Posted on 04/06/2020 2:31:42 PM PDT by Ozguy1945
When President Lincoln told America that America needed to give freedom to the slaves not everyone was ready to hear him.
https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2019/12/01/abe-lincolns-civil-war-xmas/
Honest Abe was right.
Because freedom is right.
Now Donald Trump has told America that America and America’s great sports are not built for lockdown.
Yes, this Coronavirus can kill many people. But while that happens many more can become immune.
But how much more debt can the American economy stand?
What happens to America, to Americans, to American freedom and to the world if American debt spirals out of control?
I dont know for sure.
Can anyone but God know that with certainty?
Of course not. That is why we must discuss it.
What I do know for sure is that I believe in freedom.
Please elect a president who shares that faith with me:
https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2020/02/07/one-minutes-silence-for-sotu/
Must?
I just checked the list of people that can give me orders.
You ain't on it, mate.
“What happens to America, to Americans, to American freedom and to the world if American *deaths* spiral out of control?”
There, fixed it for ya. Maybe surviving CV makes you immune to other strains. Or maybe it doesn’t. Although I am under 40 I’m not risking permanent lung damage based on a “maybe”. I’m not thrilled about being furloughed or losing money on the stock market but I can survive that a lot better than I can survive permanent damage to my health and an astronomical medical bill on top of it.
I also don’t recall too many Americans, even here on FR, being concerned about the deficit before CV hit American shores. If we had gone into this with a budget surplus rather a trillion dollar deficit we would be able to weather the coming depression better.
Here we go, you have kicked the lost cause Hornest nest.
Here we go, you have kicked the lost cause hornets nest.
I am 62.
My Coronavirus risks are higher than yours.
We each have a right to assess our own risk and state our own opinions.
Risk of Deaths and economic risks have to be weighed up against each other. Neither is an absolute.
Catatastrophic economic depression is possible if the lockdowns last long enough.
No lockdown can eliminate the virus or its future mutations which may be more virulent.
While I disagree with the current lockdowns and express that opinion, I abide by the current rules and do not advocate non compliance to others.
Sweden Japan and South Korea are not locking down the way other nations are and China is retreating from lockdowns.
Thanks.
I think Hornest is a wonderful word even if it is a typo.
Ron Paul cared.
It is a problem that cant be forgotten and I believe that should constrain sudden massive spending.
It isnt easy by any means.
What was that Reagan said about immortality on earth and government programmes?
Yes, Ron Paul and some conservatives cared but we were in the minority. Before all this CV stuff started I was telling other Freepers that we should be paying down the deficit since the economy was so good. They kept going on about how they needed their tax cuts. The Trump tax cuts actually raised my taxes a bit. I wasn’t crazy about that but I would have put up with it if it meant shrinking the deficit and reducing our reliance on China. Instead I watched as the deficit just grew and grew even after 11 years of economic growth. Where did all the money go? I don’t know. I wish to God I did but I don’t. And we held both the House and Senate until 2018 so clearly there are plenty of GOPers who didn’t mind the red ink. Now that we face a real national emergency, both health and economy-wise, and our reserves are dried up.
When this is over we need a national reckoning about our attitude towards money and debts, both private and public.
I’m 30 and on paper I’m in great health. However, a certain heart condition runs in my family. I was going to get tested for it but will have to wait until non-essential doctor’s appointments are allowed to resume. Also just about every cold I have ever had has turned into bronchitis. I actually got pneumonia when I was 11. Does that mean I have a higher risk of complications or death from this virus? I don’t know. I read about a healthy 30 year old baseball coach who died from CV. Doctors are speculating that some people produce less surfectant in their lungs and those people are the ones who have the most trouble breathing after a CV infection. If so, than age and certain health conditions are no longer the only risk factors.
The lockdown was never about stopping the virus entirely because that’s impossible until someone comes up with a vaccine. It was about flattening the curve enough that health care systems are not overwhelmed to the point where people who would have survived it die anyway because there are no ICU beds left for them.
CV could definitely be an exception but most viruses actually mutate to less deadly forms over time because killing the host is counterproductive to the virus’s reproductive success.
China is relaxing the lockdowns because the lockdowns did what they were supposed to do: flatten the curve. China is still getting new CV cases but their rate of increase is no longer itself increasing.
South Korea didn’t have to do a months-long shutdown because they aggressively tested their population from Day One of this thing. So they could just quarantine the CV-positive people and their contacts. Unfortunately we just have too many cases for that approach to be practical now. If we had started testing people back in January we could have done what South Korea did and the US economy, even NY, would already be back in business, but that’s not the world we live in.
The Japanese were bowing rather than shaking hands and wearing masks and the Swedes were standing far apart from each other before anyone ever heard of the coronavirus. So CV is spreading more slowly through those populations because ANY virus would spread more slowly through Japan and Sweden.
Deficit spending is an effect not the cause of our problems. The cause is as old as the hills:
Free people will eventually trade away their freedom, and empower a central authority, rather than make the hard sacrifices necessary to stay free.
Why will they do this? Because their great grandparents who suffered under the oppression of authoritarianism, and spilt blood to gain their freedom, are dead and gone, and the lessons they learned the hard way, are long forgotten.
If the monstrous size and power of the overreaching federal government was reduced to the scale and roles intended by the founders, and it’s awesome appetite for expansion kept in check by the Constitution, there could be no deficit or national debt.
Deficit spending is the least of our problems - all our problems arise from the wonton abandonment of Constitutional strictures that were meant to protect us from an all consuming central government.
Our political situation is bleak - wherein half the people and half the politicians are outspoken in their desire to disable the Constitution and remove any remaining limits on federal authority - exactly what the Founders sought to avoid!
It was never meant to be that way. We were meant to be free people, freely debating issues in the context of freedom - we were NOT meant to be debating whether or not to abandon the Constitution and give up our freedom in exchange for the false promises of socialism.
The Democrats are socialists who believe the Constitution is an obstacle to progress. The Republicans are (at best) fools, asleep at the switch, allowing themselves to be cheated.
President Trump is a rare visionary - let’s hope he can wake enough people up - not to reduce the debt - but to shrink the federal government to a tenth the size.
You wrote: “When this is over we need a national reckoning about our attitude towards money and debts, both private and public.”
If “this” ends in America defaulting on debts, that much needed national reckoning will be too late .........
Thank you for saying what needs to be said.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.