From An Angry Reader:
Vic, I read your opinion piece today in my local Naples Daily newspaper and I had to wonder why the paper published this absurd piece of crap. Didn’t they realize that only right-wing crazy assholes work at the Hoover Institute!
I apologize as I realize right-wing and crazy assholes are synonymous. Your article is full of lying bullshit. Are you sure TRumphole didn’t write this for you?
I mean really you accuse President Biden has not kept our laws, but you say nothing about the whiner who got his fat dumb ass kicked by Joe. You attack immigrants for your typical stupid claims while again say nothing about Americans who refuse masks, maintain social distances and Bitch about vaccine passports!
You’re a fucking asshole and I’d defalcate not in the street but in your so could spew more shit!
Sincerely,
Bill McMaster a former CIA analyst and manager
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Dear Aggrieved Angry Reader Bill,
Your analytical and managerial skills result in a high Angry Reader score: no detail or evidence to support your venom, plenty of profanity and crudity (crap, assholes, bullshit, ass, shit, Bitch, f——g, the neologisms (TRumphole), the strange vocabulary (defalcate [“embezzle”] for “defecate”), the usual misinformation (Hoover Institution, and general incoherence (“and I’d defalcate not in the street but in your so could spew more shit!”). All that earns an 8.5 on the Angry Reader scale. If your Angry Reader rant is a really the work of a former top CIA official, then perhaps it is valuable to readers in explaining the careers of some of its hierarchy such as John Brennan.
As for your argument, there is none. So I’ll quickly reply to the silliness. Newspapers select op-eds they purchase from syndicators to spark discussion. In some sense your rant is a form of discussion, so their intent was realized. I would imagine that if you went online and tabulated Hoover fellows’ campaign contributions there were more donors to the 2020 Biden than to the Trump campaign.
I’m not sure what you call “right-wing”; 15 years ago the Democratic Party advocated legal only and diverse, meritocratic, and measured immigration, but then again Obama himself ran in 2008 on secure borders, opposition to gay marriage, and a balanced budget. Please cite where I “attack immigrants.” Opposing illegal, massive, and non-diverse immigration is not an attack on “immigrants” but support for legal immigration. I imagine I live in an area with a far higher immigrant population, both legal and not, than in your own region.
While it is certainly true that red-states were more reluctant to impose complete lockdowns, you could at least try to make the argument that Florida and Texas fared far worse, case- and death-wise than locked down states like similarly sized New York—well aside from the greater economic, social, and cultural damage to New York than in Florida and Texas. But, of course, you cannot. I don’t see how the infection and lethality rates in Michigan, Massachusetts, or Connecticut are arguments for the blue-state, complete quarantine paradigm.
As far as vaccinating, there are two groups who so far show some resistance to it; one are conservative traditionalists who feel it impinges on their freedom or do not trust government assurances of safety. But the other are minority groups, especially African-Americans who likewise are statistically hesitant.
So there is no real political pattern here that you insinuate. I have always supported vaccination (and was vaxed the moment my age group was eligible), wearing masks where reasonable, and keeping a distance from others while indoors at the zenith of the epidemic. I wish BLM, Antifa, and LA Laker fan base had followed such guidelines when they violated all those protocols—ironically often supported by some health care officials who signed petitions claiming the protestors had good medical reasons to violate the quarantine leveled on all others.
Lots of Americans have immune challenges and health issues. They have good medical reasons not to be vaccinated. And the idea that we would reduce them to second-class citizenry is not feasible or desirable. The likelihood that herd immunity will be achieved with 80-85 percent of the population vaccinated or with antibodies will allow small populations with either medical or religious reasons to avoid vaccination not to pose an existential threat to others, especially when a new generation of pharmaceuticals are on the horizon that offer hope in rendering symptomatic COVID-19 to flu or cold status.
Sincerely,
Victor Hanson, a former farmer and CSU professor