I understand that, but it still amazes me that, in the biggest health emergency in the history of the country (unless you’re Native American), neither federal nor state governments were able to introduce a system that says if you administer a vaccine you put the info into a central database.
There’s not even a national ID card.
There isn’t in the UK either.
CraigM
3649
What you fail to realize is that any such ID is clearly a Sign of the Beast, and therefore must be opposed to the last breath to prevent devil worshipers from taking over.
At least in the deranged ‘minds’ of a significant faction in our country.
I mean, Florida has a system, but a) it sucks*, b) DeathSantis signed legislation making illegal for any state agency to track COVID vaccination status.
*in the technical IT sense, and in the sense that you can come into our offices and as part of the health history indicate you were vaccinated against A, B, and C, we then dutifully enter that into the EHR. Which then transfers that data to the state.
Did you remember, or even give, a date? Did you remember the right thing? (For instance, TDaP and DT are two very different things). Most likely not.
KevinC
3651
You got those bedtime stories too, eh? ;)
KevinC
3653
I would have been pretty worried about it all if I hadn’t already had my soul stolen by my Darksword Adventures handbook. I figured if devil worshipers spent their time rolling dice and playing RPGs, they were alright by me.
And yet if you ask these same people why they are not opposed to the majority of Americans being required to posses a State issued ID (driver’s license or State ID card), national identification registry (Social Security number) and even an international identification (passport, should they wish to travel outside the U.S.), all of which can be used to track and identify you just as easily as a national ID card would, they have no real answer for you.
This is because resistance to a national ID card is a Republican talking point designed to bolster voter suppression. It has nothing to do with the government tracking its citizens (which it already does quite effectively thank you) and everything to do with making it more difficult for the wrong kind of citizens to be able to vote.
I wasn’t sure where to put this article by David Brooks. Some kind of cultural thread? The Income Inequality thread? In the end, I decided maybe it’s best to discuss it here since one of the solutions out of the current situation with the Creative Class’s mess, he argues, is Joe Biden and his proposals.
It’s tough to get started with the article, with him insisting on using the word Bobos, which is very irritating. But if you can get past that, it’s a very David Brooks article, looking at things from a different angle that I hadn’t considered before. I always appreciate that about him, even when I disagree.
We could keep an “Oh Look, David Brooks Is Wrong About Everything Again” thread pretty close to the top of the subforum over whatever arbitrary timeframe we chose.
So, still very irritating.
Matt_W
3658
California maintains a vaccine database. You can go here, input your info and you’ll get a link that shows a QR code with your vaccine status and vaccination dates. Worked for me, even though I got my vaccine shots from two different providers.
Oh yes. Anytime I want to overload on rage I can always go read his article on marijuana.
Enidigm
3660
I mean i don’t think David Brooks is all that bad, and i’d infinitely prefer a world of David Brooks clones speaking for “conservatism” than Fox News bobbleheads.
But really all these hand-wringing “whose fault is it anyways?” interlocutors, of which this piece is only one, comes down more or less entirely to a thesis statement like the sociopolitical effects of finance capitalism from the 1980s onward. The tech industry has had access to almost unlimited capital, and this has not only economic consequences but massive sociological and cultural consequences as well when that access spans generations. The ebullient confidence and untethered globalized excesses of the tech industry evaporates overnight if that endless spigot of capital redirects to, like, farming.
I read Brooks’ Bobo’s in Paradise when it first came out. It’s probably the last David Brooks book I read. He has been trying to push the use of Bobo to describe the educational and creative elite for 20 years with limited success. The name doesn’t matter but the concept is important.
Blue and Red have a different class structure than the had just decade or so ago, and Brooks does a good job in explaining the hierarchies. I find that I very seldom mix with working class folks,the last time i did was when would play poker a few times a week. Even then poker is a game that rewards good cognitive skills, and while there were numerous exceptions generally best poker players had had gone to good colleges…
One thing I have noticed is that blue values are pretty much always dominate in a mixed organization. So for example, my Angel investment group has probably as many Republicans as Democrats. However virtually all the jokes that were told were about Trump,and the dumb MAGA supporters. By and large the Republican kept their mouth shut because it so uncool for an educated person to admit to supporting Trump.
138
3662
I used to enjoy Brooks and EJ Dionne when they used to do their politics wrapup on NPR on Fridays during All Things Considered.
David Brooks was partially responsible for my political development, in that in my early 20’s he made me ask: “wait a minute, this person is being published in the NYTimes, and yet he also seems like the dumbest person the country has ever produced. What’s going on here?”
Enidigm
3664
Let’s be honest the only reason an educated person is supporting Trump would be naked amoral self interest. i.e., the “business” side of the GOP. It’s unlikely that those educated people when confronted by other educated people with all the contrary facts and figures and reasons would have the capacity to defend Trump without outright admitting this.
I think David Brooks is a great example of the kind of “business” and “I read the papers” kind of conservative in the same sort of vein as Ross Douthat except devoid of the culture war armband, so he’s a decent read to see what “sensible” conservatives both see is going on and perceive. But he’s a good example of the problem with “sensible” conservatives - they’re trapped in a category error of the modern GOPs seedy underbelly. He has really no answers and no solutions, but stubbornly stands on the expired corpse of respectable conservativism anyway. His opinion columns have a solipsistic quality to them now since by neither defecting and become a Democrat but not kow towing the new GOP black banner he’s despised by everyone.
Certainly some educated people support Trump for the policies that benefit themselves, but education isn’t any sure cure for authoritarianism, racism, misogyny, bigotry and so on. Most despots are educated!
A lot of people, wealthy or not, educated or not, just liked the cruelty. That’s the point.
As for Brooks, he’s just a grifter. His act involves seeming reasonable while supporting unreasonable policies and people, and seeming bright while actually saying spectacularly banal, wrong, and often stupid things.
