[ExI] Trump suggests not letting Iran 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego

Tue Oct 13 20:57:04 UTC 2026

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, 13 October, 2026 1:34 PM
To: spike at rainier66.com
Cc: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>; Ben Zaiboc <benzaiboc at proton.me>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Trump suggests not letting Iran 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego

On Tue, Oct 13, 2026 at 3:56 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

> Rather than attacking an opponent, one can promote one’s own candidate.  I notice you don’t do that. 

>…  I never claimed Biden or Harris would be great presidents, I only claimed they would not be apocalyptically bad like your buddy….

McArdle would have been better in my opinion.

> I will grant we had a very weak candidate this cycle.  So I wrote in Angela McArdle rather than vote for Chase Oliver.

>…So you decided to vote for one non-entity rather than another non-entity….

Both are entities.  Vote your values, bet your beliefs.  By voting for a mainstream candidate because they can win is voting your beliefs, rather than your values.

Note that I live in a free state: California is not and will not be a swing state.  Florida was once a swinger, but is unlikely to become one again in our lifetimes.

>… effective result of that was you did not vote in the 2024 election….

On the contrary, I voted.

> On the contrary.  I support my own party’s candidate,

>…And yet 100% of the time when somebody criticizes some new idiotic thing that Donald has done you immediately jump to his defense. If that isn't "support" then what is?

Actually jumping to his defense is.  What I do is more along the lines of community notes on X, reader context.

Consider this quote:

“Remember, with the war, it's just artificial, it's a little bit high, it's a small price to pay... They could take out a city. Let 'em take out Los Angeles, let 'em take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it's going to be over with very soon.”

It was about the cost of the war, about the cost of Diesel, etc.  But if we let them nuke San Diego or Los Angeles, we find out what expensive really means.  The price of this blockade is a small price to pay compared to that.

John that reader context isn’t a defense of anyone, it is a clarification.

…

> No one intentionally turns her body into a lethal virus factory.

>…I don't give a damn if ignorant idiotic behavior is intentional or not, especially when it involves life or death. I don't want to get in a metal tube 40,000 feet in the air that's moving at 600 miles an hour sitting 2 feet away from a 200 pound lethal virus factory….

Then by all means, don’t.  But notice that the efficacy of the mRNA vaccine was overestimated.  People could get that vaccine, think they were safe, get on that metal tube, catch covid and transmit covid.  That killed a lot of people.  

I didn’t fly for a long time after covid started, even though I had natural immunity, for having caught it in December 2019.

 >By that reasoning, you might suggest that everyone should be obligated to accept the mRNA vaccine. 

>…If you're talking about a lethal highly contagious virus that had already killed millions then yes ABSOLUTELY!! 

John K Clark

There is no legal structure in the USA that can be used to mandate a vaccine.  Even if it had worked better than it did, there is still nothing in the constitution which empowers the federal government to mandate that.  States might be able to do so legally.

Do let me be the first to recognize that it worked, some.  It was better than nothing.  But plenty of people caught after getting the mRNA vaccine, and plenty transmitted after getting the vaccine.  In either case, the federal government has not the authority to mandate it.

spike

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