Posted on 07/30/2021 3:32:11 PM PDT by Drew68
Not only do we exist, there are lots of us.
A few days ago, I woke to find myself awash in new recommendations from the CDC. Apparently, because of the dreaded Delta variant, everyone once again has to wear masks in ‘high-transmission areas’, even if they’re vaccinated. I looked at the map: ‘high-transmission areas’ currently seems to mean almost everywhere but Chicago and Philadelphia, two cities where I once lived but don’t live now.
This seemed fishy to me. I’m vaccinated. I love being vaccinated In fact, I gorged on cheeseburgers for a week in March to nudge my BMI over 25, so I could get vaccinated early. Meanwhile, the same people who are now expressing ‘rage at the unvaccinated’ were busy lecturing us about ‘vaccine equity’, which didn’t actually turn out to be a problem in the United States. My extra fat gave me permission to hop the line and get the shot.
Once we were vaccinated, they told us, we were free to move about the country, as the Southwest ad says. Now, suddenly, they’re rolling back that freedom, however incrementally. I think it’s wrong to place restrictions on people for a disease for which they almost certainly don’t have, are vaccinated for and have a 99.8 percent or higher chance of surviving even if they do get it. Worried about the Delta variant, which is more virulent and transmissible? Then get vaccinated, like I did. My COVID watch is over.
When the news broke, I did what any desk jockey would do: I turned to Facebook to complain.
‘People who have been vaccinated are protected against serious illness and death,’ I wrote. ‘The vaccines are free and have widely been available since April. Asking vaccinated Americans to mask is meaningless theater and isn’t saving anyone’s life, vaccinated or unvaccinated. Masking and further lockdowns (which are coming to some places) are nonsense. This is not “Trumpian” and it is not COVID denial. I am a liberal and I am tired of COVID panic. I will not comply with any of this.”’
Maybe that was a little histrionic, but it’s Facebook, after all. If you can’t bloviate like an old man at a bar there, where else can you? My feed erupted with rage heretofore unseen, as though I’d confessed to smothering people’s children in their sleep. The responses ranged from the rather mild ‘you’re wrong’ and ‘I disagree with you’, to full-scale CDC propaganda, to medical hearsay that I ignored, to far worse.
‘You got the vaccine to keep from dying,’ someone wrote, later accusing me of ‘white, male, able-bodied privilege’. ‘Wear the mask to keep from killing.’
But, I said. I’m not sick. I’m not killing anyone.
A former neighbor and semi-prominent Austin media personality informed me he was reporting me to Facebook for ‘misinformation’ and spent a half-hour hassling me to see if my wife shares my ‘crackpot ideas’. He called me a ‘big brave online man’ who was ‘trying to get on Joe Rogan’. I wish! Maybe I’d finally sell some damn books.
I pondered what, exactly, I’d done wrong. I’m vaccinated. Yes, hospitalizations are on the rise in some places, including the county where I live, but almost entirely among unvaccinated people. My accuser said I should be feeling ‘rage against unvaccinated people’ for forcing the CDC to put these new recommendations in place. Maybe I should, but I don’t. I feel mild annoyance. But I can’t control what people in the Ozarks or Coastal Alabama or on the Florida-Georgia Line or more than 40 percent of Washington DC do with their bodies.
And yes, I know some fully vaccinated people have contracted COVID. I realize it’s possible — I know some myself. If it happens to me, I’ll get tested if I have symptoms and then I’ll go to bed until those symptoms are gone, like I did when I was sick before COVID. But at the moment, I’m not sick. I’m not hurting anyone. So leave me alone.
The irony is, I’m not even against masking indoors. I still do it on airplanes and in airports, in doctors’ offices and when I take rideshares. I’m not really interested in wearing masks in grocery stores or restaurants or libraries. But if I go to a place, and they require a mask, and I need what they’re offering, I’ll put one on. I’m not going to get into arguments with clerks or managers or whoever; I mostly save my arguing for social media. If they ask me to put on a mask, I either will, or I’ll leave without a fight, depending on my needs and my mood.
The whole episode was weird and disheartening. I consider myself a liberal. Every time I think the virus may have caused my politics to mutate, I take one of those online ideology tests and always land on the ‘left/libertarian’ spectrum. Despite everything we’ve been through in the last few years, my core values haven’t changed. I don’t spread conspiracy theories, I don’t think the election was ‘stolen’, and so on. But I’ve been a skeptic of dystopian non-pharmaceutical interventions like social distancing since the beginning. Or at least since May 2020, when I braved all sane advice and slinked into a movie theater in Kyle, Texas. It was fine, if a little weird, but once I wrote about it, people spent the next six months telling me that I was murdering their grandpa by going to see Freaky on a Wednesday afternoon.
As the vaccines arrived, other people started behaving the same way. Our rulers promised us a return to ‘normal life’ and normal life seemed to be slowly returning.
Now, suddenly, the powers-that-be are starting to dial it back, and I’m concerned that they’re preparing to lower the lockdown hammer again. Masks feel to me like the gateway drug, so ‘I’m vaccinated and I shouldn’t have to wear a mask’ seems like a reasonable position to take. That’s not exactly ‘Comet Ping-Pong’, ‘Sandy Hook Was A Hoax’ or ‘Bush Did 9/11’ territory. And it’s certainly not ‘vaccines don’t work’, because they obviously do.
Since my dumb little Facebook post, I’ve received several hushed, whispered messages from people ‘like me’ who agree but said they are afraid to speak out because someone will report them. But they shouldn’t be afraid.
There has to be room for those who are slightly left-of-center to criticize COVID policy. I don’t want to make anyone sick. I just want consistent guidance and the ability to live freely and make my own choices. Somewhere along the line, liberals forgot that was something to value.
I expect to see more of this, liberals who are saying, "Look, I followed the rules. I wore the mask. I got the vaccine. What is the end game here because none of this makes any sense?" only to see their fellow Lefties call them white supremacist conspiracy nuts and report their social media accounts.
Is this the part when elements of the Left come over saying, "You guys were right all along."
(Link) Naomi Wolf: 'A Scary Marriage of Government and Big Tech Censorship'
Congratulations. Welcome to reality.
Liberals finally realizing they’ve been mugged.
Sounds like the writer ran afoul of Ed Clemmons or maybe Jeff Ward. Stalking the wife? Probably Ed. Though Dale Dudley might the troll, too. But who knows? Lots of people in Austin want to be heard. Could be anybody.
You forgot to add the bio on the author.....as it sort of discredits him....and gives you a chuckle.
By Neal Pollack
Neal Pollack is the editor-in-chief of Book and Film Globe and the author of 11 books of fiction and nonfiction, mostly recently Pothead: My Life as a Marijuana Addict in the Age of Legal Weed.
I question whether these liberals are opposed to these CDC directives on principle, or if they’re opposed to them because the CDC directives mean they got a vaccine for no reason.
We may have more folks thinking that. But human beings do not like admitting to be wrong, so consider yourself lucky to hear anyone saying it.
>>>I gorged on cheeseburgers for a week in March to nudge my BMI over 25, so I could get vaccinated early.<<<
Not only is he a Liberal, he is a (shudder) meat eating Liberal. Do they actually exist? LOL
I hope he knows that the Vaccine doesn’t help against (diet related) Heart Attacks, it might actually contribute to them.
{In fact, I gorged on cheeseburgers for a week in March to nudge my BMI over 25, so I could get vaccinated early}]
That part maKES it sound made-up to me, he could’’ve just lied noone was actually checking health conditions esp. not BMI
Anyway, I agree with the sentiment but what I’ve witnessed more is people frustrated that “I did my part for a year AND got vaxxed, and it’s these others that didn’t making this still a problem and dragging it out”
Commiela refused the Vaccine last September because it was developed under the Trump Administration.
After she and Joementia got sElected, she took the exact same Vaccine, making sure a BLACK Nurse gave her the Shot. Not sure how much “meat” she ate before getting the Shot though.
Liberals lack Logic, but they are experts in Optics and Propaganda because they know half the Population are as dumb as a Box of Barbara Boxers.
😷😷😷
💉💉💉
From here on out, it seems 🤔
Wait til he finds out the vax doesn't help much with delta
Not sure why but there is something about Wolfe I don’t trust.
Maybe cuz she didn’t call out the media when they were taking side with the left when she worked for the rapist????
Maybe they see there's no end game.
The deal was, masks and lockdowns were supposed to be temporary.
Now it seems the message is, "Get your vaccine but you still have to wear a mask forever because someone else might get sick and, yes, lockdowns are coming. Don't bother waiting for a better vaccine because there's nothing on the horizon. Suck it up. Don't ask questions. This is the new normal and if you don't like it, you're nothing but a Trumper who wants to murder old people and children."
I'm pretty sure "Delta" is nothing more than the common cold.
Thanks. Epoch Times is really coming along these days.
15 days to flatten the curve.
Not really is interested in what stupid liberals have to say. They’re the morons who got us into this mess.
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