by William Skink
The partisan argument over mask wearing is one of the stupidest arguments I have ever seen.
At risk of being a crude reductionist, Democrats believe wearing a mask shows how caring and pro-science they are, while Republicans believe wearing a mask is a sign of giving in to tyranny.
The mask argument is especially stupid considering how much we still don’t know about this supposed pandemic. If much of the modeling was demonstrably flawed, and if the CDC itself is revising down the infectiousness of this virus, then how can partisans be so certain of their to mask or not to mask position?
One hint can be found at the Montana Post, where science takes a back seat to the supposed moral failings of the Republican leadership:
Masks save lives, leaders encouraging the use of masks save lives, and the absolute failure of the leadership of the Montana Republican Party to encourage the use of masks and set an example by wearing them will kill Montanans and prolong the spread of COVID-19.
Even a cursory look at conservative social media reveals that the mask divide breaks down on partisan lines. While there are certainly liberals and conservatives who haven’t worn masks as often as they should, most conspiratorial junk science is coming from the same engines of disinformation that spread dishonest science about climate change.
The author of this drivel is saying that if you don’t believe in the life-saving power of placing fabric over your nose and mouth then you are probably a conspiracy theorist peddling Republican who also doesn’t believe in the gospel of climate change.
If we are going to talk about “dishonest science”, then let’s take a closer look at the Imperial College of London’s “buggy mess” of a model that was used to justify the pandemic lockdown:
The Covid-19 modelling that sent Britain into lockdown, shutting the economy and leaving millions unemployed, has been slammed by a series of experts.
Professor Neil Ferguson’s computer coding was derided as “totally unreliable” by leading figures, who warned it was “something you wouldn’t stake your life on”.
The model, credited with forcing the Government to make a U-turn and introduce a nationwide lockdown, is a “buggy mess that looks more like a bowl of angel hair pasta than a finely tuned piece of programming”, says David Richards, co-founder of British data technology company WANdisco.
And let’s also take a look at what the CDC did last month regarding infection rates:
New data from the Centers for Disease Control is raising questions about just how deadly the coronavirus is.
The virus has had a catastrophic impact on the U.S. killing nearly 100,000 Americans. However, a new estimate from the CDC indicates a smaller percentage of people die from the virus than previously reported.
…
From the very beginning, there have been questions about how coronavirus compares to the flu. In March, one of the top U.S. health officials, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said COVID-19 is far deadlier than the flu.“The flu has a mortality of 0.1 percent, this has a mortality of 10-times that,” said Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
However, new data from the CDC suggests a much lower mortality rate for COVID-19 than previously reported.
The problem with trying to actually understand the threat posed by Covid-19 is that you can’t score political points by falsely claiming some moral high ground.
But that won’t stop Democrat partisans from trying to setup Republicans as scapegoats for pandemic deaths, despite the fact their mask orthodoxy is directly undermined by weeks of protests–urged on and celebrated by Democrats–where more than a few protestors weren’t wearing masks or social distancing.
I am so goddamn tired of sanctimonious Democrat partisans who claim THEIR TRUTH is objective, THEIR SCIENCE is infallible, and THEIR MORAL SUPERIORITY unquestionable.
The harsh reality no Democrat partisan will admit to is that both parties have been complicit in perpetrating a morally indefensible empire of death and destruction upon the world, violently attacking any nation or group that resists, and that empire is now in the process of collapsing.
I find it disgusting, morally speaking, that these sanctimonious, mask-wearing partisans were able to spend 8 years cheering on their morally dubious president as he made slave markets great again in Libya and helped facilitate the Saudi-led genocide in Yemen, yet now they think they can declare their political opponents moral failures because they don’t put cloth on their face.
Absurd.