President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

When the former president makes comments about the current president's ineptitude, it's a wee bit newsworthy. It was treated that way, of couse.

When a sitting US Senator makes a transparently misleading analogy regarding a pandemic that has killed almost 100,000 Americans so far, it's newsworthy. In that case, he was saying one thing publicly to the extent he was saying anything, but while speaking to a group that he thought would receive his comments well, he said something different. . .. .how much risk people want to assume should be an individual choice, while ignoring the obvious that each individual's choice can have devastating effects on everyone else when it comes to a deadly, contagious virus.

That kind of specious reasoning is the kind of thing a lot of people want to know when it comes to an elected leader. So, yeah, of course it made news.

Also, saying these things were "leaked" has become ridiculous in the age of Trump. He started the nonsense with his attacks on people saying true things about him. Leaker! Leaker! Like the label somehow is kryptonite that makes it so tha whatever you are labeling a leak can no longer be discussed on its merits.

I don't care if David Perdue's comments were "leaked." I want to know, was he talking that way to a group of business owners, when he wouldn't have he guts to say the same thing publicly? It's great when things like that somehow come public, because we get insight into the duplicitous behavior of a public official. Woodward and Bernstein took down a corrupt, sitting president with "leaks." It was a good thing.

 

BTW, this idea that liberty or freedom means every individual being "free" to do whatever they want, is not what America is about. Never has been. We shouldn't want it to be, IMO.

What David Perdue is advocating is anarchy. At least until he moves onto something else where he wants to put all kinds of restrictions on others. He's not even a very consistent person.

Our country was borne from the age of enlightenment ideas about rights and liberty. ... and a social contract. These clowns who pick and choose what everyone should be free to do (while wanting to restrict a whole bunch of other things), don't seem to understand the social contract part of it. As in everyone should be free to live their lives however they choose, up until their actions infringe on the next person, and then we need laws to protect people.

They really have perverted the words liberty and freedom in a dishonest way.

Either way, if you equate liberty with anarchy, you are not advocating American values. We have always been a nation of laws. For a reason. Laws put restrictions on us. Those restrictions keep us from infringing, or hurting, each other. As in, you are free to live how you want and you are guaranteed all kinds of rights, but the minute your actions start infringing on the next person's rights, we need to limit you.

In my opinion you should not be "free" to walk into a crowded place with other people without a mask, and you shouldn't be "free" to congretate in large groups, while the virus is still spreading. Your behavior can prove deadly for others. That is the social contract. It's not about what you want. It's about protecting the rights of everyone else.

What astounds me is that there are so many people bristling against what I am suggesting, and that we even need the government involved in regulating people's behavior with regard to this. I would have hoped more people would be informed enough, and smart enough, and considered enough, to see it as being in their self interest to contain the spread of the virus when so many people are dying every day.

 

The virus spreads the same way in Texas as it does on Park Avenue. Put on a fucking mask when you go into a supermarket. Don't crowd into a movie theater. Don't get together with 100 people and act like Memorial Day should be the same this year as it was last year.