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Post by daneaux on Oct 12, 2020 10:18:32 GMT -6
I agree that they should be policy discussions. It's a shame that politics has been dumbed down to the level of shouting matches where opponents claim to have better knowledge of what is in their opponents head than their opponent does. And a President (at least a good one) doesn't work alone and solely from his memory. He has people feeding him information all the time. What he would do with that information is the question.
To those who claim that Biden crumbled under pressure and because of that, he can't handle the pressure of being President I would say that while the President certainly will be required to perform under pressure, it will never be the kind of pressure where he has someone incessantly screaming in his ear like Trump was doing. The pressure will be in the decisions themselves, not the information being provided to make those decisions. That will always be presented in a calm and orderly fashion to enable the President to make the best and most informed decision possible. That atmosphere cannot be provided in a chaotic fashion.
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Oct 13, 2020 12:10:03 GMT -6
I think there is some merit to a few of these arguments: ballotpedia.org/Arguments_against_mask_requirements_during_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020 In particular, there is the argument that you are turning employees into law enforcement agents without authority. Here is the quote from the case"...[It is] wrong to order clerks and salespeople to do the state’s dirty work. He’s conferred responsibility without authority on thousands of people and made them the unwitting face of a controversial new policy." I have seen firsthand this very thing where if you enforce the mandate you anger half your customers and risk losing them but if you don't enforce it you anger half of your customers and risk losing them. |
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Post by okie on Oct 13, 2020 20:16:32 GMT -6
Worked out fine with non-smoking mandates.
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Oct 14, 2020 8:13:53 GMT -6
The harmful effects of cigarettes is not up for debate. That is a key difference.
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Post by daneaux on Oct 14, 2020 9:50:55 GMT -6
The page no longer exists so I missed the argument but don't employees enforce other laws already? They catch shoplifters. They catch flashers and bathroom pervs.
Maybe I'm missing your point about the key difference but I don't see it as being a difference at all. There is no legitimate debate about the fact that wearing masks prevents the spread of disease. In addition, this disease will cause a great deal more harm than second hand smoke if masks aren't worn. And much more immediate harm.
One's right to freedom from mask-wearing would be absolute if not for the fact that mask-wearing is not to protect you but to protect others. Morality should be enough mandate but it's not. Leadership would make it mandatory.
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Oct 14, 2020 14:02:22 GMT -6
You have to Copy/Paste the link to get it to work correctly.
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Oct 14, 2020 14:13:18 GMT -6
"don't employees enforce other laws already? They catch shoplifters."
Not really. Until they leave the property they technically haven't shoplifted. You get into trouble when you try to detain someone that hasn't technically broken the law yet.
"There is no legitimate debate about the fact that wearing masks prevents the spread of disease"
There are legit arguments that it could make the spread worse. Read the arguments in the link I posted.
"if not for the fact that mask-wearing is not to protect you but to protect others."
Bad Samaritan Laws are hard to enforce and rarely are, so you should never pass a law you are unwilling to enforce. Asking the public to enforce a law that they are unwilling to enforce is doubly issue-ridden* because if there is no consensus that it is a just law to begin with you are asking people to act against their ideas of what is best.
*I didn't want to say "problematic"
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Post by okie on Oct 14, 2020 19:13:31 GMT -6
The harmful effects of cigarettes is not up for debate. That is a key difference. Red herring much? |
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Oct 14, 2020 22:25:34 GMT -6
Not a red herring at all. The issue with this is the lack of evidence and consensus that it is the right thing to do. No intelligent person will argue that smoking is not harmful. It is easy to get everyone on board with a mandate that is easy to enforce and obviously correct. This was not the case in the 1920s w/r/t cigarettes and then perhaps it would be a different argument, sorta like the Amendment to ban alcohol.
Where it is similar is this: Go into a Walmart and light up. This is an efficiency argument. You will be asked to stop or leave. If you do not, the cops will be called. They might show up and escort you off the premises. If the cops are called on everyone who refuses a mask, the cops will have no time for anything else because there are too many people not wearing masks -- for legit arguments that need to be debated in the public square. You have to decide if it is a good allocation of resources to prosecute the 40% or so of Americans that do not think it is in their best interests.
Like it or not but this is the calculus that goes into law enforcement. The clerks in stores don't have the authority to do much but you are asking them to do lots without the mechanism in place to follow through on the enforcement side. At the same time, you are asking them to alienate their customer base in large percentages.
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Oct 14, 2020 22:35:18 GMT -6
Consider guns. In New Zealand, they mandated that all the guns had to be turned in to the state. That only worked because a very large majority of the population agreed that it was a good thing to do. That will not work in the USA because there are too many people that would rather die than give up guns. You might have to commit to killing a large portion of your population to get those guns. That would be a disaster and very inefficient and you would be killing a lot of morally good people just because they disagreed with you.
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Post by x on Oct 14, 2020 23:56:37 GMT -6
FSM bless Bill Burr with his noodly appendage for his SNL monologue.
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Post by daneaux on Oct 15, 2020 8:25:40 GMT -6
"...so you should never pass a law you are unwilling to enforce."
That's very true and the same can be applied to funding. But it never is there either.
I'll have to admit that my personal experience with shoplifters is dated to a pre-litigious era when employees recognized their interest in protecting the interests of their employers.
I'll read the arguments, but I don't think there is much new in the on-going attempt to rationalize shirking the moral and patriotic duty to protect your fellow citizens.
*I copied and pasted and what I get is a series of opinion articles from various sources. Is that what you were trying to show or is there a central article that I'm missing?
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Post by daneaux on Oct 15, 2020 8:29:11 GMT -6
"Claim: Mask requirements are a slippery slope and will lead to more government mandates, bureaucracy, and regulations"
Seriously?
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Oct 15, 2020 8:53:00 GMT -6
It is a collection. Some are better argued than others.
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Post by okie on Oct 15, 2020 9:34:17 GMT -6
Not a red herring at all. The issue with this is the lack of evidence and consensus that it is the right thing to do. No intelligent person will argue that smoking is not harmful. It is easy to get everyone on board with a mandate that is easy to enforce and obviously correct. This was not the case in the 1920s w/r/t cigarettes and then perhaps it would be a different argument, sorta like the Amendment to ban alcohol. Where it is similar is this: Go into a Walmart and light up. This is an efficiency argument. You will be asked to stop or leave. If you do not, the cops will be called. They might show up and escort you off the premises. If the cops are called on everyone who refuses a mask, the cops will have no time for anything else because there are too many people not wearing masks -- for legit arguments that need to be debated in the public square. You have to decide if it is a good allocation of resources to prosecute the 40% or so of Americans that do not think it is in their best interests. Like it or not but this is the calculus that goes into law enforcement. The clerks in stores don't have the authority to do much but you are asking them to do lots without the mechanism in place to follow through on the enforcement side. At the same time, you are asking them to alienate their customer base in large percentages. Go back and re-read your argument, don’t re-create it. Your argument was about employees being put in a position of enforcing the mandate. That is sole context of the smoking ban comparison. Leave my goalposts alone. |
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