Texas Governor Greg Abbott Ends Statewide Mask Mandate, Opens State 100%

You are the one who brought in the life-toll taken by the roads.

PROVE A "MILLION" ROAD DEATHS IN FLORIDA & TEXAS, since the invention of cars.
You made the point that people die driving, but we still let them do it. Yet, if we lost over a half-million on the roads in one year, do you doubt there would be very tight restrictions? This was your analogy for deciding if it was worth the economic price to close down various businesses.

10%, I got that as a laughably small fractional difference between no restrictions, which Florida had, for a good while, and the full complement of restrictions. If you are going to act like it is not a known fact that allowing people to gather in close confines greatly increases the spread of Covid, especially when people are not wearing masks-- look up "super-spreader events"-- then there is no point in our continuing this discussion.

 

This is all rather meaningless in the Covid discussion, but there are, in fact, roads that switch to one-way, for example, just on Sundays (adjacent to a church). So, if you were going in the opposite direction, that road that would have been available Monday through Saturday is, in effect, closed just on Sundays (my throwing the holidays in there were actually an attempt to inject some of the events which demonstrated how serious Covid was being taken by different governors.

(As far as your, "road works" comment-- WTF difference does it make why one or more lanes are closed to traffic; the road is partially shut down-- this was just being used <initially by you> as an ANALOGY, remember?)

 

What do these lane closures achieve?

Because if it's for road works, then that isn't about saving lives.

 

Well then that's someplace where your analogy falls apart, if you try to keep it literal, between roads & businesses, since government shuts down lanes all the time, for maintenance & construction, but does not do that for businesses.

But if you DO want to keep the analogy literal, I've already pointed out that, if people were dying on the roads, in numbers equal to those dying from Covid, in most states, there would be EXTREMELY RESTRICTIVE measures, being enforced by both State & local Police Departments, if not the National Guard, as well.

 

Oooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh boooooooooooooyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

Does anyone else find it funny that a Texan is celebrating what they believe their "freedoms" being returned by the exact same Governor who took the OP's "freedoms" away? LOL

 

Well yes, because the government OWNS the roads, not businesses! Why would the government shut down a business for maintenance and construction?

I don't believe that this would be the case. Perhaps if millions started to die. And it would have to be State based. Some States could have no increase of road death at all, so therefore wouldn't do anything, even while the national road death has sky rocketed.

 

Depends on if Trump runs as a Republican. There's a chance that he runs as an independent, in which case the dems don't have to worry because they know that he won't win.

 

Right! Which makes it a LOUSY ANALOGY. Whoever came up with that piece of crap, anyway?

That's why I said, specifically, "...in numbers equal to those dying of Covid, in most states, there would be extremely restrictive measures..."

Now you are just distancing yourself from the reality by abstracting it into a horror-movie scenario.

 

The larger point is, the elephant in the room is, that the numbers of deaths you accept as being true and accurate are not. The numbers you accept without question are and have been for a year highly manipulated for political effect.

 

I don't see how it makes it a lousy analogy. The government has the ability to shut down the roads AND all businesses, as we have seen during COVID. Therefore the analogy works, regardless of the fact that government own the roads but not businesses.
You mentioned lane closures as possibly being equivalent to COVID closures, which doesn't work unless the lane closures were for road safety reasons, but they're not.

By saying that I don't believe that it would be the case that if people were dying on the roads in numbers equal to those dying from COVID, that the roads would have "EXTREMELY RESTRICTIVE measures, being enforced by both State & local Police Departments, if not the National Guard, as well?" I'm not sure how that is "abstracting it into a horror-movie scenario."

 

"Millions" was national. I should have said, hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved over decades if the road system had been shut down. That's more significant than 3 or 4 thousand lives being saved in one year if Florida had a mask mandate.

Oh I accept that this is a fact, no less than I accept that allowing people to gather in close confines greatly increases the spread of ANY disease. However, you must surely acknowledge that the lockdowns weren't restricted only to "close confines."

 

Chris, if you're going to try to make disingenuous arguments with me, you're gonna have to do a helluva lot better at disguising them.

Yes, I saw this argument when you made it the first time, & I ignored it, for being made, so blatantly, in bad faith. If you want to limit the Covid deaths to the state of Florida, then you limit yourself to deaths on Florida's roads-- this isn't brain surgery. If you want to include deaths on all of America's roads, guess what, it's only fair to compare that to all of America's Covid deaths.

I don't know who you think you're fooling, or one-upping in an argument, by making such a transparently lopsided comparison between all of our roads, over the last century, verses the deaths in one state-- check that-- versus just 10% of the deaths, in one state, over the last year.

 

I live very close to what was ground zero--New York City-- and my state of Connecticut, in concert w/ NY & NJ, took Covid-19 quite seriously. Nevertheless, I recall NO time of total lockdown, when everything was closed. There were reduced hours, but that was a choice made by businesses, because people, on their own, decided not to make unnecessary trips. Grocery stores never closed, which included the department stores Walmart &Target, since they have grocery sections. Home improvement centers like Home Depot & Lowes, never closed. The places that were closed were all due to the the issue of people congregating, in close proximity: bars & restaurants-- though take-out service was allowed; Movie theaters are still, I believe, shut down; the Library was essentially closed, though you could pick up books, delivered to the parking lot, but not go inside, not use their internet; the Mall was shut down, for a time, though when they initially re-opened, business was sparse, so they adjusted their hours. It picked up somewhat Christmas week, but nowhere close, I don't think, to what it would normally have been. My brother is a carpenter, working w/ a firm that builds houses; he worked for a while, though alone, because all the less-skilled workers beneath him (largely immigrants) refused to work. Eventually, my brother was also laid-off, due to lack of work.

So my points are 1) no, I don't, "surely acknowledge that the lockdowns were restricted to close confines," which is a relative term; one need not share a closet with another person to contract Covid from them. 2) Many businesses in which close contact with others was possible, were allowed to stay open but a) there were other restrictions that made them safer, like mask requirements, capacity limits, and measures taken by the stores themselves, in order to reassure people, like enforced spacing in lines, & continual disinfection of grocery baskets & carts, etc.
b) And, crucially important, was that people, by & large, complied with the regulations & practiced responsible social contact principles, of their own volition.
3) Other businesses that closed or reduced hours (other than bars, restaurants, & movies, and a few retail establishments that were briefly closed, like bookstores, understandably) did so not because government forced them to, but because business wouldn't support their staying open; the people in these parts were, for the most part, in no rush to get sick-- they approved of government's measures & most went further, on their own. Most of those who felt differently, besides a relatively few inconsiderate asses, played nice, & played along, at least where required. As for those who didn't, here is a real exception to the rule-- you tell me, is he a freedom-fighting patriot, or a dick w/ a stick up his (something)?

https://mobile.twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1341076277122502656

 

What these Canadian doctors say is in tune with the way this governor thinks.
https://humansarefree.com/2021/03/c...strictions-masks-and-vaccines-not-needed.html

Be sure to watch the video.

 

Your ACTUAL words, which I quoted, were, "Perhaps if millions started to die..." This is like Stephen King's story about a killer-car, but a supersized variant.

I wanted to bring in the opinion of someone who actually lives in Florida, since that is where you seem intent upon keeping chained, our conversation. I have wondered if you, yourself might live there, though you have not mentioned anything to suggest this is the case.

Thank you, so much, for injecting a bit of, first-hand perspective, sanity into the debate. While I am, admittedly, using you to supplement my own personal argument with Chris155au, I know that the same, essential argument is being reiterated all over the forum, & having a voice from a Red State who is not anti-safeguards, helps push back against the tendency, on both sides, to stereotype the entire populations of various states.

BTW, I have transplanted your comment to a thread about Texas Gov. Abbott's re-opening of that state, FYI, but I don't think you will feel on completely foreign ground, here.

And thanks, lastly, for bringing up the DeSantis shenanigans regarding Covid stats. I had intended to bring this up with Chris, myself (our discussion actually began in the thread about the media response to Ted Cruz's Cancun trip, vis a vis the way it was treating NY Gov. Cuomo, before Chris brought it here).

So, Chris, any response to apexofpurple, or questions about his state's roads?

 

Well that's just distracting from what we're talking about. You think that if people were dying on the roads in numbers equal to those dying from COVID, that the roads would have "EXTREMELY RESTRICTIVE measures, being enforced by both State & local Police Departments, if not the National Guard, as well." And I don't.

No I don't live in Florida, or anywhere in the US actually. I just find it interesting how virtually the entire media painted De Santis as the worst. most evil governor in America, while painting Cuomo as the finest governor who ever lived!

So do you acknowledge that Florida has less COVID death than a bunch of locked down Democrat States even though it has the second oldest population in the country?

Yeah, right here: http://www.politicalforum.com/index...cols-mayor-says.585997/page-3#post-1072508077

 

A "relative term" which YOU used and I merely quoted!

He is clearly the latter. My turn. You tell me - is Gavin Newsom an incredible leader, or a "dick w/ a stick up his (something)?" https://abc7news.com/los-angeles-co...virus-restrictions-covid-rates-cases/8530341/

 

I thought that I made it clear that I was correcting myself! I said that, ""Millions" was national." I should have said, hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved [as in, in one State] over decades if the road system had been shut down. That's more significant than 3 or 4 thousand lives being saved in one year if Florida had a mask mandate."

 

QUOTE="chris155au, post: 1072508192, member: 74987"]I thought that I made it clear that I was correcting myself! I said that, ""Millions" was national." I should have said, hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved [as in, in one State] over decades if the road system had been shut down. That's more significant than 3 or 4 thousand lives being saved in one year if Florida had a mask mandate."[/QUOTE]
******n! You just did it for the 3rd time! Here, I'm going to give you a couple of rough examples-- which means, don't give me crap about the numbers not being exact--- of what I said was the right way, and which anyone should realize is the right way to do a roads vs. businesses comparison (which I'll add for the 2nd time, at least, that I think is a black hole of wasted time thing to try to argue over) and I'm going to let you figure out where your mistake has been. BTW, that 10% number of the actual deaths I was using solely towards the purpose of answering your relevant question, about how many deaths would it take to trade for a lockdown. A question, by the way, you have not answered with a legitimate number. So you are overdue for giving at least a rough idea of a cutoff line. As I'd said, in my example, I thought that 3000 was more than enough. Though, actually, 2000 would also be more than sufficient. 1000 would be adequate (so that would be in the neighborhood of 100 a month). Not an exact number, but at least a general idea. I would probably go lower, depending on the exact details of what we were talking about (see my post from yesterday, describing Connecticut's, "lock-down"). But it's really not worth going into in that detail, especially as YOU haven't even answered your own question, yet. And don't use some BS number like a million, unless you are saying that means a total of 300,000 would never qualify, in your mind.

Now, to the analogy: The deaths on Florida's roads being 30k in a year-- any restrictions on travel, in Florida? Or the death toll on the Nation's roads being 540k.

 

I think you misunderstood my meaning, or I don't get yours. I was only pointing out it was relative, in case you were interpreting the word differently than I meant it. But I don't mean a subjective term: there is a way to get a rough idea of what it means in any given circumstance. We had simply never discussed, regarding Covid, what that definition meant. And since mostly all the shutdowns that I was aware of did meet that standard, but you seemed to believe that most did not qualify as, "confined," that suggested to me that you had a different idea about what I'd meant by, "confined," with regard to Covid, than I actually had meant. Does that make sense to you?

Though, since I just found out you aren't even living in the U.S., I don't know where you are even getting your ideas from. It would be one thing if you were saying, this is what it's been like where I am, as one would normally expect. But you have been talking about these things as if you had 1st hand knowledge of conditions in the states. It seems a bit odd.

So, are you a U.S. citizen, living abroad? If no, have you ever lived in the U.S., in what part, for how long, & how long ago? I know this seems like a lot of questions but, after all the exchanges we've had, I now feel I'm very behind in having a sense of who I've been chatting with.

Anyone here who I've had any friendly back-&-forth with, for any length of time, I have quickly learned whether or not we lived in different countries. Anyone, except you, that is. So, mind providing the kind of bare backround that I have previously mentioned about myself, just through the course of making replies?

 

I answered this but had accidently lost the first bracket, in front of, "QUOTE," so you must not have rec'd notification of it. Here is a link.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...opens-state-100.585651/page-5#post-1072508283

 

That is certainly a sad & outraging situation for the restaurant owner, & one that raises questions about whether the differences under the, "craft services," tents (for the tv/film crew) warranted their different treatment. Because these questions were not answered, or even addressed, in the report, I have no way of coming to any judgement on the matter.

This is the way I operate, regardless of the, "politics," of the question. I don't like to leap to conclusions w/o the appertaining facts, or to assume things that I really don't know. The very general appearances of the two areas are, superficially similar, though we barely got a peek under the craft service tents, from a good distance, & only a limited look under the tents of the fixed-business's outdoor dining area. Not to mention, I'm not sure of what, in particular, I would be looking for. What regulations was that owner not meeting? How did the craft service area meet these if, in fact, it did?

To me, these things are not irrelevant data, or, "excuses"-- they are foundational information necessary for arriving at a conclusion. Even your indictment of Gov. Newsome, I see as an unsupported assumption, which may or may not turn out to have any factual predicate (the article, also, neglected to go into any of the crucial specifics): the particular regulations may be citi-based (LA, so the responsibility of Mayor Garracetti(?)).
It is a premature assessment, in my view, to blame the Governor, automatically, for anything that happens in even a small state, much less the nation-sized, California.

Lastly, while I would certainly have no trouble faulting the governor if his state's regulations were senseless, or condemning him if he was giving non fact-based, preferential treatment to one industry over another, I would not couch those in the same evocative description as I did in the case when you could see & hear the person, actually interacting in a real-life scenario, with his fellow citizens. Not that this makes the person in my video worse, by any means; on the contrary, I would be willing to guess he was probably just having a very bad day, and is not usually so dicky. But, once more, these two very different situations do seem like apples & oranges, to my mind.

 

What warranted their different treatment is that they were an exempt industry. Restaurants were not. It's not as if the woman had the option of following the exact same regulations as the film crew. If she did, don't you think she would have followed them? It's simple - she wasn't allowed to open her doors. I'm surprised that you're not aware of how it worked.

I didn't refer to that story because I thought that it was an equivalent situation.

 

I did WHAT for the 3rd time?

You used the "10%" when you were saying "10% fewer deaths" in Florida if the State adopted more aggressive mitigation strategies such as mask mandates. My question was the inverse of your question, and you actually didn't answer it. So YOU TOO are overdue! Your question was:

"just what number of deaths do you consider the, "acceptable price," to keep the economy at full throttle?" http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-nursing-home-s.585263/page-4#post-1072499018

My response was:

"Well I find that question just as difficult to answer as I'm sure you find this question difficult: just what number of deaths do you consider the, UNacceptable price, to keep the economy locked down?" http://www.politicalforum.com/index...opens-state-100.585651/page-2#post-1072499030

So is this perhaps your answer? Are you saying that as little as 1000 deaths justifies the lockdowns, and you could go even lower? Surely not!

I think that there should be restrictions. Would the government do it? Possibly, but no complete shutdown. The equivalent to the very worst COVID lockdowns would be that only people who are essential workers would be allowed on the road for work purposes and everyone else would only be allowed to be on the road to get to the shops. Emergency services would use the road too of course. Seriously, I think that it would take millions of road death per year in order for something like that to happen. It would be unimaginable, perhaps even more unimaginable than the thought in 2019 of society being shutdown the following year in the way that it has been since COVID. Now of course, it's not only imaginable, it is, the new normal as they say.

I'm not sure why the national death road death is relevant, unless it would involve a national response. With COVID mitigation, the feds were only really involved in terms of CDC guidelines for the initial closures back in March and then the guidelines for reopening, but they didn't do anything on a practical level.