Posted on 04/13/2020 6:51:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
Have you ever been COVID-shamed online? Maybe you posted pictures of you and your family at a park and got reamed by someone for not being at home. Maybe, heaven forbid, you even dared to express a view on social media that strays from the ‘accepted opinion’ of months of mandated quarantine and government-enforced shutdowns until not a single solitary individual is infected with the virus.
If the wrong people get wind you’ve expressed such an opinion, you’ll reap the whirlwind, I can promise you that. I’ve been there and done that. Fortunately, however, my work in conservative and right-of-center media gives me some pretty thick skin that makes me virtually immune to criticism. I simply don’t give a flying flip what anyone, especially the left, thinks about opinions I sincerely believe reasonable evidence suggests are correct. And that’s a good thing for you, because I’m about to tell you how to shake off their COVID-shaming stupidity like water off a duck’s back.
Indeed, COVID-shaming is the latest way leftists try and fool the general public into mistakenly thinking they are somehow “good people.” It’s a win-win for them because they can pretend they actually care about human life and, via these ridiculous shutdowns, accomplish all their goals, all in one fell swoop. It’s almost admirable, actually, for its level of evil genius. When it comes to never letting crises go to waste, why kill one bird when you can kill two?
From the safety of their beltway townhouses, leftists point their judgemental fingers at anyone who isn’t meeting their definition of “social distancing” or who, worse, expresses any opinion about the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus pandemic that they disagree with. And trust me, they’ll ‘disagree with’ pretty much any opinion that doesn’t involve them getting to stay cloistered away in their homes, presumably living off what they believe will be the government teat for the next, oh, 18 months or so, give or take a few days.
As examples, these negative responses to a tweet I made last week questioning the continued wisdom of allowing medical professionals like Dr. Anthony Fauci to “dictate the ruination of the entire U.S. economy & impoverishment of millions in order to fight coronavirus” was my first real experience in online COVID-shaming:
“So you want more dead.”
“Yeah F@#K SCIENCE!”
“Wow, not only is your idea completely lacking in any kind of human decency, it's also idiotic.”
“Or your alternative would be a thriving economy purely coming from the funeral business.”
“LOL you moron. Dr. Fauci will survive long after you and the Twitiot In Chief are long gone. But hey I've got a great challenge for you Scottie. Go take a tour of an ER, ICU and the makeshift morgue at your favorite hospital and get back to us.”
“Who is this human skid mark?”
So yeah, that was fun (Seriously, it was. I laughed reading most of them - thick skin, remember?). As you can see, the COVID-shamers can get quite emotional. By pretending to care about the “lives” we’re supposedly saving with these state-enforced shutdowns and criticizing anyone with a different take as somehow morally inferior, leftists have found endless opportunities to preen and virtue-signal. However, as is normal with the left, there is no substance behind their bloviating.
Here are several of their most ridiculous retorts, and how to counter them:
“You want grandma to die.”
Some version of this theme is endlessly parroted by the death-obsessed COVID-shamers, as if any return to normal economic activity means an automatic death sentence for those most vulnerable to the virus. Of course, the first response is that none of us want “grandma” or anyone else to die of coronavirus. Second, the vast majority of “grandmas,” unless they have certain preexisting medical conditions, will recover just fine even if they catch it. The question is, can we reasonably protect “grandma” while at the same time protecting vulnerable Americans who will be irreparably harmed by a looming Second Great Depression? The answer isn’t just “of course,” it’s also “we must.” We’re at the risk of losing far more lives in the long run than we ever would have saved with these draconian measures.
“You just care about the stock market.”
This COVID-shaming technique is geared at a tried-and-true leftist tactic - class-warfare, insinuating that conservatives who want to reopen things simply care about their stock options or their 401Ks and consequently don’t care about lives. First of all, we do care about lives (see above). Second, most working people have some sort of retirement plan, so not wanting those to crash and burn is a normal human reaction. One CAN care about saving lives AND economics at the same time. It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. Yes, lives come first, but again, there is a point where extreme efforts to ‘save’ one group of lives will lead to the casting aside of others (see below). How many people would die long-term in a newly poverty-stricken country? Some of us don’t want to find out.
“Gazillions will die.”
Yeah, this one is super easy. ‘Gazillions’ will NOT die. Not even close. Dire death projections for this virus have been whittled down to the point where, at present, the toll is likely to be less than a normal flu season. And many of those early models took social distancing into account already, which means this virus is likely far less deadly than anyone thought at first. But we’re still acting like it’s the literal end of the world. Not to be cynical, but might there be other motives at work?
“The virus will decide when things return to normal.”
Those who parrot this phrase got it from Dr. Fauci and other authority figures, as if the virus somehow has a brain and gets to decide things. News flash: PEOPLE decide when to stop doing stupid, useless, over-the-top, society-destroying things to try and protect itself from a virus that has a death toll only slightly higher than the seasonal flu. That’s because people, not viruses, have brains. Duh, right? It’s amazing that a non-medical expert like me should have to explain this to the likes of Dr. Fauci, but here we are.
“You first!”
This one really cracks me up. As if those of us who want a return to normal aren’t willing to take the risk of contracting the virus ourselves. That’s the point, you pencil-necked twits. I don’t want to contract this virus any more than I would want the flu or a cold. I’ll take reasonable precautions, and if I do get it I’ll quarantine myself so I don’t spread it to others. But I’m not worried about it and I’m more than willing to take the ‘risk’ to save countless American lives, far more than this virus would have ever taken if allowed to run rampant.
“You don’t care about science.”
Leftists love ‘science,’ as long as they think it supports their ridiculous policy proposals. It never does though, and the Wuhan virus is no different, especially since the ‘science’ has been almost universally wrong since the beginning of this outbreak. Yes, we should continue to learn more about how the virus is transmitted and the toll it takes on humans. As we have, we should work on vaccines, testing, treatments, and ways to reasonably reduce the spread of this and any other transmittable disease. Science is a good thing. However in this case math - as in numerators and denominators - can tell us enough to know that what we’ve done is entirely too much.
“If one life is saved it’s all worth it.”
This is another commonly used phrase, but it’s also one of the most absurd. If “one life saved” is worth any action, why not stop driving to ‘save’ the 1.25 million car accident deaths worldwide each year? Sure, flying is the safest form of transportation statistics-wise, but if we had stopped it in 1970 we’d have ‘saved’ the 84,000 people who have died in the past 50 years from aviation accidents. Or how about the 2.3 million who die every year from occupational accidents and work-related diseases? If those lives ‘saved’ aren’t worth stopping work entirely, I don’t know what is. I mean, we’d all exist in soul-crushing poverty and die from starvation or some third-world disease but hey, ‘one life,’ right? Of course, life is precious, but when the heavy hand of government takes historic, unprecedented measures to put one victim group over all others, creating additional victim groups in the process, that “one life” saved ultimately comes at the cost of many, many others.
So no, there’s absolutely no reason to give one inch of moral high ground to the COVID-shamers. Their motives are suspect, their morals are lacking, and their arguments are, well, just super, super lame.
Coronavirus vs. Atomic Bomb - Fatality comparison (April 9 update)
Just data, numbers, not a forecast, model or projection.
No editorial slant implied. Just numbers.
[3 minute video, amazing data graphing.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_wZQ8fVIwQ
And how accurate are those numbers. As one commenter there said,
“How many of the people that died from this virus actually died from the virus? If I die in a nursing home of pneumonia and test positive for CV19, does my name show up in one of those little squares?”
Shaming goes both ways.
“It’s just the flu bro”. If you’re scared of COVID, you’re too scared to be alive. You should just crawl under a rock and stay there.
Auto accidents kill more people than COVID has.
If you simply post an article about COVID, you’re labeled a “fearper” or a fear mongerer.
If you point to the case fatality rates, which is based on known cases, you get told nobody knows how many cases there are. Therefore all statistics about COVID are meaningless.
If you care about the 20,000 that have died, or many more that will die without mitigation efforts, then you’re ignoring the economic suffering of the millions unemployed.
Herd immunity is the only solution. Lock downs followed by mitigation efforts won’t work. You’re only delaying the inevitable. Seriously, considering how many deaths are projected, can we not give the latter a try?
I’m shifting my work from home back to the office, time for America to do the same.
I really want to unload on that thread but my real name is associated with my profile and who knows what might happen. These folks are unhinged Karen's, to be charitable.
“You fell off of a cliff both morally and intellectually”
Ah, the shaming continues even on the anti-shaming thread.
Numbers, meaningless numbers.
What does “Tested positive for COVID-19” mean exactly.
How many tested positive have Mild, Medium, or serious. We keep hearing of those tested but no level attached. There are a great people that will test positive and show no symptoms at all.
We are being fed doubtful information, if it can even be called information.
An instance of false numbers.
A neighbor was sick and said he had the virus. When asked if he was tested he answer was no but he thought he had the symptoms.
This kind of false reporting by media and those relying on models drive the data in the wrong direction.
I went to Walmart yesterday for a quick in and out for just a few items. Most people were wearing masks and nearly everyone was respectful of other peoples' space. Except, that is, for the Mexican worker crowd. They were all over the place and running around like ants on cocaine. They invaded everyone's space and were oblivious to any social distancing concerns of others.
If these idiots have anyone among them who is infected, they will all be exposed.
Usually, I have an appreciation for them because I realize they are hard workers (though I do wonder if most are illegal). But now...eff 'em.
I recall a history professor observing many years ago: ‘You can’t have a Big Tyrant (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Saddam etc) without an entire network of mini-tyrants... bureaucrats and officials who live in terror of the mini-tyrant just above them and simultaneously terrorize those just below them.
#RustyIrony: All the levels of mini-tyrants also live in constant fear of displeasing their immediate superiors and being sacked (or worse!). Even the BIG Tyrant lives
in fear of being overthrown or even assassinated. NO ONE is allowed to relax or live in peace and security.. tension is ever present, despair always close by! Citizens are encouraged to rat on others to gain any advantage in this putrid arrangement! Trust no one, suspect everyone... you are ALONE!
L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti (D) recently stepped up to prove this point! (Exhibit A).
In some areas (most but not all “Blue”) we are seeing the infancy of this during the shutdown... when churchgoers are fined, people taking a walk arrested and civil liberties suspended... the question of “cure worse than disease” is certainly valid to ask! But if you dare ask it... you get the mob refrain... “you must want people to die!”
Proving yet again the ancient truism... all tyranny is done for the “good” and “safety” of the people!
New term “Karen-ism”...
You’ve been trying to dish it out throughout this whole sad charade.
What I just said about the global warming projections and Chinese Virus death projections being funded by the same old globalists is absolutely true. If you didn’t want to have that pointed out then maybe you shouldn’t have brought those debunked projections up.
I’m not a peacemaker on this issue and will not become one.
And I am in a position to say that people will have the things they supported and the things they said during this brought up again and their noses rubbed in it for the next decade or so.
Great post! The Schlicter column is funny as hell and 100% correct, as usual.
The bulk of the Fearbros here have been posting things like that for weeks.
When it comes to this virus I mostly care about only two numbers:
1. How many people are there.
2. How many of them died of the Virus.
And number two is dubious because the argument can be made that people are counted as CV19 deaths simply because they tested positive AFTER dying of something else.
A side note is that it really matters who a virus kills. One that attacks people in nurseries and schools is considered much more serious than one that attacks the same number of people in nursing homes.
Like some others here on FR, Coronavirus has given Danny’s life meaning and purpose. Ain’t no way he’s going to let this manufactured crisis go without a fight! Oh crap...I just shamed him didn’t I?)
Bkmrk
Funny how everyone becomes a “globalist” when they put out projections you dissgree with.
I put out my own projections.
You’re an expert on distorting the views of the other side, I’ll give you that. Sort of like how the Democrats do it.
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