15 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

1. Have you actually seen the results of those trials or are we still waiting 75 years for the data to be released?

2. VAERS makes you more confident?  Just because I’m dumb and I need help from young people with the Internet, could you please reassure me about the safety of these vaccines by comparing the number of C19 adverse reaction reports to vaccines of the past? I’m sure the numbers are extremely low and this vaccine tests favorably so if you could help me out with that I’d really appreciate it.

3. You trust the CDC, I assume because their guidance has been so consistent throughout this pandemic.except….

4. The CDC is recommending masks but the UK (what I believe is part of your vaunted international community) just abolished mask mandates. The entities you report as trustworthy are in conflict with each other, which means you hold conflicting ideas simultaneously.  “Double think” is the official parlance for the phenomenon you are experiencing.  By the way Africa doesn’t give a fuck about the vaccine and seems to be doing about as well as anyone.  

5. of note on those billions of “safe and effective” doses: in less than a year the definition of “effective” changed from preventing acquisition of Covid to maybe, hopefully lessening the symptoms of Covid (although even that claim is an article of faith) and doing nothing to stop the spread.  Whatever your current definition of “safe,” be prepared for that to change.

look I get it man, you are a believer. More power to you for being honest about your total indoctrination. However, the official narrative is crumbling whether you see it or not, so I wrote the above for those other people who might be lurkers wondering if the anecdotes they’ve seen are isolated incidents.  To them I would say, believe your own experiences. This lie is falling apart, don’t give into the pressure of calling false things real and real things false.  
 

We all went along with the “experts” 1-2 years ago partly because we had to and partly because our default setting was trust the experts.  But suddenly gathering in crowds was OK as long as you were protesting for BLM but not OK to attend church.  Then the lab leak conspiracy grew into the most likely origin, and the people who seemed surprised by Covid and certain the origins were natural turned out to have illegally funded experimentation in a communist Chinese military hospital.  Then you got the vaccine, and got Covid afterwards like I did and wondered what the hell?  Then you saw healthy young people getting heart attacks and thought that seems weird but you were assured it had nothing to do with anything and is totally anomalous. Then we took our masks off for a few months then we put them back on and it made zero difference in terms of the trajectory of the virus.  Now they are telling you to get a booster or a second booster and plan to get boosters forever and plan to wear masks forever and you probably don’t like this world of vaccine passports and stewardesses shouting at you and do not see how the actions we have taken have made things better but everything is quantifiably worse.  When you speak up or mention it people shout you down, call you a Trumper or a science denier and you feel like something about this entire thing just isn’t right.  If this is you, don’t worry bro, the tide is turning.

 

 

You're right I'm just an indoctrinated blind believer.  
 

I should adjust my expectations to be more realistic like you.. that government agencies should be perfectly consistent in their messaging across two administrations over 2+ years, that the international community will be in perfect policy lockstep as they all independently respond to a pandemic, and that medications must remain exactly as effective as they were originally even for variants of a virus that didn't exist when the medication was being developed.  
 

Anything short of perfection on any of these topics is tantamount to a big government cover-up / conspiracy. 

13 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

THE TRIALS ARE RUN BY BIG PHARMA

Well if that's your big hang up just go ahead and avoid all medicines until the end of time. Because that statement holds true for every medicine that has ever entered your body.

1 hour ago, jrizzell said:

I’m not arguing any of those issues. I’m pointing out that we have mNRA “vaccines” that are not even a year into usage, and has morphed from a two shot series, into three, or four required. All the while, the Pharma companies, have legal immunity over injuries related to the administration or use of their products to treat or protect against Covid, until 2024. We have ZERO data on the long term affects of these treatments. You might trust Pfizer and Moderna, I don’t.

You're right to have a healthy level of distrust because the pharma companies definitely abused it in the past. But despite legal protections from the EUA, it's still in their financial interest to make a safe vaccine that works. I might not trust them but I trust the financial incentive.
 

There are multiple vaccine options on the market and if one is significantly less effective or safe than the others, word will get out and people will opt for a different shot or none at all. 
 

This government-pharma conspiracy to brush adverse effects under the rug simply isn't materializing in the real world. J&J literally had that problem, and it was pulled from the market (some even argued prematurely) while they investigated the blood clot issue. 

1 hour ago, jrizzell said:

I think they’ve got a good track record of being open and honest about the side effects of a drug which they’ve made billions off. I mean OxyContin “non-addictive” release was along time ago in 1996, I’m sure Big Pharma has changed since then…

Again, happy to check out literally any amplifying data on these supposed 800,000 neurological problems.  Until then I'll probably default to the stats VAERS, the CDC, and the worldwide medical community are reporting. 

2 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

“The experimental vaccines are safe and effective” is an extraordinary claim that you accepted at face value.   It’s so insane that your default is to believe big pharma.  We’ll see how well that ages.  

I don't accept that claim at face value. I do accept the controlled trials with tens of thousands of participants, the robust adverse effects reporting system, the CDC, the international community who aren't beholden to American pharma companies, and the billions of doses administered in the last year which all point to the vaccine being safe and effective. 
 

But maybe the 120 second video of rando lawyer claiming stats that don't even make sense while showing precisely zero causality is more legit. 

A few more:

If there's a conspiracy to cover up adverse effects why was J&J temporarily pulled out of an abundance of caution for blood clotting issues?

Are other countries seeing ten-fold increases in "neurological issues?" or 300% increases in cancer?

What kind of cancer?

These are some pretty basic questions I would expect anyone attempting to do their due diligence to ask. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not a 2.5 minute video utterly devoid of context or supporting data. 

20 hours ago, Sim said:

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/01/24/very-concerning-attorney-testifies-to-compiled-adverse-vaccine-reaction-statistics-provided-by-whistleblowers/

https://rumble.com/embed/vqlh63/?pub=264yz

 

I'd be really interested to see literally any amplifying data on these claims.  
 

Also I have a few tiny questions before we just take "the conservative treehouse" (very reputable news organization I'm sure) at face value.

-What was the sample size

-What were the sample demographics

-Which vaccine are we talking about

-What constitutes a "neurological issue" and if the military is approximately 2 million people are we saying almost half of them now have a neurological issue?

-What is the base rate of increase in these categories for unvaccinated people

25 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

So where’s the line? 

 

Probably somewhere between onesie twosie motorcycle accidents and an entire segment of the population (~30-40%) refusing basic covid mitigation measures.

1 hour ago, HeloDude said:

I wonder why the government doesn’t require motorcycle riders to wear a helmet and propped PPE?  Or perhaps, why not ban them all together?  

Because you can't spread motorcycle accidents by not wearing a helmet. 
 

But that isn't even what we're talking about. I've repeatedly said I'm opposed to civilian mask and vaccine mandates.  I'm opposed to almost all government nanny state interventions. The question was about risk and what I will accept in my own life.  

13 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

define risk. what's your tolerance?

Risk = a * b

a=probability of occurrence
b=severity of outcome if it occurs

Masks slightly reduce variable a.

Vaccines slightly reduce variable a and greatly reduce variable b.  Masks come with no inherent risk. The vaccines come with negligible inherent risk. 
 

So to answer your question, my risk tolerance corresponds to what is easily available to me to mitigate that risk.  I will not intentionally accept higher risk than I need to.  I've never been in a car crash in my whole life, but the risk of not wearing a seatbelt is intolerable to me because it costs nothing and massively reduces variable b. 

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

Who cares? That's their risk to take.

Except that if you are operating on incorrect assumptions, you are likely behaving in a way that exposes yourself and others to increased risk.  

1 hour ago, Sim said:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/01/cdc-reveals-natural-immunity-acquired-previous-infection-covid-19-provides-protection-vaccines/

 

Remember that time when my flight doc said vaxed are 3x better protected than natural immunity. Same was said in media talking points.  🤮

You're right. The narrative against proponents of natural immunity has been some serious horseshit.  It's always been conventional medical wisdom that contracting and then recovering from something is the gold standard of immunity going forward. 
 

But.. to play devils advocate here.. there are a lot of people who think they have natural immunity, and probably don't.  I can't count the number of times I've heard someone claim they had covid in spring 2020 because they had the sniffles or felt a tingle in their jimmies. 
 

"yeah I was probably like one of the first cases"

"oh really?"

"yeah I felt under the weather back in March of 2020"

"did you get tested?"

"no, but it was probably covid"

5 hours ago, Negatory said:

I agree with you, but I do find it funny. You know the Spanish flu barely killed anyone in the beginning, then killed the vast majority after a major mutation?

The truth is, we don’t know how this will go. For all we know, this could go the way of the bubonic plague and be endemic for decades and have a similar mortality rate throughout. Hope not, though.

Exactly. We have only been at this for two years and in the grand scheme of things know very little about this virus still. Each variant has caught the country with our collective pants down, and spiked the cases, hospitalizations, and deaths each time.  And right before each spike, far right pundits have been busy declaring the pandemic over.  
 

Meanwhile the left is busy turning everyone off to common sense prevention measures because they're in full retard panic mode determined to mandate absolutely everything.

 

I'm afraid we might be stuck in this stupid cycle for a long time.

3 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Strawman.

Where's the strawman exactly? A straw man requires that I fabricated the argument to then argue against.  

the comment I quoted is literally a sarcastic jab at covid precautions specifically because they don't eradicate covid completely.

"If everyone got the VAX and wore their masks Covid 19 would cease to exist.

Change my mind."

Alternatively, reference the 28 weeks later flamethrower post from @disgruntledemployee

The mask alarmism in this thread is very real and very dramatic.

On 1/9/2022 at 6:10 AM, Guardian said:

If everyone got the VAX and wore their masks Covid 19 would cease to exist.

Change my mind.

No.. but based on all available stats there'd be fewer hospitalizations and deaths. And most likely a reduction in cases resulting in better hospital staffing, fewer airline cancellations etc..

 

Break/break 

Man, didn't expect that mask comment to set you guys off so severely.  It's really all or nothing with some of you.  What I've learned so far:

-Precautions are horseshit and not worth doing unless they're 100% effective

-Any amount of adherence to public health guidance sets you on an apocalyptic dystopian slippery slope a la 28 days later

-Pieces of cloth on our faces are the pre-eminent threat to both our freedom and mental health.

-Once they seize control they'll never give it back (except for that time the CDC lifted mask guidance based on data at the time)

23 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

masking is not a small nuisance...it is very harmful to peoples psyche

That's a pretty pathetic sentiment. We are the most adaptable species on earth and you're saying we're going to be irreparably damaged by putting some cloth on our faces. You know our ancestors actually used to not have any cloth anywhere on their bodies?! But then we started wearing pants and shirts at some point. I wonder if the cavemen lamented the collective damaging of our psyches when that was implemented. 
 

It is a small nuisance. So much so that multiple Asian cultures (specifically Japan and Korea) have been diligently masking for decades without grave social damage. And guess what, it helped them be more prepared for this pandemic where they have had significantly lower case and death rates than the western world. 

@ViperMan I think people are calling it "a pandemic of the unvaccinated" because it is the unvaccinated who are actually ending up in the hospital and dying from this thing.

In a pandemic I don't care how many people get the sniffles. I care about hospitalizations and death, which are happening in disproportionate numbers to the unvaxxed.

Similarly, you could call it a "pandemic of the obese" or a "pandemic of the elderly" as they're the ones getting the full brunt of the effects. 
 

On mask mandates, I honestly think any tiny shred of efficacy could justify a mandate. Wearing a mask is not an undue burden on you, and mandating you put a tiny piece of PPE on your face is a very far cry from mandating you to get an injection.  Hell, we all wear flight suits that have been washed thousands of times and have long since lost their fire resistance so apparently you guys are okay with some useless PPE but not others.. I guess as long as it looks cool. 

In fact, it might just be the only worthwhile thing to do in del rio 

16 minutes ago, Sim said:

Zelenko protocol pills available in every store for anyone to buy. Just this would save at least 80% (IMHO 99%)  of deaths and keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. This information was available a year ago and ignored. 

 

https://faculty.utrgv.edu/eleftherios.gkioulekas/zelenko/ZelenkoProtocol.pdf

But USG do not suggest out patient treatments of any kind. They also ignore science that natural immunity exist. 

....FJB! (and FDT too) 

 

Your attachment says these protocol recommendations existed in June of 2020. By my count that leaves 7 months of trump presidency to boost manufacturing and distribution of these miracle pills. So why didn't he? They created and distributed a vaccine in a year, shouldn't distributing a cocktail of existing medications be a much easier lift?  It's almost like it's easy to sling crap about what you would've done with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. 
 

Oh and maybe just maybe people would have taken these therapeutics more seriously at the time if trump's communications hadn't been the clown show of the century. 

1 hour ago, contraildash said:

My biggest beef with the OPR and EPR systems is that the damn thing 'just has to be done' by the closeout date. Once everyone backs up their due dates, you are usually cutting out 2-3 months of data. I've personally seen this 'gap' cause problems for people. I've never understood the obsession with the closeout date as opposed to having a good 12 month picture.

Why can't we do something like this:

1. You cannot start writing a report until the first day after 365 days.

2. From that day, you have 'X' months to close the report out.

This creates a 12 month report followed by a 'X' month window to write/close out. But you are capturing 12 months of data rather than 9-10.

Same theory goes for annual awards too. I put a squadron in for a significant award based on a huge mission they accomplished towards the end of the calendar year. The HAF response: 'oh closeout for submissions was EOM October.' The wing and MAJCOM fought against this, but the HAF people stood by their decision. (this was a few years back, so who knows if they have changed that policy)

 

90% of OPRs are meaningless fluff anyway, so I don't see it making the slightest difference when they close out or what amount of time gets cut off. And any of the HPOs who actually give a shit about strats and capturing the end of year data will just pre-empt the bullets anyway. 

27 minutes ago, Swizzle said:

If neither can control it, why mandate things (i.e. isolation and inthat can hurt people's health/careers/lives? Why control people and instead let people control themselves if it makes little to no difference? Is not freer choice better than lessor, fewer choice(s)?

Absolutely agree. But the wall of text sim so graciously provided us implies throughout that trump could have controlled the virus better.  Which is abject nonsense. 

@Sim As riveting as trump campaign copypasta is, what exactly would he have done differently to prevent the deaths numbers seen over the course of 2021?

What exactly does dick measuring death numbers between trump and Biden accomplish? They had different variants to deal with and the disease wasn't even close to endemic during trump's term.  

In my view the only thing the trump admin did right was funneling money to big pharma to quickly develop and roll out a vaccine.  Other than that his public health messaging was a complete horse abortion.

Bottom line, it's easy to sling shit once you're not in charge anymore. But highly I doubt if we had another year of trump that we'd be in any different of a place than we are now. Republican and Democrat administrations have both shown they are utterly incapable of controlling this pandemic in any way. 

5 minutes ago, Negatory said:

Also nice to see people not engage in any amount of data analysis and instead sit on the sidelines with a sense of smug superiority.

You're mistaking the sidelines for the moderate center, which strangely enough is where all the data points to.  

One of the few joys of this pandemic has been watching the pro mandate/lockdown far left bicker with the staunch anti-vax far right while not a single one of them realizes they're two sides of the same coin.. Both wildly misinterpreting the data to arrive at garbage conclusions. 

Believe whatever you want. If you think I'm going to face judgement in front of god because I took a vaccine partially made through stem cell research, that's your prerogative. Just as it is my prerogative to think your beliefs are backward and silly. 
 

But at some point we need to acknowledge the reality that not all beliefs are compatible with military service.