International Thread 4

[The Anti-Targ]

16 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

For the sake of discussion... I don't know if "violations" is the best word. A deadly epidemic is one of the few cases where it's almost universally recognized that the common good trumps individual rights. It's a good starting point to think about the famous theory of "natural rights" we hear so much about.

In theory the only "natural" right is life, but maybe more broadly bodily sovereignty. But there are already everyday laws in civilised jurisdiction that can allow the govt to take away that right. So, if the govt can legally kill you against your will, what can't it ultimately do under some kind of emergency powers under the right (or wrong) conditions?

[DMC]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

In theory the only "natural" right is life

Locke, Rosseau et al. social contract theorists would disagree.

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

The Real Goal of Trump’s Middle East Plan

And here's the consternation we should all have from that article.

The collective bill at some point will come due, and it could be steep. Until then, the world will be dealing with an increasingly unshackled administration. 

[Fez]

14 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

I doubt its an over-reaction.  Hopefully we will dodge the bullet yet again, like we did (more or less) with SARS and MERS.  But there is no reason to be complacent.   Already there are many signs that it may end up being a lot worse.

Certainly no reason for complacency, but at the same time I don't see the need for panic. So far its 132 reported deaths on approximately 6,000 infections. Whereas the flu, this year alone in the US alone, has had an estimated 8,200 to 20,000 deaths on 15 to 20 million infections.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

28 minutes ago, Fez said:

Certainly no reason for complacency, but at the same time I don't see the need for panic. So far its 132 reported deaths on approximately 6,000 infections. Whereas the flu, this year alone in the US alone, has had an estimated 8,200 to 20,000 deaths on 15 to 20 million infections.

That’s an interesting point.  Are people more inclined to panic because a disease is new than one they are familiar with but don’t realize how dangerous it actually is?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 hours ago, DMC said:

The Real Goal of Trump’s Middle East Plan

Talk about a chilling conclusion.

Anyways, it seems like Bibi et al. are hell bent on ultimately destroying the Jewish state of Israel.

[dornishpen]

32 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Anyways, it seems like Bibi et al. are hell bent on ultimately destroying the Jewish state of Israel.

Why do you think that?

I think he is bad for Israel and the Palestinians and the region generally in terms of his policies, like settlement expansion and frequent talk of annexing parts of the West Bank, but I'm not sure how that destroys Israel.

[Fez]

26 minutes ago, dornishpen said:

Why do you think that?

I think he is bad for Israel and the Palestinians and the region generally in terms of his policies, like settlement expansion and frequent talk of annexing parts of the West Bank, but I'm not sure how that destroys Israel.

Don't know about destroy, but I think he has significantly weakened Israel by fracturing American support for Israel into becoming a partisan issue. Also, by supporting the Ultra Orthodox parties (and their religious policies) so much he has significantly weakened Reform and even Conservative Jewish support of Israel; and outside of Israel most Jews are Reform or Conservative.

[dornishpen]

18 minutes ago, Fez said:

Don't know about destroy, but I think he has significantly weakened Israel by fracturing American support for Israel into becoming a partisan issue. Also, by supporting the Ultra Orthodox parties (and their religious policies) so much he has significantly weakened Reform and even Conservative Jewish support of Israel; and outside of Israel most Jews are Reform or Conservative.

Most non-charedi Israelis don't like Shas or Agudat Yisrael either, especially once he began actually making concessions to them on religious issues. So he also hurts himself and is probably part of the reason for his weakening support. It's the reason he can't form a majority government, since his support of things like not drafting charedi men means Avigdor's Lieberman's party won't join his coalition.

I think his stunt with speaking before congress without informing Obama of his visit definitely damaged relations, but that probably could have been repaired if he hadn't stayed PM so long after that, I agree he made a big mistake getting involved in American partisan politics, in terms of what it did for support for Israel, though I think that was probably already wavering among younger leftist types.

There are definitely gaps between American Jews and Israeli Jews and I think with the internet they're starting to become more clear, but have probably been there for a while.

[Paxter]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That’s an interesting point.  Are people more inclined to panic because a disease is new than one they are familiar with but don’t realize how dangerous it actually is?

I'd guess it's because (the majority) of people who die from the standard 'flu are vulnerable from a health perspective (e.g. the elderly) and many infected individuals do not develop any severe symptoms at all. My (admittedly limited) understanding is that something like coronavirus has a higher "death rate" (terrible term, sorry), as well as higher transmission rates for relatively healthy people. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, dornishpen said:

Why do you think that?

I think he is bad for Israel and the Palestinians and the region generally in terms of his policies, like settlement expansion and frequent talk of annexing parts of the West Bank, but I'm not sure how that destroys Israel.

Leaning into a quasi-Apartheid state will increasingly turn the world against Israel, and at some point the US will be forced to abandoned supporting them. Once that happens, they’re finished, one way or another. I’d be shocked if a Jewish run state is still in existence by the end of my lifetime given its current trajectory.

[dornishpen]

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Leaning into a quasi-Apartheid state will increasingly turn the world against Israel, and at some point the US will be forced to abandoned supporting them. Once that happens, they’re finished, one way or another. I’d be shocked if a Jewish run state is still in existence by the end of my lifetime given its current trajectory.

A lot of the world is already against Israel and that has long been the case, that's probably increasing, but there's always been significant opposition. 

Bibi may be done soon (we can only hope) with his indictment and eroding support, but I'm not sure how much Gantz is willing to compromise, though except Bibi, every PM since Rabin has come to the conclusion that more compromise than the Israeli public wants is necessary, so there is hope, and the papers leaked about the negotiations between Olmert and Abbas showed that under Abbas the Palestinians were willing to compromise more than their public wants. 

I can only see the US abandoning Israel on a partisan basis depending on who controls the White House unless something changes religiously in this country to make evangicals abandon Christian Zionism (and for some their dreams of Armageddon etc.)

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Don't know about destroy, but I think he has significantly weakened Israel by fracturing American support for Israel into becoming a partisan issue. Also, by supporting the Ultra Orthodox parties (and their religious policies) so much he has significantly weakened Reform and even Conservative Jewish support of Israel; and outside of Israel most Jews are Reform or Conservative.

Also by the political - financial corruption in which he and his fellow sort are engaged.  T We don't hear that much about this in the States, but in Israel, the people are furious.  This played a large role in the last elections, that he declared a fraud and then decided he needn't step down -- and if did step down, he's no longer immune to prosecution.  So the immunity had to be taken away from him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Israel

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/world/middleeast/netanyahu-corruption-indicted.html

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-netanyahu-withdraws-request-for-immunity-from-prosecution-in-corruption-cases-1.8463515

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/world/middleeast/netanyahu-immunity.html

There are reasons why Bibi and the trumps are so at home with each other! 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, dornishpen said:

though I think that was probably already wavering among younger leftist types.

I think that's true. But I have lots of older American Jewish adults in my family, and most of them have significantly changed their tones on Israel over the course of Bibi's time in office (all except the handful of far-right ones). The first signs of disillusionment really appeared when Rabin was assassinated, but then the second Intifada happened and they pretty much all felt it was their duty to support Israel and that maybe Israel had no choice in its actions. But Bibi has been so aggressive in his time in office that much of that support has disappeared.

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, dornishpen said:

A lot of the world is already against Israel and that has long been the case, that's probably increasing, but there's always been significant opposition.

It's pretty unlikely that the state of Israel is going to be destroyed in anything like the foreseeable future but the less viable a two state solution is made (and it's pretty far gone at this stage) the more you're only left with a one state solution. That's either an effectively apartheid state or not clearly a Jewish State anymore.

[James Arryn]

I think the WH got their idea for this ME plan from the NFLs last Kaepernick move.
 

Offer a completely one-sided deal that ignores established rights, waives the other side’s rights to any future interests, and any ability to react to wrongdoing in exchange for some non-commitals from established bad-faith antagonists and throw up your arms when turned down like ‘we tried’, and because the target audience is already on their side and the rest are bored with the story, enjoy the ‘the Palestinians just want everything/they need to be more realistic/they are lucky to even get an offer/it was a football decision/etc. response.

[Impmk2]

1 hour ago, Paxter said:

I'd guess it's because (the majority) of people who die from the standard 'flu are vulnerable from a health perspective (e.g. the elderly) and many infected individuals do not develop any severe symptoms at all. My (admittedly limited) understanding is that something like coronavirus has a higher "death rate" (terrible term, sorry), as well as higher transmission rates for relatively healthy people. 

The current nCor is reported to be killing almost exclusively amongst the elderly and people with preexisting respiratory conditions.

Transmission is imo the main concern. As there's been very limited exposure on a population level, there's no kind of immunity out there. Has the potential to spread like wildfire, and perhaps mutate into something nastier in the process.

[dornishpen]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

I think that's true. But I have lots of older American Jewish adults in my family, and most of them have significantly changed their tones on Israel over the course of Bibi's time in office (all except the handful of far-right ones). The first signs of disillusionment really appeared when Rabin was assassinated, but then the second Intifada happened and they pretty much all felt it was their duty to support Israel and that maybe Israel had no choice in its actions. But Bibi has been so aggressive in his time in office that much of that support has disappeared.

My family is orthodox, but not charedi (though a few are chasidish), and views are mixed, kinda breaking down along political lines, but there's also religious influence, like people who believe that Judea and Samaria should be part of Israel, but more in a religious Zionist way than a pro Netanyahu way. They're mixed on Bibi too, but I don't think they would be Likud voters in Israel if only because they're religious. I'm off the derech and like me, most of my friends are more secular leftist Jews and are strongly opposed to Bibi, the settlements etc. 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

6 hours ago, Fez said:

Certainly no reason for complacency, but at the same time I don't see the need for panic. So far its 132 reported deaths on approximately 6,000 infections. Whereas the flu, this year alone in the US alone, has had an estimated 8,200 to 20,000 deaths on 15 to 20 million infections.

Deaths are a heavily lagging indicator here though. Most of the infected individuals who are dying right now were taken in for treatment maybe 5 - 7 days ago, back when the total number of diagnosed was much lower. On the other hand you also have an unknown number of people who get infected but do not become sufficiently sick to go look for treatment at all, and thus don't get entered in the statistics for survivors. 

Last time I looked at this, which was a couple of days ago, they estimated the mortality rate for those infected with this corona-virus at about 3%. That is far from world ending, but could still mean many millions of dead if we are unlucky enough for this to become a global pandemic. 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

6 hours ago, Fez said:

Certainly no reason for complacency, but at the same time I don't see the need for panic. So far its 132 reported deaths on approximately 6,000 infections. Whereas the flu, this year alone in the US alone, has had an estimated 8,200 to 20,000 deaths on 15 to 20 million infections.

So, the 'flu has a case fatality rate of 0.04% - 0.13%, and this coronavirus has a case fatality rate of 2.2%. I'm not sure your quoting of statistics is particularly comforting here. At this stage the coronavirus appears to be between 16 and 55 times more deadly than 'flu. Of course that's not the full picture, because all the deaths so far are in China where it's possible a lot of the deaths were in part due to lower quality health care, and the US might have a lower case fatality rate for 'flu than most of the rest of the world. And the 'flu case fatality rate would be much higher if millions of vulnerable individuals weren't vaccinated.

But still, there is a case to be made that this new virus could be more deadly than 'flu.