https://twitter.com/i/status/1425878511915577344
Forcing kids to wear masks at school for a virus less dangerous to them than regular flu is nothing but virtue signaling on steroids. When people will sacrifice the well being of their kids to make a political statement they are truly lost.
The rhetoric I am hearing from those who support these mandates is “this is necessary because we aren’t allowed to use vaccines to protect our children yet.” The only salvation is the jab, considering the actual risk of infection or death doesn’t even enter into it.
Rather than just complain about people thinking that I’d like to note how this was done. Partially it was the amount of propaganda towards that end. Repetition works, especially if it comes from multiple sources. But another big factor is the tendency to “talk past the sale.” Rather than say “how can we know these vaccines are effective and safe?” the talking heads in the media say “what can we do to make sure that people are made safe by vaccinating?” That is, they skip past the question of whether mass vaccination is a good idea and move directly to the question of how to implement it. Most people will then unconsciously accept the idea that vaccination really is a good idea for everyone, including children, without ever thinking about it.
The left does this all the time. For example, they say “how can we make sure that kindergartners know about how wonderful gay marriages are?” They skip past the question of whether we should socially accept gay marriages and move to the question of “should we get kindergartners exposed to this?” Many people only take one step back and say “Well I don’t think there’s anything wrong with gay marriages but kindergartners are too young to be worried about them.” But if they had instead directly been asked “Do you think that gay marriages are just like traditional marriages, and do you think that everyone should accept them?” they likely would not have agreed without reservation.
My response to kids in masks 6+ hours of the day is generally, “So, how many children with pneumonia are you okay with?” I’ve gotten so tired of the bulls— virtue signaling that my kneejerk reaction has been to throw the equivalent of the question, “How often do you beat your wife?” at people attempting to signal.
As noted elsewhere on this site, the population did not need additional fault lines upon which to fracture, however we now have little to no understanding between the two sides on these covid measures and a growing class of people who consider it their right to dictate to others on very personal and private matters. It seems unlikely, given the deliberate destruction of civility by governments worldwide, that this can result in anything but violence and misery for the common people and even more opportunity for tyranny by the self-anointed “elite”.
We are to the point where 99% of the time conversation on this matter is impossible. Sometimes you get a back and forth where both people actually consider what is being said; it’s happened before on sites like these. But more often the decision is made first and any “evidence” for the decision is just window dressing. I’ve known this for a while, but I received another reminder today. I had a long discussion with a relative about the fact that I’m not vaccinated against COVID-19 (though I do have antibodies against it from a previous infection.) We talked about a variety of things, but one point I made is “at what point does this end? The manufacturers, CDC and other health organizations are all talking about booster shots due to the vaccines not being effective in the long term or against variants.” She then told me that the vaccines were tremendously effective and that it was ridiculous to think that booster shots will be required.
Out of respect for my kin I watched the entire video, even though it was 50 minutes long. Most of it was fact free emotional appeals (i.e. “People are dying, even young children, and you say that you aren’t going to do anything? Would you let a child out next to a poisonous snake? Then why would you be near them when you aren’t vaccinated?”) But it did mention booster shots twice. About halfway through it mentioned how booster shots are almost certainly going to be given to those with weak immune systems, and could very well be given to the elderly and then the general population. At the end it talked about how due to coronaviruses generally having such a high degree of mutation, additional vaccines of some form will be inevitable, quite possibly forever, with the only question being whether or not the current proposed boosters would be used or if ones specifically designed to combat certain variants would be used. That is, the video only confirmed the point that I had made.
But it doesn’t really matter because videos like this are not meant to persuade based on facts. They are meant to give people the ability to fool themselves into thinking they were persuaded on facts.