Capco

Good post but just a quick aside, you can actually eradicate a virus. It's been done, albeit only twice. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, and rinderpest was declared eradicated in 2011.

Apparently Cantankerous is known for Scrooge McDuck diving into conversations without reading anything.

I think one of the biggest disconnects we are seeing with regards to this pandemic is the act of boiling down everyone to an individual and comparing one individual to another. But that's not the correct framework. Instead, the balancing act is between the individual and the group, and the group will always outweigh the individual when it comes to public health concerns like vaccination. This isn't the case of one person requesting another to take a vaccine. This is a case of society as a whole requesting its individual members to step up to the plate for the betterment of society itself. The state has the power to compel vaccination. Public health concerns absolutely trump individual rights in cases like these.

Inigo, I've always been a big fan of your posts but I cannot count this to be one of them. Vaccination is not a highly subjective or personal issue unless you have a genuine medical reason to avoid vaccination. Vaccination is a broader public health issue that goes beyond the individual.

I thought this depended on the infectious agent itself mutating. Afaik, the biochemistry of the immune response is a kind of "lock and key" system. The only way for the key that the immune system has to cease working is for the lock that is the infectious agent to change in some manner. Then again I'm not a virologist so who knows if I'm even right. Oh wait. Woe is me. I am supposed to verify all founts of knowledge personally and disregard experts like virologists. Derp. My bad Cole.

That doesn't even count the hidden posts.

For sure, and that's essentially what I mean. Ironically enough what you said is more akin to where I stand, but I was trying to convey it in more "classical" terms to get my point across haha. But I should give you more credit; you said it perfectly. My honest answer is that our culture places the burden of stressing such things to our children upon the family unit itself. But there's an obvious, inherent problem with that. If the burden is placed on the family unit to stress the continued idea of the family unit, but the family unit isn't intact in the first place, then that can become a generational issue for certain lineages. Which then begs the question: do we want such a theory being stressed to our children via alternative means so that intact family units in one generation can become complete family units in the next generation? Personally, I think we do want that as a whole society. And I think the best avenue for that is to encourage such behavior to our children in public schools.

I'm sorry but comparing the people of that era to a herd of sheep is going to be taken as an insult most of the time.

Seriously?! And that's not even a good insult when you think about it. You do know why animals herd, right? It's a form of protection. By congregating in a herd, predators only have access to the animals on outskirts of the herd. It's a classic example of individual sacrifice for the benefit of the whole herd.

Like the Pfizer and Moderna RNA vaccines?

All vaccines have that risk. But people took that very, very minor risk willingly because they knew what it meant for the whole country. The benefits to the whole far outweighed the risk to the individual, and they didn't have second thoughts about doing something like that. It was automatic. Something changed in the last 40 years. People somehow became more selfish and less trusting, more tribal and less accepting.

I genuinely don't understand sentiments like this. When you were a child, did your parents make a fuss about getting your vaccinations? Was it such a big matter of "choice" then? Do you have children of your own? If so, have you gotten them vaccinated? The only people being entitled and self-important are those who chose not to get vaccinated, since getting vaccinated isn't just for themselves but also for the sake of the community. Can you imagine the Greatest Generation putting up a big stink about getting the polio vaccine for their kids in the 50s? I just can't wrap my mind around it.

CRT challenges fundamental assumptions in modern American society, and I suppose you can argue there's something to be said for being contrarian, pushing the boundaries of what we accept as "okay," and challenging the status quo. So in that sense, at best it's food for thought. According to Kimberlé Crenshaw, the various proponents of CRT loosely share two common interests: The first is to understand how a regime of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color have been created and maintained in America, and, in particular, to examine the relationship between the social structure and professed ideals such as 'the rule of law' and 'equal protection'. The second is a desire not merely to understand the vexed bond between law and racial power but to change it. - Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement Now, on its face that doesn't sound too bad. "Find structural racism in the law, and get it out of the law." As I said earlier, it's a noble objective. But the more I read about some of the specific views that are espoused in search of this goal, the more I just cannot get behind CRT as anything more than something to get you thinking.

Precisely. To take it a step further, I think it's important to have both male and female role models for those children as well (even only children). And any couple of any mix (or even single parents) can provide those role models through means such as extended family, coaches, etc.

Well said as always, comrade Kay!

Ugh......... And this is just reflective of a bigger problem at large in this country. People have lost trust in institutions that are the bedrock of our society.

With all due respect, you sound like this guy when you refer to the all-encompassing, omnipresent boogeyman otherwise known as "they":

I was thinking that too and I tend to agree. There is almost a cultural aversion to the family unit. Study after study after study shows how much an intact family unit has on the success of offspring. I'm not saying that connecting reparations to CRT at some level is right or wrong. All I'm saying is that you're the one making these connections and jumping to these conclusions without any direct basis in fact. That makes it difficult to have a concrete discussion. I'm not trying to be a jerk or abrasive. There just isn't much to respond to.

I think you nailed it. The reason why those groups perform at a higher level is because of culture! Jewish and East Asian culture both place a tremendous amount of focus on academic achievement. Jews have been discriminated against for centuries for being more successful on average because of this and other cultural reasons. But we also have to be careful about the flip side of that coin. Some people might chalk up the academic disparity along demographic lines only to culture and forego any genuine structural issues that are holding certain groups back. I believe fixing the problem will require a comprehensive approach, and one that does not involve deconstructing one subculture for the benefit of another. It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. Ditto.

Incredible oversimplification, tbh. There's a history to it that has absolutely nothing to do with seeking reparations. Like, I can see why you might predict such an eventuality (i.e., reparations) and how CRT could impact that. But to say it's intrinsic to CRT is conjecture and conspiracy.

Well, I think that that part is obvious. There is no irony in the anti-white sentiments. The idea of my mentioning Asians and Jews is how it doesn't comport with the idea that whites are at the top of the hierarchy in all fields. I think it's ironic that, in search of equality for people of color, CRT opens the door to discrimination against people of color.

Good morning Bill. I think this is a great point. Going by group, Asians and Jews perform above the academic norm for whites on average afaik. If the system is inherently rigged for the supremacy of whites of European ancestry, then CRT advocates might be forced to come up with reasons as to why Asians and Jews would be performing better than whites. Reasons like cheating. In other words, rather ironically CRT can open the door to anti-Semitism and anti-Asian sentiment. I happen to have serious doubts about CRT because they toss to the side many things that I hold in high regard in search of an otherwise noble objective.

So we shouldn't be teaching evolution and general relativity because they are theories?

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