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from the who-feels-safe-in-Florida-now? dept.
Armed police raid home of Florida scientist fired over Covid-19 data
Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist embroiled in a dispute with the state's Republican governor over the handling of coronavirus figures, had her home raided on Monday by armed police who confiscated her computers.
In a stream of posts on Twitter, Jones posted a video of the raid that showed state police carrying handguns escorting her out of her Tallahassee home. She can be heard saying: "He just pointed a gun at my children," with her husband and two children apparently upstairs at the time.
Jones claimed in her tweets that the raid was the work of Ron DeSantis, the governor with whom she has clashed repeatedly since she was fired by the state's department of health in May in a row over Covid-19 data. She compared the incident to sending "the gestapo", adding: "This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power."
The Florida department of law enforcement confirmed they had entered Jones's house on a search warrant. But in a statement the department said the action was related to a recent computer hack of the health department website, in which emergency response coordinators were sent an unauthorised message.
Also at CNN, The Verge, and The Hill.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @03:32PM (12 children)
Who is this "they" and what, *exactly* is the "game?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:28PM (11 children)
The political establishment. And the game is nothing more than holding onto an ever loosening grip on power. And what's the oldest way to do so? Divide and conquer. The "woke" serve to effectively divide society to no end. Instead of people, left and right, coming together against the awful people we have in congress - the woke help to create fights and conflicts among the people themselves, ensuring never-ending conflict and division. So people are busy pissing on each other instead of looking where they should.
2016 was really the best example of the fruits of this phenomena. How many people voted for Hillary because they genuinely felt she was a candidate that'd make a great president and stood for their values? How many people voted for her because the alternative was just terrifying? And the *exact same* held true for many of those that voted for Trump. It's the fruits of a remarkable degree of social engineering at scale. Politicians managed to get tens of millions of people to vote for people they don't like. And all they had to do was convince their electorate that the alternative was literally Hitler or Mao or whatever. Exact same game this election, and probably for all elections in the foreseeable future now. And you get to play a great role ensuring that same old tired establishment keeps getting elected over and over.
And you'll undoubtedly come to see Biden is about as "progressive" as Bush Senior over the coming years, yet you'll no doubt engage in some sort of crazy ass cognitive dissonance to convince yourself that 2+2=5 and somehow you're not just being used.
(Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:15PM
And yet here we all are commenting on the news that the republican governor of Florida has sent agents of the state into the home of a political opponent.
I'm pretty sure the FBI agent who pointed his gun at a child wouldn't characterise himself as "woke".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @10:36PM (9 children)
Wow. You just dive right in to attack those who disagree with you, without even trying to see their point of view. Because you're right and they're wrong. And as such, they must be evildoers in thrall to the shadowy powers that rule us all. Sigh.
Those you describe as "woke" aren't your enemy, they're just other *Americans* who mostly want to see the ideals of this nation (equality under the law, maximum liberty) apply to all of us, yet you make them your enemy.
The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.
I pity you, friend.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @11:21PM (3 children)
You are lying -- they expressly denounce equality and seek to replace it with equity. These are not synonymous terms, and as used politically, "equity" is basically the antonym of equality. Equality is about giving everyone equal opportunity and not using racist criteria in allocation of resources. Equity is about taking from some and giving to others to ensure equal outcomes based solely on racist identity groupings.
Any person who describes themselves as woke and in favor of equality, either doesn't understand woke, or is cynically and treacherously blowing smoke up you ass using the slimy post-modernist trick of the definitional bait and switch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @12:45AM
Feeling particularly hateful to your fellow Americans today, are we?
Good show, friend! I'd hate it if you were inconsistent.
Carry on!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @05:30AM
Who, *exactly*, said such things? I want *names*. When, *exactly*, did they say such things?
I want actual published quotes. But you won't provide any because you *can't*.
You would be laughable if you weren't such a scumbag.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @06:36AM
Your rage and hate are misplaced, friend.
I don't expect that you will, but perhaps you might read this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/opinion/trump-social-status-resentment.html [nytimes.com]
and think about the mechanisms discussed.
Your fellow Americans aren't you enemies. And we can make our nation better for *all* of us. But only if we work *together*.
As Benjamin Franklin put it (although I'm only being metaphorical, while he was being both literal and metaphorical):
I'd much prefer the former to the latter. How about you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @12:52AM
You are right, everybody wants what's best for everybody, but maybe you could try to understand the parent post. What makes him say what he does? It's completely true that anyone in power thrives when people aren't able to come together and implement lasting change together. That's what I got from his comment and you're defending against an attack on those labeled "woke" and I get that too, but you might also understand where that attack came from and that it's not ment toward those who want equality. I bet you've met those kind of people who yell a lot about progress, but in the end we're worse of than before because of them. You're so close to actually find some common ground that everyone should be equal and free, from there on you could explore the "how". It's sad to see you fighting over details and terminology. It's clearly a huge stone in the road towards progress that we're divided on ridiculous emotions towards eachother, when we want the same thing.
Palestine and Israel is a handshake away from a final agreement of peace ending decades of violence and death. Just before the handshake they're interrupted by an angry person yelling and jumping up and down. Down with Israel! Free Palestine! The peace progress breaks down and the next day 1000 people die. There is a real world difference between problem solving and being opinionated.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Socrastotle on Thursday December 10 2020, @06:33PM (3 children)
The problem with woke ideology is not the ideology in and of itself. I think people should be able to believe whatever they want to believe - even if I don't have a positive view of it, and I think most other people also feel this way. However, this is where the "woke" become a problem, because a sufficiently large percentage of the "woke" do not, in general, believe this. Not believing in their ideology is now grounds to try to do all you can to destroy a person, their livelihood, their life, and endlessly slandering them all at the same time.
The various racial identity politics are the best example. A man says he's not a racist. The woke response is to very overtly recreate original sin [wikipedia.org]. 'If a man cannot even admit he's racist, how might he ever even to hope to be able to redeem himself?' This sort of rhetoric ends up as unifying as the rhetoric of the religions it emulates. But perhaps the biggest problem is that given that the establishment love this division, they're actively seeking to inject it into society, even as they simultaneously deny them any significant political power. And it's not creating some huge woke army as you might hope. It's just creating a bunch of people that are increasingly agitated at each other from day 0.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @11:22PM (2 children)
As usual, you focus only on the most extreme and ignore the vast majority of discourse around equality and the deeply embedded injustice in our society. Perhaps you might take a few minutes to understand the vast majority of folks you're dismissing, rather than focusing on the most extreme.
Just a crazy thought. I won't hold my breath.
Here are a few resources for you. I'm sure you can find many more on your own.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2020/jan/21/how-the-word-woke-was-weaponised-by-the-right [theguardian.com]
https://newrepublic.com/article/155681/strange-liberal-backlash-woke-culture [newrepublic.com]
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woke [merriam-webster.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2020, @03:05PM (1 child)
You're failing to see the issue. Your ideology is not "correct" anymore than any other ideology is. It's simply a entirely subjective worldview as is conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism, anarchism, and any of the hundreds if not thousands of ideologies people adopt or independently develop for themselves. How you see the world is not right, nor is it wrong. It's simple you how you personally feel.
And that's perfectly fine. You're more than free to believe whatever you want. However what is not fine, and where the "woke" become a problem, is when they then go out and attack and try to censor every other ideology in existence. *That* is how you get nearly every horrible big-scale problem we've had in our history. In the absolute best case you get nothing except a deeply divided society ensuring the perpetuation of establishment control.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2020, @03:18PM
If you want to call equality under the law for everyone an ideology, that's fine with me.
But don't paint a huge swathe of people with the brush of a tiny but vocal minority.
That's not only flat wrong, but also quite disingenuous.
Not that you really care, as it's always "Trollin', trollin', trollin', got to keep it trollin' Rawhide!" with you.