You probably have heard the famous quote "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad."

The ability of humans to deny reality in the face of overwhelming evidence is one of the most perplexing things I've ever encountered. You expect this in cults -- especially after months and/or years of mental conditioning and programming -- so I suppose it is the same with the deniers. Conditioning over years and years of propaganda and ideology to hate and/or deny anything that goes against anything they don't believe in or agree with. Kept in a constant state of agitation and fear.
Imagining all manner of non-existent threats and plots from all directions. Programmed to avoid and distrust any source of information they are told to avoid.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?


Only in this case, the price of hubris is death.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/29/alabama-hospitals-delta-variant-vaccine-resistance/

Michael Saag is professor of medicine and infectious diseases and virology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

All of us have suffered mightily from the covid pandemic during the past 18 months. Some of us have had the infection. Many more have provided support to a friend or colleague who fought the infection. More than 611,000 Americans have lost their lives to this global plague.

Through the spring and into the early summer, owing in large part to large-scale vaccine production and distribution, every American age 12 and over had access to the vaccine. Many received their “jab” as soon as it was available. As a result, the number of covid cases plummeted, the grip on our hospital systems relaxed, death rates fell and we began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But in many regions of the country, including the Southeast where I live, up to two-thirds of the population chose not to protect themselves. I’ve heard all the reasons: “The vaccines are experimental.” “I am young and healthy; I don’t need the vaccine.” “So what if I get covid?” “The epidemic is over.” “The vaccine will destroy my fertility.” “The vaccine is a government plot.” “I have the freedom to choose.” “Nobody can tell me what to do.” “The doctors are lying to me.”


Like most of my fellow health-care workers, these comments stunned and stung me. We had spent a year fighting a raging pandemic. We suspended activities in our usual disciplines of medical care, rolled up our sleeves and provided care to the more than 30 million people who showed up in our ERs, clinics and hospitals. Covid was more than disruptive; it was exhausting. Most of us survived. But we were also fatigued and battle-worn.

With the current spike of cases, 99 percent of deaths are occurring in unvaccinated people. Almost all of these are preventable. That is particularly troublesome to health-care workers who struggle valiantly to save the lives of those who now present to the hospital, the vast majority of whom chose not to be vaccinated.

Making it worse is the hate we experience from a small, but very real, group of people who seek to undermine our efforts through the steady release of misinformation in social media and elsewhere. I received an inquiry this week from a person who claimed to be a CNN reporter, initially asking me for information about delta and then demanding “proof” that delta is here. Despite my best effort to explain, I was berated with accusations that I was making this up. (He later posted most of the exchange on Facebook.) I am not alone in suffering these types of attacks. It is this sort of behavior that has led to poor vaccine uptake among many people and resulted in this new spike of cases.

A key feature of all conspiracy theories is the explanation for all the contrary evidence is that large groups of people are all lying.

The nice thing about that is that any group that presents contradictory evidence about the conspiracy automatically gets rolled in as part of the conspiracy. All you have to do to keep believing in the conspiracy is to make the group of liars bigger. Easy peasy.


Part of the problem is the price of hubris in this case usually is not death. If covid were virulent and fatal at a level that absolutely could not be ignored, the denialism would largely disappear.

I'm reaching the point of agreeing with Lethbridge Reprobate - if the antivaxxers insist on being candidates for a Darwin Award, let 'em. The problem is they will take others with them.

> Part of the problem is the price of hubris in this
> case usually is not death. If covid were virulent
> and fatal at a level that absolutely could not be
> ignored, the denialism would largely disappear.

It soon will be -- if things continue as they are.

America is a modern industralised country with infrastructure and resources.

The infected and dying are taken to hospitals.
That's why you don't see bodies in the streets.

India, on the other hand, is in the sort of crisis that you speak of:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/2/india-covid-death-toll-400000-black-fungus

This could happen in America too -- if we don't stop the virus.

The virus doesn't care about race, religion, or politics or anything. It just hijacks your body to reproduce itself and kills you in the process.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A key feature of all conspiracy theories is the
> explanation for all the contrary evidence is that
> large groups of people are all lying.

One of the axioms of life is that three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Everyone loves to share secrets. Right? Yet we have all these people believing massive networks involving billions of liars can somehow maintain an assortment of secret global conspiracies.

It's a tyranny of the minority. I am so bloody sick of hearing this "my body, my choice" crap. It effects ALL of us that are being RESPONSIBLE for ourselves, our families, our communities and our nation. What about OUR freedom? Our freedom to travel as we like. Not mask. Keep our children and those that can't get the shots healthy and ALIVE. How about the freedom to have elective or not life saving surgery? And what about our freedom not to PAY for this willful stupidity? Why the hell do WE have to keep paying for them? Even companies that are saying get a shot or a daily test. Why should the other RESPONSIBLE employees have to cover the cost of those tests? Who do you think is PAYING for the hospital stays? Even if they have private insurance everyone else with that insurance is PAYING for them. And when we have to limit or lock down again who will pay? ALL of us. There is one economy, not one for the responsible and one for the stupid.

Get a shot or have your insurance quadruple. Get a shot or put up a multi million dollar bond. Get a shot or sign a legal waiver for ALL medical care. Get a shot and stop being a drain on our economy and our lives.

But America is a land where willful stupidity is enshrined in law. It’s called religious freedom.

I know people who won’t get the shot. They consider it a death sentence. Those kinds will never be vaccinated without being arrested and held down by a team of orderlies. Doing that with 100 million people isn’t very practical even if the government could get away with it.

They need to start paying their own bills. What do they think we have here? Socialism?

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I know people who won’t get the shot. They
> consider it a death sentence.
===============================

The irony is simply Delicious

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2021 10:42AM by anybody.

Susan I/S Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's a tyranny of the minority. I am so bloody
> sick of hearing this "my body, my choice" crap.
===============================

Amen.
Tolerance here is a overrated virtue.

Ditto amen to Susan I/S! You tell it, Sister Sinner.

What especially is annoying is the "my body my choice" does not apply to women's reproductive decisions.

What all this has taught me is how powerful control of information is for those who seek power. It's worse than I imagined.

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What especially is annoying is the "my body my
> choice" does not apply to women's reproductive
> decisions.
===============================

100% with ye

One of the idiosyncrasies of people operating on Belief,
is their consistent incapacity to detect inconsistency of logic and hypocrisy.
And their psychological projection.
And their intolerance.

Champions of chess (or philosophy), they are not.

People like this are mildly entertaining, yet dangerous.
These are the only ones who will righteously behead you for disagreeing.

"I talked to one young girl whose family *walked* to the U.S. from Central America."

As opposed to early mormon pioneers, whose families walked to Mexico from the US. (And the church is proud of that.)

Oops, wrong place. This is in response to Summer's post below. Don't know how that happened.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2021 10:23AM by anybody.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2021 10:24AM by anybody.

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/07/28/phil-valentine-coronavirus-vaccine

Nashville radio talk show host Phil Valentine remains hospitalized in critical condition with COVID-19 more than two weeks after being admitted for the disease.

Valentine — who broadcasts on SuperTalk 99.7 WTN — was known for his COVID-19 vaccine skepticism.


https://wgntv.com/news/coronavirus/i-should-have-gotten-the-damn-vaccine-las-vegas-father-of-5-who-later-died-of-covid-19-texts-from-hospital-bed/

When Freedy returned home, he developed a painful skin rash, du Preez shared.

“He was getting chills, couldn’t eat, couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t sleep,” du Preez said. “All symptoms of sun poisoning.”

He later tested positive for coronavirus and developed difficulty breathing with pneumonia in both lungs, du Preez said.

“Oh my [expletive] God. This is terrible,” Freedy sent du Preez in a text message from the hospital. “I should have gotten the damn vaccine.”

Who cares as long as there is beer.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/07/27/ozarks-lake-covid-unvaccinated-500784?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_Hive_PS_073121&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bfc41ecfc942d2748d74a28&cndid=55510856&hasha=364f61cb39c988ac2755c1195b57dc19&hashb=3e3e05957a1601d9ed8c50443e2456f2129dcc1d&hashc=59de916469d77944bc5f1053324d387b9c69814ed2aadb66216b9a558294fbc4&esrc=bouncexmulti_second&mbid=CRMVYF092120&utm_campaign=VF_Hive_PS_073121&utm_term=VYF_Hive

You have the right to mess up your own life, but not to put the lives of others at risk.

In this thread there are several good sources listed. I listed several the other day, as have numerous others.

Yet in the other thread azsteve, AKA Lord of the Lemmings, demands that Dagny produce her sources as if no one has offered documentation here and elsewhere. The truth is he and his ilk don't read what others offer. Why? Because they begin with conclusions and then only consider sources that confirm their biases. Those people do not read, they do not think, they do not reason: they *feel*.

And CZ said their demented rants would not be allowed on this site because 1) embracing unfounded conspiracies is not recovery from, but rather reversion to, Mormonism; and 2) they encourage people to act in ways dangerous to themselves and to others.

I'm disappointed in the moderators for allowing this to happen.

If any lesson to be learned from the recent chaos is that the conspiracy crackpots aren't harmless kooks: their nutbaggery is a real and present danger to society. Climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, Creationists, and COVIDiots are all doing us real harm.

Then there are the members of the certifiable set that do direct damage, like the Lizard Alien-believing Nashville bomber.

It really needs to stop. Hard to say what the answer is, but as a beginning their BS needs to be challenged, and relegated back to the lunatic fringe where it belongs.

Chlorine being added to the gene pool.

Recent study shows PhD's have the education level with the most vaccine hesitancy:

https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2021/july/covid-hesitancy.html

"The largest decrease in hesitancy between January and May by education group was in those with a high school education or less. Hesitancy held constant in the most educated group (those with a PhD); by May PhD’s were the most hesitant group."

Stupid huh?

I'm sure all those getting the vaccine to win the million dollar lottery are brilliant, and have thoroughly studied the relative risks of disease vs vaccine.

Of course, they can't assess the vaccine risks, because negative talk is censored as misinformation. Just as we experienced in the church - only faith promoting stories allowed, and then called "the truth".

And we called any with negative talk as stupid, "anti", unrighteous, evil or selfish, just as with covid.

Read the actual study, Free Man.

First, there are a dozen other groups with higher hesitancy rates than PhDs--you know, like Trump supporters. Second, the authors are not confident that the PhD finding is real. They warn that "further investigation into hesitancy among those with a PhD is warranted."

But hey, don't let the researchers' doubts get in the way!

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." — Isaac Asimov

^ Man alive does this quote seem appropriate in this day and age of rampant climate denial and COVIDiocy. The pandemic has wiped out more Americans than both world wars combined and there are still those desperately clinging to the fantasy world that it is all a hoax.

Yeah, that's why I posted it the other day. I guess it was swept up in the massive COVID-misinformation purge.

The US has long had an anti-intellectual, or more honestly anti-truth, tendency. It inheres in the notion of a God-favored and God-fearing nation above the laws of nature and geopolitics. As long as the US was head-and-shoulders more powerful than any constellation of other powers, the country could get survive with that nihilistic attitude.

But as you note, those says are gone forever. Now believing in nonsense will get you killed.

Public schools are very well aware of the number of immigrants coming up from the southern border, because we are obligated under law to teach the children of these immigrants. We anticipated a big surge after Biden took office. The surge is normally most evident in the spring, i.e. March through May, because of school schedules in the countries of origin. ***The surge never happened.*** Numbers are flat/normal, at least for now.

Almost all of the immigrants in my school come from central America. I can tell you one thing -- we want these people. They come from tightly knit families, have good values, and are hard working. Normally both parents work at jobs for which it's nearly impossible to hire Americans. Their children are well-behaved, polite, and normally very hard working as well. They are among the most reliable and pleasurable students that I've ever taught. As far as I'm concerned, keep sending 'em. They can be vaccinated. There is plenty of vaccine in the U.S. Some of the children that I have talked to in the spring lost young-ish family members to Covid because they are in public-facing jobs, not because they don't want the vaccine.

I talked to one young girl whose family *walked* to the U.S. from Central America. How's that for motivation? Wouldn't you want to hire people like that?

Wonderful post from your first-hand experience, summer. Thank you.

"Normally both parents work at jobs for which it's nearly impossible to hire Americans."

Nothing to do with the low pay and bad working conditions, amirite?

Often it's tough, dirty work such as cleaning houses, roofing, landscaping, etc. Or one of the moms runs an in-home day care for the other moms. It wouldn't surprise me if at least some of the immigrants move into the restaurant industry due to the current shortage of workers.

I've seen the families do very well in some circumstances. A few years ago the *only* family in my entire class that owned their own home was an immigrant family.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2021 06:58PM by summer.

There is no shortage of workers. There is a shortage of pay.

Having once worked as a cook in a restaurant, that was certainly the case for me. Some wait staff do well.

Bingo. In a free market labor is a commodity too. I find it telling that some of the biggest chest-thumpers for private industry are also the first crying about a shortage of workers. Well, maybe considering raising wages/salaries and providing benefits that don't suck. It is, after all, a model that used to work real well and was a win-win for all.