Trivializing COVID19

I see a lot of people relentlessly trying to trivialize the danger of COVID-19. They're clearly doing so for ideological reasons, which is fine, except that they spout pseudo-scientific b.s. to obscure their ideological reasons.
 

What's noteworthy is that you don't really hear doctors and nurses in hospitals or nursing home staff trivializing the virus.

What you do hear is medical professionals and care staff talking about how bad it is in the hospitals and nursing homes, not only in metro NYC but also here in upstate. They use words like overwhelming, exhausting and unprecedented, even those who've worked during previous pandemics. They're not saying "it's just like regular flu season." They're saying it's worse than during AIDS. 

Maybe this is a terribly mainstream belief, MSM sheeple that I must be. But the people who are on the front lines of this and have actual scientific training from real schools might, just might, actually know what the fuck they're talking about better than someone whose "expertise" changes (impeachment last month, epidemiology this month, chem trails next month) based on whatever is trending on Youtube at the moment. Or maybe not. Maybe those LPNs risking their lives for $16/hr are just part of the Grand Conspiracy too.

Historically, Americans have always lurched through extremes where we go back and forth between fetishizing science uncritically to rejecting it entirely. We're obviously in the latter period right now. Take a swig of Clorox if you disagree.

When I lived in West Africa, a Guinean friend of mine who was a chemistry teacher told me something I never forgot: "Science without conscience will be the ruin of Mankind." This is not about rejecting science. It means assessing it with a critical eye based on the intersection of ethics and actual scientific principles. But we Americans never seem to be mature enough as a people to master this nuance.

Skepticism vs cynicism

Skepticism is the principle that you should not automatically believe every opinion, theory or informnation that you come across. It's the principle that you should try to verify data as best you can and independently assess opinion and theory. Skepticism means you don't assume something is true or sensible until you can conclude it to be so via critical thinking.

Cynicism is the principle that you should automatically assume as false or dishonest every (or most) theory, opinion or data that you come across. It's the principle that anything that doesn't correspond to your existing beliefs cannot possibly be demonstrated as true or sensible no matter what. Cynicism is as much an antithesis to critical thinking as naivete.

Skepticism is necessary to have a functioning society and be a functioning adult. Cynicism is corrosive to both.

Why I wear a mask

I've seen several local businesses posting something like "No mask, no entry, no exceptions." And it always provokes howls of outrage from cable "news" addicts denouncing the business owners and those who follow their rules as submissive slaves and sheeple. 

They're a private business. They can make you wear a mask any time they want, pandemic or not, governor's orders or not. You step on their property, respect their rules. Get over it or leave.

 Listen, wear a mask in public. Don't wear a mask and deal with the consequences. That's your choice.

I choose to wear one. Not so much because I'm that worried about catching it, even though I'm in a higher risk category. I do so out of respect for my neighbors.

Out of respect for the underpaid cashiers and stock clerks who deal with hundreds or thousands of people coming in, some of whom are no doubt sick and many of whom do not respect social distancing. I'm sure most of workers have their stress heightened just a little bit every time they see a customer without a mask. This is not the job they signed up for.

Out of respect. for senior citizen shoppers who no doubt share that fear.

Out of respect for the doctors and nurses and other medical personnel who having working straight out with no break for a month. Out of respect for their family members that they barely see anymore.

Out of respect for everyone who wants this pandemic to subside sooner, rather than later.

If you think your governor is Hitler for issuing restrictions and that he's trampling on your God-given right to get a haircut that our Founding Fathers fought for, fine. That's your right.

If you think the business owners doing this are idiots because they don't realize this is all a hoax like you learned from Fox News or YouTube Medical School, that's your right.

If orotesting that makes you feel like Rosa Parks, congratulations. That's your right.

Go ahead, break your arm patting yourself on the back. The first responders will treat your broken arm anyway. But bear in mind, they will be wearing masks too.

But don't crap on people who think they're part of society and choose to respect their fellow community members. That's our right.

Progressivism used to dominate rural America

A friend of mine asked me to read a piece entitled What Liberals Don't Realize from the website Quora. There were definitely chunks of it that made me roll my eyes. Slog through it because there is also some good stuff in there.

The general lack of interest of left-of-center folks in the realities of rural and small town America strikes me as not just ignorance, but willful ignorance. This comes across to folks who live in places lke my hometown as outright contempt. This is an issue I've been calling attention to for a long time.

Progressive discussion is so urban-centric that it makes itself seem irrelevant at best or alien and hostile at worst in much of the country, even though many of those policies would help people in places like where I live.

People in rural and small town America aren't stupid. But if only one side is engaging them, no wonder the other side gains no traction there.

Progressives need to stop treating this part of the country like an afterthought and speak directly (and listen to) rural and small town Americans if they ever want their policies to gain traction.

***

 The prairies - now solidly red - used to be a hotbed of rural activism. Witness Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter With Kansas? 

In the Midwest, the fusion of the urban labor movement with the interests of rural farmers was a key coalition that made the progressive movement so powerful in the early 20th century. In fact, the blue outfit in Minnesota is still known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party.

I was looking at the 1912 presidential election, at the height of the progressive movement. There was a Progressive candidate (Theodore Roosevelt) AND a Socialist candidate (Eugene Debs). The pair did very well in more rural states: South Dakota (55% combined), Washington (48%), Nevada (44%), Montana (41%). 

Because of progressives' self-defeating tunnel vision, such numbers seem inconceivable today.