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Monday, March 16, 2020

The Courage Of Trump

Margot Cleveland has an excellent threadette on Twitter that illustrates Trump's courage--making a decision like this while the Impeachment Theater was still ongoing. She also exposes Dems:

THREADETTE: I'm reading House testimony re coronavirus and had NO IDEA how ballsy @realDonaldTrump decision to ban travel from China was! Apparently, the bureaucrats ran academic models on the scenario & those concluded travel should not be banned. Cuccinelli recommended 1/ 
2/ ban travel anyway, but told Trump what modeling said. Trump banned travel from China and saved untold number of lives. Tell me any Democrat would have made that call!! Now, how did I discover this? Well in testimony, Rep. Titus had this to say about Trump's lifesaving call:
3/ Rep. Titus then went on to say: "I think it probably was and this Administration has very little respect for anything intellectual. And this is yet another example."
4/4 This is an epic case of TDS: Rep. Titus condemns Trump for being anti-intellectual for making a better call than an academic model and saving American lives!! UN-FRICKIN'-REAL. 
Post-Twit: Also, I just saw C-Spans transcript was truncated: Her line was actually "Was that like bad politics as opposed to good science?" Also, has anyone seen it reported before the Trump rejected the academic model? 

16 comments:

  1. Because the reputation from academics has fallen to its lowest level ever, thanks to their idiotic behavior.


    Rob S

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  2. The decision is easy for people who operate in the real world, i.e. have authority and responsibility for the decisions they make (or don't make). Models have neither authority nor responsibility. Models are tools, they don't substitute for judgment.

    When the decision made relies on a model, and the model is wrong--who gets the blame?

    The criticism by Rep. Titus is the logical fallacy of an argument from authority--presuming the model has authority, when is doesn't. There's no real world experience, hence, no evidence of this novel coronavirus used to compile the model. Therefore, the current effects of the coronavirus are outside the parameters of the model--which makes the model invalid for this use.

    This is the drunk looking for his lost car keys under the street lamp because that's where the only light is...

    Rep. Titus appear to have the AOC disease--she doesn't know what she doesn't know. This helps explain so many of our troubles: politicians relying on so-called experts who don't understand their own limitations.

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    1. There's another problem begging for an explanation: politicians of that ilk getting elected, and reelected and reelected ...

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    2. Harry Callahan: "A man's got to know his limitations"

      - "Magnum Force"

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    3. Well Mark, that's the problem with democracy that Tocqueville identified: People voting themselves freebies by voting for the politicians who promise such.

      Second would be the lack of the public's engagement until something strikes at a vested interest. And who can blame the public? The signal-to-noise ration is so low it impedes rational discourse, much less an informed public on matters of the day. The best we get are competing narratives...

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    4. It does make you wonder about the future. Trump has been pretty steadfast in consistently taking the constitutional high road throughout his first term, and that seems to be his biggest offense in the eyes of the Deep State.

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  3. Replies
    1. “By 2020, we were supposed to be going around in flying cars. Yet here we are being taught how to wash our hands.”

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    2. Well, we finally have rockets that land, mostly, on it's base like a proper scyfy rocket should.

      That's something.

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  4. I tried to inject a bit of levity on this thread because otherwise I woud just be angry.

    Sadly, after I felt better (yeah, it's just about me ... not), I went to Instapundit and saw this post/link ...

    https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/in-defining-moment-san-francisco-to-order-residents-to-stay-home-over-coronavirus/

    The local SF police will be the one's enforcing it.

    Yes, SF has a large Chinese population. Has had one for a long, long time.

    While this ... may ... be needed there, it is just another step to what I fear may be coming to a city near you.

    This is the extreme that I fear and even what I know about this from Mark and other places, my firm belief is that this is the opportunity for totalitarians (aka Democrats mostly but Republicans are in the mix) to do what they have always wanted to do.

    Is my fear/cynicism misplaced?

    Maybe.

    Thing is, if this subsides with such drastic actions, there will be something else less threatening and less scary that will allow the authorities to exert such measures with less reasoning and justification.

    Such logic is evidenced with 9-11 and the Patriot Act.

    It is a fine line and distinction, but there is a point that it is hard to reverse if you can do it all.

    My issue in all this not reasonableness, but the lack of it.

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  5. Oh, I am a municipal over 16 year veteran cop in North Texas who, in a previous career and university training (University of North Texas) rode the dot com wave in projects that went worldwide. Sadly, none of my own inception.

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    1. Lastly, think of this entire Chinese Wihan flu this way ...

      You do not give into the fear and try to shop normally for your family, maybe with a few extras, a small few.

      You find out, though, store to store to store that many things are gone, wiped out. You go back, same, maybe even worse. You go back again, same etc.

      Why?

      Fear and for what?

      Yes, the exponentiality of this is potentially bad, but exponential real amount of fear is worse.

      We have a chance to do our nation that even the Great Depression could not do.

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    2. Our nation is far more vulnerable than before.
      The populace of the Depression era had much more trust in leaders of major institutions, than do folks nowadays (esp. in "red" America).
      And, folks then were much heartier than today's special snowflakes, what with their stupendously manipulative cows about microaggressions, etc.

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    3. Fear and for what?
      How about, fear of power-drunk Leftist politicians!

      With De Blasio's and Pritzker’s draconian power grab vs. restaurants, we can wager (unless the courts overrule theses orders), that these hacks and their pals will emulate Rahm’s famous remark, about not letting a Crisis Go to Waste.
      In particular, we can expect the Lefty Elites (esp. the politicians) to continue pushing ever-more draconian ploys, vs. the general populace (esp. small businesses).

      Like, when Stalin (effectively) quarantined the Kulaks (from food).
      What, if not the courts, would stop De Blasio and Pritzker from emulating him?

      What would stop Kim Fox's darling gangbangers, from (weeks from now?)jumping folks hauling normal loads of groceries toward their homes?
      At least now, gangbangers are still hesitating to jump such shoppers.
      Only in "red" parts of the country, can folks assume that local authorities will continue to eyeball such gangbangers.

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    4. Speaking of Stalin, see the Zman, on The Steely Truth Of Stalin, at
      http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=20069 :

      "We can quarantine the nation, in an effort to slow or even stop the spread of the virus....
      First off, it means the economy plunges into an unprecedented depression....

      There are real consequences to an economic collapse. Essential medicines stop being produced, and essential services cease to exist.
      A shortage of *insulin* would threaten millions in a month. The collapse would take the health care system with it, so millions would be at risk right away.
      The risk of civil unrest would threaten untold millions, mostly from local police (absence).
      We simply have no idea what such a collapse would do, in terms of death and destruction, because it is unimaginably horrible....

      When a ruler is faced with this sort of problem, it is not about saving one life. It is about preserving a people, and what makes them a people.
      A million deaths from the Chinese Flu is terrible, but it pales in comparison to the costs of preventing it."

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  6. So, is local police enforcing people to stay in their homes under threat of arrest is a good thing,

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