Elon Musk is a nice chap

[vk6zgo]

To hell with Trump---I don't like him at all, but he wasn't my President as I don't have a vote in your country.
I don't think Trump was ever silly enough to deny that kids were killed in shootings, so how can a comment on Jones be what you suggest?

Guilt by association

Alex Jones bad
Alex Jones right wing
Right wing bad
Trump right wing
Trump bad
All Republicans bad

Strangely, this is what I increasingly see from the other side, where the mildest of Social Democrat policies are reviled as Hardline Socialism, Far Left, Communist, Marxist, & whatever else is the current "swearword" of choice.

I'm old enough to remember when there really was a "Far Left", & they were people like the "Baader-Meinhof Group", or the "Japanese Red Army Faction".

Those were very scary guys, indeed.

For me, even if Alex Jones suddenly became a raving lefty, I would still judge him by his actions!

[Zero999]

Forcing people to accept any medical treatment is against the Nuremberg code. That code was originally about medical experiments on humans, but isn't limited to experiments.

It's not a medical treatment, it's a vaccine, and vaccines have been required under at least some circumstances for decades. I was required to be vaccinated against several childhood illnesses in order to attend public school. I knew people that went on vacations to some kind of exotic locations and were required to get vaccines in order to go there, that was in the 80s or 90s. I do not recall a encountering a single person that was anti-vax until that fraudulent study involving only *12* children that claimed a link to autism. As I recall, Andrew Wakefield had a vested interest in a competing vaccine and of course nobody was ever able to duplicate his results, but people took that and ran with it anyway, and the spokesperson of the movement is a former Playboy model with absolutely no medical or scientific background. The whole thing is completely stupid, vaccines work, period. Vaccines do not cause autism, period. There is no evidence that they do, none at all, it was a fraud.

A vaccine is a type of medical treatment.

In the cases you've given the vaccines had a good track record for safety and have been proven to stop children from getting sick. There is no proven benefit in vaccinating healthy children against SARS-Cov-2.

Forcing people to accept any medical treatment is against the Nuremberg code. That code was originally about medical experiments on humans, but isn't limited to experiments.

(a) they're not forced, they don't have to work in the NHS or in the section of the NHS dealing with vulnerable patients

(b) NHS staff have been required to have vaccinations in the past and be screened for other diseases, like HIV and Hepatitis.  Here is a pre-COVID document describing this:
https://www.workingwellglos.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Countywide-Staff-Screening-and-Immunisation-Policy.pdf

(c) as others have pointed out, a vaccine isn't a medical treatment, and it is ultimately not against the person's free will, just like you have free speech but you can still be fired for calling your boss a c**t.

If someone has to have a vaccination in order to do their job, which they require to make a living, then it's as good as being forced. It's certainly coercion, if nothing else. Any medical procedure needs informed consent. These vaccines do have genuine real risks and some doctors have told their patients not to get them. My brother is a classic example. He got Delta last year, which might've triggered a heart attack. He was only 37 and reasonably healthy at the time. His cardiologist told him not to get the jab because of the risk of myocarditis and there was no point as he had natural immunity.

I don't support any vaccine mandates, but the difference is the COVID-19 vaccines were only authorised for emergence use. They hadn't gone through the same level of testing as much older, well established vaccines.

There are a huge number of people who are not anititvax, yet have concerns over the COVID-19 vaccines. Heck I even got the first two doses, but now I'm not even sure I really needed them. I certainly have no intention of getting any boosters. The way the authorities have responded to this really has shaken my trust in them. If/when there's another novel virus or pathogen, I'd be more hesitant about following the heath authorities' advice and vaccination.

[coppice]

Forcing people to accept any medical treatment is against the Nuremberg code. That code was originally about medical experiments on humans, but isn't limited to experiments.

(a) they're not forced, they don't have to work in the NHS or in the section of the NHS dealing with vulnerable patients

Mobsters aren't forcing anyone to pay them insurance when they say your livelihood will be wrecked if you don't, so I guess that's all right then.

(b) NHS staff have been required to have vaccinations in the past and be screened for other diseases, like HIV and Hepatitis.  Here is a pre-COVID document describing this:
https://www.workingwellglos.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Countywide-Staff-Screening-and-Immunisation-Policy.pdf

NHS staff have been forced to accept things with a long track record of safety. Making them accept novel things has not occurred historically. If you consider how much trouble Moderna was having with their experimental mRNA therapies as late as 2017, and how they had never made one that works without a number of unexpected side effects, their vaccine was definitely not something well proven.

(c) as others have pointed out, a vaccine isn't a medical treatment, and it is ultimately not against the person's free will, just like you have free speech but you can still be fired for calling your boss a c**t.

Of course its a medical treatment. If you don't think it is, can you specify what constitutes a treatment?

[vad]

I personally admire Elon.

He is brilliant rocket scientist, who, unlike sucker Sergey Korolev, who launched the first man into Space but died barely penniless, and unlike sucker Wernher von Braun, who put a man on the Moon, but was forced to retire from NASA due to budget cuts. Elon put the first electrical appliance, Tesla Roadster, to the orbit around Sun, and is sucking billions of taxpayer dollars from US Government.

Speaking of the electrical appliance (car manufacturing) business. His is brilliant electrical and mechanical engineer, whose $50B compensation package makes any CEO in the industry jealous. Whirlpool’s CEO and VAG’s CEO are suckers who make 4 orders of magnitude less than Musk. Whirlpool is known for popular appliance brands such as KitchenAid, and VAG is known for VW, Audi, Porsche, Bentley.

Speaking of money, Musk is a brilliant banker too, who co-founded company now known as PayPal, the service that charges 3.5% for each commercial transaction, takes deposits and does not pay interest, while not even being FDIC insured.

Musk is a hilarious internet troll and a clown too.

Not everyone agrees with my admiration though. To balance this post, here is a critical view on Musk and his recent ventures. Zuckerberg bashing is an added bonus:

https://youtu.be/oVj4kZF-Fgk

[Zero999]

To hell with Trump---I don't like him at all, but he wasn't my President as I don't have a vote in your country.
I don't think Trump was ever silly enough to deny that kids were killed in shootings, so how can a comment on Jones be what you suggest?

Guilt by association

Alex Jones bad
Alex Jones right wing
Right wing bad
Trump right wing
Trump bad
All Republicans bad

Strangely, this is what I increasingly see from the other side, where the mildest of Social Democrat policies are reviled as Hardline Socialism, Far Left, Communist, Marxist, & whatever else is the current "swearword" of choice.

I'm old enough to remember when there really was a "Far Left", & they were people like the "Baader-Meinhof Group", or the "Japanese Red Army Faction".

Those were very scary guys, indeed.

For me, even if Alex Jones suddenly became a raving lefty, I would still judge him by his actions!

It does annoy me when those on the right accuse modern social democratic parties of being communist or Marxist, which is completely untrue.

It also annoys me when those on the left, accuse modern conservative patries of being Fascist or Nazi.

[james_s]

If someone has to have a vaccination in order to do their job, which they require to make a living, then it's as good as being forced. It's certainly coercion, if nothing else. Any medical procedure needs informed consent. These vaccines do have genuine real risks and some doctors have told their patients not to get them.

No it isn't, if you are unable to meet the requirements of the job then get a different job, it's as simple as that. If you are considering a career in healthcare then you should expect to be required to get certain vaccinations as you are going to be working with vulnerable people. Healthcare is not the only career out there and working directly with patients is not the only area of healthcare. It is possible to change careers if you are unwilling to do what the job requires but in most cases that seems a little extreme. Yes there is some (small) risk, nobody ever said jobs are never risky. Firefighters, police officers, miners, construction workers, etc are all dangerous jobs with risks *far* higher than that of any required vaccine. If you are too averse to risk then those jobs are not for you. You don't just take the job and then complain that you're being forced or coerced into doing something risky.

[Zero999]

If someone has to have a vaccination in order to do their job, which they require to make a living, then it's as good as being forced. It's certainly coercion, if nothing else. Any medical procedure needs informed consent. These vaccines do have genuine real risks and some doctors have told their patients not to get them.

No it isn't, if you are unable to meet the requirements of the job then get a different job, it's as simple as that. If you are considering a career in healthcare then you should expect to be required to get certain vaccinations as you are going to be working with vulnerable people. Healthcare is not the only career out there and working directly with patients is not the only area of healthcare. It is possible to change careers if you are unwilling to do what the job requires but in most cases that seems a little extreme. Yes there is some (small) risk, nobody ever said jobs are never risky. Firefighters, police officers, miners, construction workers, etc are all dangerous jobs with risks *far* higher than that of any required vaccine. If you are too averse to risk then those jobs are not for you. You don't just take the job and then complain that you're being forced or coerced into doing something risky.

But the vaccines were pushed on people who had already being working in the healthcare sector for long time. This isn't the same as applying for a job and agreeing to it beforehand. No one was told they would have to accept an experimental vaccine, before they took the job.

It's true there is a risk to everything, but in the case of fire figures and police, they're covered if something goes wrong on the job. The same isn't the case for vaccine injuries. There are also known benefits to said risks. There are numerous cases of healthcare workers being fired, when they have a perfectly valid reason not to take the shot i.e. they've already being infected with the virus, which has always conferred a greater level of protection against transmission, compared to the vaccines, especially for the older variants.

Either way, this policy is now being proven to be a disaster as many staff have quit, leading to shortages. This is a problem in the UK in care homes. Fortunately our government never mandated them for medical workers.

[SiliconWizard]

Either way, this policy is now being proven to be a disaster as many staff have quit, leading to shortages. This is a problem in the UK in care homes. Fortunately our government never mandated them for medical workers.

And, the measure is now largely proven to be useless anyway. Well, depends on what the objectives are I guess. The health systems in a number of countries were already not doing that great, they now have been further destroyed at a never-seen rate. I guess this paves the way very well for the industrial revolution 4.0 and robots replacing medical staff, or something.

[PlainName]

Whilst some have quit due to mandatory vaccination, brexit and burnout are equally cited as causes for losing staff. Poor pay has an effect too in the current climate.

[MadScientist]

 :rant:Yawn this is so last year

[Simon]

Either way, this policy is now being proven to be a disaster as many staff have quit, leading to shortages. This is a problem in the UK in care homes. Fortunately our government never mandated them for medical workers.

And, the measure is now largely proven to be useless anyway. Well, depends on what the objectives are I guess. The health systems in a number of countries were already not doing that great, they now have been further destroyed at a never-seen rate. I guess this paves the way very well for the industrial revolution 4.0 and robots replacing medical staff, or something.

what? so we have robots here and now to replace nurses and care staff?

[tom66]

Whilst some have quit due to mandatory vaccination, brexit and burnout are equally cited as causes for losing staff. Poor pay has an effect too in the current climate.

I think this is much more likely. Also I recall the NHS/health ministry were basically playing chicken with the staff refusing to be vaccinated for COVID,  they gave in on most areas.  It is a requirement for new staff but existing are grandfathered in.  At least that's what I heard.

[tooki]

Fun adage spotted elsewhere (regarding Musk, but I think it has broad applicability): “If you shoot yourself in the foot, the first thing you need to do is stop pulling the trigger.”

[wraper]

So this thread was about politics then. But they don't make it easy, do they? The press is now touting that Donald Trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes, a prominent neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denier. How many republicans are going to condemn him?  Elon Musk now supporting DeSantis, a right wing conservative, almost to the extreme. Of course Elon supports him, because these people give all the rich people tax breaks. It's very bad for common people that only rich people run the politics in the US.

C'mon, if you believe democrats favor the poor over the rich, you're too naive. They like to spew "tax the rich" which actually means screw the middle class and make some loopholes for really wealthy.

Of course Elon supports him, because these people give all the rich people tax breaks.

Elon paid $11 billion of tax last year which is more than any individual ever. Which could be easily avoided had he schemed a little bit.

[wraper]

LOL, seems Elon actually hired "Daniel Jonson" who pranked the mass media, and it wasn't just a joke https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592618665933156352 . As now he takes applications from software engineers for Twitter. https://twitter.com/growing_daniel/status/1596937433626865665

[JohanH]

C'mon, if you believe democrats favor the poor over the rich, you're too naive. They like to spew "tax the rich" which actually means screw the middle class and make some loopholes for really wealthy.

I don't know anything about that, but my impression is that democrats in the US are pretty similar to right leaning parties over here, although there are factions within the party with social leaning politics that have some things more in common with centrist and leftish European parties. The republicans (at least those that have been in power the last few years) can't be compared with any party where I live, they are just too extreme.

[tom66]

Politically speaking Barack Obama and the UK's David Cameron or Boris Johnson, recent Conservative PMs, were on very similar terms if you empirically compare their policies.  They all believe in a relatively small state (arguing for efficiency over broadness), a strong foreign policy somewhat more so over an inward looking domestic agenda, and more privatisation in public services (Obama and W. Bush both supported NASA's COTS, and Obama pushed CCP too, as good examples,  Obama did not push for universal healthcare and instead compromised on 'Obamacare', and Cameron and Johnson both supported further private sector integration into the NHS.) 

It's mad how Americans call the Democrats even slightly left wing.  They are a right-of-centre party in the most optimistic reading; there are a couple of lefties in their ranks but broadly speaking no one left of centre anywhere near any power.  The Republicans are right to hard-right, though certain members could perhaps be called far-right fascists (Boebert comes to mind.)

[TimFox]

There are many historical studies about the left/right composition of the two major US political parties since, say, 1900.
In short, until quite recently (about the time of Newt Gingrich's rise in 1995), there was a substantial overlap in the Venn diagrams of the two parties.
There were (comparatively) liberal Republicans, and (comparatively) conservative Democrats included in each party, with the obvious bias between the two centroids.
Historically, some of the conservative Democrats were Southern "dixiecrats", e.g. Strom Thurmond, who favored racial segregation policies, and some of the liberal Republicans were Northerners, e.g. Nelson Rockefeller, left over from Lincoln's time, when the Republicans were the civil-rights party.
Around 1960, a standard political joke (see "Beyond the Fringe") explained the US political scene to a Brit:
"There is the Republican Party, which is like our Conservative Party, and the Democratic Party, which is like our Conservative Party."
The first change was the civil rights legislation of 1964, which drove the segregationists away from the Democratic Party and led directly to unprecedented Republican majorities in the southeast quadrant of the US.
The most recent change, obviously, is the rise of Mr Trump to make much of the Republican Party his personal fief.
The next presidential election in 2024 may not change the policy stands of the two parties very much, but the personnel may change.

[coppice]

C'mon, if you believe democrats favor the poor over the rich, you're too naive. They like to spew "tax the rich" which actually means screw the middle class and make some loopholes for really wealthy.

I don't know anything about that, but my impression is that democrats in the US are pretty similar to right leaning parties over here, although there are factions within the party with social leaning politics that have some things more in common with centrist and leftish European parties. The republicans (at least those that have been in power the last few years) can't be compared with any party where I live, they are just too extreme.

The US electorate has a horrible choice. Parties can say all sorts of things, but if you look at real world action, the Democrats have been bought by Wall Street, and the Republicans have been bought by Industry. Nobody gives a damn about the public, other than buying their votes and avoiding too much backlash.

[james_s]

The US electorate has a horrible choice. Parties can say all sorts of things, but if you look at real world action, the Democrats have been bought by Wall Street, and the Republicans have been bought by Industry. Nobody gives a damn about the public, other than buying their votes and avoiding too much backlash.

That about sums it up. One party is tax & spend, the other is borrow & spend, neither one is in any way fiscally responsible and neither one gives a damn about the middle class, it's all a bunch of lip service and ultimately everything is done to help the rich. The democrats throw a bone to the poor in a combination of virtue signalling and to buy votes but almost nothing they do actually helps any of the poor get back on their feet.

[james_s]

It's mad how Americans call the Democrats even slightly left wing.  They are a right-of-centre party in the most optimistic reading; there are a couple of lefties in their ranks but broadly speaking no one left of centre anywhere near any power.  The Republicans are right to hard-right, though certain members could perhaps be called far-right fascists (Boebert comes to mind.)

The democrats are split between two distinct groups in an uneasy alliance. There are the old "blue dog" democrats that are relatively centrist and there are the the progressives which are very much left wing, a handful of them openly identify as socialists, it isn't just a curse word right wingers call them.

[iMo]

..The health systems in a number of countries were already not doing that great, they now have been further destroyed at a never-seen rate. I guess this paves the way very well for the industrial revolution 4.0 and robots replacing medical staff, or something.

.., or, people start to care much more for their own health and well-being, hopefully..

[mfro]

The US electorate has a horrible choice.

With an electoral system that puts only two parties in favor, you'll consequently end up with the limited choice between the bad and the worse.
Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to get out of that dead end because it would require the profiteers to make themselves obsolete.


 

[vk6zgo]

The US electorate has a horrible choice.

With an electoral system that puts only two parties in favor, you'll consequently end up with the limited choice between the bad and the worse.
Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to get out of that dead end because it would require the profiteers to make themselves obsolete.

Or you could have a large number of small parties forming Coalitions, breaking up, then reforming in another of a myriad of combinations, somewhat like Italy.
 
Australia has one large party, the ALP, which is mainly opposed by an eternal Coalition (Federally), of two slightly smaller parties, the Liberals* & the Nationals.
It would make sense for the Coalition to become one party, & indeed, that has happened in some States, but in others, one or other of those parties, if elected, can rule the State without Coalition, so there is still heavy resistance to such a notion.

There are a few smaller parties, with the Greens being the largest of them, along with a smattering of Independent MPs.

If the Nationals parted company with the Liberals, in theory, they could coalesce with the Greens & just, maybe, beat the ALP, but it would make members of both sick to their stomachs.

* The Liberals in the Australian context are more like Libertarians than anything that would be recognised as "liberal" in other countries----although that's not quite it, either!

[tooki]

Politically speaking Barack Obama and the UK's David Cameron or Boris Johnson, recent Conservative PMs, were on very similar terms if you empirically compare their policies.  They all believe in a relatively small state (arguing for efficiency over broadness), a strong foreign policy somewhat more so over an inward looking domestic agenda, and more privatisation in public services (Obama and W. Bush both supported NASA's COTS, and Obama pushed CCP too, as good examples,  Obama did not push for universal healthcare and instead compromised on 'Obamacare', and Cameron and Johnson both supported further private sector integration into the NHS.) 

It's mad how Americans call the Democrats even slightly left wing.  They are a right-of-centre party in the most optimistic reading; there are a couple of lefties in their ranks but broadly speaking no one left of centre anywhere near any power.  The Republicans are right to hard-right, though certain members could perhaps be called far-right fascists (Boebert comes to mind.)

And meanwhile, American conservatives call the Democrats “radical left”. Americans have a very distorted view of what the political spectrum is. They seem oblivious to the wholesale shift to the right of American politics, and that we never had any hard left wing to begin with.

IMHO the Democrats are just barely left of center, if that. I vote for them because they’re the more left of the two main parties.