/townhall/ - Townhall

The biggest offenders here:
The Green party (left wing) - new age, against big pharma and believe in alternative medicine

Extreme right and conservative right - Personal liberties at stake, government shouldn't be involved with imposing the rules, it's all the fault of immigrants / Asian people.
Heard a few claim that Covid and the vaccine were invented to kill the white population and replace them with immigrants.

>>10047
It's indeed probably true that quite a lot of white Americans are racially prejudiced against the Chinese ethnicity. Thus, the coronavirus gets mixed in with other racist stereotypes about slanted eyes, illegal drug use, sideways genitals, involvement with organized crime, the eating of dangerous animals as exotic foods, and goodness knows what else some conservatives keep talking about in terms of Asian races. Thus, they're against mask wearing as well as vaccinations because they see this as a ethnic problem rather than a public health problem. I suppose.

>>10044
For masks, it's because Trump opposed masks.  (And tbh, cloth masks don't help much.  N95, KN95, and P100 respirators are very effective, but unfortunately there still aren't enough of them for everybody.)

For vaccines, probably the biggest thing is that Trumpers are low-trust (see, e.g., https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/11/10/21551766/election-polls-results-wrong-david-shor ).  And tbh, they have some valid reasons for having low trust in the media.  Remember back when the media were saying that masks don't help?  And the same people who were okay with the term "the Spanish Flu" accused Trump of being racist for saying "the Chinese Virus"?

So, when the elites say that the vaccine is safe, Trumpers reflexively doubt them.  And tbh, the vaccine isn't safe in an absolute sense -- there are rare serious side effects.  (Of course, staying unvaccinated isn't safe either if you breathe the same air as other people.  For most people, getting vaccinated is much safer than staying unvaccinated.)  They also worry about the Knightian uncertainty about potential long-term side effects of the new mRNA vaccines.  (Although Long COVID-19 is definitely a thing too.)

I also wonder to what degree Chinese and Russian propagandists have spread vaccine hesitancy among the right.  E.g., https://www.politico.com/newsletters/global-pulse/2021/01/28/what-chinas-vax-trolling-adds-up-to-491548

>>10053
Is this the Stanley Milgram experiment in large scale form?

American conservatives are fully willing to cause other people's deaths as long as authority figures in the conservative movement tell them to?

>>10053
>And the same people who were okay with the term "the Spanish Flu" accused Trump of being racist for saying "the Chinese Virus"?

"The Spanish Flu" is a geographical term relating to the nation of Spain while "the Chinese virus" is an ethnic term relating to the internationally spread race of Chinese people. This is why American conservatives who talk about "the Chinese virus" promote street harassment of individuals of the Chinese race who live in the U.S. and advocate for measures restricting immigration to the U.S. among the Chinese race. This is also why their criticism about coronavirus policies overseas isn't about the government of China (i.e. they don't complain about the dictatorship as an autocracy doing things such as restricting doctors' free speech) but about the people of China (i.e. they call Chinese individuals inherently untrustworthy and bring up rumors of the Chinese eating dangerous exotic animals). No regular individual discussing the historic "Spanish flu" couples it with prejudice against people from Spain as an ethnicity, in contrast.

In the future, if/when a virus emerges out of Israel and spreads internationally, except non-conservatives to call it something like "the Mediterranean virus" and conservatives to call it "the Jew virus". Mark my words.

Also, Trump is a racist, as Americans who aren't in his cult (the clear majority of Americans) believe. Thinking that Trump somehow isn't what he says and does due to some kind of magical infatuation of the man is a minority view held by the ignorant. Trump has pursued well-documented negative policies out of racism, this ranging from his condemnation of non-white immigration and efforts to warp U.S. policies as such on ethnicity to his insisting that his privately owned buildings discriminate against certain ethnicities (something that authorities even investigated him for, decades ago).

>>10057
One of Trump's main campaign issues was trade with China.  Trump's tariffs on 'Chinese steel' affected steel produced in China, not steel produced by ethnically Chinese people.  I think it's more likely that Trump was referring to the People's Republic of China than to ethnically Chinese people.  And here it is, straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-criticism-trump-defends-saying-chinese-virus.html

>>10058
You're ignoring almost all of what was said.

The truth, which is believed by normal people who aren't in the Trump cult, is that it's a slur against ethnically Chinese people.

Another great test is this: if you're not a bigot against Chinese people as a race but are just opposed to the current Chinese government, then you would actively want to encourage emigration away from China so that people seen as particularly critical of the government come to U.S. shores. The fact that the exact opposite is true and Republicans don't just oppose allowing increased non-white immigration but support the harassment of non-whites here, even among native-born citizens... that's quite telling.

>Why do people of the political center and the political right oppose mask-wearing and vaccination?

Because Trump said it was about making him look bad, nothing more complicated than that.

It's incredibly fucking petty.

How are libertarians generally dealing with this pandemic?

I would expect they in particular would have a lot of issues with things like mask/vaccine mandates and other methods that attempted to curb the pandemic.
From that perspective of the government having no right to tell you what to do.

>>10062
>How are libertarians generally dealing with this pandemic?

Seems to greatly depend on the individual and the group.

This article is interesting:

https://www.cato.org/blog/libertarianism-coronavirus-pandemic

>>10059
>The truth, which is believed by normal people who aren't in the Trump cult, is that it's a slur against ethnically Chinese people.
I disagree. I'm not a Trumper (I voted for Biden) but I think it's most likely that Trump was referring to the People's Republic of China.

>if you're not a bigot against Chinese people as a race but are just opposed to the current Chinese government, then you would actively want to encourage emigration away from China so that people seen as particularly critical of the government come to U.S. shores.
I'm all in favor of allowing immigration of refugees from Hong Kong fleeing the CCP.

>>10070
I really wish, wish, wish that somehow the race and skin color of the freedom protestors in China against the Chinese Communist Party didn't matter.

Same thing with the freedom protestors against the hardline Iranian government. And with other activists oppressive regimes worldwide. It would be beyond wonderful if the American immigration system could help them.

Unfortunately, America is America, and right-wingers will accept more non-white immigration over their dead bodies.

>Why do people of the political center and the political right oppose mask-wearing and vaccination?
Principles of freedom and self autonomy.
That, and a distrust of an untested vaccine, disbelief in the severity purported, and concern for the sharp spike in state power.

>Why is mask-wearing and vaccination associated with leftists, liberals, social justice warriors, the far left, and so on?
Seems to be the primary pushers of the lot, who more generally tend to place collective good over personal liberty beside.
Though I think the much higher trust for corporate media, establishment political figures, and state agencies probably plays a role as well.

>This frankly seems to me as if half the country decided that having blonde or red hair makes you evil and started campaigning for measures to crack down on illegit coloring, with Democrats becoming the equality party and Republicans becoming the darkness-up-top-supremacy party.
Bluntly, this is your own delusion.
If you truly believe the analogy is applicable, you've not payed any attention to the matter.

The Republicans aren't advocating for the forceful injection of a vaccine in people.
They're not campaigning for lockdowns.
They aren't pushing for the mandate of what you wear on your face.
No idea how you could get this "darkness-up-top-supremacy" from that. Unless it's relating to some other matter, but in that case, why place that here?

Either way, your analogy betrays an extreme bias, which I'll grant is unfortunately very common.
The left looks on the right, much as you do here, as evil.
The right looks on the left as misguided, foolish, or naive.

>>10050
A microscopic minority, sure.
But if you sincerely belive this is representative of any significant portion, you're no better than those few handful of deluded conspiracy theorists whom Panda claims believe in some anti white plot.

I'd remind you that the "spike" of Asian hate crime the media pushed for ages was, A, microscopic as it isn't a common occurrence anyway, meaning the percentile rise was the result of a handful of incidents in a population of millions, and B, not done by "white conservatives" to begin with.

Frankly, I also must say, I find it irritating how you ignored the plethora of other items Panda brought up, to focus purely on the one that lets you deride your political enemies as monsters.

>>10057
China is a nation.  The race is Asian, covering many other nations.

Your conspiracy theories hold no merit.

>>10072
First, "Freedom" doesn't give you the right to hurt other people by behaving recklessly and intentionally spreading disease, especially with those who live already vulnerable lives being victimized by your callous actions.

Second, there's also the question of why can't one have the "freedom" to choose to vaccinate and wear masks themselves. Why doesn't their "freedom" matter? Why do they get harassed by the right-wing by making choices that the right-wing doesn't approve of?

Third, it's not that the right-wing opposes mandates in the slightest, which they've little problem with when it comes from anything to government censorship of books for having themes that violate "Christian family values" to banning certain video games to putting religious minorities on state watch-lists to goodness knows what else. The right-wing opposes masking unconditionally. Same as vaccines. This is outside of the mandates question (and, again, the right-wing loves mandating things against peoples' will).

>The left looks on the right, much as you do here, as evil. The right looks on the left as misguided, foolish, or naïve.

This is an objectively false statement. No, the right-wing looks upon everybody who's not right-wing (and "not right-wing" isn't the same thing as being "left", the same way "not being bald" isn't a haircut) as being evil and hates them. Please be serious. This is what America is like now in the age of Trump. "Not right-wing" equals "inferior".

>>10073
Every single comment here is false. I'm rather irritated at your disconnect from reality. Have you tried actually looking at commentary from Asian-Americans? Many of them are genuinely afraid to even live their basic lives as normal.

>>10074
Objective facts aren't "conspiracy theories", and your Orwellian inversion of reality is concerning in terms of whether or not future discussions with you will have any point.

>>10090
>First, "Freedom" doesn't give you the right to hurt other people by behaving recklessly and intentionally spreading disease,
You presume from the start they are acting malicious, intentionally spreading anything.
This is not so, and is only an example of your backwards thinking wherein everyone who refuses to do as you demand is a monster.

It is freedom to choose what you wear upon your face, and it is freedom to choose what you put in your body.
You are not obligated to engage with those who decide to exercise their freedom differently from you.
Unlike you, I do no think you're evil for doing so, nor would I send the state to force you into doing otherwise.

>Second, there's also the question of why can't one have the "freedom" to choose to vaccinate and wear masks themselves.
You can. Nobody said you couldn't.
Do what you want. If you want to take it, you can. If you want a face covering, go for it.  If you want to wear a gas mask, you should be able to. If you want to close yourself off in your home, that's your choice.
Nobody's said different outside your hyperactive imagination.

>Why do they get harassed by the right-wing by making choices that the right-wing doesn't approve of?
I've yet to see anybody be harassed for wearing a mask, but I have seen plenty of people be harassed for not.
So that questions I would say is yours to answer. Not mine

>The right-wing opposes masking unconditionally.
As somebody on the right wing I can unequivocally say no they do not, you've made that up, that's not the case, nobody's ever fucking said that period

Were whatever the fuck you want on your face. Nobody is dictating to you what you can and cannot wear. That's an absurd notion and I have no idea why you didn't think that.

Being able to wear what you want is a basic tenant of freedom.

>This is an objectively false statement.
This coming from the person whose demonstrated already the truthfulness of that statement.
You claim it's objectively false while demonstrating that is it objectively true with your own presumptuous assertions.

It would be laughable if it's not such a common thought from the left.

You have your delusional fantasies sure. But that is just your paranoid delusions that demonstrate my point. You look on the right and you scream and terror because you think that they are all evil. You do not attempt to understand.
You make these assertions about what the right believes  While knowing absolutely nothing about the subject.
You will assert that they want to force you not to wear a mask, and that they intentionally try to spread sickness.  All the while pretending like you are the person who doesn't assume the worst.

Take a look in the mirror and think about what you say.

>>10090
>Every single comment here is false. I'm rather irritated at your disconnect from reality.
I would say the exact same to you. Your beliefs don't hold up in reality. There is no empirical analysis that demonstrates your absurd insane claims.

>have you tried actually looking at commentary from Asian-Americans? Many of them are genuinely afraid to even live their basic lives as normal
Yes I have. I would be willing to wager Ive spoken to more than you have frankly.

The bulk of Asians within America are not so deluded as to buy in to the paranoid fantasies that you create.

>Objective facts aren't "conspiracy theories", and your Orwellian inversion of reality is concerning in terms of whether or not future discussions with you will have any point
You do not have objective fact. You only have crazy paranoid statements and presumptions. You've not given a single citation thus far in any of your comments. You cannot provide such a thing because it does not exist.

The only orwellian inversion of reality that exists here is your own. It is a byproduct of your extreme hatred that you Harbor in your heart.
I would suggest a living with that much hatred towards your fellow man is unhealthy.

>>10095
>>10096
All I can say about your hatred and removal from reality is that I hope that you and people like you fail to succeed in permanently getting power and making America a brutal dictatorship.

>>10101
Again I would say the same to you.
My position is one of freedom, liberty for all. Not authoritarianism.
I do not deign to dictate what you should or should not put in your body, nor what you should or should not wear on your face.

And yet, because I had the audacity to say Asian is a race, not Chinese, you see me as some sort of evil monster who'd put a gun to people's head demanding they take off their masks.
Absurd.
I do hope you one day lose that hatred you have.
But alas, I'm not hopeful for it.

>>10104
A dictatorship is still a dictatorship and a one party state is still a one party state even if you and people like you view it as right because it's an "anti-leftist" and "pro-liberty" tyranny.

But I don't expect you or people like you to ever get that.

>>10105
I'm in favor of neither dictatorships, nor one party states, as I both distrust the state, and believe power corrupts.
Helps that I also view those who disagree with me politically as fellow humans and not evil monsters.

But by all means, continue with your insane projection.
It's certain to convince me you aren't just a hate filled person who sees me as a boogeyman

>>10114
Eternal rule by Messiah and King of Kings Donald Trump for the rest of his life is still tyranny even if it doesn't count to you guys.

>>10118
I don't want that? What?
Dude, is all you have psychotic projection?
Can you even formulate an argument without assuming the worst about people?

I've never said I support anything of the like, yet you're happy to assume so.
It's an extremely dickish kind of behavior. And that's assuming the best, frankly, given it's a downright psychotic behavior that, historically, has lead the to deaths of millions.

Either way, you should genuinely take a moment to reflect on what kind of person you are.
When you assume everyone who disagrees with you is an evil monster who wants to murder millions, you've failed as a human being.
Compassion is core. And you, self evidently, lack the capacity for it.

>>10118
I don't think anyone in this thread actually likes Trump in an absolute sense.  

>>10131
Not being a part of your cult doesn't make me a genocidal monster, guess again loon. Telling psychological projection, though.

>>10135
I'm not in a fucking "cult", you dipshit.
I just fucking said that.,
What, are you illiterate too?

I don't want Trump as king for life, nor have I ever, in my entire life, suggested anything of the sort.
This is a fabrication of your own design., You've thrown me into that, and said "THERE THERE, LOOK A WITCH, BURN HIM BURN HIM".

Bluntly put: Go fuck yourself.
If you cannot honestly represent your opposition, engage with them with the basest form of human decency, you are not mature enough to be on a site like this in the first place.

>>10148
I don't care about your delusions. I live in reality. Not in Republican-land where everything depends on ideology instead of facts.

>>10163
Your "reality" says that I must think Trump should be emperor for life.
Despite not even liking Trump much at all myself.

You do not live in reality. You do not use facts.
You live in a warped land of ideological delusion.

While it is ridiculous that the Covid pandemic seems so politically involved, I can't help but smirk to read that the local politician who now calls for a stop on vaccines and a distribution of Ivermectin has been known for very conservative stances on LGBTQ issues.

>>10212
The following blog post may be enlightening (particularly the section "The Political Takeaway"):
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted