What are your thoughts on people praising this George Carlin standup for predicting the Covid “panic”?

I meant to say “a lot of Newsmax and One America News Network viewers”, not conservatives

Conservatives will believe anything that seems to agree with their beliefs. It’s backward thinking. The normal process is to look at evidence and draw conclusions, not look for “evidence” that supports your belief.

Back in January, February, March Trump told them to believe coronavirus was not a threat. They cannot admit he was wrong.

Some folks have peculiar notions on when it’s time to panic. For example, the same people who pride themselves on their cavalier disregard for the coffins piling up around them are driven to fits of excitement over who is allowed in which bathroom. The thing for the rest of us to remember is this: there will be no controlling this disease as long as enough of these people remain. Remember, they have no compunctions against taking you with them.

It is conservatives who are more predisposed to germophobia.

Right-wingers have a stronger disgust response, and are more obsessed with cleanliness, and avoiding contact with potentially ‘unclearn outgroups’.

That these same people have a dismissive attitude to a real pandemic that’s killing people in large numbers is interesting.

I’d guess there’s an irrationally unhealthy scepticism based on an anti-liberal animus.

There’s perhaps also a conspiracism motivated by a resistance to change. Conservatives take comfort in things being the same all the time, and hark back to a nostalgic past when things were how they preferred. The pandemic has introduced the most dramatic change in people’s lifestyles in at least a generation, and the logical leap is that the pandemic must therefore be either a conspiracy, or the response to it needlessly disruptive or uncessasary.

Also, Carlin was radically left-wing by US standards. He’d hate the morons invoking him this way.

George Carlin (may he rest in peace) would be aghast that the republican neanderthals would be quoting him in any way whatsoever.

He laughed at their idiocies when he was alive. For the Conservos to quote him now is abswurd.

There’s a little truth and a lot of humor in Carlin’s act. But it’s just an act. To make anything more than that is a mistake.

Not that many Republicans seem to care about science, but…

He was a comic, not a scientist.

No surprises here. He was serving the joke. They are serving their agenda.

I used to swim in the Hudson too. Actually, the big problem in the late 40’s through the late 70’s was chemical dumping by a GE plant, maybe other businesses too. It’s true there at times is concern for sewage and other runoff.

I don’t agree with Carlin, I never agreed with this idea that we won’t get sick enough to build up immunity. I also don’t agree with being OCD about germs and using lots of antibacterial chemicals. I don’t use antibacterial soap, but I do wash my hands to wash away germs. I almost never use antibacterial wipes with chemicals, but I do use alcohol sometimes to clean my phone or wipe off something.

Children get exposed to germs no matter what unless they are in a bubble. Children also get vaccinated to teach their immune system to fight against certain diseases.

Getting chicken pox does not help you fight polio. Getting the Mumps does not help you fight measles. Getting a stomach virus does not help you fight Pertussis. This idea that getting sick helps you overall fight other specific diseases is not true as far as I know.

Getting a specific cold or flu will make you immune to that cold or flu. Ok, so do you want it when you’re ten years old or 40 years old? Better not to have it.

Diseases like Mumps, Chicken Pox, and some others are more dangerous in adulthood so people believe it best to get sick as a child, but that is different than exposing yourself to random unnecessary germs that can give you food poisoning or pneumonia.

Like everything, moderation is probably best.

Swimming in the Hudson and living in a dirty house is not going to protect you from covid.