The Other McCain

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Mask Fetishists Mourn End of an Era

Posted on | May 15, 2021 | Comments Off on Mask Fetishists Mourn End of an Era

Joe Biden was having a terrible week and, I suspect, James Carville must have advised the White House that it was a bad look for them to be insisting that people keep wearing masks even after they’d been vaccinated against COVID-19. Also, what else could explain why the American Federation of Teachers — the radical union that had been dictating Democratic Party policy on whether schools should re-open — suddenly reversed its position and embraced re-opening plans?

Someone (and, as I say, I strongly suspect it was Carville) must have penetrated the MSNBC/CNN groupthink bubble surrounding Biden and said, “Hey, man, you’re looking like a big loser here.”

At any rate, with Israel under attack, the jobs report sending “stagflation” signals, and the Colonial Pipeline shut down, the Biden administration decided that, contrary to its earlier position, mandatory mask-wearing is now over. And liberals immediately mourned this news.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said Thursday she would need to “rewire” herself to no longer look at unmasked people as a “threat” in response to relaxed federal guidelines for vaccinated persons.
Following months of criticism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that vaccinated people could ditch masks in nearly all circumstances. While met with relief and calls like “it’s about damn time” from Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, some liberal figures fretted about the sudden shift.
“I feel like I’m going to have to rewire myself so that when I see someone out in the world who’s not wearing a mask, I don’t instantly think, ‘You are a threat,’” Maddow said. “Or you are selfish or you are a Covid denier and you definitely haven’t been vaccinated. I mean, we’re going to have to rewire the way that we look at each other.”

You see? You’re selfish and ignorant, and so wearing masks was, for liberals, a symbol of their own power to force other people to comply.

Honestly, I was never one of those anti-mask rebels. Because I work from home anyway, the only time mask requirements affected me was when I had to go to the store or out to eat at a restaurant. Is it annoying and uncomfortable? Sure, but I understood that store clerks are exposed to hundreds of customers every day, so that if having customers wear masks reduced the risk of contagion even marginally, then mask mandates would help ensure that stores remained open for business.

It was the government-ordered lockdowns of “non-essential” businesses that caused the real economic damage, whereas mask requirements were merely bothersome and yet, to a certain type of liberal, wearing masks was a ritual of political symbolism. They knew that lots of people hated wearing masks, and that there was not a lot of scientific evidence in support of masks as a disease-prevention measure. However, symbolic obedience was the real value of mask mandates. Liberals derived from this the thrill of seeing everyone forced to comply with their demands, and ending mask mandates deprives them of that source of pleasure.

Why would anyone vote to be governed by liberals? I mean, you might not like Tucker Carlson, but he’s not afflicted by the kind of sadomasochistic urges that inspire Rachel Maddow, et al.




 

Category: MSNBC, Science

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