24 ms·

The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

270 points by prostoalex 6y ago

demorat 6y ago
no - fucking democrat pieces of shit did
econol0dge 6y ago
From the article, it sounds like our response to the pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights. The virus is not agentic, and what they describe are intentional acts by human beings.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  Yes, the human beings at the top who wield unchecked tyrannical power.
  - baryphonic 6y ago
    I have a contrarian take. The ones at the top wield very little power, and those who are 2-3 layers beneath them wield small nuggets of tyrannical power that, in the aggregate, translate to real unchecked - really, unaccountable - tyranny, but of a sort of purposeless variety. This isn't some crazy conjecture. The book "What Washington Gets Wrong" convinced me.[1] The same phenomenon happens across government, even in the national security, intel and law enforcement areas. In fact, it even happens in corporate America, where the top level execs are fairly well aligned with the interests of the owners, and most of the bad apples are found in middle management to a step or so below the C-suite. [1] https://www.amazon.com/What-Washington-Gets-Wrong-Misconceptions/dp/1633882497 https://www.amazon.com/What-Washington-Gets-Wrong-Misconcept...
    - iso1210 6y ago
      The reason religion, grand conspiracy theories, strongmen dictators, appeal to people is it gives them comfort that somebody is in charge. Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet. He doesn't have all the control, he doesn't even have significant control. Trump doesn't either. Nor does McConnell, or Pelosi, or Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. They all have a little control, but ultimately even if all of those people worked together they still couldn't control the US. But I don't think that any middle managers etc are unaccountable individually either, but in aggregate they are. The value of good leaders is to herd the cats in roughly the right direction, perhaps nudging the direction along the way.
- roenxi 6y ago
  This has been a consistent theme to responses to major crisis in US has faced in my lifetime - every time, after the crisis the situation is worse than it was before the crisis. Not because of the crisis, but because of the response. 9/11, the 2008 recession (QE is still with us) and now COVID. The scars from the first two really should have healed a long time ago. It'll be a pretty dire future if the COVID response isn't completely unwound, some serious compromises to freedom were made through this.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    QE for 2008 recession will pale in comparison with QE for the pandemic. Luckily for us everyone else that matters (that is, who's not New Zealand) is equally fucked, so it's not entirely a losing proposition, but for someone of moderate means and with an income/savings that do not track the stock market these are perilous times indeed. Whatever cash or cash equivalent savings they had are turning into a pumpkin within a few years.
    - goatinaboat 6y ago
      QE for 2008 recession will pale in comparison with QE for the pandemic. 22% of all US dollars that exist were created in 2020. Expect some serious inflation to happen in the next few years. But we are still nowhere near Weimar levels of money printing, so that’s something. Except in places like Zimbabwe and Venezuela of course but that was happening before COVID.
      - m0zg 6y ago
        This did help to stave off (if not prevent) the total systemic collapse of the world economy though. So let's not lose the sight of that.
        iso1210 6y ago
        It had no general inflationary effect at all.
      - 6y ago
- lozenge 6y ago
  New Zealand's lockdown was announced nine days before it had legal effect, a court case found that was illegal. Every country has let these values fall in one way or another.
  - skrebbel 6y ago
    I think the Netherlands hasn't. In fact, commentators everywhere are yelling that they should make face masks obligatory, but they can't because the constitution prevents it (something about personal freedom of movement iirc). They have to pass a new law first and until then it's "strongly recommend". For reasons I don't get, the Freedom House picture on this article shows NL as orange, meaning that freedom and democracy eroded during the pandemic. I really wonder what's that about, it seems to me that the government tries very hard (too hard, according to just about every columnist and talk show guest) to respect everybody's personal freedoms. I'm pretty impressed, actually.
    - Vinnl 6y ago
      Mostly because there's lots of rule by decree that has been severely impacting our lives, I presume. That's why everyone's calling for the law to be passed (and also, of course, for that law to be a good law): to restore parliamentary oversight and unerode our democracy.
    - dmurray 6y ago
      We have something similar in Ireland: many of the coronavirus regulations (don't travel outside your county, don't have big gatherings in your home) don't have the force of law and/or the police don't have powers to enforce them. The government gave itself some emergency powers back in March, but these lapsed after I think 6 weeks and weren't renewed. The interesting question is why they didn't renew the emergency powers. They arguably weren't constitutional in the first place, but the only real challenge to them came from the conspiracy theorists /anti-vaxxers who got laughed out of court on about a hundred technicalities.
  - lemming 6y ago
    The court's decision was more nuanced than that. They basically argued that it was technically not legal for a brief period, but justified, necessary and reasonable under the circumstances. It wasn't exactly an erosion of democracy and respect for human rights, and the court made that very clear in their judgement. https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-08-2020/unlawful-but-necessary-and-reasonable-making-sense-of-the-high-court-ruling-on-the-lockdown/ https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-08-2020/unlawful-but-ne...
airlinesreserva 6y ago
Bio Etihad cancellation policy - Read how to cancel etihad flight booking within 24 hour and how to get refund on cancellation.More info: <a href="https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-cancellation-policy/">https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-cancellation-policy/</a> https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-...
airlinesreserva 6y ago
Bio Etihad cancellation policy - Read how to cancel etihad flight booking within 24 hour and how to get refund on cancellation.More info: https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-cancellation-policy/ https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-...
imgabe 6y ago
Page gives an error on loading for me, Firefox mobile on Android
- bromonkey 6y ago
  It loads fine for me on the same browser/platform.
- tudorpavel 6y ago
  If you aren't, try using the Firefox Beta version, or Firefox Nightly which I'm using to be on the bleeding edge.
tw1912112 6y ago
All these cries about democracy, and I haven't seen any single core structural change. Even the most hated country on HackerNews, Hungary, whose leader got the emergency power gave it back. Then we have Andrew Cuomo, who still has way more power than most head of states.
baron_harkonnen 6y ago
The pandemic is the match, but I’m going to blame the pile of kerosene soaked rags.
- fit2rule 6y ago
  Decency and human rights were lit on fire with every bomb dropped from a US drone since 2003. It is laughable to blame the pandemic on the worlds dismal human rights scene. Before covid was even a speck in a bats eye, human rights and decency were in the mud. Just ask the Libyan people. Or the Yemeni. Or Iraqi's.
- varjag 6y ago
  Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
  - samoa42 6y ago
    those seem to be a minority thou
    - scotth 6y ago
      Seems like USA and UK fucking it up. Who else?
      - mschuster91 6y ago
        Brazil and Turkey come to my mind.
        pelasaco 6y ago
        why Brazil? The Democracy there works fine. There was a change in the power, which brought new dynamics to the Country, but IMO their democracy are eroding much less than in US, France and Germany Disclaimer: I'm German/Brazilian who lived 10 years in US.
dr_dshiv 6y ago
In a place like Uganda, an empowered strongman is a greater threat than the pandemic itself. In fact, worldwide, actual loss of life seems like one of the least of the threats emerging from the pandemic.
- ben_w 6y ago
  Over a million dead despite the lockdowns and travel restrictions and the working from home: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths Strongmen can invent reasons from nothing, and often do.
- Dumblydorr 6y ago
  The specter of healthcare collapse has led to strict lockdowns and economic pain in many countries. If we hadn't taken many of the actions we did in the Spring, we would've seen far more deaths and calls for stronger government responses. Deaths are an important metric, but not the only one, and it's probable we could've been 2-3X higher in deaths with much more "freedom" in our daily lives.
gatkinso 6y ago
no, it merely pulled back the curtain
bsder 6y ago
The US was putting people in cages before the pandemic. The level of the pandemic in the US is an effect of decreased democracy and respect for human rights--not a cause.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jpxw 6y ago
  Just to note, America has been doing this since Obama (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-build-cages-immigrants/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-build-cages-immigran...)
  - christophilus 6y ago
    Or since before it was a nation, and ever since then, depending on what cages you care to look at.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > depending on what cages you care to look at. Yeah, although never before on the scale that we've seen post-1980.
  - bsder 6y ago
    I didn't mention a president, you will note. There is plenty of blame to go around. However, I'm not going to let you get away with lying by omission. Quoting your article: > "In response to the backlash, U.S. President Donald Trump (falsely) pinned the blame for the child-separation policy on his predecessor, Barack Obama." > But then Trump also attempted to deflect outrage over photographs of immigrant children being kept in “cages” by asserting, “Obama built the cages. I didn’t build them. Obama built them” That portion of Trump’s commentary was true. Obama may have built them, but Trump is the one who imprisoned children in them.
quaintdev 6y ago
It feels like eroded democracy and respect for human led to pandemic. We have known about eroded democracy worldwide for few years now. Edit: So I am being down voted. At least challenge my reasoning? Anyways, here's what I think. Of course the headline is true but that does not mean what I said is not true. Remember the doctor in Wuhan who tried to warn officials about mysterious disease?[0]. Instead of looking into his claims he was summoned and admonished by Wuhan police. This is just one example "erosion of respect for human". When this happens a few thousand times across the globe we have pandemic. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang
- FpUser 6y ago
  >"Edit: So I am being down voted. At least challenge my reasoning?" They just do not like what you say and the button is way easier to press than straining one's brain. Besides there are many subjects on HN that fall into "party line" areas and those are downvoted in droves
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
stuaxo 6y ago
The UK may not be on "about the same" in a couple of months, we've just had the "spycops bill" where police and many other agencies will be able to commit crimes, without limitation as long as it's signed off.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Moody's downgraded the credit rating citing "governance issues" just now.
  - neilwilson 6y ago
    What Moody's think is irrelevant to a sovereign nation with its own currency. It's rather arrogant of them to think they have anything relevant to say on the matter.
    - legulere 6y ago
      Also Venezuela is a sovereign nation with its own currency. We live in a globalized world where those things do matter. The best you can achieve by isolationism is North Korea.
      - neilwilson 6y ago
        Venezuela has a peg to another currency doesn't it. And government bonds issued in denominations other than bolivar. What is the UK pegged to? What alternative denominations are UK bonds in? There is literally no mechanism by which UK sovereign bonds cannot be changed back into Sterling. None. So it can only matter in the minds of those people who haven't a clue how currencies actually work.
        legulere 6y ago
        Maybe slow down a bit before claiming that someone does not have a clue. The Venezuelan bolivar is not really pegged to any currency otherwise its hyperinflation would not have been possible. That is also the reason why nobody would buy bonds in the Venezuelan bolivar. Of course the UK is in a different situation than Venezuela, being a country with an advanced economy. Still the rating will have an effect as a lot of institutional investors are bound to very stable bonds. So the interest rates will rise. Of course the UK can use inflation of the sterling to get rid of its debt. That would however also reduce its ability to issue low yield debt in the future. In the end the UK is bound to what rating agencies and the market thinks of it like basically any other country.
PeterStuer 6y ago
"Never let a good crisis go to waste" Some plans just need the lube of a 'good crisis', the accompanying increased perceived need for (any) action and the decreased scrutiny, to be pushed through. The pandemic is not the cause, it is the cover.
gotadollar 6y ago
Stay in and order your food if you can't behave yourself in public: if you're so deathly afraid of catching the virus you become 'accidentally' racist, stay at home.
ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago
THIS WORLD NEVER BEHAVED LIKE ADULT AND VACCINATED HUMAN! more like primitive autism... :Ð
pelasaco 6y ago
The pandemic didn't destroy the democracy in Uganda. In Uganda there was never a democracy in place. Mr Museveni is the president of Uganda since 1986.
speeder 6y ago
In my country at least a lot of that has to do with the media and our current supreme court. Despite Brazil having the most advanced constitution in the world regarding human rights, local leaders have been ignoring it outright, and when the president complained the media portrayed the president as a genocidal dictator, and when the president sued the governors and mayors to force them to obey the constitution, the supreme court literally ruled the Virus is so dangerous that ignoring the constitution and eroding rights is fine. After that it only got worse, the supreme court been making lately more and more decisions that ignore the laws instead of enforcing them. EDIT: people been downvoting me. Instead of downvoting why you don't present your argument instead, and let me present mine, this way we can have a conversation that might enlighten readers of this site?
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  I feel like redditors in particular hate Bolsanaro just because he's right wing. What you've said is incredibly sad though.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > Bolsanaro He is much more than just "right wing." He routinely praises the junta and says that their mistake was not killing enough leftists. That is not normal.
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
      There is nothing wrong with a Junta as a form of government. Often times military governments are required to transition to a democratic one. I mean half of south america basically had them. They are effective forms of government required to retain order and stability so that democracy can ensue. The reason we don't see them be successful in african countries because they are often very poor, have immense cultural issues, and the government can't effectively maintain control. Even established regimes can't even perform basic functions of governance because corruption even within their own administration.
trackofalljades 6y ago
paywall-free: https://archive.is/bUQcv https://archive.is/bUQcv
cwhiz 6y ago
In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails. The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.
- burlesona 6y ago
  I would argue it’s coming from the system. The national two party first-past-the-post system naturally leads to hyper-partisanship and constantly escalating stakes, meanwhile fewer and fewer Americans truly feel represented by the choices they have on offer - and very large numbers of people have their vote effectively ignored because their voting precinct is gerrymandered to ensure stable one-party rule. Because the system is broken, people are angry and want to tear down the system and replace it with something else. Unfortunately, history says that authoritarianism is a popular response to broken systems, and that it doesn’t end well. If we don’t want to go down that path we need to quit blaming individuals and get very serious about fixing the system: we need proportional representative multi-party democracy, like almost every other western democracy. For citations and a deep discussion on this, see: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44244963-breaking-the-two-party-doom-loop https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44244963-breaking-the...
  - christophilus 6y ago
    I’m with you. I have voted for an Nth party every presidential election since I was 18. Every single time I was told that I was throwing my vote away or voting for one of the major party villains. Every single time, I was told that this was the most important election of my lifetime, and just this once, I needed to bite the bullet and vote for a major party. Not doing it. That entire narrative needs to change.
    - u801e 6y ago
      > Every single time I was told that I was throwing my vote away or voting for one of the major party villains. The refrain essentially is that you must vote for the candidate we say is most likely to win and if you don't, then you're helping the next runner up. I believe that if we no longer reported polling results and had election results reported at the same time, then the problem I describe above would be significantly reduced. The fact that primaries are not held at the same time leads the results of earlier primaries influencing the results of later ones. The fact that election results from the eastern part of the country are reported while the western part is still voting influences the results.
tamaharbor 6y ago
How effective are masks? If I can smell the guy next to me with my mask on, I am sure I can catch his virus also.
futurehero 6y ago
How many will die if every human alive today gets Covid-19, and will those who survive be able to repopulate the Earth, or will the percentage lost be a barley noticeable blip when individuals in the year 3000 look at the chart of human population growth from the dawn of humanity to their current age, assuming our species survives that long? If a blip, this has all been much ado about nothing.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > this has all been much to do about nothing. The "much ado" that you all are bemoaning will be even less than a blip by the year 3000. But keep coming with these really convoluted justifications for policy inaction -> millions of deaths, because in hindsight a thousand years later, a million deaths will only be a few among billions.
- gandalfgreybeer 6y ago
  I find this way of thinking totally cold-hearted and devaluing human life despite knowing that you're thinking from a larger time scale. If in the grand scheme of things, 6 million deaths becomes a blip, will the holocaust have been much ado about nothing?
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Pray on people's fear to get them to do something in the name of 'public safety' with weak scientific backing? That's literally textbook strong man tactics. It's how Duterte murdered half of his opponents in the Philippines with the fictionalized drug war. Murder in the name of 'public safety'. I'm sure there were people supporting Duterte saying it's just common sense as well. Sad how easily influenced people are.

270 points by prostoalex 6y ago

no - fucking democrat pieces of shit did

From the article, it sounds like our response to the pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights. The virus is not agentic, and what they describe are intentional acts by human beings.

xyzzyz 6y ago
Yes, the human beings at the top who wield unchecked tyrannical power.
- baryphonic 6y ago
  I have a contrarian take. The ones at the top wield very little power, and those who are 2-3 layers beneath them wield small nuggets of tyrannical power that, in the aggregate, translate to real unchecked - really, unaccountable - tyranny, but of a sort of purposeless variety. This isn't some crazy conjecture. The book "What Washington Gets Wrong" convinced me.[1] The same phenomenon happens across government, even in the national security, intel and law enforcement areas. In fact, it even happens in corporate America, where the top level execs are fairly well aligned with the interests of the owners, and most of the bad apples are found in middle management to a step or so below the C-suite. [1] https://www.amazon.com/What-Washington-Gets-Wrong-Misconceptions/dp/1633882497 https://www.amazon.com/What-Washington-Gets-Wrong-Misconcept...
  - iso1210 6y ago
    The reason religion, grand conspiracy theories, strongmen dictators, appeal to people is it gives them comfort that somebody is in charge. Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet. He doesn't have all the control, he doesn't even have significant control. Trump doesn't either. Nor does McConnell, or Pelosi, or Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. They all have a little control, but ultimately even if all of those people worked together they still couldn't control the US. But I don't think that any middle managers etc are unaccountable individually either, but in aggregate they are. The value of good leaders is to herd the cats in roughly the right direction, perhaps nudging the direction along the way.
roenxi 6y ago
This has been a consistent theme to responses to major crisis in US has faced in my lifetime - every time, after the crisis the situation is worse than it was before the crisis. Not because of the crisis, but because of the response. 9/11, the 2008 recession (QE is still with us) and now COVID. The scars from the first two really should have healed a long time ago. It'll be a pretty dire future if the COVID response isn't completely unwound, some serious compromises to freedom were made through this.
- m0zg 6y ago
  QE for 2008 recession will pale in comparison with QE for the pandemic. Luckily for us everyone else that matters (that is, who's not New Zealand) is equally fucked, so it's not entirely a losing proposition, but for someone of moderate means and with an income/savings that do not track the stock market these are perilous times indeed. Whatever cash or cash equivalent savings they had are turning into a pumpkin within a few years.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    QE for 2008 recession will pale in comparison with QE for the pandemic. 22% of all US dollars that exist were created in 2020. Expect some serious inflation to happen in the next few years. But we are still nowhere near Weimar levels of money printing, so that’s something. Except in places like Zimbabwe and Venezuela of course but that was happening before COVID.
    - m0zg 6y ago
      This did help to stave off (if not prevent) the total systemic collapse of the world economy though. So let's not lose the sight of that.
      - iso1210 6y ago
        It had no general inflationary effect at all.
    - 6y ago
lozenge 6y ago
New Zealand's lockdown was announced nine days before it had legal effect, a court case found that was illegal. Every country has let these values fall in one way or another.
- skrebbel 6y ago
  I think the Netherlands hasn't. In fact, commentators everywhere are yelling that they should make face masks obligatory, but they can't because the constitution prevents it (something about personal freedom of movement iirc). They have to pass a new law first and until then it's "strongly recommend". For reasons I don't get, the Freedom House picture on this article shows NL as orange, meaning that freedom and democracy eroded during the pandemic. I really wonder what's that about, it seems to me that the government tries very hard (too hard, according to just about every columnist and talk show guest) to respect everybody's personal freedoms. I'm pretty impressed, actually.
  - Vinnl 6y ago
    Mostly because there's lots of rule by decree that has been severely impacting our lives, I presume. That's why everyone's calling for the law to be passed (and also, of course, for that law to be a good law): to restore parliamentary oversight and unerode our democracy.
  - dmurray 6y ago
    We have something similar in Ireland: many of the coronavirus regulations (don't travel outside your county, don't have big gatherings in your home) don't have the force of law and/or the police don't have powers to enforce them. The government gave itself some emergency powers back in March, but these lapsed after I think 6 weeks and weren't renewed. The interesting question is why they didn't renew the emergency powers. They arguably weren't constitutional in the first place, but the only real challenge to them came from the conspiracy theorists /anti-vaxxers who got laughed out of court on about a hundred technicalities.
- lemming 6y ago
  The court's decision was more nuanced than that. They basically argued that it was technically not legal for a brief period, but justified, necessary and reasonable under the circumstances. It wasn't exactly an erosion of democracy and respect for human rights, and the court made that very clear in their judgement. https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-08-2020/unlawful-but-necessary-and-reasonable-making-sense-of-the-high-court-ruling-on-the-lockdown/ https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-08-2020/unlawful-but-ne...

airlinesreserva 6y ago

Bio Etihad cancellation policy - Read how to cancel etihad flight booking within 24 hour and how to get refund on cancellation.More info: <a href="https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-cancellation-policy/">https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-cancellation-policy/</a> https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-...

airlinesreserva 6y ago

Bio Etihad cancellation policy - Read how to cancel etihad flight booking within 24 hour and how to get refund on cancellation.More info: https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-cancellation-policy/ https://airlinesreservationsdeals.com/etihad-airways/flight-...

imgabe 6y ago

Page gives an error on loading for me, Firefox mobile on Android

bromonkey 6y ago
It loads fine for me on the same browser/platform.
tudorpavel 6y ago
If you aren't, try using the Firefox Beta version, or Firefox Nightly which I'm using to be on the bleeding edge.

tw1912112 6y ago

All these cries about democracy, and I haven't seen any single core structural change. Even the most hated country on HackerNews, Hungary, whose leader got the emergency power gave it back. Then we have Andrew Cuomo, who still has way more power than most head of states.

baron_harkonnen 6y ago

The pandemic is the match, but I’m going to blame the pile of kerosene soaked rags.

fit2rule 6y ago
Decency and human rights were lit on fire with every bomb dropped from a US drone since 2003. It is laughable to blame the pandemic on the worlds dismal human rights scene. Before covid was even a speck in a bats eye, human rights and decency were in the mud. Just ask the Libyan people. Or the Yemeni. Or Iraqi's.
varjag 6y ago
Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
- samoa42 6y ago
  those seem to be a minority thou
  - scotth 6y ago
    Seems like USA and UK fucking it up. Who else?
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      Brazil and Turkey come to my mind.
      - pelasaco 6y ago
        why Brazil? The Democracy there works fine. There was a change in the power, which brought new dynamics to the Country, but IMO their democracy are eroding much less than in US, France and Germany Disclaimer: I'm German/Brazilian who lived 10 years in US.

dr_dshiv 6y ago

In a place like Uganda, an empowered strongman is a greater threat than the pandemic itself. In fact, worldwide, actual loss of life seems like one of the least of the threats emerging from the pandemic.

ben_w 6y ago
Over a million dead despite the lockdowns and travel restrictions and the working from home: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths Strongmen can invent reasons from nothing, and often do.
Dumblydorr 6y ago
The specter of healthcare collapse has led to strict lockdowns and economic pain in many countries. If we hadn't taken many of the actions we did in the Spring, we would've seen far more deaths and calls for stronger government responses. Deaths are an important metric, but not the only one, and it's probable we could've been 2-3X higher in deaths with much more "freedom" in our daily lives.

gatkinso 6y ago

no, it merely pulled back the curtain

bsder 6y ago

The US was putting people in cages before the pandemic. The level of the pandemic in the US is an effect of decreased democracy and respect for human rights--not a cause.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jpxw 6y ago
Just to note, America has been doing this since Obama (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-build-cages-immigrants/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-build-cages-immigran...)
- christophilus 6y ago
  Or since before it was a nation, and ever since then, depending on what cages you care to look at.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > depending on what cages you care to look at. Yeah, although never before on the scale that we've seen post-1980.
- bsder 6y ago
  I didn't mention a president, you will note. There is plenty of blame to go around. However, I'm not going to let you get away with lying by omission. Quoting your article: > "In response to the backlash, U.S. President Donald Trump (falsely) pinned the blame for the child-separation policy on his predecessor, Barack Obama." > But then Trump also attempted to deflect outrage over photographs of immigrant children being kept in “cages” by asserting, “Obama built the cages. I didn’t build them. Obama built them” That portion of Trump’s commentary was true. Obama may have built them, but Trump is the one who imprisoned children in them.

quaintdev 6y ago

It feels like eroded democracy and respect for human led to pandemic. We have known about eroded democracy worldwide for few years now. Edit: So I am being down voted. At least challenge my reasoning? Anyways, here's what I think. Of course the headline is true but that does not mean what I said is not true. Remember the doctor in Wuhan who tried to warn officials about mysterious disease?[0]. Instead of looking into his claims he was summoned and admonished by Wuhan police. This is just one example "erosion of respect for human". When this happens a few thousand times across the globe we have pandemic. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

FpUser 6y ago
>"Edit: So I am being down voted. At least challenge my reasoning?" They just do not like what you say and the button is way easier to press than straining one's brain. Besides there are many subjects on HN that fall into "party line" areas and those are downvoted in droves

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

stuaxo 6y ago

The UK may not be on "about the same" in a couple of months, we've just had the "spycops bill" where police and many other agencies will be able to commit crimes, without limitation as long as it's signed off.

pjc50 6y ago
Moody's downgraded the credit rating citing "governance issues" just now.
- neilwilson 6y ago
  What Moody's think is irrelevant to a sovereign nation with its own currency. It's rather arrogant of them to think they have anything relevant to say on the matter.
  - legulere 6y ago
    Also Venezuela is a sovereign nation with its own currency. We live in a globalized world where those things do matter. The best you can achieve by isolationism is North Korea.
    - neilwilson 6y ago
      Venezuela has a peg to another currency doesn't it. And government bonds issued in denominations other than bolivar. What is the UK pegged to? What alternative denominations are UK bonds in? There is literally no mechanism by which UK sovereign bonds cannot be changed back into Sterling. None. So it can only matter in the minds of those people who haven't a clue how currencies actually work.
      - legulere 6y ago
        Maybe slow down a bit before claiming that someone does not have a clue. The Venezuelan bolivar is not really pegged to any currency otherwise its hyperinflation would not have been possible. That is also the reason why nobody would buy bonds in the Venezuelan bolivar. Of course the UK is in a different situation than Venezuela, being a country with an advanced economy. Still the rating will have an effect as a lot of institutional investors are bound to very stable bonds. So the interest rates will rise. Of course the UK can use inflation of the sterling to get rid of its debt. That would however also reduce its ability to issue low yield debt in the future. In the end the UK is bound to what rating agencies and the market thinks of it like basically any other country.

PeterStuer 6y ago

"Never let a good crisis go to waste" Some plans just need the lube of a 'good crisis', the accompanying increased perceived need for (any) action and the decreased scrutiny, to be pushed through. The pandemic is not the cause, it is the cover.

gotadollar 6y ago

Stay in and order your food if you can't behave yourself in public: if you're so deathly afraid of catching the virus you become 'accidentally' racist, stay at home.

ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago

THIS WORLD NEVER BEHAVED LIKE ADULT AND VACCINATED HUMAN! more like primitive autism... :Ð

pelasaco 6y ago

The pandemic didn't destroy the democracy in Uganda. In Uganda there was never a democracy in place. Mr Museveni is the president of Uganda since 1986.

speeder 6y ago

In my country at least a lot of that has to do with the media and our current supreme court. Despite Brazil having the most advanced constitution in the world regarding human rights, local leaders have been ignoring it outright, and when the president complained the media portrayed the president as a genocidal dictator, and when the president sued the governors and mayors to force them to obey the constitution, the supreme court literally ruled the Virus is so dangerous that ignoring the constitution and eroding rights is fine. After that it only got worse, the supreme court been making lately more and more decisions that ignore the laws instead of enforcing them. EDIT: people been downvoting me. Instead of downvoting why you don't present your argument instead, and let me present mine, this way we can have a conversation that might enlighten readers of this site?

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
I feel like redditors in particular hate Bolsanaro just because he's right wing. What you've said is incredibly sad though.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > Bolsanaro He is much more than just "right wing." He routinely praises the junta and says that their mistake was not killing enough leftists. That is not normal.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    There is nothing wrong with a Junta as a form of government. Often times military governments are required to transition to a democratic one. I mean half of south america basically had them. They are effective forms of government required to retain order and stability so that democracy can ensue. The reason we don't see them be successful in african countries because they are often very poor, have immense cultural issues, and the government can't effectively maintain control. Even established regimes can't even perform basic functions of governance because corruption even within their own administration.

trackofalljades 6y ago

paywall-free: https://archive.is/bUQcv https://archive.is/bUQcv

cwhiz 6y ago

In this forum, right here on HN, people routinely espouse desire for more authoritarian restrictions. People gleefully discuss Sweden and almost openly hope that their lockdown-free plan fails. The article makes it sound as if the erosion of democracy is coming from the top. In the USA, it’s coming from the bottom. It’s coming from everyday citizens.

burlesona 6y ago
I would argue it’s coming from the system. The national two party first-past-the-post system naturally leads to hyper-partisanship and constantly escalating stakes, meanwhile fewer and fewer Americans truly feel represented by the choices they have on offer - and very large numbers of people have their vote effectively ignored because their voting precinct is gerrymandered to ensure stable one-party rule. Because the system is broken, people are angry and want to tear down the system and replace it with something else. Unfortunately, history says that authoritarianism is a popular response to broken systems, and that it doesn’t end well. If we don’t want to go down that path we need to quit blaming individuals and get very serious about fixing the system: we need proportional representative multi-party democracy, like almost every other western democracy. For citations and a deep discussion on this, see: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44244963-breaking-the-two-party-doom-loop https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44244963-breaking-the...
- christophilus 6y ago
  I’m with you. I have voted for an Nth party every presidential election since I was 18. Every single time I was told that I was throwing my vote away or voting for one of the major party villains. Every single time, I was told that this was the most important election of my lifetime, and just this once, I needed to bite the bullet and vote for a major party. Not doing it. That entire narrative needs to change.
  - u801e 6y ago
    > Every single time I was told that I was throwing my vote away or voting for one of the major party villains. The refrain essentially is that you must vote for the candidate we say is most likely to win and if you don't, then you're helping the next runner up. I believe that if we no longer reported polling results and had election results reported at the same time, then the problem I describe above would be significantly reduced. The fact that primaries are not held at the same time leads the results of earlier primaries influencing the results of later ones. The fact that election results from the eastern part of the country are reported while the western part is still voting influences the results.

tamaharbor 6y ago

How effective are masks? If I can smell the guy next to me with my mask on, I am sure I can catch his virus also.

futurehero 6y ago

How many will die if every human alive today gets Covid-19, and will those who survive be able to repopulate the Earth, or will the percentage lost be a barley noticeable blip when individuals in the year 3000 look at the chart of human population growth from the dawn of humanity to their current age, assuming our species survives that long? If a blip, this has all been much ado about nothing.

whimsicalism 6y ago
> this has all been much to do about nothing. The "much ado" that you all are bemoaning will be even less than a blip by the year 3000. But keep coming with these really convoluted justifications for policy inaction -> millions of deaths, because in hindsight a thousand years later, a million deaths will only be a few among billions.
gandalfgreybeer 6y ago
I find this way of thinking totally cold-hearted and devaluing human life despite knowing that you're thinking from a larger time scale. If in the grand scheme of things, 6 million deaths becomes a blip, will the holocaust have been much ado about nothing?

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Pray on people's fear to get them to do something in the name of 'public safety' with weak scientific backing? That's literally textbook strong man tactics. It's how Duterte murdered half of his opponents in the Philippines with the fictionalized drug war. Murder in the name of 'public safety'. I'm sure there were people supporting Duterte saying it's just common sense as well. Sad how easily influenced people are.