Next time Donald Trump poses for a photo call in one of those ridiculous, unnecessary and completely off-brand face masks, maybe he should remember the history of his good friends the Chinese.
In the 17th century, China’s Ming dynasty was overthrown by the Manchu invaders of the Qing dynasty. The Manchus imposed their will on the conquered Han majority by forcing them to adopt their hairstyle. Where the Han had traditionally worn their hair long and tied in a bun, they now had to wear it Manchu-style, shaved at the front and sides with the top grown long and plaited into a queue. The sentence for failing to have the correct new haircut was death by beheading.
Does this scenario sound vaguely familiar? Sure all those US states now enforcing the wearing of face masks may claim they’re acting in the interests of public health and safety — and sure it’s not a capital crime, yet. But really, all those corona-fascist state governors imposing this unnatural and unfamiliar dress code are doing it for the same reason the conquering Manchus did it to the Han: to show the bitches — that’s you and me — who’s boss.
I can understand why Democrats and other liberal-lefties are unable to see the problem here: why should they when they so adore regulation and the firm hand of Big Government? What does puzzle me greatly, though, is why the entire conservative movement isn’t united in outrage at this blatant exercise in judicial overreach.
This ought to be THE civil liberties issue of our era: a draconian, intrusive, economically damaging regulation, quixotically imposed on the populace for the flimsiest of reasons. Yet instead of fighting it tooth and nail, far, far too many of my conservative confreres are just shrugging their shoulders and saying: ‘Well if it saves a few lives, why should I mind having to wear a bit of cloth over my face when I go to the mall?’
Well the reason you should mind, you surrender-monkey faux-conservative idiots, is that the number of lives it may end up saving is likely even smaller than your personal number of brain cells.
Even at the very height of the pandemic about two months ago, cloth masks (as opposed to the professional medical variety) would have been next to useless in preventing viral transmission: as a number of studies and medical experts have noted, the mesh is too large to stop a virus and anyway, they’re often incorrectly worn.
But now that the virus has begun to retreat — as viruses tend to do in the summer months — and the number of deaths has tumbled almost to nothing, the rationale for imposing masks is more nonsensical still. It’s like surrendering your arms to an enemy you’ve just beaten in battle: again, something liberals might find appealing, but which all conservatives ought to find incomprehensible.
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Granted, the mainstream media continues assiduously to promote the narrative that the crisis is far from over — and will continue to get worse until we find that Holy Grail vaccine. But conservatives really ought to know by now that what the MSM tells you about coronavirus (and much else besides) should be taken with a massive pinch of salt. The MSM reports a ‘surge’ in infections as something shocking when it fact it’s just the inevitable result of more widespread testing; it cherry-picks localized ‘spikes’ in death rates to signify burgeoning catastrophe when a) the national trend remains downward and b) increases which may look large in percentage terms are actually tiny in terms of numbers. Furthermore, as Ron Paul recently noted, the figures are deeply suspect anyway. One twenty-something listed as having died of COVID in Florida turned out, on closer examination, to have been killed in a motorcycle crash. In South Carolina, the state health agency admitted that the recent ‘spike’ in deaths was simply the result of delayed reporting.
This is what makes it so especially disappointing seeing Trump wearing one of those masks. He ought to be taking a stand on this issue: signaling to the world that whatever Dr Fauci, Bill Gates and the World Health Organization may say to scare us into cowering under our beds until Big Pharma can come up with an expensive vaccine, he Donald Trump remains on the side of the Ordinary Joe who refuses to wear one of those stupid muzzles unless there is compelling evidence that they’re going to make the slightest difference.
Currently, there is no such compelling evidence. We red meat conservatives love and respect our vulnerable old folk at least as much as liberals do. (Probably more, actually, let’s be honest). But we refuse to be bludgeoned with emotionally blackmailing arguments about how, by not wearing masks, we’re putting these people at risk. If that were really the case, we’d all wear those masks, no problem. But it’s not the case: those masks are being imposed on us for the most cynical of political reasons which have nothing to do with public health. Shame on those of our conservative brethren too ill-informed — or simply too cucked — to realize this.
