Do you support a travel ban for Western Africa countries...

[tpfkaw]

It seems that quite a few African countries are not being run by people who psychopathically prioritize importing a few additional voters over implementing the most basic measure to protect their existing citizens from the most dangerous public health crisis in living memory. It's historically a rare thing, African countries being run less psychopathically than this one. Although, I suspect, a state of affairs which is going to recur with greater and greater frequency.

Given the nature of ebola, if it broke out here, it would almost entirely effect urban areas, which means it would almost exclusively kill Democrats, which I suppose would be a sort of poetic justice as long as we're using psychopath logic.

Continuing to assess the quandary in psychopath terms, it's obviously going to be an incalculable boon to this country when all those X,000 new Liberians all become partners in major hedge funds and contribute millions of dollars to the Treasury each during the period that they overstay their visas, which means we should just about break even on the cost of tracking down everyone that nurse had contact with in the planes and airports to several degrees of separation (and putting all the ones who get sick into $millions quarantine medical care). Such a plus that it's easily worth risking a few million horrible deaths over.

No, because it simply would not work, it's too easy to get around it.

Oh well jeez, might as well not even try in that case!

No (I/O). Interesting how Republicans aren't so small government anymore.

Wow, what a zinger! The hypocrisy of the Republicans: laid bare!

Hey bud, as a recovering ex-libertarian, allow me to inform ya that "small government" or whatever other "moral principle" is not some magical elixir that improves every situation, if only there were more small government. For example, when objective reality dictates that the government needs to protect its citizens by taking basic public health measures, the correct government procedure is to respond to objective reality and take basic public health measures, and not do nothing, confident in the knowledge that the friendly filovirus will leave us be, impressed by our commitment to the Non-Aggression Principle.
For future reference, I, not being nuts, and concerned for the lives of the primarily-Democratic souls in our major cities, support a complete travel ban from the affected countries, including Western aid workers - they gotta stay until the end of the outbreak. And, I would support the same ban whether it were Sierra Leone or Switzerland in which ebola was running rampant. Although I suspect a ban would already be in place if it were Switzerland.

[tpfkaw]

If there is a public health need for more western aid workers to travel to West Africa, then they can travel to those countries in a NBC-protected military plane. There is zero reason why there should be any travel allowed from those countries at this point in time.

You don't treat people like lepers, just because they're sick and different from you.

If you have HIV, I'm not going to have sex with you, and I'm not some sort of bigot for taking that obvious step to protect my own health.* Likewise, if you are wishing to travel from some country that is overrun by one of the most deadly and contagious diseases in existence, it is very reasonable for me to ask you to temporarily delay your travel plans, which does not imply that I think you're a bad person, merely that I myself have my head screwed on straight. If Missouri were ground zero of an ebola outbreak, I would prefer that my dear Grammy and Grandpa choose a different time of year to visit, as genetically similar to myself as they might be.

*To some, this is not as obvious as it sounds, as a gay guy one frequently finds "poz" guys who will claim you're a bigot for not having sex with them.

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That's the most charitable interpretation of the government's inaction that one could take. (The other is that they want an ebola outbreak in this country, which seems a bit too far out there in the realm of motiveless malignity). It is the only conceivable reason why the "reality-based community" is hysterically opposed to obvious public health measures (again, unless they want mass deaths from ebola because it would be new and interesting). Bedford-Stuyvesant, I note, is not only a bastion of said reality-based community, but also one of the first places where one would get acquainted with the reality of ebola in the event of a national pandemic.

Absolutely not, it won’t work and people who get around the ban won't get proper screening so it’s counterproductive.

Someone from the affected countries who 1. obtains a fake passport from an unaffected country, 2. flies to an unaffected country other than the US, 3. flies to the US, is going to die of ebola if they have it somewhere between steps 1 and 2.

[tpfkaw]

So, that wouldn't be a travel ban, would it?  That would be an exception

And? I'm not giving an encomium to the immortal principle of travel banning, I'm suggesting that our government apply the same basic public health principles as currently being practiced by dozens of African countries.

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Those people are accepting that risk by traveling to those countries and working with people with ebola. Since they have accepted that risk, it is fair for them to bear it. It is not fair (and also, completely f[inks]ing psychotic) to demand that everyone in our country be exposed to that risk. And like I said, I don't support them coming back either; one-way tickets until the outbreak is over.

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Oh, well heaven forbid the large and diversified economies of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone should collapse; I'm sure they're buying hedges all over Wall Street against the loss of all that international trade. Unfortunately it does seem as though their entire economies, under a principle similar to the underpants gnomes, depend on infecting Americans with ebola. Guess I was a little quick on the draw in saying "diversified."

To the extent that these countries even have governments, they are entirely funded by Western aid. There are no economies to collapse, these are places where people quite literally live atop their own sh[inks]. If there can be any economic trajectory downwards from living atop one's own sh[inks], I've yet to hear of it. (Perhaps living atop one's own sh[inks], but without heroin).

I mean, seriously, give me a break.

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Ebola can be spread by minuscule quantities of bodily fluids, including sweat or airborne saliva. You might note that anyone who is anywhere near a person with or suspected of having ebola is to wear full HAZMAT gear, as is the evidence-based advice of doctors. The Liberian gentleman in Dallas got it from helping a woman cross the street, while the nurses got it from visiting his room without HAZMAT suits during the very brief period when he was admitted to the hospital but had yet to be tested for ebola. I said that it is "one of the most deadly and contagious diseases in existence," in the sense that there are few if any diseases that are both as deadly and as contagious.

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No bud, I'm referring to your location in a densely-populated urban area, roughly in the center of the triangle formed by three major international airports. Nevertheless, I would rather be "racist" than dead. I would even rather be "racist" than see you dead.

[tpfkaw]

In one breath you're saying African countries are incompetent and we should adopt the exact same measures as they do.  Which is it?

Today we learn: All Africans are the same!

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Obama administration appointees, obviously, simply repeat whatever they are told to say by the White House, and come up with whatever BS explanation they can come up with to justify it (in this case a completely nonsensical one). We may note that the job performance of said "experts" at protecting Americans from ebola has been godawful. We may also note that those African countries which have instituted travel bans have done a thus-far excellent job at protecting their citizens from ebola, despite actually, you know, being on the same continent as the outbreak. We can either believe the black African public health experts who have done a far better job in a far more dangerous situation with far fewer resources available to them, or we can believe objectively incompetent whitey. You choose to believe whitey. Seems pretty racist to me!

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I'm actually pretty agnostic on the whole voter-importation thing. I myself come from a line of imported Democrats! I do not, however, feel that the obvious underlying motivations here don't deserve to be called out, when they are applied psychopathically. As we can see I've struck a nerve, which generally indicates that I've hit the nail pretty squarely on the head.

[tpfkaw]

So, everyone who opposes a travel ban is a government stooge?

Yes, by definition, the President's political appointees, and their staffs, are "government stooges." If they are not, then nobody is. If one is repeating a list of talking points prepared by government stooges, then one is being a government stooge by proxy, particularly when said talking points are ridiculous nonsense ("we can't have a travel ban because it won't work," "but then aid workers couldn't travel there," "what if their economies collapse"), and the policy which they are intended to defend evidences a psychopathic disregard for human life.

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Under orders from higher up, but yes. This is also the only reason why you are arguing with me about this.

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Lol, your arguments at this point are literally 1. "I am incapable of critical thinking on my own, so I and everyone else ought to believe some teevee spin doctor's list of talking points" and 2. "ur a racist!"

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Guilty as charged. I propose we fire all the incompetent white people at the CDC and replace them with their much more competent black Kenyan counterparts, who have done a far better job protecting their citizens from the ebola outbreak. Black power!

[tpfkaw]

1.  Is there any independent (Read Non-government) public health or infectious disease expert that agrees with you?

Sure.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/101614-722188-travel-restrictions-would-stop-spread-of-deadly-ebola.htm

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Although I do prefer the expertise of the Kenyan Health Ministry, and their perfect record thus far of keeping ebola out, despite being named as a "high-risk" country by the WHO.

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You are incapable of engaging in an intellectual discussion.

But, perhaps we can develop your ability to do so with a couple of critical thinking exercises.

1. 9,000 people in Switzerland (equivalent to the number of cases in West Africa) come down with ebola. Do you support banning plane flights from Switzerland?

2. A genie from the future visits you, and says that in two months time there will be a 75% chance that you will be dead of ebola. But, the genie can make a change that might alter your chances of survival; he can make the Obama administration reverse its policy on a travel ban, effective immediately. Do you change the policy?