There was an old joke among workers back in the days of the Soviet Union that went:
"They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work."
I think a slight alteration sums up well the state of modern day America and the ruling elite's bizarre obsession with facemasks:
"They pretend that masks work, and we pretend to wear them."
Regarding the first contention, that those in power pretend facemasks work, I will point you to only one recent example among many illustrating how those who mandate that the rest of us wear masks don't seem to believe themselves to be subject to their own rules.
Here's Biden chumming around maskless in a massive crowd, but it's okay because he's a Democrat
More to the point, given that this is purportedly about a public health emergency and therefore a matter of life and death, they don't seem to believe themselves to be subject to their own "science" either.
Why do they want us to be terrified when they themselves clearly aren’t?
But it goes beyond even that. As Georgi Boorman of The Federalist asks:
Influenza Is More Dangerous To Kids Than COVID Is, So Why Doesn't The CDC Recommend Masks For The Flu?
Good question.
The flu can be transmitted asymptomatically, it's more dangerous to kids than COVID, and its vaccine allows for ‘breakthrough infections.' Yet the CDC still doesn't recommend masks for the flu.
No, no they do not.
Boorman listed one of the documents the CDC cites (PDF).
I checked to see how many times masks are mentioned as one of the "preventative actions [that] can help fight germs like flu."
The answer is zero, and I'm rounding up.
I like to be thorough, so I decided to dig a little deeper and check out the CDC website myself.
There was nothing about masks on their main flu page, either, but there was a promising looking link regarding how to prevent the flu.
It took me here. I would think this would be pretty much a maskapalooza, with endless calls to please wear your mask if you have any sense of collective responsibility whatsoever.
Goose egg here, too.
But wait, on that page they have ten categories of life-saving advice, eight of which involve vaccines, their benefits, how they are made, the wide variety of shapes and sizes in which they are available and so on.
Why it almost reads like a marketing pitch for a pharmaceutical company. The only thing missing is a smiling family of satisfied customers.
Oh, right.
Funny how that works.
I explored the two categories that were not obsessed with vaccines.
First up, "How to Prevent Flu."
Surely masks will be an essential part of preventing the spread of a deadly virus in which children are among the most susceptible.
Curiously, no.
Here’s a colorful poster they provide listing “3 actions to fight flu.”
Care to hazard a guess as to which action is conspicuous by its absence?
The poster begins with a prelude that could have been lifted from a Covid flyer, “millions sick,” “hundreds of thousands hospitalized,” “tends of thousands die.”
And yet they list only vaccines, measures to “stop the spread” (avoid close contact with the sick, avoid touching your face, cover coughs and sneezes, and wash your hands), and using antivirals, most of which are exactly what many of us argue regarding dealing with Covid.
How about clicking through to "Healthy Habits to Help Prevent Flu?" Why, surely wearing facemasks all the time would be and extra doubly healthy habit.
In case you were wondering if I found anything here about masks, well, they did offer downloadable posters on how to effectively cover a cough in over 15 languages including Kirundi for some reason. (Nothing against the people of Burundi but only around 40,000 live in the United States, vs. as one example, over 300,000 people from Thailand. How do decisions like that get made?)
Covering your mouth when you cough makes sense. Universal mask wearing does not, which is why there is no poster on that in any language when it comes to the flu, a deadly illness that we have been dealing with for centuries.
What about second half of the joke, the notion that the rest of us pretend to wear masks?
Surely a large portion of the population relents. Even I relent when I have no choice, like taking my son to the doctor. However the fact of the matter is, we are in an era of mass disobedience, even in the deepest of blue Washington DC.
I was at a Washington Nationals game early last month. They were playing the Red Sox, (with the chance, three chances actually, to knock them out of contention for the wild card) so it was fairly well attended with tens of thousands in the stands.
Here are their rules regarding facemasks.
If you are entering any indoor space at Nationals Park (including but not limited to, restaurant, retail store, bathrooms, clubs, elevators, stairwells, corridors, conference rooms, offices, first aid, sensory room and nursing mothers lounge) you must wear a mask unless you are actively eating or drinking.
We all dutifully wore our masks to get in and that was pretty much the end of that for most people. I only left my seat once to go to the bathroom where you absolutely must wear your mask and about 90% weren't, and exactly 0% were admonished for it by anyone, whether in authority or not.
No one cared.
We took the Metro (DC's subway) home. Masks are required BY FEDERAL LAW!
The TSA has extended the COVID-19 public transportation mask mandate through January 18, 2022. All customers must continue to wear a face mask when riding Metro. Remember to keep your nose and mouth covered on trains, buses and in stations.
Compliance was significantly higher here, but again, many of us went maskless, and no one was admonished by anyone.
No one cared.
Well, there was one exception. My wife admonished me. "Are you setting a good example for your son?" she asked. "Yes," I said, "yes I am." She knows the laws don’t make much sense, but she's more of a rule follower than I am. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly believe in rules. Civilized society rests on following laws and I comply with all kinds of laws I don't like (income tax anyone?), but as I told her, I refuse to live in crazy land. (For the record, about halfway through the trip I complied in the interest of family comity. You pick your battles.)
Still, my son did not wear a mask at the ballgame. I'm not sure my wife knew he was supposed to.
More recently I went to a Penn State football game. I was greeted by these signs throughout downtown State College.
I was there early enough that the stores were almost all closed save for a few, one of which being where I took the above picture. I walked in. Maybe 30% of the customers were wearing masks. No one was admonished, the workers (who were all wearing masks) said nothing.
No one cared.
The people wearing the masks don't care otherwise they would say something. The people charged with enforcing the mandates don't care otherwise they would do something, and those of us not wearing masks don't care otherwise we'd be wearing them.
This willful noncompliance is by no means universal, and there are certainly plenty of examples of people losing their minds over others not wearing masks, but it's a start. I don't think it's healthy to live a fiction. It can have real and lasting impacts on society. Some deadly and immediate.
Of course plenty of people are willing to comply, particularly in blue areas of the country either because they don’t know they are living an elaborate pantomime or they have been conditioned over time to be obedient.
By way of example, I was at an outdoor birthday party in my northern Virginia neighborhood this past weekend and most of the adults wore masks.
Yes, outdoors.
I think it was partly a matter of everyone trying to be super courteous to everyone else just in case, or at least that’s the benefit of the doubt I gave them.
I like to be courteous too, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to willingly play along in this insanity.
I took their vaccine. So why am I still being told to wear a mask? How has “15 days to flatten the curve” become “shut up and do what you’re told.” Why am I told that wearing a facemask is absolutely essential to stop one deadly virus and not another? And why are schoolchildren being masked in order to prevent transmission of a virus that is only remotely dangerous to them but not for one that kills hundreds every year?
At some point we are no longer being courteous to those gripped with irrational fears.
We are becoming enablers of mental illness.
Great article. I loved the way you would add that no one cared after various examples.