You Will Comply

Why the vaccine push?

Here's a question for you little totalitarians:  If you are fully vaccinated against Covid, why do you care about the vaccination status of anyone else?

Answer:  You don't.

So why the push, the increasingly hard push, to insist and mandate that everyone get vaccinated?  To argue that this has anything to do with health is disingenuous in the extreme.  No, you are pushing this because you cannot stand the fact that a group of people have a different perspective.  And you want to punish and humiliate them for it.

You have no interest in making a rational argument to convince people that your position is correct.  Rather, you want everyone to bow to your superiority and follow your dictates in spite of their own beliefs:  You may not want to get the vaccine, but you will because I say so.  That is a demonstration of real power; North Korean-like power.  You must be so proud of yourselves.  And you are – smugly proud of your self-righteousness and your ability to inflict your will upon the disbelievers, the heretics, and the dissidents.

It is the same with mask wearing.  But this is so much worse because you are actually injecting foreign, untested substances into people.  With ever-increasing levels of force and coercion.  This is an unprecedented level of power in our society and in the American experience.  We have all heard the expression drunk with power.  But I don't think this is adequate.  It certainly does not capture the sheer glee and schadenfreude on the Left.  No, no, what we have here is masturbatory power writ large.

One straw argument seems to be – let me see if I can capture the logic – that the vaccines are not one hundred percent effective and therefore, the virus can still be transmitted even from or to the fully vaccinated.  Well okay, so there's no harm if I wait for more testing, or God-forbid, just FDA approval.

No, this is not about health, this is about simple compliance.  Even obedience.

You will comply.  Or you will be made to comply.

I have noticed that for the first time in my life, I have started using the word "evil."  And I do not use it sarcastically or flippantly.  This is evil.  And if you support it, you are evil.

You are evil.

I'll tell you something else I am going to do for the first time in my life.  I am going to buy a gun.

I am not worried about Covid.  But I am scared to death of you.

Update, 9 August 2021

The thinking of those on the Left is really difficult to understand.  At least for me.  But here, I think Glenn Reynolds comes pretty close:

Many people simultaneously need to feel that (1) they’re morally and intellectually superior; and (2) that they play an important role in the world.  Mask- and vaccine-shaming allow them to do so easily and with no sacrifice.  The price, of course, is making the world at large a nastier and worse place, while not at all advancing — and probably even setting back — the cause they’re allegedly in favor of.  But it’s not about making the world a better place, it’s about feeling good about themselves.

Update, 10 August 2021

Ben Shapiro doing his thing.

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Why Bother?

What's the point of talking to the other side?

Over the last decade, it has become increasingly clear to me that the divide between the Left and the Right is irreconcilable.  For a long time, it was arguable that sports could be our one, last shared experience.  But today, just look at how the two sides view sports.  It is like we are not watching the same spectacle.  We certainly view the purpose differently.  Even in this last arena, where we once were united, now as in all else, we are divided.

Sports joins a long list:

We do not view the same television or movies.

Or any of the same media.

We do not read the same books.

We do not read the same journalism.

We cannot agree on our history.

We do not eat the same food or in the same restaurants.

We do not shop in the same stores.

Increasingly, we do not share the same language.

We do not even share the same weather.

Today it is so bad, that we can each observe a situation or event, and yet we cannot even agree on the facts of what we have just witnessed.  We cannot agree on what is a man and what is a woman, and even whether or not these exist.

Some of us want equality of outcomes; some of us want equality of opportunity.  Some of us view racism as the defining feature of this country, past and present.  Obviously, they have not traveled much.  Others know that the United States leads the world in race relations.  The difference here is vast and insurmountable.

Some of us believe that silence is violence and that actual violence is free speech.  And some of us believe that silence is silence and violence is violence.  And the best cure for bad ideas and bad speech, is more speech and differing perspectives.  But the cultural revolutionaries insist that you parrot their every thought.  Aloud.  Or else.

And beyond these real differences, we look down on the choices, observations, and opinions, of the other side.  We do not share the same moral outlook.  We do not share the same values.  And let's face it, we question the morality of the other side.

I know this is true for me.  Take Covid for instance.  I view the way the Left has dealt with this "crisis" as immoral.  At the same time, I refuse to use made-up pronouns.  And of course, they view this as immoral.  Even violent.

I view my wealthy, very left-of-center former friends as immoral.  As they preach their lefty doctrine from their million-dollar homes.  Oh, and look down their noses at average, hard-working, very middle class, right-of-center types.  You know, the guy working in the heat to keep their air conditioner running.

I am not wild about the religious right, and all their similar moralizing.  They can be very cruel to people with a different conception of God.  And certainly to people with no god.  But they hold so little power and influence; their judgements matter little in our world.

I see no point in engaging in any discussion with the Left.  Individually or as a group.  If we cannot agree on basic facts, there is no longer a point of origin.  We can no longer hash things out in the public square, nor in the marketplace of ideas.  We go on our respective television networks and preach to our own choirs.  Engagement with the other side is not part of the equation.  Yes, this is bad, but evidently, in 2021, this is the way we, all of us, want it.

And if you do try to engage, say on an individual level, with your friends or family or colleagues, I think you will find that their starting point is so foreign, that you do not even recognize it.

Dinner conversations that at one time were interesting discussions of current affairs, now revolve, exclusively, around children and their antics (but not their academics, which of course have become politicized).  Although, if we are feeling a bit reckless, we may venture into lawn care.  Just avoid discussing fertilizer choices or your new gas-powered lawnmower.

But let's face it, we no longer have "mixed" dinner parties.  No, not any of the out-of-date definitions of "mixed."  Thankfully, we have put that nonsense behind us.  Although, this too, is a point of contention.  No I mean "mixed" as in ideologically diverse.  Politically diverse.  Can't be done today.

Today's dinner party is an echo chamber.

We are all worse off for it.  But the worst is yet to come.

There will be blood in the streets.

There already is.

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Pandemic Redefined

How should we define pandemic today?

pandemic (noun)

1.  Conventional

Let's go with Merriam-Webster:  

An outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affects a significant proportion of the population : a pandemic outbreak of a disease. 

Of course, this usage can also be an adjective.

New 2020 Definitions

2.  Crisis not to be wasted by pro-government types

Crisis which allows vast expansion of government and government-mandated regulation.

3.  Excuse used by public-sector employees

An excuse not to work:  Excuse to not do your job, and yet, still get paid.  Particularly for government and public-sector employees.  See teachers.

4.  Virtue signaling event

An ideal virtue signaling milieu for left-of-center types.  See zeitgeist.

5.  Mass hysteria

Exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement among a group of people.  Also see, zeitgeist.

In fact, I would argue that 2-5 have really come to define the zeitgeist of our time.  It is truly shameful.  Yet half of us are smugly proud of it and half of us have been and continue to be victimized by it.

Update  8 July 2021

Today I read that global Covid-related deaths have reached four million people.  Yeah, that's a lot of people.  But in a world with nearly eight billion people, the mortality rate of Covid hovers around:  0.0005.  That's one-twentieth of one percent.  And the alarmists...er, I mean the politicians and the so-called journalists, are happy to include comorbidities in their reporting.

I should think that the lunacy of shutting down the global economy is more than obvious.  You have to be willfully blind not to see it.  Or, have completely ulterior motives entirely.

In other words, if you are part of this nonsense, or if you merely support it, you are stupid or unthinking or just plain evil.

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