I Mean, It's Just Your Death

I have been lurking on the pages of MAGA Americans, a practice I am now putting a moratorium on, because it is just too depressing.

But meanwhile I have learned that they currently hold the following positions:

(1) The virus is real, but the pandemic is propaganda

I've heard some version of this phrase maybe 15 times now, so I suspect it's something that got said on either Faux News or Rush's charming show. This claims says that sure, Covid-19 exists, but hardly anyone is actually dying from it.

What about the seventy thousand dead in America so far, and the 258 thousand worldwide? FAKE NEWS, they screech. Those people are actually dying of heart attacks, or car accidents, see, and then their doctors are all lying about it.

Why would they lie about it? Because if someone dies of Covid-19, the hospitals get $$$ in the form of grants. So clearly they're just inflating the numbers of dead.

A vast medical conspiracy, stretching world-wide, so that US hospitals can bilk the US government. What genius!


(2) Sure, people are dying, but everyone dies. You can't destroy an economy just to keep people from dying!

I mean, you can sure destroy people's right to control their own bodies to protect the life of a zygote; and you can destroy the lives of 100,000 Iraqi citizens because Saudi Arabian terrorists killed 3000 Americans; and it's fine to murder some guy who was jogging aggressively because you're "defending yourself."

But taking precautions to protect the lives of the couple hundred thousand people who will likely die from this virus? Psh, pointless. They'll just die anyway.

(3) Forcing people to stay home, wear masks, or avoid large gatherings is tyranny. 

In fact, it's pretty much exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews. And if we do what those Jews did -- just go along with it!! -- then we'll end up in death camps just like they did.

(An actual argument I've seen two different MAGA Americans make so far.)

An alternate to this claim is that "the government" is using this virus to destroy "your" civil rights.

Which government? Federal? State? Local? The evidence for how "your" civil rights are being abrogated is that some stores and parks are closed, and some places are requiring face masks. All this is mainly being done by local city governments, though also by some state governments. But their argument is that the Constitution gives them the right to shop wherever and whenever they please, and also they don't have to wear masks, and also the masks don't work anyway.

Also, wearing a mask and socially distancing is just "living in fear," which none of this yabbos do. That's why they own so many guns. Because they're not afraid.


(4) The virus was "micro-engineered" in secret labs as a bio-weapon. Also, it was set loose upon the USA so that vaccine manufacturers could make money.

First, no it wasn't. 

Second of all, oh my God.

Also, by the way, you'll be interested to hear that the vaccine is just a plot to microchip American citizens.

(5) The pandemic is just another witch-hunt aimed at destroying Trump.

In the movie Contagion my favorite line is when Military Intelligence asks the scientist if someone might have weaponized bird flu, and the scientist gives him an exasperated look. "We don't have to weaponize bird flu," the scientist says. "The birds are doing that on their own."

We don't have to destroy Trump. He's doing that just fine on his own.


(6) We have to open the economy to save the economy. People die just as dead of starvation as they do from a virus!

On the surface, this almost seems logical. But it's a false dilemma. It's possible to save the economy while still practicing social distancing and basic hygiene.

Also, the idea seems to be either that we "save" the economy, or people die of the virus. Which, no. If we get rid of social distancing, we also increase the spread of the virus. Then instead of a hundred thousand dead (the low-ball estimate at the moment) we get a couple million dead.

You want to see a damaged economy, kill off a couple million Americans -- most of whom need medical care while they die -- in the space of a few months.


(7) Social distancing is the wrong solution! We need to develop herd immunity and we can't do that except by letting people catch the virus. 

People who parrot this one have no idea what herd immunity is.

Also, their corollary is almost always that "only" sick and old people will die from it. Also not true, and besides which, wow.

Crabs in a Bucket

This is an idiom that I've had to explain to people more than once. It's like we have a collective insistence on forgetting what it means.

Or maybe you just have to have done some fishing and crabbing at some point in your life, in order to understand it to your bones.

See, you put crabs in a bucket as you trap them. The crabs try to climb out, but you don't  have to worry about that -- the other crabs, the ones still in the bucket, will pull those trying to escape back down into the bucket.

This is America.

You would think those of us who are less well off would try to help each other. We'd celebrate workers who held a successful strike and increased their pay. We'd be pleased at people getting their healthcare and their education paid for by the state -- which is how it ought to be done, obviously.

Nope. Instead, here in America, we want to yank our fellow workers back down in the bucket. How dare you make $15/hour? When I'm only making $20/hour myself?

How dare you get healthcare? How dare you demand to be free from drug testing? How dare you expect to be educated without going into crippling debt?

Here in America, we won't even allow retail workers to sit down during their shifts, even when it makes perfect sense for them to be sitting (those running registers, for instance). How dare they ask to be treated humanely?

I'd say this stems from ignorance, but in fact it stems from the American worship of capitalism. Here in the USA, poverty is not just a crime, it's a sin.