[thelean12]

"What is so magical about the word essential?"

Are you a real account? Essential is essential. Food. Gas. Home goods. Infrastructure. Anything that supports essential business.

Alcohol is certainly an outlier, but there are plenty of reasons for it to be essential. Alcoholics would die, for one. Black markets would spring up, for two.

Gardeners are not essential. No one is going to die because they can't get their gardening supplies. The cartel isn't going to get in the tulip business.

[in_cahoots]

Alcoholics can go to their local Wal-Mart, Target, or grocery store. They don’t need specialty liquor stores.

What about weed dispensaries, are they essential? More essential than dentists, pediatrician visits, and the accompanying vaccinations? Because the latter have all been closed. How are construction workers essential when gardeners aren’t?

‘Essential’ is in the eyes of the beholder, it seems.

[thelean12]

I'm not convinced you're arguing in good faith, but I'll dispel the misinformation for others:

In the bay area dentists and healthcare professionals are exempt from the order. My dentist is open for emergencies 7am-7pm. If your dentist is closed, you can certainly call and complain, but it's not part of the bay area order.

I'm not sure about vaccination schedules because it's hard to google it without talk about a coronavirus vaccine, so you should contact your pediatrician about that.

Construction is also essential only, except maybe the affordable housing exemption. You can report violations on sf.gov.

Weed has legitimate medical purposes, and keeping dispensaries open is probably a combination of that and preventing a black market.

Source for most of this: sf.gov

What exactly are you talking about?

[in_cahoots]

My source for this is my own life. My town (San Mateo county) is still bringing in construction workers to build a playground. My pediatrician and dentist have both closed for non-emergency purposes, as has my physical therapist. And you didn’t even address my point about liquor stores - read the order from San Mateo county and see if you think their rationale makes sense.

I’m not sure why you think I’m arguing in bad faith just because I happen to disagree with you, but I’d appreciate you discussing the substance of my claims and not your interpretation of my intent.

[thelean12]

The original thing I was pushing against was your "What is so magical about the word essential?" comment.

I've been showing how, with limited exceptions, it's not just a magic word attached to activities.

I didn't think you were arguing in good faith because you brought up horrible counter examples (gardeners??) and started spewing conspiracy theories that the bay area has some nefarious reason to keep people from being productive other than public safety.

[in_cahoots]

You don’t seem to be reading my posts carefully, so let me spell it out for you. My point is that essential is seemingly arbitrary. Constructing a playground is essential but gardening isn’t. I can drink away my pain or het high but I can’t get physical therapy.

It doesn’t take a conspiracy theory to understand what’s going on. Essential has been defined narrowly enough to keep the public inconvenienced so that they stay vigilant. If you disagree with me on this go read the New Yorker article on Seattle’s response. Optics plays as large a part as science when it comes to public health.

Essential is also defined broadly enough so that big businesses and their lobbyists don’t complain. That’s capitalism, you can disagree if you want.

Not every argument has to resort to name-calling and accusations of being fake. Even on the internet.

[thelean12]

And my point is that it's mostly not arbitrary, with a few exceptions that should absolutely be called out. And you are right to do so.

My problem with your arguments is that instead of complaining to your public officials that non-essential construction is happening (the park), you assume there's some conspiracy going on. Big Park lobbying? I don't know what you think, and I'm not going to bother writing out all the reasons it's ridiculous.