The common epidemiological defense
By tacitus Posted in Culture — Comments (57) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Let's talk about AIDS. It's not something that conservatives necessarily like to talk about, and it's difficult to blame them: those who do like to talk about AIDS are more often than not folks born hostile to conservatism. I'm talking about big-government enthusiasts; leftist social activists; homosexual agenda types; anti-family cabals for whom contraception is an intrinsic virtue; and the usual cadre of those who cannot conceive of compassionate action in the absence of tax dollars coupled with individual nonjudgmentalism. I'm talking about the vile fools who think Reagan is Hitler. These people are antagonists (let it be noted, antagonists for the sake of antagonism, not for the cause at hand) and the pity is that their relentless, frequently unreasoning antagonism has had its due effect in policy: just as conservatives have captured issues of uplifting the poor and protecting the defenseless (think vouchers, think abortion) that should by dint of stereotype be liberal, so have liberals captured an issue of personal responsibility and the common defense (think behavioral modification, think public health, think AIDS) that should by dint of stereotype be conservative. Don't misunderstand me: there is little point in asserting a (false, I think) exclusive conservative claim to this issue. What matters is demonstrating that there are fundamental reasons for conservatives to concern themselves with it.
Read on....
There is disease, and there is disease, and they are not all created equal. A friend e-mailed today to ask why fighting AIDS is, in the words of John Kerry, a moral obligation -- or, if you're Republican, a moral imperative -- whereas combating malaria, which kills far more per year, is apparently not. He was facetious: as former colleagues in the public health bureacracy, we both know the overwhelming importance of a disease's social role in dictating the attention and funding it receives. AIDS in the West struck at a behavioral minority that swiftly learned to organize itself and garner well-heeled allies (to say nothing of bilious self-pity, as cited above) in the process. Outside the West, it ravaged, of all places, hapless Africa; a plague that smote the downtrodden and endearing, articulate social exiles was tailor-made by pathogenic nature to yank fiercely at the heartstrings of the liberal conscience. Again, the result was that conservatives turned away. Why endure the jeers of those who called them murderers even while resisting the closure of the bathhouses? Why pay heed to the glitterati who swooped down from the Hollywood hills to blast them for lack of compassion, or to the Democrats clothed in righteous indignation at the insensitive, arrogant, unworkable "solution" that the social conservatives (those still engaged, anyway) offered for AIDS: namely, self-control and personal responsibility?
Therein, in that last bit, lies the rub, and the first reason that conservatives should concern themselves with AIDS: the social conservatives were right. A quarter-century into the global AIDS epidemic, one African nation -- Uganda -- has found a formula for turning things around. It is the only African nation to have massively reduced its overall rate of infection; it is the only nation in sub-Saharan Africa with a rising (albeit painfully slowly) life expectancy. No mean feat, that. And it did it all through the vigorous promotion of, yes, self-control and personal responsibility. This is the so-called ABC approach to AIDS control: A for abstinence, B for be faithful (to your partner), and C for condom use. In relying upon the individual actions of an educated populace, it is effective in the most dire circumstances of high rate of infection and low availability of resources. That's why, having been proven in Uganda, this model now forms the conceptual basis of President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
In case you missed it, there's the second reason conservatives ought to concern themselves with AIDS -- individual empowerment is the cornerstone of the plague's demise.
The President's Plan is an unprecedented commitment of staggering sums of American taxpayer money to the fight against global AIDS. I'm no fan of the phrase "compassionate conservatism," partly because it implies that conservatism per se lacks compassion, and partly because "compassion" so often equates to "massive spending." As it does here, really: the Plan commits the United States to $15 billion in anti-AIDS spending over five years. It is the biggest single global AIDS effort by any government ever -- by orders of sheer magnitude. I said I wasn't a fan of "compassionate conservatism," but I'm also not among those who think the phrase is insincere. The President means it, and this is a stark illustration of that commitment on his part.
The overwhelming majority of the Plan's money will go to 14 nations in Africa and the Caribbean (some will also go to Vietnam). The location of the targeted nations is no accident: particularly in Africa, with 12 of the 14 target nations, AIDS has done grim work indeed on life and society. I've been there and seen the numerous horrors: The small girls raped and infected thanks to a folk belief in their ability to thus cleanse the virus from men. The HIV-positive woman who relates matter-of-factly how AIDS carried off her husband, two co-wives, and five children in a single terrible year. The depopulated farms struggling at subsistence level due to lack of labor. The listless, emaciated condemned, alone and unattended in filthy wards. They are horrific symptoms of far larger problems: Millions of orphans burden the continent. Government cannot staff itself. Business finds up to a third of its workforce dying. Militaries go to war -- usually in the Congo -- and come back bearing their lethal viral load. As society staggers under this burden of innumerable woes, other forces rush to fill the resultant vacuum: Criminals. Foreign powers with opaque agendas. And terrorists whose agendas are all too obvious. This is not idle speculation: consider Kenya, with an HIV infection rate estimated variously between 7-15%. Literally a decimating plague. Consider that of all the groups dying in Kenya, Muslims, with their comparatively strong social prohibitions on extramarital sexual activity, are generally not among them. Then consider Kenyan Muslims.
This is the third reason conservatives should care about AIDS: in this age when failed states and crumbling societies have yielded such bloody fruit in our very streets, it is a matter of national security.
Into this epidemiological mayhem step two automatic heavyweights on the global AIDS scene: the aforementioned President's Plan, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, about which more shortly. The President's Plan is a fundamentally good one, based as it is upon a proven model, but containing within itself the flexibility to adapt to local needs; and, of course, it is massively generous. While it is hardly perfect (even I think it could stand to acknowledge the lessons of Brazil's generics experience), it is about as good an enormous government program you're going to find. This New York Times piece, while long, is a surprisingly fair assessment of the merits of the Plan. (As an aside, I must note that Zambian Health Minister Chituwo isn't quite being honest in this piece -- true, he may not have formally met with the US Ambassador for some time, but he did meet directly with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the White House Global AIDS Coordinator last year on this subject. Ranking personnel indeed: he even led a parade with them.)
The New York Times piece is also sadly revelatory of something else: the endless paranoia and mistrust with which the United States and its compassionate efforts are greeting in international fora and the global public health arena. This is, in my experience, almost entirely unreasoning on the part of those who propagate it. I have documented before the American efforts at global health gatherings to defuse these attacks. The sad fact is that they are immune to rational countering or even acts of goodwill. While feckless health apparati like South Africa's -- responsible for the largest quantity of HIV-positive citizens of any nation on the planet -- can and do undertake any number of dimwitted, deadly courses of action, the United States must, even when it is displaying titanic generosity, labor under the slings and arrows of its bitter antagonists. That's almost everyone: indeed, the Americans can't win. Take, for example, this year's XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, wrapping up about now. At the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, a mysteriously convenient breach in security (which had hitherto been quite effective) allowed HHS Secretary Thompson to get rushed on stage during his address by a crowd of shrieking protestors. Almost certainly as a result (whatever the denials), the Americans elected to send a dramatically slimmed-down delegation to this year's Conference. The response? The Conference co-chair denounced the American decision as "tragic" and "shameful." Meanwhile, as if to justify the that call, the Global AIDS Coordinator, Randal Tobias -- who is, more than any other single person, directly responsible for the successes of and lives saved by the President's Plan -- was forced to endure yet another round of the usual indignities.
Tobias was also forced to endure hectoring from the likes of Kofi Annan on the need for the United States to donate one billion dollars in a single year to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Now, make no mistake: the Fund is an outstanding institution that integrates both the public and private sectors, accepts funding only from voluntary donations, awards grants on the basis of objectively-assessed need, and rigorously accounts for every dime it disburses -- and even after they're disbursed. The fourth reason conservatives should support the anti-AIDS fight, by the bye, is that the Fund is exactly the sort of transnational institution we can wholeheartedly endorse. So why the balking at handing over a billion dollars so it can do its good work? Two words: fair share. As these two PDF documents show, the United States is by orders of magnitude already the largest benefactor of the Global Fund. (Those aren't PR handouts, by the way -- those are unclassified NSC internal briefing docs.) Toss in the $15 billion President's Plan, and our country is without question the single most active anti-AIDS entity in existence.
Yet still we are told we don't give enough. Yet still we are slandered. Yet still our personnel are heckled and jeered. Yet still we save lives. The fifth reason for conservatives to support the anti-AIDS fight? Because doing so only fulfills Voltaire's prayer.
Public health is part and parcel of providing for the common defense. As such, it is a legitimate Constitutional function of government, and one that conservatives can sign on to without reservation. As we move forward into this campaign season, we need to remind the American electorate of the genuinely stupendous and profoundly generous things their nation, under President Bush's direction, is accomplishing abroad. We need to remind them that we as a nation continue to adhere to the demands of our best selves even as we receive the scorn of an ungrateful world. And we need to remind one another, especially when it comes to AIDS, that contrary to the politics of the disease for the past quarter-century, we don't just have a stake in this fight -- we've got ownership of it.
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....by the way, is James K. Glassman's piece on this subject.
For all of your insight and experience some of the hostility to America is our insistence on the elimination of graft. Kofi Annan needs his billion to grease the skids.
- Bush deserves everyone's praise (even that of Kofi and those in Bangkok arguing he's not doing enough) for making this effort such a high-profile one, if not for being able to give as much money as the effort will need to really make a dent in the numbers dying.
- Reagan could have won the heart of each and every AIDS activist in the world with one simple gesture. Had he gone to a hospital and shook the hand of an AIDS patient, he would now be celebrated far and wide as an AIDS hero. Something so simple. Something so human.
Let that the be standard of compassion.
It's well done and very informative. I agree with just about everything you said. Despite all of my Bush-bashing, he does deserve credit on this front.
That despite the myth of silence, Reagan actually spoke multiple times about AIDS. First time was in 1985. According to CRS, the total funding spent on AIDS on Reagan's watch, between 1982 and 1989, was $5.727 Billion.
And an issue where the Administration and the President get very little credit for really leading the way.
Let that the be standard of compassion.
I'd rather let effective policy recommendations that save lives be the standard of compassion. The late, vapid Princess Diana is a hero to many in the AIDS advocacy community because she hugged an HIV-positive child. Meanwhile, Reagan's basic prescription for dealing with AIDS has been validated in Uganda and is now saving lives in the demographic groups hardest-hit by the disease. But because he eschewed a photo op and the rhetoric demanded of him (by, let it be noted, people who overtly hated him), he's demonized.
Heck, I first saw that loathesome Kramer piece when you circulated it, Edward.
Bush deserves everyone's praise (even that of Kofi and those in Bangkok arguing he's not doing enough) for making this effort such a high-profile one, if not for being able to give as much money as the effort will need to really make a dent in the numbers dying.
I'll concede that Bush does deserve props for providing the funds, and making the issue into a mid-profile one, but... (There's always a but isn't there?) Why are the drugs that are being bought with the government money only name brand ones rather than the Generics that are made in 3rd world counties? Heck why not negotiate with the US Drug companies to get the prices paid for the drugs lowered because we're buying in bulk? Without trying to do these things Bush's AIDS initiative sure seems like a big handout to Big Pharma.
You make 'em to get industry on board.
And to be honest, if even the United States and major western nations started committing legalized intellectual property theft from the pharmaceuticals, you'd just end up killing the goose that lays the golden eggs in the long run.
Great post. I'd normally be dismissive of the common defense rationale, but I'm not so sure any more.
The Administration and those that came before it have a history of letting the US pay the highest prices possible to the drug companies, not only in this case but for Medicare and for the reimportation ban.
Let's not forget that many of the drugs that have been developed have relied on earlier NIH funding of university research. I think that it's a bit of a stretch to call negotiations for fair prices 'legalized intellectual property theft'.
....well, tax dollars from private industry and private citizens.
Obviously there are no easy answers here. Point taken about the lack of negotiation at points; I would simply caution that, contrary to the views of far too many in public health, the pharma industry is not an inexhaustible supply of money and drugs. Squeeze it enough times, and in the end, it will collapse.
There's a good reason only a few countries (I'm thinking the US, UK and Switzerland) have active, innovating native pharma industries.
all kinds of defensive hoops to excuse the fact that Reagan failed the US AIDS victims as a leader.
I offer a very, very simple example of how he could have not only silenced his critics, but won them over, and you belittle it.
The question of why he didn't do it remains unanswered.
Facts are "defensive hoops," eh? Promoting what proved to be correct advice on combatting the epidemic is "fail[ing] US AIDS victims as a leader"?
This is absurd on its face.
The question of why he didn't do it remains unanswered.
In his shoes, I wouldn't. Why submit to demands of pointless bona fides from the obsessed who feel free to vilify and lie about you?
I know you're determined to vilify Reagan on this count in any way you can. And I'll respond to you the same as I did on tacitus.org -- if you really want to talk about the primary responsibility for AIDS in the '80s, I am more than happy to talk about the gay community's deadly foot-dragging, hysteria and denial on that matter.
...thought-provoking post, Tac.
I was appalled by this op-ed in the Times about the growing irrelevance, and unseemliness, of this conference.
Another article today said, with AIDS and other factors, average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is 33.
Two things, though. First, I want to suggest that leaders are symbols as well as policy-makers. It's an obvious point, but a public gesture of human contact, especially where so many myths about an epidemic persist, can really help dispel fear and set a compassionate example.
The second is my wondering, more than 20 years into the pandemic, that you have to write such a post at all, to convince conservatives that AIDS is something to care about. That shocked me.
I think the fact that gay men who contracted AIDS during the early days of denial (before many of the real facts were known, I might add) are now dead is punishment enough for their selfish foot-dragging and hysteria, don't you?
In his shoes, I wouldn't. Why submit to demands of pointless bona fides from the obsessed who feel free to vilify and lie about you?
Demands? The rationale here is Reagan was offended by their demands so he was fighting back by refusing to make a large humane gesture? Even I give him more credit than that.
He'd have had to been pretty damn petty for that to be the reason.
....has been leading the charge to get conservatives to care and to act?
The Christian right.
Anyway, I don't think the conservative exclusion from this cause is much of a surprise. Look, after all, at how we're treated far too often when we try to do good work.
Hey, truth is truth. Let's not pretend that we didn't more or less know fairly early on what you could do to prevent the disease.
And gestures mean more to you than actual action or rightness. Okay. Noted.
The gesture I want from you? Disavowal of the Kramer piece.
And gestures mean more to you than actual action or rightness. Okay. Noted.
That suggests that Reagan could not have (seemingly) begrudgingly appoved the funding AND sent a humanitarian message.
Hey, truth is truth. Let's not pretend that we didn't more or less know fairly early on what you could do to prevent the disease.
We?
It's easier in hindsight to blame people. Part of the denial was fear. I was too young to have been any part of this, but older friends I talk to suggest there was combination of stubbornness, stupidity, and dread leading to refusals to close bath houses and such, as well as simply not wanting to. But you're suggesting the knowledge we have now was more or less available then. I think that's an oversimplification. I could go into graphic detail, but lets leave it at folks are still not sure exactly how the virus is passed along, in terms what one can or cannot do and still be safe.
The gesture I want from you? Disavowal of the Kramer piece.
I believe I qualified that link the first time I posted it (can't find it on Tacitus now). But to repeat my general feelings on the matter: Kramer is a great playwright but a bit of an alarmist and a cranky sh-t of a person. However, he, more than anyone else I know, has a license to rant on this topic, if licenses are being given out.
The Hitler bit is beyond the pale. He's clearly blind with hatred for Reagan. He feels he's justified though. Countless funerals will do that to a person.
The gesture I want from you? Admit Reagan dropped the ball PR-wise.
That suggests that Reagan could not have (seemingly) begrudgingly appoved the funding AND sent a humanitarian message.
The funding is a humanitarian message, I would think.
But you're suggesting the knowledge we have now was more or less available then. I think that's an oversimplification.
It's pretty accurate. It didn't take terrifically long to figure out that homosexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use were the two major vectors for AIDS in North America. We knew this much long before we even identified HIV itself. In light of this, the resistance to curbing facilitators of the former practice was simply irresponsible and inexcusable. And deadly.
I could go into graphic detail, but lets leave it at folks are still not sure exactly how the virus is passed along, in terms what one can or cannot do and still be safe.
This is not an accurate statement. We pretty much do know these things by this point.
However, he, more than anyone else I know, has a license to rant on this topic, if licenses are being given out.
But they're not, now are they? Kramer has a license to be an idiot, it seems: having been to Auschwitz and Yad Vashem, I'm pretty sure that the comparison of the Holocaust to Reagan's AIDS policies is frankly stupid, or stupidly malicious. We've all been to funerals: I've never felt that my attendance at such gave me license to spout slandering falsehoods.
Admit Reagan dropped the ball PR-wise.
He did, yeah, in the eyes of those who were never going to give him credit for any action he undertook in the first place.
but I question the role of the pharmaceutical industries in the recent Prescription Drug legislation passed by Congress. The legislation is written in a way that provides no benefits to the low income demographic that is now being pressured to buy into the program because the upper income demographic recognizes the raw deal that emerged from the pharmaceutical industry.
....by the way, is a great, even if left wing, writer on public health. Her book The Coming Plague is a truly outstanding synthesis of the practices of global health, and the dire challenges facing it. Highly, highly recommended. And well-written, at that.
You're not willing to budge an inch.
Fine.
Reagan was no hero on AIDS. Sorry. My Hero standard requires a bit more bravery and compassion.
When I have facts on my side?
Amazing you can't even acknowledge that it's Reagan's preferred course of action that's beginning to curb AIDS today.
uh, gee, I dunno...mutual understanding perhaps.
You don't have all the facts on your side. Only the most arrogant of people would ever even think, let alone assert that, but that's another matter...
I've looked for proof that ABC is Reagan's plan, but can't find it. Cite?
....is the label applied to the Ugandan plan. Reagan's belief was that AIDS was essentially a matter of personal responsibility -- which premise was adopted and adapted into ABC.
...the Xian right didn't touch it until heterosexuals were infected and there were African orphans to hold up in infomercials. Their constant demonization of gay people is disgraceful.
In the 80's, Mother Theresa made a trip (her first?) to NYC. The first thing she asked to do was to see the AIDS patients. She's the right Christian.
Conservatives' motives are often suspect because of their closer ties to those entities that profit from conflict and/or tragedy.
....of the Christian right, I see. I should expect as much. Just as I was saying -- damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Yet they do anyway. I can tell you which party I admire the more.
Conservatives' motives are often suspect because of their closer ties to those entities that profit from conflict and/or tragedy.
Sheesh. I can't even take this seriously, sorry.
Money quote: "The Bush administration wanted the bulk of its funding to go toward more costly brand-name antiretroviral drugs for treatment programs run by nongovernmental organizations. But Mozambique had already decided to treat its people with 3-in-1 generic pills, which were cheaper and simpler to take. Also, Mozambique did not want an American program dependent on costly foreign consultants, N.G.O.'s and the largesse of foreign political leaders, that would run parallel to its own."
The rest of the article has its good and bad.
I'll wrassle with you on the Xian right later. Your contemptuous use of the cliche "homosexual agenda" suggests you've bought into some of their bigotry.
Would make such a comment.
Your contemptuous use of the cliche "homosexual agenda" suggests you've bought into some of their bigotry.
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.
would drop into another conversation with such a comment and no clarification of what that's supposed to mean.
Notably, Uganda's approach to BCC has relied more on "non-electronic" mass communication--which was community-based, face-to-face, and culturally appropriate. Strong nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and community based support led to flexible, creative, and culturally appropriate interventions that worked to change behavior despite extreme levels of post-civil war household poverty.
from a USAID report ...(warning: pdf)
altogether, the report suggests pretty strongly that the ostensibly puzzling part of the ABC results (i.e. the part not explained by increased use of condoms) had a lot to do with the particularly all-inclusive and community-based way in which abstinence was being promoted. including the fact that primary vectors - sex workers, truckers et al - could be directly approached by health workers "without creating a highly stigmatizing climate."
contrast that with abstinence rhetoric in the US, including this post, and draw conclusions if you dare...
also note that condom use, and the promotion of condom use, has been a non-trivial factor - it just doesn't account for the whole drop. yet in 2002 "High levels of condom use [were] reported for commercial sex work (i.e., reportedly at near-100 percent levels in Kampala)" in fact, in the pretty pictures the condom use curves start going up just as the infection rate curves are starting their descent - it's only when you drill down to the numbers that there's even any doubt about what happened when.
Actively trying to codify denial of civil rights into the Constitution? Damned if you do.
And I didn't even get to this preposterous phrase: "anti-family cabals for whom contraception is an intrinsic virtue". Ay yi yi.
Actively trying to codify denial of civil rights....
Well. What isn't a civil right these days? Cripes, man.
And I didn't even get to this preposterous phrase: "anti-family cabals for whom contraception is an intrinsic virtue".
Oh, please do. All too easy to hammer those who'd take issue with it.
You gotta read the whole article, MM. Your "money quote" is followed by an exposition of how the Bush Administration compromised and gave Mozambique what it wanted and earned praise thereby.
Ha. Just kidding about the praise part. Folks like you will never give honest credit. As I've been saying.
I'll wrassle with you on the Xian right later.
Yeah, yeah. Bring it on, as they say.
Your contemptuous use of the cliche "homosexual agenda"....
Lordy, man. It's as if there aren't explicitly homosexual activist groups pushing explicitly homosexual agendas. A firm grappling with reality will assist in coming to terms with this.
It means.
How, precisely, was Augustine "nebulous"?
Like a cloud, he wafted in, and rained on my parade.
Actually, he was nebulous in the sense of the word meaning "lacking definition or definite content" (mostly the latter).
Especially given context; that said, I expect Augustine can defend himself.
I expect Augustine can defend himself.
I'm quite sure he can, but as you're the one now claiming I'm stretching (not Augustine), I'll outline the chronology here to ask you a question:
1. Tacitus argued that he has the facts (presumedly all of them, unqualified as otherwise):
Why budge? When I have facts on my side?
2. I point out, as I would to anyone asserting such a thing (believing that it bespeaks of a closed mind and that there are always things one does not know unless one is God)
You don't have all the facts on your side. Only the most arrogant of people would ever even think, let alone assert that,
3. Then, out of nowhere, Augustine jumps in and offers
Only the most arrogant of people
Would make such a comment.
Now, calling someone "arrogant" based on their declaration of omniscience within a debate implies that I too, not being omniscient, am in the same boat. Logically, then it would follow that I'm not arrogant, painting myself as nonomniscient, especially in comparison with someone insisting otherwise for themself. But I didn't argue that in response to Augustine's comment. Instead I was willing to give Augustine the benefit of the doubt and challenge him to elaborate (via an equally snarky challenge, I'll admit, but...he started it ;p), his comment lacking any argument or explanation (and, as noted here, being illogical, or seeming illogical, an explanation would clarify matters).
- And that's why I considered Augustine's peek-a-boo snark nebulous. He didn't explain how it's arrogant to call someone else arrogant. And given the context, it would seem obvious that I was including myself in the context of the nonomniscient, so it really could use some explanation.
- You note, I think you're stretching a little
Especially given context
How so?
....seems obvious I'm not claiming all facts in all cases, here. Just the facts on this particular case.
Here's my spirit of compromise for you, Edward. Saw a copy of "And the Band Played On" on sale today for $3.99 at the Hagerstown outlets. I'll read it. And let you know if my opinion changes.
and a scholar.
No one could ask more of you.
cheers
You said to Tacitus:
You don't have all the facts on your side. Only the most arrogant of people would ever even think, let alone assert that, but that's another matter...
Then Augustine said:
Only the most arrogant of people
Would make such a comment.
His comment, therefore, in context, does not seem at all nebulous. He is using parallelism and irony to deride you for asserting that Tacitus does not have all (or, as you imply, enough) facts to make the assertions that Tacitus does.
There is nothing unclear about the comment. I am therefore at something of a loss as to what you meant; I suspected you thought of one word, and, as often happens to me, typed another. Now I'm not so sure.
Clarifies that Augustine believes Tacitus might have all the facts at his disposal (something I would assume all but the most deluded might question) but mystifies as to why anyone would ever assert that was possible among mere mortals.
His comment, therefore, in context, does not seem at all nebulous. He is using parallelism and irony to deride you for asserting that Tacitus does not have all (or, as you imply, enough) facts to make the assertions that Tacitus does.
Irony? Come again? Speaking of folks using words they're not clear on the meaning of. Unless you're suggesting that only by believing I know all the facts could I assert Tacitus doesn't (which I reject, believing, as noted above no mortal does), there's no irony here.
As for my implying Tacitus doesn't have enough facts, you brought that to the discussion, not me. Nothing I wrote implied that. I commented clearly that Tacitus didn't have "the facts."
(1) Like I said, I don't mean to speak for Augustine. I'm not he; based on the words used, that would appear to be the context and meaning.
(2) Irony is, for high schoolers, saying the opposite of what one means. For those who payed attention after the teacher got through verbal irony, one reached such esoterica as situational irony (the classic example of which is the firefighters returning to the station only to find it burning down). Augustine was apparently suggesting that it was ironic that you would deride Tacitus for arrogance, out of apparent arrogance yourself.
(3) No one is asserting that Tac is omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent, least of all Augustine (or Tacitus). His comment appeared to take -- as I did -- your comments about insufficient facts as regarding AIDS, and that's all. If you meant it more generally, as in Tacitus doesn't know everything, I think we can all shake hands and walk away. However, your use of the words "the facts," in context, seem to relate only to AIDS, and, in the mother tongue, would suggest "enough facts to correctly discuss this issue." Again, insofar as I've misinterpreted, I plead the ambiguity of the language and too much time looking at this site today, and apologize. Insofar as that's what you meant, however: I stand by my comment.
This, of course, is why I said Augustine can speak for himself.
of situational irony. Fine. Now please explain how it applies in this situation (unless this is beginning to get as tiresome for you as it is for me, in which case, skip the bit below and I'll see you on another battlefield...if not, however...)
As I've gone to lengths to explain, there is no apparent irony in Augustine's charge that I'm arrogant, unless one assumes I'm guilty of the same thing I'm calling Tacitus on, i.e., claiming to know all the facts. I did no such thing, so I can't see how Augustine's comment was ironic.
And I disagree that Tacitus meant he commanded "enough facts to correctly discuss this issue." He meant that he commanded enough/all (you choose) the facts needed to not reassess his position or budge on a central point at all. Specifically, that he knew all he needed to know to KNOW that Reagan had not dropped the ball PR-wise during the AIDS crisis. My challenge was to suggest he might step back a bit from that assertion. Short of having worked in the Oval Office or having interviewed Reagan in person, I'm doubtful he could possess enough facts to feel he was informed enough to not consider budging at all. and blah, blah, blah ad infinitum...
It's been fun, but I made myself clear. This is all for Augustine now, if he wants it. As you say, another battlefield, another time.
No one is asserting that Tac is omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent...
I'll grant you not omniscient nor omnipotent, but I suggest you reconsider the omnipresent, my lad.
Sorry for deleting your comments, but I didn't realize it could be seen when I saved the (very) unfinished draft last night. Rather start the thread when it's done, yes? No worries -- it will be on the main page shortly.