IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Just a reminder that anybody who feels like doing so can scroll back in the thread a bit to see who said what.
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Government Response To The Coronavirus (7 Viewers)
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Rich Conway
Footballguy
Disagree, but willing to look at any links you wish to provide, Disclaimer: When I write "the left", I'm generally referring to mainstream left, not, say, Maxine Waters or Joy Reid.
If the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee and a Prime Time Cable News host aren't mainstream enough for you, then why even bother?
This is the No True Scotsman fallacy on steroids.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
I know how this game is played. I provide a link, and it either gets parsed to death or, if it can't be parsed, it gets written off as a single isolated example.
I was there for this. I've been extremely active in the main covid-19 threads here and in the FFA. I know how this went. Trump and some Trump-adjacent people floated the idea that maybe it's not just a coincidence that a worldwide pandemic stemming from a bat coronavirus just happened to begin blocks away from a major virology lab that studies bat coronaviruses. That triggered the #Resist types to dig in and commit themselves to the position that no, covid must have jumped from some animal host to humans probably in a wet market because otherwise Trump might accidentally be right about something and that would be impossible. Remember, this is back when you guys were freaking about about Trump calling it the "China virus" or "Kung Flu" or whatever other stupid names Trump came up with. It was really important to you that China not be involved in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, lest Trump "win" a really dumb argument. That was why your reasoning was so strongly motivated.
Now Trump is out of office and those same folks are waking up to the fact that there's a lot of circumstantial evidence in support of that theory, and how they're pretending that they've always been at war with Eastasia.
Here's an article from Jonathan Chait -- not a Trump fan to put it mildly -- that lays this out. The reason why people like Chait are able to keep this sort of thing straight while other people aren't is because while Chait is a lefty, he's not tribal. He's more interested in being right than he is about sticking it to Trump. (Not that Chait is never wrong about anything of course, but I would probably take his track record over anybody who writes for the NYT op-ed page).
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sho nuff
Footballguy
Because they are not representative? I mean, Maxine Waters says a lot of really dumb things that aren't indicative of "the left". Same for Joy Reid. She is a fringe talking head at this point and not representative of the whole.
Especially when people then use "the left" to take shots at people here.
sho nuff
Footballguy
But that isn't just what Trump was criticized for either Ivan. I think you know that too. Yes...there is some of what you are saying that went on. Id bet the vast majority was the reaction to him more so claiming it was created there (and the negative connotation being with nefarious intent of creation...as it says right there in that article)..and blathering on about punishing China. And how it was used to deflect from our own response to the virus here. That was a large part of it...do you agree?
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If you asked someone to provide an example of mainstream right-wing thought and they responded with quotes from Sean Hannity and Louie Goehmert would you accept them as evidence or reject them on the same grounds?
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
sho nuff
Footballguy
If they aligned with mainstream thought. Sure...but all we have to do is go with what Trump says. And that Gohmert is in line with him.
But no...I don't think Gohmert saying something alone with Hannity would be labeled as "the right believes this". Nor should it be.
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
This is exactly what I'm talking about. "SARS-CoV-2 escaped from WIV" is an empirical statement that is objectively either true or false. We don't know whether it's true or false, and it's possible that we'll never know with certainty. But we can be 100% confident that the truth or falsity of that statement is completely independent of anything Trump said or did. The fact that you're conflating those things and acting as if Trump's blathering has anything at all to do with the actual origins of covid-19 is how people lapse into motivated reasoning.
sho nuff
Footballguy
Your own article that you brought up does that. But part of the problem is that Trump was involved in it...the pushback came not just over what he had stated or how he stated it...but that it was used as a distraction from his own mess.
We can discuss it independent of Trump...but lets also understand where the pushback came from. It was multi-fold...a pushback against his rhetoric...as well as what we were being told by trusted people in science and the intel community about the origins.
The need to take shots at posters and "the left" wants to ignore some of that.
Sure...lets discuss the origins...lets do it without..."I was wronged by this person or this person on the left over it".
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
I agree with 99% of this.
While you may not believe this, from following this topic very closely all along too, my read was that people were objecting to assertions being made without facts. “It came from China, the Chinese did this to us” was the narrative.
I won’t speak for others, but all I’ve wanted is facts and investigation (which take time....) to find out the truth. That’s it. IMO it was irresponsible to have a powerful figure standing in front of the world and shouting narratives without proof, prior to the investigation. That’s just my view. And that doesn’t mean I’m averse to hearing the truth — OR that I want Trump to be wrong. It doesn’t even remotely mean that.
The Commish
Footballguy
To this point "SARS-COV-2 was created in WIV" is an empirical statement too, but we still get parsing of what "created" means in these threads. I honestly couldn't tell you what the majority of MSM in this country said about that story. Most of my info came from Reuters and BBC and they ALWAYS made a distinction in scenario that I tended to agree with. People may not care about that distinction, but to me it's important. One scenario is a major ####up that screwed the world for a long time. The other is a plot against the world that succeeded in screwing us up for a long time.
And I as I said above, I am absolutely confident that people rejected Trump's assertion flat out because he said it. I guess to that point, it doesn't matter if he meant "created" or "escaped"...they'd reject it outright and that might be your point, but we don't lump those people in with those who rejected what he said because the distinction matters.
I already provided you a link - written by a Liberal who does a mea culpa. https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/783982-government-response-to-the-coronavirus/?do=findComment&comment=23408376
This isn't even debatable.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
This thread and the last few pages are why a lot of politicians were mostly a failure with Covid - they turned this whole thing political and instead of bringing Americans together to fight one of the worst events in our history they decided to take it as an opportunity. It's great seeing Americans argue about this still. /sarcasm
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Our elected officials did an atrocious job with covid-19. But it's important to note that it was the MSM who felt compelled to dunk on Trump, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, and others at every possible opportunity. Nobody forced them to do this -- they did it voluntarily.
Just keep in mind that the same media who spent the last year lying to you about this particular story probably hasn't been 100% truthful on all the other stories.
Nothing has changed factually. The genetic fingerprints were there the whole time. As was said in The Big Short, "All it took was someone to look." The only fact that emerged more clearly later on was the formal release of the US Intelligence Report that three people at the WIV were hospitalized with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019. But I was hearing about that throughout 2020, so it was out there - just not confirmed by the US Government. Oh and by the way - that US Intelligence Report was released in January of this year and received very little press. For some reason people only took notice after the Wade piece and the Wall Street Journal article the other day.
So what does this highlight? Once again - the media not doing its job. Anyone could have written the Wade piece in 2020. The media didn't investigate it because it didn't fit their narrative.
Very few people said that this was an intentional release by the Chinese. Maybe Trump implied it with a poorly worded statement, but that idea was never really put forth with any vigor. What was put forth was that it was a lab leak.
And by the way - people in here are still arguing that this wasn't "created" in the lab. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that is was created in the lab through gain of function. I know Liberals love to play word games. If they want to call it "altered" instead - fine. Win that dumb battle but let's at least acknowledge that this virus didn't naturally evolve, because there is ample proof that it didn't. And this is a crucial fact, because it truly means that this was a man-made disaster from start to finish. We f'd with Mother Nature, and as usual the laws of entropy prevailed. We need to learn from this, but we can't because people would rather argue about the nuances of the word "created".
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belljr
Footballguy
Who gives a #### if it was from a lab or not. We know it was from China and they should be held responsible.
The fact that it started in a lab vs a open market doesn't change the fact we handled this like ####.
Eta: obvious we should care if it was some type of weapon research
The fact that it started in a lab vs a open market doesn't change the fact we handled this like ####.
Eta: obvious we should care if it was some type of weapon research
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Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
Right, there are four levels of claims as far as culpability/nefariousness of China:
1. virus emerges naturally in wet market
2. virus is collected and brought back to lab, infects workers in collection or at lab
3. virus is manipulated at lab, accidentally escapes
4. virus is intentionally created as bioweapon and released
I'm not going to dig up the receipts, but I read several msm pieces around the time of Trump's statement, and there was a lot of chest-thumping and debunking of #4, which virtually no one was claiming. Some went after #3 a little bit, although one's definition of "manipulation" could come into play there as well. These pieces tended to conclude that #1 must be true, despite never actually really engaging with #2 or the milder version of #3.
The Commish
Footballguy
People want to pretend there is nuance to the word "create". There isn't. Just like there isn't much wiggle room in the word "altered". Those words have SIGNIFICANTLY different meanings. And I agree we need to learn from this...agree 100%. If this got out of a lab that's the part I am concerned about. There are thousands of various viruses under study all over the world right now to see how they would impact the world should they make a jump and in order to do that, they have to be altered and when they are altered there's always a risk. That particular kind of study doesn't bother me primarily because I'm aware of the steps well over 99% of them go through to keep us safe. We KNOW what has to be done to keep people safe it's just a matter of doing it.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
I’m perfectly fine blaming the media for their role - I focused my post on politicians because this is the Government response thread. You won’t find me defending MSM (or watching it). But, I don’t care as much about that. We don’t elect MSM to do a job.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
There are a handful of labs in the US -- most (?) of which are located on college campuses -- that do research similar to the kind of research done at WIV. It seems prudent to reevaluate the cost-benefit tradeoff of that research if this pandemic was actually the result of an accidental lab leak.
People who read The Stand in high school think that research on dangerous pathogens takes place in secret government bunkers, or maybe in the deep recesses of some CDC facility or something. That's not true. Colorado State University has a BSL4 lab. Knowing that school, my assumption is that they use that lab for things like hoof and mouth disease as opposed to Ebola, but the point is that these things exist in very run-of-the-mill locations.
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Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
The MSM was out to influence the election, which they accomplished their goal. We, as a nation, seem to have issues with those that influence elections.
belljr
Footballguy
Ok that is a valid point.
However, that is not the message from either political party.
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
Agree to disagree on the bolded. This was implied in a lot of circles. Either way, China screwed up massively including by covering this thing up initially.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Yep. #4 is ludicrous, and lots of people dunked on it as a way of weak-manning/straw-manning #2 and #3.
Doug B
Footballguy
Yep. Fort Detrick in Maryland had been one of the world's leading centers for pathogen research for over 70 years ... and even there:
Research into deadly viruses and biological weapons at US army lab shut down over fears they could escape (The Independent, 6/8/2019)
Army germ lab shut down by CDC in 2019 had several 'serious' protocol violations that year (WJLA - ABC TV [Washington D.C.] 1/22/2020)
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
Fair enough. I personally don't remember coming across that claim, but I'm sure there are places where it made the rounds. Despite it making no sense, as if you were going to release an engineered bioweapon you wouldn't release it first in your own country and hope it spreads to your enemies. I mean, I'm not sure even Stalinist Russia would value their citizens' lives so little as to have that be the "plan".
Doug B
Footballguy
To be fair ... A LOT of people commenting on this (think more social media and fringey media, less Reuters, AP, etc.) threw all of #2-4 into the same hat. It's happening in this thread even now when people say they don't care, specifically, about how it came to be and how it got out of the lab.
IMHO, if the nation of China collectively bears a COVID sin ... the January-February 2020 cover-up and obfuscation was a much bigger offense. That kept the rest of the world on their back foot for an extra two months when brief (if perhaps draconian) actions had a legitimate chance of stopping COVID cold a la SARS and MERS.
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
Yeah, no disagreement. It’s insane to think it would make sense. Stalin might have done this though.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
Agreed. I rejected the bioweapon conjecture simply for all the reasons stated before. However, I also dismissed the "lab leak" conjecture because I didn't know some of these claims before. I think it is absolutely possible that the SARS-CoV 2 virus was studied (and maybe even manipulated) in a lab and that a lab leak occurred, which caused the pandemic. This would be a real tragedy (even beyond what it already is) if true. We humans inflicted this plague upon ourselves.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
I don't think that's a valid claim at all. There is no proof that the media is lying to the people on this. There was little evidence other than happenstance when this whole thing broke. The links between WIV and SARS-CoV-2 were downplayed by the experts and the media reported this. Were the experts lying? Maybe, but it's also quite possible they didn't want to make claims that couldn't be backed up with any data.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
Dude, it's what they do. And they do it fairly well too. This is a glaring reason why freedom of speech to criticize the government and whistleblower protections are vital for a democracy. China doesn't want any of that.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
I think some of the reticence by liberals to acknowledge Chinese wrongdoing is because we are fearful that doing so will give Trump supporters a license to both: 1) let Trump off the hook for his terrible Covid response and 2) be racist against Asian people.
This is similar to all of us vaccinated liberals insisting on mask requirements because we don’t trust unvaccinated Trump supporters to act in their own interests and mask up.
In both instances my pro-nanny state instincts go into hyperdrive because I’m dealing with Trump supporters. I need to dial back that instinct just a little but building trust is hard.
This is similar to all of us vaccinated liberals insisting on mask requirements because we don’t trust unvaccinated Trump supporters to act in their own interests and mask up.
In both instances my pro-nanny state instincts go into hyperdrive because I’m dealing with Trump supporters. I need to dial back that instinct just a little but building trust is hard.
It’s documented that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were doing gain-of-function experiments designed to make coronaviruses infect human cells and humanized mice. This is exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS2-like virus could have emerged. The researchers were not vaccinated against the viruses under study, and they were working in the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 laboratory. Biosafety level 2 is the equivalent of a standard US dentist’s office.
Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
Maybe "lying" is too strong a claim, but "naive credulousness" definitely works, maybe "willful ignorance" or worse. They are journalists and are supposed to vet claims, particularly by people that are known to have an agenda. Printing "China denies" as if it is some sort of meaningful data point is not good journalism. Did they expect them to say "oh yeah our bad sorry for unleashing terror upon the world"? If the claims about the US funding WIV coronavirus research are true, then the claims from US experts should have been dug into a lot more deeply as well as they would have just as much incentive as China to deny.
But you see this a lot in modern journalism - taking press releases from interested parties and passing them off as authoritative. I'm not sure what the solution is as probably the root cause is there is no funding mechanism for good journalism.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
Jeez the labels are just terrible. But you're worried about someone being racist by using the phrase China Virus?
Osaurus
Footballguy
So many possibilities for cause all directly or indirectly resulting from humans.
Or the experts had funded the WIV and their gain of function work. Or there are a lot of wealthy and powerful people in the US that are in bed with China. Like I said above - the genetic evidence (the crime scene fingerprints) was always there. Conservative politicians and news outlets advanced the lab leak their all along. The liberal msm ridiculed the idea and didn’t do any meaningful investigatory work on it. Sorry, but that’s just the facts. You guys can sugar coat it but it’s all right there on the record.
Surprising and refreshing honesty. How long until you guys start thinking clearly again? Serious question.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
Maybe by the people in the WIV, but at the outset of the pandemic, I don't think it was definitively known that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was studied in the WIV before the outbreak. Is that definitely established now?
The Z Machine
Footballguy
Maybe when conservatives start getting vaccinated at levels that support herd immunity, say 65%+.
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
Some great points in here. One of my favorite writers/journalists is Jon Lee Anderson. I like him partly because he writes things like "official XYZ in China denies this, but I don't have any way to corroborate this; rather, it's the official response being offered up." (I'm botching his much better writing style, but you get the idea) Frankly, I think a lot of journalists have become lazy because they are in a rush to get a story out to beat the "news" on Twitter. Just my two cents.
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