Masks and Vaccine Mandates Won't End the Pandemic - Political Polling Will
The last couple years have been consequence-free for the rule-makers, and it shows
Here we go again. Today Philadelphia’s indoor mask mandate goes back into effect (a week after announcement - emergency!), and New York City's mayor seems to be following close behind. (Finally, Philly leading NYC in something!) Despite the fact that less than 2% of all hospital beds are taken by a covid positive patient (and historically, roughly 30% of THOSE hospitalizations are not-covid related), the ‘leaders’ are reaching for the comfort blanket of mask mandates. “Something must be done. This is something! Therefore, we must do this!”
Modern bureaucrats are masters at passing the buck. Cover from an ‘expert’ or government agency is like a ‘Get out of consequences free’ card to impose all sorts of rules and restrictions. “We’re just following the science,” they say. And when that science actually shows that none of the mandates did anything at all? Disappear it and continue saying the science is on your side!
But there is good news out of the federal behemoth today! A federal judge struck down the airplane mask mandate. Of course, there was never any evidence that planes were a major vector of transmission. Nobody was wearing masks on planes during spring 2020, and yet there was no explosion of covid around the country (see above) — and that was at a time that acquired immunity was MUCH lower than it is today. There’s ALSO no reasoning given by the CDC that the mask rules should remain in place. There’s no end-goal to be reached and logical way that mask rules would help us do it, just “Something must be done………”
My guess is that cities re-introducing mask mandates now plays the same role the original mandates did: as a reminder to BE SCARED. Ramping the fear back up is a great way to get another round of ‘emergency’ rules to fortify an election — and boy do these midterms need some serious fortification. If the media and ‘expert’ class is already talking up this minor increase in cases, imagine what will happen when the sunbelt sees their summer spike, and then the rest of the country starts to tick back up in the fall. The politicians will use their still-in-effect emergency powers to once-again bypass normal election rules. But it’s to save democracy, you see…….
Politicians don’t care about anything but keeping their jobs, so the way to stop this from happening is pushing back HARD on any attempt to re-implement covid restrictions. The data is overwhelmingly clear — the lockdowns and other restrictions were immensely destructive but didn’t move the needle on virus activity. The states that have been ignoring covid for over a year are doing no worse than their covid-obsessed neighbors. If we can go to football games while ignoring covid protocols, surely we hold a ‘regular’ election.
As one of the airline pilots suing the CDC, today was a great win. But as you point out, we must continue to fight to make sure they can never bring mandates back again when they feel like it. We need to hold the people implementing these mandates personally liable. I hear there’s already a lawsuit in Philly.
Vote fraud keeps the politicians in power not voters.