Coronavirus Outbreak

[nett]

That is apparently how the law was negotiated with the Amish and conservative Mennonites back when it was first established. I assume at the time that most if not all of them were self-employed farmers or ran their own small businesses of some sort and did not tend to work as wage employees of large corporations. Opting out of social security and Medicare is a lifetime religious commitment that requires a robust church group behind you to provide equivalent alternatives. It isn’t something that someone can just wing on their own.

Humans relied with dignity on their families, church and small community structures for 1000s of years before social security. welfare and social safety nets are especially required as industrial life disrupts basic social structures that God designed in favor of profit and efficiency. Exchanging that natural order for state sponsored welfare was much like Israel asking for a king. It was a massive mistake, but can only be seen after the fact.

Procedurally, you're correct though. It has to be very difficult to opt out, otherwise most would. Our culture has very little future time preference, which is the main factor, but Social Security especially is a house of cards. Adjusting for inflation (real inflation, not CPI), I will never get the value back that I put into it.

You might well get back your investment if you live to be 100 or wind up disabled. The program is designed to be progressive so lower income individuals get back higher benefits than high income individuals relative to their contributions. So the likely hood that you get your “investment” back depends on two things. How long you live and how wealthy you are. Personally my wife and I don’t plan to rely on Social Security. We have our own personal savings. But it is a nice backstop to have should things go haywire. And if we have money left over that is just more we can contribute to charity and so forth.

As a society we have decided not to let our elderly die in poverty or from preventable medical issues because they are too poor to pay for it. The poverty rate among the elderly was about 50% when FDR signed the Social Security Act into law. It is now around 10%. That is largely the result of Social Security. I tend to think that is a good thing. The Golden Ages weren’t all that golden for many if not the majority.

I am of the opinion that the USA is a failed experiment in destroying natural social structures in favor of a quick buck (profit). I won't argue with you about the early results of that.

I do wonder about eg. England or Holland before the industrial revolution, and the poverty rates there.

[MaxPC]

The virus spreads more quickly as people congregate indoors, so what I've heard is that southern states tend to have waves of the virus in the heat of summer as people stay inside due to hot weather, where northern states tend to have waves in the winters as people stay inside due to the cold. Not sure whether this is accurate but it makes sense.

Peek heat in the south is July August. I do not see the peek hitting there. I see it a little after that.

The other issue with Florida is the high level of elderly. It makes sense that its death rate would be up some.

Cases in Florida peaked in mid-August and began to drop at the end of August, near the end of peak summer heat in Florida.

I agree with the high level of elderly, and it is a wonder that it took a year and a half of the pandemic for that to be reflected in the virus numbers in Florida.

I agree re the elderly as well. Nevertheless, those numbers are not syncing with other stats. That being said, we still have to exercise caution about the extreme alarmism coming out of government warnings when the latest variant is cited as mild by the doctor who first observed it.

[Josh]

As if Social Security will help you if you’re disabled… you pretty much have to get an attorney, appeal multiple times, and fork over 1/3 of your disability benefits to that attorney.

I have no idea why anyone would defend this system.

[JimFoxvog]

As if Social Security will help you if you’re disabled… you pretty much have to get an attorney, appeal multiple times, and fork over 1/3 of your disability benefits to that attorney.

I have no idea why anyone would defend this system.

My wife is disabled. She applied with appropriate documentation from her one doctor. The application was accepted within a few months. No appeals, no lawyers.

Now a young woman in our church with multiple disabilities has been denied twice. Her parents explain that it is much harder for someone young when a single one of the medical problems alone would not be a total disability.

[Ken]

As if Social Security will help you if you’re disabled… you pretty much have to get an attorney, appeal multiple times, and fork over 1/3 of your disability benefits to that attorney.

I have no idea why anyone would defend this system.

The level of disability fraud is breathtaking. It is good that they are skeptical of disability claims.

Of course they could also raise taxes to pay for an extra super special Cadillac fraud review process with in-person offices in every county in the country. But that would cost billions too.

I'm no defender of the program. But I see no easy answers. If they made it easier to get disability they would be opening up a firehose of more fraud that would amount to billions of dollars per year. But eliminating the program would plunge millions of people who truly are disabled into dire poverty. Many of whom paid into the program for years or decades.

[Ken]

This happened today. Other news sources also reported that he promoted and was taking Ivermectin: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion ... l-freedom/

Marcus Lamb, head of Daystar, a large Christian network that discouraged vaccines, dies after getting covid-19

Marcus Lamb, founder of the large Christian network Daystar, died Tuesday after contracting the coronavirus. Lamb’s network during the pandemic has made the virus a huge focus, calling it a satanic attack that should not be treated with vaccines. He was 64 years old.

Daystar is the second-largest Christian network in the world, according to CBN News, a competitor, reaching 2 billion people worldwide. Its brand is a fluid, modern, charismatic faith, more about general good-vs-evil, miraculous healings and religious freedom than any specific denominational theology.

But during the pandemic, Lamb and his network went in big with anti-vaccine conspiracies, hosting daily interviews with skeptics who talked about dangerous, hidden forces pushing vaccines and stealing Christians’ freedoms. “What if the most dangerous thing your child could face in life is the very thing you’re told by your doctor is safe?” is the headline of “A Hidden Crisis," about coronavirus vaccines.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a spiritual attack from the enemy," Lamb’s son, Jonathan, said on the network earlier this month about his father’s covid-19 bout, Relevant magazine reported Tuesday. Talking about the alternative, unfounded treatments his parents promoted, Jonathan Lamb said, "there’s no doubt that the enemy is not happy about that. And he’s doing everything he can to take down my Dad.”

Daystar spokesman Arnold Torres declined to comment Tuesday on Lamb’s career or about his views of his illness before he died, or whether he was vaccinated.

“The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss. Please continue to lift them up in prayer,” Torres wrote in an email.

A brief statement said Daystar was launched in 1998 and grew to more than 100 television stations around the world. “[Lamb] will always be remembered for his fierce love of God, people, and his family.”

His wife, Joni, on their daily Ministry Show Tuesday, said her husband was diagnosed with covid-19, “got the covid pneumonia” and also had diabetes.

“We were trying to treat the covid and pneumonia with the different protocols we use, including the ones we talk about on Daystar. We used those — I myself used them and had breezed through covid,” she said on the show. His blood sugar spiked and he needed oxygen, she said. “He 100 percent believed in everything we talk about here on Daystar, things that help so many people around the world with early protocol treatments for covid. We still stand by those obviously.”

White evangelical Christians resist coronavirus vaccines at higher rates than other religious groups in the United States, a phenomenon experts say is bound up in politics, skepticism about government and in their consumption of alternative media and unfounded conspiracy theories about vaccine dangers.

Lamb, whose network is headquartered in Dallas, was praised by prominent evangelicals Tuesday, who didn’t mention his anti-vaccine activism. Among them were Jentezen Franklin, a Georgia pastor who, with Lamb, was in a small circle of evangelical advisers to then-President Donald Trump, and Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and president of the international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse. Lamb appeared in a 2020 photo with Trump and a group of prominent Christians at an Evangelicals for Trump rally.

“For all those who put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have that assurance of being with God for eternity in heaven. Marcus is now in the presence of His Lord and Savior. He had preached about heaven, taught about heaven, and now he is experiencing heaven,” tweeted Graham.

He was also followed by ministry watchdog groups, including the Trinity Foundation, which noted investigations by Inside Edition and NPR alleging questionable uses of donor money at Daystar.

NPR in 2014 alleged that Daystar gave away a fraction of what it said it did. Lamb in 2020 returned $3.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program money after an Inside Edition investigation found his ministry purchased a jet two weeks after getting a PPP loan meant to help employees struggling during the pandemic.

Pete Evans, president of the Dallas-based Trinity, said he suspected Lamb’s network focused on covid conspiracies out of “fear of something new” and perhaps a fealty to Trump.

Daystar’s role in the Christian scene, Evans said, “is a give-to-get theology” with an urgent feel, especially to give money or to act. “It’s always like: There’s an anointing in the air, God is speaking to me right now.”

[Soloist]

In other news, this random famous person who promoted the vaccine died last week from covid.

[Ken]

In other news, this random famous person who promoted the vaccine died last week from covid.

Did this random famous person forget to take their Ivermectin?

[Soloist]

In other news, this random famous person who promoted the vaccine died last week from covid.

Did this random famous person forget to take their Ivermectin?

Nope! that person said Ivermectin was horse medication!

[Valerie]

This happened today. Other news sources also reported that he promoted and was taking Ivermectin: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion ... l-freedom/

Marcus Lamb, head of Daystar, a large Christian network that discouraged vaccines, dies after getting covid-19

Marcus Lamb, founder of the large Christian network Daystar, died Tuesday after contracting the coronavirus. Lamb’s network during the pandemic has made the virus a huge focus, calling it a satanic attack that should not be treated with vaccines. He was 64 years old.

Daystar is the second-largest Christian network in the world, according to CBN News, a competitor, reaching 2 billion people worldwide. Its brand is a fluid, modern, charismatic faith, more about general good-vs-evil, miraculous healings and religious freedom than any specific denominational theology.

But during the pandemic, Lamb and his network went in big with anti-vaccine conspiracies, hosting daily interviews with skeptics who talked about dangerous, hidden forces pushing vaccines and stealing Christians’ freedoms. “What if the most dangerous thing your child could face in life is the very thing you’re told by your doctor is safe?” is the headline of “A Hidden Crisis," about coronavirus vaccines.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a spiritual attack from the enemy," Lamb’s son, Jonathan, said on the network earlier this month about his father’s covid-19 bout, Relevant magazine reported Tuesday. Talking about the alternative, unfounded treatments his parents promoted, Jonathan Lamb said, "there’s no doubt that the enemy is not happy about that. And he’s doing everything he can to take down my Dad.”

Daystar spokesman Arnold Torres declined to comment Tuesday on Lamb’s career or about his views of his illness before he died, or whether he was vaccinated.

“The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss. Please continue to lift them up in prayer,” Torres wrote in an email.

A brief statement said Daystar was launched in 1998 and grew to more than 100 television stations around the world. “[Lamb] will always be remembered for his fierce love of God, people, and his family.”

His wife, Joni, on their daily Ministry Show Tuesday, said her husband was diagnosed with covid-19, “got the covid pneumonia” and also had diabetes.

“We were trying to treat the covid and pneumonia with the different protocols we use, including the ones we talk about on Daystar. We used those — I myself used them and had breezed through covid,” she said on the show. His blood sugar spiked and he needed oxygen, she said. “He 100 percent believed in everything we talk about here on Daystar, things that help so many people around the world with early protocol treatments for covid. We still stand by those obviously.”

White evangelical Christians resist coronavirus vaccines at higher rates than other religious groups in the United States, a phenomenon experts say is bound up in politics, skepticism about government and in their consumption of alternative media and unfounded conspiracy theories about vaccine dangers.

Lamb, whose network is headquartered in Dallas, was praised by prominent evangelicals Tuesday, who didn’t mention his anti-vaccine activism. Among them were Jentezen Franklin, a Georgia pastor who, with Lamb, was in a small circle of evangelical advisers to then-President Donald Trump, and Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and president of the international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse. Lamb appeared in a 2020 photo with Trump and a group of prominent Christians at an Evangelicals for Trump rally.

“For all those who put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have that assurance of being with God for eternity in heaven. Marcus is now in the presence of His Lord and Savior. He had preached about heaven, taught about heaven, and now he is experiencing heaven,” tweeted Graham.

He was also followed by ministry watchdog groups, including the Trinity Foundation, which noted investigations by Inside Edition and NPR alleging questionable uses of donor money at Daystar.

NPR in 2014 alleged that Daystar gave away a fraction of what it said it did. Lamb in 2020 returned $3.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program money after an Inside Edition investigation found his ministry purchased a jet two weeks after getting a PPP loan meant to help employees struggling during the pandemic.

Pete Evans, president of the Dallas-based Trinity, said he suspected Lamb’s network focused on covid conspiracies out of “fear of something new” and perhaps a fealty to Trump.

Daystar’s role in the Christian scene, Evans said, “is a give-to-get theology” with an urgent feel, especially to give money or to act. “It’s always like: There’s an anointing in the air, God is speaking to me right now.”

This proves nothing against Ivermectin though- his dear wife stayed she took the "other" protocols & breezed through Covid. Many doctors who used hydroxychloroquine & ivermectin to treat Covid patients were able to keep them from hospitalization so much so that they have been honored & asked to speak in Italy-

Isn't it about choice? Choosing the risk? Either approach has its own risks. People had valid reasons to have suspicions of this entire pandemic from its questionable origin to it's warp speed unapproved vaccines. With all the Fabrications in the last few years in government trying to take down people it was a setup to cause him to be suspicious and unfortunately that causes them then to be labeled conspiracy theorists when in reality they had valid reasons to be suspicious and to whave some questions that have yet to be answered. Timing was quite odd of all this too.

As I've said before if you have a conviction against the vaccine, you may go through a very difficult time, be tested, and may die for that conviction. We have an appointed time to die. People are hurt and even die from the vaccine, we know this too.