Comments by "wily wascal" (@wilywascal2024) on "Why Rand Paul is still picking fights with Dr. Fauci" video.
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America's enemies don't need to spread disinformation, doubt, discord, and division to weaken America, kill Americans--Republican politicians, Reich-wing demagogues, Faux News, OAN, Newsmax, Breitbart and the rest of the Reich-wing media do that so effectively for them, already. More Americans need to realize that the GOP has abdicated it's duty as loyal opposition, and that its prioritization of party over country and welcoming embrace of violent radical Reich-wing extremists diminishes both our government and our national security, endangering ALL Americans, as well as weakening and endangering America itself.
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@d.rabbitwhite ~ Humans are omnivores, like many other species on this planet. But even if all humans were strict vegans, it wouldn't prevent human diseases and pandemics. For example, mosquitos can spread diseases from other animals to humans, and we aren't exploiting mosquitos. A rabid animal can bite a vegan, and that vegan could pass the disease to other humans. There are many such examples disproving your uninformed and erroneous theory. Science has not proven definitively how many human epidemics and pandemics began. Experts classify chickenpox and related scabies as pandemics, believe it originated millions of years ago in Africa, and it is humans who spread that disease amongst themselves. There are indications that COVID-19 originated from bats and originated in China, but we will probably never know precisely how it jumped from bat to human, or even if the disease actually originated there, or from outside China and was carried into that country where it first mutated to become more deadly and noticeable. Was someone chasing a bat out of their home, and got bitten? Can you see the problem with drawing such overly broad and simplistic conclusions as yours?
What should be kept in mind is that species of parasites, whether prions, viruses, bacteria, insects, or other, far outnumber species of hosts, and constantly evolve to survive and proliferate. So, even if humans completely desisted from eating and exploiting animals, such parasites would just find other ways to plague humans. Globalization and a burgeoning global human population make humans a bigger target. NOTE: I do believe that humans should rely much, much less on animals as a food source, and oppose the inhumane exploitation of animals. Also, I fully agree with your first response here.
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"The secret of freedom is educating the people, whereas the secret of tyranny is keeping them ignorant." ~ Robespierre
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” ~ Voltaire
"There can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet." ~Abraham Lincoln
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence." ~ Charles Bukowski
"Everybody has a right to their opinion, but nobody has a right to be wrong in their facts." ~ Bernard Baruch, quoted in 1946 AP article.
“It's easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.”
~ Mark Twain
“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” ~ James A. Baldwin
"When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent." ~ Isaac Asimov
“If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.” ~ Ulysses S. Grant, 1875
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” ~ Typically misattributed to Sinclair Lewis, the original source of this quote is unknown, but likely derived from labor activist Eugene V. Debs 1917 quote, "Every robber or oppressor in history has wrapped himself in a cloak of patriotism or religion, or both."
Before World War II, Charles Lindbergh typified American heroism with his daring flights, including the first solo transatlantic flight, and his celebration of new technology. He parlayed his fame and heroic stature into a leading role in the America First movement, which opposed America’s entrance into the war against Nazi Germany. In 1939, in an essay entitled “Aviation, Geography, and Race,” published in that most American of journals, Reader’s Digest, Lindbergh embraced something close to Nazism for America:
"It is time to turn from our quarrels and to build our White ramparts again. This alliance with foreign races means nothing but death to us. It is our turn to guard our heritage from Mongol and Persian and Moor, before we become engulfed in a limitless foreign sea."
The America First movement was the public face of pro-fascist sentiment in the United States at that time. In the twenties and thirties, many Americans shared Lindbergh’s views against immigration, especially by non-Europeans. The Immigration Act of 1924 strictly limited immigration into the country, and it was specifically intended to restrict the immigration of both nonwhites and Jews.
Once again, nationalism, aka fascism, has risen its ugly head in America, in European nations, and in some other countries around the world. The fight of good people against ignorance, the fears that sprout from it, the hate which then blossoms, culminating in the bitter toxic fruit of evil, senseless brutalities and deaths, is a constant, never-ending battle we fear, but it is a battle from which we must never shrink.
In this era, the likes of Toxic Trump and Marginalized Greene have become the face of the new "America First" fascist movement built up over the last four decades by the GOP, Reich-wing plutocrats, demagogues, and media. But, as with Lindbergh, the American people gradually come to recognize their dysfunctional poison and reject it. Most Americans understand, accept, and appreciate that the enduring strength of America is that we are a nation of immigrants and multiculturalism, a "melting pot" where the best ideas rise to the top, and superficial differences are meaningless in the face of our common humanity and purpose. Most Americans want competent leaders who speak truth, who strive to unite, who are not corrupt, who care about them. So, it should come as no surprise that President Biden is already receiving high marks from the public, while Toxic Trump never managed to rise above even a 50% approval rating. To conclude where begun, the following quotes are submitted for further reflection:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." ~ George Santayana
"History doesn't repeat itself. But it does rhyme. ~ Mark Twain
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history." ~ Aldous Huxley
"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind." ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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The problem at the heart of all this is a Republican cult built up over decades by the GOP, plutocrats, Reich-wing demagogues, Reich-wing Christian nationalism religious leaders, and Reich-wing print, radio, TV, and social media, programmed 24/7, radicalizing them and creating mass delusion. A straight line can be drawn through to the inevitable catastrophic conclusion witnessed today from Lee Atwater, Roger Aisles, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, Lou Dobbs, Mitch McConnell, Billy Graham, Sean Hannity, Jim Jordan, to Donald J. Trump. Sure, some in the Republican cult truly are that ignorant or gullible; but most are willfully ignorant, being fed the lies they want to hear. They bear personal responsibility. Part of it's a cultural problem, as some mostly older white people's mistaken perception is that the America they knew is slipping away. Well, America is still America, but--like most nations--is constantly evolving, as progress invariably rolls on, but they are unwilling to accept that, or change with the times.
Those Americans elected that pitiful, pathetic puerile President, and have continued to support him no matter what travesty he committed! The creators of the Republican cult have always been weak men, and now find themselves harnessed by those they sought to enslave, subject to the fickle whims of a moronic madman and the mob whose ignorance they relentlessly nourished and cultivated. They created the beast, thought they could ride the tiger, exploit it for their own greed, vanity, and power, too stupid or uncaring to realize that it would instead inevitably come to consume them.
American conservatism has always been the endless, futile quest to justify greed, but the coin of the realm in GOP land is fear; it’s what they peddle, it’s what they traffic in, it’s what they carry in their pocket at all times. Then, they turn that fear into hate. And that hate is the poison killing them, America, and all of us. It’s the poison to which the Republican cult has become addicted.
Republican cultism is the disease, Toxic Trump is merely the most visible symptom and but one carrier of that disease. It existed before Trump, and it will continue when Trump is gone—unless or until the problem is adequately addressed. COVID-19 is also a disease; but a virus is blameless, unlike those who engage in willful ignorance. America would have confronted and easily conquered COVID-19 disease, had America not already been diseased for so long with Republican tribalistic partisan cultism. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and religious bigotry all were central to the formation of the Republican cult, and remain its lifeblood.
"United we stand, divided we fall." A simple concept, really, that too many Americans seem to have forgotten or abandoned. Our nation is like an airplane; it requires both the left and right wings working together in tandem to operate properly and safely. Only problem is the Reich-wing decided to try flying solo, forcing us all into a nose-dive! Care about the issues, disdain political gamesmanship, while still recognizing politics is an inseparable and necessary element. Have always respected and valued loyal opposition, even if in disagreement with the ideology. Fact is, though, the GOP has abdicated the requisite role of loyal opposition to become a mindless, tribalistic, hyper-partisan Reich-wing cult that places greed and political party over truth, reason, decency, and country.
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