Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

People who steal hand sanitizers from hospital? Jail them. Fuck them for endangering vulnerable people.

my buddy is a nurse at a pediatric oncology unit and said that they have had to start searching the medical staff for masks and sanitizer on the way out the door because they were running out. This was five weeks ago!

i have actually been really surprised at how fundamentally competent the us government response to the pandemic has been. oh, don't get me wrong, it's not been adequate, but i'm not sure a truly adequate response was necessarily in the realm of possibility. i guess really i'm surprised at the number of people who actually know what they're doing still left in the government after three years of a racist idiot calling the shots. this is even more noteworthy when compared to the uk government response, which has, from what little i can tell, been the complete and utter failure i was sort of expecting the american federal response to be.

xpost I couldn't find n95 masks back in january without it being a price gouge on amazon. I don't know what they were thinking by not starting manufacture of them right away.

I think they were all just like “oh, this must be someone else’s problem”

This global crisis should be handled individually by all the governors. This global crisis is a perfect fit for 50 different state governments to handle

handling thing state by state does make a lot of sense. i wonder if some states do a better job of quarantining than others if there might be closed state borders set up at some pt

states have a role to play (a leading role, even!) but this is exactly the kind of situation that is best suited for federal oversight

in some ways the shelter in place orders' definition of essential businesses should be taken to heart after the pandemic has passed. The non-essential workers should take up useful occupations. At least 10% should become plumbers and another 10% should become structural engineers.

The government is still hiring.

thinking of applying at FEMA, for real. the writing is on the wall for my current job

kinda feeling pretty good about my current career, which is basically: "helping people fill out forms in order to get money / reduce the amount of money they have to pay the government" and navigating bureaucracy, in general ...

re: state vs federal on coronavirus:

As hospitals prepare for a flood of desperately ill patients unable to breathe on their own, mechanical ventilators have become the single most important piece of equipment that can mean the difference between life and death.

Now, with American hospitals facing a grave shortage of the vital devices, the Big Three automakers, small engineering firms, software designers and medical equipment manufacturers are rushing to figure out ways to produce more of them. But President Trump has so far declined to use powers that public health experts say could make a real difference in getting more ventilators to places that need them the most — right now.

What is really needed, a number of public health experts and former government officials say, is for Washington to take control of the nation’s existing ventilator supply. Because peak coronavirus infections will hit cities and regions at different times in the coming months, a centralized federal effort could send unused machines to hospitals that need them most.

“This is a national crisis,” said Frank Kendall, who served as under secretary of defense for acquisition and logistics in the Obama administration. “In a time of scarcity, you can’t leave it up to companies and governors to manage it themselves.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/health/ventilators-coronavirus.html

What is really needed, a number of public health experts and former government officials say, is for Washington to take control of the nation’s existing ventilator supply.

we should just put a big asterisk on the 2016-present era that whenever we recommend that "washington" or congress or the white house do something, it means not the crazy fascist ones

“we meant the dc government, not the federal one”

For anyone who thinks "we can afford to lose some olds," we could still easily lose anywhere from a few hundred thousand to a couple million working age adults in the US alone based on what current death rates by age look like.

Are you talking to map?

“People might get the misinterpretation you’re just going to lift everything up,” Dr. Fauci said, explaining Mr. Trump’s impatience to jump-start the economy and tell Americans they could resume everyday life. “That’s not going to happen,” Dr. Fauci said. “It’s going to be looking at the data” in regions of the country where there was not an obvious outbreak of the virus.

As a practical matter, however, Mr. Trump does not have the power to decide whether the country can reopen. He can issue federal guidelines, but the decision of whether to return to business as usual is up to each state.

you know, uh, maybe the states should actually take the lead then. jfc shit is bleak

Are they not doing that? Inslee told us today to prepare for an extension of the stay home directive beyond the initial two weeks.

Sorry about other states I guess :/

Anyway why is this in the uncool conservative belief thread I’m real confused

i'm replying to an upthread conversation i was having (mostly with myself, heh!) about the appropriate role of state vs federal in responding to coronavirus

Maybe the states can nullify the virus

This is where I feel sorry for poor people in the stupider states. Poor people in California actually have it better rn. We aren't getting back to business / normal any time soon.

that was the issue that got the 4 GOP senators so riled up - that the poorest people might end up actually being slightly poor, for 4 months

because they care so much about poor people? wait what?

life begins at conception and ends at 150% of the median income

tattoos are absurd

none of them improve on the actual human body, 95% of them are risible, the other 5% are like if you wore your favorite t-shirt every day forever

it's almost hot that you are willing to accept pain for yr beliefs, but much less so when it's mistranslated kanji or a 'druidic' wreath

idk they’re kinda hot

I also do not understand the appeal of tattoos on any level, but I accept that it comes down to me finding them very aesthetically unappealing and most people not sharing that taste. curious to see if the widespread popularity fades for some future generation or if it’s just what humans do now.

kinda with flopson and kind of ambivalent, they definitely are part of a mainstream drift of fashion now and that's bound to travel up and down

i mean like all fashion in its broadest sense their signification is way broader than what the wearers might intend

I prefer to think of my body as a perpetual blank slate, but I don't mind them on others.

i sorta like them tho even if they weren't forbidden by the torah i might still be wary of getting one bc of the permanence issue

will always want KANT and HUME knuckles

HALE and PACE ftw.

The permanence is... kinda the point? As well as the possibility of regret.

So when anti-ink ppl say "but it's permanent" and "you might regret it", pro-ink ppl are all like, "yeah, and yeah." Part of the appeal is making a commitment that is known to be not easily reversible, and that one may come to regret.

In that respect it is not unlike marriage and having children. (Not to trivialize, it's just that some of the same arguments can be made for and against lots of things.)

(Disclosure: I have one buttcheek that says "Washington Bullets 4eva!" and one buttcheek that says "L.A. Rams 4eva!" I won't tell you where I have the Baltimore Colts logo, though, that's private.)

My regret right now that the tattoo I was going to get of a medieval plague amulet got canceled because of a global pandemic

My beef with them is that they create a false sense of commitment. It's a cheap knockoff at best.

Truly committed people have themselves branded with hot irons.

It's the other way around, but jest away. Then again, I've no room to talk, being married.

I'm broadly pro, in that they tell a story of a particular point in your life and that kind of relative permanence is pretty unique as a marker. Not a fan of sleeves, just because footballers.

I don't have one/any as yet - mostly because I can't fully decide what to get and that feels like a big deal. Almost fully repudiating what I wrote above, but whatevs.

tattoos are absurd

none of them improve on the actual human body, 95% of them are risible, the other 5% are like if you wore your favorite t-shirt every day forever

it's almost hot that you are willing to accept pain for yr beliefs, but much less so when it's mistranslated kanji or a 'druidic' wreath

― mookieproof

I don't have strong opinions on tattoos, but rofl @ this.

my experience of tattoos is that people from the same school year as me (born 78/79) mostly don't have tattoos but by the 80/81 cohort everyone seems to have at least one, so I don't hate them but feel a bit weird about them and wouldn't get one as it would seem like an affectation on me.

My regret right now that the tattoo I was going to get of a medieval plague amulet got canceled because of a global pandemic

― joygoat

some of my friends were sad that the release of "the last of us 2" was cancelled, hotly anticipated post-apocalyptic videogame delayed on account of apocalypse

in portland tattoo culture is pretty big, i used to think it was kind of funny that all my brothers had beards and tattoos and were way more suited to the portland lifestyle than i was but then i came out as trans so :shrug:

dogpiling on celebrities and rich people every time they donate money to charity is shitty, who cares if it's only 0.01% of their net worth it's still helpful and it's more than most of 'em do

*massive exception for the Jeff Bezos/Elon Musk forms of "charity" that equate to bad PR stunts

tattoos are fine I just think it's weird that so many people get horrible quality dasharezone art permanently on their body

xp it’s totally irrational and dumb but I kind of get a little peeved when the rich people announce their donations themselves, especially on like instagram or something. makes it seem more about them and what swell generous ppl they are rather than the cause. I know, I’m terrible