May 28, 2020
Mandatory Masks Aren’t About Safety, They’re About Social Control
From the article:
Masking Is Meant to Build an Opinion Cascade
Mandatory masking seeks to build that consent. In addition to extending the fiction that we are in an emergency sufficient to trigger the extra-constitutional authority of local and state executives, mandatory masking acts as a peer pressure-fueled signal that encourages conformity to our coming "new normal.â€
An April 18 articlein the Washington Post underscores the strategy, presenting the mask controversy as a left versus right debate. People resisting mandatory mask policies are, per usual, painted as unreasonable, headstrong, and backward—displaying ignorant American bravado while rejecting science and good sense. (That caricature is itself a tool to mock, marginalize, and silence dissent.)
The most telling passage of the article is this one:
For Trump’s supporters, declining to wear a mask is a visible way to demonstrate "that ‘I’m a Republican,’ or ‘I want businesses to start up again,’ or ‘I support the president,’ †said Robert Kahn, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis who has studied Americans’ attitudes toward masks. ‘Masks will quickly become the new normal in blue states, but if social distancing continues through 2022, the mentality among Republicans could well change, too: If I can go to work and the cost of marginal improvement in my life is wearing a mask, maybe Americans of both parties do accommodate ourselves to it.’
And that’s the key. If we want to marginally improve our lives, we will submit. The masks aren’t the endgame. The point of the masks is to teach the American people that if we want to get some sense of normal, we have to accept abnormality.
If everyone is wearing a mask, it telegraphs a society-wide acceptance that the status quo has changed, and with that consensus other changes can come, too. Society will be primed to accept measures that most normal Americans would reject in any other time. Our new normal will include a permanent expansion of the bureaucracy and alarming new COVID-related regulations.
A slova from Tim:A cult always gets recruits to do symbolic things and wear symbolic clothes. Talismans are common. This resembles cult-like behavior in so very many ways. It's clearly a sacrament to get people to accept the saddle on the back.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:10 AM
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Posted by: Dana Mathewson at May 28, 2020 10:22 AM (mrRJc)
Posted by: Mike at May 28, 2020 02:31 PM (N6A8Q)
Meanwhile, Mike -- you, Tim and I can frustrate them by just refusing to die. It'll be difficult for Tim with his myriad "challenges," but conservatives are a feisty lot, and I'm pretty sure we're up to the challenge. What's eventually going to kill me is my near-terminal frustration with Windows 10! Thankfully, my wife's wonderful cooking, general care and love is doing a great job of counteracting that.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at May 28, 2020 03:42 PM (mrRJc)
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at May 30, 2020 07:27 AM (Cka+V)
Posted by: Plot For Sale Liberty Lands Lahore at July 01, 2022 06:25 AM (vR4Hy)
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