6 ms·

Me as a European software engineer, understanding tech stuff well, but not American politics, what's the problem with the Republicans? Why would you prefer the

Me as a European software engineer, understanding tech stuff well, but not American politics, what's the problem with the Republicans? Why would you prefer the other party, Democrats (right?) do the origin research instead?

bogantech 4y ago
Americans view politics like sportsball, I.e "our team good everyone else bad"
- serf 4y ago
  > Americans view politics like sportsball, I.e "our team good everyone else bad" it doesn't take a lot of effort to discover that plenty of power-structures and political regimes around the world aside from the United States eventually simplify down to basic adversarialism. It goes from 'RED/BLUE' all the way to 'GreatLeader/Dictator', but the United States doesn't have 'us versus them' to ourselves.
- istjohn 4y ago
  That's politics everywhere. Politics is the nonviolent contestation of power and typically political parties cater to a set of specific people with peculiar interests and beliefs. Sometimes polarization splits people into two equally self-interested groups fighting a zero-sum game, but sometimes polarization is literally over good and evil, where one side wants to enslave, exterminate, or oppress people, or they want to exploit or invade other countries, or they want to neglect their poor, sick, or unfortunate neighbors, or they want to undermine the democratic intitutions to permanently ensconce themselves in power. Enlightened centrism is just intellectual sloth.
corbulo 4y ago
My interpretation of what he said was 'shouldn't this be a bipartisan effort?!'
bee_rider 4y ago
The main reason is that the Republicans are the relatively right wing party in the country and wacky conspiracy theories about COVID have become more popular in right wing media here. So that’s the partisan reason. But also, since a Republican was in charge when COVID became a problem, it would make more sense to have the then-opposition do the investigation, right? Let’s not ask people who have an incentive to hide uncomfortable failures to investigate!
- worksonmine 4y ago
  The simple question about the origin was considered a conspiracy theory not that long ago. And you won't find any democrats speaking up about it, no they were busy covering it up just because that's what the "bad side" were claiming. Why is memory so short in politics? The question you should ask instead is why do they suddenly care?
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    I wonder what it would mean if Republicans conclusively proved that China did covid (whatever that means). Do you think the Republicans would have been/will be more likely to wear masks or get vaccines?
    - worksonmine 4y ago
      I wouldn't know I'm not from the US. But you sure seem very personally invested in those kinds of decisions. Maybe that should be Bidens strategy? Claim masks are terrible and get the Republicans to wear them? Seems to be how both sides reason over there. Exhausting but entertaining to follow. I'm leftist (real "hang the bankers" kind of left not Teslas and Iphones left) and even to me the Republicans often seem like the reasonable bunch in the gang, and that says a lot... Both sides would benefit from some serious self-examination.
      - hotpotamus 4y ago
        I don't know that I'm very personally invested in these kinds of decisions, but it's certainly possible. No one ever held a gun to my head and made me wear a mask or get a vaccine or anything, but I did them anyway because they seemed like the best ways to avoid dying from coronavirus or getting long covid, neither of which I particularly desired, and I do know people to whom those things happened. What I wonder is how laying the blame on some country or other would change other peoples' calculations on those decisions.
pyuser583 4y ago
The Democratic reports have better visuals but the Republicans use clearer language.

bogantech 4y ago

Americans view politics like sportsball, I.e "our team good everyone else bad"

serf 4y ago
> Americans view politics like sportsball, I.e "our team good everyone else bad" it doesn't take a lot of effort to discover that plenty of power-structures and political regimes around the world aside from the United States eventually simplify down to basic adversarialism. It goes from 'RED/BLUE' all the way to 'GreatLeader/Dictator', but the United States doesn't have 'us versus them' to ourselves.
istjohn 4y ago
That's politics everywhere. Politics is the nonviolent contestation of power and typically political parties cater to a set of specific people with peculiar interests and beliefs. Sometimes polarization splits people into two equally self-interested groups fighting a zero-sum game, but sometimes polarization is literally over good and evil, where one side wants to enslave, exterminate, or oppress people, or they want to exploit or invade other countries, or they want to neglect their poor, sick, or unfortunate neighbors, or they want to undermine the democratic intitutions to permanently ensconce themselves in power. Enlightened centrism is just intellectual sloth.

corbulo 4y ago

My interpretation of what he said was 'shouldn't this be a bipartisan effort?!'

bee_rider 4y ago

The main reason is that the Republicans are the relatively right wing party in the country and wacky conspiracy theories about COVID have become more popular in right wing media here. So that’s the partisan reason. But also, since a Republican was in charge when COVID became a problem, it would make more sense to have the then-opposition do the investigation, right? Let’s not ask people who have an incentive to hide uncomfortable failures to investigate!

worksonmine 4y ago
The simple question about the origin was considered a conspiracy theory not that long ago. And you won't find any democrats speaking up about it, no they were busy covering it up just because that's what the "bad side" were claiming. Why is memory so short in politics? The question you should ask instead is why do they suddenly care?
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I wonder what it would mean if Republicans conclusively proved that China did covid (whatever that means). Do you think the Republicans would have been/will be more likely to wear masks or get vaccines?
  - worksonmine 4y ago
    I wouldn't know I'm not from the US. But you sure seem very personally invested in those kinds of decisions. Maybe that should be Bidens strategy? Claim masks are terrible and get the Republicans to wear them? Seems to be how both sides reason over there. Exhausting but entertaining to follow. I'm leftist (real "hang the bankers" kind of left not Teslas and Iphones left) and even to me the Republicans often seem like the reasonable bunch in the gang, and that says a lot... Both sides would benefit from some serious self-examination.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      I don't know that I'm very personally invested in these kinds of decisions, but it's certainly possible. No one ever held a gun to my head and made me wear a mask or get a vaccine or anything, but I did them anyway because they seemed like the best ways to avoid dying from coronavirus or getting long covid, neither of which I particularly desired, and I do know people to whom those things happened. What I wonder is how laying the blame on some country or other would change other peoples' calculations on those decisions.

pyuser583 4y ago

The Democratic reports have better visuals but the Republicans use clearer language.