@Matt Jackson. Very well said!
You hit the big points but I would add two which I believe are consistent and defensible within your thesis. They've all been discussed before, perhaps too subtle. Perhaps poorly.
1) Science Fetish: Actually a brilliant political strategy to claim one side denies and the other side embraces. People actually believe this. In any case, going on for a few decades, some set of very marginal scientists as well as the “not really” scientists (social, history, psychology..) have become modelers. Just consider the child who invented “quarantine for all” in the early 2000s, and the incompetent administrators who backed it. Those who can't do science, model science. Lots of job slots for c students and pseudo scientists. Bigger bucks for plasma physicists than social scientists. Why?
2) political correctness. There has been a disproportionate correlation between genius and ethnicity. I don't need to explicitly say what we all observe, do I? Could be cultural could be genetic. I really don't know. But again you’ve nailed it. No harm in letting a C student have the high paying supervisory job. Win win right? What could possibly go wrong?
Holy hell Rip, it'll take some programming inve$tment, but you need to create CoVid CaPCHa codes with questions that must be correctly answered before one is allowed to post in this thread. I took the time to catch myself up when I joined this party at around page 269, but clearly I am an exception. Every dozen pages some infantile claim gets repeated by a more docile member of our society, and who has the patience for that anymore? We could all get that by reading the MSM; you don't have to bring your NewSpeak here, Markus1. And use your real damn names, all you benevolent propaganda pushers, if you believe so strongly in it. How did they get out of using their real names to be ALLOWED to post here in the forum?
This calls for some nineties-era Yo Mama jokes:
Yo Mama got such stank breath, she wore a mask all day at work and gave herself bacterial pneumonia.
Yo Mama so dumb, she thought a mandate to wear a surgeon's mask to go grocery shopping was an impediment on her liberty as a free, fat woman in 'Murica.
Yo Mama so fat, they had to jab BOTH her fat ass cheeks before she got sick from the Novel Vaccine & died.
...
I think that the unknown and unconsidered health impacts of long-term mask wearing is worth discussing.
JF, you seem to assume that all the “anti-mask virtue signaling” is all politically motivated, but some of us just don’t feel good wearing the fucking things all day. I wear this goddamn thing for 8-10 hours a day without much more than a 5 minute break to drink a protein shake. I don’t like having my nose and mouth covered — it stresses me out and all of the sudden I have issues at work with breathlessness, anxiety, chest pains and headaches that I’ve never had before. The only relief i get is during my workout when I pull the thing down for my sets or when no whiney liberals are watching. I know my body pretty well and I can feel when something isn’t right, like the daily headache that occurs after the first hour or so of mask wearing.
I also think that kids shouldn’t have to wear this things, not because I’m “virtue signaling,” but because it’s just plain fucking stupid.
What I meant was that the dude wanted to go out with more than just the sound of the "Bang". Maybe he wanted to world to know his name too? He might've thought if I blow up a large city block they'll all know my name? Just my thoughts. I could be wrong?
Given Herr Mueller's reflexive deploring of any criticism of Fauci, I wondered, did I miss something back in the 80's about Fauci being gay? Hence, any criticism is automatically a BAD THING. But apparently Fauci is heterosexual, if his marriage to a woman is any indication along with nothing indicating his alternative lifestyle choices cropping up through my Google-fu.
So why all the outrage? There has been plenty of criticism of Fauci and from all possible quarters of the political spectrum. At least when considered since the 80's. Now? He is prepped for canonization. Unless he keeps zig zagging in the event Trump does not prevail.
Absolutely fucking disgusting!
I mean, what kind of asshole deliberately lies about the data on both AIDS and Covid-19 just because they themselves happen to be among the demographics that are overwhelmingly targeted by both viruses?
Certainly not someone whom we should respect as some kind of scientist, right?
It's kind of sad in this day and age, huh?