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[sebastian_dangerfield]

I love your conceit that conservatives don't mind vaccine requirements, they're just all stoked up about federalism and the idea that the national government is taking a power that ought to be reserved to the states. And you say I'm tone deaf? Get real.

I cited the HPV vaccine controversy for the position that conservatives have previously been anti-vaccine.

A vaccine requirement reflects that you don't let people choose some things for themselves, like whether to get vaccinated, when their choices impose costs (deathly illness) on others.

Except now, that's not the case. Omicron is killing unvaccinated and uniquely vulnerable. And here's the thing about the vulnerable. You or I, vaccinated people, can carry the virus and kill them just as easily as the unvaccinated.

I'm old enough to remember when conservatives thought that people who might have been exposed to Ebola did not have civil rights and should be locked up to prevent exposure, which shows a strong commitment to contrary principles. Obama was the President then, and they were committed to saying he wasn't exercising enough federal power to protect everyone, not that those decisions should be made by local government or that people who might carry Ebola should just decide for themselves. Can you see why HPV is similar? It's not about the vaccination there.

Many "conservatives" are hypocrites. Are you expecting me to dispute that?

In other words, "petulant little children" fits the bill much closer than your effort to put lipstick on a pig.

My critique wasn't so much the accuracy of your assessment. It of course holds some accuracy. It's also the sort of haughty comment that winds these fuckers up and makes things worse.

It isn't terribly hard to manipulate these new "conservatives." It's all about showing them respect (they hold vestiges of honor culture). You can bend them to your position if you can make it anodyne, or if you can describe it in a way that makes it seem an independent decision they reached without pressure or cajoling.

Treating them like children doesn't work. (This is a strange facet of progressive thinking. They dig in, as stupidly as conservatives, and speak in a manner that alienates others. And all the while they could have been manipulating their enemies.)

< It's also really easy to manipulate progressives. Pretty similar tactics. You just have to listen and elevate empathy above everything else you display. >

No, that's not a corollary, logically, but it does tap into the aggrieved conservative mindset and the fact that the conservative "principles" are more about some sort of resentment about what the rest of the country might be thinking about them than any kind of abstract commitment to libertarian ideals.

The first thing about Conservative Club is there is no Conservative Club. Most of them are, like progressives, people who want everyone else to behave they as they think is best. They're assholes who think they ought to be in charge. A million miles from Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine.

In a pandemic, I'm not the best person to tell these people what to do. Public health professionals are, because they have training and expertise in this area. Similarly, when I board a passenger jet plane, I do not insist that every person on board has the independent right to determine safety protocols, but that does not mean that I think I'm the person to tell them what to do. I put on my seatbelt and listen to the crew's instructions, even if I think I think some of them are stupid.

Yeah, except this isn't a five hour trip from NY to LA. People did that. Then they started saying, wait a minute... these "experts" sound like they're making it up as they go along.

If these "experts" had all stayed off the TV (I blame Trump for starting the daily news spectacle), and issued directives impersonally, by some form of press release every week, I think the directives would have been given a lot more respect.

But we can't have that. Our media had to give Fauci his 15 minutes of fame, and that Orange Imbecile had to politicize it all.

Yes, yes you do. If someone runs a red light and hits you, because they think they have the right to decide for themselves whether or not traffic laws apply to them, you will absolutely think they are a selfish idiot and an asshole, and should not be allowed to act that way without consequences.

This analogy fails for the reasons I cited in response to your first analogy.

What's the chance of compromise with people who are, fundamentally, oppositional? How does that work?

Manipulation. I've had to deal with tea party people. You manipulate them. The same way the moderate democrats manipulate progressives to shut them up. The same way the GOP manipulated the pro-life lobby for decades.

Whatever Gavin Newsome does will be opposed by the conservatives here, and then thoughtful people like you will tut tut that Newsome's choices have made compromise impossible. Compromise is fundamentally impossible by people who form their "principles" by acting oppositional, and that is who most conservatives are now, on any issue that becomes politicized.

The hysterical focus from CA was virus paranoia w/o a balancing message on the need to protect economic interests. That's what one gets when one has govt run by people most of whom never held real jobs. They focused exclusively on the HC aspect and conveyed an attitude that the damage to businesses was of very minor secondary concern. That was a colossal fuck-up.

eta: BTW, I understand your wistful desire for some sort of compromise, that everybody just find a way to get along. That would be awesome. The problem is the significant minority of the population that forms their political views oppositionally, not those of us who point it out. The throughline of conservatism is greivance and trolling libs.

That's a tango. Cue Stealers Wheel...