Baby Steps

I ask one thing of my fellow Americans. It's a huge ask, but it's really the only ask that matters.

Push come to shove, are you willing to risk your life to protect your fellow American?

We in the US have a lot of rivalries. New Yorkers and Massholes mock each other incessantly, Alabama is known as a bunch of rednecks, "Thank God for Mississippi" is a US joke about how that state only exists to make the other states look better, everyone hates New Yorkers, Florida is where all the crazy happens, Nebraska is home to the sentient corn monsters, California is full of weirdos and nutjobs, and so on and so forth.

But ultimately, I ask that if there's a crisis in Colorado, that people from North Carolina or Vermont be willing to send aid and help the Coloradans. That if Canada invades Montana with a stated intention of invading only Montana, people from Oklahoma and Nevada be willing to fight to protect Montanans.

If you aren't willing to help Americans in another state, ask yourself if you really deserve to call yourself an American, with the rights and liberties that only exist because those other Americans are willing to risk their lives to protect you.

It's a big ask, but right now, there is time to give a meaningful answer. Are you willing to be "slightly inconvenienced" for your fellow American in the form of wearing a mask? Are you willing to wash your hands frequently to protect Oregonians? Are you willing to socially distance and avoid crowded parties to save the lives of Ohioans? Because many of those people are willing to be slightly inconvenienced to protect you, and if you aren't willing to do the same for them, ask yourself if you deserve their protection.

@CorruptUser
My fellow American, I like you.

@CorruptUser This comment has it spot on. We are Americans dammit, we've been through depression, war, racial strife, and so much more. This too shall pass.

But also, God Bless Texas.

@CorruptUser I was with you until you mentioned Oregon. As long as they keep trying to kick off their Communist revolution, I see no reason to do anything to help them.

@Dorsai
1) Even if they are anarchists dumbasses, as long as they are American anarchist dumbasses that, at the end of the day, are willing to risk their lives to protect me, I'll do the same for them regardless of how dumb they are
2) If we didn't protect the idiots, we'd literally have no one left. Everyone one of us was a dumbass teenager at some point, if you think you weren't a dumbass teen it's because you never improved since then.
3) They never got their "communist revolution" because the majority of Oregonians don't actually want it, hardly seems fair to punish the majority of Oregonians for the actions of a small few
4) Even if all of Oregon is commie-land, diseases don't give a crap about politics, and protecting Oregon from COVID is still protecting Montana, the Dakotas, etc etc.

@Dorsai You're forgetting, of course, that Portland attracts hipsters, vegans, and left-wing activists from all over the US. So, depending on your views, Portland is either a mecca or a city of weirdos doing the rest of us a favor.

See also: https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1919

@idefix24 This is true. My best friend moved to Portland about 20 years ago, along with a group of like-minded (vegan) friends of his. He's not around anymore (passed away from cancer about 15 years ago), but I really wish I could ask him his opinion of Portland today. I do know that of the original 8 who moved out there, only two remain - the rest got the hell out about 10 years ago. I suppose that answers my question right there.

@Dorsai is this the sort of thing where if someone doesn't agree with you, you decide to be selfish after all? I mean, I have been there, I know what it feels like. November 2016 I was hoping the Yosemite Caldera would blow, and wipe out the stupid idiots who voted for Trump. And I felt ashamed for feeling so selfish. I mean, they may be idiots, and there are now full-blown fascists out there, but they are still human, and I do not want to be the one who says who lives and who dies. They are still fellow Americans.

So please, stop pretending it's the other people who need to earn your compassion, it only shows how unwilling you are to show compassion yourself. Don't make it hinge upon what percent agree with you.

Wear the damn mask. Stop spreading your germs.

@Fnordius Uh, thanks. I wear my mask when I go out, 100% of the time. My response was strictly regarding using Oregon as part of a 'fellow Americans' appeal to solidarity, when those idiots are engaged in the least American behaviors possible.

@Dorsai Protesting is a very American behavior and has been since the inception of the United States as a nation. See: Boston Tea Party

@Napz And if that's what they were actually doing, we'd be in agreement. But they aren't protesting, they're looting, murdering, and committing arson. They aren't trying to make things better for anyone, they're just out to destroy in the hopes of remaking the country in their own twisted image. No thanks.

@Dorsai No, they're protesting. There are people looting and committing arson but they're not affiliated with the protesters in most cases. (Though, again, the Boston Tea Party involved destruction of property. They weren't just making a gigantic cup of tea in the Boston Harbor, you know.) As for murder, the protesters are the ones being murdered, not the other way around. If you like Nazis better than protesters that's your problem, not America's.

@Napz "Not affiliated with the protestors"? LOL. They *are* the protestors! You can tell yourself whatever you like to let yourself sleep at night, but the rest of us see exactly what's going on.

@Dorsai Try educating yourself on the topic. In most cases, the protests are peaceful. In many cases, the rioting and looting is not done by the protesters but by people taking advantage of the unrest to distract from their own activities. In *some* cases, it has been done by protesters, but that's a small percentage (every barrel will have a few bad apples). Murdering and arson? We don't have widespread murders or arson as part of the protests.

https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/

@Napz Most...many...some...you've got a lot of weasel words working hard up there.

And you would have done better to have left your last sentence off completely...we've all seen what you (you said 'we', so I'm assuming you're one of them) guys did to Minneapolis, and Portland, and (tried in) Kenosha. We've all seen the "no bad protesters - no good cops" fliers calling for people to "do what you want - fuck shit up". But wait, let me guess...the people organizing these 'protests' aren't with the protesters, either?

@CorruptUser
As a Canadian, I can assure you that you don't need to worry about us invading Montana. I've seen pictures and you're nice and all, but we only like you as friends.

@CorruptUser If there's one thing I've learned from this, the answer is a resounding "No they are not". Americans don't give a darn about other Americans if it inconveniences them. "Thoughts and prayers" became a buzzword in the last few years for a reason, and that's because that's all the effort they're willing to do. And even that, I question if they're *actually* putting any effort into prayers.

I've heard from multiple people that everyone needs to. "Get sick already and get it over with, if you die you were gonna die anyway." Its pitiful that we're being actively lied to on this matter by our so called leader, and its being enthusiastically eaten up by the base.

The half that care are being killed off through inaction by those who don't.

@CorruptUser
Montana? But that would make our border look ridiculous!
...Maybe Maine?

Back in my hometown in the Deep South (North America), people are showing their support for Trump by deliberately going maskless; somehow this is supposed to be... I don't know, a sign that their faith in his "amazing righteous and utterly truthful character" will keep them from getting sick, making other people sick, dying and causing the deaths of others. That is equally weird to me as whipping oneself and rubbing blood in one's eyes, though I'm expecting some of my old neighbors to start doing that any day now.....

@Ysabet It’s all just natural selection at this point.

@Ysabet

Somebody should vigilante things up.

That'd cull the population and remove the stupid and insane people from the vote and society in general

And 7 days, a week later, the US just passed the UK in covid-19 deaths per capita.

It took the US less then 20 days to increase it's death per capita to pass Sweden, Italy and now UK - and there is no sight of any levelling-off of the increase.

(I added Italy in this chart as well, since the US passed them right after Sweden, but I didn't mention it before)

To any US voter who reads this - if you ignore everything else about Trump (which you really shouldn't) - this is the only thing you need to know:

There is absolutely no reason why the US should see a steady increase of deaths from covid-19 like this.
The only reason it nonetheless does is Trump and his utter incompetence.

He, and the republicans who support him, are simply killing their own citizens with their disastrous mishandling of the pandemic.

Voting for him is truly like the citizens of Pompeii voting for the volcano.



EDIT: Since I posted this, Trump himself got infected and is now in hospital. He'll probably be just fine, since he'll have access to the best possible care (he's already been given an experimental treatment not available to most other Americans).
But while he'll probably be fine, thousands of others will die because of his incompetence.

Some of them he might even end up infecting personally, as he went to a fundraiser while he KNEW ha was infected - but before he was sick enough to be forced to go to hospital.

The man is an idiot, a fool - and he's quite literally killing his own people.

And the US death rate of course just keeps climbing.

@Nisse_Hult The Worst part even after getting Covid-19 himself, TRUMP is still downplaying it and saying "I'm doing such a great job" (he didn't actually say that) hell he made FUN of Biden for wearing a mask when I might have been infected during the presidential debate, oh and he refuses to do an online virtual debate with Biden, both Biden and Trump are in their mid to late 70s so they are in great risk if they get COVID-19 but Trump having money, and being the president has great healthcare and thinks "I survive this so others can too" even though 200,000 and counting Americans have already died and not all of them were even senior citizens like he is


oh you wanna know the worst part that really pisses me off Trump the liar in chief order congress to STOP stimulus bill until after he WINS re-election, I don't personally need it but their millions of Americans that do and Trump is refusing to help them unless he wins again, which just proves to show Trump does not care about Americans he only cares about himself and winning,

well his threat isn't working and he is behind in Biden in all the polls, and even those who have voted or supported him in past are turning away from him

I know he will lose the popular vote AGAIN but I don't trust the Electoral College, but I really hope he loses bot the popular vote and the Electoral College especially the latter cause only the Electoral College matters in the election.

I hate the Electoral Collage...

is that america wearing a mask?!?!?!

@RyderSpider Yeah, but it's Brother America. The multi-ethnic, a little insensitive, kinda dumb, but generally good natured and likable US is fine with masks. The part of the US that hates them are swirling in the orange goo that's squelching around somewhere in the comic space.

@Pluveus sorry i heard that america rufuses to wear masks

....This probably would have been funnier if we haven't had religious folk actually say that Covid 19 is God's punishment on their enemies.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/09/religious-leader-called-coronavirus-gods-punishment-gays-hospitalized-covid/

@Opuspace so by his logic he gay, that’s one way to come out

Meanwhile a plague doctor is comforting a widow, saying "There was nothing I could do, once your husband told me he had the right to lick the rats, I knew it was over"

@Zenon lol

@Zenon I decided this most excellent caption deserved an illustration.
https://i.imgur.com/ByYKdby.jpg

@Epi
That fits perfectly, nicely done

oh just so everyone knows, you can now change/make your own avatar, so those without avatars can now have an avatar
just go to your mention page and click on change avatar

@AmericanButterfly that only counts for M part of S&M though.

@piir2
Looks to me like you replied to the wrong comment

Ah, the Black Death version of drinking bleach...

I saw people comparing the US with the EU.

The label on the US's graph disappeared behind Sweden, because they are too close, but the graph in red is the US.

Comparison per capita - as one always should do, when comparing countries of varying sizes.

Swedens numbers are obviously also included in the total for the European Union - I just posted them separately to show what one of the European outliers looks like.

In case of the UK it shouldn't be included in the total for the European Union by now, as they have officially left - but I'm not sure if they are or not here.

Anyway, the major point is that this chart clearly shows why Fauci and anyone else who knows how to read a proper chart is so worried about the US.

It's not even close to having "turned the corner" on covid-19, like Trump falsely claimed.

Instead the deaths are just accumulating.
The US recently passed Sweden in deaths from covid-19 per capita, and looks set to pass the UK soon enough.

It may well be the most badly effected country in the world - both in absolute and in per capita numbers, before the end of the year.

@Nisse_Hult

I suspect the US will be the most badly affected country by the time its all over - in terms of reported infections and deaths. Suspect that some places might well have higher absolute or per capita numbers simply because either due to government/institutional corruption or simple inability to record all cases figures will be even more incomplete than those in the western world. Dubious about figures from places like Iran, Russia and China due to their governments desire to hide the full figures or places like India due to suspected inability to identify cases.

That doesn't mean that we can't and shouldn't be doing better in both Europe and the US and there's a lot of denial of the problems for multiple reasons.

@stevep59 I suspect Brazil will beat them, plus a number of smaller countries.

@Carewolf India, Brazil, USA would be my guess for top 3 when this is all over

@Carewolf

Probably, in per capita if not in total as they seem to have a President even more reckless and egotistical that Trump. If it lasts long enough then India might 'win' in terms of total numbers but is a long way behind currently.

@stevep59 I like when you call out Iran, Russia and China for maybe fudging their numbers, while the USA IS fudging the numbers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/bad-state-coronavirus-data-trump-reopening-286143

@macnof
There are a lot of people fudging the numbers, including in the west. Most definitely including the UK and US. However here we have a largely free press so they frequently get called out on it. In the three states you mention that is lacking and there are autocratic rulers who have the power to impose their 'stance' on so many issues so I think I have the right to be dubious of their figures. Especially when there's a large measure of denial about either the level of infection or even earlier on the existence of the problem.

@Nisse_Hult Well US have already shitty health system, it was expected that their deaths per capita will be higher than EU... It didn't mattered if they took any actions or not. So it doesn't validate or prove that actions taken by EU countries did have any effect (I believe they did, though it was minor).

@Nisse_Hult
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
That puts US in 10th place by capita...

@MiskisM The page that you posted actually agrees with the graph from @Nisse_Hult. He said that by the end of the year the US might be leading in deaths per capita and judging by the trend he might be right unless change in attitude occurs before then. If you compare the graph with the table you would see that the number for the US are slightly larger than Sweden and lower than the UK as the traces show.

@pieralibi I wasn't arguing Nisse, just pointing out that US isn't currently at top and almost double times away from first spot. And yeah, they soon might be number one, no argument there.

@Nisse_Hult I'm not really a fan of this type of graph. A graph on 'overmortality' is much more accurate as long as no other major disasters have occured. The thing is that every country has different ways of writing down a 'corona death'. The dutch numbers for instance were about 40%(not sure on the exact number) higher for overmortality than reported corona deaths, showing an underreprting as besides covid nothing has been causing extra mortalities. In Sweden both statistics match up much better. So, how is the US/rest of the world really doing? Are they underreportig? Overmortality is a much more accurate way ofvrepresenting what actually happened. But it is much slower.

Here's one I found

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps

@Nisse_Hult Thanks for showing a proper comparison. I'm constantly seeing totals used to compare us to countries with a population a sixth of ours and it's not giving a realistic view of things so people ignore it. Seeing our numbers shoot up is much more helpful than the scare tactics they tried that only ended up numbing people to it. Right from the start they broadcast NYC, California and Washington as if it was the entire country so when nothing was happening around people they just brushed it off as either fake or not as bad as they said despite still being mostly isolated.

Number of people actually tested is rather low still. We could have many more cases and not know it. Right now, I don't know anyone who has had it and I only know of a few who were tested. Closest it has come is couple clients had an employee with it. If testing was mandatory or at least freely available to those who want it, I might know a number of people with it. Oh and one of those employees with it was told to self isolate by the hospital, no testing. Someone who suspected they had it wasn't allowed to test for it. That was 1 less not counted. <_<

Oh and each state handled things differently, so including the whole country is a bit inaccurate. Some states, like mine (OR), started informing people quickly. We'd actually be doing rather well if they had also informed the illegal populations who tend to be isolated (you'd think a sanctuary state would think to do that). Other states didn't bother informing people, I remember quite far into covid reading a comment from... I think it was Alabama?... the person didn't even know the basics. We'd already had months of commercials, signs and Governor speaches talking about it and orders issued. So some state just knew there was a disease and thought of it like the flu because even with today's tech people can still be unerinformed. Then places like NYC dropped the ball entirely, then blamed the president for it and further dropped the ball allowing their population to leave the state after the stay at home order infecting much of the country as they took that as a free vacation order. <_< It's a madhouse, but yeah each state is different and it is just now really getting deep into the denial states so I have no doubt numbers will keep going up. I'd actually like to see a per state chart to see how we are doing (using per capita, not totals of course).

BTW why do people think Trump should be listened too? By now everyone should know to ignore the stream of gibberish coming out of him. He's no politician who thinks and plans before speaking. He's still just a spoiled rich kid and Hollywood celeb spouting what he feels like on twitter. He's basically only there because the two parties have locked the system to only get one or the other and the other chose a crook so we chose the clown. Seems we have similar options this Nov too. The Clown or the Dementia patient. Part of me wants him to be re-elected so maybe people actually start to consider ditching both parties. It's ridiculous people still have the mentality that not voting for either is throwing away your vote or worse voting for the other side (was told to vote Biden or I'd be casting my vote for Trump).

@Steeeve ,
Another factor, that is overlooked even by this, is population density. I live in a state that is pretty socially isolated by default. In New York, most of the population lives in one big, crowded, metropolis. So, it'd be better to somehow norm it by expressed population density, too. That is, count someone who has 0.1 close neighbors as ranking higher than someone who has 10 close neighbors...sharing the same hall, and ten times that sharing the elevator.
Which is a roundabout way of saying those of us in flyover country should be doing MUCH better than we currently are.

Edit. I changed a word for its antonym. A person who gets sick, but has only 0.1 close neighbors should count for MORE than a person who gets sick while living in dense urban housing. I knew what I intended to convey, but that's not how it read.

"The US needs to be more like Scandinavian countries!"

"They aren't wearing masks."

"WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL GRANDMA!?!?!?!?!?!"

@creatureshock Liberal logic:

"Masks absolutely work and you're evil if you don't wear one!"
"Hydroxychloroquine absolutely does NOT work!"

Also, I like how Trump gets blamed for the disease, even though just about every country has been hit, the U.S. gets more international travel than any country except France and Spain and wouldn't be able to keep it out, and Democratic governors have been far more incompetent, with both more death and more crippling lockdown policies.

@BGMan
If for no other reason, Trumps apparent inability to let experts talk and keep his own mouth shut on things which he has only a passing understanding of, has probably caused much of the issues regarding proper hygiene and isolation.

Further, he has effected some policies with an eye toward optics, rather than public health: Not wanting more testing, because it "makes us look bad", for instance. In this way, America, as a whole, is has become that guy who comes to work with a Dayquil bottle in his pocket because to call in sick might endanger his annual bonus.

I'm not saying he deserves all the blame; he doesn't, but he's not helping by doing what he is doing.

Oh, and there is a strong correlation between population density and politics. That is to say, the rural areas tend to be more (American) Conservative, while the urban areas trend more (American) Liberal. I believe that population density is a far more important factor in rates of infection than whether or not the person in the governors office has a 'D' or an 'R' beside his or her name.