planetzero

" So why did it not prevent spreading to Italy, a foreign country with a border, who even saw it coming 2 months in advance?"

Italy didn't ban travel early enough and their medical system couldn't keep up with the amount of people that ended up sick. The result is way more deaths and infections.

"If Italy (or the US) evidently could not prevent it despite freedom of speech and being a much higher barrier for spreading than internal China, then why do you still claim that freedom of speech could have prevented the spread in China?"

You need to actually do something when you are warned.

Italy didn't, the US did. Keeping things closed/no freedom of speech will only hurt everyone in the long run.

"Your image of China is a caricature, not reality."

Have you lived in China for long periods of time? Do you know anyone born in China? It's both for me. Most people don't truly know how evil the Chinese government is.

"Like I said in my other post: the claim that they "covered it up for months" is nonsense."

There was an outbreak, but it was covered up for many weeks. Doctors that came out were silenced by the government. Anyone talking about it on Chat platforms like Wechat were also censored.

"The US has had 2 months to prepare for COVID-19, and what happened in the US even though you had freedom of speech? Cover-ups, or -- a more charitable interpretation -- incompetence in information sharing."

Well. through January we were going through the shampeachment, which I think many people seem to forget about. This was keeping the government busy, when they should have been thinking about ways to combat the virus.

Trump banned flights to China early on. The mainstream press called him a racist after doing this. This is probably the single best thing that prevented large amounts of people from getting infected.

"Free speech is an important value. But don't pretend like it's some kind of panacea. You will do the ideal of freedom of speech much more justice by recognizing its limitations, because only then can you truly leverage its benefits while mitigating its weaknesses. Anything else is like driving with your eyes closed and thinking "I'll be fine"."

If Chinese citizens had the freedom of speech, we would have known about the virus much earlier and we might have actually been able to prevent the spread to countries like Italy.

I'm not sure why you are defending an authoritarian government that clearly prevented the world from knowing about a pandemic that has already killed thousands of people.

My guess is that you are one of the many people paid by the Chinese government to shill for them and spread propaganda.

Sure. So you give the customers a one time bailout and in exchange, thousands are out of jobs.

Great plan!

"Your first paragraph makes clear why freedom of the press is necessary."

All press isn't being banned, just specific press from China. Our Freedom of the press is still in place.

I also don't really consider the press from China as the press when everything is filtered through the Chinese government.

" But it's hard to ignore the fact that in this country, when poor people make mistakes [or, in this case are the victims of circumstance], they typically eat those mistakes. Medical bankruptcies, unable to cover a $500 emergency, etc"

This may be the case. But would you rather have thousands of people without jobs in the airline industry and the many other jobs that will be lost as a result of the bankrupt airlines?

Bailing out these industries out is in essence allowing many people to keep their job.

With all the talks of us resorting to socialism to fight the virus, it appears many countries had to resort to fascism.

I think you're already a little late. Most people have been using this term for almost two decades.

Most people during the depression wouldn't have complained about getting paid to work too many hours.

I've been working from home for a decade. I've worked at many companies and been part of the hiring process for remote developers.

Most people just don't have the discipline to work remotely. I think productivity will be reduced overall and it might prevent remote working in the future.

"implied"

Did he imply or are you implying now because you don't like Trump?

Kind of like when he made a speech about illegal immigrants and the press implied that he was talking about all immigrants?

"Also, people were pedantic with Obama all the time. Tan suit, anyone?"

Obama was adored by the mainstream press and anyone that said a single negative thing about him was attacked and deemed a racist. Fast and Furious anyone? How about when he used the IRS to illegally target conservative groups?

60 million people were infected with H1N1 during his presidency and 13,000 people died in the US. Most people don't even remember this.

If you can't admit when Trump does something right, I sure as hell won't believe you when you tell me Trump is doing something wrong.

This might work. But how many people will die in the process? There are many cases of young people, with seemingly no prior health issues, dying after getting severe issues as a result of the virus.

On top of that, you can't guarantee that young people will only get it. With no travel restrictions, it can easily spread to the elderly.