Hey, remember 2020 when there were mass protests and violence under a slow, incremental government system?
2020 US Election (Part 3)
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Hey, remember 2020 when there were mass protests and violence under a slow, incremental government system?
Patine
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No, I don't miss him. Regardless of all the flack I've gotten for the opinion, I firmly believe Bush was much worse than Trump. Far more frightening and insidious. His Administration and he, as well as the Blair Government in the UK who were just as complicent, were the greatest pack of war criminals in the 21st Century thus far. And Bush delivered far greater wounds to the concepts of due process and guaranteed rights of Americans than any other single U.S. President. And he believed that such, Medieval, inhuman, and monstrous practices as torture were actually ACCEPTABLE! And, he suckered far more Americans into supporting his evil by playing on their fear and rage like a harp than Trump could ever get behind him with his vitriolic rants and sensationalist populism. That .gif file is practically an insulting taunt, there...
GenMarshall
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No one is asking for a dissertation of the Bush Administration.
You know, it would do wonders if you took that stick out of your bum and learn to joke. Even Zard chucked at it.
Patine
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The great majority of posts on this OT forum are made in response (or initiative) to things other than direct questions. That probably disappoints you. It disappoints me that anyone still thinks Bush should be absolved of the guilt for what he's wrought. But we all seem destined for disappointment, don't we?
I find it amusing that you and @Berzerker dwell on my assigning the all responsibility for covid deaths on Trump and point out insignificant issues as a counter argument. Naturally, in order for your case to make any sense at all, you both need to push my post into an extreme position. As I have said before, Trump has been POTUS for the entire virus. No one else has the power, money, resources and bully pulpit to respond with the capacity of the US government. Over the past 10 months his leadership has been terrible and the cause for millions of cases and a quarter million deaths. He has set the tone, told people what to do and what not to do. He supported bad practices that have killed people. He made up stuff that is not true; he lied to the nation; he put his personal desires ahead of the people he has sworn to protect and serve. Our national disgrace is his burden. The lack of any national plan is his failure. His bending his subordinates to his political will is his failure. His defiance of sound scientific evidence is his failure. He knowingly held super spreader events to feed his ego. Because of all his failures 2020, his followers also behaved badly with Trump's support.
Millions upon millions of Trump supporters were encouraged by him to spread the virus, spread death, spread infirmity among their friends and neighbors. Trump has had 10 months to turn this around. He has failed to do so. He is to blame for our tragedy. Now, that does not let all those ignorant Trump supporters off the hook. They have been willingly spreading the virus and fighting against reasonable efforts to stem the the terrible tide. At the personal level (versus the national and state level) those Trump supporters bear the responsibility for being dumb and infecting others. Trump could easily have directed his ignorant mob to act differently. He didn't.
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Patine
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So, no recognition that your statement of absolute guilt for ALL American deaths from COVID-19 (including unavoidable ones endemic to a previously unknown virus) being completely and totally Trump's responsibility ALONE as an extreme and over-the-top concept in the least - it's perfectly acceptable, accurate, and utterly and completely in proportion to you. But, it's me whose somehow fully flawed for even daring to point the hyperbole, and the DANGEROUS absolutism, of your statement, from your point-of-view. No, it's time, as I like, for a sense of perspective and proportion, however unpopular and distasteful that inexplicably seems to be to so many nowadays. Absolutist thinking is destructive, ruinous, and immensely flawed, and almost always leads to no good, but only harm - and it is time to end that form of thinking and it's abysmal hegemony in the discourse.
JFC Give it rest.
Patine
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You obviously disregard, or have great contempt for, my point, because you don't like yours being questioned or criticized from such an angle, especially in one so pivotal to the current zeitgeist. It is you who needs to give it a rest, and apply a sense of perspective and proportion, here.
You might consider the ignore button, it's been doing wonders for me over the past few weeks.
2020 is providing some Great Content™ for the Greatest Ironic Hit Singles album.
Patine
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Would you care to expound where this irony is, here - and how this perceived "ironies album," would not end up with several tracks by you, as well?
The title is "Greatest Ironic Hit Singles", and not "Ironies Album".
Patine
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A pedantic, smart-*** answer doesn't change the question, and you know it...
Patine, you keep ignoring the point me and Bird are trying to convey. Did President Trump personally go inject every single person who passed away with COVID, no. Did he actively go against medical advice, did he actively host super spreader events with his campaign rallies, was he the President during the entire pandemic? Yes on all accounts. On a NATIONAL level President Trump is the root cause for the pandemic getting out of control, his failure to institute a national response plan one that was already made for him prior to him taking office, his disdain for any restrictions at the national level. All of these are his fault as the chief executive, he has failed his oath and in so doing caused the negligent deaths of 260K Americans.
The funny thing about this is how of late you keep rolling out the "pot kettle black" line. It's funny because you initially responded to me with pedantic smartassery, and here you are getting upset about it.
If it makes you feel any better, ignore me. Focus on the people asking actual questions, like the post above mine
Patine
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My point is, @Birdjaguar's stated view was absolutist and hyperbolic. I was trying to get him to see this and moderate his point-of-view to something realistic. He refused, dug in his heels, and further entrenched himself in his point-of-view, and you and several others joined in. I never have said he does not deserve any blame, or even the lion's share. It was the absolutist and hyperbolic statement that ALL blame was fully his, and, given @Birdjaguar quoted the number of deaths he was "responsible," for as just a direct parroting of the number of Americans who had died from the virus, period - which meant unavoidable deaths (it was a previously unknown virus, remember), deaths due to bungling and dropping the ball at the level of State Government policy, and ones resulting from individual citizens choosing to ignore known precautions of their own volition, etc., were included in Trump's statement of blame. I was not trying to be Trump's "defense lawyer," but merely to put things into perspective - something I would do for any such figure given such an unrealistic and absolutist charge levied - from Gandhi to Hitler - because the slipping of a sense of perspective and proportion in the modern discourse is very concerning to me.
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Cloud_Strife
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You seem to be quite animated
Yep, ditching existing pandemic preparation Because Obama, totally railroading the CDC and actively undermining and sabotaging state responses are all huge factors. The daft tone he set also led his whole side of politics to be massively sceptical and resistant to basic public health measures - that's on the people following him for, you know, following him, but it's also very much on Trump setting that tone. He may have completely poisoned the well for any belated attempts to fix things once he's booted.
He's hardly the only leader in the trans-Atlantic world to have stuffed up, questions have to be asked about basically all of them. Specifically, the question is whether the failure was in political decision making, in bad advice and complacency from the top of the public health bureaucracies, or even in issues with public health capacity itself.
But Trump has been fairly unusual in the petulance, bad faith, dishonesty and stupidity with which he's approached things. The man has a lot of blood on his hands even by US president standards.
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Imagine your reaction if someone had replied to you with this
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