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You are here: Home / Open Threads / You Can’t Reason with Stubborn Stupidity

You Can’t Reason with Stubborn Stupidity

by $8 blue check mistermix|  September 5, 202112:21 pm| 260 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Blog favorite Elizebeth Bruenig has moved on from “Ivermectin: maybe OK, especially coupled with a vaccine” to Stop Death Shaming. Her argument is that pointing and making fun of people dying, such as giving them Herman Cain Awards, is bad because it short circuits the rational conversation we could be having with these folks:

And so: What would a genuine persuasion effort look like, with respect to vaccines?

It would begin by examining what the unvaccinated say about their hesitancy to get their shots—by inhabiting their point of view, in other words, honestly and seriously.

As a regular visitor to the Herman Cain Award subreddit, I will tell you what these people say about their hesitancy. Here’s an example:

r/HermanCainAward - Her Facebook was full of posts saying the arrival of the vaccine marked the end of times. She didn’t realize how true that would be for her.

You can “inhabit” Deena’s world more fully by visiting her Herman Cain Award citation. Deena, however, is no longer inhabiting her world — she died of COVID yesterday.

I see variants of Bruenig’s “stop making fun” argument all the time. The issue is that many of the vaccine “hesitant” don’t want rational colloquy — they want engagement with their stupidity, so they can trot out their dumb Facebook-inspired ideas. They are thirsty for attention, not for a free, easily obtainable vaccine.

In contrast to Bruenig’s unicorn and rainbows outlook on humanity, let me share two vaccine success stories. One is from a young man that I know who has two elderly grandparents who weren’t vaccinated. They live in NYC. What got them to get their first shots a couple of days ago was the new requirement that you must be vaccinated to dine indoors. There wasn’t a rational conversation. To be fair, these people weren’t nutty Trumpers — in fact, they’re very sweet people. Still, their kids and grandkids trotted out all the usual arguments, and the only thing that moved them was inability to get dinner in places they liked to visit.

So, that’s one approach. Another was related in a comment on the Herman Cain subreddit that I can’t find right now. The gist of it was that a woman was concerned about her friend, an unvaccinated single mom with 5 kids. She began sending her friend instructions on how to claim the burial reimbursement for death from COVID, instructions on how to apply for life insurance, and other useful advice for the vaccine “hesitant”. Her friend texted her a picture of her vaccine card shortly thereafter.

Unlike scaring your friends with almost-certain death, vaccine mandates are scalable. I also think that vaccine mandates and proof of vaccination to travel will work with a good number of these stubborn assholes, no matter how loudly they squeal. Unfortunately, the combination of their loud noisemaking, the unfairness of making essential workers enforce these mandates, and the fact that a lot of the loudest anti-vaxxers are cops who won’t enforce the mandate has slowed us down.

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Reader Interactions

260Comments

  1. 1.

    Spanky

    September 5, 2021 at 12:24 pm

    Damn, I read the title and thought this was going to be about Manchin. This will probably be more entertaining.

  2. 2.

    Betty

    September 5, 2021 at 12:27 pm

    @Spanky: And Sinema.

  3. 3.

    Aimai

    September 5, 2021 at 12:27 pm

    Bruenig is a terrible person and these arguments are generally bullshit. People are either vaccine hesitant or they are vaccine opposed.  Vaccine opposed people have made up what they loosely call their minds based on non scientific principles and for ideological reasons which, in their case, means a strong opposition to social welfare, democratic policies and politicians, and other people in general.  Vaccine hesitant people can be talked to or argued with but what eventually changes their mind is some calculation that they do, sometimes more or less unconsciously, about the danger of getting the vaccine versus the difficulties they will face as unvaccinated people. So new information about how safe the vaccine is, or how dangerous the world is for the unvaccinated, or a free cookie with indoor dining will eventually shift those people into the vaccinated column. The others are hopeless and we pillory them and make fun of them “pour encourager les autres.”

  4. 4.

    cleek

    September 5, 2021 at 12:28 pm

    Lizzy blocked me on Twitter for suggesting she should rub her ugly-ass birthday cake on her head to cure COVID – couldn’t hurt!

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    September 5, 2021 at 12:29 pm

    @cleek: I LOVE that you did that.

  6. 6.

    Ohio Mom

    September 5, 2021 at 12:29 pm

    Making fun of people for dumb decisions is the gentlest way to try to change their behavior. Or at least it distracts those of us joking from harsher actions.

    I was only dimly aware of Elizabeth Bruenig less than a week ago. I’m already nostalgic for last Monday.

  7. 7.

    Spanky

    September 5, 2021 at 12:30 pm

    I suppose Bruenig is comfortable enough in her life to be charitable with the vax idiots. Perhaps she hasn’t encountered very many in her own orbit. Good for her! But if you’re trying out that charity out here in the RWNJ swamps, it ain’t gonna fly, sister. I will laugh and mock as these idiots go down one after another, thinking that at least they won’t be infecting any more innocents.

    I didn’t used to be this way.

  8. 8.

    Monkeybreath

    September 5, 2021 at 12:31 pm

    Bruenig is, I suspect, doing this as much to distract from her anti-choice position as she is from sincere belief.

    It’s working, too. What a shitty person.

  9. 9.

    VOR

    September 5, 2021 at 12:31 pm

    “You can’t use reason to convince anyone out of an argument that they didn’t use reason to get into.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    September 5, 2021 at 12:33 pm

    @Aimai: Well said.

    My thoughts:

    Sometimes it feels to me like vaccine-opposed people oppose the vaccine and then find some reasons they feel they can use to explain and defend their choice.

    No more coddling of the people who are opposed; they will not respond to reason or logic.

    For the rest, make life more complicated for them if they refuse the vaccine.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    September 5, 2021 at 12:33 pm

    @Spanky:

    She seems to get lost in irrelevancies. What was the New Yorker thinking?

    the fact that ‘worm’ and ‘deworm’, used as verbs, mean the same thing is a huge crisis no one is willing to address
    — elizabeth bruenig (@ebruenig) September 5, 2021

  12. 12.

    James E Powell

    September 5, 2021 at 12:33 pm

    I see variants of Bruenig’s “stop making fun” argument all the time.

    We’ve seen variants of this argument across the board for the last 20 years. We are supposed to reach out to people who not only aren’t open to rational discussion, but who shout to the world that they hate us.

    The list of people we were supposed to make nice with include uncompromising anti-choice fanatics, religious bigots who hate LGBTQ, racists, and those who want poor people to suffer & die because they can’t afford health care.

    We make a mistake when we don’t condemn these people and say over and over that they are wrong, the things they advocate are wrong.

  13. 13.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    September 5, 2021 at 12:35 pm

    Bruenig is doing a Courtier’s Reply.

    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_Reply

    Just a retread of the Creationist verses Science debate in ’00s.

  14. 14.

    Spanky

    September 5, 2021 at 12:36 pm

    @debbie: Jesus Christ! Even “Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handy” was more cogent than that crap. And much more entertaining.

  15. 15.

    Fair Economist

    September 5, 2021 at 12:38 pm

    Apologists for evil like Bruenig are pushing back on death shaming because it’s working, and even worse for them, might become part of the culture permanently. It will hurt nonsense pushers if posting a meme about a denialist dying becomes a standard response to conspiracy nonsense.

  16. 16.

    Spanky

    September 5, 2021 at 12:39 pm

    @Spanky:.

  17. 17.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    September 5, 2021 at 12:39 pm

    @debbie: I see what they mean when they mock her articles for reading like it was written by English Lit major. Argue over the language and not the subject.

  18. 18.

    natem

    September 5, 2021 at 12:42 pm

    Lizzy just doesn’t believe that strongly in the vaccine, both in its efficacy and the morality of choosing it to mitigate harm to others around us. She could have saved herself (and us) a lot of words if she were just honest. But she’s not.

    The argument to “Consider their feelings” is valid, and even commendable, but only if your ultimate goal is to persuade them to overcome those feelings. But her ultimate goal as a Nazbol-curious populist “leftist” is to scold the libs.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    September 5, 2021 at 12:42 pm

    Cops and firefighters. Here in the LA area, the latter are, if anything, even more vocally vaccine-resistant. Most notably, there’s a jackass of a fire captain who made a ‘but, my FREEDUM’ video recently. Turns out, he lives in Texas and commutes to LA(!) because, again, FREEDUM. Texas can keep him, if you ask me.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 12:44 pm

    They teach professional mediators that “humiliation” is the absolute worst thing thing that can happen if there’s to be any hope of a negotiated settlement, so I somewhat understand what she’s getting at but she’s just too preachy for me. Humiliation may work in a win/lose but it won’t work in a win some/win some scenario. People don’t come back from being humiliated. They dig in. There are really talented mediators and I have seen them work something close to miracles – I’m not one, they have to rein me in in mediations because I’m too oppositional, which I recognize and accept. True! :)

    These contrarian covid people are going in circles. They’re scolding people for scolding other people about covid. It’s like meta scolding. It makes my head hurt.

  21. 21.

    MomSense

    September 5, 2021 at 12:45 pm

    Ok here’s a portion of one story I heard yesterday.  Older man contracts COVID from unvaccinated staff person and he is told there’s a many days wait for an ICU bed.  Older man was vaccinated, but recovering from major surgery and cancer when he contracted COVID.  Older man said please don’t try to find me a bed.  Find a bed for someone young who needs one.  I’ve had a long life.  Please just make sure I’m comfortable.  Man is dying from COVID and outside his hospital room there is an anti vaccine mandate protest happening so man spends last hours of his life listening to vile things being shouted through a bullhorn.  His doctors and nurses frantically search for some way to block out the noise but couldn’t.  His doctor couldn’t stop crying telling the story on Saturday.
    So no thanks.  The unvaccinated and their apologists can go to hell.

  22. 22.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    September 5, 2021 at 12:48 pm

    Speaking about useful info, Deana quotes above was into “Nutritionist Microscopist”. What is “Nutritionist Microscopist” ?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis

    It has its origins in the now-discarded theories of pleomorphism promoted by Günther Enderlein, notably in his 1925 book Bakterien-Cyklogenie.

    It is always useful to know the subtext these kooks are coming from.

    And reading the Herman Cain redit I can see why Bruenig is outraged, Readit is doing a better job at reporting the story then she is.

  23. 23.

    dmsilev

    September 5, 2021 at 12:50 pm

    The people who are being mocked aren’t the targets of persuasion; the mocked are the loud and obnoxious anti-vaccine group. The targets of persuasion are the quietly reluctant or resisting people. Three out of four US adults are at least partially vaccinated, and if we believe the polls, the remaining quarter are roughly evenly split between the loud and quiet groups. Picking off the remaining hesitant/quietly resistant group, and maybe some of the loudmouths who get the shots rather than losing their jobs will get us a long ways closer to goal (along with a pediatric version extending the eligibility age down to 5). So yeah, no worries about mocking the hard-core antivax set.

  24. 24.

    MattF

    September 5, 2021 at 12:50 pm

    I can see good arguments for not arguing with the anti-vaxxers— it’s pointless, it won’t work, it makes you angry without advancing the situation in any way, it’s precisely what the anti-vaxxers want you to do. I’m just unsure where to go from there.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 12:51 pm

    The Herman Cain awards aren’t for the vaccine hesitant. They are awarded to people who were vocally against vaccines.

  26. 26.

    Spanky

    September 5, 2021 at 12:54 pm

    @Baud:

    Herman Came

    Herman gone

     

    ETA:Damn yur edit!

  27. 27.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 12:54 pm

    Maybe Elizebeth Bruenig should be engaging in that rational conversation rather than preach to us.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 12:55 pm

    @Spanky:

    Fixed.

  29. 29.

    LeftCoastYankee

    September 5, 2021 at 12:55 pm

    Sending your unvaxed friend funeral and life insurance info.  That’s some good “tough love”.

  30. 30.

    MattF

    September 5, 2021 at 12:56 pm

    @Baud: A good point. Why is she attacking the people who are being rational?

  31. 31.

    bbleh

    September 5, 2021 at 12:58 pm

    They are thirsty for attention, not for a free, easily obtainable vaccine.

    They are also thirsty for validation of their thinking; they really want not to be thought of as “stupid,” which is why people rolling their eyes and calling them stupid enrages them so.

    @James E Powell:  yes. I won’t always jump immediately to the eye-rolling stage — sometimes they don’t really manifest stupidity so much as ignorance or confusion — but there is NO point to politely nodding and smiling as though what they say makes sense.  That’s a big reason we’ve got to where we are today: people didn’t push back against the Crazy, so the Crazy kept pushing

    @MattF: in some cases pushing back won’t help: they’re deaf to opposing points of view, and indeed to any rational discussion.  But in other cases it can.  And in either case, if there are third parties involved / listening, it’s useful to push back so they hear it.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 12:58 pm

    @MattF:

    Because that’s the burden that “people being rational” carry. They do all the heavy lifting in rational/irrational interactions. Not fair, but true.

  33. 33.

    eclare

    September 5, 2021 at 12:59 pm

    I read somewhere that a friend convinced another to get the shot by asking “who would take care of your dog if you died?”

  34. 34.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 12:59 pm

    What is “the beast system”? It it a method for organizing and ranking beasts? Is it the worst movie musical sequel since “Son of Son of Grease”? KPop band?

    If I am to follow a beast system, I need the ability to identify it.

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 1:03 pm

    @Spanky:

    Herman Caine is the name
    And I served on the Danville {cough, hack, gasp, thud}
    The night they mowed old Herman down.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 1:07 pm

    FWIW, Biden, medical professionals, and a whole lot of other people are taking the approach that EB advocates.

    It’s frustrated ordinary folks who are doing the mocking because this shit doesn’t just affect the antivaxxers.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 1:08 pm

    I also think she’s wrong about the stories of people dying. They’re not appeals to “rationality”. They’re appeals to emotion, because a lot of the resistance is emotional- feelings based not fact based – and that’s okay! People can have bad feelings about the vaccine based on their vague distrust – maybe they aren’t partcularly trusting people.
    There’s nothing wrong or dishonest about an emotional appeal to reach people. It recognizes that they’re human.

  38. 38.

    The Dark Avenger

    September 5, 2021 at 1:09 pm

    Anyone who chooses ideology over
    science should be humiliated.@Kay:

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 5, 2021 at 1:09 pm

    @dmsilev:

    a jackass of a fire captain who made a ‘but, my FREEDUM’ video recently. Turns out, he lives in Texas and commutes to LA(!) because, again, FREEDUM.

    Huh. I wonder how a vaccine mandate for air travel would look to him? Apparently Trudeau issued one today?

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    September 5, 2021 at 1:13 pm

    As terrible as E. Bruenig is — and she’s awful — her husband is 10 times worse.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 5, 2021 at 1:14 pm

    the line I hate is “these folks have valid questions….” No, they really don’t. It’s been almost a year, the answers are there, they’re fucking everywhere, you would have to work to avoid them, they’re just refusing to listen to them. If you’re listening to Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson or your uncle who’s really smart because he’s an engineer instead of your doctor, or the legion of doctors you couldn’t miss swinging the proverbial dead cat on twitter and cable TV, you don’t have valid questions.

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    September 5, 2021 at 1:18 pm

    @debbie: Is that for real? That’s not snark? That’s the huge crisis here?

    Holy shit, she has lost the plot.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 1:19 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I can’t easily find a metric for how many are vaccinated globally, but China alone has nearly a billion (with a b) and I’m willing to stick out my neck and declare if there were a critical issue with the available vaccines we would know about it by now.

    “But, what about in ten years?”

    We’ll have something else to worry about by then.

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    September 5, 2021 at 1:19 pm

    I am really sick of being nice to assholes. Allowing the antisocial to engage in society is a form of niceness, and I just don’t want to. Fuck it. I know I’m not very nice, but I’m okay with that.

  45. 45.

    Tony Gerace

    September 5, 2021 at 1:20 pm

    I am a firm believer that some people are so stupid and/or so malignant that they are literally not worth talking to.  Let them die.

  46. 46.

    Caracal

    September 5, 2021 at 1:20 pm

    “…short circuits the rational conversation we could be having with these folks:”

    I have one thing to say to those making this argument: ‘F-U- and the horse you rode in on.’

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 1:20 pm

    @debbie:

    See also, bone/debone.

  48. 48.

    zhena gogolia

    September 5, 2021 at 1:22 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Who’s he?

    I don’t even know who she is, so I’m not sure why I’m asking.

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 5, 2021 at 1:22 pm

    Ottawa, Ontario (CNN) — Canada will require most commercial passengers traveling by air, rail or large ship to be fully vaccinated by fall.
    The vaccination requirement “includes all commercial air travelers, passengers on inter-provincial trains and passengers on large, marine vessels with overnight accommodations such as cruise ships,” said Omar Alghabra, Canada’s transport minister, during a virtual press conference Friday.
    The Canadian government also will mandate that all federal employees be fully vaccinatedby the end of October. […]

    In a statement released after the announcement, Air Canada said it supported the new mandate and said it was in line with science-based procedures for safe travel.
    “Although Air Canada awaits further details about today’s announcement on mandatory vaccinations, it is a welcome step forward in the evolving measures to protect the health and safety of airline employees, customers and all Canadians,” according to the statement. […]
    In the United States, there is currently no consideration at the Department of Homeland Security to mandate vaccines for airline passengers on domestic flights, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN’s Pamela Brown Friday.
    “There is not at this time,” he said when pressed on the issue.

  50. 50.

    Splitting Image

    September 5, 2021 at 1:23 pm

    @Fair Economist: 

    Apologists for evil like Bruenig are pushing back on death shaming because it’s working, and even worse for them, might become part of the culture permanently. It will hurt nonsense pushers if posting a meme about a denialist dying becomes a standard response to conspiracy nonsense.

    This is it, right here. If a Republican is asking you not to do something, it’s because you’ve hit on something that works and they’re afraid of it.

  51. 51.

    Cameron

    September 5, 2021 at 1:24 pm

    The antivaxxers are nominally adults, so I have no business telling them what to do. I ignore them, and if they attempt to engage me, I just say I’m not interested. No agreement, no disagreement, just lack of interest. They’ll do what they do – or not.

  52. 52.

    JaneE

    September 5, 2021 at 1:26 pm

    I find it hard to believe that the “hesitant” haven’t heard all the arguments many times over.  Coercion is the next step.  Whether it is not eating out (not recommended here without masks, even for the vaccinated) or not seeing the grandkids or not having a job, it is long past time to do something.

    The fair is on this weekend, as always.  The craft fair has taken over the city park, as always.  I did not see a lot of masks on the streets or in the park, but it is outdoors and there is usually a breeze if not more.  I will try to avoid town for at least a week.

  53. 53.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 1:28 pm

    @Splitting Image:

    IIRC, she’s identifies as a lefty.

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 1:28 pm

    @Cameron:

    They, in fact, threaten you, me, anybody vaccinated because delta (and who can guess how many others) has introduced breakthrough cases that effectively did not exist earlier in the pandemic. They’re the drunk drivers of communicable disease.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 5, 2021 at 1:28 pm

    @zhena gogolia: they’re a young husband and wife pair of extremely on-line and aggressive brocialists, and she somehow stumbled into a spot on the NYT op/ed page. He has a history of on-line bullying that frankly has always suggested to me he ain’t right. I suspect the NYT find her fascinating because she’s a young, “pro-life” leftist, kind of the same crew who foisted Andrew Sullivan on us thirty years ago because “Wait? He’s gay and conservative? How interesting!” See also the brief and noisy career of Bari Weiss.

  56. 56.

    Hob

    September 5, 2021 at 1:28 pm

    @WaterGirl: That is snark. A great deal of what Bruenig writes on Twitter is generic Twitter joke filler of this vaguely sarcastic kind. Being an asshole, she also uses the same style when talking about real things if she wants to avoid engaging – like, when people tried to get her to take some kind of position on the Texas abortion ban, seeing as how her sole claim to fame is being an anti-choice “socialist”, her replies consisted entirely of sarcastic shit along the lines of “oh sure, Texas was my fault.”

  57. 57.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 1:29 pm

    California’s answer to Herman Cain, everybody.

    A Democratic candidate in the California recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom alleges that Republican front runner Larry Elder’s security detail assaulted her and detained her against her will after she interrupted a speech Elder was giving at a Los Angeles area church on Sunday.

    Jacqueline “Jackie” McGowan, a cannabis advocate and lobbyist who is one of 46 candidates seeking to replace Gov. Newsom in a recall election, told The Sacramento Bee in an interview that several security guards “attempted to bodyslam me because I challenged (Elder) to a debate.”

    The next day, Monday, she filed a report with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, alleging battery.

    McGowan provided The Bee with a photograph of a preliminary police report. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to an inquiry by deadline.

    After receiving a question about the incident from a Sacramento Bee reporter, Elder campaign spokeswoman Ying Ma took to Twitter to deny McGowan’s allegations.

  58. 58.

    Cameron

    September 5, 2021 at 1:29 pm

    @trollhattan: I agree with you.  It’s just that I think it’s a waste of time getting involved with them.

  59. 59.

    MattF

    September 5, 2021 at 1:29 pm

    For those who are still following The Fall Of JD Vance, it continues.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 1:30 pm

    @The Dark Avenger:

    But I don’t think humiliation will “work” if “work” is get the vaccine or stop bothering other people with your boring, loud antimask protests.

    I would settle for “stay out of public schools if your intent is to create chaos” at this point.

    I don’t engage anymore on masks and vaccines. They’ll have to find someone else to talk to. Two solid years of listening to them is long enough.

  61. 61.

    taumaturgo

    September 5, 2021 at 1:30 pm

    Life free and die, the new motto of the science deniers.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 1:33 pm

    @MattF:

    Heh. The circle is complete.

  63. 63.

    Hob

    September 5, 2021 at 1:34 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: She’s no longer at the NYT, but rather The Atlantic, whose fetish for “balance” apparently requires them to promote hateful fools every so often (for instance).

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    September 5, 2021 at 1:34 pm

    @Kay: It’s a privilege to be listened to, to have your opinion considered, to have someone want to engage with you. I’m not interested in extending them that privilege any longer.

  65. 65.

    Tazj

    September 5, 2021 at 1:35 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think that has to change and we have to do the same thing as Canada is doing in our country. Really disappointed in the Department of Homeland Security and his answer. I think we really need more of a stick along with carrots to convince people to get vaccinated. It’s for everyone’s own good whether they believe it or not.

    I went to my son’s high school game on Friday at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. You had to be vaccinated or have a negative COVID test to go. You had to show your vaccine card to get into the parking lot, buy a ticket and get into the game. While there you had to keep your mask on at all times unless you were eating.

    I realize this is a private university and a pretty small crowd but there were only a small number of parents that complained.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 1:35 pm

    @Hob:

    I listened to a long podcast which was a discussion about the death penalty between her and a Righty who thinks the death penalty can be “just”. It was kind of interesting although neither one of them know anything about the criminal justice system, so they approach it from broad philosophical and religious angle. I was really taken aback at the end though, where Breunig announced she leaves “life and death up to God”. Fine, but why bother with this “debate” then? There’s nothing to talk about. It’s in the Up To God basket.

  67. 67.

    Starfish

    September 5, 2021 at 1:36 pm

    @Ohio Mom: She is there to appeal to either right wingers who consider themselves liberal or lefties who consider themselves traditional Catholics. The market for this is either very small or very large, the way that the market for David Brooks is  very small or very large. Some people have a darker take on what she is doing here. The darker take is that she is avoiding accountability for what happened in Texas. How does her traditional Catholic belief system stand up against people forcing birth on young teens who have been raped by relatives?

  68. 68.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 1:37 pm

    @Starfish:

    Maybe she wants some of that sweet, sweet bounty.

  69. 69.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 1:37 pm

    the only unicorns in lester maddox democrats matt & liz bruenig’s world are the ones being ridden by the denizens of the local klavern

    ultimately, god n’ gunz n’ medicare4all left-glibertarians like the bruenigs want the same thing that god n’ gunz n’ housingcovenants right-glibertarians want — the america of 1950

    i imagine the lunchroom at the atlantic has some lively chatter between liz b & mcmegan

  70. 70.

    VeniceRiley

    September 5, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    @Kay: I like that point about mediation. My fiancé does that job when a prisoner or more manages to get up on the roof. She doesn’t humiliate them- but neither does she give in to their demands. She doesn’t insist they come down. Yes we have water and food for you. It’s down here though. Up to you. Your decision.
    Eventually they climb down.

    Pandemics are time sensitive though.
    So …..

    Did you all see the HCA banned political screenshots in their meme parades?

    Ive found it more conductive to my mental Health  to read r/nursing. I see people there I want to help instead of people I want to laugh at. Folks need to get behind some policies, rules, and supportive laws to protect nurses from abuse by their employers and their patients and their patients’ families. Let’s be on their side.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    @Suzanne:

    I held up my hand with a client a couple of weeks ago. That’s all I did- held up my hand and he stopped. I won’t be trapped in these one sided “conversations” anymore. I don’t want to. Self employment comes with risks but it also has benefits. That’s one of them.

  72. 72.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 1:41 pm

    @debbie: +1 (de)boned chicken

    volvo driving soccer mom liz has got dadjokes

  73. 73.

    cain

    September 5, 2021 at 1:41 pm

    @bbleh: ​
    They are also thirsty for validation of their thinking; they really want not to be thought of as “stupid,” which is why people rolling their eyes and calling them stupid enrages them so.

     

    They aren’t just stupid – they are murderers. Especially if you are hospital staff and you’re passing COVID to patients who then die. You should be summarily dismissed with zero compensation or anything. Their names should go on a “Do not hire” list amongst medical facilities. The sheer lack of empathy, and callousness .. it burns me up. I want them to suffer for their poor choices that lead to the death of others.

  74. 74.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 1:41 pm

    @Kay:

    ✋

  75. 75.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 1:42 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: pretty sure liz & her husband are also yung earfers, so makes sense

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    September 5, 2021 at 1:42 pm

    It’s almost a year too late for the “Let’s have a rational conversation” conversation.

  77. 77.

    Redshift

    September 5, 2021 at 1:42 pm

    Opinions from pundits about the appropriate way to deal with these people are worth as much as opinions from pundits a few months ago about how wrong the CDC was not to tell vaccinated people they were free to do whatever they wanted.

    There was a great twitter thread by a sociologist a while back about this a while back, I’ll try to look it up. The start was, hey, everyone, you don’t need to just spout speculations about what will work, there’s a whole field of people who have done actual research on this! The tl;dr is, from what I recall:

    • for people who are invested in this belief, it’s a psychological injury to give it up
    • the things that work are efforts from people close to them and in their perceived group
    • for those people, there’s lots of guidance in the research on how best to go about it

    For the rest of us, contrary to what pundits say, mockery and scorn doesn’t make them more dug in on their beliefs. It has no influence one way or the other, so it doesn’t help, but in practical terms, there’s no reason for us to feel bad about doing it.

  78. 78.

    Danielx

    September 5, 2021 at 1:43 pm

    @James E Powell:

    Back to Cole’s description  – ask somebody to dinner, mention Italian as a possibility and find out the preference is for tire rims and anthrax.

    My time on earth is limited and I choose to spend a portion of it pointing and mocking rather than engaging with people who would as soon see me and mine dead. Fuck those guys.

  79. 79.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    @Spanky: hawk harrelson still liked this

  80. 80.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 1:45 pm

    @Suzanne:

    There is a persistent delusion among contrarian media liberals that liberals scold conservatives and never the other way around. It’s because they live in liberal areas.

    I have been listening to Trump people rant about masks and vaccines for 18 fucking months. Because Breunig doesn’t KNOW any Trump people she sees them as silent victims. They’re not. She can get back to me when she’s spent a month or two in a 65% Trump county. They hector liberals. They give as good as they get.

  81. 81.

    Ascap_scab

    September 5, 2021 at 1:45 pm

    Here’s another site.

    Sorryantivaxxer.com

  82. 82.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 1:46 pm

    @trollhattan: iron maiden or marshawn lynch style i think

  83. 83.

    kuvasz

    September 5, 2021 at 1:46 pm

    Whenever I listen to Trump supporters about vaccinations and their skepticism  about “Washington politicians” what I hear in the background is their Id hollering back to the world “See, I ain’t so dumb, I’m smart enough to disagree with smart people, and that makes me smart, too!”

  84. 84.

    Starfish

    September 5, 2021 at 1:47 pm

    Bruenig is wrong, but you have also been wrong in your treatment of the vaccine hesitant.

    We laugh at the dumbest anti-vaxxers because it is the only fun we have left as we are cooped up in this never ending pandemic. We are not trying to change hearts and minds when we do this.

    In real life, if we laugh at anti-vaxxers or push them all the way back, we are not doing it for the sake of the anti-vaxxers but for the sake of the people in the community to let them know that “Hey, this community does not stand for this stupid bullshit.”

    The people who will change minds for the vaccine hesitant are the people who they feel a closeness to. That means, a doctor or a trusted relative having a heart-to-heart with these folks may change their hearts and minds. You do not seem to have a lot of these folks in your networks being up in the northeastern place where people are mostly sane.

    I am closer to people catching COVID because they are unvaccinated, but I am further from the people thinking horse paste is the answer.

    Some of the folks catching COVID and unvaccinated are women who avoided the J&J shot due to clotting considerations and didn’t bother to look into the other ones. Some of the folks catching COVID are the unvaccinated who thought they had already had COVID and think they can’t catch it again. They are at a lower risk of catching it again, but the vaccine would protect them even more, and they should consider getting vaccinated while their ICUs are overfull with COVID patients.

    The Rolling Stone story that ERs were overrun with horse paste patients was a lie. The person that they used as their source had not worked in the hospital that he claimed to have worked at for several months.

    Where I first saw the horse paste nonsense was from a friend who said that it was running rampant in online farming bulletin boards. I was incredulous about it. However, a bunch of people who do not have doctors or medical access are going to act like this. ACA did not create medical access for people in states that did not do medicaid expansion, and it did not create medical access for people who could afford either their monthly insurance payments or their co-pays and co-insurance but not both.

    And some of these people who may have medical access may not trust their doctors because the doctor won’t look at their issue and will say “because you are overly fat” when they bring up anything.

  85. 85.

    Suzanne

    September 5, 2021 at 1:47 pm

    @bbleh: They are also thirsty for validation of their thinking; they really want not to be thought of as “stupid,” which is why people rolling their eyes and calling them stupid enrages them so.

    Yes. For better or worse, they know that intelligence matters in outcomes, and it cuts very deeply to be outed as stupid.

    Again, the last couple of decades have been, in part, a story of people who used to think that they mattered…. realizing that they don’t.

  86. 86.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 1:48 pm

    [broken record] Shaming generally doesn’t work. [/broken record]

    https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/talking-vaccine-anxiety-guilt-and-shaming-u-m

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  87. 87.

    Suzanne

    September 5, 2021 at 1:50 pm

    @Kay: Agreed 100%. I know what it’s like to live where conservatives run everything. They aren’t reticent or kind about it.

  88. 88.

    taumaturgo

    September 5, 2021 at 1:51 pm

    Saw this in an ingenious cartoon:

    Texas: Where a virus has reproductive rights, and a woman doesn’t.

  89. 89.

    chopper

    September 5, 2021 at 1:51 pm

    And so: What would a genuine persuasion effort look like, with respect to vaccines?

    what the fuck does she think we spent the first 6 months of 2021 doing, exactly? we’re making fun of these dumbasses because we spent half a year trying desperately to get them to listen to reason and they won’t. so we have nothing left but to point and laugh.

  90. 90.

    Starfish

    September 5, 2021 at 1:52 pm

    @Baud: She might, and I don’t trust her to be “Oh look at me, I am very into traditional Catholicism and only have two kids.”

  91. 91.

    The Dark Avenger

    September 5, 2021 at 1:53 pm

    @Kay:
    “The liberation of the human mind has furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe — that the god in the sanctuary was a fraud.”

  92. 92.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 1:53 pm

    @VeniceRiley:

    I do think humiliation is super potent, and can be really toxic. I’m not a talented mediator but I do make an effort to recognize dignity. I think it’s important.

    Her essay is a mess though. If she wants to talk about emotions then talk about emotions. It’s perfectly valid. Some of the restistence is emotional and some of the appeals are emotional. She seems to be saying liberals are operating on a purely negative emotional level but the she goes to some other idea of rational persuasion. Those are two different approaches.

  93. 93.

    germy

    September 5, 2021 at 1:55 pm

    Let's face facts, we all secretly suspected civilisation was just a phase.

    — Wilde Thingy (@wildethingy) December 30, 2019

  94. 94.

    Splitting Image

    September 5, 2021 at 1:57 pm

    @Baud:

    IIRC, she’s identifies as a lefty.

    As far as I’m concerned, a lefty who works to elect Republicans is a Republican.

  95. 95.

    The Dark Avenger

    September 5, 2021 at 1:57 pm

    @Kay: you might as well talk about mediation between lions and wildebeests at the watering hole.

    Some things in life aren’t negotiable.

  96. 96.

    craigie

    September 5, 2021 at 1:57 pm

    Her friend texted her a picture of her vaccine card shortly thereafter.

    My bet is that was a fake.​ Is it possible to be too cynical?

  97. 97.

    The Dangerman

    September 5, 2021 at 1:58 pm

    No shoes, no shirt, no shot, no service.

    Fuck ‘em.

    /EFG

  98. 98.

    eclare

    September 5, 2021 at 1:58 pm

    @Tazj:  We have tried endless carrots: gift cards, lottery tickets, scholarships.  So much so I half- ass thought why the fuck was I responsible and got my shots in April?

    The time for sticks is now.

    Glad to hear about all the sticks for watching a high school football game.  NCAA needs to step up and do the same.

  99. 99.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 5, 2021 at 1:59 pm

    @Splitting Image:

    As far as I’m concerned, a lefty who works to elect Republicans is a Republican.

    evergreen

  100. 100.

    Starfish

    September 5, 2021 at 1:59 pm

    @bbleh: I completely agree with your response to James E Powell. Some people do not want to expend the energy or risk their place in a social group to push back on stupidity.

    I started to pointedly do it because the people I knew were in a state that had overrun its hospital capacity.

    There was someone on the internet that I have known for years, and she has always been out there. I thought she was opposed to just the flu vaccine because of some egg allergy. Flu vaccine is now okay for people with egg allergy. Studies have been done.

    However, she said she is avoiding the COVID vaccine because the last vaccine she tried to take almost killed her, and I did not even bother to tell her “Look, if the last one was due to egg allergy, you have to look at this set of vaccines and see if that would be a problem here.”

    She is put out because she can’t visit her friend who is old and in assisted living without putting on all the protective equipment. I didn’t yell at her and tell her “THAT IS BECAUSE THOSE PARTICULAR FOLKS ARE THE FOLKS WHO DIED THE MOST SO THEY ARE BEING EXTRA PROTECTIVE OF THEM” because I did not want to dive in her craziness with her. I did not have the energy for it.

  101. 101.

    Princess Leia

    September 5, 2021 at 1:59 pm

    @Baud: ​
      This. She is neither kind nor generous at all. Just a hypocrite.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 1:59 pm

    @Suzanne:

    My personal favorite is “liberals run public schools”. Yeah they do! In LIBERAL areas! Like where media contrarians live.

    “Liberals” don’t run my public school. Conservatives do. They make up 65% of the people, so it’s not shocking. They think pointing to the San Francisco public school board is some kind of national referendum on public schools. It’s just dumb and parochial.

    Barry Weiss should take a road trip. She can chronicle the other side of “cancel culture” where everything that is even remotely “liberal” is shouted down. A majority on my school board opposed “healthy food” because Michelle Obama promoted it. Canceled! No whole grain bread for you!

  103. 103.

    chopper

    September 5, 2021 at 2:00 pm

    @Aimai:

    after years of people trying to convince a person that climate change is real, if they still were ‘skeptical’, it’s because they were a denier. it’s the same here. anybody who at this point is still ‘skeptical’ of the vaccines is actually anti-vax.

  104. 104.

    Betty Cracker

    September 5, 2021 at 2:01 pm

    @Kay: Amen to that.

  105. 105.

    Hob

    September 5, 2021 at 2:01 pm

    @Starfish: “The darker take is that she is avoiding accountability for what happened in Texas”

    I’ve seen a fair amount of this “Bruenig is just yakking about ivermectin to DISTRACT US from her anti-choice history!” line and I think it’s absurd. First, the only reason anyone has ever heard of or paid attention to Elizabeth Bruenig is that she is The Anti-Choice Leftist; no one who’s aware of that is going to suddenly forget it because she said a different kind of wrong thing, and no one who isn’t aware of it would be trying to “hold her accountable” anyway. I don’t think any idiot ideologue in the history of ideological idiocy has ever gotten people to instantly forget the main bad idea they’re famous for by briefly espousing another bad idea. Even on Twitter where people have goldfish-level memories, things don’t work that way.

    Second, people of course are prodding Bruenig about Texas anyway, and her method of “avoiding accountability” there is very simple: she just changes the subject, combining some juvenile sarcasm about “yeah sure, it’s my fault Texas is a red state” with her usual refrain of “I’m a socialist so I’m in favor of helping poor people so they won’t need to have abortions, so how can I be a right-wing enabler.” There’s not really such a thing as “holding someone accountable” if you have no power to affect their job and if they have no interest in honest discourse.

    The much simpler explanation for why Bruenig has gone on this anti-anti-ivermectin tangent is that she and her husband are 1000% on board with the principle “anything mainstream liberals feel strongly about is by definition silly, and they must be scolded for making regular right-wing folks feel bad, because we are contrarian faux-lefties.”

  106. 106.

    Jess

    September 5, 2021 at 2:01 pm

    Scorn and intolerance are useful tools that in this case are entirely appropriate. This is how communities regulate themselves in the absence of laws. I think it’s safe to say that most liberals try to be respectful and tolerant as long as the people they disagree with are not hurting or trampling on the rights of others, but when bad and/or idiotic behavior is messing things up for us all, and killing kids, it’s time to push back with everything at our disposal. Most of these Covidiots are not strong-minded people, and confronted by a united wall of disapproval from the rest of society, they’ll crumple and conform. I hate mob rule, but sometimes it’s the only way to survive as a society.

  107. 107.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 2:01 pm

    @Starfish: as gloria estefan told us, the rhythm is gonna get ya

  108. 108.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 2:03 pm

    @The Dark Avenger:

    I always think I can persuade people. It’s ego. I think I’m good at it or better than “you” certainly! :)

    It helps though, to think you can. So you don’t give up.

  109. 109.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 2:03 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose:

    That’s it, I shall follow The Way of Marshawn. The man cannot tell a lie.

  110. 110.

    Suzanne

    September 5, 2021 at 2:04 pm

    @Kay: I know. It’s just ludicrous. Then when they start in on the whole trope about people hating to live in places where liberals run things, I remind them of housing values.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 2:05 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Has she somehow missed the angry mobs invading public schools? “Victims”, my ass. They never shut up.

  112. 112.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 2:06 pm

    @Suzanne:

    Then when they start in on the whole trope about people hating to live in places where liberals run things,

    “It’s too crowded!”

  113. 113.

    Starfish

    September 5, 2021 at 2:07 pm

    @Hob: That’s valid. Usually, I ignore Bruenig.

  114. 114.

    Starfish

    September 5, 2021 at 2:09 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose: You have won this thread and deserve a participation trophy. ?

  115. 115.

    Cameron

    September 5, 2021 at 2:09 pm

    @Suzanne: But they ignore the old saying: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

  116. 116.

    The Dark Avenger

    September 5, 2021 at 2:10 pm

    @Kay: To paraphrase Kahless the Unforgettable, only a fool negotiates in a burning house.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 2:14 pm

    Ivan Oransky
    @ivanoransky
    “A member of the School Committee has resigned amid online attacks after a right-wing blogger called him a ‘child abuser’ for supporting a masking requirement for town schools, posted pictures of his children and made derogatory remarks about them.”

    Just another victim of liberal shaming.

  118. 118.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    September 5, 2021 at 2:15 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’m just surprised that dates to the 1920s. A lot of these clowns have picked up on 19th century garbage predating germ theory.

  119. 119.

    Starfish

    September 5, 2021 at 2:15 pm

    @Kay: Hexagonal pizza with white flour, the way the lord intended?

  120. 120.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 2:16 pm

    @The Dark Avenger: Burning houses don’t get a vote.

    Persuasion, and fear of Delta, and coming mandates are working – vaccination rates are increasing from their lows.  We can continue to persuade and roll out mandates and listen to people’s fears / excuses / anger at the same time.  It doesn’t cost more not to punch down.

    We all know how defensive we get when some troll shows up and calls us “stupid liberal” or “Bernie or buster” or “Hillary Hater” or whatever.  Why we expect some important fraction of people who haven’t yet been vaccinated to behave differently is beyond me…

    “You’re stupid, loser, baby-man if you drive a Ford!” – said no Madison Avenue ad, ever.

    Belt and suspenders, man, belt and suspenders…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  121. 121.

    smith

    September 5, 2021 at 2:17 pm

    @Jess: This. In my opinion, these people don’t have any well-developed inner moral compass at all. They are conformists who are conforming to a local social ecosystem in which being virulently anti-vax meets with social approval. It does not hurt at all to remind them forcefully that there is a larger social ecosystem in which they are regarded with extreme disapproval.

    They like to pretend that they don’t care what the libs think of them, but Cleek’s Law says that they care very much. If we’re not pwned, but amused and derisory it’s got to hit home.

  122. 122.

    Barbara

    September 5, 2021 at 2:17 pm

    @Kay: ​The sheer hubris of this sentiment never ceases to amaze me — the assumption that you actually know what God wants. It’s basically mindless bravado.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    September 5, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    “Peter Baker

    @peterbakernyt

    Biden’s regular invocations of his son Beau’s death expose the human side of a president but not everyone responds the same way and advisers acknowledge that he does not always adjust his approach depending on the audience”

    National media, led as usual by the incredibly shitty NY Times political team , are going to punish Joe Biden for leaving Afghanistan every day for the next 3 years.
    I could not back Biden more on it. Fuck them. Continue to show them “defiance” Joe. Defy.
    They sold these fucking wars and no one should listen to a word any of them say about them. Not credible.

  124. 124.

    piratedan

    September 5, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    I find it enlightening that we’ve always the ones being scolded… turn this around… make them come off the street corners with their cardboard signs with the words mispelled and in engage us with logic, coercive arguments that support their positions. Feel free to reach out them Liz and after they assault you with bricks and bats and death threats, i’m sure that the discourse you seek will be manifest for all to see.

  125. 125.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    September 5, 2021 at 2:21 pm

    I don’t care what they think. I care what they do. Mandate they be vaccinated to go anywhere other people will be present.

  126. 126.

    Cameron

    September 5, 2021 at 2:21 pm

    @Baud: That’s why nobody goes there anymore.

  127. 127.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 2:22 pm

    Hahaha, yes!

    Alaska Airlines’ Salmon Thirty-Salmon 737 landing in San Jose. https://t.co/LSwO0vzi88 © Angelos Panou pic.twitter.com/HmngHYm64A— JetPhotos (@JetPhotos) September 3, 2021

  128. 128.

    VeniceRiley

    September 5, 2021 at 2:25 pm

    Maybe we should just post some fake study somewhere that states ivermectin  is 10x more effective in vaccinated people. Make memes and seed their posts and FB groups with it.

  129. 129.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    @Kay:

    Barry Weiss should take a road trip. 

    More of a spaceship – and it’s into the Sun.

  130. 130.

    cain

    September 5, 2021 at 2:27 pm

    @Kay: They can do whatever they want – but the American populace is not going to give a shit. They do not care about Afghanistan.

  131. 131.

    sab

    September 5, 2021 at 2:30 pm

    @Kay: School in my city started Wednesday. Masks are mandatory. The Trump mom across the street made her elementary school daughter a little plague doctor mask to wear to school as a protest. The kid loves it, and marched around the neighborhood wearing it for an hour after school Friday.  So I think mom lost the argument even in her own household.

  132. 132.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 2:30 pm

    @dmsilev:

    Most notably, there’s a jackass of a fire captain who made a ‘but, my FREEDUM’ video recently. Turns out, he lives in Texas and commutes to LA(!) 

    Someone tell this assclown that firefighters are needed in Texas too.

  133. 133.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 2:32 pm

    @sab:

    The Trump mom across the street made her elementary school daughter a little plague doctor mask to wear to school as a protest. 

    Does it fit the kid well and properly cover her mouth and nose?

  134. 134.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 2:34 pm

    @Kay: As I’ve said before, all of these bloodthirsty shitstains are free to enlist.

  135. 135.

    Spanky

    September 5, 2021 at 2:36 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Someone tell this assclown that firefighters are needed in Texas too.

    The pay is shit. Taxes, ya know.

  136. 136.

    James E Powell

    September 5, 2021 at 2:40 pm

    @bbleh:

    That’s a big reason we’ve got to where we are today: people didn’t push back against the Crazy, so the Crazy kept pushing

    We also didn’t push back hard enough against evil. Our problem is that the votes of the racists & bigots are what keeps rich people in power. (Not to sound like a newly minted college sophomore who’s read one book.) But seriously, if they weren’t reliable Republican voters, who would be promoting racists, bigots, and crazies?

  137. 137.

    sab

    September 5, 2021 at 2:41 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Yes. She did a good job, although it looks more like an opposum than a corvid.

  138. 138.

    The Dark Avenger

    September 5, 2021 at 2:41 pm

    @Another Scott: Fighting against ignorance isn’t punching down.  When they go low, we go high isn’t a good war strategy.

  139. 139.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 5, 2021 at 2:43 pm

    Bruenig (and those like her) can go fuck themselves. There is no room for rational, intelligent discussion with these anti-vaxx, anti-mask shitheads. They’re going to be antagonistic dicks no matter how you engage them. They are utter wastes of skin.

  140. 140.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 5, 2021 at 2:46 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: I’d settle for those like Weiss to be fastened to the exterior of a rocket going into orbit with duct tape.  Accomplishes the same thing without the expense of going all the way to the Sun and polluting the Sun with stupid.

  141. 141.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 2:48 pm

    @Spanky: Hmmm, maybe they ought to do something about that…

  142. 142.

    zhena gogolia

    September 5, 2021 at 2:49 pm

    The Grey Lady has hit rock bottom.

    Biden's regular invocations of his son Beau's death expose the human side of a president but not everyone responds the same way and advisers acknowledge that he does not always adjust his approach depending on the audience. ⁦@katierogers⁩ https://t.co/hdsblg9WLU— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) September 5, 2021

  143. 143.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 2:49 pm

    @Kay:

    @zhena gogolia:

    Beaughazi!

  144. 144.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 2:51 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: 

    and polluting the Sun with stupid 

    LOL!

  145. 145.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 2:52 pm

    @Starfish: not the same shape, but now i am missing taco bell’s mexican pizza

    i think the overall presentation is tacobellite

  146. 146.

    zhena gogolia

    September 5, 2021 at 2:52 pm

    @Baud:

    I guess I should be happy that they’ve failed to deliver my paper for the second day in a row. But on the other hand, I did pay for it.

    ETA: It’s like, the food is terrible, and the portions are so small.

  147. 147.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 2:52 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    The Grey Lady has hit rock bottom. 

    C’mon.  You know that’s not true.

  148. 148.

    debbie

    September 5, 2021 at 2:53 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Oh, fuck them. I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child. Joe can mention Beau as often as he likes.

  149. 149.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 2:55 pm

    @piratedan: i know the moran family; they are very kind

  150. 150.

    MattF

    September 5, 2021 at 2:55 pm

    @zhena gogolia: It’s a classic right-wing attack— you attack what’s perceived as your enemy’s strength. See e.g., ‘Swiftboating’.

  151. 151.

    Betty Cracker

    September 5, 2021 at 3:00 pm

    @Baud: Fred Guttenberg, gun safety activist whose daughter Jaime was murdered in her FL high school, weighed in on Beaughazi in a way that I found thoughtful. On Twitter, no less!

    When @POTUS @JoeBiden called me, one of the first things he talked to me about was how we all grieve differently. It was the best advice anyone gave me.

    As I read the news reports of people suggesting that President Biden should not bring up his son Beau, I hope that stops. For me, I cannot think of Jaime in the past tense and I bring up my children equally all of the time. The President should be no different.

    Regarding the reaction of the families at Dover, I do The day that I buried Jaime, I actually yelled at @RepTedDeutch in my driveway. I had not known him and was angry. Since that day, I am honored to consider him a dear friend.

    My hope is that we give the 13 families grieving the space to do so. While we give those families the space to grieve, it is also fair to acknowledge that our President has a bond based in the loss of his children that forms who he is and creates a mutual connection for others going through loss. I am thankful that he made that connection with me.

  152. 152.

    Miss Bianca

    September 5, 2021 at 3:00 pm

    @debbie: I have given up on the notion that any of these Blob fuckers have enough self-awareness to feel any sense of shame.

  153. 153.

    West of the Rockies

    September 5, 2021 at 3:02 pm

    So often the MSM looks upon a burning house where 73 people are hitting it with water hoses and 27 are tossing on gasoline-soaked hay… and the headline is “Disagreement Erupts at Scene of Fire on Best Way Forward.”

  154. 154.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 3:03 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m glad he said that.  Thanks for sharing it.

  155. 155.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 3:05 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    It’s rocks all the way down.

  156. 156.

    Ramalama

    September 5, 2021 at 3:06 pm

    I stopped visiting that subreddit because I started feeling like the award name was problematic for me.

    Pick any other Trumper and I’d jump on board. I was not ever a fan of Herman Cain’s but he had a very different battle to get to his Trumpydom than most others. An elder black man in America. Fucked himself, yes, yes he did, by going to that rally bare faced. But I am not going to celebrate his death like that, like I would for all of the white men in my face at a friend’s wedding couple years ago. I sat with my spouse at the Democrat table. That’s what they called us. Black people, gay people, artsy people of mixed races. None of us Trumpsters. Everyone else, yes, supporters. And quite a few of them after a few drinks, trying to reason with us. Trying to bully us. One guy’s wife was Mexican for fuck’s sake. Her family still in Mexico. All of the complete asshats were white.

    If I know of any black Trumpys, I don’t know about it.

    I know that my boycotting that subreddit isn’t going to do a thing. I thought seriously about mentioning it in a thread but it’s not a fight I want to have in that cesspool that I sometimes chirpily call the Bulletin Board.

  157. 157.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 3:07 pm

    @Starfish: Now I have a craving for grade school hot lunch tacos.  And, oh the taco boats!

  158. 158.

    debbie

    September 5, 2021 at 3:07 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    My god. Odds are that at least some of the people saying this are parents themselves. Let’s kill one of their children and then demand they say NOTHING. EVER.

    This country’s scarcest resource is empathy.  ?

  159. 159.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 3:07 pm

    I’ve struggled to find my compassion for these people as well.  And it’s funny because I’m actually a highly empathic personality type.  I recognize that they didn’t get so awful on their own.  They’ve been indoctrinated, encouraged by right wing media to embrace incivility and to indulge their worst impulses.  But the thing about empathic personalities that doesn’t get talked about much is that being sad and embarrassed for pathetic people becomes exhausting.  And there’s just too many of them.

  160. 160.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 3:08 pm

    @MattF: Karl Rove in a nutshell. What Klan W did to John Kerry is a perfect example: probable draft-dodger sissifying actual combat veteran.

  161. 161.

    zhena gogolia

    September 5, 2021 at 3:08 pm

    @SpaceUnit: Right.

  162. 162.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 3:09 pm

    @trollhattan: Yup.  Can the bastards work in a “But her emails!” angle?

  163. 163.

    Ruckus

    September 5, 2021 at 3:12 pm

    @James E Powell:

    The list of people we were supposed to make nice with include uncompromising anti-choice fanatics, religious bigots who hate LGBTQ, racists, and those who want poor people to suffer & die because they can’t afford health care.

    I agree with you but ask the question, why do these people feel this way, what is in it for them, what do they gain in anyway for this? To feel better than some poor schlub so that their miserable lives seem better? What is it about humans that they don’t mind being miserable as long as someone else is more miserable? Is there some reason that makes any sense whatsoever that others should suffer because some people have such low opinions of others – or too high opinions of themselves? 

    Just some thoughts on humanity.

    I believe that life is the one you live, that all of us, everyone of us has crap in their lives, some more, some less. But actively trying to increase the level of crap in one’s own life, for pity or shaming ability seems, well fucking ridiculous. I also notice that the evangelical religions seem to use this as a starting point of their existence and some other religions seem to add it in as one gets deeper into the religion.

  164. 164.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 3:12 pm

    @debbie:

    This.

    And further in the case of the Bidens, Joe nearly lost his entire family in the car accident that killed his wife and daughter, and put Beau and Hunter into the hospital. Dad had the horror of nearly losing his son once only to have cancer finish the job decades later.

    What toll does that take on a parent? I cannot begin to calculate.

  165. 165.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 3:14 pm

    At some point I’ve come to embrace a certain stoicism.  I try to channel my inner Spock.  Some anti-tax wingnut radio host drank horse de-wormer and died?  Fascinating.

  166. 166.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 3:17 pm

    meant anti-vax but okay.

  167. 167.

    zhena gogolia

    September 5, 2021 at 3:17 pm

    @SpaceUnit: Probably also anti-tax.

  168. 168.

    DTTM

    September 5, 2021 at 3:18 pm

    Late to the thread, but this quote from the Times is an excellent summary of these perilous days…and, of course, it didn’t have to be this way.

    “The summer surge has played out in a fatigued, politically divided country with no unified vision for how to navigate the pandemic. During previous upticks, the promise of vaccines led many to think that a return to ordinary life was perhaps just months away and that masking up or staying home was a short-term investment toward that goal. But the virus’s mutations and the refusal of millions of Americans to take the shots have dimmed that hope.”

  169. 169.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Exactly.

  170. 170.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    @Ramalama:

    I have a hard time defending, much less understanding Cain’s decision-making process. He probably got Covid attending the Oklahoma Trump rally. Nobody pointed a gun at him to go expose himself to an obviously perilous environment and all that “corporate smarts” was shoved aside to go do politics in front of cameras. Just nope.

  171. 171.

    Cameron

    September 5, 2021 at 3:21 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose: Is that a fossilized taco?

  172. 172.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 3:23 pm

    Another trick is to learn to compartmentalize.  Here’s how it works:  Some anti-vax kook ends up taking a valuable bed in an ICU?  Bad.  Terrible.  Because he took horse pills and shit out a kidney?  Hilarious.  And then he caught covid and died?  Whatever.

  173. 173.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 3:23 pm

    @trollhattan: at least they didn’t say john forbes surfboard was practically lactating…

    i thought of that slight of algore yesterday, while perusing kkklay travis’s twitter to see if the proud gwu alum was gloating, as had his fellow colonial johnathan turdley, over the texas “rustle up a posse to drive the ol’ afterbirth trail” law. shockingly, kkklay had so far left the celebration of the texas shariah to his broadcast partner buck sexton. but i did see a photo of kkklay looking like a sex trafficker at an sec tailgate, & his flappy pectorals protruding under his polo. much like his 2000* campaign favorite turned global warming opportunist algore, it appears kkklay might be capable of lactating.

    *kkklay has said he’s one of the few who can say he was on the losing side of both the rigged 2000 & 2020 elections. the false equivalency of what happened to algore — for whose campaign kkklay was a lowlevel staffer! — & what el jefe maximo tried to pull off would be breathtaking, if i didn’t already know kkklay is nashvegas jd antivaxxx.

  174. 174.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 3:32 pm

    @West of the Rockies: Sometimes analogies aren’t helpful.

    Whether we like it or not, the pandemic is going to be with us in the USA until we get enough people vaccinated and/or have more universal mask wearing.  Every little bit of progress helps us to end the pandemic. Helping people harden their decision not to get vaccinated – by not being smart about how we address them – hurts that effort.

    Social science, psychology, and our own experiences tell us that punching down / mocking / shaming / etc. are unlikely to make us want to do what the puncher / mocker / shamer / etc. want us to do.  For some people, sure, it works.  But anyone with a big following on Twitter is used to mocking and it doesn’t affect them.  It’s best to ignore people like Bruenig, IMO.

    For normal people who haven’t been vaccinated yet, the best way forward is to listen to why they haven’t been and try to get them to talk to someone who has a positive emotional connection to them.  It doesn’t always work, of course, but it has a better track record than alternatives.  Yes, roll-out mandates; but also roll out vaccinations everywhere.  It’s still too difficult for too many to get the shot. (E.g. in my step-mom’s county in Mississippi, the county health department office is only open 8-5 M-F.) Mock the monsters pushing disinformation down from the top. Roll out mandates. Roll out vaccinations everywhere. Continue education and PSAs. Continue research on vaccine delivery improvements (nasal sprays, chews, etc.) and treatments. But don’t do things that are counter-productive – no matter how viscerally satisfying they might be…

    Belt and suspenders.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  175. 175.

    eclare

    September 5, 2021 at 3:33 pm

    @sab:  What is a plague doctor mask?

  176. 176.

    JoyceH

    September 5, 2021 at 3:34 pm

    Okay, late to the discussion, but I’ve read this thread and I think there’s a point that’s missing.

    The argument we’re dismissing is that “mocking anti-vaxxers doesn’t get them to change their minds.”

    Well-represented is the rebuttal, “Well, neither does anything else, so let us have our fun and blow off some steam.”

    But there’s another point. And that is that changing anti-vaxxers’ minds is not the point of mocking them. The point is to prevent their numbers from growing.

    Say you’re a person on the sidelines, wondering which way to jump. The pro-vaccine people are treating the anti-vaccine people with respect and listening to their concerns. Person on sidelines thinks, “Look at those folks who are against vaccines. They’re committed, they’re engaged, they’re taking part in an important national dialog.” That could seem almost admirable. Maybe an issue you want to associate yourself with. But suppose instead that the anti-vaccine activists are mocked and ridiculed by the majority of the public, including all the people who actually understand the science. They’re the target of scathing editorials and derogatory editorial cartoons. Anti-vaxxers are always depicted in these cartoons as ragers with their enormous mouths wide open. They don’t look admirable anymore, they look ridiculous. Who wants to join that group now?

    I think the reason QAnon got so big is that it developed mostly out of sight from national attention, and the mockery didn’t gear up until the story was in the national news and by then there were already millions of them to reinforce one another.

  177. 177.

    Cameron

    September 5, 2021 at 3:35 pm

    @eclare: This: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=plague+mask&ref=nb_sb_noss

  178. 178.

    CaseyL

    September 5, 2021 at 3:38 pm

    @MomSense:  Completely off topic, but we were talking about my Maine trip in an earlier thread that is now dead, and I had a reply which I will copy here (it’s semi-relevant because the ugliness the unvaxxed are spreading even more than they’re spreading Covid itself has of course impacted my plans):

    @MomSense:  I love recommendations by people who live in the area! Thanks for the tip about Jasper Beach. Provided that I can find it, I’ll check it out.

    The Maine trip started out as a reconnaissance mission, for possible relocation there after I retire. I have been there, very briefly: a cruise a few years ago to see New England and the Canadian Maritime provinces included a couple days in Bar Harbor. I liked what I saw. Checked out home prices on real estate websites and, while Bar Harbor is way out of my price range, some of the smaller cities up the coast look adorable, and are affordable.

    So originally I was going to check out cities, towns, neighborhoods. Now I am thinking more about not relocating (I live in Seattle) but still want to see more of the state. Emphasis on outdoors. Pre-Pandemic, I would have loved to check out art galleries, local festivals, locally-beloved eateries… but now am not eager to do anything that will put me in small venues with lots of people, even though Maine has the best vax rate in the country.

    Hiking is definitely on the agenda, and also strolling (masked) the cute downtown areas. So any recs are welcome!

  179. 179.

    mrmoshpotato

    September 5, 2021 at 3:40 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Probably also anti-tax. 

    I was gonna say!

  180. 180.

    Baud

    September 5, 2021 at 3:41 pm

    @JoyceH:

    Agree.

  181. 181.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 3:42 pm

    He thought he’d be able to hide under the salad bar, but the joke was on him.

    Diners at an Applebee’s restaurant in Southern California dived for cover Friday night when a police officer opened fire on a man who had pointed a gun at him, authorities say.

    Joseph Leonard Castaneda, 36, of San Bernardino had dashed inside the Redlands eatery after being pulled over by police just outside at 6 p.m., a press release said.

    An officer chased him inside the restaurant, then opened fire when Castaneda turned and pointed a gun at him, police said.

    “We heard a couple pops and then we got outside,” said diner Kristin Bradley-Persky, according to the Redlands Daily Facts. “Then (while) coming outside we heard a couple more. It was super quick.”

    “Everyone hit the floor,” diner Carlos Ramirez told the publication. About 30 people were inside the Applebee’s at the time, city officials said.
    Castaneda barricaded himself in a bathroom but shortly afterward surrendered to police, the release said. Police found a firearm inside the restroom.
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article254021638.html#storylink=cpy

  182. 182.

    eclare

    September 5, 2021 at 3:42 pm

    @Cameron:  That is….something.  Wow.  I can’t imagine a parent putting that on a child

    Thanks!

  183. 183.

    James E Powell

    September 5, 2021 at 3:45 pm

    @Ruckus:

    I agree with you but ask the question, why do these people feel this way, what is in it for them, what do they gain in anyway for this?

    I have asked these questions of my right-wing family members and a couple of former friends. They are resistant to explaining themselves; they give pat answers that reflect the rejection of introspection.

    The most recent concerned their vigorous defense of police officers who are clearly assholes. They will never agree that they believe police officers should never be held accountable, they just never encountered a situation where any police officer should be. It was exhausting and total waste of time & effort.

  184. 184.

    trollhattan

    September 5, 2021 at 3:45 pm

    @JoyceH:

    TBH I can’t envision a situation where I’m one-on-one with somebody, discussing “vaccine yes/no?” At this point, how am I changing anybody’s mind?

  185. 185.

    Cameron

    September 5, 2021 at 3:45 pm

    @trollhattan: Wow.  A new realism for dinner theatre.

  186. 186.

    A Streeter

    September 5, 2021 at 3:46 pm

    @debbie: @debbie: 

    the fact that ‘worm’ and ‘deworm’, used as verbs, mean the same thing…
    — elizabeth bruenig

    They don’t. Consider:

    “Elizabeth Bruenig wormed her way into a New Yorker gig.”

    “Elizabeth Bruenig dewormed her way into an Aqueduct Racetrack gig.”

  187. 187.

    sab

    September 5, 2021 at 3:52 pm

    @eclare: That’s why you aren’t a Trump mom.

  188. 188.

    Ruckus

    September 5, 2021 at 3:53 pm

    @Tony Gerace:

    In a situation where they only hurt themselves that would be the rational solution. Let them die.

    But in this situation, or ones that humanity has gone through a lot in the last 70 yrs, it’s not just them that will be savagely hurt or die. It’s all the others that have to suffer because they are ignorant fucks.

    The point about 70 yrs is that is when medical science started to be able to provide much in the way of vaccines. The only one available before then was smallpox. Not that getting rid of smallpox wasn’t a pivotal moment, it was, but the rest of the “normal” diseases that many of us suffered from did not have vaccines before then. Some didn’t for years after that. And in the poorer parts of the world many still don’t have the level of disease control that so many do. Being one of those who lived when there was only one vaccine, I can tell you, as can many others, that sucked donkey balls. Finding out decades later that so many assholes feel they are immune and that being crippled or dying is not that big a deal sort of defeats the concept that humans are smart or rational.

  189. 189.

    James E Powell

    September 5, 2021 at 3:53 pm

    @trollhattan:

    When I read stories like this, I always wonder whether the trouble the guy was stopped for – warrants for whatever – is as bad as what he is now charged with.

  190. 190.

    Spanky

    September 5, 2021 at 3:57 pm

    @Ruckus: I think you’re overthinking this. Some people are just motherfucking assholes.

  191. 191.

    Ruckus

    September 5, 2021 at 4:01 pm

    @James E Powell:

    It was exhausting and total waste of time & effort.

    I don’t even have to imagine that….

    However.

    Consider it ground work. It is possible that in the back of those frozen minds there is a shred, a minute fraction of, a small but measurable amount of, self doubt. It may take a major league, over the fence swing of a bat, with a solid hit to the container to jar it loose from the jail of stupidity that it’s encased in, but it may still be there.

    Or not.

  192. 192.

    The Moar You Know

    September 5, 2021 at 4:04 pm

    Bruenig can fuck herself. I was in the ER for a non-COVID issue for thirteen hours yesterday. Every room and the hallways full of COVID patients. Nine hour wait to get in unless you were actually dying. If you were dying you got put in the hallway. If I don’t come down with a breakthrough case after this I’ll be stunned. I had an N95 on the entire time and am fully vaxxed but goddamn, 13 hours in the COVIDteria. I’m done trying to be nice to these people. I’m done giving a shit if they die. They certainly don’t give a shit if I or anyone else dies. I think they should all be forced at gunpoint to get vaccinated and fuck their feelings about it.

  193. 193.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 4:05 pm

    A day that will live, …, not in infamy, but in something…

    One year ago, the S.S. MAGAritaville went to the great bottom of the ocean in the sky. https://t.co/hLUm56xNfb

    — Brent Terhune (@BrentTerhune) September 5, 2021

    (via Popehat)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  194. 194.

    Captain C

    September 5, 2021 at 4:07 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Send it out of the solar system. Takes less delta-V. No sense wasting fuel.

  195. 195.

    Ramalama

    September 5, 2021 at 4:08 pm

    @trollhattan: I don’t have any disagreement with your argument. I just think the sub reddit could have been called anything else. Not the Herman Cain Award.

  196. 196.

    Ruckus

    September 5, 2021 at 4:08 pm

    @Spanky:

    No.

    I was just doing as asked of me and not swearing so fucking much and recognizing that fucking assholes are a by product of humanity. IOW a certain percentage of humans are born, or raised, or actually like being assholes and are going to always be with us. Our current politics seems to be, in part, based on assholyism, with a significant portion having this as it’s main point of existence and entire premise of ruling.

  197. 197.

    CaseyL

    September 5, 2021 at 4:11 pm

    @eclare: ​
      I dunno – the child might love it. Looks scary, maybe demonic-alien.

  198. 198.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 4:12 pm

    @The Moar You Know:  That sucks . . .  I hope you’ll be alright.  And a hearty amen to everything you said.

  199. 199.

    Juju

    September 5, 2021 at 4:12 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I have no idea who Elizabeth Breuning is, and I didn’t have enough knowledge to know she’s married at all, let alone to someone worse. It does make sense though, like seeks like.

  200. 200.

    debbie

    September 5, 2021 at 4:14 pm

    @SpaceUnit:

    I spend a significant amount of time at work trying to convince younger coworkers to be more empathetic when dealing with their customers. Empathy seems very foreign to them.

  201. 201.

    Sister Golden Bear

    September 5, 2021 at 4:15 pm

    @Suzanne: 

    Again, the last couple of decades have been, in part, a story of people who used to think that they mattered…. realizing that they don’t.

    Agreed, although I’d argue they saw themselves as the only ones who mattered.

  202. 202.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 4:17 pm

    @Another Scott:  Thanks for that link.  It was fascinating.

  203. 203.

    debbie

    September 5, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    @Another Scott:

    “A bunch of other nautical terms happened.” ?

    ETA: That cough at the end: Is it too un-empathetic of me to hope that’s the first sign of COVID? Can’t help myself.

  204. 204.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    Repost – STATNews opinion piece from 8/27 from an ER doc:

    […]

    In this middle, we need clinicians and patients, the vaccine selfish who jumped the queue and the vaccine hesitant who don’t want to get in line, the morally injured and those in moral recovery. It’s a place for dialogue where people listen for understanding and not rebuttal, that honors respectful disagreement, and that invites a range of ideas, opinions, and experiences.

    Many leading organizations believe we must target misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines by focusing our attention on debunking myths and improving science communication. I think we also need to design community spaces, starting with multimedia platforms, that honor personal stories and highlight the emotional experiences of individuals and families trying to make sense of these destabilizing times with the pandemic, vaccines, and one another. Stories can be more powerful than data. To persuade people, to get them to think, you must first get them to feel. Stories move people emotionally, and the best stories reveal how people face, cope, surmount, and succumb to the obstacles in their lives and make their way in a world we all share.

    Let’s tone down the rhetoric and create opportunities whose purpose isn’t to convince people with contrary opinions that they’re behaving irresponsibly, but to invite them into our lives and appreciate why each of us might feel morally injured.

    I believe there remain islands of shared values and purposes for building further discussions. The only way out of this pandemic is by supporting one another, shifting the focus from judgements about right and wrong and exploring ideas that ask what degree of discomfort each of us is willing to accept to put the current crisis behind us. Hard discussions, without a doubt. But they are better than the alternative: listening to gasping breaths and whirring machines and frantic distress of people sick with — and sick of — Covid.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  205. 205.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    September 5, 2021 at 4:21 pm

    @The Moar You Know: I hope you don’t get COVID and if you do it’s ver mild like what I got. And Thank you for expressing exactly what I feel. My niece and fiancé are trying to put their lives back together in Houma Louisiana  and he trying not to get COVID as his elderly mom just had to move him in with them, my sister in law has stage four metastatic breast cancer and is trying not to get COVID cuz it will kill her. The anti vax COVID deniers can go live in a walled complex together and die for all I care. Enough already.

  206. 206.

    The Pale Scot

    September 5, 2021 at 4:22 pm

    Mocking the unvaccinated dead does not save lives.

    Yea but it gives me a small satisfaction

  207. 207.

    germy

    September 5, 2021 at 4:23 pm

    Mike Flynn posted a video of this guy “proving” that masks reduce oxygen levels.

    What he doesn’t point out is this guy is blatantly squeezing the tube shut with his right hand which is what causes the alarm to go off. ? pic.twitter.com/zs9du31J20

    — Jim Stewartson, Antifascist, #RIPQ ???‍☠️ (@jimstewartson) September 5, 2021

    While it’s fun to debunk comical bullshit like this, here is the point. There are zero non-supportive or questioning comments on Flynn’s channel. You can pause at any point to read them yourself.

    These people have been robbed of the ability to think for themselves. pic.twitter.com/zvc9j88L2U

    — Jim Stewartson, Antifascist, #RIPQ ???‍☠️ (@jimstewartson) September 5, 2021

  208. 208.

    Eunicecycle

    September 5, 2021 at 4:25 pm

    @debbie: and he’s also lost a wife and baby daughter.

  209. 209.

    eclare

    September 5, 2021 at 4:26 pm

    @CaseyL:  Good point.  Def not my preference.

  210. 210.

    Ksmiami

    September 5, 2021 at 4:26 pm

    @natem: Nope the best thing to do is say you’re glad they’re going to get sick and/or die because that’s one less dumb ass Republican voter.

  211. 211.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 4:28 pm

    @debbie: Pretty sure that was satire.  ‘Lake Travis’ was the first hint.

  212. 212.

    eclare

    September 5, 2021 at 4:29 pm

    @The Moar You Know:   Are you the one who went to the ER a while back with a hand injury?  In any rate, I hope you’re OK and feeling better.

  213. 213.

    Ksmiami

    September 5, 2021 at 4:29 pm

    @The Moar You Know: we shouldn’t even treat them at hospitals- it’s just triage at this point.

  214. 214.

    Jeffro

    September 5, 2021 at 4:37 pm

    @cleek:  late to the thread here but just wanna say thank you for doing that!

     

    @Ohio Mom:

    I was only dimly aware of Elizabeth Bruenig less than a week ago. I’m already nostalgic for last Monday.

    LOL@Steeplejack (phone):

    It’s almost a year too late for the “Let’s have a rational conversation” conversation.

    About 18 months too late at this point.

  215. 215.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 5, 2021 at 4:40 pm

    @debbie: I am old and empathy is foreign to me.

  216. 216.

    Barbara

    September 5, 2021 at 4:42 pm

    @Another Scott:I read this in full. He seems to have failed to grasp the moral significance of engaging in self-harming behavior that causes, say diabetes, versus drunk driving.  The latter puts third parties at real risk of substantial harm. Not getting vaccinated might not be quite as morally dubious as DUI, but it’s a lot closer in terms of the potential for HARMING OTHERS, and that means I am not obliged to hang out in the messy middle with people who can’t grasp or won’t admit this, for they are dishonest.
    Kid in my son’s friend group has a granddad who has been vaccinated but is unable to make immunities because of underlying health conditions. He should not have to beg people to consider his safety. ​​

  217. 217.

    Jeffro

    September 5, 2021 at 4:42 pm

    @SpaceUnit:I try to channel my inner Spock.  Some anti-tax wingnut radio host drank horse de-wormer and died?  Fascinating.

    I just read that whole thing in Leonard Nimoy’s voice.  And it works, too – great tip!

  218. 218.

    eclare

    September 5, 2021 at 4:43 pm

    • @debbie:  That was comedy.  Brent is hilarious.
  219. 219.

    Eunicecycle

    September 5, 2021 at 4:44 pm

    @debbie: Brent is a comedian and anti-Trump.

  220. 220.

    Eunicecycle

    September 5, 2021 at 4:48 pm

    @SpaceUnit: I think it was after that Trump boat parade last year where lots of boats were swamped and sunk because the owners were idiots.

  221. 221.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 4:52 pm

    @Jeffro: It’s the logical response.

  222. 222.

    Brachiator

    September 5, 2021 at 4:52 pm

    @Another Scott:

    I believe there remain islands of shared values and purposes for building further discussions.

    This is a load of horse shit which, unfortunately horse medicine cannot cure.

    The anti vaxxers are a death cult. While we are trying to find common ground, they are busy overdosing on horse medicine, filling up the hospitals and dying unnecessarily.

    And even in the face of death, they cling to their lies and fantasies, determined to pull  everyone else down with them.

  223. 223.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 5, 2021 at 4:53 pm

    @trollhattan: was castaneda wounded, thus bleedin’ good in the neighborhood?

  224. 224.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 4:53 pm

    @Eunicecycle:  I remember.  That was a fun day!

  225. 225.

    Ruckus

    September 5, 2021 at 4:53 pm

    @debbie: 
    I think that lack of empathy is a sort of backlash to the growing population and the decreased space that is open around most of the population. IOW most of us have less space now, smaller homes/apartments, more crowed roads/stores, more demand for our time and on our time. Even if it isn’t true it feels like the world is getting smaller, that our little bit of it is closing in. Now some places in the world have been that way for a while, and what is the general consensus of what life is like in those places? It’s getting like that in many places. Also we can be overloaded with news and not news, most of which is about the not good or bad in the world and we now get that aimed at us 24 hrs a day, rather than a 1 hr summary at 6pm. Add in all the warfare around the world, generated in part by our own government, who spends 3 times more than the next country on “defense.” If you are in doubt, listen to all the BS about us pulling out of a 20 yr war we really never needed to have been in.
    My point is that we have been saying, financing, doing a lot of things that make people less empathetic by their very nature and often politically reenforcing the need for that. It almost amazes me that we can be empathetic as a nation at all.

  226. 226.

    Technocrat

    September 5, 2021 at 5:00 pm

    The Bruenig piece is a subset of the “If you post mean tweets people won’t vote” genre. If mocking posts on Twitter or Reddit factor into your vaccination decisions, you simply aren’t going to get vaccinated. You will always be able to find someone mocking antivaxxers, because the Internet is a large space.

    HCA is a case in point. Reddit actually has a Coronavirus subreddit, and it’s pretty tame. No mockery or death memes, just information about the disease. EB isn’t talking about that one, of course. She decided to pick the most extreme example of vax-shaming, and base her thesis around that.

    In a similar vein, I’d imagine most antivaxxers will remember the mockery they read in one comment far longer than the earnest entreaties they read in others. Instead of “Stop being mean on the Internet” pieces, maybe EB should try a bit of “stop letting Twitter comments drive your decisions”.

  227. 227.

    Geminid

    September 5, 2021 at 5:01 pm

    @eclare: Brent Terhune’s “A Message from Q-Anon” is especially good.

  228. 228.

    Eunicecycle

    September 5, 2021 at 5:03 pm

    @SpaceUnit: my son lives in Austin (definitely not a trumper) so I had to text him that day and ask if he had been on Lake Travis ?. He had heard about it and said he definitely was not!

  229. 229.

    Bill Arnold

    September 5, 2021 at 5:03 pm

    @Another Scott: ​
    Shunning

    Although societies that practice shunning may apply the punishment for life, it is typically limited to a set period, which is often ended by another formal hearing or by evidence that the person has returned to acting in a socially responsible manner.

    See also the stories about (neo-)Nazis hounded out of communities.
    Shaming builds community support for such negative treatment of infringing individuals.
    It can be, and often is, misdirected at members of disliked minorities of various sorts, sure.
    I happen to dislike people who assert that they have the right as Americans to mass homicide of random people.

  230. 230.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 5:09 pm

    @Eunicecycle:  Okay, I just googled it, and Lake Travis actually exists.  I thought he’d made it up!  Where else would you hold a Trump-trash boat rally but Lake Travis?  (Apologies to  any one here by that name)

  231. 231.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 5:10 pm

    maybe Lake Karen.

  232. 232.

    NobodySpecial

    September 5, 2021 at 5:11 pm

    Didn’t they just announce something like 61% of Americans are fully vaccinated in the FTFNYT?

    Throwing out the immunocompromised/medically unable, I find it hard to believe that we’re at anything but slightly higher than Crazification numbers of unvaccinated. I wouldn’t waste my energy trying to persuade them, let them shove horse paste in their ass or crystals up their nose at this point.

  233. 233.

    moops

    September 5, 2021 at 5:24 pm

    The much simpler explanation for why Bruenig has gone on this anti-anti-ivermectin tangent is that she and her husband are 1000% on board with the principle “anything mainstream liberals feel strongly about is by definition silly, and they must be scolded for making regular right-wing folks feel bad, because we are contrarian faux-lefties.”

    This is about the whole of it for me.   It is just another more flowery version of stigginit.

  234. 234.

    WaterGirl

    September 5, 2021 at 5:31 pm

    @The Moar You Know: I’m so sorry to hear all of that.  They can’t give you a number and let you wait in your fucking car for 9 hours, and then bring you in?  Fuck fuck fuck that must have been maddening, not to mention that you were surely in pain with whatever crisis brought you to the fucking emergency room.

  235. 235.

    r€nato

    September 5, 2021 at 5:33 pm

    reich wingers in 2017: GEE LIBTARDS MAYBE WE WOULDN’T HAVE VOTED FOR TRUMP IF YOU ELITISTS WEREN’T MAKING FUN OF US ALL THE TIME

    reich wingers in 2021: GEE LIBTARDS MAYBE WE WOULDN’T BE ANTI-VAXXERS IF YOU ELITISTS WEREN’T MAKING FUN OF US ALL THE TIME

     

    I don’t bother debating reich wingers because they are never not arguing in bad faith. Cruelly mocking them, especially when they are suffering the consequences of their fucking dumb beliefs, is always a solid choice.

  236. 236.

    debbie

    September 5, 2021 at 5:36 pm

    @SpaceUnit:

    That’s the lake’s actual name. ??‍♀️

  237. 237.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 5:37 pm

    @r€nato:  Just make fun of them all the time.

  238. 238.

    SpaceUnit

    September 5, 2021 at 5:38 pm

    @Debbie:  yeah, I thought it was a joke.  Joke’s on me.

  239. 239.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 5:38 pm

    @Barbara:

    Kid in my son’s friend group has a granddad who has been vaccinated but is unable to make immunities because of underlying health conditions. He should not have to beg people to consider his safety.

    I appreciate your comment and agree that he should not have to beg people to be responsible.

    But we live in a messy world.

    The question, in my mind, is – How do we move forward and get as many people vaccinated and masking and doing all the sensible things as possible so that we can crush community spread? People behaving sensibly from the beginning would have prevented the pandemic from being such a disaster in the USA – but our government failed, too much of the MSM enabled anti-maskers and anti-vaxers, and here we are.

    I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve seen (what I find to be persuasive) arguments that shaming and anger at people who haven’t been vaccinated doesn’t work. It’s counter-productive.
    When people get angry, they don’t think straight and they retreat into their erroneous views. Some small fraction will never change their views – we don’t want to push people away who will.

    Yes, turn the flamethrower on the people at the top pushing quackery and all the rest of the stuff that is extending the pandemic. But Biden and the experts know that anger doesn’t help get people vaccinated – instead they calmly answer questions and try to address concerns.

    Thanks. My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  240. 240.

    Bobby Thomson

    September 5, 2021 at 5:39 pm

    Why argue with an anti-vaxxer when you can just wait them out?

  241. 241.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 5:44 pm

    @Brachiator: The 40+% of the country that hasn’t been fully vaccinated are not all anti-vaxxers.

    Repost – STATNews – Former anti-vaxxer now nudges people to get COVID-19 vaccine.

    Yes, anecdotes are not data. Is there any data out there that shaming or heated arguments or shunning is more effective than trying to find understanding and nudging toward the desired behavior?

    “Satan’s Dog Training School – Pookie Will Behave, or Else!!”

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  242. 242.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 5:47 pm

    @NobodySpecial: Close to a million shots are still being given every day, with roughly half that first-time shots.  There’s no need to write those people off.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  243. 243.

    debbie

    September 5, 2021 at 5:51 pm

    @SpaceUnit:

    No worries. It’s tough to outjoke jokers.

  244. 244.

    Jim Appleton

    September 5, 2021 at 5:54 pm

    Here is a simple, short, powerful clip that I’ve been hoping for.

    https://youtu.be/LU5HyKoAa20

    Something to show rubes which tells them the consequences of the BS they are vulnerable to.

  245. 245.

    Barbara

    September 5, 2021 at 5:59 pm

    @Another Scott: I’m not in favor of writing them off but I reject a “both sides” false moral equivalency between “to be” or “not to be” vaccinated. The doctor you linked to may have found that talking to addicts makes them more amenable to help but I strongly doubt that he would, if pressed, agree that using heroin is just a personal choice.​​​

  246. 246.

    WaterGirl

    September 5, 2021 at 6:06 pm

    @Jim Appleton: Just checking to see if you received the email I sent you this weekend?

  247. 247.

    Suzanne

    September 5, 2021 at 6:14 pm

    @Ruckus: 

    I think that lack of empathy is a sort of backlash to the growing population and the decreased space that is open around most of the population.

    You need to have your own oxygen mask on before you help someone else put theirs on. Most everyone I know is fucking struggling. Working too hard for not enough reward. Where people go wrong is forgetting who the real enemy is.

  248. 248.

    Bill Arnold

    September 5, 2021 at 6:18 pm

    @Another Scott:

    The 40+% of the country that hasn’t been fully vaccinated are not all anti-vaxxers.

    The willingly unvaxed[1] however, are ethically similar to drunk drivers. They are a genuine low-grade mortal threat to the rest of us, and will kill at least 10s of thousands of Americans, probably closer to hundreds of thousands.
    How did we seriously reduce drunk driving in the US? Was it all enforcement/legal action, or was social pressure significantly involved, too?
    [1] Not including e.g. kids under 12 and those who have a (real) medical reason for not being vaccinated.

  249. 249.

    Tony Gerace

    September 5, 2021 at 6:20 pm

    Good analysis. I know one “vaccine hesitant” person and I tried to present her with some information about the safety of the vaccine versus the danger if the virus. Whether it will sink in, I have no idea. But I agree: those adamantly opposed will probsbly never change their minds

  250. 250.

    Another Scott

    September 5, 2021 at 6:22 pm

    @Barbara: FWIW, I found his both-sidery parts of that essay annoying too.  But I think the larger message holds.  We aren’t machines.  We’re far too irrational about important things, and we need to take that into account in politics and in public health (while also rolling out mandates, making the vaccine available everywhere (to make it hard to say no), etc., etc.).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  251. 251.

    Brachiator

    September 5, 2021 at 6:50 pm

    Another was related in a comment on the Herman Cain subreddit that I can’t find right now. The gist of it was that a woman was concerned about her friend, an unvaccinated single mom with 5 kids. She began sending her friend instructions on how to claim the burial reimbursement for death from COVID, instructions on how to apply for life insurance, and other useful advice for the vaccine “hesitant”.

    This reminds me of an episode of the TV series House, which involved a mother who refused to get vaccines for her child.

  252. 252.

    The Lodger

    September 5, 2021 at 7:19 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose: in Italian, that’s tacobellissima!

  253. 253.

    Torrey

    September 5, 2021 at 7:25 pm

    Very glad JoyceH made this point. There’s a difference between the way we talk to an individual and the way we talk publicly about a group or a stance (or an individual, if it comes to that). The latter is directed at other observers, and the goal is to keep the mocked stance from being seen as desirable by people not currently totally committed to that stance.

  254. 254.

    Brachiator

    September 5, 2021 at 7:51 pm

    @Another Scott:

    I believe there remain islands of shared values and purposes for building further discussions.

    Here is the central problem. For some, there are no longer islands of shared values. Instead, some insist that they must get their way in order to preserve their preferred social order.

    Yes, anecdotes are not data. Is there any data out there that shaming or heated arguments or shunning is more effective than trying to find understanding and nudging toward the desired behavior?

    I refuse to engage with anti-vaxxers. Not because I am trying to employ tough love. It is a waste of time to try to deal with them.

    Some people are irrational. The return of flat earthers, for example. There are people who “honestly” believe that the 2020 election was stolen. You can be as understanding as you like. The problem is that they will continue to hold this view despite the fact that ALL evidence refutes their beliefs.

    Shunning actually seemed to work with some cigarette smokers. But ultimately you had to pass laws prohibiting smoking.

    Some anti vaxxers insist on their liberty and assert personal responsibility. But threaten their employment and hit them with high medical bills and higher health insurance costs and most of them will come around.

  255. 255.

    Ruckus

    September 5, 2021 at 8:03 pm

    @Suzanne: 
    I think we are saying the same thing.
    And if I press farther I see that even a lot of rural red areas are gaining populations, because there are only so many square feet to build on, so as the population grows the rural areas become more crowed and the urban areas spread out. And that changes what a lot of people like/liked about rural areas, a lack of other humans.

  256. 256.

    Ruckus

    September 5, 2021 at 8:18 pm

    @Tony Gerace:

    I was 5 or 6 yrs old when the polio vaccine first came out and we were taking it en mass. No one had to hold a gun to anyone’s head because we could see the effects all around us. Now with Covid, hundreds of thousands have/are dying but it’s not something you actually see a lot of around you, unless you have to go to a hospital. And it’s new so this effect that so many are affected and/or dying has no recent history, which many diseases of my childhood did. Everyone I knew my age got all the diseases and stayed home. Some of us got one of the after affects, like I and many others got from measles – encephalitis. I was treated for 5 yrs. My point is that a lot of people have never seen some of the stuff that can happen from some viral infections and how serious this can be because the spread of those diseases has been stopped almost 100%. They have never seen what life was like in the before times. Add in the insanity of the republican party today….

  257. 257.

    No One You Know

    September 5, 2021 at 10:35 pm

    @Aimai: People care about their social standing as someone worthy to be heard.

    Rejection and mockery will harden off a few. The rest will see reason when the reason gets them respected and accepted. It won’t be because they believed science. Or you.

  258. 258.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    September 5, 2021 at 10:54 pm

    @Obvious Russian Troll: Yes, maybe they decided the grift was too obvious.  Some of the stuff read like they got it out right from ancient Greek medicine.

  259. 259.

    LiminalOwl

    September 6, 2021 at 9:07 am

    @Kay: Excellent. Thank you, as always.

  260. 260.

    Matt

    September 6, 2021 at 9:07 am

    @dmsilev:

    Turns out, he lives in Texas and commutes to LA(!) because, again, FREEDUM.

    I bet he bills taxpayers for the mileage between his job and his tax-haven-ass house, too.

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