Not buying anymore Ebike stuff.

[markz]

Sweden is acting like there is no Kung Flu China Virus.

 

[john61ct]

Please stop being obnoxious.

And yes they're suffering for it will need to correct soon

 

[MadRhino]

Viruses have nothing to do with it. A virus is blind, and will spread all over the world until a cure is found. Then it will be limited to the places that can’t afford the cure, like so many other ‘old’ viruses that are killing millions every year. The origin of a virus can only be guessed, for the place of the first death has nothing to do with where the first mutation did happen. When we discover a virus, it’s been slowly mutating for a long time, and a lot of people had been exposed to the evolution if it, unconsciously contributing to its evolution and spread. I hold no resentment toward viruses, nor any other natural cause of mortality. Death must be just as natural as birth and we have to accept them. What I don’t accept is deprivation of my fundamental freedom.

Now about the exceptional measures that governments are enforcing to slow down the spread, it is only slowing it down and sooner or later it will be equally spread. The only purpose is to prevent overloading the health facilities, and save time for a cure to be found. My opinion about this is the same as Thomas Jefferson: If you are willing to give up freedom to feel safety, you deserve neither of them.

Men are not an endangered species. There are too many already, and we must stop saving them from themselves or nature. Do no wrong nor good to those who are not asking for it.

Here we are forced by law to confinement, so I left the city that is not corresponding anymore to my way of life. I come once a week, to buy some goods and bring some others that might be useful. Right now, I am living and working with my horses and the people I care for. I give no government the right to decide for me, that I must isolate from any of them. All of them are free to decide how they want to live, work, and die; even my horse are, for I haven’t built any fences here.

 

[markz]

.

Good ole Quebec government!
:wink:

 

[john61ct]

Trump's response was the same as China's

wut?

 

[gogo]

The CCP is going down soon and its going to be messy.

 

[999zip999]

Chinese waited to long or took it's changes of wishing it away. As did Trump as he is still asleep on the viruses needs. Test masks and stay away plus equipment for the nurses and doctors and grocery clerks gas station attendants excetera excetera.

 

[goatman]

Chinese waited to long or took it's changes of wishing it away. As did Trump as he is still asleep on the viruses needs. Test masks and stay away plus equipment for the nurses and doctors and grocery clerks gas station attendants excetera excetera.

whos job is it to shutdown a state to control the spread of the virus. is it the presidents job or the Governors job?

 

[JackFlorey]

whos job is it to shutdown a state to control the spread of the virus. is it the presidents job or the Governors job?

President's. It doesn't work if some states decide to do it and some don't.

 

[999zip999]

It's the governor of California and all the rest of the states to follow his lead. As our governor will be supplying you with mask and ventilators. I guess California has to take the lead as we punch above our weight.
I do believe we don't get a Fair shake intrade and business

 

[Sunder]

Now about the exceptional measures that governments are enforcing to slow down the spread, it is only slowing it down and sooner or later it will be equally spread. The only purpose is to prevent overloading the health facilities, and save time for a cure to be found. My opinion about this is the same as Thomas Jefferson: If you are willing to give up freedom to feel safety, you deserve neither of them.

Not sure what Jefferson's feelings were on freedom and safety, but Franklin had strong sentiments about it:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Problem is, the quote wasn't talking about civil liberties. It was talking about the liberties of a people to self govern:

The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the Assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family, which ruled Pennsylvania from afar, to raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the Assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him.

So to start matters, Franklin was writing not as a subject being asked to cede his liberty to government, but in his capacity as a legislator being asked to renounce his power to tax lands notionally under his jurisdiction. In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security.

What's more the “purchase [of] a little temporary safety” of which Franklin complains was not the ceding of power to a government Leviathan in exchange for some promise of protection from external threat; for in Franklin’s letter, the word “purchase” does not appear to have been a metaphor. The governor was accusing the Assembly of stalling on appropriating money for frontier defense by insisting on including the Penn lands in its taxes--and thus triggering his intervention. And the Penn family later offered cash to fund defense of the frontier--as long as the Assembly would acknowledge that it lacked the power to tax the family’s lands.

Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance--and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former. In short, Franklin was not describing some tension between government power and individual liberty. He was describing, rather, effective self-government in the service of security as the very liberty it would be contemptible to trade.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said

A reminder that Franklin was also a proponent of libel laws (cencoring free speech?) And search laws (invading right to privacy)

I prefer a quote from The Handmaid's Tale - the book, not the movie:

"There is more than one kind of freedom,” says Aunt Lydia "freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.”

Or, if you prefer to stay with American Politics rather than fiction, John B. Finch

This arm is my arm (and my wife’s), it is not yours. Up here I have a right to strike out with it as I please. I go over there with these gentlemen and swing my arm and exercise the natural right which you have granted; I hit one man on the nose, another under the ear, and as I go down the stairs on my head, I cry out:

“Is not this a free country?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have not I a right to swing my arm?”

“Yes, but your right to swing your arm leaves off where my right not to have my nose struck begins.”

Here civil government comes in to prevent bloodshed, adjust rights, and settle disputes.

Just as you have the freedom to associate with whom you please, those people have the freedom from associating with you, should you be infected or at risk of being infected with Coronavirus. And to balance these rights is not easy. Each shopkeeper you see when you go into town cannot assess whether you have coronavirus, neither can other customers of that store that you could infect just by walking past them.

And so, the people have decided that for the benefit of the greatest number of people, your NON-essential liberty is worth trading for SUBSTANTIAL security against a very PERMANENT threat (needless early death). And should you disagree, and try to assert your freedom to swing your arm - so to speak - they will take your greater liberty away by jailing you. I can't say I disagree.

 

[MadRhino]

@Sunder

You got it wrong, or making it wrong. I never said that I would be enforcing my freedom against other. I just left, with those close relatives who are in the same state of mind as I. I am lucky to have lands far from the cities, where government does not have the resources to enforce their laws. Now we are a pretty large group working and living together, away from the city where the government has closed most of the commerce and forced a large part of the population off their work and social life. None of them is forced to stay and work here. For the time this situation will remain, I will stay away from this stupid fear in the city, that had spread faster than a virus, and also more damaging than one IMO.

Freedom is not to be free to do wrong to others. It is the right to choose your way of life, the people you want to be with, the work you like to do, and when to do it. The government who enforce by law, that you are not free to work, and that you must stay confined in an apartment like your own jail for your own good; is the same government who might force your kids to go to war and kill innocent people, for your own good.

I just move away from them when they do such things. That is the freedom that I believe every man is entitled to. Right now, our democracies are showing us that they are not any better than totalist governments. Their task should be to invest massive amount of resources into health care for those who will need them; not closing businesses, force people to confine, while creating huge financial programs to compensate the losses of the richest during the stall. Our governments who were stupid enough to grow enormous debt when the economy was good, will sink all of us into a financial crisis created by themselves, for fear of a virus that is just a natural cause of death for our species that has no predators and grows way too big.

I am right in the age bracket that covid virus does kill 90% of its victims. Yet I am not scared of death, that is what is giving me true freedom, and comfortable feeling of safety. I help those who need when I can, but I would never force anyone to be helped for his own good, for I consider this just as bad as doing them wrong.

 

[markz]

I do believe we don't get a Fair shake intrade and business

No way Jose
California has way to many strange extra laws to abide by.
No fair shake at all.

 

[goatman]

I do believe we don't get a Fair shake intrade and business

No way Jose
California has way to many strange extra laws to abide by.
No fair shake at all.

I bought a fishing rod and it had a sticker on it that basically said, in the state of California this rod can give you cancer,
I thought, thank god im in Vancouver.

I always considered California to be reliant on everyone, not to lead everyone. too many people and not enough natural resources to sustain the basics like electricity and water for everyone. im probably wrong. here in BC we have a ton of natural resources. we could easily exist if we were cut off from the world

 

[donn]

Sure, you have more natural resources per capita. California started out that way, of course, but a lot of people really wanted to live there, which is not your problem so much. Lots of people come to Vancouver, but only to buy your real estate and then go back to China.

I'm not sure 999zip999 was talking about California, though, with the comment about trade. More likely going back to the point of the thread, China's role in global trade.

 

[john61ct]

They have no role that wasn't handed to them by our MNCs.

 

[goatman]

Sure, you have more natural resources per capita. California started out that way, of course, but a lot of people really wanted to live there, which is not your problem so much. Lots of people come to Vancouver, but only to buy your real estate and then go back to China.

I'm not sure 999zip999 was talking about California, though, with the comment about trade. More likely going back to the point of the thread, China's role in global trade.

i just think it wouldn't be unrealistic to look at south America, very rich in natural resources. alot of unemployed workers, why not start investing in south America, building factories, creating jobs

 

[markz]

sticker

Everything in California gives you cancer.

 

[donn]

i just think it wouldn't be unrealistic to look at south America, very rich in natural resources. alot of unemployed workers, why not start investing in south America, building factories, creating jobs

Bolivia in particular has a quarter of the world's known lithium, but at the moment it doesn't seem particularly relevant.

Median wages in South America are not that different than China, so it isn't sucking off jobs that way at the moment. (Bolivia is an exception to that statistic, but that's a highly politicized situation so it would be the exception that proves the rule.) For sure, if you're looking for an essentially western nation, that's where you'll find a bunch of them that are under-appreciated, but then you have to deal with that western legal environment.

 

[goatman]

it would be pretty amazing to see bullet trains transporting goods over the panama canal instead of through it

 

[MadRhino]

The fact is that China has the industrial facilities, trained task force, and cheap transport network already. So, if your idea is to exploit south American countries to manufacture your goods, they will first require massive investment and a long time before they are reliable. Then, unstable political situation could blow out your bubble anytime.

When you are shopping components or subcontracting for your products, the natural route is to look where they are already available.

 

[markz]

.....All financed by.....lemme guess............................................ China

The fact is that China has the industrial facilities, trained task force, and cheap transport network already. So, if your idea is to exploit south American countries to manufacture your goods, they will first require massive investment and a long time before they are reliable. Then, unstable political situation could blow out your bubble anytime.

When you are shopping components or subcontracting for your products, the natural route is to look where they are already available.

 

[Sunder]

@Sunder

You got it wrong, or making it wrong. I never said that I would be enforcing my freedom against other. I just left, with those close relatives who are in the same state of mind as I. I am lucky to have lands far from the cities, where government does not have the resources to enforce their laws.

Perhaps I have, or perhaps the misunderstanding is due to differences in restrictions where we live. Your language of "where the government does not have the resources to enforce their laws", makes it sound as if you're doing something illegal, where as here, what you described is totally fine.

I'm mostly centre-right with a handful libertarian ideals. I like individual competition to bring out the best in people, and I kinda like that Darwin's law (survival of the fittest) solves things in the long term. I think the movie "Idiocracy" has too much merit to be purely comedy.

However, there are some thing where I agree that society can be much more than the sum of it's part, and government does need to infringe on rights. There was a young man working as a caterer here in Australia, who was totally asymptomatic. Did not know he had the disease at all. Food is considered an essential service, so he was allowed to keep working. It's estimated he has infected at least 120 other people.

Now that's just bad luck. But imagine if it wasn't just food that was allowed, but anything from pubs to sports centres, or if he manned a tourism information desk? We'd have millions of "Typhoid Mary"'s working because they can't afford not to, or because they think the sniffle they have isn't serious enough to be coronavirus.

 

[donn]

it would be pretty amazing to see bullet trains transporting goods over the panama canal instead of through it

It would be pretty amazing to see even a road built through there. Not so much the canal, but the other end of Panama. I wouldn't bet on it happening in this century.

 

[goatman]

it would be pretty amazing to see bullet trains transporting goods over the panama canal instead of through it

It would be pretty amazing to see even a road built through there. Not so much the canal, but the other end of Panama. I wouldn't bet on it happening in this century.

had to go look at a map, Columbia, bullet trains full of drugs, good point :thumb: