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Then a word from Chris Hayes:
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or Paperback
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Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
The republicans are working so hard to reinstate the worst of jim crow and more that they aren’t even trying to hide it. They are now proud of being the party of the KKK, neo-nazis, white supremacists, and blatant dishonesty.
It is noteworthy that the instances of verified voter fraud that has turned up recently has had republican folks behind them. It’s as the saying goes: every accusation of fraud by them is really an admission.
As usual, you are spot on but, unfortunately, the Republicans and Republican voters are living in a different 1984-ish universe. Also unfortunately, Republican voters are more likely to turn out as true believers for mid-term elections while Democratic voters all too often get sidetracked by other concerns or fall prey to intraparty bickering.
It’s hard to imagine that this latest episode, in which Georgia governor Brian Kemp signed the restrictive bill into law in private, surrounded by six other white men, and ordered the arrest of a black female member of the state legislator who had the temerity to knock on his door, would not cause a huge backlash.
But the history of the southern US, with its strange fruit, beggars our imaginations. You are correct, Greg: citizen mobilization is needed. And I suggest, as background reading, One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson and the first chapter of Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean.
Morning Joe presented some recent polling of Georgia voters. One finding: only 12 percent of Georgia Republican voters accept that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fairly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9r7Z6kTkzI
Since this is, essentially, about the evil republicans do, it’s appropriate to note that one of the worst people to work with nixon, noted racist, thief, bigot, liar, nazi-envier, g gordon liddy, finally did the world a favor and died today. May he burn in hell (if there is one) forever.
What underpins this massive assault on democracy by an increasingly fascist and unhinged party is the fact that they know that they will never again win a free and fair election. Too many Americans loathe them and know exactly what they represent. Moreover, they are all-too-aware that they are losing because minority voters overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats. So instead of becoming a more egalitarian party, they are embracing populist fascism even more and are disenfranchising millions of voters. Effectively they are purging the opposition. Anything to get into power. It is a terrifying spectacle to behold and the GOP are not even camouflaging this brazen power grab. Clearly, the right wing in the United States abhor democracy.
People are often very practical: whatever gets in their way to power and wealth is wrong and must be fought by any means necessary. The U. S. political party that courts religious right anti-evolution voters so assiduously is just acting in the most crudely cartoonish Darwinian way.
bingo.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Exz8dw3XAAkHDRz?format=jpg&name=medium
Brian Kemp, interviewed on WABE radio:
Yup — as rickA and conservatives want, the mechanics of making it more difficult for minorities, women, and the poor to vote.
Pretty powerful testimony by the police chief today. Still not optimistic about a conviction, even though one is greatly deserved.
A little reading this past weekend turned up this Hunter S. Thompson quote:
I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.
Seems as true now as it as ever been.
I am increasingly of the opinion that people want such things as freedom, fairness, and democracy primarily or even exclusively for themselves. Consider the people who who are enraged by masking and grouping rules in a pandemic as a violation of their natural rights, even though this particular right is or should be nonexistent because it decreases the safety and security from disease of everyone in the population. Allowing this “right” not only increases infection and death rates and stress on hospitals and healthcare workers but also increases the chance of a mutation occurring which makes the virus worse with regard to transmission and/or vaccine resistance and/or mortality. We see a similar attitude by many to a completely unfettered 2nd Amendment right to armament with the price usually being paid by other members of society, even children.
I fear that that this aspect of humanity will be the cause of more and more evil as time goes on.
Tyvor:
There are two kinds of people.
Spock types: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
and the founding fathers and the bill of rights type of person, who give great weight to individual rights, like the 1st – 8th amendments of the US Constitution.
I totally get why typhoid Mary was quarantined. But I am not so sure about locking down everybody else in a country because of a typhoid Mary (or even 1% of the population being typhoid Mary’s).
It is a difficult issue and I am sympathetic to both sides on the issue.
On the one hand – why shouldn’t we require everybody to get vaccinated (the Spock approach)? On the other hand, shouldn’t vaccination be an individual choice (the individual rights approach).
On balance, I come down on the side of persuading people to get vaccinated (I am getting vaccinated, have received the 1st Moderna shot and will get the 2nd shot on May 11th), rather than mandating everybody get vaccinated. So I guess I am an individual rights type of person.
But I admit it is a difficult issue. Reasonable minds an differ.
The only problem rickA is that you are as far from having a reasonable mind as anyone can be. Your opinions aren’t worth as much as dog shit on the sidewalk.
RickA, it is trite but nevertheless true that no one is an island. Individual rights are only reasonable and defensible if they do not endanger the entire population in which the individual exists or a population which is important to that population. There is already no defensible individual right to drive an automobile or truck without a license, cry fire in a crowded venue when there is no fire, or commit treason, nor should there be any defensible individual right to aid and abet an already lethal virus by spreading it or making it easier to spread and to spin off a variety of mutant variants. If pandemics were as common as fires and wars are this would already be in our legal code.
And furthermore, the only only reasons for not wearing masks or social distancing or being vaccinated so far advanced have been irrational and/or based on lies.
I don’t disagree about masking or social distancing. I think if a place of business wants me to wear a mask, I will. Ditto if the State asks me to wear a mask indoors (outside of my home).
I am more interested in your opinion on mandatory vaccination. That is what I am against. What are your thoughts on that issue? There is no real danger of this catching on in America – but it has been suggested in a few states, and hasn’t really gone anywhere.
To me it is a little bit like mandatory contraception or mandatory diets or any other mandatory behavior the government thinks might be beneficial at a population level. I think it is ok to persuade and ask for certain behaviors, but not to mandate certain behaviors.
But the idea of government mandated contraception and a requirement of government approval to get off contraception to procreate is not a pleasant thought. Ditto for a government mandate that anybody with a BMI over 30 must diet. I would be against such government mandates.
As for driving licenses – sure. But a lot of people still die from driving. You could make driving a lot safer by banning it. You could really cut down on plane crashes by banning flying. Everything is a cost benefit calculation. I think the benefits of driving and flying outweigh the social cost of death from those activities. We could make driving safer by setting the highway speed limit at 48 km/hour – but we don’t do that because we made a cost benefit calculation and decided not to.
The risk of people who choose not to get vaccinated isn’t that different for Covid-19 than it is for any other disease (like seasonal flu). But we are not even considering mandating the annual flu vaccination.
Just a thought.
“I am more interested in your opinion on mandatory vaccination.”
Worth discussion, since you are dealing with a health issue that not only affects individuals but the general population: covid, mumps,measles, etc., can be transmitted to others.
“To me it is a little bit like mandatory contraception or mandatory diets”
I’m sure it is, since you’re incapable of reasoned thought. It’s not at all like those things, since reproductive choices (or food consumption, etc) are individual choices. Whether a woman wants to risk pregnancy or not, or have a child or not, is her decision, not yours or that of anyone else (despite what the rabid right wants to do when it comes to dictating what women can do).
Previous comment about the worthiness of your opinions still stands.
Re “I am more interested in your opinion on mandatory vaccination. That is what I am against. What are your thoughts on that issue? There is no real danger of this catching on in America ”
All 50 states have rules about innoculations against certain diseases. (Whether these are technically “vaccinations” I don’t know.) Furthermore, it seems that although a child cannot be required to be vaccinated, a school can nevertheless require vaccination for admission. See both links below:
https://vaccines.procon.org/state-vaccination-exemptions-for-children-entering-public-schools/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/students-may-be-required-to-be-vaccinated-to-attend-public-schools/ar-BB1eVVCC
As I’ve said already, my stance on the issue is that if pandemics with considerable transmissibility, lethality, and/or chronic health problems were more common we would most likely already have mandatory vaccinations if we were fortunate enough to have a vaccine.
In some situations it is already required and has been for decades at least. When I was a college senior, I was required to have an inoculation against Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in order to go to a field camp in the western U.S. (such a course was a degree requirement) and when I entered the military, I received a number of inoculations for various diseases at the beginning of basic training; as we all did whether enlistee or draftee.
RickA opined
When yo write this:
you make an error of logic and
you are neglecting that with rights come responsibility. It is known that where infectious diseases are concerned there are personal and societal reasons to insist on vaccination short of good medical reasons, backed by evidence, that a vaccination may cause the individual harm. Take for example the measles mumps and rubella vaccination about which so much damaging fuss was made, without a large proportion of the population being vaccinated then more people could suffer from the effects of infection by one of those three contagions. Have you allowed your children to have the MMR vaccine? To avoid this without good cause is irresponsible, one may not know that that woman in the next street gave birth to a child with disabilities because you, you in the theoretical sense, did not have your child vaccinated and she contracted rubella (German Measles).
It is foolishness to avoid vaccination without good cause and grossly irresponsible. With diseases such as smallpox, poliomyelitis (one I had as a teen as soon as available- being warned not to engage in physical activity – awkward as I had to cycle the four miles home) etc., it is essential that the majority of the population are vaccinated so as to avoid epidemics, the increase in infections thanks to the MMR brouhaha is well known. I had many more vaccinations when I joined the RN (FAA) and many more during my decades of service.
Diphtheria is one vaccinated against at a very young age, in my parents time that disease was dreaded.
As it happens my wife and I had a difficult call when our youngest daughter became the age for the whooping cough (pertussis) vaccination, for there was a history of epilepsy in the family on my wife’s fathers side. We chose not to risk the vaccination. She went on to develop that dread disease so badly that she was in an oxygen tent for many days. Luckily a locum specialising in the underlying reasons for her extreme condition found something not right with her blood. She survived although not without some lung damage. This latter has caused us some concern as she, having graduated with a first in Chemistry working in the industry she then studied and works as a primary school teacher being in an at risk group and somewhat down the queue for a Covid vaccination.
Consider:
https://www.nfid.org/immunization/10-reasons-to-get-vaccinated/
Re: Is vaccination a freedom or individual rights issue?
RickA and I have bandied words about this. Here’s something else to consider:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/covid-herd-immunity-vaccine.html
It is my contention that allowing people a choice between getting vaccinated against the current Covid virus and not getting it. The vaccine is free, very few people have any serious side effects, and is highly effective in keeping the vaccinated from getting the disease and even more effective at keeping those who do get it out of the hospital and morgue.
When a significant percentage of the population refuse vaccination for whatever reason or reasons, the likely result is that the disease will keep spreading and mutating and a stable herd immunity may never be reached. The disease will continue to be a fact of life for all of us and, may even get worse.
Other than what I believe in the UK is called “pure bloody mindedness,” just what argument underlies vaccine aversion primarily by U. S. Republicans? Just what inalienable right is there for individuals that is worth flirting with having many thousands of avoidable deaths per month in perpetuity?