Many Americans were traumatized by being asked to wear a mask because they’re big angry babies. Many other Americans were traumatized by the discovery that they’re surrounded by big angry babies.
I began watching for Covid cases early. I asked everyone I met: "Have you had Covid?" and "Do you know anyone who has had covid?"
Six months into the pandemic only a single acquaintance claimed to have had the disease. A year later and there were only 3 such people. To this day I count no more than 5.
I believe that the story of the pandemic has yet to be written. IMO the "powers that be" panicked and drove the population into mass hysteria. Or perhaps they used the pandemic to achieve political ends.
There were definitely cases among certain populations: esp. elderly and immune-compromised in some cities. And there was a world of mismanagement: masks, ventilators, makeshift hospitals, quarantine facilities, etc. Lots of money was made and lots of money was given away by various governmental entities. There's no accounting for it.
Maybe you can be the person who does the study that, once and for all, justifies the wearing of masks during Covid. I only wore a mask when I was told to. But I am healthy and lucky and somehow avoided getting Covid. Or maybe I caught it but didn't know b/c I was so f'ing healthy. Who knows?
Wearing a mask was always such a non-issue. Even if the effect was only marginal, there's essentially no cost to wearing a mask.
It's, like, slightly uncomfortable. Slightly. As the other commenter said, people complained not because there were legitimate complaints, but rather because they were big babies.
I believe you could've asked them to do anything and they would have complained. It wasn't the mask. It was the concept that they would have to do something simple for the greater good, and someone else was asking them to do it. Meaning, they were (are?) fundamentally stubborn, individualistic, and selfish people.
There have been over 100 million cases and over one million deaths in the US. Congratulations to you and your acquaintances for being extreme outliers.
I am sorry, but this is a statistically ignorant take. Your selection bias and infinitesimal sample size do not accurately account for a country with a population of almost 350 million people.
> And there was a world of mismanagement: masks, ventilators, makeshift hospitals, quarantine facilities, etc. Lots of money was made and lots of money was given away by various governmental entities. There's no accounting for it.
There were greater priorities at the time. I truly believe many governments operated with what knowledge they had at the time. It's all too easy to judge past actions with current knowledge.
> I only wore a mask when I was told to. But I am healthy and lucky...
I am glad you are healthy and lucky. But why do you hold such contempt for your fellow humans who might not be healthy nor as lucky?
Let's just say the "artist" was never again going to be able to walk normally, wear normal pants, or sit without a doughnut pillow. It was a voluntary disability.
> It's safe to assume that racist young Republicans contribute more to the difficulty of being black in America than vice versa
If racism follows “eye for an eye,” sure. I don’t think most people feel someone being discriminated at when young is excused from being racist when older. If that is the case, everyone who had any poverty in their childhood is off the hook for horrible behavior. That isn’t true, at least for most voters anywhere.
Students in the 90s had also lived their entire lives under the counter-productive and utterly racist War on Drugs. That might have colored their attitude more than the leftist indoctrination bogeyman.
The college indoctrination boogieman exists because it is coincidentally the first time in their lives a lot of people live away from their parents fulltime.
How much your opinions change once you're not in that environment can be amazing to both yourself and to the people who think they understand you because you were financially dependent on them.
New ideas or diversity or whatever: living by yourself 24/7 is a huge liberator of thought.
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