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tptruepolitics · 4 years

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Election Prediction 2020

So, I know this didn’t get posted when I said it would, but I think the closer we get to the election the busier life seems to be. Either way, I hope you enjoy this 2,400 word unofficial read!

Half a month away from the most critical election in our lifetime, and despite what the polls may say, most people believe that it is still anybody’s game. This is so true, in fact, that the “get out the vote” effort has never been more prominent. Between the barrage of political news, the endless commercials from “non-partisan” or “independent” groups telling you to get out to the polls and make your voice heard, or the political t-shirts that half of the random people you meet are wearing, there is no avoiding the fateful decision of who to vote for this election cycle, or whether to vote at all. Now, I can touch on the second issue a little later, but I perfectly intend to ignore the first one completely. It’s not my job to tell you who to vote for. The main focus of this article will be a prediction (of sorts) as to who might win. I say of sorts, because I will largely be ignoring conventional methods i.e. polls, surveys, and history in general, and will instead be focusing on feelings. I know that Ben Shapiro famously claims that “facts don’t care about your feelings” and this is a credible claim when you are discussing an issue that has everything to do with facts and nearly nothing to do with feelings. However, in this regard, the lauded political analyst is missing a key component to the election cycle.

Last election cycle, in 2016, it seemed that everyone and their mother was completely and utterly shocked when the election results revealed Donald Trump to be the victor – everyone that is, except me. I was nearly certain, although I revealed my prediction to no one (shame on me), that Donald Trump would win, and was subsequently minutely surprised at how surprised everyone was. Not to name drop here more than I should, but even Ben Shapiro claims to have lost money on the election, and still proclaims today that virtually no one saw this coming. Even one of my best friends – who voted for Trump – did not expect him to actually win. Why is this? Well, most people were reading the polls and saw that Trump was behind a fair amount days before the election. For those who didn’t support Trump, they couldn’t imagine that there would be enough “crazy” people in the country to vote for someone whom they viewed as a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, Islamaphobic, xenophobic monster, who was altogether unfit to be the President of the US. The people who supported didn’t believe that they had the votes to elect him, because of all the hateful information that was being spread about him, and were simply voting for him as a vote against the system. There were only a few people who believed he could actually win. I was one of them, not to toot my own horn here.

Why did I believe he could win? Well, I was reading the responses of the media, and the responses of my (college) friends, and I was tuning into my solidarity. Firstly, anytime I had a conversation with friends about politics, it was about how bad Trump was, not how Hillary Clinton was such a great candidate. That was the first hint! No one liked Hillary Clinton. As a matter of fact, I think this goes back further than Hillary. Surely, she was an awful candidate that made you cringe every time you heard her speak, but her politics weren’t much different from her predecessor. Barack Obama, in my opinion, is only a popular president on paper. He was a smooth talker, had a way of feeling relatable, even through his highly polished statements, not unlike Clinton, and was an attractive man, for whatever that’s worth. Nevertheless, his policies were garbage for the most part, and they were not the focus of his presidency. The American public liked Barack Obama because of his personality, not his politics. Hillary was proof of that: nearly mirrored policies, but none of the charisma. Some people pointed out that Hillary had no consistency in her political stances, having flipped on many of them over the years, and that made her unreliable. I don’t think this was a relevant issue for election purposes. Barack Obama got elected with nearly no political history, and therefore an empty track record. No, the elections are hardly ever about credibility. So, because people were not excited about Hillary Clinton, they did not show up to vote. Sure! That’s a fair argument, and it seems to have weight in the voter turnout statistics.

What about Donald Trump? Were people really excited about him? That’s the real question! Trump routinely turned off many in the Republican Party because of his brashness and rudeness. The people that voted for Trump were different people than voted for Mitt Romney four years prior. It is true that Donald Trump did not out-perform Romney as far as sheer numbers are concerned, and it’s also true that he performed nearly identically to Romney in many areas of the country. However, there is a difference between getting the same amount of votes, and getting the same votes. I do think that there were many people in the country who felt disenfranchised about the state of politics in the US, and wouldn’t have voted had Trump not been on the ballot. He certainly reached a new breed of voter, despite turning many away. Now, the real question becomes, will the voters he previously turned away and did not clinch last election cycle be willing to cast their votes for him this election cycle? And also, will it be enough?

Last election cycle, Donald Trump ran on conservative principles, but many people did not believe that he was going to govern conservatively. This was another reason, some conservatives did not vote for Trump: they believed he would swindle the American people – run as a conservative, and govern as a liberal. Have they been proven wrong or what? Since 2016 the Trump administration – no matter what you might think of the policies themselves – has instituted more conservative policies than the past three conservative administrations before it. For the conservatives that were hesitant to give Trump their support in the 2016 election, this should be a wakeup call. He is not putting forth empty promises. He fully intends to do what he says. Have some of them fallen flat? Sure! Did Mexico ever pay for that border wall? Of course they didn’t. That was an impossible promise to make, and I don’t honestly think he even believed he could make Mexico pay for that wall, but it sure made headline news! So, I do think that Trump can make headway in the conservative/republican voter turnout. I believe that he will get more conservative votes this year that in 2016 by a lot, but once again, will it be enough?

This brings us to Joe Biden: 47(ish) years in politics – the exact opposite of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. He has quite the resume. Whether you think that Joe Biden’s positions in the past were good, you have to admit that he has the appeal of dependability. He comes off as friendly, polite, goofy even, and a return to “normalcy” – whatever that means to you. This appeal is extremely appetizing to those who care less about the politics of a president, but care more about the extreme, over-the-top news coverage, day-in and day-out of the every move of the President and his administration. The scandals, the conspiracies, the constant barrage of political haymaking – they just want it to stop, and Joe Biden is a return to that. Now, the real question is, is that enough? If we are just talking about how people feel, without taking policies and current events into account, Trump would probably win by a landslide. Once we put current affairs into the equation and recalculate feelings, the water gets muddier.

2020 is the year to remember, right? That’s what they’re saying. It’s the worst year in the history of years. Wrong. . . This is untrue for a couple of reasons. Firstly, does anyone remember 2016? That was supposed to be the year that we tried to forget. There were memes about history books skipping 2016 and students asking “what happened to 2016”, with teachers responding, “We don’t talk about that”. This seems to be what is going to happen every four years or so for the rest of humanity. The year you live in is the worst it can get and it can’t get any worse. I mean, to recap this year, there was Corona Virus (big one), George Floyd dying, riots that burned businesses and hurt innocent people, murder hornets (is that still a thing), wild fires across California, did I mention Corona Virus, the shutting down of the economy leading to the largest and fastest recession since who knows when, the conclusion of Russian Gate (YES! THAT WAS THS YEAR! Feels like it was 17 years ago, doesn’t it?), and did I mention Corona Virus!! I’m sure I missed stuff. There’s too much to recall. But is this the worst year in the history of our country? No. . . . and it won’t be remembered that way either. I can think of several years that were worse without even trying: Civil War years, any year with slavery I think would count, Jim Crow segregation years, the Great Depression years, the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the years following, the Cold War years, the Columbine shooting year, 2001 and the aftermath of 9/11. All of these are worse than this year, and I hope it stays that way, whether Joe Biden gets elected or Donald Trump gets reelected. I think it would be wiser of us to focus on what we have rather than on what we don’t have.

Now, how does all this affect the election? Well, it doesn’t look good for Trump, that’s how. You see, not being in charge of the administration has some really great benefits! The biggest and best of those is that you can point to all the terrible things that happened in the past year and say, “that wouldn’t have happened under my watch.” Is that a true statement? No. Is that a false statement? Also, no! It’s an unprovable statement, which leaves all to the imagination. And trust me; people have active imaginations this year. This is precisely the attack that Joe Biden and the Democrats are using, and it’s a smart move. It’s pretty much the only move, because aside from the craziness of this year, I’m pretty sure most people were satisfied with the Trump presidency. The economy was booming, taxes were cut, ISIS was stomped out, peace in the Middle East is underway (missed that headline, did you?), unemployment was at a historical low, crime was low… I mean say what you want, but Trump’s administration was doing well overall. The effects that the current events of this year have on the election nearly wipe away the memories of voters though. And it is all about whether the people view Trump as responsible for them or not. Honestly, I think the jury is still out on that one. I think it is fair to say that the election will be the definitive way to tell whether Trump is getting all the blame or only some of it.

So, what about the past month? The presidential debate was an opportunity for Trump to really explain how he didn’t screw up and show people that he is fighting for them. Instead it was Chewbacca vs. the Swedish Chef (yes, I stole that from Ben Shapiro, so sue me), where Donald Trump just howled at anyone who would talk, and Joe Biden just filled in the gaps with mostly nonsensical jargon. Of course, Ben Shapiro missed the role of Chris Wallace who was Miss Piggy trying to save Kermit by yelling at the Wookie every time he tried to bash her hubby. Or was Trump Miss Piggy and Joe Fozzie Bear, and Chris Kermit? I’m not sure. Either way, Trump hurt himself more than he helped himself. The Vice Presidential Debates, which of course no one watched, were much more substantive and meaningful, especially since it is VERY likely that Joe Biden will not last through his first term. This debate, had anyone watched it, would have helped Trump immensely. I don’t think it was the “boom! Gotcha!” debate that every conservative plays it up to be – and I mean every conservative. But I do think that it was a good showing for how similar Kamala Harris is to Hillary Clinton in demeanor. That could easily be a turnoff for many voters, reducing enthusiasm for Biden (or what little enthusiasm there is for him).

That’s another point; Joe Biden doesn’t have much of an appeal except that he isn’t Trump. Now, with the massive get out the vote efforts that are upon us country wide, I think it is safe to say that Biden will not have too much trouble getting votes from people who are less than politically inclined. So, the massive amounts of voters simply against Trump may truly be the turnout of the election. I have friends that believe that Trump will win in a landslide, and I have friends that think that Biden will win in a landslide. I’m leaning towards the latter. This is my official prediction. I will be shocked if Trump actually makes it through this time.

One final note, however, if you are indeed a person who is being pressured into voting one way or another and you haven’t the slightest political insight, stay home. Uninformed voters are the single greatest threat to a democracy. When everyone is voting based on feelings instead of policy, the entire country loses, no matter who is running. It is your right and privilege to vote, but not your obligation or responsibility. It is your obligation and responsibility to make an informed vote, should you chose to vote. Otherwise, you are doing everyone a great disservice.

With that said, I hope you have enjoyed this mini and certainly unofficial analysis of the election 2020. Tell me what you think! If you think I’m full of #*$%, that’s nothing new to politics! That’s why we have so much TP here at True Politics!

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tptruepolitics · 4 years

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As Election Day fast approaches, and the two major party candidates show down, the race could come down to the wire. Who do you think will win? Let your predictions known and tune in tomorrow for the release of my complete prediction complete with (casual) in-depth analysis. Not sure what that is? No problem! Just read it, and then you’ll understand (maybe).

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tptruepolitics · 4 years

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LGBT Thoughts

Netflix has recently decided to push transgender ideologies in their Babysitters Club series – a show directed at adolescent girls. While Netflix – an independent company that should only have to answer to itself and its shareholders – is perfectly within their rights to air such shows, the fact remains that this is a deeply damaging topic to be showcasing to the most vulnerable and malleable among us. I think it’s time we finally address the enormous elephant in the room: the LGBT community. Here I will break down my thoughts on their rights, their roles, and their realities in our society.

For much of history, there have been documented incidences of same-sex encounters. Even the Bible makes reference to same-sex relations numerous times. The word sodomy is actually originated from one such text from Genesis in reference to the city of Sodom. Shakespeare is even rumored to have been gay by some scholars. However, for most of human existence, these individuals were forced to live in secret – outcasts of society, ostracized by their own people. To be perfectly fair, religious extremism has only contributed to the past 2-4 thousand years of ridicule. Before that, it was still frowned upon (at best) by most cultures simply because it went against the laws of nature. Male and female animals and even plant parts reproduce in union with one another. There are no same-sex reproductive organisms to my knowledge (correct me if I’m wrong). There are asexual organisms that reproduce by themselves, but certainly no major animal species that reproduce in any extraordinary way. There is a certain species of bird, I believe, that lives in Hawaii (once again, correct me if I’m wrong) that sometimes chooses a same-sex partner for life in the absence of a proper mate, but this is certainly an exception, not a rule. To add, they do not reproduce together.

But what does all this mean for humans? How should the “laws of nature” or even God’s laws apply to humans in this age of constant progressivism and an increasing detachment from religiosity that we call secularism? Well, thankfully, in our country and many around the world we are allowed the freedoms to live our lives as we see fit as long as they don’t infringe on the rights and liberties of others. So, if someone chooses to live outside the bounds of religious or natural laws, they certainly should be allowed to, as long as they are minding their own business. This concept of allowing homosexuality was highly contested up until the late 20th century, and is still somewhat contested today in 2020. The original founders felt that upholding moral and ethical truths in our school systems were an integral part of maintaining our precious union. As a matter of fact, the often-misrepresented “separation of church and state” clause did not mean that religion could not be learned about in schools, but that the federal government had no right to establish a State religion (capital S). Most of the founders actually encouraged religious teachings and values in schools. The more modern interpretations of the separation of church and state are due to an influx of not only secular ideologies, but also religious beliefs that were not prevalent during the time of our founding. While I am a firm believer that no harm can come from learning about religious values in schools, in this age of progressivism it is reasonable to note that certain contentious religious principles need not be forced upon others. This would be a clear infringement of the separation of church and state.

So, to get specific, let’s talk homosexuality. A common misconception in the eyes of secularists is that the Church (I’ll speak specifically about Catholicism here) preaches that homosexuality is a sin – that simply being gay is a sin against God. Well, this isn’t true. The Church expressly teaches that acting out homosexual fantasies is a sin. Let’s say, you are a man who is attracted to other men, but in your devotion to your religion, you find a woman whom you love, marry her, and live your life without having sex with another man. Is this man sinful, because he finds men attractive? Of course he is not! When you feel like strangling someone, but then you calm down and don’t, are you guilty of murder? No. So, simply being gay is not a sentence to Hell. As a matter of fact, even in the eyes of the Church, acting on your homosexual impulses isn’t a death sentence. There is reconciliation and forgiveness in the eyes of the Lord. If you confess your sin and repent for it, you are seen as forgiven. Not to mention, there are people who sin in every aspect of life: liars, swindlers, thieves, murderers – and I’m not even just talking about big sins. Small sins add up, and if you are not repentant of them, you are not any more likely to get to Heaven. However, I will paraphrase this, but I believe there is a Scripture saying that says you will be judged by your worst qualities. So, if you work hard your whole life to be a good Christian, and your only flaw is that you are a wonton whore, a light will be shown on this most vulnerable area.

You might be thinking to yourself, “but it’s a genetic mutation that causes some people to like members of the same sex. God would not have built natural urges in us if he didn’t want us to act on them.” Well, that’s just ridiculous. We have natural urges and desires that are built into us that we are meant to fight off all the time: anger, greed, and jealousy to name a few. Lust is just one more urge that is built into our nature, and it happens to come in all shapes and sizes. Our animalistic desire is not only to have as much sex as possible, but to have it with as many things as possible. Evidence of this is your dog, if you have one. Dogs will regularly hump humans due to a natural urge they have. Should the dog be doing this? Should humans all of a sudden be accepting of bestiality? Maybe don’t answer that one. Now that I’ve gotten a bit off topic, I’ll try to bring this all back. Yes, acting on your homosexual desires is a sin in many Christian churches. However, your homosexuality does nothing to harm me or my church, and as such, I believe firmly that if you wish you act on those temptations, you should be legally allowed to.

Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual peoples should not be deprived of their right to happiness, which can include uniting themselves in lawful union. That being said, I would like to advocate for an alteration in the name of the union. With the full rights, advantages and privileges of a married male and female couple, I would like to revoke the name “gay marriage” and return to the previously used “civil union” terminology. Marriage is a religious term that has been secularized over decades to include all unions whether inside or outside of a church between a man and a woman. I propose that all unions made outside of the boundaries of a religious ceremony be labeled civil unions, reserving the term marriage to those unions made within the boundaries of a religious ceremony. Civil unions will differ from Marriages in name only as to lay to rest the disagreements of many over this divisive issue. Thus, men and women, women and women, and men and men united solely by a judge will no longer be “married” but “united”. Those churches that allow gay marriages in their communities are by no means precluded from including them or precluded from calling them whatever they wish. However, legally, in the eyes of the state, a same-sex couple “married” in their churches will be viewed as “united” under the law. This is a semantic issue, as opposed to a legal issue. The semantics are clearly important on this issue and have been increasingly becoming more important as time goes on. I may not feel it is right to legally prevent people from enjoying their lives in whatever manners they please, but I do feel it is within my purview to define terms in order to ease tensions.

With regards to the transgender community, I have immense sympathy and respect for your feelings. Feeling like you don’t fit into the gender roles that your biology dictates can be frustrating, confusing and upsetting. I know. During my high school years, I often noted to myself that I had feminine characteristics that I didn’t understand. In some ways, I felt that I didn’t share many of the masculine interests of my friends. However, because I was surrounded by many fine men who were very accepting of my differences, I never felt that I didn’t belong with them. Here is the reality of the situation. Many people are not surrounded by these positive influences, and thereby feel that they need to re-identify themselves in order to fit into their social environments. This is not the case. Acceptance, toleration and understanding are the keys to solving this problem. Our attention with regard to the gender debate should be redirected towards Gender Stereotypes. At one point, I was under the impression that we were heading in the right direction. In a very enlightening high school class, I was challenged to think about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. When I did this, I came up with many gender stereotypes that not only did not describe many of my peers, but also did not describe myself. Instead of concluding that I did not belong to my gender, however, I concluded that the stereotypes were the crux of the inconsistencies. At one point in history, gender roles were necessary for survival – the strong (men) went on the hunt, and the tender (women) cared for the children. They were important distinctions. This is not the case anymore! Over time, as technology and society developed to the point where strict gender roles were no longer necessary, women’s rights and roles in society began to change. This was a good thing and is a testament to how incredible our society has been for the less advantaged. These roles still play a part in our daily lives and still affect who we are, but they do not define us exclusively. Take Apples for example. The stereotype of an Apple is a red, juicy, sweet fruit. However, there are apples that are yellow, juicy and sweet. There are also apples that are green, juicy and tart. Is the yellow apple a mango now? Is the green apple a lime? No, their genetics limit them to the fruitful existence that they are. Nevertheless, biology dictates what type of fruit they are and not their characteristics; their characteristics don’t change the underlying biology.

To solve the issue of gender, some people on the progressive aisle have attempted to remove gender. I instead propose to remove the stereotypes/roles! This of course leads to inconsistencies in the Pride movement as a whole. For example, an exclusively lesbian woman might marry another woman who decides later that she is a man. Is this first woman heterosexual now, or should she be upset and betrayed and break off the marriage? Are you confused yet? This removal of gender is not only confusing to adults, but it’s confusing to children, and for them, it is dangerous. When you pose a child with the option to choose his/her gender identity, they will ask you what the differences are. Your response will undoubtedly be gender stereotypes. You are doing no one any favors by perpetuating these gender roles. The child will treat this as something fun, like a game. However, once you begin to treat it as something serious, the child will begin to treat it seriously. This is what major networks and schools and parents are beginning to do. Once you begin to treat your child as if they are not their biological sex, they will begin to accept that reality, more so to please you than anything else. This could have unimaginable consequences on their sense of self later in life, which could lead to self-esteem issues, learning disabilities, depression or worse. And making life-altering changes to your children i.e. long-term gender therapy, hormone treatments, or surgeries could permanently hurt them mentally and physically.

Conversely, if your little boy tells you one day that he is a girl, tell him, “No, you’re not a girl, you’re a boy. As a boy, you can be whoever you want to be, like whatever you want to like, and all of those characteristics will make you who you are.” If you tell your little boy that, there is an increased likelihood that he will have a more accepting view of others who are different from him, and will have a more positive outlook of himself. You can be a man who loves to sew, wear frilly clothing, and fixes his own car. You can be a woman who lifts weights, works on a construction site, and watches soap operas. They are not mutually exclusive. This also includes those members of our communities that wish to fully engage in their historical gendered roles. Women, who want nothing but to read, write, sew, be homemakers, and do the multitude of other activities that are considered feminine, should not be shamed into thinking that their choices are not valuable, are backwards, or are in anyway damaging to womanhood. Women who have no interest in science should not be shamed into believing that their lives are a waste and that they are giving in to the patriarchal oppression of women. This is not productive. Similarly, this standard applies to men, who should not be shamed into thinking that jobs that only use their hands are not worthy of respect because they do not require a college education. They should not be shamed into the common misconception that men are brutes, only caring about power and control. Men who are not interested in fashion design or cleaning are not uncreative or lazy. All humans have different interests and strengths.

The characteristics we have as human beings are largely taught to us. Generosity is taught, openness is taught. Negative things, as well: greed, sloth – they are learned. Selfishness is a learned characteristic. As a society, we have failed our younger generations. Parents, teachers, the government, and the media have all failed. To teach a child that they are so important that they have the ability to defy nature and choose their gender breeds self-centeredness and pride beyond compare. How selfish of us, how pompous! We are not that important. We are not able to create our own meaning. Our meaning is a gift bestowed upon us by a higher power. Who or what that higher power is, is for each and every man and woman to decide on their own, but a society based on the premise that they determine their own worth is doomed to fail because it is founded on the ideal that the self is the most important entity. This is not to contradict our founding principles concerning the individual. Those principles concern how government should act in relation to its people. The concept of self-importance, to which I’m referring, concerns how individuals view themselves and act in spite of the government.

So, no, I don’t think that Netflix or schools should be teaching students, especially against the wills of their parents, that being a boy when you’re a girl or vice versa is acceptable. We should not be teaching children that biology can just be ignored. If we allowed this aspect of biology to be ignored, other aspects of biology may be ignored in the future (like age!). Nor do I think that sexual preference should be celebrated in public schools. This goes against the separation of church and state in a different manner, because teaching children that their religious observances of sin are incorrect is a direct interference with the practice of a religion. This would be a world where secularism becomes the state religion and that would be no more acceptable than some form of theism. Have no shame for who you are, but don’t put down other peoples’ views to make yourself feel better. Respect should be taught of all our children before they leave the home for school.

Here is my final message. Acceptance of self, love of one another, and understanding of our differences, should reign supreme.

#lgbt #lgbtqia #lgbtq #netflix #religion #marriage #gender #gender stereotypes #gender roles #transgender #same-sex #nature #respect #understanding #acceptance #secularism #civil unions

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tptruepolitics · 4 years

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Another novel lol. 2,300 words this time! Enjoy!

This is a very famous cartoon analogy that is making its way around the internet this year, even though it was created about 6 years ago. There are several flaws with this cartoon, and I will do my best to address them all. Before I get to the underlying issue that drives this cartoon, I’m going to assume that the issue, which the cartoon claims to be true, is true, even though it’s not, and I will get to that later. For the sake of argument, I’m going to start by addressing the cartoon and how it is flawed as an analogy to the issue.

So, with that, let’s assume that the BLM (Black Lives Matter) movement is based on a factual basis. Sure! Fine! But this cartoon doesn’t accurately depict the dichotomy between BLM and ALM (All Lives Matter). So, I’m going to go square by square. Obviously, the top left square isn’t of issue, it is simply an introduction that begins the dialogue between our two fictional characters.

The top center square is important, because it introduces the underlying point of view of the ALM character, where he states that he believes that we should care about all things equally at all times. Firstly, this credo can be taken as either righteous or ridiculous. I’ll explain. Caring about all things equally at all times in no way implies a neglect of certain things in favor of others, especially in the case where one is in crisis. If a person does indeed care equally about all things at all times, should any issue arise with any of their “assets,” they would, without neglecting one, tend to the struggling part. So, to care deeply about all things at all times sounds like a wonderful credo. However, it is similarly ridiculous, as it is impossible for anyone to attribute their full attention to all issues without neglecting another. And no one, even in such a realistic circumstance would ever neglect a burning house, no matter what profession of ridiculousness they spout. So we’re off to a rocky start in this mess of an analogy. Secondly, from my perspective, this is not the implication or credo of ALM. ALM is a phrase that is meant to redirect attention away from race. The phrase, “Black Lives Matter” is assuming something of the American people: that there are huge swathes of the public that believe black lives don’t matter! That there are complex systemic injustices that disproportionately affect black people based on no other variables than the color of their skin. In the eyes of anyone who claims “All Lives Matter,” they are rejecting this contention. They are saying, “yes, black lives do matter, but there is no one saying they don’t.” In their minds, saying BLM is the equivalent of shining a light on an issue where there is none. To relate this to the cartoon, it would be like neither house was burning, but the BLM character is claiming that his is. Then, to add to it, he is now demanding that the hose be used on his house, when the ALM guy wasn’t even using a hose. Inventing a problem and then demanding that we stop solving other imaginary problems and focus on his. Sounds crazy? It is! The entire concept behind ALM is that there is not widespread hatred of black people running rampant across the country; that there is not systemic racism that is holding black people back from realizing their full potential. The only reason why ALM even exists is because the BLM movement exists. I believe ALM is attempting to explain that people from all races and ethnicities suffer everyday, but not because of widespread hatred, but because suffering is a part of everyday life. However, I am going to continue with my explanation assuming that this issue is in full effect, and that this ALM character is accurately portraying his feelings.

In the top right square, we already see a fallacy in the logic of this cartoon. If the ALM character firmly believed that we should be caring about “All Houses” at all times equally, he would certainly be pouring water on both houses equally! If he is not giving any attention to the burning house at all, he clearly doesn’t think all houses matter; he only thinks his house matters. So, logically, he would either be watering both houses, or watering neither. In that case, perhaps the argument could be made that he is not giving enough attention to the house on fire, but he would certainly be giving both houses equal attention.

So, that point addresses the center left square, as well. As I pointed out, this ALM character in the cartoon is not acting out his beliefs correctly, and the BLM character certainly has the right to be upset, because there is no attention being given to the house on fire. And still, if the house is on fire, the ALM character should be focusing the majority of the water on the right house.

Now, the center center square is an interesting point. As I pointed out above, the said claim that ALM supporters think BLM supporters think that all lives (or houses) don’t matter, is a flawed conception. ALM supporters understand that BLM supporters are trying to address the focus to black lives, because they believe that they are under some imminent and long standing attack from racists and racist systems in the country. So, an ALM supporter would never claim that BLM means all lives don’t matter. This is where the cartoon reveals how deeply flawed it is on its face. If the cartoon were to be 100% correct reflecting the points of view from ALM and BLM, the ALM character would look at the house on the right and see a house being burnt by its neighbors, and the BLM character would look at the house on the right at see a house being burnt by the system and community at large. So, the ALM member would say, “by saying that a burning house needs special privileges from the fire department because the system is setting it on fire, isn’t addressing the root cause of the fire-setting in that community.” Giving people extra smoke alarms or fire extinguishers may help ameliorate death due to fire, but won’t stop the fires from starting to begin with.

The center right square is one of the most correct squares, actually. The fire on the house is very pressing and deserves attention, but it needs the right type of attention. Imagine for a minute that the ALM character is not holding a fire-hose with water, but $300,000 cash and 10 smoke detectors. In this sense, the ALM character represents the “system.” The $300,000 cash can rebuild the house that was set on fire, and the smoke detectors can help alert home-owners to a new threat of fire, but it will not prevent the house from being set on fire again. It certainly won’t save the lives of the current inhabitants, and it may not even save the lives of the subsequent owners. Demanding the system give all the cash and all the supplies to the few houses that are on fire, knowing that it won’t help solve the problem, depletes the system’s resources to help fires when they happen in other parts, and puts other people in danger because of lack of resources. If the real problem is the neighborhood burning down houses, perhaps the better solution would be to address the reasons why the community is doing that and help prevent that from happening. This analogy has gotten very real all off a sudden. Did you notice? You wouldn’t remove firefighters from the neighborhood where the fires are starting, calling them the reason for it. You also wouldn’t reduce the funding for the fire department either. You would want increase fire prevention programs, increased forces, and increased (dare I say) police presence to prevent arsonists from setting fires in the first place. You might even create special forces of the fire department to proactively address community needs that could help prevent fires.

For the bottom left, this square presumes that other people’s access to fire prevention services wouldn’t be inhibited by focusing completely on other houses. Now, as this cartoon analogy is already wrong, I will correct it again in a slightly different way. I apologize for not keeping a consistent analogy the whole way though, but this analogy is so bad, I can’t keep the same story and keep having it apply. Let’s assume now that the houses in the neighborhood all get a yearly checkup from the fire department. And now let’s assume that these houses are all in order every year. But for some reason, the BLM houses keep catching on fire. The BLM character would then be demanding that his house is more at risk due to systemic fire safety protocols that put his house at risk. Let’s say this contention is incorrect, and that the reason they keep catching on fire is because - as previously stated - they light each others’ houses on fire. Then, if they were to blame the department and demand for the redirection of fire department funding to other unrelated areas, do you think the community at large would be safer from fires or in greater danger?

For the bottom center, this is outside of the analogy as the creator admits, so i don’t see any point in addressing a self-proclaimed useless square.

Bottom right… Now this square takes the cake. It is basically saying that while ALM supporters are over here ignoring the racist and systemic issues across our nation, people are dying due to their inaction. This is just an execrable claim. And this is where we go into the reason the basis of this cartoon is complete crap. It’s time to wipe the butt hole clean on this issue. In no way is saying the phrase “ALM” contributing or ignoring the very real issues going on in black communities. It is asserting that the root causes of these issues are not race based, but community based. It is true that the black community is disproportionately suffering with violence, crime and death, but those are by-in-large not the result of policies in places. The lack thereof of the equality of outcome is not necessarily correlated to the equality of opportunity, and even if there is some correlation, the primary variable is not race. I firmly believe, as many old-school liberals once believed, that race is a construct of the human subconscious. However, I will reluctantly accept the idea of race here for my statistics, for it still remains a prevalent construct so to pervert the hearts of many.

Let’s address the statistics. According to BLM, black people are disproportionately killed by police compare to white people. Over a three year average from 2017-2019, approximately 409 white people were killed by police, and 222 black people were killed by police. This is out of 996 deaths by police over the 3 year period average. So, 41% were white, 22% were black. I am not going to address the unarmed vs armed statistics, because they remarkably close in relative percentage. And whether someone is unarmed or not is in no way an indicator of threat, but I digress. The argument usually made is that white people make up 62% of the population, but black people only 12%. So, if this world were fair and even, black people would only make up 12% of that 1000 persons, and white people would make up 62% of that 1000. However, this does not take into account crime statistics. Many conservatives like to use the murder rate in the country to show the disconnect, but violent crime as a whole contributes to police presence in neighborhoods, and it is only fair to show accurate crime statistics for the two. According to 2018 statistics, for all violent crime white people are the offender 50.2% of the time, which is slightly less than their population make-up. However, black people represent the offender 21.7% of the time. That’s almost twice their representation in the population. The offender to population ratio of white people is ~0.8, and the offender to population ratio of black people is ~1.8. 409 x .8 = 327. 222 x 1.8 = 400. If crime were an indicator of likelihood of getting shot and killed by the police. Black people would represent 40% of those killed by the police. This statistic shows us that police are using more restraint when encountering violent criminals in black communities than in white communities. This actually might be a result of better training, because inner cities have more funding to train their officers in deescalation tactics due to high populations and larger departments. Another factor may be that officers are less likely to shoot a black man for fear of community retaliation, and accusations of racism.

This may come as a shock to many, but it is actually more dangerous to be a police officer in the US, than it is to be a black person. According to the FBI UCR data, over the past 10 years 2010-19, approximately 60 officers are feloniously killed annually. On average, the offender was black 37% of the time, which means about 22 officers are killed every year by black people. There are between 700 and 800 thousand sworn officers in the US. 22 out of 800,000 is 0.00275%. If there are 700,000 officers, that percentage becomes 0.00314%. If there are approximately 328.2 million people in the US, about 12.6% (41.4 million) are black, and 222 on average are fatally shot by police every year, 222 out of 41.4 million is 0.000536%. Taking the larger number (0.00314%), police are 5.858 times more likely to be killed by a black person than the other way around. If we take out black children from this demographic study, which represent about 10 million, then there are 31.4 million black adults in the US. 222 out of 31.4 million is still 0.000707%. In that sense, police are 4.44 times more likely to be killed by a black adult than the other way around. Let’s suppose we are only including black men, which represent 48% of the black adult population, and the majority of the offenders of police killings. This would be about 15 million persons. 222 out of 15 million is still 0.00147%. I think I am being overly generous with my statistics, but even in this scenario, police officers are still 2.13 times more likely to be shot by black adult men than the other way around.

The issues plaguing our black communities are many and they are serious, but let’s not place the blame on people and institutions to whom it doesn’t belong. The reality of the situation is that one of the top 10 leading causes of death in the black community is black on black violence. Certainly, there are reforms that can be taken place in policing; certainly there may be laws that are not adequately addressing the current struggles in black neighborhoods; certainly there is a very small percentage of people who believe that black lives do not matter. This does not mean that the society as a whole in which we live is propped up against the black community, nor should we feel the necessity to align ourselves with a Marxist organization in order to exact change in our communities. Instead, it will require more and better policing in disadvantaged neighborhoods and stricter laws regarding repeat offenders. It will require better schooling, more community policing efforts, and a change in the hearts and minds of the individuals living in those neighborhoods to true affect change. If we want to stop black people from dying; if we want to improve economic mobility in black neighborhoods; if we want to turn black neighborhoods into residential gold mines, we need to stop pointing the fingers at race and at the system and at other people and start addressing the root causes of these unfair outcomes.

Let me know what you think! Did I clean up this issue and wipe away the misinformation, or am I completely out of my mind with my head in the toilet? As always, feel free to leave a comment; just be respectful!

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tptruepolitics · 4 years

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Does anyone see anything wrong with this analogy? Find out what, and how misleading images like this are perverting the truth, this coming week on True Politics!

#BLM #alllivesmatter #political #toilet paper #libertarian #equality #fire #home #hose #houses #water #attention #problems #false analogy #analogy #blm analogy #cartoon

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tptruepolitics · 4 years

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Should Children Return to School in the Fall? If so, how so?

I am writing this in response to a popular opinion piece that is making its way around, where a father from Fairfax County VA explains why he believes that children should not return to school in the fall. This article is deeply flawed in many ways, and as it is gaining in popularity - it’s even posted on a doctors website - I felt compelled to write my own opinion piece in response, in order to set the record straight on many of the issues he addresses.

Here is one publishing of this opinion: https://morettiphd.wordpress.com/2020/07/12/one-parent-outlines-his-and-his-friends-choices-for-his-children-this-fall/

I will attempt to address all the points with which I have issue in some sort of an order. I do not have issue with all the points, however. So, suffice it to say that if I don’t mention it directly, I either make reference to it indirectly, or I don’t think it is incorrectly stated. To start off, I must address the main issue of the article first, as it informs the majority of the talking points. And there are two main issues with this point, so bear with me. Firstly, the number 302 is wrong.....by a factor of 100. The article states, and I quote, “Children only die .0016 of the time,” and continues to say, “[The] FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302.” So to start this explanation, I will begin with my assumption, which was that the article meant to read, “children only die .0016 percent of the time.” This was a point of contention with responses I received regarding whether the number was already converted to numerical form, or whether it was in a percent. And still there were some people quoting the number incorrectly as .016. When you read the article, it indeed says, .0016. So, assuming that would be a percent, we must calculate what number .0016% of 189,000 is. The number is 3.02, not 302. When reverse calculating percentages, you need to divide by 100 before you multiply by the total case number. For example, 20% of a 100 is not 2,000, it’s 20. Because when you calculate the percentage, you need to convert 20% to 0.20, and then multiply it by the total. 0.20 x 100 = 20. In short, no, 3 kids are at risk, not 302.

That however assumes that this .0016% is correct at all. This number can be found a few places: 1), the Wikipedia page, titled “Mortality due to COVID-19’, where it estimates the death rates of children based on cases from China. If we did not already undervalue the source, because it is Wikipedia, although I tend to trust Wikipedia more than it is often given credit for, we should be doubly skeptical of the data as its own source is one of the most dishonest governments in our world today. The second place one can find this is from a tweet from sports commentator, Clay Travis, dated July 6th, talking about the death rate of COVID patients who died under the age of 54. Assuming the death rate of COVID patients under the age of 20 would be even less than that for the state of Florida (and it is!), we already have two terrible sources for data that do not represent our population. The third source I have recently found is from an empirical study from Switzerland, attempting to find the infection fatality rate (IFR) for COVID-19 patients of all ages, and their IFR for ages 5-9 was .0016.

As far as the US is concerned at large, the way that the CDC is releasing its information about COVID deaths by age is poorly executed. For the rest of the world, and even most states, children’s deaths are being split into 2 or 3 categories, all ending at age 17, the last age before legal adulthood. This also happens to represent the majority of children in primary and secondary school systems. The CDC has decided to break from this norm and have a very odd age range from 15-24. This age range is skewing data, as far as school aged children are concerned and should be viewed with a healthy skepticism, as the older you get, the more susceptible to the virus and its effects you are. With that being said, from information on the CDC website, updated as of the week of July 11th, there have only been 188 deaths ages 0-24. While there is no specific information available currently about child infection rates, this represents 0.136% of the deaths (138,000) due to COVID. This data is likely skewed by the statistics coming out of New York (possibly 17), as they have had an unusually high number of deaths overall, mostly due to a combination of factors including how early on they were struck by the virus, lack of preparation, and overall lack of adequate responsiveness to the severity of the situation. As far as children under the age of 15, the death rates are even lower, marking only 33 deaths nationwide, which is 0.024% of COVID deaths in the US.

If we are looking to find an accurate number for death rates among children, there was one major study done in the US, cited by the CDC, dated in April, observing case rates, hospitalization rates, ICU rates and death toll. They examined about 150,000 cases of the virus. Of those cases, only 1.7% were child cases (2,571). Approximately 73% experienced symptoms. Of those that had symptoms, approximately 20% were hospitalized. And of those that were hospitalized, there were 3 deaths. In summary, 1.7% of the total cases were represented by children. 73% (1,876) of those had symptoms. That's 1.3% of the total number of cases. 20% (375) of those cases were hospitalized. That’s 14.5% of the child cases, but .25% of the total cases. The 3 reported deaths represent 0.8% of those hospitalized, 0.117% of the child cases, and 0.002% of the total number of cases.

I will not say that this research is definitive or even conclusive, but it does share a valuable piece of information with the reader: children are not dying of this virus at significant enough rate to close down schools. This is especially indicative of lower death rates among children, because testing has significantly increased since this study was done.

The death rate of children is the most important statistic to take away from this. And this is very close to the number given in the article above (way to go China!). But to calculate with the correct number for the above article, 0.002% of 189,000 is about 4. If we're talking about infection rate, then yes, it would be closer to 3,200. And if we're talking about hospitalization rate, about 643. But deaths are the minority, and the number we should be focusing on in my opinion.

Here is some additional data from the US: Massachusetts with over 8,300 deaths has had 0 under the age of 18. California has had 0 deaths in that same age range. Florida appears to have had 2-3 deaths in that age range. New Jersey, 2. Texas, 0. Internationally, the entire country of Canada has had only 1 death under 18, with a case count of almost 8,000 child cases.

I think the most important source for data on how children are faring with Coronavirus is the data coming out of Sweden. Some people have commented that the statistics involving children and COVID in the US and other nations are not entirely reliable, because the US and most other nations shut down their schools as a precaution to ensure the safety of their children. In this way, it is unfair to compare the common flu, which kills between 50 and 250 children each year, to coronavirus as we have not experienced a “flu-like season” with COVID. This article even claims that children were not experiencing an accurate number of caseloads as compared to adults, because the schools were shut down early. First of all, this is a ridiculous misrepresentation of the facts. NYC announced they would close down schools March 15 and non-essential businesses on March 20. That’s a period of five days. That’s not a huge difference. By March 25, there were over 17,000 confirmed cases, and almost 200 dead. The virus had been spreading long before they shut down the schools or the businesses. There was a spike in cases across the board; essential work related groups being affected the most. Police, EMTs, doctors, they all started to see increased cases after that; much more than the rest of the population. Non-essential workers also saw a spike, lesser, but still a spike, where children did not see such a dramatic uptick. Children were also at home with their parents, from whom they may have contracted the virus. If children were so vulnerable to this virus, wouldn't it make sense that if the parents had it, they'd pass it to their kids? The numbers don't say they did, though. And when they did pass them on, the children only exhibited mild to no symptoms, with certain exceptions. Also, as has been pointed out, none of this is the case for Sweden. Sweden had largely left their schools open for the entire duration of the virus and has had only 1 death under the age of 20, with an infection count slightly under 4,000 for that same group.

I will get more specific. As far as infection rate goes, dated July 4th, so far, Sweden has had 76,000 (updated today) infections nationwide, which sounds low, but is actually about .76% of their population. As their testing continues to increase, this percentage should as well. The US has a little under 3.48 million cumulative cases, which sounds like a lot, but for a country that is 30 times larger than Sweden, it is only about 1% of our population, a similar number that is sure to rise with increased testing as well. And as we have increased our testing more than most of the world, we are likely to reveal more cases than other countries. So, statistically we have not reached the end of our term with the virus. But we are in par with other European countries. As for children (<20) Sweden has the data split into 2 groups, which I will show, and also combine. <9 is 441 cases, and 10-19 is 2,875. Collectively, 3,516, which is 4.62% of the coronavirus case pool (76,000). As Sweden continues to test, it is reasonable to assume that this number will go down collectively, as you can see in the data, the youngest children are much less represented. Of the general population though, 3,516 only represents 0.035% of the population at large (over 10 million). I think, especially since Sweden left their schools open largely, and Sweden is more likely to be completely transparent with their data than some other countries, we can look to Sweden for realistic infection data across the board. As far as hospitalization, so far I have only been able to find a statistic that tells me about intensive cases. Of the 76,000 cases in Sweden, only 2,484 have been sent to intensive care - a little less than 3.3% of cases. Of the total population, that is less than 0.025%. These numbers seem on par with the study you sent about the US cases and hospital records. It stands to reason that if hospitalization rates and ICU rates are that low all toll, then those for children, 90% of whom in the US have seen moderate to no symptoms at all, are lower still.

Now, to the point about trading children’s lives for a better learning environment: children (yes, children, I'm not including adults), are at less risk to corona than to the common flu. While, whoever said “the flu kills more people every year” does need to get their head checked, the majority of people aren’t saying such things. And worldwide, this virus is killing fewer children than the flu does, even on an average year. Remember, the flu kills between 50 and 250 children in the US alone per year, and flu season runs right through our normal school year. We don't shut down school for flu season. As a matter of fact, no one has even proposed shifting the school year to times of year that would lower the risk of kids to flu exposure. It’s not even an agenda, because that would be insane! Certainly, we have shut down schools for outbreaks of the flu, but those are exceptions, not the rule. We don’t have these types of responses for other instances where are children are at increased statistical risk. Younger drivers are notorious for getting into the most car accidents. We don’t refuse to let our children learn how to drive until they are 30. Why don’t we? They could easily take public transit and ride services when we are unavailable to drive them ourselves. Why aren’t we protecting our children from this dangerous activity? The reason is that the risk is worth it for the potential benefits. Young adults often need to go places that public transit can’t take them. Lift services are expensive and sometimes a bit shady. The independence of driving on their own allows them to learn valuable life lessons and enhances their freedoms. We take risks every day as we take our kids out of the home, more often than not, not so heavily calculated, because if we did the calculations like we're doing here, we'd be afraid to take our kids into the bathroom for fear of drowning in our tubs! I reject the sentiment that exposing our kids to these risks makes society or parents unreasonable, irresponsible or bad. It makes them understanding of the world around them. Children can't grow without taking risks. Undue risks, when presented, certainly must be mitigated as much as possible, but this is not one. If my child dies of the flu, I won’t be marching around advocating for school term rearrangements. Likewise, the coronavirus and its minimal risks to our children shouldn’t terrify us into mediocrity for our educational system. So, no, no one's children are being sacrificed; no one need volunteer their children for the proverbial chopping block of COVID. Stop fear mongering, because it's useless and cruel to your children

I have a few points on the objectivity-absent terminology. "Released from the hospital" means exactly that. It implies, however, that you are no longer at such a severe health risk that you need to be monitored 24/7. "No longer infected" also means exactly what it says. No one has claimed there wouldn't be long-term effects of a virus that attacks you. When has anyone ever assumed that? Dozens of diseases have similar long-term effects even after infection has passed. Neither of these points, nor the anecdotes changes the fact that most people DO recover. Most people, who survive this virus, have little to no long-term effects. These people without long-term effects are the one who were less symptomatic to begin with, yes, but those are most people, I should specify. The fewer symptoms you have, the less likely you are to have long-term effects. The ones who are more likely to have long-term effects are also the ones more likely to contract and die from it. So, the older you are, the more likely you are to get, have symptoms from, and have long-term effects from said virus. Children, to reiterate, who are less likely to contract and have symptoms of the virus, are thereby even less likely to have any long-term effects. And children are the focus of this debate, no? Not adults? That's what I thought.

So, let’s talk about long-term effects in children. The only currently observed “long-term” effect in cases involving children is what is called Kawasaki Syndrome, originally known as pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome. This syndrome however, is extremely rare. To be clear, this particular condition is actually not classified as Kawasaki Syndrome, but Kawasaki-like in many ways. But for the purposes of this discussion we can treat them virtually the same. Kawasaki Syndrome is a condition that is uncommon in the world at large, affecting only children under the age of 5 at extremely low rates. Uofmhealth.org stated in an article, "The disease is rare, affecting 9 to 20 per 100,000 children under age five in the U.S. It’s more frequently diagnosed in Japan and among Asian-American populations." 9-20 per 100,000 children under the age of 5. In percentages, that's 0.009% - 0.02% of children under the age of 5. This is a very small subset of the population, and an especially small subset of the subset of children. So, it is exceedingly rare, but what about long-term, you might be asking. This same article (I'll put a link), tells us, “‘Early treatment usually prevents severe heart problems, and most children don’t experience long term health issues from Kawasaki disease, says Mott pediatric cardiologist Gabe Owens, M.D., Ph.D.’” I know the word "recover" has been under some scrutiny, but for this particular case, Kawasaki Syndrome has been around for a while, and doctors have been able to successfully treat it as long as it is caught relatively early on. So, when they say "recover", they mean it. The Kawasaki-like condition appears to develop as an immuno-response to COVID, as opposed to being a symptom of COVID. Here's the article link: https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/.../rare-covid-related... As far as the spread of COVID is concerned, children have been reported to not be significant sources of spread for the virus in multiple promising studies worldwide. I would actually like to defer this part of the discussion to an article that better explains this than me (very important, and short read): https://theconversation.com/yes-weve-seen-schools-close-but-the-evidence-still-shows-kids-are-unlikely-to-catch-or-spread-coronavirus-141445 I think a lot of the media is downplaying the significance of the studies listed in this article. This indicates that if you should chose to send your children to school, that there will not be a significant risk in your children bringing the virus home with them should you have vulnerable people living at home. There are certain populations where they have multiple generations living at home. For these families, perhaps it would be better if the parents opted to keep the children home for Zoom classes. Grandparents, if they are capable can be a relief of stress in that they can help out with the students’ classwork without significantly impacting the work schedules of the parents. This would be an “air on the side of caution” mitigation of any risk to their grandparents. As for teachers, I have said this before in this thread, but I don't want to make you search for it. Despite the evidence that suggests that children are at a low risk for transmitting the disease, I still think it would be responsible to keep our teachers safe. My proposal for this is actually very simple. Students will attend school as usual. Some communities may feel safer reducing the number of students in a classroom, that's fine. Another good idea is increased hand washing with specific times for it. Masks are unreasonable and far less likely to effective in children as it is, and that is despite their already low propensity for infection and symptoms. As far as socialization goes, given that children are far less likely to contract the virus, far less likely to have symptoms of the virus, and far less likely to die from the virus, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, yes, children should be allowed to socialize normally. They should be able to sit at lunchroom tables together, play on the playground together, and sit in the classrooms in regular seating arrangements. No sharing your Lunchables, but overall I think the student experience should be relatively normal. For the teachers, though, we don't want them needlessly exposing themselves, especially if they are not willing to expose themselves or others. Instead, for those teachers that are unwilling or unable to attend the class in person, a teacher’s assistant (younger than 25 to reduce risk) will proctor the class and monitor their behavior and guide them through activities and assist with classwork. The teachers themselves can be Zoomed in to administer the class from a safe distance. That way all the students are able to learn in a healthy and productive environment and our teachers stay safe. This may cost a little more money from the state as far as educational budgets are concerned, but I believe it is a fair and reasonable compromise for our teachers and students that does not compromise anyone's health or the students’ quality of education in any serious way.

Comparing classroom environments to conference rooms or retail workspaces is intellectually dishonest.

This is a serious flaw in this logic. If you asked a bunch of adults if they want to get in conference rooms together for 45 minutes, of course they’re going to say no. Adults (meaning older ages) are far more likely to be affected by COVID than children. That would be an unreasonable risk in the scenarios when the exact same job could be done from home. As for retail, neither classrooms nor conference rooms are more dangerous than retail work environments. This was a ridiculous contention. Let me explain something about retail. Supermarkets are retail, certainly. And yes those rooms are huge, and most stores have a capacity limit on current shoppers. With the exception of Supermarkets and department stores, most retail stores are small. Some are no bigger than a small lecture hall. Some are smaller than classrooms. I'll tell you, it is NOT a job you want during a pandemic. Nevertheless, none of those factors matter to the virus. Retail workers handle money (germs), rewards cards (germs), touch surfaces (germs) and actually have to breathe from time to time (germs). Gloves? Well, they aren’t fool proof. They rip and need to be changed. Not changing gloves frequently enough is common. Touching surfaces without gloves can happen. Constant washing of hands and wearing gloves makes skin raw, and it can crack and develop cuts, which could increase the risk of infection. Thankfully, the virus isn’t known to transfer from surface contact as much. We have those social distancing procedures and Plexiglas in front. Have you been in a store in the past 3 months? The 6ft guidelines are regularly broken due to crowding, asking questions, and people just passing each other. The Plexiglas: it’s a spit guard. Spit guards protect people from spit…that’s it. They are NOT effective at reducing the spread of infection except in instances where people are spitting on you, but as long as you’re wearing a mask, that shouldn’t be a problem anyway. As a matter of fact, the CDC states that personal face shields are virtually useless against the spread of infection. So, what’s the main issue? Well, customers come and go, sure, but the nano-particles that they leave behind stay in the building long after they leave. So, when one hundred customers come in and leave, and the next hundred come and leave, and the next hundred come and leave, the nano-particles from the first group are still there. Now you have the nano-particles of 300-400 people in this environment, floating around possibly inflecting others. This is especially true in air-conditioned environments without outside air recirculation. Nano-particles are sometimes capable of remaining in the air for 8 hours after their host leaves. So, this brings us to the masks! Everyone is on the mask craze. You’re stupid if you don’t wear one and you’re saving the world if you do. How much of this is actually true? Well, the CDC has research about the masks and the various materials being used to make such masks, and how they perform, comparatively. They concluded that homemade masks have the "potential" to lower the risk of contracting COVID. That's a paraphrase, but the word "potential" is used specifically, because they are not fool proof. I read up about these, because I wanted to understand what type of risks I'm encountering. The evidence is scary. Unless you have a mask without any gaps (a tight fitting mask), most of the homemade masks are only between 10 and 45% effective at reducing the chance of infection within the margins of error, depending on the material combinations. There are possibly 3 combinations that are effective enough to significantly reduce the chance of infection, but most masks are not made up of these combinations. Additionally, when there are gaps in your mask, even of the smallest size, the efficiency rate for all the masks, no matter the material goes down below 40%. Even N95 masks – yes, the most famous masks in the world, now – and other surgical masks go down to a 60% effective rate, if they are not worn properly or are not properly fitting. All in all, the average mask is feel good effort at best in most circumstances. This is not an argument against wearing them. Certainly, most masks of any material are effective at preventing macro droplets from escaping, and that is significant enough, but we should not fool ourselves into a false sense of security. So, children have an extremely low chance of dying from COVID, an extremely low chance of contracting it, and an equally low chance of passing it to others. However, a retail worker may ordinarily have an increased chance of catching COVID due to their working conditions and regular interactions with the general public. Now, if a retail worker is older, they are more likely to experience adverse effects, which make my point for me, but let’s say they’re younger: 16 – 25. Many workers in that age range, live with their parents. They may even be asymptomatic, but are likely to be carriers to their parents, who are at higher risk and have a higher probability of death. All of a sudden, retail doesn’t sound so safe, now does it? I'd say comparing retail jobs and schools reveals that they’re not even close in risk level.

Some people have attempted to brush off COVID as not as dangerous or not that important, which as you can tell from the extent of the research I’ve done, those are contentions with which I do not agree. We can all appreciate the severity of the issue at hand and still come up with different solutions to the problems we face.

This article has made mention of a few of these ridiculous brushoffs, and I don’t think they accurately represent the majority of the population and weren’t appropriate to include, but I will address them anyway.

"People get sick" Well, for my part, I don't mean other people. I mean me. Yeah, I get sick. You get sick, we all get sick. It's a fact of life. While this uncultivated statement grossly underplays the current situation (a point I will concede), I fail to understand how it truly relates to the topic. Frankly, I'm not looking for an explanation. I understand that it's something some dunderhead mentioned and you took it as an explanation for why they didn't care about other people. It sounds really good to retort in a rant, but it's not really relevant. I think a more accurate and more sensitive point would be that spreading the virus to those less vulnerable helps us on the path to herd immunity. That was the initial goal, right? The more people who get "sick" and are less susceptible to symptoms, the better the situation is actually. I put sick in quotes because asymptomatic people can hardly be considered sick, and can only be noted because of carrier status. So, allowing our children to contract the virus when they are least vulnerable instead of waiting on some unknown day to come when we might have a vaccine when they also might be more vulnerable. . . That's just bad parenting, honestly. If my son at age 7 has a 0.002% chance of death by contracting a virus. But he may contract it at age 38 if we never have a vaccine, and by then he may have a 6% chance of death for example, then...yeah! I'm willing to risk him getting it now! The odds only get worse with time! So, more aptly put, people will get sick eventually. Our children will come in contact with this virus more likely than not. Wouldn’t it be wiser to risk their exposure when they are in their least vulnerable demographic?

"I'm not going to live my life in fear"

Well, this is another innocuous statement that really doesn't bear too much weight on the argument at hand, but watch me twist it to my favor since the writer decided to. You're right, children don't have the luxury of whether to live in fear or not. They live in fear of many things already: spiders, the dark, loneliness, bullying, etc. Why add something else to the list when we don't need to? Children have no chance of dying from a common house spider – none; it’s a common house spider – but they fear them. Do you encourage that irrational fear? If you do, you are perpetuating a fear that need not exist. Children have virtually (I said virtually) no chance of dying from COVID either. Do you terrify them with stories of other children dying from the flu? No? They are more likely to die from it! Oh, you just tell them to wash their hands and not to lick doorknobs? Well, how irresponsible of you, no?

Why terrify our children from something that is less likely to harm them than the flu, when we don’t do the same for the flu? Once again, it’s fear mongering and it’s needless and cruel.

"I talked it over with my kids"

Well, this is something that the writer and I might agree on. I generally don’t believe that parents should defer to their children for any sort of life-altering decision-making. Although I can think of many concepts that some parents think are perfectly acceptable to heed the words of their children blindly, I digress. There is a decent point to be made with regards to talking to your children. I firmly believe that children are capable of handling hard truths. They are surprisingly resilient. Explaining the current situation and being honest about their risks and what they can do to mitigate them can have a profound effect on your children.

Lastly, I want to address more of the burdens – financial, mental stress, emotional turmoil – in a community. This is the last factor I'm talking about because I want to show I am putting life before quality of life.

One main reason why going completely virtual in the classroom is a bad idea, is that there are many reports of students NOT attending these virtual classes, and even when they are, they are not focusing. Now, maybe there can be mitigations and improvements made to the system to ensure proper learning. Yes. Fine. Wonderful. But where are these ideas? Very few, if any, seem to be addressing them!

The most pressing issue concerning children returning to school are parents. Parents, who may also be working from home at the moment, are unable to babysit their children to make sure they do assignments and make sure they pay attention during class. Some students are turning in "completed" assignments, assuming the teachers aren't actually checking them, but that they are only checking that the assignments are "completed". So, the point saying that children don't want to go back to school is actually true. Most children aren't really a huge fan of school at all, having been a child myself at one point, having child friends, and understanding children in general having worked with them before. Although, my anecdotal evidence is by no means proof, all you need to do is consult a survey of children's favorite subjects and notice gym or recess being listed most to understand this concept. So, when they get to stay at home and pretend to learn and go along with the motions to make a teacher who isn't there happy, I'd say, yeah, they're having their cake and eating it too. But in your own words, “the concept of adults effectively deferring this decision to children, the same children who will continue to stuff things into a full trash can rather than change it out” is asinine. “Kids are not mature enough for this moment.” (also you). And you’re right. They need constant guidance and discipline in the form of a classroom environment. And now, despite presuming that all parents have the type of freedoms and personal time to dedicate hours on end to their children’s education while working from home, to add insult to injury, are we to assume that when parents go back to work, and they undoubtedly will eventually, you are suggesting that they will magically have the ability to be in two places at once? Who will watch their kids from home? Should the schools stay closed and virtual classrooms are the new normal for the foreseeable future, this could bring unnecessary financial burdens on families who do not have the luxury of staying home with their children on a normal basis. Families in lower income brackets have been out of work largely for months, and although the federal and state governments have been compensating them, as they should, this is not sustainable for the foreseeable future. If both parents need to work in order to support their families but one is forced not to because they have to watch their children, who does that disproportionately affect: low-income, inner city, blue-collar workers. Nannies are not an option, because they would offset any of the additional wages made by the second parent going back to work. These are the parents that cannot work from home: retail workers, salons, movie theaters, many waitresses and waiters that have been furloughed due to the virus, which account for the lowest income brackets. If they are forced to keep their children at home, they will be unable to leave their houses as well, reducing their incomes. Where will this extra money come from? The government cannot be expected to adequately compensate these parents. The government can hardly be expected to adequately do anything. Not to mention, that would increase taxes in these neighborhoods and across the country astronomically. Instead, increase the budget slightly to support the increased precautions in our education system, allowing students the chance to go back to school and parents the opportunity to get back to supporting their families. So, yes, open schools to their full abilities, giving parents the option to keep their kids home if they are truly worried about their safety or the safety of older generations in the household. Also, give teachers the option to Zoom into the classroom with a young teacher’s aide assisting in the classroom to ensure their personal health. For the rest of the population, getting back to a certain level of normalcy wouldn’t just be a welcome relief from this nightmare, but a responsible and compassionate option for those in our communities who need the resources of education, time, and opportunity the most. And I haven’t even mentioned how many experts are concerned about domestic violence incidents increasing and not getting reported. Or the rising fears of suicide rates increasing. While there is no way to know at the current time whether these fear will bear fruit or not, they are worth mentioning nonetheless.

To address one final point: this person has said they presume no expertise, and I commend the honesty in that regard. However, claiming you are not an expert does not diminish the effects or reach of your opinion. No matter your good intentions, people like you are flooding the information pool with mere conjecture instead of fact-based evidentiary propositions. Your ideas are nothing more than how you “feel” about the situation, but many people will read your words and see them as common sense arguments, with which they may make irreversible decisions on account of their child’s education. They will assume that you are making your statements based on at least some knowledge of the situation. It appears however that they would be misled, as most of your points are baseless, emotionally charged, or simply irrelevant. Is it their fault that they do not pursue the actual data? I will say no, because with such a flood of misinformation and differing sources of credibility, it is becoming exponentially difficult to weed out the good from the bad. Opinion pieces like this – uninformed and emotionally charged – are not the exception, but largely the rule from what I’ve seen. It’s about time that people who claim “no expertise” leave the debate to those who do claim expertise. This will allow the flood of information, muddied by emotions and good-intentions to be reduced to a trickle of well-researched, well thought out, level-headed and credible sources. I hope you appreciate all the thought I have put into this, as I truly believe it is the best way forward for everyone.

As always, let me know if I missed anything. Tell me what you think? Am I dead wrong (pun intended), or have I finally wiped the crap off this issue? Until next time!

#children #covidー19 #covid19 #coronavirus #US Schools #fall semester #teachers #death rate #pandemic #toilet paper wars #sweden

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