I think there's a lot of general confusion over that "conservatism" is.

First, it's not "evil" or even "bad". It's a legitimate political philosophy that boils down to minimal possible intervention in society, including but not limited to the economy.

Liberals and moreso progressives, believe that the state can/should if not "engineer" society, exercise its power to shape society and use its machinery to level the playing field. To address inequalities that arise from an insufficiently regulated free market system.
If you buy into the notion that these are the primary, functional differences between liberalism and conservativism, you cannot escape the conclusion that a part of the reason for the rise of the hard right is the "gains" made by the liberals towards their "better society" goals.
These liberal "gains" include state intervention in free speech, reduction of personal property rights and freedoms, so-called political correctness, identity politics, redistribution of wealth via taxation and a slew of other things cheered by the left and reviled by the right.
Every time there is a gain that the left cheers, the right moves a little further right and gets a little more angry.

Every time the right gains or undoes something the left feels a deep existential angst and loss of optimism.
We're not going to end the conservative personality type. We're not going to end the liberal personality type. If we ever get all the way to either promised land, half of us will be very unhappy.

"They should all move to another country" is a bad take by both sides.
So, we need the centre. We need the centre like we need air. We need the centre to be the bridge and keep both sides from even *trying* to get *all the way* to their respective happy places. Most of don't want to live in either.
Our political atmosphere has taken on a desperate, fight for survival aspect. If the other side wins, we say, "it's all over".

We're demonizing each other, responding to the most radical of each end.

We need to see each other. We need to remember we have a *democracy*.
What is happening in Canada with our conservatives is a move towards Trumpism.

That's not conservatism. Not even a little.

When I freak out about @erinotoole, it's not because he's a conservative, it's because he endorsed Trumpism.
Conservatism doesn't scare me particularly, but Trumpism scares the living bejesus out of me.

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Brief thread to debunk the repeated claims we hear about transmission not happening 'within school walls', infection in school children being 'a reflection of infection from the community', and 'primary school children less likely to get infected and contribute to transmission'.

I've heard a lot of scientists claim these three - including most recently the chief advisor to the CDC, where the claim that most transmission doesn't happen within the walls of schools. There is strong evidence to rebut this claim. Let's look at


Let's look at the trends of infection in different age groups in England first- as reported by the ONS. Being a random survey of infection in the community, this doesn't suffer from the biases of symptom-based testing, particularly important in children who are often asymptomatic

A few things to note:
1. The infection rates among primary & secondary school children closely follow school openings, closures & levels of attendance. E.g. We see a dip in infections following Oct half-term, followed by a rise after school reopening.


We see steep drops in both primary & secondary school groups after end of term (18th December), but these drops plateau out in primary school children, where attendance has been >20% after re-opening in January (by contrast with 2ndary schools where this is ~5%).

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Oh my Goodness!!!

I might have a panic attack due to excitement!!

Read this thread to the end...I just had an epiphany and my mind is blown. Actually, more than blown. More like OBLITERATED! This is the thing! This is the thing that will blow the entire thing out of the water!


Has this man been concealing his true identity?

Is this man a supposed 'dead' Seal Team Six soldier?

Witness protection to be kept safe until the right moment when all will be revealed?!

Who ELSE is alive that may have faked their death/gone into witness protection?


Were "golden tickets" inside the envelopes??


Are these "golden tickets" going to lead to their ultimate undoing?

Review crumbs on the board re: 'gold'.


#SEALTeam6 Trump re-tweeted this.