US Senator Rand Paul Has Tested Positive for Coronavirus (cnn.com) 320
An anonymous reader writes:
57-year-old U.S. Senator Rand Paul has tested positive for the coronavirus, reports CNN, citing a tweet from the senator's Twitter account.
"He is feeling fine and is in quarantine," the tweet reports. "He is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events. He was not aware of any direct contact with any infected person." Another tweet adds that "Ten days ago, our D.C. office began operating remotely, hence virtually no staff has had contact with Senator Rand Paul."
Paul plans to continue working while in quarantine, and hopes to return to the Senate after his quarantine period ends.
"He is feeling fine and is in quarantine," the tweet reports. "He is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events. He was not aware of any direct contact with any infected person." Another tweet adds that "Ten days ago, our D.C. office began operating remotely, hence virtually no staff has had contact with Senator Rand Paul."
Paul plans to continue working while in quarantine, and hopes to return to the Senate after his quarantine period ends.
Political conclusion (Score:2, Insightful)
Coronavirus ignores your libertarian stance.
As well as all the other ones.
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Aye, the libertarians are going to have tough time stomaching the increase in government interference necessary to squash the virus.
Re: Political conclusion (Score:2)
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If you think like a politician, you can see it is easier to point at those naughty terrorists when they kill wantonly month after month. Not being seen as defending American against them can get you unelected.
On the flip side, campaigning for preparedness for epidemics means the public cannot understand why they should stockpile supplies for something they are not convinced will ever come. They see those stockpiles as stockpiles of money. And any money appropriated one year gets raided by the pols the next
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If you went to the Pete Hoekstra [wordpress.com] school of analogies, sure. If everything starts magically going well in the United States this virus might "only" kill a million people. Whereas pen caps and your living room furniture [washingtonpost.com] are more likely to kill you than a terrorist.
Arrest EVERYONE is the only solution so far (Score:2)
Coronavirus ignores your libertarian stance.
As well as all the other ones.
Just an insurance quote of your comment against the angry trolls with censor points (AKA moderation). I don't think it really deserves the current displayed "Insightful" (or any of the hidden negative mods) because you didn't mention how he was brainwashed from infancy. Nor did you say anything about how often he's obstructed Congress, even as regards USEFUL legislation that could have helped (as if McConnell's Senate is capable of helping anyone).
But focusing on solutions, so far the only one that seems to
Re: Political conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Look inside.
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Which political views?
When he stood by his principles in 2016 and opposed the Trumpification of the Republican Party?
Or when he later abandoned those principles and became a slavish supporter of Trump's populism?
Is the lack of a spine an aggravating factor for Covid?
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Which political views?
When he stood by his principles in 2016 and opposed the Trumpification of the Republican Party?
Or when he later abandoned those principles and became a slavish supporter of Trump's populism?
Is the lack of a spine an aggravating factor for Covid?
If that were the case, based on your examples, more Republicans would test positive, but it's still early ...
Re: Political conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
That level of pure hatred is infinitely more hurtful to the person drowning in their own insanity than the person who passed.
Yes, he's a doctor. (Score:3)
Oh, and go look into Rand's status as a doctor. He's not really.
I did. You can get this much from his page on Wikipedia:
After completing his residency in ophthalmology, Paul moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky. He has held a state-issued medical license since moving there in 1993.
Even if you limit "being a doctor" to "holding a current government board certification as a doctor" he's still a doctor.
In 1995, Paul passed the American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO) boards on his first attempt and earned board-cert
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I wish I could give you a funny mod for that insightful comment. Mod parent up!
One detail. What is this "Republican Party" you mentioned? Some relation to the GOT (Gang Of Trump)?
Give Trump and Rand their due. (Score:3)
Which political views?
When he stood by his principles in 2016 and opposed the Trumpification of the Republican Party?
Or when he later abandoned those principles and became a slavish supporter of Trump's populism?
Give Trump and Rand their due. Once in office, what Trump actually DID was much more along the lines of what Rand wanted, rather than what Rand, and about everybody else, expected of him.
By Rand's lights, Trump turned out to be a fantastically better president than he'd expected. Trump earned Rand
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My take is that he's a helpless victim who has been brainwashed since infancy to be a terrible person.
Two fallouts from the (small-l libertarian) non-coercion principle and other ideological concepts:
1. The definition of "nice" has been skewed by authoritarian propaganda.
2. Even if you're "not nice" it's your right to be that way - as long as you don't hurt others, FORCE them to do your bidding, or steal their stuff (unless they tried to do it to you first).
IMHO Rand would have been the (small-l) libertar
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Yup, file under there's be a distinction but no difference.
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Don't stoop to man's basest instincts. Ya, I agree, he's a skunk, but that doesn't mean you should sink the level of the Evangelicals.
Sincere wishes for a recovery (Score:4, Informative)
I'm certainly no fan of Dr. Paul's politics, but I do wish him a quick recovery.
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That would be consistent with Rand Paul's views that as an ophthalmologist certified by the board created by his father-in-law he has the right to bill the government whatever he thinks his time is worth for treating medicare patients. And if govt fi
Different diseases (Score:5, Insightful)
Rand Paul has demonstrated repeatedly that he does not care about us, and because of that, I do not care about him.
Paul has tested positive for COVID. You've tested positive for being a douchebag.
No worries (Score:5, Funny)
As a staunch libertarian, I'm sure he'll reject any government interference and enjoy the free market solution of choosing a different virus if he decides he doesn't like covid-19.
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It kind of is, though - it makes the pool larger.
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You can still buy your own care under M4A (Score:2)
Medicare for All doesn't mandate the end of private healthcare markets, and indeed there's plenty of doctors out there right now that won't take your insurance and will demand cash payments. A bud of mine used one when he had heart problems. Had to pay a couple grand
Re:No worries (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll defend to the death your right to AC? (Score:2)
As a staunch libertarian, I'm sure he'll reject any government interference and enjoy the free market solution of choosing a different virus if he decides he doesn't like covid-19.
Currently barely moderated into visibility (and this is an insurance requote against the trolls without senses of humor), but I can't decide whether it's a justified use of AC. The veil of "It's just a joke" has warn so thin these years.
And I have yet to meet a Libertarian who could figure out my sig. They don't understand their own worship words. At least Rand Paul has the excuse of having been brainwashed since before he could understand anything.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How widespread is it? (Score:4)
No one can tell how widespread until we have decent testing coverage. That won't happen any time soon given the gov.'s anemic efforts at getting it started. It will be haphazard and run by the states because now they are the only government agencies that have real plans as opposed to the brain trust the alleged administration has thrown together.
Now let us pray: dear Lord, please stick a cork in Trump's mouth and tie his fingers to his elbows, and please send Pence off for re-education or at least to his own private prayer seance where we don't have to hear his bromides.
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That won't happen any time soon given the gov.'s anemic efforts at getting it started. .
It's already started and invites participation. If I'm the only one reading this site...
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#what-do-we-know-about-the-risk-of-dying-from-covid-19
With neat little headings...here's just one:
There is no single case fatality rate for a disease – it is context-specific, changing with time and location
...I'll be surprised and disappointed.
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"I tend to think the federal government needs to step in with that act, tell everyone get on the ball and make the stuff needed, buy it all at a fair market value, then resell it to the states, if possible at the same rate, based on need."
There is no government agency with that power. The only one with that power is the president and his brain trust of advisors having a plan, capable of executing that plan, and the ability to knock down barriers.
That won't happen because the alleged administration is inept.
Sampling theory (Score:5, Informative)
Globally, the case-fatality rate for this varies between 0.25% to about 5% [cebm.net] once you throw out outliers due to
The U.S. currently sits at 32,356 cases, 414 deaths, 795 serious cases [worldometers.info]. That's a 1.3% fatality rate, with an upper bound (if all serious cases die) of 3.7%. Those figures fall squarely in the middle of the world average, which suggests the amount of testing the U.S. is doing is sufficient to accurately track the progress of this disease. If the amount of testing were inadequate, we'd be seeing a much higher fatality rate in the U.S., as the deaths are certain but the number of confirmed cases would be skewed low due to inadequate testing.
That's the thing the people pushing the "not enough testing" line don't seem to understand. Lack of testing shows up in the statistics not just as an artificially low number of reported cases, but also as a higher fatality rate. We're simply not seeing the latter in the U.S., which suggests the amount of testing we're doing here is (comparatively) sufficient. If there were inadequate testing, we'd be like Indonesia - few reported cases but a high fatality rate.
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The U.S. currently sits at 32,356 cases, 414 deaths, 795 serious cases [worldometers.info]. That's a 1.3% fatality rate, with an upper bound (if all serious cases die) of 3.7%. Those figures fall squarely in the middle of the world average, which suggests the amount of testing the U.S. is doing is sufficient to accurately track the progress of this disease.
Yes, any kind of consistent sampling allows the disease's progress through the country to be tracked. However, I suppose one would expect a government to do more than just *watch* the virus spread through the entire country?
Just "tracking the progress" is no different than watching a train wreck, it won't save anyone.
Now, the *stop* the progress of the virus, that will need more testing. Namely, back tracing contacts and test them, find those who were infected before they showed symptoms and quarantine th
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It is true that tracking the progress of the disease is a useful minimal goal, and you are correct that statistical sampling is useful enough there.
But if we want to be more pinpoint in quarantines, in order to significantly reduce the number of infected individuals out there spreading the virus, we need much more testing than that.
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"Tracking progress" is the goal of epidemiologists, but I think we'd actually like to prevent spreading the disease. There are two proven ways to deal with this as a nation:
1) The China method - lock everyone down and stop spread by preventing contact between people. Kill your economy in the process.
2) The South Korea method - test everyone early and often. Spend insane amounts of money on testing and tracking, but keep your economy going by giving people some certainty that they're not infected.
In the US,
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But isn't the health care being overwhelmed a part of the cause of the death. And not getting treatment is also not a good reason, to exclude those numbers. That would be like excluding people who not eat healthy from hart diseases.
You would be correct if your purpose was to determine the total death toll from the disease, but, in this case, the poster you replied to was attempting to determine if U.S. testing for the virus was sufficient to get an idea of how wide spread the disease is in the U.S.. In the case of what the poster is trying to determine, you want to throw out fatality rates from countries where significant number of deaths occur for reasons not present currently in the U.S.. So, the OP's point stands. Current fatali
Re:How widespread is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what I've been thinking.
Almost 1% of the US congress has officially tested positive, and so have *way* more than 0.01% of famous celebrities and athletes. (Which would be the expected rate if only 30,000 people in the US currently have it.) Sure these people mingle more than average, but so do hair dressers, cab drivers, cashiers, etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that a couple of million infected people are actually walking around this country right now.
Re:How widespread is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, this is something that's not getting through right now
What's not getting through to people like you and the moderators that modded you up is that when all your hospitals became filled to capacity, people started dying from preventable causes.
You are delusional if you think the current fatality rate, when all seriously ill patients got the medical care they needed, will hold when the infection count keep rising.
Look at Italy, where patients above certain age were simply not cared for. As their infection count rises, that "certain age" is going to come down, and the fatality rate will go up. Furthermore, what is not being reported as covid deaths were people with other diseases that needed medical care but didn't get it because all doctors were busy saving covid patients.
When your health care system is overloaded, things will start to break at the seams. Imagine having no ER services for 3 months, how many people will die? Imagine your doctors and nurses dying from the virus, who is going to take care of the patients? Where are you going to find replacements? As doctors get sick, the health care system will go into a death spiral, more doctors have to overwork and even more likely to get infected and then more doctors got sick, until most of your doctors are themselves lying in bed and there is no one left to take care of anyone. How high do you think the fatality rate would rise then?
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I mean, sure, there are a lot of "famous" people, and quite a few intermingle, but when you start reading about quite a few famous people having it, it suggests that maybe it's a little more widespread than the official statistics suggest.
How about the possibility that being famous correlates with meeting a lot more people than Joe Public.
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Remember that "0 cases in West Virginia"? It was only that way because the state authorities were denying tests to people with symptoms. People will die because the state administration wanted to keep their stats at 0. King Canute would have been proud.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21... [cnn.com]
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Currently there are just over 38000 currently active reported cases in the US.
The number of cases in the US is growing faster than anywhere else, but that's partly a data collection artifact. We got started testing late. Back when we had around 1,000 reported cases models suggested we had somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 infected people. We've just started to put a serious dent in the testing backlog over this last week, but it's a pretty safe bet we're still undercounting. Every state is reporting new
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They travel a lot (Score:2)
On the plus side, the basement dwellers shall inherit the Earth! And then go back to the basement to play WoW & Call of Duty.
So about 541 voting and non voting Congres members (Score:3)
I wonder what percentage are over 50, and what rate they'll die at?
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I wonder what percentage are over 50, and what rate they'll die at?
Well I'm hoping for zero, on both sides of the aisle.
More to the point, how will Congress conduct business without meeting in person?
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Fuck 'em all. Time to get some new blood into government.
We tried that. We got stuck with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who thinks manual labor is her cousin.
Re:So about 541 voting and non voting Congres memb (Score:4, Insightful)
AOC's main problem is the same one Bernie has, they cannot calculate the mathematics inherent in their proposals and they have no sense of proportion. They see a policy they like and declare it good and fair. In that sense, they are no different than Trump. And none of them are capable of calculating secondary and ternary effects.
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Fuck 'em all. Time to get some new blood into government. Once they all keel over nobody would notice the difference.
I don't disagree.
Are a couple of dinosaurs like Biden and Trump the best this country has to offer for a president? (Include Bernie if you want, he's the same vintage.)
There's no one better who's just a couple of decades younger? No one?? Seems hard to believe.
It's almost like old white guys have some kind of advantage...and I speak as an old white guy (but not as old as those fuckers).
Seriously, are these petrified trees the best we can do? I can think of quite a few people who'd make a better president th
Age of ideas vs age of person (Score:2)
Mayo Pete is young enough to be Bernie's grandson, yet his ideas are far older than Bernie's. I make a similar point to butthurt Warren supporters that are tired of "old white men running the country": no one represented old white man politics more than Hillary Clinton in 2016.
But his father, Ron Paul, Said that COVID-19 is a (Score:4, Funny)
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Hoax. :rolleyeyes:
He did indeed. [nrvnews.com] From his op-ed:
People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus “pandemic” could be a big hoax, with the actual danger of the disease massively exaggerated by those who seek to profit – financially or politically – from the ensuing panic.
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Here's a more direct link. [ronpaulinstitute.org] Note the date is 6 days ago.
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It gets better. I noticed that comments on this article mentioning his son's infection are being deleted in real-time.
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Hoax. :rolleyeyes:
Yes, this article of his didn't age well: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/ar... [ronpaulinstitute.org]
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And I swear it was his son's name and little photo attributed...now it's Trimp's little photo.
Paul's opinion piece on Global dot whatever... (Score:3)
[costanza.wrong.jpg]
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What he deserves... (Score:3)
Re:What he deserves... (Score:4, Insightful)
Fanatics like Paul would have outright gutted Federal agencies like this CDC. As bad as that simpering halfwit Donald Trump let things gets Rand Paul and his coreligionists would have left the Federal Government a lifeless husk and doomed millions to sickness without medical aid or financial support. Fuck Rand Paul.
He's a US Senator (Score:2)
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We should send Rand Paul thoughts and prayers.
Oh, I'm praying for him but probably not the way you think.
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I am. [youtube.com]
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Dear Lord, we offer this prayer for Rand Paul's fast and total recovery. We also ask that you give him the missing brain material you held back from him, and that he will see his way to retire like his old man. Thank you...and err...would it be too much to ask that he retire forthwith, and Oh G-d, please don't have Tennessee send another gem like Marsha Blackburn to take his place, we can only suffer so long before we lose the faith.
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The only way to stop a bad guy with a virus is with a good guy with a virus.
I like (Score:4, Insightful)
How he always throws a monkey wrench into government but most times he's just an asshole. I don't feel bad.
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Why do you like sabotage?
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Congress accomplishes so little and what they do accomplish is often not what the constituents were pleading for. Hard to sabotage anything that barely functions in the first place.
Re:I like (Score:5, Insightful)
Your quote about always throwing the monkey wrench implies that it can function, but doesn't because of Rand Paul's sabotage.
So, why do you like sabotage and, at the same time, complain that the system being sabotaged doesn't work?
This should result in cognitive dissonance at the very least.
Florida Congressman too ... (Score:2)
Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart [cnn.com] also tested positive.
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Well, it's a start.
Can someone from the US explain, please? (Score:2)
So how does this work now, with private healthcare and all? He goes to a hospital and rakes up a mortgage-sized bill and has to pay?
What would obamacare mean now, if it had been implemented? What would be different?
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So how does this work now, with private healthcare and all? He goes to a hospital and rakes up a mortgage-sized bill and has to pay?
Well if he had health insurance he might get some of his coverage covered; however, the irony is that as a US Senator, he is covered by the US government the socialized medicine that Paul himself championed against.
Re: Can someone from the US explain, please? (Score:2)
Ok I was too vague. Lets forget this particular guy and just think "John Doe". How does it work, insurance, no insurance.
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- He is a Senator and has very good health insurance coverage.
- Obamacare has been implemented and still exists - I'm not sure why you think it doesn't. Trump has managed to whittle away at it, though.
- The majority of Americans have health insurance.
More info on the second and third point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Can someone from the US explain, please? (Score:2)
So he's OK then, unless he somehow was one of the 30 mill. who were uninsured, then it would be remortgage time?
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Yeah the rich (Rand Paul net worth: 2.5 million dollars - low for a Senator actually) are generally okay, whatever the circumstances.
I believe that most of those uninsured are in a more precarious financial position overall, and probably don't have a mortgage to begin with - so no remortgage. In most jurisdictions the hospitals are required to treat them regardless of their ability to pay; but the patient probably would end up having their credit ruined because they would default on the debt.
Basically (agai
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" so why certain people are so against any form of universal coverage makes no sense."
More to the point: Caucasian Republicans do not want to pay for Non-caucasian Democrats.
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He's a US senator. He has socialized health insurance, paid for by every taxpayer whether they want to keep him alive or not.
They only eliminated healthcare for the peasants. Not the kings.
WE CAN'T GET THE TEST (Score:5, Insightful)
So you and I, in the US, even with a doctor's Rx can't get the test if we show no symptoms.
Rand's statement is that he is "asymptomatic but was tested out of an abundance of caution."
Where is that "abundance of caution" for the rest of us?
- If we can't be tested neither should congressmen.
- If we can't be tested neither should the President.
- If we can't be tested neither should the NBA, NHL, and NFL players -- just to name a few.
Elitism is when a group of people think they are more important than everyone else and jump to the front of the line, take all the toilet paper off shelves, steal the baby wipes from mothers' purses, and in general behave in a sociopathic way.
It's time to stop accepting this elitist reality.
E
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Amen. Congresspricks can get tested just as a cautionary measure while there are health care professionals who can't get tested even if they have symptoms. Fuck Rand Paul in his elitist asshole.
Sucks to be the ones who weren't virtual. (Score:2)
... hence virtually no staff has had contact with ... Paul.
I've never really liked the way we've highjacked the words virtual and virtually to mean "nearly." (Like nominally, which just means "named" amount, but now usually means a _small_ amount.)
Regardless. I'm guessing those of his staff who have had contact with him aren't very happy right now.
Further proof that just because you're a doctor, doesn't necessarily mean you're very smart. Kentucky would be smart to be rid of both of their senators.
Irony? (Score:2)
The very same Rand Paul who held up the stimulus bill with absurd amendments that have nothing to do with the crisis. I don't wish death on anyone but hey, karma.
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Agreed, this is the sh*thead who held up for a day, threatened to stall further, and eventually voted against, a bill funding Covid-19 emergency aid, because he wanted his little personal amendment attached to it.
Re:Irony? (Score:4, Interesting)
His amendment was to actually fund the bill by reducing other spending, rather than just borrowing the money.
It's called being responsible with taxpayer dollars, something most in Congress lack nowadays.
What's the Libertarian policy wrt. a pandemic? (Score:2)
That's not a rhetorical question; I genuinely want to know.
Keep complaining about the government... (Score:2)
...while claiming the private sector will solve anything. Libertarians, like 'blue no matter who' Democrats, are members of a curious religion.
https://mises.org/wire/governm... [mises.org]
Re:What's the Libertarian policy wrt. a pandemic? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I do not believe they can actually have a policy as such. By policy I presume you mean some centralized response. They don't believe in centralizing anything.
Terrible news. (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutely Irresponsible (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Did John's father tell every one about the corona virus is a hoax [ronpaulinstitute.org]?
To be fair, Ron Paul didn't claim that coronavirus is a hoax. He claimed that the pandemic was a hoax, while admitting that the coronavirus was real, and was really going to kill people. If pushed, I'm sure he'd even admit that the pandemic is real, in the sense that the spread of the disease meets the requirements to be a pandemic. He just thinks the fears are overblown and being deliberately exaggerated by politicians making a power grab.
He needs to take a harder look at the numbers, of course.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's not an epidemiologist. The actual experts are saying social distancing, and for those that think or are confirmed to be infected, isolation is the only key. Viruses don't care about libertarianism or any other ideology. They are not rational actors. They don't care about freedom or slavery, about economics, or anything. They don't care about Rand Paul or his demented racist old man.
I'll listen to the experts. I don't care what the politicians say. I don't care what that pathetic asshat Tucker Carlson said two weeks ago versus what he's being instructed to say this week. Those people aren't worth the electrons it takes to broadcast their bullshit. But when the leading experts on pathogens tell me something, I fucking listen, because, you see, I'm not a fucking moron, or worse, some pathetic useless old zealot, or his even more worthless son. Fuck every last one of them. I'd sooner take advice from a pile of rotting dogshit than any one of those contemptuous wastes of oxygen.
Re: Of all the senators (Score:2)
Turtles are immune.