[honk]

If you had read the entire article instead of just the headline (here's an archived link to avoid the paywall), you would have known that it's not saying what you think it's saying. It's an opinion piece written by one person who in no way "represents" the government or any company, and seems to be more interested in humblebragging about (supposedly) being right all along about schools being closed for too long and patronizingly offering forgiveness to those who doubted her than anything else. At no point does this article say that closing businesses and encouraging social distancing were wrong, nor that requiring masks to be worn in public buildings was wrong, nor that employers requiring their employees to be vaccinated was wrong, and certainly not that the vaccine was dangerous or unhelpful. This is not any kind of vindication for conspiracy theorists, unless your particular conspiracy theory happens to be that schools were closed for too long, and even then, the author would be on your side.

[Action80]

^From the source provided by Rushy:

"But the thing is: We didn’t know."

I don't know who "we" is, but if you check the various threads on this forum and others, there are plenty of instances where many told the "we," they were absolutely full of shit with their approach in response to the "plandemic."

So, as usual, Sadaam is absolutely wrong.

There were no such thing as "conspiracy theorists," writing about this "plandemic." Only persons who were using their heads for something other than a fucking hat rack (hereinafter known as "CORRECT PEOPLE") and those (hereinafter known as "SADAAM CLONES")pushing a bunch of goddamn crapola policies enacted in response to a goddamn flu.

It is those persons who were doing this (and mocking those who were telling the truth the entire time) that need to be continually singled out and castigated for their evil (that is right...EVIL) actions during this period.

The cofeve response was ABSOLUTELY WRONG at all levels.

And the court who granted over 1 million USD each to several employees who were fired for refusing to get a shot conclusively stated employers who were forcing employees to take a shot were WRONG.

[garygreen]

how is it 2024 and y'all are still this pathetically upset about "that one time when walmart wouldn't let me in without a mask on 😔😔😔😔." lol grow up

[Action80]

^case in point. Bot doesn't care about real, common sense approach to life, nor does it care about the real harms brought on by the tyrannical response to a flu.

The human body is meant to expel waste freely and without restriction. Real people know this, bots do not.

[Rushy]

If you had read the entire article instead of just the headline (here's an archived link to avoid the paywall), you would have known that it's not saying what you think it's saying. It's an opinion piece written by one person who in no way "represents" the government or any company, and seems to be more interested in humblebragging about (supposedly) being right all along about schools being closed for too long and patronizingly offering forgiveness to those who doubted her than anything else. At no point does this article say that closing businesses and encouraging social distancing were wrong, nor that requiring masks to be worn in public buildings was wrong, nor that employers requiring their employees to be vaccinated was wrong, and certainly not that the vaccine was dangerous or unhelpful. This is not any kind of vindication for conspiracy theorists, unless your particular conspiracy theory happens to be that schools were closed for too long, and even then, the author would be on your side.

Woah, it's an opinion piece? You mean to tell me the article wasn't written by the FBI and published by the CIA? Say it ain't so, honk. I'm devastated by this news. I can't believe it. I thought The Atlantic was a department of the federal government.

[honk]

^From the source provided by Rushy:

"But the thing is: We didn’t know."

I don't know who "we" is, but if you check the various threads on this forum and others, there are plenty of instances where many told the "we," they were absolutely full of shit with their approach in response to the "plandemic."

Going by the context, it's clear that the author is initially referring to her own family, and later on, to society as a whole. Whether or not you agree with her about what was publicly known and when is beside the point, which is that she is not speaking for or somehow representing any kind of official or semi-official body. That's what really drives a stake through this look-they-admit-it interpretation of the article. We know who the author is. She's not a politician or bureaucrat, nor does she work for any of the usual boogeymen of the right like the UN, the WEF, the Clinton Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and so on. She's a college professor who attracted attention during the pandemic by controversially arguing that schools should be reopened, and she wrote this article to gloat about the fact that she was right and that she magnanimously plans to forgive her critics.

I won't bother responding to the rest of your post, as it doesn't seem to have anything to do with this article.

Woah, it's an opinion piece? You mean to tell me the article wasn't written by the FBI and published by the CIA? Say it ain't so, honk. I'm devastated by this news. I can't believe it. I thought The Atlantic was a department of the federal government.

I know, it's so obvious! And yet, the person I was responding to really did seem to be implying that this article was some sort of mea culpa on the part of the government and businesses:

Always remember how companies and the government behaved when it came time to ignore all precedent and force you to do something against your will.

Reminder: they will have you do things that are obviously ridiculous nonsense, then when push comes to shove, they'll publish "sorry pls forgive " articles years later.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/covid-response-forgiveness/671879/

I didn't take him out of context or anything. This guy literally said "they will have you do things that are obviously ridiculous nonsense, then when push comes to shove, they'll publish "sorry pls forgive " articles years later." As insane as it sounds, he evidently thinks that the "they" who were responsible for covid-era policies (the government and businesses) were also responsible for this article. There's no other way to interpret his post. There's also, of course, the fact that this article doesn't say what he thinks it says, and that he clearly just looked at the headline and assumed he knew the content of the article without reading it, but that's admittedly less wacky than thinking that the government is writing opinion pieces in The Atlantic. What a dumbass, am I right?

[Action80]

And yet, the person I was responding to really did seem to be implying that this article was some sort of mea culpa on the part of the government and businesses:

Always remember how companies and the government behaved when it came time to ignore all precedent and force you to do something against your will.

Reminder: they will have you do things that are obviously ridiculous nonsense, then when push comes to shove, they'll publish "sorry pls forgive " articles years later.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/covid-response-forgiveness/671879/

I didn't take him out of context or anything. This guy literally said "they will have you do things that are obviously ridiculous nonsense, then when push comes to shove, they'll publish "sorry pls forgive " articles years later." As insane as it sounds, he evidently thinks that the "they" who were responsible for covid-era policies (the government and businesses) were also responsible for this article. There's no other way to interpret his post.

Holy fuck...

I never posted one goddamn thing about Rushy's article, except the quote.

I never wrote the article was from any government agency and neither did Rushy.

Your powers of deductive and inductive reasoning are for goddamn shit.

The government has been found culpable for the shitty response to the flu.

Others will eventually pay also.

[Rushy]

I know, it's so obvious! And yet, the person I was responding to really did seem to be implying that this article was some sort of mea culpa on the part of the government and businesses:

I didn't take him out of context or anything. This guy literally said "they will have you do things that are obviously ridiculous nonsense, then when push comes to shove, they'll publish "sorry pls forgive " articles years later." As insane as it sounds, he evidently thinks that the "they" who were responsible for covid-era policies (the government and businesses) were also responsible for this article. There's no other way to interpret his post. There's also, of course, the fact that this article doesn't say what he thinks it says, and that he clearly just looked at the headline and assumed he knew the content of the article without reading it, but that's admittedly less wacky than thinking that the government is writing opinion pieces in The Atlantic. What a dumbass, am I right?

I didn't realize government and businesses were made by robots that don't contain people with opinions. I should have known better!

Now that you're done having this absolutely insane take on what was posted, maybe you'll want to come up with something a bit more relevant than this ranting nonsense that comes to your head. Take a deep breath and try posting again, but this time read what you wrote before you posted it. This way, you don't post something like "hurr durr The Atlantic is not a department of the US government" and double-down on that as if it's an actual point that anyone was bringing up.

[honk]

I never posted one goddamn thing about Rushy's article, except the quote.

Ah, my mistake for assuming that your response to me would be about the subject I was discussing. In any case, if you're not talking about the article, then I've got nothing to say to you. I'm not interested in re-litigating covid policies.

I didn't realize government and businesses were made by robots that don't contain people with opinions. I should have known better!

Now that you're done having this absolutely insane take on what was posted, maybe you'll want to come up with something a bit more relevant than this ranting nonsense that comes to your head. Take a deep breath and try posting again, but this time read what you wrote before you posted it. This way, you don't post something like "hurr durr The Atlantic is not a department of the US government" and double-down on that as if it's an actual point that anyone was bringing up.

You're the one who said "they will have you do things that are obviously ridiculous nonsense, then when push comes to shove, they'll publish "sorry pls forgive " articles years later." How else could I possibly interpret that other than you apparently thinking that this article came from the same people who gave us covid policies? But if I'm wrong, as you insist I am, then please just tell me what it is that you did mean.

[Rushy]

Ah, my mistake for assuming that your response to me would be about the subject I was discussing. In any case, if you're not talking about the article, then I've got nothing to say to you.

Then why did you respond at all? It seems like all you wanted was some kind of weird "gotcha" where you inform me that a newspaper is not actually owned by the government. Thank you for the informative post, very helpful.

How else could I possibly interpret that other than you apparently thinking that this article came from the same people who gave us covid policies? But if I'm wrong, as you insist I am, then please just tell me what it is that you did mean.

Businesses and governments are collections of people. People who pushed covid nonsense, collectively, as people. Some of those people (ergo: they) are publishing articles about having pushed this nonsense on their fellow man. Did this man personally pass covid legislation? No. Does he represent a certain apologetic factor in having people engage in performative nonsense? Yes.

People are the people that pushed covid policies (yes, that includes you!). The government isn't some magical entity that forces people to do things. Those people do things in voluntary agreement with the government. They don't actually have to do them!

I'm not interested in re-litigating covid policies.

I think this is the core problem. You're not actually interested in a legitimate discussion. You just wanted to reply with nonsense. Did you genuinely believe anyone here believed a single newspaper represents the entire government? The answer is obviously no. Did you ask me to clarify? No. You wanted to imply a ridiculous take just to sound righteously incredulous. Good job.

[Action80]

Once again, Sadaam posts his twist-and-turn bullshit.

Rushy posts an opinion piece, Sadaam wants to make it out like Rushy believes it is an apology article from the US Government staff person for what all the various US Government agencies did in response to the flu, then wants to add he had nothing to do with pushing the bullshit narratives the world populace was subjected to during a three year period.

Fuck that noise.

Nobody is going for it.

[honk]

Then why did you respond at all? It seems like all you wanted was some kind of weird "gotcha" where you inform me that a newspaper is not actually owned by the government. Thank you for the informative post, very helpful.

If you'll notice, that was not addressed to you. I was talking to Action80. You made a post about an article, I responded to you about the article, and then Action80 responded to me and quoted a line from the article. I quite naturally assumed that we were still discussing the article and responded in kind. If I had known that he wasn't interested in the article and just wanted to bitch and moan about covid policies, I wouldn't have bothered engaging with him.

Businesses and governments are collections of people. People who pushed covid nonsense, collectively, as people. Some of those people (ergo: they) are publishing articles about having pushed this nonsense on their fellow man. Did this man personally pass covid legislation? No. Does he represent a certain apologetic factor in having people engage in performative nonsense? Yes.

People are the people that pushed covid policies (yes, that includes you!). The government isn't some magical entity that forces people to do things. Those people do things in voluntary agreement with the government. They don't actually have to do them!

Okay, so we're back to the point that not only have you not read the article, you haven't even read my previous posts where I discussed the article. Again, I would encourage you to read the article. Like I said in my previous posts, the author (a woman) is in no way apologizing for or admitting fault with regard to the most controversial covid policies involving mandatory public masking or vaccinations, and mostly criticized schools being closed for too long, not from the perspective of someone who's admitting that she was wrong and is asking forgiveness, but from the perspective of someone who claims to have been right all along and is condescendingly offering to forgive her critics.

I think this is the core problem. You're not actually interested in a legitimate discussion. You just wanted to reply with nonsense. Did you genuinely believe anyone here believed a single newspaper represents the entire government? The answer is obviously no. Did you ask me to clarify? No. You wanted to imply a ridiculous take just to sound righteously incredulous. Good job.

Two problems here. First of all, if what you said was too stupid to be taken seriously, then you shouldn't have said it to begin with. It's not my responsibility to make your arguments for you. Second of all, your characterization of what I said just isn't accurate:

If you had read the entire article instead of just the headline (here's an archived link to avoid the paywall), you would have known that it's not saying what you think it's saying. It's an opinion piece written by one person who in no way "represents" the government or any company, and seems to be more interested in humblebragging about (supposedly) being right all along about schools being closed for too long and patronizingly offering forgiveness to those who doubted her than anything else. At no point does this article say that closing businesses and encouraging social distancing were wrong, nor that requiring masks to be worn in public buildings was wrong, nor that employers requiring their employees to be vaccinated was wrong, and certainly not that the vaccine was dangerous or unhelpful. This is not any kind of vindication for conspiracy theorists, unless your particular conspiracy theory happens to be that schools were closed for too long, and even then, the author would be on your side.

You focused on half a sentence from me ("It's an opinion piece written by one person who in no way "represents" the government or any company") and ignored everything else I said about the actual content of the article. If you had read my post, you would have seen my response to the argument you just made before you had even made it. Just like if you had read the article and not just the headline, you would have known that it's not saying what you think it's saying.

[Action80]

Then why did you respond at all? It seems like all you wanted was some kind of weird "gotcha" where you inform me that a newspaper is not actually owned by the government. Thank you for the informative post, very helpful.

If you'll notice, that was not addressed to you. I was talking to Action80.

Bull cookies.

Here is your post:

If you had read the entire article instead of just the headline (here's an archived link to avoid the paywall), you would have known that it's not saying what you think it's saying. It's an opinion piece written by one person who in no way "represents" the government or any company, and seems to be more interested in humblebragging about (supposedly) being right all along about schools being closed for too long and patronizingly offering forgiveness to those who doubted her than anything else. At no point does this article say that closing businesses and encouraging social distancing were wrong, nor that requiring masks to be worn in public buildings was wrong, nor that employers requiring their employees to be vaccinated was wrong, and certainly not that the vaccine was dangerous or unhelpful. This is not any kind of vindication for conspiracy theorists, unless your particular conspiracy theory happens to be that schools were closed for too long, and even then, the author would be on your side.

That post was before my post where I quoted Rushy's post.

Get your asshatted fucking story straight.

[honk]

Okay, we'll go through this one by one:

Then why did you respond at all? It seems like all you wanted was some kind of weird "gotcha" where you inform me that a newspaper is not actually owned by the government. Thank you for the informative post, very helpful.

If you'll notice, that was not addressed to you. I was talking to Action80.

Click on Rushy's quote, and you'll see this post:

Ah, my mistake for assuming that your response to me would be about the subject I was discussing. In any case, if you're not talking about the article, then I've got nothing to say to you.

Then why did you respond at all? It seems like all you wanted was some kind of weird "gotcha" where you inform me that a newspaper is not actually owned by the government. Thank you for the informative post, very helpful.

Now click on my quote, and you'll see this post:

I never posted one goddamn thing about Rushy's article, except the quote.

Ah, my mistake for assuming that your response to me would be about the subject I was discussing. In any case, if you're not talking about the article, then I've got nothing to say to you. I'm not interested in re-litigating covid policies.

So as you can clearly see, I was addressing you and not Rushy with that particular post. The post that you quoted earlier was addressed to Rushy and not you, but it's not the one that Rushy was responding to.

[Action80]

Okay, I removed my post.

ETA: After review, no I won't.

You are clearly lying.

Anyone can see it.

Your initial response was to Rushy.

I then quoted Rushy's article and pointed to the court decision regarding vaccine mandates (A government mea culpa)).

And we already understand you do not wish to review the asshatted measures inflicted on the world populace during the flu.

And we already understand your poor analysis of the article in question.

[Rushy]

If you'll notice, that was not addressed to you. I was talking to Action80. You made a post about an article, I responded to you about the article, and then Action80 responded to me and quoted a line from the article. I quite naturally assumed that we were still discussing the article and responded in kind. If I had known that he wasn't interested in the article and just wanted to bitch and moan about covid policies, I wouldn't have bothered engaging with him.

Oh no, I have responded to things not said directly to me. Perhaps you should stop posting in the thread, since your original reply never addressed you in the first place.

Okay, so we're back to the point that not only have you not read the article, you haven't even read my previous posts where I discussed the article. Again, I would encourage you to read the article. Like I said in my previous posts, the author (a woman) is in no way apologizing for or admitting fault with regard to the most controversial covid policies involving mandatory public masking or vaccinations, and mostly criticized schools being closed for too long, not from the perspective of someone who's admitting that she was wrong and is asking forgiveness, but from the perspective of someone who claims to have been right all along and is condescendingly offering to forgive her critics.

This is almost as bad an interpretation of the article as your replies to my posts have been. Which isn't shocking, but it is annoying. The article is about "woops, sorry we did all that stuff, our bad!". Any further interpretation is your personal fluff posting.

Two problems here. First of all, if what you said was too stupid to be taken seriously, then you shouldn't have said it to begin with.

He says, hopefully to himself, in a nearby mirror...

You focused on half a sentence from me ("It's an opinion piece written by one person who in no way "represents" the government or any company") and ignored everything else I said about the actual content of the article. If you had read my post, you would have seen my response to the argument you just made before you had even made it. Just like if you had read the article and not just the headline, you would have known that it's not saying what you think it's saying.

My bad, honk, from now on I will only reference articles written by the press secretary of the white house. Nothing else is good enough.

[honk]

You should really just read the article. I know you think you don't need to, but you should.

[Rushy]

You should really just read the article. I know you think you don't need to, but you should.

So this is your argument so far:

1. The article wasn't written by the government. It doesn't matter.
2. THEN - Okay, so even though it wasn't written by the government, I suppose it can matter, but it doesn't say exactly what you want it to say

We're trying to adventure towards the next natural point:

3. THEN - Okay, so it may allude to the things you say, but that's not good enough. It should say them verbatim!

After that, we can go even further! We can discuss your precise interpretation of sentences. This requires you state why you believe what you do, rather than just saying "hmm actually this article doesn't say anything".

You see, honk, like yourself, other people don't like admitting they made huge mistakes during the pandemic. They have to hint at it, while pretending to have been correct all along, but also giving away that they realized they were in the wrong. I suggest you thoroughly read the article with that in mind.

[honk]

So this is your argument so far:

1. The article wasn't written by the government. It doesn't matter.
2. THEN - Okay, so even though it wasn't written by the government, I suppose it can matter, but it doesn't say exactly what you want it to say

No, not "then." You latched on to half a sentence in my first post and ignored everything else I said to make it seem as though I was being pedantic. I'll post my first quote again so there can be no misunderstanding:

If you had read the entire article instead of just the headline (here's an archived link to avoid the paywall), you would have known that it's not saying what you think it's saying. It's an opinion piece written by one person who in no way "represents" the government or any company, and seems to be more interested in humblebragging about (supposedly) being right all along about schools being closed for too long and patronizingly offering forgiveness to those who doubted her than anything else. At no point does this article say that closing businesses and encouraging social distancing were wrong, nor that requiring masks to be worn in public buildings was wrong, nor that employers requiring their employees to be vaccinated was wrong, and certainly not that the vaccine was dangerous or unhelpful. This is not any kind of vindication for conspiracy theorists, unless your particular conspiracy theory happens to be that schools were closed for too long, and even then, the author would be on your side.

You ignored everything that I've bolded.

We're trying to adventure towards the next natural point:

3. THEN - Okay, so it may allude to the things you say, but that's not good enough. It should say them verbatim!

After that, we can go even further! We can discuss your precise interpretation of sentences. This requires you state why you believe what you do, rather than just saying "hmm actually this article doesn't say anything".

You see, honk, like yourself, other people don't like admitting they made huge mistakes during the pandemic. They have to hint at it, while pretending to have been correct all along, but also giving away that they realized they were in the wrong. I suggest you thoroughly read the article with that in mind.

But it doesn't "allude to the things you say." I'm not saying that the we-were-wrong-please-forgive-us elements are there, but they're too indirect for my liking. I'm saying they aren't there at all. The author isn't admitting to (or hinting at, or vaguely indicating, or whatever wording you prefer), being wrong about anything, outside of the anecdote about her family trying to social distance while hiking. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the main point of this article is that she claims to have been right along but is such a big person that she's willing to forgive  her critics. Have you read the article, by the way? Because I wouldn't be surprised if you still haven't.

[Action80]

I'm saying they aren't there at all. The author isn't admitting to (or hinting at, or vaguely indicating, or whatever wording you prefer), being wrong about anything, outside of the anecdote about her family trying to social distance while hiking.

Sadaam, the author of course does not admit to being wrong about anything.

The author was one of the CORRECT PEOPLE when all the bullshit started to fly from the SADAAM CLONES.

From the article: "Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway."

"To take an example close to my own work, there is an emerging (if not universal) consensus that schools in the U.S. were closed for too long:"

"Remember when the public-health community had to spend a lot of time and resources urging Americans not to inject themselves with bleach? That was bad."

"Los Angeles County closed its beaches in summer 2020. Ex post facto, this makes no more sense than my family’s masked hiking trips."

Many people have neglected their health care over the past several years. Notably, routine vaccination rates for children (for measles, pertussis, etc.) are way down. "

You are correct, Sadaam...[/sarcasm] The article only mentioned social distancing.

Do you ever get tired of fucking lying?

Yes or no?