Article Wandered about too much for me to keep track of the main thought, but liked epistemic to be used, and loved ‘Imagine’ called infantile – I always hated the song as some took it seriously philosophically when it is mere pretty drek.
I also liked the bit of how men in welding shops do not wear masks. Being a tradesman I know the people (men) do not wear masks at work, and in the building materials supply houses are seldom masked wile at Walmart it is 100% masks. Us construction men just are not masking types, we may do it in other shops under pressure (I do not), but rarely in the Trades shops because there we are with our ilk and do not have to act like office workers* (*Pu ** y s).
But safteyism…..That is how the Western world is being wrecked, how the second and third world are being handed to China. It is a sickness in its self. (much better song, MASH) ‘The game of life is hard to play’ ‘I’m gonna to lose it anyway’. ‘The losing card I’ll someday lay’. Lockdown I believe will be the wrecker of many more lives than ever will be saved, and young and middle aged lives.
End of the civilized world, not disaster, War, invasion, but by refusing to take the chances required to just do the day to day actions real life requires, and accept the risks. “Those who would give up essential Liberty for temporary safety deserve neither’. The young are being brought up to be scared, they clutch their phones always ready to summon help, never having to rely on themselves to get out of a jam. The once brave and proud ANZAC’s lifted the drawbridge and bolted the door out of fear, The heroes of Gallipoli. The fearless Canadians, the mighty fighting Highland Scots, all hiding and locked away. It bodes very poorly for the future.
In our rural area you rarely see a mask on outdoors, and not always indoors-even though it is “the law”. They hand out masks as you enter establishments, and we joke about “time to put on the disguise”. Very few deaths from this flu in the past year-mostly elderly in facilities…the infection rate has seemed to rise along with the increased testing, but no increase in real illness.
Fortunately, the next big war, against the Chinese, will be conducted predominantly by the United States Navy submarine service, and very few of the ” young” will be involved.
However every day ‘we’ wait will make it more expensive in blood and treasure. This C-19 charade is the perfect opportunity to strike. Such an opportunity is unlikely to come again.
At the beginning of all this, I joked that buoyancy aids should be made compulsory for anyone within 2 metres of a water course (to relieve the burden on front line emergency services and ‘Our NHS’). It follows the same safetyism logic of almost all of the diktats we’ve had since March: Why wouldn’t you?… There may be some benefit, it sounds like it should make you safer and it won’t hurt you to do it…so why wouldn’t you? Then I realised that if you roll this approach out, it would be safer to never leave your house (Why would you?…etc).
A life spent avoiding risk is counter to living a rich and fulfilling life. And I plan to live, not just spend my days avoiding death.
I agree that the safety first approach has gone overboard. I can’t play golf at my club which is just over the border from me but in a Tier 2 area. However, the Govt is quite happy for me to travel to work (indoor setting) in a Tier 2, or for education and medical purposes.
I’m more likely to catch Covid indoors than playing an easily socially-distanced round of golf. My Tory MP hasn’t bothered to respond to my emails on the subject. Newly elected in 2019, he clearly doesn’t want to rock the already unsteady ship of state.
Blue Tev
3 years ago
You perhaps touched upon one aspect of a bigger problem afflicting Western society: excessive feminisation of the decision making or governing arms.
You wouldn’t do the reverse, ie apply the risk taking appetite of say business or a military leader towards bringing up a child. I work in an intense high pressure workplace but I realise the need for a completely different mindset at home or helping with my child’s upbringing.
However, we now applaud excessive risk aversion say in NZ, virtue signalling, governance by social pressure, “equity” instead of competition, insistence in avoiding “offense” rather than being blunt and clear… All of which are not necc negative and in fact make complete sense in a homemaking, child rearing environment.
Good shoehorn. It’s the fault of feminisation – this insistence on safety. I can’t think of a more intense high pressured environment where decision making is crucial than an ITU and if feminisation makes it safer then bring on the feminisation.
I didn’t say insistence on safety or similar “feminine” traits are a flaw, the opposite really. And if you take safety as an example, the workplace has steadily become safer over the past few centuries – which is good and a sign of greater balance towards feminine, which is positive.
The problem is, safety as a value is much more critical in childcare than in business or war. But what we seem to see is the weight given to such feminine qualities has increased excessively in the workplace, to a level that’s sensible in the home but not outside.
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
What is more ridiculous than having perfectly healthy people avoid other perfectly healthy people.
Drahcir Nevarc
3 years ago
“Huizinga found in such scenes the wellsprings of civilisation.”
So did Burke and Scruton. Mountain bikers and scateboarders are classic little platoons. Conservatives should support them.
I’ve read bit of Huizinga, although not ‘Homo Ludens’ his book on the value of play. Anyway, I’ll be playing football three times this week, including Christmas morning, so I very much ascribe to the value of play.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
An excellent article, every word true. Another contradiction practiced by the safety-industrial complex in the US was the way in which they released a large number of very dangerous criminals from jail due to Covid. Needless to say, this led directly to quite a few deaths and rapes, and countless shootings and robberies etc.
Well, it freed up room for Covid restriction violators.
Martin Price
3 years ago
Another excellent article Mr Crawford. Thank you.
Peter Ian Staker
3 years ago
Very good piece. Obviously, there is the counter argument that health and safety rules have their uses but the difficult, more nuanced, contrarian argument has to be made against them- what do we give up?
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
Your first sentence is all anyone really needs to read. You moved to California last summer. Did you not know anything about California before moving there?
I am regularly in welding supply stores, auto parts stores and other light-industry venues. Nobody is wearing masks in these places.
Are they wearing welding masks or do they believe arc eye is something a real man can just walk off? In the UK men consistantly make up around 96% of workplace fatalities every year and this kind of macho nonsense is a big part of the reason why.
Exploitive employers find it way too easy to bully young men into taking needless risks just to save a few quid. It took generations for Health & Safety regulations to be forced past the opposition of these bosses and men are still maimed and killed far too often. Still I don’t suppose you’re in much danger at “The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.”
The last paragraph is nonsense. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make people consistently wear PPE or follow safe working practices. Do you know how much resource and effort it takes to deal with each work related incident or how much it costs in terms of damages and legal costs even where the employee has been trained and demonstrably failed to follow SSOW.
There is no end of ambulance chasing lawyers willing to take up the fight. I do not want to mention names (not least because I do not want to give them credit) but some lawyers can spin the most minor injury into a win of lottery proportions and that is no exaggeration. If you can work a depression of fibromyalgia angle, and you will get every encouragement from the lawyers, you can retire. Also the lawyers will, as a matter of routine, give guidance about not posting on social media, watching for men with cameras and not digging the garden or playing football with the kids in the back garden. Not to do so would almost be negligent.
If what you say about the Sports Direct Warehouse is remotely true there would be solicitors queuing at the gates and very quickly Sports Direct would struggle to get insurance
Also, as soon as the claim goes in you become very much harder to sack. Why? Because if you are sacked it must be because you are no longer able to do your job due to your injuries and so the fact of dismissal is prima facie evidence that your disability means that you are no longer employable in any meaningful capacity, which all adds up to a 10, 20 or even 30 year loss of earnings claim – jackpot.
Are they wearing welding masks or do they believe arc eye is something a real man can just walk off? When actually welding, sure, but not when walking about or driving in their cars. Men make up the bulk of workplace fatalities because hold the bulk of dangerous jobs.
Not even medical personnel wear masks all day long.
Men make up the bulk of workplace fatalities because hold the bulk of dangerous jobs.
And why is it that men hold those jobs and why are they so dangerous and why does our society accept that? More pointless machismo and the tradition of the disposable male.
Not even medical personnel wear masks all day long.
On a Covid 19 ward they do. That’s kind of the point.
Your argument is that men should die to spare women? Will you take a dangerous job to defend your feminist principles? Will you fight for men to have 50% of primary school teaching jobs – without being called paedophiles by women? Will you insist that women take 50% of construction jobs? Do you think that these jobs wont be needed if men don’t do them?
I think that she’s saying the opposite, that more women should die to spare some men their lives. I don’t know if she’s being serious or just facetious – I suspect the latter – but her suggestion is quite different from your interpretation. Or at least it appears so to to me.
You’re closer than RH. He seems particularly exercised by men displaying “macho nonsense”. Hiring women, who tend not to use machismo as a tactic, eliminates this problem but RH doesn’t like that suggestion.
I don’t believe I did miss the point. Your argument seems to be that if men don’t wish to risk death at work they should accept poverty in unemployment. “Them’s the breaks, eh?”
I agree that excessive machismo can be a serious problem. However, isn’t much of the reason that women make up such a low percentage of workplace fatalities is that they seldom take up dangerous jobs such as high-rise construction, logging and fishing, earth-moving machine operators, etc.? All the same, someone has to do them.
BTW, this pandemic has made it clear that there are distinct dangers to medical workers dealing with patients who have highly contagious diseases. Counting any deaths of health care professionals from contracting such maladies as workplace fatalities might make the disproportion you cited above come down considerably.
PS Apologies to Alex Lekas, whose email I hadn’t read when I remarked on men working more dangerous jobs on average. But, I guess I reinforced his point. To RH’s response: you’re assuming we humans are largely the result of our social environment. That may be true. However, it may well be that heredity plays far too strong a role to put down any behavioral problem as simply the result of tradition and/or the cult of some disfavored idea.
Colin Macdonald
3 years ago
I see this a lot with child rearing, we devote resources to the safety of our children that previous generations would have thought insane. Thing is, if your kids had a significant chance of being carried away by measles, mumps, Diphtheria you wouldn’t really knock yourself out trying to prevent unlikely things like child kidnap, road accidents and so on.
Nigel Hewett
3 years ago
Whilst I thought this was a good article, I do wonder if some of the respondees should really be let out without a minder to explain to them what is really going on. The real issue for public safety is not to allow people to just think about themselves but remind them to think about their fellow citizens. I’m getting sick of people saying ‘ I shouldn’t be told what to do’, ‘no one’s going to make me wear a mask’ , there’s no real risk to me’ , ‘ I should be allowed to take my own risks’ and other self-centric macho statements. I don’t personally care if they die from Covid, but I would rather object if they gave it to me. Of course a significant proportion of the population wouldn’t notice if they caught it or could shrug it off easily, but out of a UK population of 68m, over 60’s at 16m are very exposed to dying of it and those also vulnerable due to existing conditions probably double that so we have nearly half the population at risk of being killed by macho people who are basically either selfish or just plain stupid.
Like Gavin Newsom you mean? Here’s what you’re missing….the very people who are telling others what to do are not following the rules themselves and California is a hot bed of this stinking hypocrisy. Rules for thee but not for me. Nancy Pelosi sneaking into a closed hair salon, Dianne Feinstein walking through an airport maskless, Anthony Fauci sitting in the stands at a ball game without a mask, Gavin Newsom eating at a swanky restaurant closed to the plebs. Seems like they’re allowed to take their own risks, doesn’t it? You don’t seem to find them selfish or just plain stupid or “macho”.
I think they do care based on their frantic casting about for excuses or abject apologies. They aren’t sorry they did it, they’re sorry they got caught. Witness Pelosi, an 80 year old woman blaming a hair salon for her sneaking into it while it’s closed to everyone else. Or Chris Cuomo claiming he never left quarantine against the rules when there are witnesses that he did. 60 Minutes Leslie Stahl hammering Trump about masks and then hanging around with the camera crew socializing in the WH without a mask on. Newsom had the idea that he should just apologize after getting caught. Fauci too. Nothing to see here, we’ve apologized, let’s all move along. Put that mask on and stay home.
We should institute a hypocrisy credit system whereby these folks can just buy credits that let them flout their own rules. Sort of like green energy credits. Dinner at a closed restaurant? $1,000 in hypocrisy credits. Hairdo for the elite at a closed salon $500 credits. We could give the proceeds to people who have lost jobs and businesses. Probably could skip another stimulus package on the proceeds.
Daniel Björkman
3 years ago
Mmm. So, assuming you are entirely right, there is blatant discrimination in favour of the sort of people who like to walk at a moderate pace and to sit quietly and read, and against people who like to run around shouting like idiots?
You know, I’m tryyyyynggggg to muster some outrage against the unfairness of it, but, aw shucks, it just doesn’t seem to be happening?
It might have, not so long ago. But I think four years of Trump has quite depleted my reserves. The brutes and the louts put the most brutish lout of all in the highest office in the world, precisely and specifically so that he could every day harrass and humiliate those of us who had the audacity to have some taste and some manners, some enlightenment and some civilisation. I no longer feel the least bit sorry for the hyperactive, asocial little bullies when they get the same thing back. You want to play it like this, then let’s play. You want to be toddlers throwing a tantrum, then prepare to get spanked. I don’t kid myself that it’ll be forever, because eventually I’m sure you’ll manage to make civilisation collapse so you can play Conan the Barbarian as much as you want, but I’ll enjoy every bit of comeuppance that can be inflicted on you until that happens.
And as for the man-babies screaming about the “feminisation” of our society, I invite you to bite my disabled ass. I get out of bed every morning and fight for my basic right to exist. I live a life full of challenge, and it’s not exciting or sexy or manful, it’s just humiliating and exhausting. You want a challenge, then throw yourself down the stairs so you break some bones. That’ll give you all sorts of character-building misery, since you’re so fond of the stuff.
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
What is more ridiculous than having perfectly healthy people avoid other perfectly healthy people.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to how someone who is not infected can stop the spread of a virus that he/she does not have by either staying home or wearing a piece of cloth. And never mind the dehumanizing nature of seeing fellow citizens as little more than NPCs in a game of control.
Ferrusian Gambit
3 years ago
I have no issue with other people taking risks with their own lives if it makes them feel more alive or whatever. Where I do have issue is people imposing risks on other people without their consenting to it, you can’t force what is life-affirming for you on other people who may not feel the same way about whatever it is that you personally like doing.
How is ‘can’t accept risk’ = imposing unnecessary risk on other people. It is the height of egotism to think that you have some God given right to force yourself and your choices on other peoples lives for your own selfish interests. You have every right to smoke, frankly I couldn’t give a fig whether you live or die, your life is entirely unimportant and irrelevant to me. But if you want to smoke in my face I have every right to use physical force to restrain you for the sake of my own health. I value my own life enough not to want to throw it away for the benefit of some mentally challenged anomic retard.
Mountain bikers on remote country paths I have no issue with. People who drive like idiots and want to put other peoples lives at risk for their own fun are asocial arseholes, if they want to get themselves killed for the adrenaline rush, by all means do it on your own private property.
There’s this thing called the harm principle. You leave me alone, I leave you alone, that’s what being a good citizen is about. If you don’t like it, live in a forest like a savage.
Rhonda Culwell
3 years ago
Mountain bikers going the way of dirt bikers and jet skiers. The places they are allowed to play had started to disappear long before Covid.
Article Wandered about too much for me to keep track of the main thought, but liked epistemic to be used, and loved ‘Imagine’ called infantile – I always hated the song as some took it seriously philosophically when it is mere pretty drek.
I also liked the bit of how men in welding shops do not wear masks. Being a tradesman I know the people (men) do not wear masks at work, and in the building materials supply houses are seldom masked wile at Walmart it is 100% masks. Us construction men just are not masking types, we may do it in other shops under pressure (I do not), but rarely in the Trades shops because there we are with our ilk and do not have to act like office workers* (*Pu ** y s).
But safteyism…..That is how the Western world is being wrecked, how the second and third world are being handed to China. It is a sickness in its self. (much better song, MASH) ‘The game of life is hard to play’ ‘I’m gonna to lose it anyway’. ‘The losing card I’ll someday lay’. Lockdown I believe will be the wrecker of many more lives than ever will be saved, and young and middle aged lives.
End of the civilized world, not disaster, War, invasion, but by refusing to take the chances required to just do the day to day actions real life requires, and accept the risks. “Those who would give up essential Liberty for temporary safety deserve neither’. The young are being brought up to be scared, they clutch their phones always ready to summon help, never having to rely on themselves to get out of a jam. The once brave and proud ANZAC’s lifted the drawbridge and bolted the door out of fear, The heroes of Gallipoli. The fearless Canadians, the mighty fighting Highland Scots, all hiding and locked away. It bodes very poorly for the future.
In our rural area you rarely see a mask on outdoors, and not always indoors-even though it is “the law”. They hand out masks as you enter establishments, and we joke about “time to put on the disguise”. Very few deaths from this flu in the past year-mostly elderly in facilities…the infection rate has seemed to rise along with the increased testing, but no increase in real illness.
The numbers of people in hospital with Covid, ie ill, is now at nearly the same level as April and rising. How is that no increase in real illness?
If it’s not yet at April levels even though it’s rising, that seems to be the answer to your question.
Fortunately, the next big war, against the Chinese, will be conducted predominantly by the United States Navy submarine service, and very few of the ” young” will be involved.
However every day ‘we’ wait will make it more expensive in blood and treasure. This C-19 charade is the perfect opportunity to strike. Such an opportunity is unlikely to come again.
Well said. I agree with your words & sentiment
At the beginning of all this, I joked that buoyancy aids should be made compulsory for anyone within 2 metres of a water course (to relieve the burden on front line emergency services and ‘Our NHS’). It follows the same safetyism logic of almost all of the diktats we’ve had since March: Why wouldn’t you?… There may be some benefit, it sounds like it should make you safer and it won’t hurt you to do it…so why wouldn’t you? Then I realised that if you roll this approach out, it would be safer to never leave your house (Why would you?…etc).
A life spent avoiding risk is counter to living a rich and fulfilling life. And I plan to live, not just spend my days avoiding death.
I agree that the safety first approach has gone overboard. I can’t play golf at my club which is just over the border from me but in a Tier 2 area. However, the Govt is quite happy for me to travel to work (indoor setting) in a Tier 2, or for education and medical purposes.
I’m more likely to catch Covid indoors than playing an easily socially-distanced round of golf. My Tory MP hasn’t bothered to respond to my emails on the subject. Newly elected in 2019, he clearly doesn’t want to rock the already unsteady ship of state.
You perhaps touched upon one aspect of a bigger problem afflicting Western society: excessive feminisation of the decision making or governing arms.
You wouldn’t do the reverse, ie apply the risk taking appetite of say business or a military leader towards bringing up a child. I work in an intense high pressure workplace but I realise the need for a completely different mindset at home or helping with my child’s upbringing.
However, we now applaud excessive risk aversion say in NZ, virtue signalling, governance by social pressure, “equity” instead of competition, insistence in avoiding “offense” rather than being blunt and clear…
All of which are not necc negative and in fact make complete sense in a homemaking, child rearing environment.
Good shoehorn. It’s the fault of feminisation – this insistence on safety. I can’t think of a more intense high pressured environment where decision making is crucial than an ITU and if feminisation makes it safer then bring on the feminisation.
I didn’t say insistence on safety or similar “feminine” traits are a flaw, the opposite really.
And if you take safety as an example, the workplace has steadily become safer over the past few centuries – which is good and a sign of greater balance towards feminine, which is positive.
The problem is, safety as a value is much more critical in childcare than in business or war.
But what we seem to see is the weight given to such feminine qualities has increased excessively in the workplace, to a level that’s sensible in the home but not outside.
What is more ridiculous than having perfectly healthy people avoid other perfectly healthy people.
“Huizinga found in such scenes the wellsprings of civilisation.”
So did Burke and Scruton. Mountain bikers and scateboarders are classic little platoons. Conservatives should support them.
I’ve read bit of Huizinga, although not ‘Homo Ludens’ his book on the value of play. Anyway, I’ll be playing football three times this week, including Christmas morning, so I very much ascribe to the value of play.
An excellent article, every word true. Another contradiction practiced by the safety-industrial complex in the US was the way in which they released a large number of very dangerous criminals from jail due to Covid. Needless to say, this led directly to quite a few deaths and rapes, and countless shootings and robberies etc.
Releasing cons sounds like a pitch for a dystopian film.
I think that film might already have been made. Anyway, who needs a film when the politicians and authorities are making it into a realityl?
Well, it freed up room for Covid restriction violators.
Another excellent article Mr Crawford. Thank you.
Very good piece. Obviously, there is the counter argument that health and safety rules have their uses but the difficult, more nuanced, contrarian argument has to be made against them- what do we give up?
Your first sentence is all anyone really needs to read. You moved to California last summer. Did you not know anything about California before moving there?
Obviously not.
Are they wearing welding masks or do they believe arc eye is something a real man can just walk off? In the UK men consistantly make up around 96% of workplace fatalities every year and this kind of macho nonsense is a big part of the reason why.
Exploitive employers find it way too easy to bully young men into taking needless risks just to save a few quid. It took generations for Health & Safety regulations to be forced past the opposition of these bosses and men are still maimed and killed far too often. Still I don’t suppose you’re in much danger at “The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.”
The last paragraph is nonsense. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make people consistently wear PPE or follow safe working practices. Do you know how much resource and effort it takes to deal with each work related incident or how much it costs in terms of damages and legal costs even where the employee has been trained and demonstrably failed to follow SSOW.
I know that at the Sports Direct warehouse, near to me, calling an ambulance for one of their zero-hours, minimum wage staff was a weekly occurrance.
I know that when you’re sick, broke and don’t want to get blacklisted taking your employer to court is a pipedream.
You are of course joking.
There is no end of ambulance chasing lawyers willing to take up the fight. I do not want to mention names (not least because I do not want to give them credit) but some lawyers can spin the most minor injury into a win of lottery proportions and that is no exaggeration. If you can work a depression of fibromyalgia angle, and you will get every encouragement from the lawyers, you can retire. Also the lawyers will, as a matter of routine, give guidance about not posting on social media, watching for men with cameras and not digging the garden or playing football with the kids in the back garden. Not to do so would almost be negligent.
If what you say about the Sports Direct Warehouse is remotely true there would be solicitors queuing at the gates and very quickly Sports Direct would struggle to get insurance
Also, as soon as the claim goes in you become very much harder to sack. Why? Because if you are sacked it must be because you are no longer able to do your job due to your injuries and so the fact of dismissal is prima facie evidence that your disability means that you are no longer employable in any meaningful capacity, which all adds up to a 10, 20 or even 30 year loss of earnings claim – jackpot.
Are they wearing welding masks or do they believe arc eye is something a real man can just walk off?
When actually welding, sure, but not when walking about or driving in their cars. Men make up the bulk of workplace fatalities because hold the bulk of dangerous jobs.
Not even medical personnel wear masks all day long.
And why is it that men hold those jobs and why are they so dangerous and why does our society accept that? More pointless machismo and the tradition of the disposable male.
On a Covid 19 ward they do. That’s kind of the point.
Hire women for at least 50% of the jobs, and you won’t have this problem. There will be a lot of men out of work but hey, them’s the breaks, eh?
Your argument is that men should die to spare women? Will you take a dangerous job to defend your feminist principles? Will you fight for men to have 50% of primary school teaching jobs – without being called paedophiles by women? Will you insist that women take 50% of construction jobs? Do you think that these jobs wont be needed if men don’t do them?
I think that she’s saying the opposite, that more women should die to spare some men their lives. I don’t know if she’s being serious or just facetious – I suspect the latter – but her suggestion is quite different from your interpretation. Or at least it appears so to to me.
You’re closer than RH. He seems particularly exercised by men displaying “macho nonsense”. Hiring women, who tend not to use machismo as a tactic, eliminates this problem but RH doesn’t like that suggestion.
Read it again, clearly you missed the point. If you want to eliminate pointless machismo, hire 50% women.
I don’t believe I did miss the point. Your argument seems to be that if men don’t wish to risk death at work they should accept poverty in unemployment. “Them’s the breaks, eh?”
Nope, my comment was about women. Unless you’re arguing that women commit “macho nonsense” as you put it, you clearly are missing the point.
I agree that excessive machismo can be a serious problem. However, isn’t much of the reason that women make up such a low percentage of workplace fatalities is that they seldom take up dangerous jobs such as high-rise construction, logging and fishing, earth-moving machine operators, etc.? All the same, someone has to do them.
BTW, this pandemic has made it clear that there are distinct dangers to medical workers dealing with patients who have highly contagious diseases. Counting any deaths of health care professionals from contracting such maladies as workplace fatalities might make the disproportion you cited above come down considerably.
PS Apologies to Alex Lekas, whose email I hadn’t read when I remarked on men working more dangerous jobs on average. But, I guess I reinforced his point. To RH’s response: you’re assuming we humans are largely the result of our social environment. That may be true. However, it may well be that heredity plays far too strong a role to put down any behavioral problem as simply the result of tradition and/or the cult of some disfavored idea.
I see this a lot with child rearing, we devote resources to the safety of our children that previous generations would have thought insane. Thing is, if your kids had a significant chance of being carried away by measles, mumps, Diphtheria you wouldn’t really knock yourself out trying to prevent unlikely things like child kidnap, road accidents and so on.
Whilst I thought this was a good article, I do wonder if some of the respondees should really be let out without a minder to explain to them what is really going on. The real issue for public safety is not to allow people to just think about themselves but remind them to think about their fellow citizens. I’m getting sick of people saying ‘ I shouldn’t be told what to do’, ‘no one’s going to make me wear a mask’ , there’s no real risk to me’ , ‘ I should be allowed to take my own risks’ and other self-centric macho statements. I don’t personally care if they die from Covid, but I would rather object if they gave it to me. Of course a significant proportion of the population wouldn’t notice if they caught it or could shrug it off easily, but out of a UK population of 68m, over 60’s at 16m are very exposed to dying of it and those also vulnerable due to existing conditions probably double that so we have nearly half the population at risk of being killed by macho people who are basically either selfish or just plain stupid.
Like Gavin Newsom you mean? Here’s what you’re missing….the very people who are telling others what to do are not following the rules themselves and California is a hot bed of this stinking hypocrisy. Rules for thee but not for me. Nancy Pelosi sneaking into a closed hair salon, Dianne Feinstein walking through an airport maskless, Anthony Fauci sitting in the stands at a ball game without a mask, Gavin Newsom eating at a swanky restaurant closed to the plebs. Seems like they’re allowed to take their own risks, doesn’t it? You don’t seem to find them selfish or just plain stupid or “macho”.
It really is incredible the extent and brazenness of their hypocrisy.
Almost as if they didn’t care if we see it.
I think they do care based on their frantic casting about for excuses or abject apologies. They aren’t sorry they did it, they’re sorry they got caught. Witness Pelosi, an 80 year old woman blaming a hair salon for her sneaking into it while it’s closed to everyone else. Or Chris Cuomo claiming he never left quarantine against the rules when there are witnesses that he did. 60 Minutes Leslie Stahl hammering Trump about masks and then hanging around with the camera crew socializing in the WH without a mask on. Newsom had the idea that he should just apologize after getting caught. Fauci too. Nothing to see here, we’ve apologized, let’s all move along. Put that mask on and stay home.
We should institute a hypocrisy credit system whereby these folks can just buy credits that let them flout their own rules. Sort of like green energy credits. Dinner at a closed restaurant? $1,000 in hypocrisy credits. Hairdo for the elite at a closed salon $500 credits. We could give the proceeds to people who have lost jobs and businesses. Probably could skip another stimulus package on the proceeds.
Mmm. So, assuming you are entirely right, there is blatant discrimination in favour of the sort of people who like to walk at a moderate pace and to sit quietly and read, and against people who like to run around shouting like idiots?
You know, I’m tryyyyynggggg to muster some outrage against the unfairness of it, but, aw shucks, it just doesn’t seem to be happening?
It might have, not so long ago. But I think four years of Trump has quite depleted my reserves. The brutes and the louts put the most brutish lout of all in the highest office in the world, precisely and specifically so that he could every day harrass and humiliate those of us who had the audacity to have some taste and some manners, some enlightenment and some civilisation. I no longer feel the least bit sorry for the hyperactive, asocial little bullies when they get the same thing back. You want to play it like this, then let’s play. You want to be toddlers throwing a tantrum, then prepare to get spanked. I don’t kid myself that it’ll be forever, because eventually I’m sure you’ll manage to make civilisation collapse so you can play Conan the Barbarian as much as you want, but I’ll enjoy every bit of comeuppance that can be inflicted on you until that happens.
And as for the man-babies screaming about the “feminisation” of our society, I invite you to bite my disabled ass. I get out of bed every morning and fight for my basic right to exist. I live a life full of challenge, and it’s not exciting or sexy or manful, it’s just humiliating and exhausting. You want a challenge, then throw yourself down the stairs so you break some bones. That’ll give you all sorts of character-building misery, since you’re so fond of the stuff.
What is more ridiculous than having perfectly healthy people avoid other perfectly healthy people.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to how someone who is not infected can stop the spread of a virus that he/she does not have by either staying home or wearing a piece of cloth. And never mind the dehumanizing nature of seeing fellow citizens as little more than NPCs in a game of control.
I have no issue with other people taking risks with their own lives if it makes them feel more alive or whatever. Where I do have issue is people imposing risks on other people without their consenting to it, you can’t force what is life-affirming for you on other people who may not feel the same way about whatever it is that you personally like doing.
If you can’t accept any risk, stay home.
How is ‘can’t accept risk’ = imposing unnecessary risk on other people. It is the height of egotism to think that you have some God given right to force yourself and your choices on other peoples lives for your own selfish interests. You have every right to smoke, frankly I couldn’t give a fig whether you live or die, your life is entirely unimportant and irrelevant to me. But if you want to smoke in my face I have every right to use physical force to restrain you for the sake of my own health. I value my own life enough not to want to throw it away for the benefit of some mentally challenged anomic retard.
Mountain bikers on remote country paths I have no issue with. People who drive like idiots and want to put other peoples lives at risk for their own fun are asocial arseholes, if they want to get themselves killed for the adrenaline rush, by all means do it on your own private property.
There’s this thing called the harm principle. You leave me alone, I leave you alone, that’s what being a good citizen is about. If you don’t like it, live in a forest like a savage.
Mountain bikers going the way of dirt bikers and jet skiers. The places they are allowed to play had started to disappear long before Covid.