Absurdities

Love the offender, yet detest the offense.

— Alexander Pope

Self-justification is a powerful force.

A recent Goodly post offended a friend of mine, who's rejoicing over the end of mask mandates. 

He was particularly upset by my calling anti-maskers "discourteous" and "miserable" and wanted to know if I was labeling him as such.

"I and millions of other well-informed people are convinced we are well past the point of mandating mask-wearing," he said.

This fallacious argument is known among logicians as the argumentum ad populum. 

It insists that, because a belief is held in common by a large group of people, it is therefore correct.

The fallacy is clear: just because a crowd thinks something is so doesn't make it so. (More on this in a moment.)

In fairness to my friend, I believe he views my criticisms as instances of "name-calling."

Name-calling is mightily offensive to everyone (especially to name-callers).

He also views mask-wearing as an instance of "hygiene theater."

Medical experts now know Covid-19 is transmitted through the air and that many of the now-outdated public-safety protocols we cherish, like surface-scrubbing, hand-sanitizing, plexiglass shields and disposable menus, are worthless "theatrics" designed to soothe anxious citizens.

Mask-wearing, however, doesn't fall into the same category. 

Mask-wearing, in fact, deters the spread of Covid-19.

Naturally, you can always find a medical practitioner or two who insists masks are hooey; but they'd be lacking evidence. 

You can also assert that the entire scientific community is stupid and wrong; but you'd be lacking evidence.

My problem with anti-maskers is simple: their behavior is unconscionable. 

By ignoring the fact that Covid-19 has killed 1 million Americans and isn't done with us yet, they're guilty of criminal negligence.

And rather than delight in their guilt, I'm saddened. 

I'm sad that a microbe is smarter than the millions of our fellow citizens who'd tell you mask-wearing is whimpy.

They skew Conservative and represent the same crowd that voted for Trump in 2020 (although they'd deny it).

They're the "fake news" bunch.

They don't believe in science and medicine and don't accept civic duty, unless it's convenient, justifying their irresponsible behaviors with the argumentum ad populum.

I'm sorry, but accepting without evidence another's beliefs—or even many people’s beliefs—is just wishful, lazy thinking.

It's thinking of the kind that, throughout history, has produced absurdities like these:

• The earth is flat.
• The fifth day of every month is unlucky.
• Drinking gladiators' blood will cure epilepsy.
• Mice originate from cheese wrapped in dirty rags.
• The earth is 6,000 years old.
• Proximity to the sun determines IQ.
• Blistering the skin with a hot iron cures disease.
• Tobacco enemas revive drowning victims.
• Plowing the ground will make it rain.
• The speed of trains crushes passengers’ brains.
• Implanting goat testicles in the scrotum will cure ED.
• Lower taxes for the rich benefit everyone.
• All Mexicans are rapists.
  
• Vladmir Putin is admirable. 

We don't need anti-maskers' absurdities.

The world is absurd enough.

Dutch and the Donald

Nothing personal, just business.

— Dutch Schultz

A judge last week ruled that Donald Trump must testify in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation of his company.

With the decision, Trump can no longer avoid justice. 

"He's running out of the tricks that he used in the past," one journalist noted.

Not quite.

He can take a page from fellow New Yorker Dutch Schultz. 

He can kill Letitia James.

In 1935, the Jewish mobster Schultz found himself the target of New York City’s special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, who'd pledged with his appointment to rid the city of racketeers.

Dewey was a crusader, with eyes set on higher office (he would run for US president three times between 1940 and 1948). He pursued Schultz with vigor, indicting him for tax evasion. As Dewey wrote in his 1974 memoir, Twenty Against the Underworld, "I regarded it as a matter of primary importance to get Dutch Schultz."

Schultz's reaction was true to form. 

"Dewey's gotta go," he told associates and put out a contract on the prosecutor's life worth $25,000 (over $500,000 in today's money).

When Schultz advised the New York syndicate of the contract, the other family bosses balked, insisting that to rub out Dewey would only bring more government prosecution. They refused to authorize Schultz's hit.

"I’m gonna hit him myself," Schultz told the syndicate.

But the hit never happened. 

Instead, the syndicate rubbed out Schultz, whom they considered a loose cannon.

But, flashing forward, Trump doesn't have a syndicate to answer to. He can rub out Letitia James with impunity.

Stay tuned.

Fade up music.

Prediction

With all eyes on Putin, watch for this story to develop in the coming weeks: all along Mr. Obvious was a paid shill of the Russian autocrat.

Follow the money.

Goofy Governing

The repeal last week of Seattle's 30-year-old bike helmet law by the city's board of health exemplifies the sort of goofy governing that infuriates right-wingers.

As reported by The New York Times, Seattle scrapped the law—despite its proven ability to save lives—because police used it as a pretext to hassle Blacks.

“The question before us wasn’t the efficacy of helmets,” a board member said. "The question before us was whether a helmet law that’s enforced by police on balance produces results that outweigh the harm that that law creates."

As the basis of its decision, the board cited a local advocacy group's analysis of court records.

The analysis showed cops disproportionately ticketed Blacks for breaking the bike helmet law.

The analysis neglected to examine whether Seattle's Blacks wore bike helmets less frequently than other citizens, or rode bikes more frequently (both highly likely).

The same board declared racism a public health crisis in 2020.

You might credibly argue the bike helmet law was never fair, or that governments shouldn't "legislate safety" in the first place, and so the board's decision is the right one.

I don't see it that way.

Bike helmet laws have proven to reduce brain injuries and save lives everywhere. Their fair enforcement is a matter of police reform.

But if police harassment outweighs pubic safety, and social justice trumps public health, then it's only logical that all traffic laws be rescinded, and that police forces be defunded accordingly.

We don't need a lot of cops to enforce nonexistent traffic laws. Get rid of them! 

And it's that inevitable logic which sends right-wingers into apoplexy.

As it should.

Laws often have unintended consequences. (The mandate to stop at red lights, for example, often makes me late for my art classes, which really pisses me off.)

That doesn't make them laws we should rescind.

Goofy governing like Seattle's gives liberals a bad name. 

Toxic Masculinity

I have a bad feeling about this.

— Han Solo

"Toxic masculinity."

I overhear this phrase in coffee shops, cafés, and restaurants more than any other single phrase.

I don't know why it's on the top of women's minds right now—at least the minds of the women who frequent coffee shops, cafés, and restaurants—but it definitely is.

I don't know what's happening to women; but—whatever it is—I have a bad feeling about this.

Perhaps you can blame their wrath on Andrew Cuomo, Jeffery Epstein, or Texas's Republicans.

But, whatever the cause, I think men are soon up for a collective asswhuppin' (defined by Urban Dictionary as an "intense physical retribution involving heavy bruising, put upon a person in need of a life-lesson in civility, politeness, and manners"). 

The phrase "toxic masculinity" was coined 36 years ago by farmer and writer Shepherd Bliss. He thought it described the authoritarian streak displayed by his absent, career-military father.

Over the decades since, however, the phrase has come to denote practically all the attitudes and actions of men, who by dint of gender are not only vulgar and sloppy, but aggressive, competitive, homophobic, sexist, and misogynistic.

That's seems awfully harsh; but I'm not most men's target.

Novelist Norman Mailer, fairly macho himself, believed that contemporary American males were toxic because they were without honor.

"Masculinity is not something given to you, something you’re born with, but something you gain," he wrote in 1962. "And you gain it by winning small battles with honor. 

"Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men."

I think Mailer was onto something.

Somewhere on the journey to manhood, American men forgot about honor.