Andrew Sullivan meditates on Orwell and the modern Left.
10 thoughts on “Where We Are now”
They quarantined the healthy to prove that they could remove our rights using emergency orders. And to regain any freedom, because the rights they don’t intend to give back, you must accept agree to their conditions.
If this was about a disease, they would have cared more about its origin long ago and worked to contain it. They would have cared to develop drug treatments that worked, not just focus on a vaccine they thought wouldn’t be available for years. If it was just about a disease, then there wouldn’t be conditions once you formed an immunity to it.
But I’m not going to say “I told you so”. Rather, I decided that if I’m right, then to the extent of my ability, I continued to live my life as I normally would and take advantage of the situation. I went to 3 weddings, 1 funeral, 1 memorial, held 2 bridal showers, a few pool party, took a week travel vacation to Florida with friends, and held Thanksgiving, Christmas, and 2 Easters through it all. With the exception of the funeral, which was covid related, none of the other events resulted in anyone having covid. The primary factor, we used preventive treatments and got plenty of Vitamin D the old fashioned way. I also made bank and helped others find new jobs, while helping all but one business owner maintain their business. The one I couldn’t simply sold the business which is still in operation today.
I don’t disagree with Sarah’s statement. I just preferred not to get depressed. I knew if Democrat politicians could still enjoy getting out and about, then the trick was to just do the same.
Sarah Hoyt complains about the “leftist people at the top.”
I know people around here “do” Slashdot, otherwise the jokes of agreeing with others posting here by giving them “mod points” wouldn’t make sense?
Yeah, yeah, the Right dumps on Mr. Cuomo whereas the Left is sharpening their knives against Mr. DeSantis. But when did the Slashdot crowd take such a left turn? Are that that many computer software developers who are party apparatchiks? Or has the university system turned even STEM grads, forget STEM, comp sci and engineering grads into the people Sarah Hoyt cannot stand?
“But when did the Slashdot crowd take such a left turn?”
At least a decade ago?
It’s pretty well established that activism displaces passivity. People love to belong to a tribe.
Thomas Sowell, I believe, made a statement about “activists” to the effect that they are people who try to give meaning to their actually meaningless lives…or something like that. I can’t find the quote. Does anyone have it?
“a statement about “activists” to the effect that they are people who try to give meaning to their actually meaningless lives…”
They don’t do much in direction of helpful, and expect others to do something because of their effort in annoying people.
Just a endless crazy loop.
Progress in crazy loop is more threshing around and a slight increase in general insanity.
They started canceling people with opinions they didn’t like back around 2002. I got caught up with one of their blacklists back then, because I up-modded a posting one of their admins didn’t like, and never got mod-points again. Once I figured out/found out what happened, I left and never went back.
Among my friends and associates, I only know one person who was hospitalized with covid, and he was in his 50s, and 100 pounds overweight. I characterized it (in my head, I didn’t want to be mean) as “having covid while obese.” Another friend notes his granny died from covid, while in a nursing home, aged 97. I also spend a significant amount of time at Duke Cancer Center and periodically walked over to the ER at the main hospital. Not overwhelmed. Never even busy. Anecdotes? Yup.
I also know a couple people who had medical problems where the Chinese Bat Flu was too much for them to handle. (Politicized “expert” medical incompetence didn’t help.)
We were promised “The Stand”, or “The Omega Man” (book) with dumptrucks carting off the dead for mass cremation.
I know it’s considered cruel to say it, but it really seems that we destroyed our huge chunks of our economy (I know professional musician who hasn’t worked in 18 months now, for example) because some people’s lives were might be shortened by a few months. Being on permanent vacation, it’s been more of an annoyance, as some travel plans got canceled and I wasn’t able to shop in person, but otherwise.
I wish Hoyt wouldn’t sugar coat things so much. Just tell us what she really thinks.
Sullivan’s piece is an example of universal best in show. Kudos.
They quarantined the healthy to prove that they could remove our rights using emergency orders. And to regain any freedom, because the rights they don’t intend to give back, you must accept agree to their conditions.
If this was about a disease, they would have cared more about its origin long ago and worked to contain it. They would have cared to develop drug treatments that worked, not just focus on a vaccine they thought wouldn’t be available for years. If it was just about a disease, then there wouldn’t be conditions once you formed an immunity to it.
But I’m not going to say “I told you so”. Rather, I decided that if I’m right, then to the extent of my ability, I continued to live my life as I normally would and take advantage of the situation. I went to 3 weddings, 1 funeral, 1 memorial, held 2 bridal showers, a few pool party, took a week travel vacation to Florida with friends, and held Thanksgiving, Christmas, and 2 Easters through it all. With the exception of the funeral, which was covid related, none of the other events resulted in anyone having covid. The primary factor, we used preventive treatments and got plenty of Vitamin D the old fashioned way. I also made bank and helped others find new jobs, while helping all but one business owner maintain their business. The one I couldn’t simply sold the business which is still in operation today.
I don’t disagree with Sarah’s statement. I just preferred not to get depressed. I knew if Democrat politicians could still enjoy getting out and about, then the trick was to just do the same.
Sarah Hoyt complains about the “leftist people at the top.”
I know people around here “do” Slashdot, otherwise the jokes of agreeing with others posting here by giving them “mod points” wouldn’t make sense?
So who is Slashdot, these days? I thought it once had a Libertarian slant, but these days it is Covid Karen Central — https://science.slashdot.org/story/21/06/05/0511217/floridas-government-may-have-ignored-and-withheld-data-about-covid-19-cases#comments
Yeah, yeah, the Right dumps on Mr. Cuomo whereas the Left is sharpening their knives against Mr. DeSantis. But when did the Slashdot crowd take such a left turn? Are that that many computer software developers who are party apparatchiks? Or has the university system turned even STEM grads, forget STEM, comp sci and engineering grads into the people Sarah Hoyt cannot stand?
“But when did the Slashdot crowd take such a left turn?”
At least a decade ago?
It’s pretty well established that activism displaces passivity. People love to belong to a tribe.
Thomas Sowell, I believe, made a statement about “activists” to the effect that they are people who try to give meaning to their actually meaningless lives…or something like that. I can’t find the quote. Does anyone have it?
“a statement about “activists” to the effect that they are people who try to give meaning to their actually meaningless lives…”
They don’t do much in direction of helpful, and expect others to do something because of their effort in annoying people.
Just a endless crazy loop.
Progress in crazy loop is more threshing around and a slight increase in general insanity.
They started canceling people with opinions they didn’t like back around 2002. I got caught up with one of their blacklists back then, because I up-modded a posting one of their admins didn’t like, and never got mod-points again. Once I figured out/found out what happened, I left and never went back.
Among my friends and associates, I only know one person who was hospitalized with covid, and he was in his 50s, and 100 pounds overweight. I characterized it (in my head, I didn’t want to be mean) as “having covid while obese.” Another friend notes his granny died from covid, while in a nursing home, aged 97. I also spend a significant amount of time at Duke Cancer Center and periodically walked over to the ER at the main hospital. Not overwhelmed. Never even busy. Anecdotes? Yup.
I also know a couple people who had medical problems where the Chinese Bat Flu was too much for them to handle. (Politicized “expert” medical incompetence didn’t help.)
We were promised “The Stand”, or “The Omega Man” (book) with dumptrucks carting off the dead for mass cremation.
I know it’s considered cruel to say it, but it really seems that we destroyed our huge chunks of our economy (I know professional musician who hasn’t worked in 18 months now, for example) because some people’s lives were might be shortened by a few months. Being on permanent vacation, it’s been more of an annoyance, as some travel plans got canceled and I wasn’t able to shop in person, but otherwise.
I wish Hoyt wouldn’t sugar coat things so much. Just tell us what she really thinks.
Sullivan’s piece is an example of universal best in show. Kudos.