The Grand Illusion
Some Republican legislatures and governors have acted to forbid mask and vaccination requirements, usually giving one of several rationales: requiring masks and/or vaccination infringes on personal freedoms; people will do what’s best for them; local authorities know what’s best [except when they disagree with Republican state officials].
These reasons all ignore the very basics of government. ALL working governments place restrictions on their citizens in order to maintain the common good.
Those legal requirements are necessary because, without them, and often despite them, there is always a significant percentage of the population that will act against the common good and/or their fellow-citizens individually, either through ignorance, stupidity, greed, self-interest, or malice, or some combination thereof.
Despite the considerable rhetoric against masks and vaccinations, there is NO statistical credible evidence that masks impose harm on healthy individuals or children over a certain young age, and no evidence that vaccination harms healthy adults or children.
There is considerable evidence that mask-wearing dramatically reduces the spread of COVID and that vaccination virtually eliminates hospitalization and death from COVID, with the exception of immuno-compromised individuals (a very small percentage of the population).
So… why are all these Republicans opposing public health measures that would benefit their constituents and save the lives of many? Even as emergency rooms and ICUs are filled to overflowing in largely Republican-led states?
Could it be that those Republicans have forgotten that government exists for the protection of everyone? Or is it that they’re also suffering from an associated malignant mental condition that only appears to strike Republicans – Covidiocy?
Because modern day Republican “conservatives” exalt the individual in a cowboy mystique that only occurred in Hollywood.
But hey, it sells.
Those Republicans have not forgotten. They just never believed it. The forces that keep them in power want the businesses open and they don’t care about the cost in terms of human suffering.
What is surprising is how many voters go along with it.
As long as the misinformation is aligned with increased viewers and donations it will continue.
The idiocy isn’t new. The only question is how many years between extreme outbreaks? For western civilization it happened roughly 85 years ago.
For the USA it was 160 years ago.
It seems monstrous to suggest the Republican party doesn’t care about the cost in lives or suffering from the methods they use to energize their voters. But let’s look at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a party leader and 2024 presidential hopeful. He seems to have taken every step to halt COVID mitigation, such as seeking reopening of buisiness without restrictions, and actively blocking mask or vaccine mandates in workplaces and public schools (while sending his kids to a masks-required private school, naturally). Then he says things like:
“’You know, [Biden] said he was going to end covid. He hasn’t done that,’ DeSantis told Fox News host Jesse Watters.”[1]
Is the Republican strategy to let COVID run free and far, and then blame Biden for it? Did DeSantis ‘say the quiet part out loud’?
Is that a silly inference, or the natural evolution of the Republican party, which now seems to laud toxic abuser / bullying behavior as an ideal? Where the measure of toughness is not your ability to stand up for people who cannot defend themselves, but rather to punch down at them and the measure of your toughness is your ability to embrace the wails and tears of liberals? Where the party has fully embraced the ‘might makes right’ and ‘ends justify the means’ mentality of certain sects of southern, conservative Christians? (I could go on but don’t want my posts deleted.)
It’s a deeply uncomfortable question for me, no longer because it seems monstrous to suggest it, but because it could be true.
[1] “As Florida faces record covid-19 deaths, DeSantis says Biden should follow his lead “https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/26/florida-desantis-covid-deaths-biden/
Vaccination helps. Masks may or may not help, depending on the quality of the mask, whether it’s worn properly, and whether you believe (I’m not sure this is settled one way or the other) that droplets vs aerosols are more serious; droplets carry more, but aerosols are inhaled more deeply, and masks may well create aerosols.
Mandates DO NOT HELP. People will do what they do, and if you think you’re entitled to have government in effect use forced to compel them to protect you, you’re part of the problem. It IS now possible to buy N95 masks (which properly worn are at any rate more effective than what most people have) – I have a box, plus a reusable mask with an installable N95 filter (and yes, no exit valve), and if you’re that worried that you want force used against others, instead get the best, use it, and don’t go anywhere you don’t absolutely have to. Take responsibility for your OWN safety and protect yourself, rather than expecting everyone else to protect you.
As for the greatest good of the greatest number, that’s authoritarian collectivism which is tantamount to treason; just let fools die and good riddance.
I am curious what your take is on the hospital bed shortage in many areas: Should those who took on the minimal risk of vaccination and complied with masking and social distancing be given priority over those who did not?
The US has the lowest number of ICU beds per population of any wealthy country. Even Russia does much better. That is purely so that hospitals make as much profit as possible. Essentially people are being mandated to take vaccines to maintain those hospitals’ profits.
Israel is now having breakthrough cases with 3 vaccine doses. People who had 2 are considered unvaccinated. Where does it stop? UK scientists are finally realizing that we will never attain herd immunity.
If we cannot attain herd immunity, then we should NOT be vaccinating everyone, because vaccinating everyone increases the chance of a vaccine resistant variant developing. Instead we should be vaccinating those likely to contract and suffer from COVID: e.g. not children. And we should be researching treatments to help people who do catch COVID. To some degree the UK is doing that.
Mandating a mask is one thing: it causes no long term damage. Mandating a vaccine is completely different. The Hypocratic oath is do no harm. These COVID “vaccines” have many more side-effects than other vaccines. Mandating them is violating the Hypocratic oath. Allowing people to take them is not. Some eminent virologists have concerns about ADE, vaccine selected variant evolution, and the problem that occurs with dengue, where a first infection actually makes you more likely to die from a second one.