Is the face mask the clearest symbol of the divide in America?

| August 3, 2020

Yes. Thus we violate Betteridge’s law of headlines just as many of us also violate the mask “orders” imposed by our governments.

We got tipped off to an older American Thinker article asking the headline question. After recanting that the masks probably won’t stop the coronavirus the author notes how wearing a face mask has become a part of our cultural divide. Though the article was written back in May, it seems like something even more relevant now, months later.

Full article at American Thinker

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11B-Mailclerk

Fear! Be afraid! Orange Man Bad! RaceRaceRace! Oppression! Doom!

Just give the Donks power and obey.

TallyWhagger

A dress rehearsal for taking “the” mark. About the same as pinning a Star of David on your sleeve.

This Massachusetts town is lily white, at most there are 11 black persons in a population of about 7,000.

Nearly all of the 11 +/- are adopted children from other parts of the world. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of BLM signs in yards, in picture windows, scrawled on cars.

Virtue signaling can take on so many subtleties and permutations.

AW1 Rod

I do not/will not wear a placebo mask.

Only one person has tried to give me shit about it, and she STFU pretty quickly after she correctly deduced that my reaction would NOT be friendly or compliant.

Jay

I’ve done that quite a few times I DIDN’T have a cheap one/bandana in my pocket.

“YOU NEED TO WEAR A MASK!!!!”

“You also need to maintain 6 ft social distance…yet here you are all up in my shit….”

A Proud Infidel®™

The ONLY time I bother to wear a mask is when I’m shopping someplace that requires them to enter and I can’t help but LAUGH at those who wear them while driving, IMHO that’s like wearing a condom while you’re sleeping alone!

OldManchu

I bet “you know who” does both!

LC

That’s pretty much what I do, too – most of the time, I’m not around a bunch of people, and the small group I regularly see is decent about staying a few feet apart when possible. It’s about risk mitigation, not total risk elimination.

That said, the people who claim masks don’t help, like the article linked above, stating that the virus size is much smaller than the pores in the mask (true), misses the obvious point that the virus is aerosolized -virus is attached to much larger particles- in the body, and thus masks do help. That’s why doctors have used them for ages, against a multitude of viral pathogens who are all similarly smaller than N95 mask filters.

This idiocy about masks not helping is a sobering indictment on the level of scientific literacy of much of the country.

11B-Mailclerk

Viral shedding is not limited to the honkin of goobers.

Most of the “masks” in use are poor even for that task.

The willful refusal to acknowledge the mechanics of masks is neither Science! nor helpful.

LC

Viral shedding is not limited to the honkin of goobers.

Nobody has made that claim. But it is a primary vector, and one that has a velocity that can spread particles over a greater distance than something like sweat, for example.

All the evidence we have points towards masks helping reduce viral spread. Here’s a few such studies. I eagerly await your scientific study showing otherwise:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext#%20

http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf

I can post more if you like, too. Being asked to wear a mask is no more of an infringement on your ‘freedom’ than being asked to wear a seat-belt in a car, or being asked not to drive while drunk.

11B-Mailclerk

Doctors don’t wear masks all day. Why? Because an all day mask is a problem, not a help

The improvised ones are worse than nothing, because face-touching is a -huge- vector.

Placebo, and more often than not counterproductive.

OWB

Not much trouble ’round here to wear one on the few occasions where it is required. Those of us who naturally distance ourselves from people just don’t have the issues folks in congested areas have with this.

Nobody’s paying me to hang around crowds. So I don’t. No big deal to don the mask/face covering to spend a few minutes in a store.

Had cup of coffee with a good friend this morning. We both had our masks on long enough to impress anyone who might be watching, then entered a building with our cups, sat down in a fairly large room and slipped the bonds of face coverings. Enjoyed the company and the social time, albeit somewhat farther apart than we might have been this time last year.

Jay

I keep one in the cargo pocket of my shorts. Its tattered, wrinkled, and about to fall apart….but it meets the ‘entry requirements’ for the store. I tend to wear it just under my nose. The FUHRER of NC can make an edict to wear a mask in buildings….he just can’t make me wear it correctly.

I constantly wonder exactly how many people HAD this shit between November-February and didn’t know it?

A Proud Infidel®™

I had ALL of the symptoms back in January. Sore like I had just taken a PT Test and went on a Ruck March without stretching, couldn’t taste or smell a damn thing,…

Ex-PH2

It started coming up on discussions about the Chinese New Year events, back in January, but the US Chinese business and restaurant owners said it had nothing to do with them. At the time, that was true, because they were generally getting ready for that holiday here in the USA, not over in China.
Then things changed a few weeks later.

Ex-PH2

When this episode of Fear & Loathing started, someone screamed bloody murder at me for having the nerve to not wear one when I drove up to the convenience store where she worked. She was swathed in plastic scrubs, had a hair covering on, and was behind a plexiglas window.

I left without purchasing anything.

That location is now closed.

Commissar

This is such a stupid debate.

Wear a mask, it reduces your chance of being infected. It also makes it far less likely you will infect someone else.

The only thing divisive about this it wearing masks divides conscientious people and ignorant asshats.

There is nothing partisan about this.

If you refuse to wear a mask you are a selfish moron.

A Proud Infidel®™

Blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah…

Is that all of your cult propaganda that you feel like regurgitating for now?

SFC D

If you get in my face about wearing a mask, you’re an arrogant virtue signalling asshole that needs to step back. Ignorant asshats wear masks too, it just makes them feel superior.

Dave Hardin

If you refuse to become part of the Herd that is strong enough to develop immunity, you are not doing your service to humanity.

It’s ok, some of us might die…but so others may live free.

Dave Hardin

Never confuse people with reality when they have already made up their minds.

It’s like putting lipstick on a pig, it serves no purpose and just annoys the pig.

Commissar

The masks protect others more than they protect yourself.

It is basic civic conscientiousness to wear a mask.

It also allows for a resumption of greater economic activity. Increasing Trump’s chance of being re-elected.

There is no rational reason not to wear a mask.

Your social darwinistic Ubermensch arguments aside.

11B-Mailclerk

Why only for coronavirus?

Flu kills tens of thousands, despite vaccine.

Pneumonia is a grim reaper.

Lots of other nasty bugs.

Permanent masking? That would be stupid.

Besides, 90+% of what are worn as “masks” do not stop coronavirus, which sheds as sub micron particles. Also, worn badly, they result in constant face touching, which is a primary vector.

Distance. Wash hands, don’t touch face. Same as for flu, which has worked for decades, and flu is annually and reliably more lethal on a broader age range. (Yes, it is)

Get over it.

A Proud Infidel®™

To top it off, we also still have TB, Measles is making a comeback thanks to anti-vaxxer idiots,…

The Other Whitey

If/when/where one wears a mask is a personal choice, Taylor. You don’t get to dictate it to anyone. If you’re that worried about it—and if they’re that effective—then wear your own and mind your own fucking business.

11B-Mailclerk

It’s all about the manipulation and dictating.

Marxism has a long history of forcing its victims to publicly participate in grotesque lies as a form of submissive humiliation. Once you go along with that lie you go along with the main Marxist lies. Which is why compliance is so essential. No freedom is tolerable.

HMCS(FMF) ret

Go hide in you bunker and leave the rest of humanity alone, Lars.

You don’t have a medical background and regurgitate the “cooked” info that your lefty progtard friends give you.

Twist

Maybe Joe Biden has some extra room in his basement that Lars can use to hide in as well.

Commissar

I am working stepped up to work in Emergency medicine during this pandemic.

So f-off with your bullshit coward narratives.

Your being a Irresponsible moron does not make me a coward.

HMCS(FMF) ret

GO look in the mirror… you’re the ignorant moron, Lars.

OldManchu

Do you work on Boomers also or bypass those ones?

RetiredDevilDoc8404

Cleaning bedpans and urinals doesn’t give you medical any knowledge there, skippy. My dog has forgotten more about emergency medicine than you are ever capable of learning. You want to play doctor with your pantifa buddies and impress them go right ahead but don’t try to lecture on things you only have BS talking points to back up. Tell us, oh Oracle of truth and knowledge have you been fit tested and how do you properly prepare your mask for wear? No Googling, either. I was fit tested at the fire department and every private ambulance company I worked at and 99% of the people wearing masks in public aren’t wearing them correctly.

The Other Whitey

Lars knows less about medicine than the writers of “911,” a show so absurdly bad it makes “Chicago Fire” look like a fucking documentary.

A Proud Infidel®™

“I am working stepped up to work in Emergency medicine during this pandemic.”

What are you gonna do major Moonbat, rub lavender oil on people’s feet?

Cowpill

I am not wearing a FU***NG mask.

Commissar

Way to virtue signal that your are a very prideful dipshit.

HMCS(FMF) ret

Social Commentary from the Berkeley Bigot….

RetiredDevilDoc8404

Oh, Larsie boy there is a stack of bedpans that need cleaning in the utility room, better get hot. When you’re done with that there’s 4 colostomy bags that need emptying. Stop wasting time, you emergency medicine stud! If you showed up to a car accident I was in I’d do my best to drive the wreck to the hospital on my own.

Cowpill

Lars I really could give a single shit what you think. If you want me to wear a mask, make me.

Scott

Maskhole spotted.

5th/77th FA

To wear or not to wear, that is the question. Like others here I keep one in my pocket. If the K Roger insist I put it on, I hang the damn thing on my ears, go in stay the hell away from people, which I normally do anyhow, get my stuff and get the hell out. Hurts them more than me, I just buy and don’t “shop.”

At the end of the day, as so many of us know and have said, this whole Chinesecommunist Originated Virus Infecting Disease of 2019 is just one more level to the plots by the foreign and domestic enemies of this country to destroy us and our way of life. All because, that Bitch of Benghazi, dasHitlerbeast, the murderous skrunt from hell, didn’t get her turn. It is that simple. The Deep State is real and Trump was a fixin’ to drain the swamp. If the dems get more control of the grubmint, we can either kiss this country good bye or prepare for an all out Civil War. There are enough of us prepared to defend what is ours and enough of the useful idiots to do the bidding of their political masters that it is almost inevitable.

All the crap we have seen over the last 3 years is ample proof. The ones that can’t see it are wearing their mask over their eyes instead of their nose/mouth. Sadly, the deep corruption is infested in BOTH parties. The same MAD theory that kept the US and USSR from launching WWIII was used by BOTH parties over the last 50 years to maintain their grip on power. Carter was the surprise of the 70s, Trump was the surprise of 2016. It was not Carter or Trump that they were after, it was us. They were just in the way. They will not make the mistake again. They will insure that the person they want elected, will be elected.

George V

Well, I’ll confess that I wear one when I go into a store or to church. It’s required, the stores are required by the state gummint to enforce the directive to wear a mask in a store, so why make life even more difficult for the store manager? And, if surgical docs wear a mask so they don’t give you something while they have your guts exposed to their exhalations, well, I’ll wear one to avoid or at least reduce breathing covid crap at you. Does that make me a fake conservative?

What I don’t do is wear one outside, nor do I congregate with people (other than my wife!). I do wonder about those who wear one in their car, alone. Oh, I also wash my hands before I pick my nose….

Jay

You do? How dirty is your friggen nose bro??

nobunny

I do not fully support the reasoning “Well, doctors/surgeons wear them.” Yes, but they also scrub you down with long acting antimicrobials in a super clean environment, with people who are heavily trained on aseptic technique. After which you receive large doses of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories.

As for medical people, from CNAs to physicians, masks are used like Kleenex. Use one time with one patient and throw away.

Masks only make the regular world a little less dirty – like being a little pregnant.

HMCS(FMF) ret

Good way of putting it…

LC

I’ll disagree, nobunny – doctors and surgeons wear them as part of a plan to protect themselves, and patients, from pathogens. The mask helps prevent inhalation and exhalation of said pathogens, and the scrub-down helps prevent infecting a patient via pathogens on the skin. They tackle different aspects of potential contamination.

It’s a bit like how cars have crumple zones and seatbelts – they’re both safety mechanisms, but defend against loss of life in different ways. Either one is better than none, but both together are better still.

nobunny

That’s exactly what I am saying. It’s part of a plan, but out in the dirty uncontrolled world. We are not turning Wal-Mart into an OR.

LC

Oh, fair enough, on that I agree – apologies for misunderstanding your point.

nobunny

10-4. Thanks.

SFC D

Lars, did you see this? This is how it works. Two individuals disagreed, discussed, and remained respectful.

Commissar

Yeah, LC has the patience of a saint.

I think people refusing to wear masks are idiots and lack the patience and impulse control to not say it.

It puts themselves at greater risk.
It puts people they care about at greater risk.
It put strangers they cross paths with at greater risk.
It puts medical professionals at greater risk.
It will increase the spread.
It will increase the economic impact.

It undermines the credibility of the GOP and Donald Trump.

It is the most asinine political position I have seen in my conscious life.

And it should not even be a political issue at all.

It should be common sense.

I honestly only thought a few of the regulars here were truly idiots.

I may have underestimated that number.

nobunny

Pffft. Go boil your hands. It’ll make you feel better.

11B-Mailclerk

LC can effectively get a point across without sounding like a raging-teenage-nincompoop.

You almost never make useful conversation.

He is often attempting to convey info and persuade.

You are running the moonbat virtue signal multiplex theater of projection, rage-stomping “I am smarter than you bad people”.

And when you double down on all that, you just make my point for me.

SFC D

That “teachable moment” was wasted.

nobunny

And you’re comparing apples to Humpback whales.

OmegaPaladin

I wear a mask when I leave the house – I need it for Uber or public transit, for stores, and for work. I like the American flag mask that my crafty girlfriend made for me. My job requires me to tell people to wear a mask, so I’m not going to be hypocritical. Also, it beats the lockdown any day.

I know a SF vet who has a mask with his unit patch, and another mask with the logo for the Fuerzas Commando competition. I suggest getting some Gadsen flag masks and MAGAmasks.

Commissar

Just wear a damn mask.

If not to protect yourself, then to protect others and those you care about.

And to allow for more economic activity.

The idiocy of making mask wearing partisan is going to be a leading cause of why Trump loses in November,

OmegaPaladin

Commissar,

I hate the partisanship in mask wearing. However, it is not purely or mostly a creature of the right. I dealt with complaints for COVID non-compliance for several months at work. People were outraged by someone not wearing a mask outside well over 50ft from other people, inside a conference room or office by themselves, and even submitting false complaints against a person. This is in academia, mind you.

We’ve also seen numerous public health figures destroying their own authority and credibility. I tried to defend some of their mandates, but anyone who outright said that BLM protests were not a COVID concern revealed themselves to be worthless hacks. People in power who argue for mandatory restrictions and masking exempt themselves and political cronies.

Yeah, I wear a mask. But I’m sick of trying to deal rampant Karenism and Gretchen hypocrisy.

Penguinman000

Wearing a mask reduces the viral load people spew as they go out and about. It’s a stop gap measure that doesn’t address the root cause. This is an example of reactionary correction/following trailing indicators.

Working out increases your overall health and directly combats a number of comorbid conditions that increase disease mortality. It addresses root cause of the disease. This is an example of being proactive/following leading indicators.

Gym owners are being thrown I jail for providing a means to address the root cause. But bars are open where people drink and engage in close conversation.

What exactly is the government attempting to achieve by endorsing stop gap measures and avoiding efforts to combat tackling the root cause?

Penguinman000

And it became partisan the moment politicians said it’s ok to protest against cops/have mass gatherings but not ok to work to feed your family.

The science is the science. Once people start selectively applying facts there should be zero expectation others won’t do the same.

The sad part is so many people on the left used to claim to be pro science. Now that the facts don’t fit their narrative they just deny the facts.

11B-Mailclerk

If they put half that “mask” effort into “stand further apart, -scrub- your hands frequently, and don’t touch your face” , there would be much less sickness and death.

Those -work-. Same as we do for flu every year right?

When docs see patients, do they mask, or wash their hands before and after?

Hm. And maybe I had this conversation with every GP I have consulted over the last 30 years or so?

Oh wait! Suddenly they have been doing it wrong!

26Limabeans

If they would just stop odering people around they
would get far more compliance. It is that simple.

HMCS(FMF) ret

But the “Karens” and others like Lars love to be the ones in control… they are the ones that believe they have some sort of moral authority to enforce it.

HMCS(FMF) ret

OT… guess who endorsed Biden:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/revolutionary-communist-party-endorses-democrat-joe-biden-for-president

Do what the party tells you to do, Lars….

26Limabeans

I fully support the communist party endorsing Biden.
I urge all communists to work together to ensure that
he has your full support. Make your voices heard!

Veritas Omnia Vincit

As an essential manufacturing operation we’ve recently completed a massive order of over 800k face masks shipped for a large health concern. They believe the masks keep their clients safe and shipped out masks to all of them around the country through our facility and several others. For me personally I try to avoid the politics of it all and look at what our doctors say and what doctors around the world are saying along with the data from our nation and the world. Because I’ve been around people in our facility for the duration of the pandemic and due to limited testing availability to date I wear one in public on the off chance I’m one of the asymptomatic carriers of the disease. I don’t want to be the guy who infected some poor soul and caused them harm. Being in Massachusetts we have a mandate now that involves a fine unless you can prove your medical condition. Our facility is setup so that most of our equipment allows for social distancing of well over 15 feet never mind 6 feet. Prior to the mandate if a business asked that I wear a mask I respected their request and wore my mask as requested same as I wear a shirt and shoes. At the end of the day I will be honest that I have some concerns regarding the government over reach on this issue with respect to not only limiting personal freedoms, but in the ruling by edict resulting in some businesses being closed never to open again. How those business owners will be compensated for the loss of their business, if at all, remains to be seen(or litigated) and how those former employees who lost their jobs through no fault of their own will be treated also remains to be seen. I would normally not be a fan of extra unemployment payments, but in this case where people were forcibly placed out of work by the government with no option to find other work for the duration of the shut down additional monies and payments seem appropriate.… Read more »

11B-Mailclerk