Thought for the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Testing the theory that leaving a comment makes the image visible.
Shapiro is a gem, and his point is a fair and good one. That said, I don’t understand the GOP’s apparent indifference to social distancing and mask wearing. It just seems weird to me.
I’m not “indifferent” to the witch-doctor masks.
I’m gritting my teeth to avoid doing grave bodily harm at the over-reaching, demanding, presumptuous asses who try to force me to do something that didn’t work when they tried it a century ago, who apparently expect people to not look at the studies they offer and notice, hey, these aren’t cloth masks for general use– these are either medical masks in high risk environments, or masks used with a bunch of other PPE, with some other masks thrown in for conflation.
There are studies on cloth masks, going back years. They either don’t work or are detrimental, useful only as a psychological aid when basic sanitation is followed. To make it worse, handwashing goes down when masks are enforced, based off of how much soap is used vs traffic.
The CDC guidance, most recently, is that six feet– basically, don’t be able to touch fingertips with someone not in your household– and mask if you are going to spend more than five minutes closer than that.
I am also wishing I had the health guidelines that came up every single year during “oops the controlled burn got loose” season in Washington, where they warned people how dangerous it was to wear a mask all the time.
I’m a little busy trying to keep the burning rage because the guy who was like a third grandfather to me is dead, because of the “precaution” to “prevent overwhelming the health system” meant he got no treatment for what seems to be the first wave of COVID19 in Washington state, until it put him in the emergency room.
“Elective” healthcare was not needed, you see. So until he had pneumonia, he was medically neglected.
Still hung on for months.
But hey! They demanded that he take off his oxygen supplement to wear a mask– because that SHOWS YOU CARE.
Right up there with the old folks who are dead because known infected people were put into their extended care, just in case the hospitals MIGHT become over-burdened. Or the folks who died at home, refused treatment because they couldn’t be revived on site, and thus 911 would not be allowed to take them to the hospital.
I am not “indifferent” to masks. I recognize them as a freaking worthless talisman while every stupid, feckless, moronic failure that people could come up with is done.
And to think I use to read about the Spanish flu, and think “wow, that is so stupid; there aren’t a lot of things they could’ve done that would make it worse.”
And then New York said: let me brainstorm it.
I am a lab chemist and teacher. Protection is either from something or for someone. If neither condition is met, there is no need. I don’t wear a mask outside when no one is around for the same reason I don’t wear safety goggles in my office.
Because it has been so politicized Mike. This rubbish was being treated like the Black Death, and then along came the BLM protests and it was great to have massive demonstrations. Personally I have my doubts as to the long term utility of either masks or social distancing, but if they are going to be mandated, groups should be treated the same, unlike what has happened in the current debacle.
Part of the politicization has been the lines being drawn by supporters of the New Health Order in terms of “this way or nothing.”
Even if you phrase your question along the lines of “are masks really necessary for people who are outside, or in stores where people are spread apart?” it will be interpreted as “we should do nothing and just let Grandma die!”
I’ve given up on discussing these matters with other people because the conversation always goes the same way. Even when I complained about parking meters being replaced by a smartphone app (to encourage “social distancing” at the curb, apparently) the reaction I got was that these measures are necessary if we don’t want people to die. So it isn’t worth trying to stake out some middle position because the end result is the same as if you really had said that nothing should be done.
The only effective response is to move the conversation from whether health measures are necessary (since it will always be claimed that they are) to how many people we are willing to let die due to a lockdown. It’s not enough to talk about government overreach or financial destruction; people who are emotionally swayed don’t care about such things. Make it a talk about the death count and make sure that THEY are held responsible for the deaths caused by the policies they support.
This isn’t about masks, but about the lock-downs and social distancing.
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https://www.aier.org/article/the-2006-origins-of-the-lockdown-idea/
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I’m not indifferent to masks either. There is nothing I can add to Foxfier’s comment except to repeat my banker’s comments about them “Don’t worry about putting it on; we’re a bank. We don’t like them around here.”
The criticism of the non mask wearers at the White House event last night is unwarranted according to Alex Berenson author of Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: The virus doesn’t spread out of doors with normal behavior. Adults are most vulnerable inside buildings or in closed spaces.
I wonder if rioters would be so bold if they didn’t wear a mask?
Maybe this shows why conservatives feel like it’s not rain that’s running down our backs.
Personally, I think they’re about as useful as the pocket full of poses in the nursery rhyme.