dealt with stuff and also persevered was just not able to get past this. Very hard on myself. Lost and actually baffled at my sadness (beyond what should be normal- I was unable to be sad- yet see the other side.)

Finally, did some research and got test checked. Estrogen normal but test <150.

Guys, this is important. I went on the starting minimal dose of 100mg/week and within a month, holy shit.

I always lifted consistently (hell I worked with Steele for a year) so that wasn’t it. Something was just not right.

I’m still on 100mg/week but I feel so much better.

Men, testosterone is not something you always do to get bigger. The psychological effects can make a big difference.

[Mark Rippetoe]

We have dozens of these stories. But Pfizer makes Zoloft, and test cypionate is cheap, so psychiatrists write Zoloft and won't even try testosterone. Pisses me off too much to think about it very long.

[Yngvi]

This is most likely true. A gentle nudge to get ahead in the Third Opium War.

Could be...

First/Second Opium War:
Trade surplus heavily in China's favor
Technology heavily in Britain's favor
Industrial capacity moderately in Britain's favor
Military might heavily in Britain's favor
China fighting to maintain national self determination.

Military victory for Britain->China flooded with opium->trade surplus problem solved->China no longer a threat to Britain.

Third Opium War:
Trade surplus heavily in China's favor
Industrial capacity mildly in China's favor
Technology mildly in US's favor
Military mildly in US's favor
US fighting to maintain the right to national self determination

Soros divides the US with weaponized immigration-> China floods the US with opioids -> Biowarfare->Financial warfare-> Chaos in both nations->???->Profit

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

You appear to have missed the context of what I wrote in that post. The reason I talked about women's right to vote was not to rank the United States comparatively to other countries. It was to point out how much the world has changed over the passed 100 years. I could also easily point out that there are still people alive today who drank from separate water fountains than the "colored folk". I don't want to go back and live in the world that existed 100 years ago. I would prefer to see continued progress.

Someone earlier in the thread asked "progress towards what?". Nowadays, the word seems to have exclusively positive connotations, but I think this forgets that it means, first and foremost, that there is forward movement in a given direction.
The direction of travel has certainly taken the world to a place with less official segregation, and more equality between men and women.
At the same time, it has taken to an era where we have means of mass destruction of unfathomable power; so powerful that the policy of some countries seems to be informed mainly by the need to insure they can zap every other country out of existence before others can do the same with them.
The same direction of travel has taken some parts of the world from a situation where an honest job would allow a man to give his family a dignified (if not opulent) existence, to a situation where both parents need to work hard just to make ends meet, and having children becomes a mainly financial decision.
Or, to give a final example, the continued progress you mention has taken parts of the world from a place where you could be free to express your opinions, to one where those same opinions might cost your career, and therefore you don't give them a voice (and I am not going into the whole forced vaccination story).

So, progress certainly implies change, but not necessarily the type of change that anyone will find positive or constructive, at least not all of it. And it seems legitimate that some people will pine for a return to some of those places that progress has (forcibly, in many cases) taken them away from.
i don't think this means that they want to reverse everything, as your "I don't want to go back 100 years" seem to imply. This seems a false dichotomy, of the same type incurred by anyone who thinks that if you criticise in any way or form the current neo-liberal economic setup, then you are a Communist who wants to abolish private property.

Progress is movement, and there is no reason why movement should never revisit places where you have already been. But I have the impression that some 'progressives' maintain that nothing good or valuable can ever come from the past, and therefore 'forward' it's the only way the world should travel.

IPB

[CommanderFun]

It appears that the MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS may have been wrong about that whole depression thing. Whoops!

Depression 'is NOT caused by low serotonin levels', study | Daily Mail Online

I actually kicked my zoloft to the curb again recently. I've struggled with it a few times, recent attempts have led to what I thought were nasty withdrawl effects, but actually I think it was just another med they had me on: wellbutrin. When I dropped both, those effects weren't even there, and I'm doing fine. Knock on wood and all that. It's been a few weeks, so I imagine withdrawals would have shown up by now.

[Frank_B]

We have dozens of these stories. But Pfizer makes Zoloft, and test cypionate is cheap, so psychiatrists write Zoloft and won't even try testosterone. Pisses me off too much to think about it very long.

And yet, most doctors would prescribe Zoloft for johnst_nbb because “he has a chemical imbalance” that somehow manifested when his wife cheated on him. That’s the logic. Tragic event? Chemical imbalance. Human existence not going well? Chemical imbalance. Maybe we can chalk up the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Holocaust to a chemical imbalance too?

I’ll add to the story: When I was 15 or 16 I went through my shitty Holden Caulfield stage, like every teenager. My parent’s brought me to the doc, wanting to know why their teenager was acting like a teenager. His answer? Chemical imbalance, and I was put on Zoloft for 3-4 years. The military made me get off of it for me to join. The one damn time the military got something right…

[Gilead]

An extremely important development
The German government admits hundreds of thousands of people have had severe side effects following mRNA shots

This morning, the German Federal Ministry of Health posted a stunning tweet, admitting that 1 out of every 5,000 Covid jabs cause “serious side effects.”

This figure is likely a sharp underestimate, given the fact that side effect reporting systems for drugs and vaccines are largely voluntary.

Nonetheless, it implies that almost 300,000 Americans and Europeans have suffered severe side effects after receiving mRNA shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

[Matt James]

It's really- shall we say- on brand- for the left to be concerned with the look of things (like a fountain) rather than the substance of progress.

The entire post is incredibly on point, but this...this is perhaps the most succinct indictment of the modern left in America I have read in a while. I would expand on that to add that the fountain is also an illustration of mindless compliance, another thing the left excels at: the law says we have to have an accessible fountain, never mind the fact that no one on wheels can actually get to the fountain. But we complied, so we're righteous. Goes directly to what we've seen the past two years with masks and vaccines too.

[anticausal]

Ontario woman enduring effects of long COVID begins process for medically assisted death

I wonder how many time she's been pseudo-vaxxed for her "long covid".

She says she's doing this because she has no money and can't work, and I guess these doctors are just going to gladly put her down like a dog because of it.