Masks Can Be a Symbol of Privacy and Personal Responsibility, Not Tyranny
Plus: Family Dollar guard murdered over mask enforcement, doctors see "multisystem inflammatory syndrome" in kids with COVID-19, and more...
In defense of masks. Some libertarians and conservatives seem to believe in private business conscience and contract rights until opposing them will attract attention or place themselves on their preferred side of culture war politics.
For a few years, this was most common when it came to social media platforms suspending or banning accounts they liked (or the left didn't like) or companies firing employees following an internet outrage campaign. Those opposed would frequently invoke First Amendment rights, even though no government was involved while ignoring the (other times revered) right of private businesses to set terms of engagement for their services.
Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we're seeing this constitutional amnesia come to things like people's voluntary decisions to wear personal protective equipment or retail businesses requiring shoppers to wear masks inside. Some people are trying to paint putting rules in place out of concern for the health of others—like businesses requiring that people wear masks on their premises—as somehow tantamount to tyranny.
"The face mask will be rightly regarded as a symbol of obsequious obedience and grotesque compliance with arbitrary and ignorant authority," Jeffrey Tucker, editorial director at the American Institute for Economic Research, tweeted on May 2.
Let's hope not. Masks are rightly a symbol of privacy, and self-reliance (protecting one's self from others, and thoughtfully avoiding hurting others.). It was authorities that moronically avoided masks (some still do.) I'd fear those that try to convince us not to wear masks. https://t.co/2kqJGH3E1x
— Ari Paul ⛓️ (@AriDavidPaul) May 3, 2020
Fox News host Laura Ingraham called masks an attempt at "social control." She and conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh have told their audiences that liberals want people to wear masks as a visual reminder of disease, as Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf notes.
It shouldn't have to be said, but private businesses can and should be able to set rules for customers. They do it all the time—think "no shirt, no shoes, no service." In most cases—including controversial ones involving wedding cakes for same-sex couples or health insurance coverage of birth control—libertarians and limited-government conservatives respect this, whether they personally agree with the positions of the business owners or find them abhorrent. They also place a high premium on individuals taking whatever personal health and self-care measures (or lack thereof) suit them when they don't harm anyone else.
We may not necessarily believe in crystals, CrossFit, a particular pharmaceutical or diet, praying the rosary, probiotics, microdosing hallucinogens, or whatever other personal habits help people feel safe and healthy, but we defend their right to do these things. And, if we're critical, we tend to express our disapproval as gentle skepticism or mocking, not some horrible affront to liberty.
Which is to say, even if you have it in your head somehow that masks can't help stop the spread of disease: Who cares? Permit people to protect themselves and those around them as they see fit and let it go unless it's somehow infringing on the rights of others. Let private businesses and property owners take whatever precautions and set whatever reopening rules they want. Let consumers shop elsewhere if they stridently object to a store's policies.
My mom in Ohio told me recently that her and my dad's usual Kroger doesn't require masks, so they've been shopping at Menards, which does. I'm sure that's common and probably goes both ways. But if enough customers fall on one side of this divide, stores and services will adjust.
Laws requiring masks in certain types of stores or in public spaces are another matter. After initially telling people not to wear masks, some authorities are now making it mandatory.
As a step toward reasonable reopening standards, that may seem worth it. Unlike many other coronavirus containment tools that governments want the power to use, making people wear masks isn't one that could inconspicuously stick around or one that authorities would want to (unlike, say, cellphone tracking capabilities or a flurry of new street surveillance tools). But anything that invites new contact between cops and scared citizens—or gives authorities new reasons to spy on and cite business owners—is bad news. Even if it might catch some small portion of social-distancing scofflaws, the risks from police enforcement are too great.
Making businesses enforce these rules is dangerous for workers, too. In Holly, Michigan, "authorities are looking for a Dollar Tree customer who balked at the idea of wearing a face mask and instead wiped his face on an employee's sleeve," the Detroit Free Press said yesterday.
And at another Michigan dollar store, this one in Flint, a man shot a store security guard for disrespecting his family by telling them to wear masks. The guard was killed and the shooter and his family have been charged with murder.
In Stillwater, Oklahoma, authorities called off the rule after several people threatened staff who were attempting to enforce the new rule.
And "police arrested a man in Decatur, Ill., on Friday after he shoved a gas station clerk who insisted he wear a mask while paying for fuel on the first day of the state's newly imposed rules that require people to cover their faces inside businesses," reports The Washington Post.
A store owner in Blissfield, Michigan, said several customers not wanting to wear masks have complained about their constitutional rights. This is where reactionary masks-are-tyranny frenzy is getting us, with increased risk of spreading or catching disease whipped up into some sort of patriot cause. It's silly, sad, and so thoroughly wrong.
Enforcing mandatory mask laws might be dangerous, but masks themselves—and their voluntary adoption by consumers and business owners—are important for reducing the spread of both COVID-19 and bad new policies. If we want authorities to actually allow commerce and freedom of movement again, and to avoid top-down impositions of protective-gear rules, we should be encouraging people to voluntarily adopt mask-wearing.
In the long run, ending the taboo (sometimes turned official policy) against people wearing facial coverings may actually be a boon for privacy and protecting against state surveillance, too.
In any event, if protecting civil liberties and constitutional rights is really the aim, it's time to drop hysterical or pointlessly contrarian objections to wearing a mask. That's not anti-authoritarian praxis, it's just being a jerk.
QUICK HITS
The good news about this Hawley op-ed on abolishing the WTO (https://t.co/NWhmMFsW6I) is that he doesn't understand the WTO or the pre-WTO trading system at all, and his arguments fall apart very quickly based on the actual facts.
— Simon Lester (@snlester) May 5, 2020
- Doctors in New York City are reporting a "multisystem inflammatory syndrome potentially associated with Covid-19" in children who have had the disease.
- The Senate is back in session.
- Opening back up safely requires a huge amount of new effort from restaurants and other businesses.
- Millions of Italians go back to work today after weeks at home.
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Doctors in New York City are reporting a “multisystem inflammatory syndrome potentially associated with Covid-19” in children who have had the disease.
Count it.
Common symptom: an aversion to brussels sprouts.
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And Mayors in New York City will decide that “potentially” means “with all certainty” and use it as an excuse to extend quarantines.
Second wave probable inflammation includes lungs spontaneously combusting…. maybe.
That happened to me once.
What?
I got better
You weren’t quite dead yet. In fact you were feeling much better.
You might go for a walk.
Hello.
Hello
did you guys think topps cards were exotic like we thought o-pee-cee cards were exotic?
The Senate is back…
And you’re gonna be in trouble.
Hey now, hey now…
Sorry for the dup:
Whole Foods has 87K employees. They have had 260 C19 cases and 2 deaths as of the end of April. They aren’t sheltering; they are out dealing with 100s of people every day. The models say they should be dying like flies.
For the same time period, the UFCW (grocery store, etc, employee union) with 1.3 million members has had 5322 cases and 72 deaths.
This from a union, not Fox News. I don’t think they’d undercount.
I don’t know the exact % of Whole Foods employees or UFCW members who are out with the public full time, so the % difference doesn’t bother me too much.
Not all UFCW workers are on the job – they represent a lot of “unessential” retail workers too.
The C in UFCW stands for Commercial, not Communist (I know, I’m as surprised as you!)
I figured as much, and not all Whole Paycheck employees are out dealing with customers. Still 2 and 72 deaths….
Opening back up safely requires a huge amount of new effort from restaurants and other businesses.
And the lazy fucks have just been lying around all this time.
It’s taking a long time to design a mask you so can eat while wearing it.
I’ve seen some of the street ladies in my city wearing masks. If the mask stays on during the transaction, at least one third of their business has been destroyed.
Nice
Waiter, where is my pickle?
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-tames-its-r-number-without-lockdown
The UK government has used modelling from Imperial College London, which makes some clear assumptions about lockdown. Imperial’s graph, below, shows its argument: shielding, voluntary social distancing, even school closures are shown to make very little difference to the spread of the virus (ie, the R number). But lockdown, by contrast, is shown to be a game-changer with “the R” sinking immediately. This graph below, if taken at face value, makes an open-and-shut case for lockdown.
But is it true? We don’t know because “the R” is notoriously difficult to pin down and not published in Britain. But Imperial also applied its UK assumptions to Sweden, warning that its rejection of lockdown was likely to leave the virus rampant with an R of between 3 and 4. That is to say: every person infected would give it to three or four others. Its modelling envisaged Sweden paying a heavy price for its rejection of lockdown, with 40,000 Covid deaths by 1 May and almost 100,000 by June.
The latest figure for Sweden is 2,680 deaths, with daily deaths peaking a fortnight ago. So Imperial College’s modelling – the same modelling used to inform the UK response – was wrong, by an order of magnitude. Sweden has now published its own graph, saying its R was never near the 4 that Imperial imagined. More importantly, its all-important R level (all-important to the UK anyway – it has never much featured in the Swedish discussion) has in fact been below the safe level of 1 for the last few weeks.
So school lockdowns don’t do anything, but general lockdowns do everything.
The latest figure for Sweden is 2,680 deaths, with daily deaths peaking a fortnight ago.
My guess is that they probably reached “herd immunity” about 2 weeks ago. In a sane world Sweden would be looked at as the only western country that wasn’t run by blithering morons but instead we’ll hear “something something… outlier… mumble mumble… every country is different… derpity derpy der.”
100% of the credit goes to them having Single Payer. Government bureaucrats jump in front of the virus keeping Swedes from getting infected.
Bravely giving their lives to save just one life!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/social-distancing-coronavirus.html
The Untold Story of the Birth of Social Distancing
The idea has been around for centuries. But it took a high school science fair, George W. Bush, history lessons and some determined researchers to overcome skepticism and make it federal policy.
Given the increased danger from new strains of influenza and the reality that existing antiviral drugs like Tamiflu did not work against all contagious diseases, Drs. Hatchett and Mecher and their team began exploring other ways to combat a large-scale contagion.
It was about that time that Dr. Mecher heard from Robert J. Glass, a senior scientist at Sandia in New Mexico who specialized in building advanced models to explain how complex systems work — and what can cause catastrophic failures.
Dr. Glass’s daughter Laura, then 14, had done a class project in which she built a model of social networks at her Albuquerque high school, and when Dr. Glass looked at it, he was intrigued.
Students are so closely tied together — in social networks and on school buses and in classrooms — that they were a near-perfect vehicle for a contagious disease to spread.
Dr. Glass piggybacked on his daughter’s work to explore with her what effect breaking up these networks would have on knocking down the disease.
Students are so closely tied together — in social networks and on school buses and in classrooms — that they were a near-perfect vehicle for a contagious disease to spread.
Something anyone who’s had a kid has known since the advent of Prussian-style schooling in the US.
You know what works great for dealing with viruses?
The human immune system.
Thats just a conspiracy theory, and it’s been debunked
#Ifuckinglovescience!
IFL cultists just worship science. They don’t understand it just worship it. Like a bat they bash it over the heads of the non-believers without considering other scientific research that refutes them.
Hey, no more with the bats!
Chicken soup?
After Retesting Samples, French Hospital Discovers COVID-19 Case From December
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/05/04/world/europe/04reuters-health-coronavirus-france.html
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1257474637467803648
#BREAKING US #coronavirus deaths rise by 1,015 in 24 hours, lowest in a month: Johns Hopkins
How many were actually tested?
Eh, they coughed. At some point after coughing, they died of something resembling pneumonia. Mark it down as COVID-19. These numbers aren’t going to inflate themselves.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-famines-united-nations-warning/
Now, the coronavirus could push an additional 130 million people “to the brink of starvation” by the end of the year, said Beasley.
“In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries, and in fact, in 10 of these countries we already have more than one million people per country who are on the verge of starvation,” Beasley said.
He said there’s “a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself.”
“Supply chains have to keep moving if we are going to overcome this pandemic and get food from where it is produced to where it is needed.”
“…He said there’s “a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself.”…”
I’m sure not alone in banging THIS drum for more than a couple of weeks, here and elsewhere, while those cowardly pieces of lefty shit JFree, Hihn and others whined ‘but I might catch something…’.
I’ve been bringing it up, too. Even in the US, if the St Louis Fed is right and we hit 30% unemployment, suicide and OD deaths go through the roof.
We might be living though he worst economic collapse ever and now have to eat rats, bugs and have to beg the local warlord for water, but hey I didn’t die of the batcoof!
-Me in February 2021.
Cotes facts not in evidence, Trumpian bullshitter.
????
“Cotes facts not in evidence, Trumpian bullshitter.”
Asshole lefty shitstain can’t read, but that’s no surprise. Asshole lefty shitstain can’t pay mortgage.
Shitstain is shitstained as a result of being a lefty turd.
“In a worst-case scenario,
What’s the most likely scenario since worst case scenario doesn’t seem to ever happen. Also the article says that war and other natural disasters are a factor (no shit). Seems like UN World Food Program is just looking to score some of that sweet Corona cash,
Predictions of disaster must be obeyed. We can’t take the chance of the worst case scenario.
Keep in mind that the real worst case scenario is that the worst case scenario isn’t worst case enough – worst case scenario for the coronavirus is that it wipes out all life on Earth and moves on to extinguishing all life in the entire Universe. And then mutates into a giant anti-matter bomb that destroys the Universe itself and the resultant warping of the space/time continuum blasts us all into an alternative Universe where Hitler won WWII, Hillary Clinton became President and Steven Segal played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies.
the resultant warping of the space/time continuum blasts us all into an alternative Universe where … Steven Segal played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies.
Now that is truly the worst of all possible worlds. *shudders*
Ok, now, I think you are on to something with Segal as Gandalf
So a fat retarded Gandalf?
Some people are trying to paint putting rules in place out of concern for the health of others—like businesses requiring that people wear masks on their premises—as somehow tantamount to tyranny.
Suddenly libertarians and conservatives aren’t allowed to manufacture their own outrage porn?
I love how ENB tries to have it both ways here.
She spends half of her screed explaining how businesses should be allowed to do as they see fit. Which, ya know, very few people have argued against. Then she does a passing mention that governments should not force businesses to do this stuff. And she rounds out by saying that people are wrong to resist businesses that are ENFORCING GOVERNMENT MANDATES.
I absolutely detest the people who are getting violent with employees forced to enforce some government order. However, those cases are far and few between.
What ENB fails to recognize is that this Mask nonsense is yet another example of the government and its enablers using police, private businesses and twitter-brown-shirts to take capricious and arbitrary actions.
I have had conversations with people over the past month that are stunning in their hypocrisy. Literally 4 weeks ago, a person tried shaming me for “hoarding” because I had a box of 50 N95 masks in our disaster prep gear. And just last week, that person was bitching and moaning about people going out without masks.
It is HILARIOUS that ENB is so interested in framing this as “Partisans picking sides”. Because deep down, she knows that is exactly what she is doing. The first thing she does is try to frame this as the brainchild of Rush Limbaugh. She isn’t trying to deal with the facts or science- her first argument is a non sequitor. Followed by another non sequitor about business freedom when the vast majority of incidents are happening in states with mandates. ENB, pot, kettle, etc.
If we want authorities to actually allow commerce and freedom of movement again, and to avoid top-down impositions of protective-gear rules, we should be encouraging people to voluntarily adopt mask-wearing.
Fuck off, slaver. What you’re saying is that if you don’t want the rapist to bash your head in as well, you should just lie back and take the raping. The “authorities” have absolutely no right to “allow” a damn thing, if you want to avoid top-down impositions of rules denying your god-given rights, you’re going to have to start wearing the Guy Fawkes masks and start shooting the rapists in the face.
“What you’re saying is that if you don’t want the rapist to bash your head in as well, you should just lie back and take the raping.”
I think the more apt analogy is, if you want the rapists to not rape you wear your burka outside. Which was, you know, the first thing I thought about when these mask orders came down- “Who’d have thought I’d live to see an America where my daughter is forced to wear a head covering in public.”
That is a better analogy – who could object to combating rape? Just wear the burka, it’s designed for your own safety.
They may not have any right to do that, but how are you going to get authorities to stop doing that? Short of shooting them anonymously, I mean.
Isn’t it plausible that if women were freer about giving sex, there’d be less rape? And if people had less property to steal, there’d be less theft?
isn’t it plausible that if women were freer about giving sex, there’d be less rape?
No because we still love the chase…and resistance…
“They may not have any right to do that, but how are you going to get authorities to stop doing that? Short of shooting them anonymously, I mean.”
Asked and answered.
Because deep down, she knows that is exactly what she is doing.
“Both sides” is the clever/naive/oversimplified way of saying “everyone’s wrong except me”.
She is getting worse and worse at this
It was the longest strawman ever
Elizabeth wrote, “In the long run, ending the taboo (sometimes turned official policy) against people wearing facial coverings may actually be a boon for privacy and protecting against state surveillance, too.”
^^This!^^This!^^This!^^ A thousand times ^^This!^^ Don’t be fuckin’ stupid. This is an opportunity. This needs to be the new cool.
Corporate Businesses tend to be crony capitalist stooges looking for handouts and acting as Congress’ agents of tyranny.
Notice not a single corporate business stood up to state tyrannical decrees to shitdown. They all complied.
BTW: one of the rare “major” corporations in 1776 was the India Trading Company and it was deemed a tyrannical agent of the Crown by Americans.
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2020/05/03/scaring-people-into-obeying-brit-hume-shares-covid-19-findings-from-nobel-prize-winning-scientist-contradicting-lockdowns/
His observation is a simple one: that in outbreak after outbreak of this disease, a similar mathematical pattern is observable regardless of government interventions. After around a two-week exponential growth of cases (and, subsequently, deaths) some kind of break kicks in, and growth starts slowing down. The curve quickly becomes “sub-exponential”.
This may seem like a technical distinction, but its implications are profound. The ‘unmitigated’ scenarios modeled by (among others) Imperial College, and which tilted governments across the world into drastic action, relied on a presumption of continued exponential growth — that with a consistent R number of significantly above 1 and a consistent death rate, very quickly the majority of the population would be infected and huge numbers of deaths would be recorded. But Professor Levitt’s point is that that hasn’t actually happened anywhere, even in countries that have been relatively lax in their responses.
More generally, he complains that epidemiologists only seem to be called wrong if they underestimate deaths, and so there is an intrinsic bias towards caution. “They see their role as scaring people into doing something, and I understand that… but in my work, if I say a number is too small and I’m wrong, or too big and I’m wrong, both of those errors are the same.”
At some point, you run out of old sick people.
If the main hit is a densely packed city and retirements homes, a virus will probably burn through that fairly quickly, even if Cuomo screws up and doesn’t do his job.
https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1257496834043531267
Let’s be clear: the fact the nursing home deaths are not front and center every day in elite media coverage of #COVID tells you everything you need to know about the media’s priority – which is instilling panic (and punishing
@realDonaldTrump
), not driving good health policy.
Not someone I normally have much use for, but….
https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1257663362923589633
Imagine if we could implement one policy that would lower the fatality rate by 40%. That would be considered, in any other context, a miracle. The virus is the John Dillinger of death: it targets eldercare facilities because that’s where the vulnerable are. We must guard them.
Not to mention that Willie Sullivan is who Ben Shapiro is trying to paraphrase, not Dillinger
Willie Sutten.
Nursing homes have always been like this with pneumonias. Why should this one be any different?
My last few years working as a LPN (almost a decade ago) every spring we would have a flu ward. This despite almost 90% of the residents being vaccinated. Census always dropped dramatically in the spring as a resultant of flu deaths. Some years were worse than others but it was a rare year when we didn’t have a similar pattern.
“Masks Can Be a Symbol of Privacy and Personal Responsibility, Not Tyranny”
The virus, like every problem, will be defeated by virtue signaling.
I’ll buy some Trump 2020 masks off Amazon.
2024 or you’re not trolling correctly.
2024 is Don, Jr’s turn.
Everyone knows Don Jr is the Fredo of the Trumps.
2024-2032: Ivanka
2032-2040: Eric
How old is Barron?
We may need a bridge candidate
I was listening on the radio to one of the briefings, and a reporter talked about Tiger King and said a Trump had mentioned the possibility of a pardon.
“Who was it? Was it Don? Yea, it was Don – I knew it.”
If you dont think Tump will revenge pardon a shitload of federal prisoners come the end of his second term, you have nit been laying attention.
He has to wait his turn; Meliana.
Beat the dems to that ‘first woman’ thing,
That would be Ivanka in ’24. I can just imagine the Dem’s losing their mind over the “first woman president” being not only a Republican but a Trump as well. That might be enough to really drive them over the edge.
They haven’t jumped already?
Finally a hittable POTUS
“Welcome to the Oral Office”
As a slightly more realistic scenario, consider a Nikki Haley and Condoleeza Rice ticket for 2024. Imagine the Woke-ocrats’ logical contortions…there just isn’t enough popcorn in the world…
“As a slightly more realistic scenario, consider a Nikki Haley and Condoleeza Rice ticket for 2024.”
It’s gonna take a Bernie/AOC ticket to get Condi to put up with the shit she’ll have to deal with.
Natural born citizen…
Fuck virtue signalling. Everywhere one goes nowadays one is surveilled. Wearing masks is a good thing. It should become the new cool.
The face mask will be rightly regarded as a symbol of obsequious obedience and grotesque compliance with arbitrary and ignorant authority…
He says, as he breezes by facial recognition cameras untagged.
Once the panic passes, wearing masks in public will be a crime again.
Same with delivering cocktails.
Um, what??
This is going to be a tough one for the statists to figure out… do they want to jerk off to their universal facial-recognition security state, or do they want to jerk off to the fact that they successfully terrified the entire population of the country into wearing useless masks in record time?
My guess is that now that they’ve seen how unbelievably easy it actually is to control people, the demand for ubiquitous facial recognition will drop considerably. Why go through all the bother recognizing people’s faces when you can just criminalize being outside?
It’s a degree of control they never dreamed of.
^This!^ Omnipresent surveillance is the greater threat. Masking up should become the new cool.
…if protecting civil liberties and constitutional rights is really the aim, it’s time to drop hysterical or pointlessly contrarian objections to wearing a mask.
We are all antifa now.
antifa is pro masks… have been for a decade at least.
Fuck yeah!
A Rundown Of Major U.S. Corporate Media’s Business Ties To China
https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/has-china-compromised-every-major-mainstream-media-entity/
Maybe Biden should wear a mask so they can have a better weekend at bernies bot deliver the messages.
Who’s voice should they get? I think Samuel L Jackson would be the obvious choice among lefty Hollywood types,.
Obviously we need the most erudite concise speaker who sounds nothing like Biden so we can have the media clearly gas light everyone as conspiracy theorists who question the narrative. That would be the most fun.
Gilbert Godfried.
No way the progs let him do it. Or was the last anger directed at him by conservatives? I can never follow who that guy is pissing off at any given time.
Gilbert Gottfried sounds more like Bernie Sanders.
Tommy Chong.
Bobcat Goldwaith. dood needs the money.
I think Samuel L Jackson would be the obvious choice
I just imagined “You’re a dog faced pony soldier” in Sam Jackson’s voice. Fucking hilarious.
Gary Busey could work too.
Going off of some of the other suggestions above:
Gary Busey = Joe Biden
Gilbert Godried = Bernie Sanders
Tommy Chong = whoever the LP nominates
Trump is just Trump, no need to substitute another voice, although Bobcat Goldthwaite would be hilarious. As would Sam Jackson for that matter, especially if he’s shouting everything Trump says and randomly dropping some “motherfuckers” in.
This would be like an all-star cast for a Bad Lip Reading video.
I think the guy that rambles about flutes is actually gary busey.
Even if it might catch some small portion of social-distancing scofflaws
Now wearing a mask is a law for people to flaunt?
Get a dictionary, hack.
“And at another Michigan dollar store, this one in Flint, a man shot a store security guard for disrespecting his family by telling them to wear masks.”
Which, as the Progressives commenting on the story in the Washington Post will tell you, was entirely Trump’s fault.
I am surprised Gov. Whitmer didn’t jump the gun and blame the white nationalists.
This story will disappear soon because they’re not white, assault rifle toting, capital storming Trump supporters.
I’m sure the mask was the problem. Not the fact that she picked a fight with the security guard and he kicked her out. I’m sure it was just because he told her she had to wear a mask, and she isn’t the type of human being who would jump across a counter and punch out a McDonald’s employee for charging her for extra ketchup.
Then she went home and got her husband and (brother? some other man at least) to go back to the store and execute the guard. This was not about the mask, this was about the “disrespect” and the pathos that makes people think it is ok to drive back to the store and shoot someone for the disrespect.
In other words, this same scenario could just as easily have played out if the store had refused to let her return shoplifted merchandise for cash and the guard tossed her out.
*flout
Nope, flaunt works fine there.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flaunt
2: to treat contemptuously
flaunted the rules
It got that way only by confusion with “flout”, and we’re better off if “flaunt” keeps a meaning distinct from (and very at odds with) “flout”. There are many cases where using “flaunt” to mean “flout” would lead to confusion.
Literally.
Did ENB just gloss over the fact that government is pressuring businesses with the mask policy??
And she completely ignored, again in Reason, that the social media sites want their extra legal protections while arbitrarily deciding what covid facts are facts (an act as a publisher).
Is there any critical thinking from reason authors beyond simple bumper sticker activism?
If social media companies are going to start deciding what is true and what isn’t, then they are publishers and should be treated as such.
That would be intellectually consistent and thus evil. Orange Man Bad.
That’s not the definition of a publisher.
Publisher decide whats fact or fiction.
Lefties are pushing fiction thru the the media.
Join me in the previous post where I got a warm and fuzzy reading some archived Reason articles that crazily had libertarian themes.
To paraphrase the discredited NYT – If it clicks, it publishes.
Social media companies do not have any extra legal protections. Stop spreading fake news.
Section 230 literally gives them liability waivers against lawsuits dummy.
I should say for some civil lawsuits, not a blanket one. But yes, it is written to give them explicit protections that groups like the NYT do not enjoy.
So you are either dumb or lying.
It also gives that to you and me and anyone else who wants to make a website. And only for users’ actions, not ours. NYT has the exact same protections for their websites. I have it for my websites.
I think you know all this already though.
Oh, so you’re going to be straight up dishonest now huh. Facebook isn’t removing user comments, they are using fully created user pages, ie articles.
So please tell National Review how they aren’t culpable for the Mann vs Steyn suit 10 years later. He was just an op ed guest at the time, equivalent to a Facebook user. NYT has the same liability.
But you know all this already. so you’re lying. or you don’t actually understand the issue, and dumb. Or both.
You have no idea what you are talking about. My industry has been blessedly free from government intervention and now at last we find ourselves in the crosshairs of the Big Government nannies. And fake libertarian assholes like you are cheering them on.
Are you some old tech-illiterate guy? Do you need me to explain the difference between a print publication and user comments on a website?
I looked up the Mann suit, and it seems like you are arguing the exact same thing as I am. From what I read basically everyone thinks that lawsuit is bullshit and should not have been allowed to proceed. How is that an argument against section 230?
SLAPP. Stossel did an article on it.
Pulitzer has taken another hit into a laughable activist award as 1619 project somehow wins under non fiction despite known major factual errors.
It Started Important Discussions. It Highlighted Marginalized People.
Narrative, dammit.
And the entire premise is an easily debunked lie.
At this time (1665), there were only about 300 people of African origin living in the Virginia Colony, about 1% of an estimated population of 30,000. The first group of 20 or so Africans were brought to Jamestown in 1619 as indentured servants. After working out their contracts for passage money to Virginia and completing their indenture, each was granted 50 acres (20 ha) of land (headrights). This enabled them to raise their own tobacco or other crops.
In one of the earliest freedom suits, Casor argued that he was an indentured servant who had been forced by Anthony Johnson, a free black, to serve past his term; he was freed and went to work for Robert Parker as an indentured servant. Johnson sued Parker for Casor’s services. In ordering Casor returned to his master, Johnson, for life, the court both declared Casor a slave and sustained the right of free blacks to own slaves.
So not slaves at all.
And they were later capitalists!
And most fun of all, blacks owned slaves. Kinda messes up the whole reparations thing.
Add in that Africans captured…enslaved Africans to trade to Europeans…
I just laugh and bring that up anytime some moron brings up reparations.
That and the idea that all humans are Africans, if you go back far enough.
My go-to stopper for reparations advocates is to ask how much Egypt will have to pay to Israel.
Since the reparations crowd is usually antis-Israel, it leads to a lot of blank stares. They think slavery only existed for a couple of decades and only in the USA.
Sickening that ‘Commentary’ is even a Pulitzer category. Seriously?
Like the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer will be frittered away on undeserving winners and become irrelevant.
No. Wearing a mask is a symbol of being a complete risk adverse coward. They are absurd.
Pretty much. There are little to no empirical studies showing their efficacy and in fact all the same people saying we need to wear them now were saying it was a waste of time to wear them 3 weeks ago. It’s all Pravda propaganda type shit. They’ve frightened people to this hysterical level and fucked the economy and are now trying to convince people it’s safe to go outside because they see the damage they have wrought.
I wonder how many people are going to turn up with mold infections from constantly wearing masks and not cleaning them properly.
None nobody is going to bother with the masks in a month.
It’s already happening in my observation. Went grocery shopping on Sunday, I’d say 3/4ths of the customers were maskless. A few weeks ago 3/4 of them were wearing masks.
My favorite was the checked last Saturday wearing exam gloves she hadn’t changed. Okay, what good do you think those gloves actually do? Especially if you don’t change them and you continue to touch your body while wearing those gloves?
It’s protection from Karens, not disease. Disease probably spreads more from bad glove usage, but at least doing so shuts up dozens of cowardly nags. I’ve seen a few cashiers take shit from uptight customers over this.
It is just the pure stupidity of it all. It is like watching medical shows after 17 years as a nurse and seeing all the mistakes made or watching military movies/shows and seeing everything that is wrong. It just grates on my nerves. A little research would show how stupid all of this was.
Covid related, if they die from the mold.
Is nobody bringing up how most people are moronic about wearing masks?
I mean wearing masks in vehicles…
Add in that most of the masks that I see people wearing are single use. As in they are used for one surgery or on days use at a medical facility. Medical people dont wear their masks for months on end. Defeats the purpose to gets your slimy coughs and sneezes all over the material week after week.
The media are just propagandizing shits and have been for a long time.
It’s a sign of individualism! Why just look at all the people wearing those skull face masks!
Any Always Sunny in Philadelphia fans here?
I’ve always liked Mac’s shirt, the one that’s a solid color except for the word “RIOT” printed on the chest.
Would make for a good mask design
One of the greatest shows of all time.
Masks, like burqas, are empowering.
Don’t forget that mask do as much harm as good and that it is unneeded since axiomatic people can not pass on Covid-19
Axiomatic people need to check their premises.
For the win
You’ve never seen V For Vendetta? Never even heard of it?
Ha, just watched that last night with my 11 year old son, who independently drew many parallels to today’s insanity. I seem to be raising some anarchists. My wife gets to instill her Catholicism and I get to teach them to hate the state.
I’m pretty sure those two things are incompatible.
Render unto Caesar the hate Caesar deserves, and unto god what it deserves.
It’s …. not a good movie.
Look at Mr. Picky here, look, do you wait around for a good movie, or do you take what you can get?
They’re to keep you from spreading the virus not to protect you from the virus.
Which only works if you have the virus and symptomatic.
There’s zero evidence that handmade ones and drywall masks are effective for that. It’s “virus theater”, much like the TSA is “security theater”. The elected and appointed Karens overplayed their hand. They know they overplayed their hand. They know people need to get back to their lives. They know they’ll lose a lot of influence next time around, when it might actually be a genuinely devastating virus, if they just say “Oopsie, our boo-boo!” They know that if they can get most people to believe that life can go back to something close to normal just by wearing a simple (likely largely ineffective) home-made mask, they can save some face.
That’s about all there is to it.
You wear the mask to reduce infecting other people not yourself.
If I ever get the stuff, I will remember that. Or if I am around someone who might die if they do. Otherwise, the spread of this stuff among healthy people who won’t die from it is largely a good thing since it helps create a herd immunity and hastens the die it finally dies out.
There is evidence of asymptomatic transmission. It’s also prime allergy season. I can’t easily control who I do an don’t bump into at the grocery store, so I’ll side with wearing the mask. I also can’t tell just by looking at someone if they’re imuno-compromised.
I’ve been exposed enough (my wife was diagnosed) that I was either asymptomatic/immune, I’m not worried for my sake. At this point since it’s been long enough from it, I’ll wear a mask for a few reasons:
1) my employer requires it whenever we’re in common areas, the grocery stores/restaurants require it.
2) People at risk don’t know how much of a risk factor I pose to them and I’m willing to undertake the small inconvenience for their psychological well being. Just a common courtesy mentality.
3) fuck with facial recognition.
Whats the point of going out to a restaurant and you have to wear a mask?
Takeout?
When a patient lands in a trauma bay the doctors and nurses don’t put a mask on him. They put masks on themselves to protect themselves, not the patient. If you wear a mask it’s supposed to be for *your* benefit, not someone else’s. This idea that we’re the keepers of our brothers’ health is bullshit.
Hahahah ..Moron.
Surgeons put masks on to protect the patient from being infected during surgery.
But yea, the idea that were supposed to nuke our economy protect old people from getting the Cold is lunacy.
MikeT, as one of those immuno-compromised individuals, thank you.
Wearing a mask helps defeat more and more all-encompassing surveilance, which is a greater threat to liberty. Masks need to be the new cool.
“Masks Can Be a Symbol of Privacy and Personal Responsibility, Not Tyranny”
Crawling on your knees before government officials can just be a sign of respect, too, but it would take an idiot to think so.
That’s not anti-authoritarian praxis, it’s just being a jerk.
Let’s face it. Modern libertarianism is about jerks finding every possible way to rationalize their own aggressions against others – and turn themselves being personally offended into the greatest victimhoods in history.
Aggression against others… like mandatory lockdowns?
More like – loudly pretending that this virus is ‘just the seasonal flu’ and therefore there is no possible justification for anyone to do anything and everyone who might do something to protect themselves should properly be the object of public contempt/mocking.
Care to cite where the aggression is? Or is speech violence in your book?
There is no aggression in transmitting a disease to others?
The speech is merely the RATIONALIZATION of that aggression.
Aggression necessarily implies intent. Where is the intent here? Even if there is some chance it is transmitted, there is some chance I might kill someone by accident every time I drive. Is driving an act of aggression? By your logic it is.
Aggression does NOT imply intent. Otherwise, ignorance would ALWAYS be an excuse and lying to oneself would ALWAYS be an excuse and willful stupidity would ALWAYS be an excuse. And for that matter so would ‘good intentions’.
No question – that is exactly the sort of goalpost shifting – away from the ACT of aggression – that jerks will always try to force as the premise of an argument in order to RATIONALIZE some aggressions.
Now – our legal system may include intent in its definition of aggression – but that is intended solely to RATIONALIZE a punishment for said aggression. And that particular rationale in that particular circumstance properly resides exclusively in a courtroom where a particular act of aggression is being judged for punishment.
And yes driving can absolutely be an act of aggression. And not just in the circumstance where the driver hits someone. But also where they intimidate others off the road. The latter is actually far more common than ‘hitting someone’ – and is why personal vehicles have gotten larger and larger and larger over the years. Because the more intimidating the vehicle, the ‘safer’ the driver feels and the easier it is for them to delude themselves that everyone everywhere is also therefore in less danger. If you don’t believe that, then argue the more truly NAP policy notion that all child car seats should be strapped to the front bumper of an SUV rather than inside the vehicle cage.
Aggression does NOT imply intent. Otherwise, ignorance would ALWAYS be an excuse and lying to oneself would ALWAYS be an excuse and willful stupidity would ALWAYS be an excuse. And for that matter so would ‘good intentions’.
It absolutely does. It is true that some things are so obviously dangerous that we can infer intent on you. So if I drop a bowling ball off a high building into the street or drive the wrong way at the high way, I can’t claim I didn’t mean to be aggressive. Those things are so obviously dangerous that we can infer intent on you even if you claim you didn’t have it.
So there is always an intent to aggression. You just don’t understand the nuances of how that requirement works in practice. And judging from my past experience with you, I have little hope I will be able to explain it to you.
It is true that some things are so obviously dangerous that we can infer intent on you.
Oh ok. So is transmitting pneumonic plague (mortality rate well over 90%) to others an aggression?
I repeat – you are just playing with rationalizations in order to avoid accepting that the act itself is an aggression.
Sure walking around knowingly transmitting the plague is an act of aggression. But we are not talking about the plague and we are not talking about knowingly transmitting anything. We are talking about not wearing a mask the effectiveness of which is debatable at best. And we are talking about people who likely don’t even have the disease in the first place.
Again – you are simply using rationalizations to excuse the act of aggression.
I’m perfectly willing to argue facts (nature of disease, etc) and opinions/beliefs that might be relevant re how we/society deal with or not deal with this specific. There are a shit ton of aggressions that we accept in society because the costs of doing something else to counter them are deemed too high.
But there is no point whatsoever in discussing anything serious with anyone of your ilk. You have no interest in distinguishing fact from opinion. And when it comes right down to it, the only definition of ‘aggression’ you will ever accept is a legal one. Which is why any argument with your ilk ends up on an antebellum porch drinking mint juleps discussing slaves as property and liberty that applies only to the julep-sippers.
JFree
May.5.2020 at 1:19 pm
“Again – you are simply using rationalizations to excuse the act of aggression…”
Again,
You.
Are.
Full.
Of.
Shit, coward.
Go play ‘victim’ with your mommy; maybe she’ll be sympathetic to that pile of shit your shoveling to justify your whining.
“”Oh ok. So is transmitting pneumonic plague (mortality rate well over 90%) to others an aggression?””
Where is this happening?
So, jfree, your position is thats an act of aggression for me to leave my house?
“Oh ok. So is transmitting pneumonic plague (mortality rate well over 90%) to others an aggression?”
That bug kills in 24 hours after infection, and you damned well know you have it. For the few hours the patient feels like walking while sick, sure, have them wear a mask. Masks are for sick people.
Covid? What’s the rate of infected patients who are asymptomatic, yet are shedding enough virus to reasonably be sure of infecting others, such that a mask is sufficient prophylaxis? The intersection of the sets, ‘Infected, but don’t know they’re sick’ and ‘infected enough to give it to other people by breathing on them’, is awfully small. And that intersection is what you’re targeting by forcing everyone, sick or healthy, to wear one of the things.
It’s bullshit. Disease theater to make people feel better, even as it likely makes them sicker.
That bug (pneunomic plague) kills in 24 hours after infection, and you damned well know you have it…Covid? What’s the rate of infected patients
Yet more rationalizing. Again let me repeat – there are tons of aggressions in our society that we tolerate – allow – even encourage – because eliminating that aggression might create a bigger problem/difficulty. I’m perfectly OK setting that as the basis for the public discussions re what we do with those aggressions. That is part of the responsibility of living among others where rights of different people OVERLAP rather than are simply and blindly assumed to never even occupy the same space.
But once you start playing the semantic games where you are DEFINING as aggression only those things that you want to make illegal, then you are accepting every possible flaw in the law as a PREFERENCE for your principles/ethics. Might makes right.
Smallpox in blankets given as a gift
Infecting a sexual partner with HIV
Biological warfare
An asymptomatic typhoid carrier named, say, Mary who infected at least 50 which killed at least 3
A poultry company which sells e coli infected chickens/produce
Sailors/etc to the New World who completely unknowingly transmitted measles, smallpox, influenza, yellow fever, typhus, whooping cough, viral hemorrhagic fevers, and probably a dozen other diseases to which they had immunity.
John Locke – Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
John Stuart Mill – the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
It is Rothbard and Rand who narrowed the definition of aggression to ‘violence’ or ‘physical force’. And turned ‘modern libertarianism’ into a useless haven for jerks and assholes (virtually 100% male with not a smidgen of basic social/communication skills among them all) and cut it off from classical liberalism.
JFree
May.5.2020 at 7:18 pm
“Yet more rationalizing….”
No, you cowardly piece of lefty shit, more reality.
Regardless of what your mommy told you, no one guarantees you get to go through life without getting sick, and in your case, believe me, many of us here hope you get sick in a way that results in a slow and painful death, asshole.
Stick your PANIC!! flag up your ass, stick first, and sit on it.
If one knows or suspects that there is a higher probability than normal that one’s actions could cause harm to others, then that’s reckless disregard. Any penalty incurred would have to be proportional to the increased risk times the possible degree of harm, which could be great or small depending upon the circumstances.
The masks are somewhat effective as any barrier would be, still better than nothing.
Besides, masks help defeat ever more all-emcompassing surveilance, which is the greater threat to privacy and liberty.
Youre idiocy is giving me a headache, stop posting here so aggressively.
What the Hell are you talking about!? Covid-19 has no where a mortality rate of 90%. Are you insane!?
Yes.
Modern leftism is about fucking cowardly pieces of shit whining that they might catch something.
Stuff your PANIC flag up your ass, stick first and sit on it, you cowardly piece of lefty shit.
If I hold you down and spit in your mouth, you can claim aggression. Otherwise you’re describing living.
So your version of ‘libertarian NAP’ is – I can swing my fists anywhere and if you don’t move your face that’s your problem. Because only if I also force your head still so I can pound it is it aggression. Hey – combine that with John’s ‘well gotta parse ‘intent’ too.
People like you – who in truth are all purely antisocial R’s not ‘libertarians’ – do more to undermine liberty than all the totalitarians in the world. Because you have utter contempt for actual meaningful liberty as it has been understood by every non-misanthropic non-hermit in history.
JFree
May.5.2020 at 1:05 pm
“So your version of ‘libertarian NAP’ is – I can swing my fists anywhere and if you don’t move your face that’s your problem….”
No, you cowardly piece of lefty shit, it’s if you don’t want to get sick, lock YOURSELF up.
Stuff your PANIC!!! flag up your ass stick first and sit on it.
You don’t deserve a virus-free life, doomer. Now crawl back under your bed while better people keep society from falling down around your pussy self.
You are really bad at logic.
“There is no aggression in transmitting a disease to others?”
You can’t possibly be this stupid and still manage to navigate the internet. Tell us, were you wearing a mask during the entirety of the 2017-18 flu season, or does “aggression” have a cutoff somewhere between COVID-19’s fatality rate and a severe influenza fatality rate?
With posts this incoherent, why do you even bother coming here to embarrass yourself? Why do you even bother surfing the public internet? Why do you even bother to get up in the afternoon?
At least be honest with yourself and change your handle to “JKaren”…
I see no evidence of aggression in this statement. I’m sorry you keep getting your feelings hurt though. Must be a rough way to live.
“…Must be a rough way to live.”
Being a permanent victim is a condition of being a lefty piece of shit.
Man, JFree, if you steal any more bases there…sheesh.
You say that modern libertarianism is about justifying aggression against people.
Then you act as if saying “just the seasonal flu” is aggression. How is that aggression- whether it is wrong or right? It is you who is justifying aggression- that whole “anyone to do anything”, statement. It amazes me that you would really think disagreeing with people forcing you to do something is somehow aggression.
Then you defend “everyone who might do something to protect themselves”. Who are these people? As everyone has noted, sickness masks are intended to keep the wearer from spreading the virus. So people who wear the mask are not protecting themselves. They are protecting others. Forcing them to protect you at their expense is aggression. And it should be mocked, if you care anything about libertarianism.
“”forcing them to protect you at their expense is aggression.””
Didn’t we just see this with a NYPD officer?
“everyone who might do something to protect themselves”
I haven’t seen anyone object to someone doing something to protect themselves, people are objecting to those who think they have the right to protect themselves by tyrannizing over others
It’s not THE flu, it’s not A flu.
It’s not an influenza virus. It doesn’t cause a flu.
How many times do people have to tell you this.
Yet you and your ilk isist on comparing this to the Spanish flu.
It’s a corona virus. These most commonly cause colds.
rationalize their own aggressions against others
Since I’m being forced to generate the rationalizations anyway, might as well generate some actual aggressions.
“Some people are trying to paint putting rules in place out of concern for the health of others—like businesses requiring that people wear masks on their premises—as somehow tantamount to tyranny.”
I appreciate that business owners should be free to set these policies as they see fit–free of government interference–but just because they’re free to set their policies as they see fit, of course, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be free to criticize their policies. When Dick’s Sporting Goods stops selling hunting rifles in its stores because of the Parkland shooting, it is not anti-libertarian for people who care about the Second Amendment to criticize them for it any more than it’s wrong to criticize a healthcare provider for refusing to perform abortions.
Facebook and Google can kiss my ass AND the government has no business policing their policies (so long as they abide by the terms of their contracts with content creators and aren’t violating anyone’s rights). If Family Dollar requires people to wear masks, that’s their business, too. I don’t think it is social control. I suspect they’re trying to compete by appealing to consumers who are especially worried about becoming infected.
Someone should probably mention, in this context, that people on the lower end of the economic scale–especially those who’ve been in prison–tend to be much more sensitive to being around people showing signs of illness, and that was true long before Covid-19. In my personal experience traveling around the country, anyway, it’s been fairly common to see college students take public transportation while they’re sick and people from the lower end of the economic spectrum come down hard on them for being sick. Family Dollar tends to cluster their stores in communities on the lower end of the economic spectrum, and seeing them cater to those who are more sensitive than average about illness generally shouldn’t be surprising to anybody.
Seeing white suburbanites criticize Family Dollar for catering to poor urban populations may be like seeing elitists from the northeast going after the white, blue collar, middle class of the Midwest. One of the best reasons why we should all be free to make choices for ourselves is because we don’t know enough about each other or understand each other well enough to make rules for each other.
“(so long as they abide by the terms of their contracts with content creators and aren’t violating anyone’s rights)”
Reason supports them changing the contract terms at will with a ToS update.
Yeah, the courts routinely ignore clauses that say they can change the terms of a contract whenever they want because if one party can change the terms of the contract whenever they want, then there really isn’t an enforceable contract.
“On April 15, 2009, the District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that Blockbuster Online’s Terms and Conditions were unenforceable because they gave Blockbuster too much discretion in modifying the terms of the agreement. Following the reasoning in a Fifth Circuit case, Morrison v. Amway Corp.,[2] and consistent with a Ninth Circuit case, Douglas v. U.S. District Court ex rel Talk America[3] the court found that Blockbuster’s arbitration provision was illusory, because there was nothing in the Terms and Conditions that would prevent Blockbuster from “unilaterally changing any part of the contract.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_v._Blockbuster,_Inc.
YouTube, for instance, has deplatformed people for content that was up for years–and wasn’t against the terms of service at the time it was created.
It’s just like anything else. Family Dollar should be free to do as it pleases so long as it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights–and that includes their contractual rights. I’m not saying the government doesn’t have any business getting involved, even when someone’s rights are being violated. Because I’m pro-Second Amendment doesn’t mean I think people shouldn’t be prosecuted for holding up a liquor store. But so long as you don’t violate anybody’s rights with your AR-Family Dollar, you should be more or less free to do as you please.
I remember a story from some years back where a guy got one of those bank agreements to sign that included the “we reserve the right to alter the terms of the contract” clauses and he simply penned in his own terms that included the bank giving him a bunch of money, signed it and returned it. When he later filed suit against the bank on the grounds that they had accepted the terms of the contract and didn’t send him his money, the suit was quickly dismissed on the “ha, ha, very funny, you can’t change the terms of the contract, only the bank can, and besides you can’t expect the bank to have actually read the contract they’re agreeing to” theory of what contract law really means.
My own theory of law is that if you need a lawyer to explain what the fine print means, and there’s a good chance a second lawyer would disagree with the first lawyer’s interpretation, there’s no way in hell you can be held to have given informed consent to the law you’re being expected to obey.
Rev Kirkland keeps saying that poor urban populations are just bitter clingers.
Why should we care about them?
Revisionist Kirkland should move to Vermont for assisted suicide.
Family Dollar should care about poor urban populations because they’ve made a fortune offering poor urban populations the things they want and need for lower prices and at more convenient locations than they can find elsewhere. It’s their whole business model.
The rest of us should care about Family Dollar’s rights because there are other companies that cater to the rest of us in various ways that run along the same lines, and if people don’t understand that Family Dollar’s right to cater to their customers however they please shouldn’t be violated, then those people may come after a business that caters to the rest of us next time–and almost certainly will.
Rev Kirkland
keeps saying that poor urban populations are just bitter clingersis a fucking moron who should do the rest of us a favor and go chug some drain cleaner.FTFY
Um, no, I think the rev considers them to be among the “betters”, despite plenty of contrary evidence.
Missed it by one letter. Haha
They are certainly his betters.
The fact that to (voluntarily) mask or not to mask has become a culture war issue is further evidence that we really are living in the worst of all worlds.
God, I fucking hate everyone. I hate the “Karens” who insist on calling the cops every time they see someone walking down the street without a mask on instead of just avoiding the person and going about their own damned business.
I hate the government officials who are empowering “Karen” by mandating mask wearing under penalty of law.
I hate the cops who apparently have nothing better to do right now than beat a motherfucker down and throw them in a crowded jail cell (where they’re far more likely to catch COVID) for simply not wearing a mask because “Karen” told them to.
But I also hate the assholes who apparently think being asked to wear a mask while inside a place of business is such an affront to their person as to justify shooting a motherfucker.
The only people I don’t hate right now are the ones who just mind their own fucking business, mask or no mask. People who don’t snitch on others who choose not to wear one, or when asked to put one on before entering a place business either politely comply or simply turn around and take their business elsewhere. Or the people who take their business elsewhere if masks aren’t required and they think they should be. Unfortunately that seems to be a very, very small number of people. So small that it’s easier to just say I hate everyone.
The fact that there is now a derogatory term in common use for ‘Karen’ gives me a glimmer of hope for the future.
“OK, Karen” might hopefully be the next “OK, Boomer””
Karen was way before boomer…
You can’t spell Karen without “care”. Fascist.
Yeah, Karen cares alright. Cares about forcing her choices on everyone else. Cares about using the coercive power of the state on people she doesn’t like doing things she doesn’t think they should be allowed to do. She sure as fuck doesn’t care when the people she rats out get beaten down and then thrown in an overcrowded jail. “Serves them right” is what Karen thinks. So fuck Karen, she’s a nosy bitch.
>She sure as fuck doesn’t care when the people she rats out get beaten down and then thrown in an overcrowded jail.
She cares and complains about that too. It makes her even more insufferable.
What is hopeful about the “Karen” slur is that it is finally making fun of busy body suburban white women, who have become the bane of our existence.
Who was it that said abortion will never be outlawed because nothing suburban white women support will ever be banned?
I am not sure but they were right.
“The only people I don’t hate right now are the ones who just mind their own fucking business,……. Unfortunately that seems to be a very, very small number of people. So small that it’s easier to just say I hate everyone.”
I don’t think that # is very very small, i think it’s a majority. We’re just not making noise, and we are too busy working and living our lives to “organize and voice our outrage”.
So, the KARENS, and The COPS, and the KILLERS, literally make the news.
My wife is an Emergency Dept. RN. We are in Oregon, she willingly tells anyone who asks that she thinks this is all bullshit and causing way more harm than good. We are both still employed, and don’t have time for protest marches (just a few minutes to post here)..
In truth you’re probably right, but what can I say, I got on a roll and could “feel the hate flowing through me.” I’d probably make a good Sith Lord.
your flaw was you made a few exceptions …
The only people I don’t hate right now are the ones who just mind their own fucking business, mask or no mask. People who don’t snitch on others who choose not to wear one, or when asked to put one on before entering a place business either politely comply or simply turn around and take their business elsewhere. Or the people who take their business elsewhere if masks aren’t required and they think they should be.
This is pretty much where I am, philosophically. I have been self-isolated for 2+ months now because I have a severe auto-immune condition. I am fortunate that I can work from home. And I live in a smallish town. So I know I have to avoid people, and wear a mask when I go out. So the onus is on me. I’m good with that. It sucks though, because I have not gone to a grocery store, a retail store, my synagogue, or anything like that for a number of months now.
A visitor now is a very big deal!!! I roll out the red carpet. In a socially distant manner, of course. I have a nice sized patio and screened porch; it more than does the job. The visitors arrive, come to the back of the house, get their hit of sanitizer on the hands, and choice of adult beverage. I am just happy to be talking to an adult who is not my DW. 🙂
We have ‘Karens’ who live on my street and have called the fucking cops! Three cop cars came to my quiet street and busted…wait for it…a graduation party of 12 seniors sitting 8′ apart from each other in this guy’s backyard. There wasn’t even any loud music. For Pete’s sake, these kids are blowing off some steam, with an adult on premises, and some bitchy-preachy Karen goes and ruins it. Pissed me off. I really do not like Karens!
Now…With all of that said, I would tell you that I personally appreciate it when people voluntarily and affirmatively choose to wear a mask to protect me. I interpret this act on their part as a gesture of chesed toward me. I cannot repay them for the kindness they have shown me; I rely on God to repay their kindness for me.
Its mainly old people who vote or Boomers but it probably some other Generation adult busybodies.
I lve in a state where that is not a problem and Georgians have been conducting their business relatively normally for weeks now.
The media mostly lives in big cities and they think what happens where they are at is how most of the country is acting. Not so, say the protests and google traffic tracking.
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/harvard-canceled-human-rights-event-as-its-president-met-with-xi-jinping/?utm_source=actengage&utm_campaign=FreedomMail&utm_medium=email
Harvard University canceled a panel discussion on Hong Kong protests because the event coincided with the university president’s meet-and-greet with Chinese president Xi Jinping, according to a former university scholar.
They Ivy League colleges really are hives of scum and villainy.
So, Biden (or more likely one of his staff) wrote up a little article about what he’d do for the black community and based on the comments… no one’s buying it. In a fit of supreme irony, the one person I saw who was fully in support of the article was… wait for it… Chinese.
Everyone else wasn’t having it, and a few were clear that Trump had already done what Biden was promising he’d do, but didn’t when he had power. I’d be shitting myself if I was part of Biden’s campaign.
https://medium.com/p/d546228da188/responses/show
It is going to be entertaining watching the Democrats come up with new and absurd scare tactics to try and motivate the black community to vote when we have had four years of Trump letting black people out of federal prison like no President ever and rising wages and employment for blacks never seen before. Just what are the Democrats going to claim Trump has in store for blacks in his second term? I mean what black person wouldn’t want to go back to the Democrats’ patented blend of mass incarceration, unemployment, and white condescension?
I know right. I’m looking forward to seeing how the Democrats are going to explain their black base leaving them. And I know that currently polls are showing that Trump only has something like 15% of the black vote… but I also remember that after the 2016 election they found that over 50% of trump supporters lied to the pollsters about who they’d vote for (in comparison to 25% of Clinton voters). And considering how hostile the black community has been historically to anyone who goes against the community mindset (not just politically, LGBT would be another example), I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s happening here too.
If Trump got even 15% of the black vote, he would win in an electoral landslide. You can’t overstate how much personal sense of validation and superiority white liberals get from the absolute certainty that all Republicans and especially Trump are racist. If Trump were to get 15% or better yet 25% of the black vote, it would be devastating for white progs. I am not sure how they would handle it. My guess is they would just refuse to believe it was true because they would be unable to face something that horrible.
I don’t think Trump getting 25% of the black vote is going to make that much difference when the Democrats are guaranteed to get about 130% of the black vote. And 100% of the dead and imaginary.
It would make an enormous difference. The dead and imaginary votes come from places that the Democrats will win anyway. The 25% that Trump would get, were he to get such a thing, would come from places like Ohio and Pennsylvania and from swing districts where the Democrats ability to cheat is greatly limited. A shift that much in black votes would turn purple states red and make several blue states competitive.
I hate to say this, but if black people were collectively capable of honestly evaluating the Democratic party, Detroit and Baltimore wouldn’t be the shitholes that they are.
I’d love to see them cured of their Stockholm Syndrome, but the last 6 decades make me skeptical.
They won’t be cured of their Stockholm syndrome. But, they will likely not care and not be very motivated to vote and that is doom for the Democrats.
^this
“Masks Can Be a Symbol of Privacy and Personal Responsibility, Not Tyranny”
Of course they can. But can you not see that is not the situation right now?
Motherfuck, this is stupid.
At least now when Antifa shows up no one can accuse them of being cowards but of being morally responsible citizens while burning down your business or breaking heads with bicycle locks.
there is a purpose to this and its cover for Antifa
I’m going to start embroidering masks with “Mustache rides, 5¢”
Let’s see how many I can sell.
I don’t trust anything from the NYT as far as I can spit – and anyone who links to anything they write loses credibility as they demonstrate mere laziness and journalistic groupthink. But it is about time that public health start actually looking at the possible impacts of this virus on something other than the 70+/obese category of people. Like kids and the young.
Short-term, deaths make the headlines and obviously require some sort of attention. Long-term, those people most affected in the short-term are the least important people to devote one iota of public health attention to. And they should goddamn stop focusing exclusively on people who require immediate hospitalization – whether young or old. What is it with the medical community that they are fucking incapable of thinking in terms of ‘damage to HEALTH’ rather than ‘illness requiring intervention now’?
JFree
May.5.2020 at 11:02 am
“I don’t trust anything from the NYT as far as I can spit…”
Fuck off and die, slaver.
Norwegian Cruise Lines sent signals that it’s probably headed into bankruptcy.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/norwegian-cruise-line-flags-cash-crunch-going-concern-risks/ar-BB13Cz40?li=BBnbfcN
Probably just the first one in line.
From various stories I’ve read, it’s become pretty clear that major cruise lines continued to take on passengers even when they knew the coronavirus was a problem, and when they clustered all those people together on their ships, they spread the virus among the passengers–and then set those passengers loose to spread the virus throughout their ports of call.
Their impending bankruptcies aren’t because of the liability they’re facing from lawsuits because of those who died because the cruise lines took on passengers even when they knew there was a major problem. Their bankruptcies are because they can’t generate enough paying customers to finance their expenses and their debt. That being said, there is no good reason why the U.S. taxpayer should be doing anything to help the major cruise lines at all–not until they get that liability sorted out, at the very least, and not ever anyway.
For one thing, all of the major cruise lines are headquartered outside the United States and don’t register their ships in the United States. In addition to all the normal reasons for opposing bailouts, why should the U.S. taxpayer bail out foreign companies?
All those ships are still valuable assets, and when the bankruptcy courts auction them off, the people who are suing them for taking on passengers when they knew there was a problem can make their claims to the bankruptcy courts. The people in our economy who are best equipped to take on those losses are the people who willingly put their money at risk when they invested in the stock. If the stockholders have a legitimate claim against management for their incompetence in response to the coronavirus, then the shareholders can take that to the judge in bankruptcy court, too.
The risk of bad management is priced into a stock when you buy it. I never willingly took on that risk. There is no good reason why I as a taxpayer should be forced to pay for any of this.
Absolutely correct. But we will probably have to pay more taxes for bonuses for teachers who heroically stayed home, at full pay, and spent maybe an hour a day (if that) electronically teaching their students. One pol on tv yesterday was suggesting a $13 an hour bonus for health care workers, first responders, cops, firemen, and – yes – teachers.
The people in our economy who are best equipped to take on those losses are the people who willingly put their money at risk when they invested in the stock. If the stockholders have a legitimate claim against management for their incompetence in response to the coronavirus, then the shareholders can take that to the judge in bankruptcy court, too.
Bondholders as well, and it’s not just the cruise lines, it’s how basic capitalism is supposed to work. Stock prices are insane, and have been for a long while, unless you’re factoring in the lack of risk brought about by the government agreeing that the taxpayer is going to be forced to absorb all the risk. Look at all the companies who plowed their profits into stock buybacks, or even took on debt to do so, simply in order to boost stock prices and enable top management to cash in on their stock options. Just straight-up looting and pillaging and golden parachuting out of the mess when the business threatens to collapse. Flipping stocks on the greater fool theory isn’t investing any more than counting cards at the blackjack tables is an investment strategy.
As I’ve said before, a rising stock price is supposed to be an indicator of a well-run company but the scammers have figured out how to game the system so that the measuring stick has replaced the thing being measured and – like a dieter setting the bathroom scale to read 10 pounds light so they can claim the diet is working – the scammers can claim they must be doing a good job running the company, just look at how high the stock price has risen! If we’re measuring the success of a company by their share price, Tesla is the most wildly successful company out there, and yet we all know Elon Musk’s greatest talent is as a scam artist.
But pointless contrarianism is my schtick!
this^
think “no shirt, no shoes, no service.”
Now think “no shirt, no blacks, no shoes, no gays, no service”.
Any difference?
If a business decides on its own to require masks, one thing. Just patronize or not as you prefer.
If the government issues an edit, something else. Riot.
So if I don’t have blacks and gays I get no service?
Yeah, isn’t the no shirt, no shoes, no service thing in response to government mandated health codes? Seems like a pretty sophomoric argument in her part.
“sophomoric argument”
ENB’s nick in journo school.
The mask is not a symbol of tyranny. Now, citizen, I’m going to have to ask you to wear one or face the consequences of defying an executive order.
I remain convinced that most of the people who are wearing masks out there are doing so because they think it protects them from the virus.
There are masks that protect the wearer from viruses, but those masks are all being sent to hospitals and healthcare facilities.
The reason the government and Family Dollar wants you to wear a mask is because they want to protect other people from you–it is not to protect you from other people.
The mask is supposed to stop infected moisture droplets from escaping your immediate area. Covering your mouth when you sneeze or cough doesn’t protect you from becoming infected by other people. It protects other people from becoming infected by you. Viruses are among the tiniest of microscopic organisms and my understanding is that they’re inhaled through a mask as easy as anything.
It’s bad enough when progressives try to force us to do things for our own good. It’s doubly worse when they think they’re forcing us to do something for our own good but it’s really to help other people.
I do it to make Darth Vader noises and fog up my glasses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYfmRwryQo
Silly reasons may be better than ostensibly forcing people to do something for their own good when it’s really for the good of other people.
We’re gonna force you to finance the pension benefits of government employees with taxes–because you can’t be trusted to save for your own retirement.
Welcome to California, enjoy your stay.
I remain convinced that most of the people who are wearing masks out there are doing so because they think it protects them from the virus.
Am I the only one that lives in a place where it’s required by “law”?
Here in Texas, the Governor says one thing, the mayor says another, and businesses are like, “Meh.”
Your legislature passed it?
Not to mention the best N95 will not protect you from touching a surface and then touching your face etc. My issue with the orders is it is an order, I am sure a lot of the protesters feel the same. Instead of recommending and asking they order and penalize. That is a recipe for civil disobedience. This is a habit with certain types of government officials. Instead of recommending less trans fats and giving the reasons they take away your right to use them. Instead recommending less salt and giving the reasons they take away your right to use it. So of course people are rebelling against these social distancing orders, it is human nature to resist this kind of arbitrary repression, it is why children do what their parents tell them not to. I have no problem wearing a mask when in crowded areas as needed and don’t need some swaggering deputy to harangue me to do this but when I am ordered to do “do this or your gonna get a whoopin” my natural urge is “bring it on”.
I would say that resisting this tyranny is far more important than avoiding infection at this point for people who are not old and sick.
It’s doubly worse when they think they’re forcing us to do something for our own good but it’s really to help other people.
Triply bad when you agree to a system by which, even if you disagree, ensures consistent and reciprocal application and they completely circumvent that system by issuing orders.
>>seem to believe in private business conscience and contract rights until opposing them will attract attention or place themselves on their preferred side of culture war politics
everyone who opposes masks seeks attention and the winning side. wow you’re good.
I knew it was only a matter of time before one of those gun-toting protestors shot someone. Oh, it was some ghetto trash capping someone over disrespecting his ho? Nevermind then
Peanuts to chicago deaths on a weekend. Democrats and their socialist cities.
Sure, if you live in NY/NJ. I live in Columbus, OH. Franklin County has a population of 1.3M. We have 84 CV deaths total. 92% people over 60. Most deaths were from nursing homes. The most deaths we had in a day were 6 which is like a weekend house party in the hood. Statistically, I have about as much chance if getting CV as I would if CV didn’t even exist. So making me wear a mask now is no different than making me wear one before CV. It’s a dunce cap. If Governer DeWine will wear a dunce cap, I’ll wear a mask.
A recent survey of 18th of the medical charts of those who died from COVID in Italy reveal that 99% of the people who died suffered from at least one other serious illness. This stuff almost never kills the healthy. Yet somehow, our response has been to lock healthy people up in their homes, shut down the economy and do nothing to protect the old and the sick. They should have quarantined every nursing home in the country back in February along with testing medical workers and anyone going in a hospital or medical facility. That would have saved more lives and cost exponentially less money than this madness.
>>.do nothing to protect the old and the sick
death panels sans panels.
Well that just leaves death? Can I not get cake?
Agreed
they should have quarantined every nursing home in the country back in February along with testing medical workers and anyone going in a hospital or medical facility. That would have saved more lives and cost exponentially less money than this madness.
Yes, this exactly. They totally fucked it up and failed to protect the people who needed protecting while going full authoritarian on everyone. If this isn’t seen as one of the greatest scandals ever in a year or so I will lose a lot of faith in humanity.
The worst part is that it is now clear they fucked up. And rather than coming clean and undoing their mistake, they are just lying and doubling down. I can forgive the initial fuck up. China lied its ass off and they didn’t fully understand what they were dealing with. I cannot forgive their refusal to change course after the fuck up became obvious.
Bingo!!
I told y’all months ago this was happening.
We knew from the Diamond princess that infection rates were less than 50% and deaths rates were crazy low. 3700 people on a recirc air vessel and only 700 were infected. About 12 people died.
Democrats are liars and the media are mostly democrats.
I don’t have a problem with businesses requiring masks. I have a problem with a gun being held to my head.
Put down the gun.
Hold it to Amy Acton’s head if you must.
Hong Kong’s economy in the first quarter of 2020 contracted 8.9% over a year earlier, the largest decline on record since 1974.
The Census & Statistics Department announced the findings today as it released advance estimates on Gross Domestic Product for the first quarter.
Addressing the media today, Financial Secretary Paul Chan noted the economic recession deepened in Hong Kong in the first quarter of 2020.
“Although locally, the epidemic situation seems to be under control, but the external environment is still very challenging. Globally, the epidemic is yet to be put under complete control. That will affect our exports.
—-Hong Kong Government
https://www.news.gov.hk/eng/2020/05/20200504/20200504_170900_209.html
Don’t trust any statistics you see from mainland China, but Hong Kong’s economic reporting is pretty good–and if they’re making the picture look any brighter than it really is, then contracting more than 8.9% from a year earlier is even worse.
There will presumably be huge political ramifications throughout the world from the United States’ and Europe’s economies closing down. The U.S. wasn’t shut down for a nice big chunk of the first quarter, so I’d expect the second quarter to be even worse for economies that export to the United States and Europe–no matter what they say.
China has not experienced a recession since it joined the WTO circa 2001. I don’t think anybody knows what will happen on the streets of China after two quarters of a shrinking economy. Iran is another case. They used to at least be able to sell oil on the black market. The price of that fell through the floor, and what else do they use to prop up their economy for the next six months? We haven’t even begun to see the fallout from Covid-19 on world politics.
Venezuelan gold and pallets of cash?
Is this a roundup or an essay? I mean, I agree with you, but I bet a lot of “Reason” bros won’t.
No one is a bro here dumb ass. Literally no one on either side of the debate can stand you. Just go away Vennaman, everyone of every political stripe hates you.
“I agree with you”
Of course you do, everyone has known you long enough to know you’re no libertarian.
“Masks Can Be a Symbol of Privacy and Personal Responsibility, Not Tyranny”
I may be late to the game, but if it’s mandated by law, decree, or emergency order, then yes, it’s tyranny.
But, but if we want our freedom back err end the lock downs, I mean save lives and resume the economy, you should just wear a mask as told too…
Keep moving along and remember Sergeant Schultz’s response “I see nothing”.
“Masks Can Be a Symbol of Privacy and Personal Responsibility, Not Tyranny”
I may be late to the game, but if it’s mandated by law, decree, or emergency order, then yes, it’s tyranny. That’s my view.
My apologies, I posted twice.
First rule of “Reason” commenting: blame your mistakes on squirrels.
It deserved to be said twice.
Hey everyone needs to leave ENB alone. ENB is smart! Practically a genius in my book.
ENB I hope you’re reading this comment of sincere praise because I’m totally kidding you are basically retarded.
Sincere praise or abuse, either way, she’s not making you a sandwich.
I really wouldn’t have confidence in any sandwich she might make anyway
Voluntarily wearing a mask is fine. Being forced to is not. That’s enough reason not to wear one in public. At work is different. If you pay me enough, I’ll wear a mask. I will not comply with a legal mandate to do so. Keeping our rights is much more important than avoiding every possible infection. I do not think it is good for our society or culture to get people thinking that it is normal or really worthwhile for healthy people to go around with masks on. I won’t encourage it.
Also worth noting, the study that is the basis for the idea that transmission by asymptomatic carriers is likely is just wrong. Turns out the asymptomatic carrier that they thought had infected other people in Germany was experiencing symptoms. They published the paper without talking to that person. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/paper-non-symptomatic-patient-transmitting-coronavirus-wrong
I would not let a lunatic pay me to wear a mask.
Advocating wearing a mask for Kungflu is lunacy. Im not a lunatic, ergo Im not wearing a mask.
If wearing a mask now is a good idea, why isn’t it always a good idea? How much more dangerous than all the other viruses that are always in circulation does something have to be to justify everyone losing their goddamn minds? This virus looks to be on the same order of magnitude as a bad pandemic flu. Which happened several times in the 20th century without massive social disruption or panic. Or lots of people wearing masks.
>>why isn’t it always a good idea?
shhhh dude burqas are next
#metoo.
libertarians and limited-government conservatives respect this
“limited-government conservative” is a contradiction in terms.
My mom in Ohio told me recently that her and my dad’s usual Kroger doesn’t require masks, so they’ve been shopping at Menards, which does.
Menards is a hardware store, Kroger is a grocery store. WTF kind of diet is your mother following? Nails and paint?
My decision would go the other way, but it’s good to have a choice, I guess.
The Menards here sells some foods, mainly canned and dried foods. No fresh foods and very little meat other than hotdogs and pizza.
Interesting. The Krogers here (Fred Meyer) sells some hardware.
Also interesting: The Krogers here (King Sooper’s) sells pants.
The Fred Meyers/Kroger’s in Anchorage sold sporting goods.
Fred Meyer here sells pants and sporting goods. They have a garden department, too.
The Menards here also carries a limited selection of perishables including milk, OJ, and meats such as uncooked hamburger, ground turkey, and sausage in a tube (I’ve heard those are called “chubs”).
I have to say I’m extremely disappointed in Menards through this. One would hope that a place like that, catering to a presumably more hardy, DIY, contractor-type clientele- basically, a man’s store- would be less susceptible to succumbing to hysteria around something like this than, say, a drug store or a grocery store. However, they have instituted some truly ridiculous policies like no children under 16 (when that is the one group that is essentially immune to this- if anything they should encourage old people to send their teenage grandkids in to pick up their stuff!) and now masks. I sent them an email expressing my disappointment with the “no kids” policy, and literally the response I got back was “Why would you want to expose your kids to unnecessary risks? Please explain.” Like, WTF? Earlier today I had wanted to get a few things so I stopped at Menards on my lunch break, partially to explore how serious they are about this. Suffice it to say, they were serious, and so was I. After several minutes of expressing my displeasure, I left. I really hope to never go back, though they tend to be about the only game in town for some things in these parts..
Its New England pussy behavior. Pu folks voted for Democrats and now get Socialism good and hard.
Everybody I know has been taking selfies with their masks on. Its the new virtue signaling, ‘look how great I am! I’m wearing a MASK to protect YOU! Please give me a like!’ Its all very sickening.
And here if you look on my Facebook all you will see are pictures of my kids, pictures of my cattle and stolen memes. The latter are probably the most numerous.
By far the dumbest ENB article yet. Seriously, why is a left wing liberal prog like her even editor here?
“Seriously, why is a left wing liberal prog like her even editor here?”
I’m sure she asks herself a variation of that question every day. Often after reading a tweet from The Atlantic writer Megan McArdle.
Presumably because most of her articles are so poorly sourced and rife with non-sequiturs that even Vox’s and The Hill’s HR departments gave her a hard pass.
Family Dollar guard murdered over mask enforcement
More appropriate would probably be: Family Dollar guard murdered cuz bitches be crazy! But then again, I did click through to a description of what went down.
How will ENB be received at cocktail parties with bits of tar and feathers being stuck to her?
Masks are meant to protect you from other people, not other people from you. Unless you’re in a vulnerable group, wearing one is a sign of mental retardation and boot-licking passivity.
From what I’ve read, the main utility of masks (at least the crappy ones that most people are wearing) is protecting other people from you. Of course, if you aren’t coughing, there isn’t really much to protect anyone from.
But I agree in your assessment of enthusiastic mask wearers.
Surgeons wear masks to protect patients from infection.
But the hysteria needs to stop.
I’ve noticed that most people have no idea what the constitution actually says but are quick to claim they can do whatever they because its a constitutional right.
Ask any tyrant where in the constitution it allows state government to force youto stay home or wear a mask.
Crickets.
I personally whip out a copy of the Cato pocket constitution and people just cave. If you carry around a cop of the constitution, they immediately know they are way out of their league.
It’s not tyranny when a business puts stipulations on customers wishing to enter their premises. But it is tyranny when government officials, without legislative authority, impose unnecessary restrictions prohibiting us from working when the employer desires to pay and the employee desires to work.
The issue is not with a private business trying to assert a rule that customers need to wear a mask for entry. I’m fine with that businesses have a right to set terms of service. If I don’t like those terms, I’ll just shop elsewhere. The issue is when government officials mandate by edict that businesses and consumers do so…on threat of prosecution. My state, NY…has even gone so far as to require that private citizens wear masks when outdoors… even on their own private property. This is why the mask is fast becoming a symbol of oppression, not because of what private individuals or businesses choose to do, but because of what wannabe tyrants like Andrew Cuomo demand we do….. often with no scientific basis for such demands ( Covid is almost never contracted outdoors…at least during daylight hours…. the disease can’t live in direct sunlight long enough for it to be spread under most such circumstances).
“My mom in Ohio told me recently that her and my dad’s usual Kroger doesn’t require masks, ” This little bit of this article should tell you this was written by a grade schooler. “her and my Dad.. yup really? in an article on Reason
“If we want authorities to actually allow commerce and freedom of movement again, and to avoid top-down impositions of protective-gear rules, we should be encouraging people to voluntarily adopt mask-wearing.” another you don’t get it part of this article
“… wearing facial coverings may actually be a boon for privacy and protecting against state surveillance, too.”
yeah because if you wear a bandana like Jessie Jame that contact tracer will never find you.. gotta admit. it does protect your privacy especially if you are avoiding capture during a robbery that is on the camera
“In any event, if protecting civil liberties and constitutional rights is really the aim, it’s time to drop hysterical or pointlessly contrarian objections to wearing a mask. That’s not anti-authoritarian praxis, it’s just being a jerk.”
so it comes down after all of that that the author. whose middle name has to be Karen. says you are a jerk if you don’t wear a mask. fire her Reason she deserves a bit of isolation
“Masks Can Be a Symbol of Privacy and Personal Responsibility, Not Tyranny.”
That depends if the government forces the people to wear a mask.
Then the the mask does indeed be a symbol of tyranny.
Some people are trying to paint putting rules in place out of concern for the health of others—like businesses requiring that people wear masks on their premises—as somehow tantamount to tyranny.
Are we just ignoring actual governments enacting these policies? (Not simply private business)
The face mask will be rightly regarded as a symbol of obsequious obedience and grotesque compliance with arbitrary and ignorant authority,”
Spot on. What is beyond bizarre is this: as I have been out and about, I have paid some attention to the masks I see others wearing, or pretending to wear, in public. Almost none of them are capable of preventing the wearer from contact with the virus we are all in a panic over. They are either the wrong sort of mask, or they are improperly worn to be effective. ANd very near none of them are even effective at preventing pathogens from the wearer entering the ‘public space”. Again, they are either not designed for that purpose are effective against larger size particles such as bacterial cells, or are worn improperly.
This is like telling your kid, as he heads outside barefoot in the heavy rain “take your boots son..” Yes, Mama, and he picks up the boots and carries them outside whilst yet barefoot.
Further, in outdoor air with even minimal sunlight, no corona virus cell can survive more than about half a minute. UV light, ozone, plenty of oxygen, so when one is walking twenty feet behind someone else even IF that someone has the virus, it will be dead by the time I get to where he was. Wind safting from the side, the virus is dying way off to the leeward side long and I never will come into its range. And lying on the beach subating> Gimme a break. Unless someone else is lying down right net to me they ain’t a gonna catch no virus from ME (nor I from them) and if someine IS lying that close to me we almost certainly started out together from the home we share and are often far closer then the designated fathom. The more these clowns blather the more insane theyprove themselves to be.
If these poohbahs were REALLY on about helping stop the spread of this disease, how’s about buying tmonths supplies of the few essential vitamin an supplement for everyone…. tell us to head on down to the pahrmacyo of our choice and pick them up free of cost to us Then, since our bodies would be DOING what they were designed to SO, all we’d haev to do is keep it from the very ol,d medically high risk people, most of whom KNOW who they are and how to PROTECT THEMSELVES.
WHY is the base assumption made that we are all a bunch of wild and rangy preschoolers with the intelligence of a young Norway rat?
I really liked this. Sensible and without the grating partisan angling that seems to have invaded everything these days. Articles like this are the reason I renewed my subscription after a long hiatus.
“For a few years, this was most common when it came to social media platforms suspending or banning accounts they liked (or the left didn’t like) or companies firing employees following an internet outrage campaign. Those opposed would frequently invoke First Amendment rights, even though no government was involved while ignoring the (other times revered) right of private businesses to set terms of engagement for their services.”
And, of course, Reason ignores the fact that social media is monopolized by only a few companies who hold vast sway over material that millions can or cannot read on their website.
I wore my M50 gas mask out the other day and scared the shit out of people. I was laughing so hard that I had to remove my mask as the cartridge clearly became saturated.
I saw someone wearing a mask in their car and it pissed me off so I decided to scare some sense into some publix shoppers.
Today is the first I have heard of masks being politicized. Now that the media has decided to run articles about it and draw battle lines I suppose there will be issues. There is nothing political about the personal decision of wearing a mask if you feel you need to protect others or store owners attempting to avoid laws suits and keep their employees safe or feeling save by requiring masks. If anyone can’t understand this that is amazing. There are more important issues in life to be concerned with.
Next thing you know, businesses will claim the power to serve only people they choose to do business with …
Not wearing a mask can also simply be a sign of a rational evaluation of the situation, as opposed to the hair on fire panic of people like you.