Is It Time To Get Back To Work?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Mopar Dude, May 19, 2020.

  1. Mopar Dude

    Mopar Dude Well-Known Member

    I have no underlying agenda in asking this. I happen to feel I am fortunate to live in a business friendly state. My little offices doors never closed and thankfully we have remained in the black. There are some folks struggling because they cannot see how they can keep their business' doors open. And there are others that are reaping financial rewards from this pandemic. Is this an issue of our freedoms being trampled upon? As Americans are we no longer capable of making decisions for our own well being? Or are we all being played as pawns in some larger political agenda?

    I have been long concerned about the lines being drawn in the sand in our nation and I fear that this thing could be the fuse to set the opposing factions on fire. So is it time to get ourselves back to work if we choose to do so?
     
    JohnHamilton likes this.
  2. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    The problem I see is that some people see this as a personal choice, freedom vs authoritarianism, the economy vs a health crisis. Everywhere you see states opening up and people abusing social distancing, you also see a spike in positive cases and deaths. These people don't care. The videos are jaw dropping.

    I personally don't care if these people live or die for their perceived political stances. They have a right to die, infect and kill their relatives, their kids, the grandchildren, but I draw the line at first responders, health care workers like nurses and doctors, and all the other people on the front lines of this pandemic. The rights of these clowns do not get to be realized at the expense of those doing everything right and those going above and beyond.

    What we are seeing this spring is just the open volley of the virus. The summer might bring us a little relief if, and only if, we keep abiding by social distancing rules and staying home as much as possible. I seriously doubt that we will see that kind of response from this country. People will go out, people will spread the virus, and we'll see a large summer spike in deaths. But don't worry, the fall will make summer look like the good old times especially if we don't learn the lessons of spring and summer.

    The problem is not enough people have been affected yet. We haven't seen bodies stacked floor to ceiling in enough refrigerated semi trailers yet. We haven't had to decide who gets to live and who doesn't in massive enough numbers yet. We haven't really seen what this virus is capable of. We will.

    All of the happy talk of a vaccine coming soon will do nothing to halt the march of this disease. It will however, give the disease a bumper crop of new victims to infect. You may not have been impacted by this virus but you will be. The only effective weapon we currently have is our ability to stay socially distant from each other. If we give that up for economic reasons, political reasons, election chances, or whatever, we will be raising the white flag and signaling to the disease that we are open for infections.

    I know people are hurting. Tens of millions of people are out of work. Do we send them back to work to their deaths or should we marshal our resources to bring people and things together and organize them so that they can be used in an effective way? The leadership we are stuck with seems to be going in the other direction by encouraging people to get out and start trying to go back to the way things used to be. That is a recipe for massive death counts. And since they seem to take absolutely no responsibility for anything, they will blame someone else for the massive loss of life.

    Can some select things open on a modified basis with strict oversight, of course. But just opening the country without any kind of plan is just mass suicide. There is no federal plan. None! The leadership is completely absent and isn't likely to appear anytime soon.

    And just to piss off @JohnHamilton ...

    revolting.jpg
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2020
  3. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

  4. Mopar Dude

    Mopar Dude Well-Known Member

    You are correct about one thing. We certainly have become a selfish society in recent years. And they have shown this during this pandemic. It's embarrassing really. However I do believe that is the few. The drama that needs to make a statement. The overwhelming majority of folks are doing the responsible thing. I don't think I will see the end to social distancing in my lifetime unless a vaccine is established. And I am unsure just exactly what oversight will get us. Oversight seems to be the fuse that is drawing shorter by the day. Those with power tend to wield it in their own interests. They will be compensated whether they are at home or not...... I see both sides of this. I feel for the folks that believe their freedoms are being trampled upon because their livelihoods are forced to be closed. I also see the need to proceed with caution. Folks have been asked to wait two weeks. Then a month, then two months..... All the while they watch their livelihoods slip away. I truly do not have the answer. I don't know that anybody does. But if we don't work, we don't eat.
     
    JoeNation likes this.
  5. Mopar Dude

    Mopar Dude Well-Known Member

    One thing I have noticed..... When we see protests by conservative minded folks lately, I don't have to turn my kids heads away like I do when we see protest signs from the left. Wonder what that means?
     
  6. JohnHamilton
    Pensive

    JohnHamilton Well-Known Member

    I grew up near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The merchants count on the summer trade. If the summer is busted, so is their livelihood.

    Delaware residents can go on the beach, but out of state people cannot. There is a 15 day quarantine for anyone from out of state.

    If this does not lift by at least the middle June, it will be a disaster for the area.
     
  7. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Then you're watch Fox. I can show you a million of them you wouldn't like want your kid to see.
     
  8. Mopar Dude

    Mopar Dude Well-Known Member

    Not lately..... I been banned from watching news by my kid. She said it was making me mean.
     
  9. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    This is a duo crisis undoubtedly but first and foremost, it is a health crisis. If people end up moving back in with their parents as a result, or closing a family business, those are secondary considerations to the health and safety of the people. If I had just invested my family savings in a small business and found that I had to close due to stay-at-home orders, I'd be upset, angry maybe, or maybe I would lick my wounds and try again later on. The whining is amazing in my opinion. No one is guaranteed a bountiful economy when they start a business. Hell, 80% of small businesses fail within the first year. If a few businesses go under as a result of this crisis, and they will, that is simply the pitfalls of starting a small business. Why do these people believe that they are guaranteed a successful business venture in the first place?
     
  10. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    She is smarter than her old man. :)
     
    Mopar Dude likes this.
  11. Mopar Dude

    Mopar Dude Well-Known Member

    I think maybe this is a bit of a mischaracterization. You are correct. Nobody is guaranteed success. We make our choices... We play the cards we are dealt and we live or die by the sword. It is the sweat of our own brow..... You have a recent thread that I cannot respond to about how my 401k is doing. Well, my 401K is my business. I have half my life and all my money here. I didn't bet on the market. I bet on myself. So far I believe it has been a fair bet...... Now after all these years and all the effort, frankly if you stand in front of my door and tell me I cannot open.... Well, you will have a tussle on your hands. You may as well try to take my daughter from me. It just isn't going to happen without a fight..... See if I fail, then I fail on my own. I cannot make it OK in my mind to put another person in the position of causing my failure.
     
    JoeNation likes this.
  12. Mopar Dude

    Mopar Dude Well-Known Member

    I will not argue that point. And way better looking too.
     
    JoeNation likes this.
  13. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Let's say a war had broken out and in order to help the country, a vital raw material your company needed was completely consumed by the government for the war effort and you had no way to continue your business without this raw material. You would either start a different business or you would close up shop and move on because you would have no other choices.

    How is this pandemic any different than a war? We are fighting to keep people alive. We are struggling against an enemy that wants to overcome us. We need the cooperation of everyone to win this thing because losing it is unthinkable.

    I wish that people would think about the country instead of themselves for once. It's been a long time since I have witnessed the people of this country come together and fight side-by-side for the betterment of the entire country. We will get through this eventually. There will be winners and losers. The losers are the people that get infected and die. Among the winners will be the people with businesses that get to live to work another day. In any of these situations, the elderly or retired folks are the ones that get the brunt of the damage. You just have to look at the nursing homes around the country to know that this is true.
     
    Mopar Dude likes this.
  14. SmalltownMN
    Doh

    SmalltownMN All I can do is shake my head....

    My place of work has remained open, though we did have a small layoff a few weeks ago. We had a similar layoff last year around this same time and I feel that even this time around was more about "cleaning house" than anything else. Most of the large employers in our area remained open, it was just the smaller businesses and restaurants in the downtown that were closed. I do feel for those that have been sidelined and think that they should be allowed to open following the guidelines for such.

    We do get screened every morning before entering the building and there are still quite a few people that are working remotely from home, including half of my department.
     
    JohnHamilton and Mopar Dude like this.
  15. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    I've been working at home for 64 days now. We are talking about going back at the end of the summer but I told my supervisor that I don't plan to return. I am willing to keep working from home, but I will not set foot in that building again. Too many people in a public space.

    There is nothing I can't do from home that I could doing at my office desk. I don't see the point of going back. We just laid off about 60 people and we are expecting to take about a 40-50 million dollar financial hit this year alone.

    Not everyone is as fortunate as I am nor do they have the flexibility I have but I am so close to retirement that it almost doesn't matter what they decide to do. It will work out just fine for me. I just turned down an early retirement package because I felt that they could do better. If they lay me off, I'll just retire.
     
  16. CoinBlazer

    CoinBlazer de omnibus dubitandum

    I currently live in one of the least affected counties in the Country.
    We have had approximately 7 cases in the 2 counties that make up Joplin MO, and currently we are at 100% survival rate.
    No one has died and as of yesterday only one of the 7 was still in the hospital, and the patient was in clearing phase of his treatment. My father works at a private orthopedic practice under Mercy Healthcare system. He gets a daily or weekly report, confirmed by the CDC, State and Local health department on current status in his area. Southwest MO is clean as a whistle. The only problem is that isn’t everywhere, New York, California, Metropolitan Texas, those are the hard hit places that requires severe restrictions.
    So I want to ask everyone @JoeNation @FryDaddyJr @Mopar Dude @JohnHamilton

    At what level should restriction be in place, if I don’t have a single confirmed case here but New York is getting destroyed? Should I be held to the same standard of healthy practices as a person from California?
    Where do we draw the line?
     
    Mopar Dude likes this.
  17. JohnHamilton
    Pensive

    JohnHamilton Well-Known Member

    You are right. If you live in an area that has hardly been effected, you should be able to mostly return to normal. The trouble is this disease is very contagious. That’s the rub. How do keep it from spreading like wildfire from one infected person? This is the big question.

    It seems that once the curve has been flattened and social distancing is practiced that things can gradually return to close to normal. Perhaps the virus is mutating and people are building some resistance. Let’s pray that’s what is happening. Another total shutdown is simply not sustainable.
     
  18. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    For the time being, yeah, you should be held to the same standard as harder hit places. As John said, it's super infectious, so it doesn't matter how few cases you have at the moment, it could turn into hundreds within a week.

    The answer is testing infrastructure. Places like South Korea have been able to reopen because of their robust systems of testing and contact tracing. At a bare minimum, I'd at least like to see us get to where everyone in the country can get a test if they are displaying symptoms.
     
  19. Mopar Dude

    Mopar Dude Well-Known Member

    CB, this is the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Nobody knows. For the most part, I have continued living my life.... We had one mid sized town in my state that had no cases 5-6 weeks ago and they continued on as though nothing were going on. Then one case showed up in a fast food place. Now that community is the hot spot in my state. Should you follow CDC guidelines? I just don't know, but I do believe that we absolutely must get back to some sense of responsible normalcy. All we can do is trust that the smart folks studying this thing get a handle on it.

    Did you guys hear where the CDC has revised their guidelines and now say that they do not believe this virus lives on inanimate surfaces as they had previously thought? No doubt it is quite contagious, but where does this now leave us?

    I keep going back in my mind to when HIV/AIDS was at the forefront of the medical world. All the worlds best and brightest minds were working to find a cure for this thing. And here we are forty years later.... No cure has been found. Only a means to mitigate the physical damage that the virus causes. Forty years we been working on that without success. I am left to wonder if truly finding a cure/vaccination for this thing is in our future. Perhaps our best course of action is to continue on with life and hope our systems can create some immunity to it.... I just don't know.
     
  20. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    I hadn't seen that yet, interesting. I could see that information helping to open up a lot more contactless business. It sure makes me feel better about groceries and take-out.

    A lot of the social distancing measures will probably stay until we have an effectively spread vaccine. I wish we could get hers immunity, but the cost is too great it would seem. You need around 70-80 percent of a population to have immunity for it to work. With the low end of mortality being around 2%, we'd have to sacrifice ~110,000,000 people for that to work.

    I wouldn't lose hope just yet though. HIV is a totally different type of virus, a retrovirus. Retroviruses are far harder to create vaccines for than coronaviruses, and we've even made some great progress with HIV. We have well established coronavirus vaccines we currently use in animals as well, so luckily a lot of the fundamental work in this vaccine development is already complete.
     
    Mopar Dude likes this.

Share This Page