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> Have you considered that these measures are _temporary_?

I will never consider this given the excesses and absolute indefensible failures of the emergency powers introduced in service of the Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya/etc. wars. Nothing has been rolled back.

Emergency powers should never be treated as temporary given history.

> Personally, it seems like objections to basic preventive measures, such as wearing a mask, are more rooted in ego and entitlement

This is a diversion to minimize that the "preventive measures" have continuously failed and been extended. "2 weeks to stop the spread" have turned into multiple years. Practically every "enlightened" & "advanced" system of Europe that the US is compared to has failed. The most drastic measures in South America, likewise have failed. We are told to act like countries on the other side of the globe - it's laughably unrealistic and divorced from reality.

Say "it's just temporary" to someone months behind on rent and unemployed. It's shockingly insensitive and paternalistic. Honestly, it's despotic given the protracted, dire circumstances of anyone that's not stably employed.

I don't even oppose mask usage. If masks solved the issue (which clearly they don't), I'd be happy.

> Personally, it seems like objections to basic preventive measures, such as wearing a mask, are more rooted in ego and entitlement.

Entitlement? Entitlement is how to describe every comfy white collar worker that rolls out of bed and hops on Zoom, and then condescendingly and abusively berates everyone else that does not have that privilege.



You’re acting as if every single blue collar worker lives alone. Don’t they have families they see every day? Also, living in a city and seeing hundreds of people every day is recent. I doubt there’s any natural drive for having such big social circles as we do now.


>Emergency powers should never be treated as temporary given history.

If this were true, why were the lockdowns in China (an unabashedly authoritarian country) temporary? People in Wuhan are going to nightclubs without masks today.


> Emergency powers should never be treated as temporary given history

The TSA. Body Scanners. Removing your shoes (America only; it's the only country out of the 10+ I've flow through that forced you to still remove your shoes. Some people do it in other places out of habit, but no one else actually requires it).

> Entitlement? Entitlement is how to describe every comfy white collar worker that rolls out of bed and hops on Zoom, and then condescendingly and abusively berates everyone else that does not have that privilege

The vast majority of people on here are silicon valley types. They don't understand people are loosing their businesses, their lives, their savings and their minds. They've never been out to the country and seen farms or know people who grow food. They see all republicans as racist and the enemy. It's dissociative, sad and frightening.

> If masks solved the issue (which clearly they don't)

Thank you for having some sense. The numbers are really clear on mask usage. Zero correlation and no better than a coin flip. It has a high social cost too. People are berating others for wearing masks. It's created a new talisman, and ideology and religion. It's causing insane amounts of pollution and textile waste that will further damage our oceans. It's terrifying.

Thank you for saying what you have. I have a comfy job where I can work from home, but I have been in touch with an America and a world that is falling apart, yet also gripped by insane and unreasonable fear. This is a terrible time, for reasons many cannot truly grasp.


> The numbers are really clear on mask usage.

Do you have sources? Legitimately interested.





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