Originally Posted by
Mark Rippetoe
But let me say one more thing: SD is the kind of people who have enabled this situation to destroy our economies. The government has and continues to focus on the virus as the excuse to seize and exert this power. The virus is bullshit, merely the tool they are using, most of us know this, but the farm animals that comprise the general public -- the 25-year-old people walking around in masks (which have turned out to be a handy identifier) -- are continually made afraid by the media and quasi-scientific types like SD. They have been given a new religion: SCIENCE, which is to be believed without question exactly like every other religion in the world's history. Faith in Fauci is the new test of your commitment to the cause. Poor little Greta Thunberg, largely forgotten in the recent and more urgent plea for SCIENCE, is a perfect example of what is expected of its acolytes.
The only remaining question as they slowly remove the heel from our neck is what will we do next time this is tried. There will be a next time, maybe as soon as October but maybe a couple of years from now if we get too testy with them this time. You know this, so you'd better make your plans now. Next time they decide to shut us down, what will you do? What will we do? A sufficiently large minority of us can lend a spine to the rest, but Spacediver is a threat, because he is intelligent, he sounds reasonable, and he is what they must have if they are to win this contest. The stakes are very high, ladies and gentlemen -- higher than they've ever been.
But we have suddenly become willing to commit suicide on the alter of government. Hawaii, with a stay at home order: 1.4 million people, 10 million visitors a year, 629 COVID-19 cases, 17 deaths for a RDC19 of 0.0013%, and 34% unemployment. For comparison, during the Great Depression unemployment was 25%. This is nothing other than suicide.