Guest Post by The Zman
The petty tyranny of the Covid panic has gone from a genuine response to a public health concern to just another aspect of post-sanity America. People now wear all sorts of silly face coverings when going about their day for the same reason they wear pants or shoes. It’s just another thing that is required. Soon, it will be custom, like not wearing white before Memorial Day. The ever changing rules issued from local tyrants are now taken in stride like, the weather or earthquakes in California.
The mask issue is another great example of how American politics is just a morality play with the same roles every time. The Official Left strutted onto the stage warning about the great monster and how the democracy was at risk. Their solution was mandatory mask wearing like their sponsors in China use. The Official Right tried to minimize the issue and resisted for a while, but the Official Left whipped up their partisans in the crowd and the Official Right eventually relented.
Meanwhile, out in the crowd, the partisans of the Left now feel emboldened to harass people on the streets about masks, distancing and so forth. Normal people, of course, are still stuck in the world of facts and reason, but they are adjusting to life in a past-sanity world. A similar pattern happened with homosexual marriage. Normal people still think it is ridiculous, just as they think men in sundresses is absurd, but they navigate around it and the crazies that support it.
Unlike homosexual marriage and drag queens, the petty tyranny has a moral signifier to it that makes it tougher to navigate. The mask is the most obvious one. Spend time in a public setting and you can see the believers versus the compliant. The believers make sure their face muffler is firmly attached and is clean and new. They make sure it is on before they leave the car and they wear it all the way to the car. Normal people stick theirs on just before they enter a store.
The same is true of other aspects of this performance. At places that offer hand sanitizer, the faithful queue up, making sure to keep their distance, then make a big show of rubbing themselves down with sanitizer. Normals feel pressured to do it, but they look a bit out of place. It’s like the C&E Catholics taking communion. They just assume everyone knows they are going through the motions. Others, of course, just ignore it and go about their business.
What makes all of this more compelling, from an anthropological and sociological perspective, is no one knows if these measures have any impact. The people who say they are effective almost always have no math or science. They would not know the first step in thinking about how to test the effectiveness of these measures. The other side of the debate does not exist, at least not publicly. Those strongly opposed to these measures base their arguments in the law, not science.
The truth is, there is no reason to think any of these measures have a positive impact on the progress of the pandemic. That’s the first important thing to know if you want to think about a pandemic. It is a process. Assuming the new bug is not 100% lethal to those exposed and humans can develop an immunity to it over time, a pandemic follows a predictable pattern. There is the initial outbreak, where the most vulnerable succumb, then it spreads through the population and eventually burns out.
A pandemic burns out because eventually there is a critical mass of people who are immune to the virus. Maybe they have a natural immunity or they have developed one, but over time, the ability of the virus to find a new host diminishes and it can no longer spread to new victims. Of course, in the extreme, the virus just kills all those vulnerable to it and the rest survive. Some researchers think this could have happened in Philadelphia during the Spanish Flu outbreak.
The theory behind these counter measures was to slow the spread, so hospitals would have time to gear up for patients. The fact that the spread was not impeded in the slightest is a pretty good real-world test of the measures. Maybe in theory they could work, but we don’t live in theory. In reality, months of social distancing and mask wearing have had no impact on the course of the disease. In fact, in places like New York, their policies probably made it worse.
It is possible that all of these measures are bad idea. Take the mandatory mask wearing business as an example. Wearing a surgical mask in a medial setting as part of a protocol to maintain a germ-free environment is well established. Hospitals have very lengthy procedures for the staff, as well as regular training by people who are tasked with maintaining a clean environment. The mask is just one small part of a larger process to maintain a safe environment in the hospital.
In the regular world, where no such procedures are in place and no one is trained in the proper use of masks, or even using proper masks, the mask may be a bad idea. If you watch people in the wild, they are endlessly fiddling with their masks. We know a primary vector for a virus is people touching their face and eyes. A policy that increasing face touching is not a good idea in a pandemic. In other words, mask wearing may increase the spread of the virus in the real world.
The efficacy of mask wearing does not matter, as it is now just another amulet people can wear in public to express their adherence to a particular cult. In the case of the scolds yelling at people about their masks, they believe their mask loyalty is a license to harass the world. Social misfits at the bottom of the social hierarchy now use the mask issue to attack the normal people for not liking the mask policy. The mask is now just another part of the general madness of this age.
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“…no one knows if these measures have any impact. ”
– Zman
Oh yes they do, Zman. The evil bastards know damn well they are training the population to be neurotic about germs; create a social milieu of hysteria over the plandemic; to ingrain obsessive compulsive thinking and actions about washing plus dirtiness avoidance; and in the final analysis – the most important aspect of the training – obedient and compliant to the “Authorities*”.
Isn’t behavioural science great.
*The Authorities work for the Evil Fuckers, hence the extraordinary and historic accomplishment of world-wide economic shutdown, liberty lockdown, and soft martial law implemented without much of a fuss. Well except for BurnLootMurder and Antifa riots that is.
My older brother just moved back to Minneapolis from Seattle (not much of an improvement) and he came up to my farm to visit this weekend. He is, of course, a rabid mask wearing liberal and talked excitedly about his favorite mask and how much he loves wearing it when he goes out in public. He also spoke about how effective and therefore necessary it was but it was clear to me that he wore it as much a fashion accessory as a preventative measure. But when I asked him how a virus that escaped a top bioweapons lab could be stopped with a simple paper face mask he totally cut me off and changed the subject. He gushed about the whole mask epidemic (it is) but refused to have a discussion about them. It seems to me that all those masks block is the truth.
ETA Masks are becoming the new grocery bag or plastic bottle. I am seeing discarded masks on the ground in town now, along the curb and especially by the garbage drop off. Maybe I should be encouraged that at least these morons are changing out their disposable masks occasionally instead of just reusing the same one over and over but instead it makes me think these hypocrites are just dropping what they believe to be infected masks out in public where they have the potential to infect other people. How nice.
Box ’em up and send to New York-they’ll know how to deal with ’em
I ask people why masks that have been worn are not treated as bio-hazardous waste. I get the deer in the headlights look. These people are clueless.
People take them off and leave them in my car (kids, kids friends etc.) It is disgusting. Where is my hazmat suit to get rid of the dirty diapers?
Auntie recommends you ask your brother which mayor – Durkin of Seattle or Frey in New Mogadishu – is doing the better job of running their respective towns.
Running or ruining?
I vote ruining.
I reckon when he changed the subject that was your cue to punch him in the throat and kick him in the balls. Opportunity missed.
I’m sick of all the talk about masks. By now anyone with an IQ over 100 should have figured out that the masks and this whole virus is a play by TPTB to see how compliant the citizenry is so they can plan their next move – the vaccine. That will be followed by the Great Reset.
The one world government deal has been in the works for over 50 years and they are close to implementing their New Normal technocracy.
Masks are the least of our worries.
They may be the least of our worries, but they are what has kicked us down the slippery slope. Don’t diaper!!
Actually, mask displays to us exactly who to shoot in the upcoming melee. They mask wearers will be the enemies of liberty loving people everywhere!
Come on guys its just a little mask. Come on guys we need to remove that germ ridden currency. Come on guys we just need you carry these vaccination identification papers. Come on guys we are just going to take some pictures while you put this dick in your mouth.
The problem here is that if you are willing to do what you know is wrong out of fear of the consequences then you are the problem. Don’t be a fucking slave. You are not going to get rid of evil tyrants by going along with their demands. What happens when you give a child everything they want?
Question everything and everyone, accept nothing just because an authority figure says so.