I
The ‘Trans’ movement is causing as much disorder in our time as the various ‘Zero’ movements. But there is a difference between them. The ‘Zero’ movements, as Jordan Peterson puts it, depend on ‘lies, damn lies, statistics, and computer models’. In a word, on evidence: or, rather, on ‘evidence’. The ‘Trans’ movement depends on logic: or, rather, on ‘logic’. (Inverted commas are a useful distancing device here.)
The Daily Sceptic has many more articles on the subjects of COVID and CLIMATE, than it has on the various species of WOKERY. This is because it is easier to be sceptical about scientific claims than identitarian claims. It is easier to be sceptical about evidence than it is about logic. This is because the sceptic can always find evidence against the original evidence: so that all the evidence and counter-evidence can be brought together to battle it out within the same framework of logic. It is harder to be sceptical about logic itself, because what we have is entire frameworks coming into contradiction. This is especially true of what happens when we try to think about ‘Trans’.
The ‘Trans’ movement bases its claims not on evidence but on logic. This is to say that it prefers to appeal to a false or dubious a priori, rather than to a false or dubious a posteriori. We are not in the world of ‘evidence-based’ science. Everyone knows that the ‘Trans’ movement is completely indifferent to evidence. It depends on logic. This logic is not a very good logic, but, no matter what you think of it, it is a logic, and it has a coherence of its own. Let us call it TRANSLOGIC.
Although this logic is not our logic, many of us (or at least those of us who call ourselves liberals) find that we get tangled up in TRANSLOGIC, whether we want to or not. It is easy to get tangled up in TRANSLOGIC: and this is why I propose a way out of confusion by distinguishing this form of logic from two older forms of logic.
II
Before I sketch the logics, it is important to draw attention to the importance of history in all of this. TRANSLOGIC is a logic about a difficult and dangerous subject which, for not much more than a century, we have classified under the category of ‘sex’. But it is very important to note that ‘sex’ is a modern thing. There was no clear ancient or medieval word for what we mean by ‘sex’. For thousands of years there was marital love on the one hand, and porneia or ‘fornication’ and unnatural acts on the other: one good, and one evil. What we have come to call ‘sex’ was, of course, usually related to and also subordinated to another something else – namely, love. It was about our duties to others rather than about our rights against others.
Love and sex, sex and love (along with appetite, desire, pleasure, respect, care, reverence): one has to consider these subjects with caution for three reasons. The first is that they are fundamental: life depends on them. The second is that they are almost spectacularly existential for us once we are alive: they concern what we suppose, or know, we are, and what we know, or suppose, we want. The third is that they are not necessarily always commensurable: there is an element of unpredictability about the relation between love and sex: nothing is fixed. It has to be fixed. And if the relation between love and sex is so shape-shifting and paradoxical it is no wonder that there is so much potential for confusion.
Philosophers and theologians from Plato and St. Paul downwards tried to bracket out sex for the sake of love; and this was always the doctrine, more or less, right down to the time of the extremely Enlightened figures of the late nineteenth century such as Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter and Sigmund Freud, who, through their researches and speculations and recategorisations, more or less created the category of ‘sex’ as an exotic subject of interest and identification rather than as a bare classification of type. This was the ‘sexual revolution’ which unfolded from the 1890s through to our time: aided and abetted over time by mechanisms of contraception, abortion and television and the dubious conspiracy known as ‘sex education’. Our world is the world of Kinsey and what Noel Coward called his ‘deafening report’.
The invention of the word ‘sex’ enabled us to separate certain things from ‘love’, and, since ‘love’ had previously always been understood to be something higher then mere sex, this meant that everything that we call ‘sex’ had previously been disciplined by ‘love’, which meant by religious precepts of duty and care. Some of the most charming artefacts in history are the Byzantine gravestones that depict a man and wife holding hands. They knock Larkin’s Arundel Tomb (‘what will survive of us is love’) into a cocked hat. But in the last century ‘sex’ broke out of its bracket (not quite in Larkin’s 1963), exploded out of Pandora’s box, left the carnival of brothel and music hall and holiday postcard, and remade an entire civilisation. So the subjects which have confused everyone since Adam and Eve are now even more confusing since they are not disciplined by religion and ritual: they are considered to be not only part of free activity but also part of the way we identify those engaging in such free activity.
III
So how to clarify the situation when our understanding of sex has not only been complicated by the ‘sexual revolution’ symbolised by the invention of the word ‘sex’ but also by its last iteration in the innovations of the ‘Trans’ movement?
The way to do this is to sketch three forms of logic: one antique, one modern, and one which we may as well call postmodern.
The first logic is the old logic, the one associated with Biblical morality. This is the logic of our fathers, and our fathers’ fathers, and so on. The second is the logic of the last hundred or so years, the one associated with liberalism. The third is the logic which has exploded into significance in the last decade, the one associated with the ‘Trans’ movement.
These are three different logics, but they emerged in this particular order historically: and as there is no way that the third could have arrived without the second, they form a sort of sequence too.
The first, antique logic involves the following line of thought:
• There is only sex.
• (Gender is a matter of grammar only.)
• ‘God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.’ (Gen. 2.27.)
• Sex is natural; and determines the roles of men and women.
• Therefore, man is, and man does as man is; equally, woman is, and woman does as woman is.
The second, modern, liberal logic involves a rather different original assumption:
• Sex and gender are different.
• (Sex is nature; gender is behaviour.)
• We now distinguish what we are from what we do.
• There are no determined roles for men and women.
• Man is, but a man may do as a woman does; woman is, but a woman may do as a man does.
• (‘Experiments in living’ are acceptable said John Stuart Mill in On Liberty in 1859.)
• Even though I am a member of one sex; I may behave as a member of the other sex.
This second logic, along with the first, has, until now, formed the background to contemporary culture. Against the imperative of the first logic to marry and be loyal, the second logic has suggested that we can do whatever we want, as long as it is by consent and does not cause harm. It is certainly behind the general acceptance of homosexuality.
The third, postmodern logic, which I am calling TRANSLOGIC, is different from the second logic because it brings ‘identity’ back in such a way that the liberal logic is twisted round so it isn’t liberal any more:
• Sex and gender are the same.
• This is because gender has incorporated sex into itself.
• (Facio ergo sum: ‘I behave, therefore I am.’)
• I can choose my sex, not only my sex in the sense of my preferences about others (‘I know what I want’), but my sex in the sense of my preferences about myself (‘I know what I am’).
• Nothing is determined by nature; because there is no difference between nature and artifice; and therefore everything is artifice.
• I decide what my sex is, what my pronouns are, etc.
This TRANSLOGIC has doubtless been helped along by the plastic surgeons and social media influencers, and quite possibly other things to be explained by the historians of the future. But it is mostly about language and logic: and the ‘Trans’ phenomenon has been so confusing because so many of us have tended to think that it operates under the second logic. But – and it is definitely not original to say this, though it is still not recognised as often as it should be – there is a fundamental difference between the second logic and the third. Their original assumptions are contradictory. Either sex and gender are different or sex and gender are the same. One has to decide.
IV
It is our collective refusal to see this tension clearly which has led to the anger, confusion and grievance on both sides. For people who adopt the second logic – and this includes feminists and libertines as well as homosexuals – there is a difference between sexual nature and sexual behaviour. But for people who adopt TRANSLOGIC, there is no such difference. And the consequence of this is astonishing: it means that for those who belong to the ‘Trans’ movement linguistic constructions are entirely constitutive of reality. In other words, there is no such thing as nature.
This is why TRANSLOGIC is far more threatening to the young than the second, liberal logic is. If there is such a thing as nature, then coming to maturity matters. Coming to maturity matters a great deal for liberals since they believe in ‘consent’ and ‘the age of consent’. One cannot, they say, make decisions about one’s preferences about others (‘I know what I want’) until one is sexually mature. But if there is no such thing as nature, if everything is artifice, then everything is a matter of choice: and the question of our preferences about ourselves (‘I know what I am’) are, very obviously, nothing to do with age. Even the smallest child has a sense of who he/she/it is, even if it is only momentary. So instead of a logic based on the fixity of our original sexual nature, in TRANSLOGIC we have a logic concerned with momentary authenticity and identity. Consequently, in TRANSLOGIC there is no such thing as maturity.
From the 1960s onwards our elites, and, by and large, the masses, went along with the relaxing of laws relating to sex and marriage. There was an acceptance of the second logic, so that the first and second logics stood, somewhat awkwardly, side by side. But many people are now coming to the view that there is a problem. And they are right. What is being proposed by the ‘Trans’ movement is that a third logic be brought into existence. Sometimes its most exuberant activists seem to suggest that anyone who refuses to accept this logic should be sent into exile.
TRANSLOGIC is not liberal. It is by some way the worst logic of the three I have sketched. But its rise has been permitted, I think, by the fact that so many liberals have taken it to be simply an acceptable extension of their own, second, logic, rather than a replacement of it by something far less liberal. For half a century or more, liberals have been willing to accept a relaxing of sexual and marital rules for reasons of increased freedom and toleration. Of course, exponents of the antique, Biblical, morality oppose this. But the really significant thing is that liberals are coming to oppose it: or, let us be just: they are finding themselves divided down the middle in relation to whether 1. they adhere to an extension of further relaxing and further toleration (without noticing that their logic is being twisted to destruction), or 2. they adhere to the logic which has justified the relaxing and toleration that has already taken place and therefore must reject any further relaxation and toleration.
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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Not much consolation for my old mate in Scotland, where you can be locked up if someone decides they were offended by something you said.
I suppose at least wearing a mask could help with that, since the accused could ask of the accuser ‘Did he see my lips move when he heard that?’
Questions to ask yourself before approaching me asking where my mask is…….
Thanks for pulling all this together in one place. Unfortunately the people who need to understand this aren’t likey to be reading DS.
Abaluck et al. (2021) conducted a cluster-randomised trial of community-level mask promotion in rural Bangladesh from November 2020 to April 2021, with 600 villages and 342,126 adult participants. Previous studies have evidenced that masks act primarily as a source control (they protect others from the person wearing the mask), and there is plenty of intergenerational mixing in rural Bangladesh, so if masks were effective, we’d expect a decrease in COVID-19 infections across all age groups in the intervention villages. However, the reduction in infections in the intervention villages was concentrated among individuals aged over 50, with no significant effect found for those aged under 50. The most parsimonious explanation is that the masks had no effect, and the over 50s, being at greater risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19, practiced more physical distancing and went out less. Making masks mandatory in a community setting fails to pass a cost–benefit analysis.
https://www.poverty-action.org/publication/impact-community-masking-covid-19-cluster-randomized-trial-bangladesh
Inherently unrepeatable one-off experiments are the cornerstone of junk science, no matter how much money interested parties are willing to put into them.
Outside of a health care setting, masks don’t work to prevent respiratory diseases That was the official science until 2020, but then rather remarkably and virtually overnight the “science” changed when the dreaded Rona arrived. This new science is of course the real junk science and is based solely only on hot air and the rustle of money being shovelled into an utterly corrupt academia.
The “science” changed because Globocap and their psychologist puppets decided masks would help their fear message and re-inforce the 1984 imagery.
I suspect most of us in here are well versed with this but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce. I’ve yet to be challenged and hopefully that will continue even if the mandate is reintroduced.
Dunno how you’ve managed that – up until July I had loads of hassle from jobsworth twats in supermarkets and on trains. On one occasion had a trio of plods form a “welcoming committee” at the top of the steps out of the subway at a station.
I gave in and got one of those sunflower lanyards last time. I don’t think I’m prepared to wear it again – and if any supermarket door goon starts demanding proof I’ll ask to speak to the manager and ask them to explain why they are asking for proof when it’s not required. Had enough of pandering to Covidians now and quite prepared to get into arguments!
Ditto. Worst arguments have been hospital nurses following admittance for a heart attack.
I didn’t back down.
My wife attended a breast screening appointment at a local hospital – I don’t wear a mask and invested in a £3 lanyard which acts like garlic on a vampire
Many so called health professionals don’t wear blue surgical masks correctly to start with, many of them handle it and then ttransfer any “germs” elsewhere
A few don’t wear them and I get knowing lokks and wry grins from them
She went back for her results yesterday (all clear) and I forgot the lanyard – no problems at all
In fact we had a coffee and sitting down the virus obviously understood it shouldn’t infect people drinking and eating
The Mask Mandate like the Jab Mandate is absolute theatre
I was challenged for the first time last week , when I went to the opticians.
Camp young receptionist: “Mfffl wbble drbble”
Me : “Sorry?”
Him : “Frrgll hvvfft splongh”
Me: “I’ve no idea what you’re saying”
Him, lifting gimp mask: “Can you wear a mask, please”
Me: “No, I’m exempt”
Him: “Do you have an appointment?”
A few minutes later he had another go “Do you have an exemption certificate?”
Me: “They don’t exist”
The optician and saleswoman were fine.
I am a 6 foot 2 surly Yorkshireman, though!
Had a run-in with an Australia Post employee when I went maskless to pick up a parcel delivery. I was outside his little cubbyhole, in the open air, and there was a screen between us but as he approached he skidded to a halt at least six feet away, horrified by my naked face and from behind his mask mumbled something about me needing to wear a mask as the South Australian Health government website said so. I said I was exempt (I have self-exempted from bullshit and the physical harms attendant on mask usage). Still frightened, he asked to see my doctor’s exemption authorisation so I calmly asked if he was an ‘authorised officer’ as only police and such like are authorised to check people’s reasons for not using a mask. He, a lowly government worker, was not aware of the whle ‘authorised officer’ thing, so obviously he wasn’t duly authorised to ‘check my papers’. After a little bit of a stand-off, he grumpily consented to fetch my parcel, will ill-disguised bad grace. But it was a victory to me!
Stand your ground! I’m a very easy-going guy but after 18 months of Covid lunacy, I’ve had it with the tinpot little jobsworths.
Point 2) needs to include the risk of bacterial infection that could result in pneumococcal pneumonia, and it should note that mask manufacturers such as 3M issue guidance for the safe use of their masks key among which is that they should not be worn for protracted periods -typically 2 hours in the case of N95 or higher spec. Together with the strictures about not touching the mask filter surface and not wearing more than once makes it impossible to follow the government guidance for school children or adults in restaurants etc.
I just reviewed comments in The Telegraph.
Usually a haven of sanity.
Total panic over booster availability.
This is good information and neatly summarises it all. Incidentally I have spent a few days in Cambridge and you can see that the Covid propaganda and precautions e.g. mask wearing, has worked wonderfully well for the behavioural scientists. As many are still wearing masks, even in the open air. They have even embedded Covid/social distancing messages into the paving slabs at multiple strategic sites and where people assemble. I suppose the thought behind it all is to capture the minds of the academics and intelligentsia and the sheep will follow…
Highly educated towns are the worst in my opinion – places where average folk just want to get on with their lives in a common sense kind of way tend to be a mix of masks and non masks. Unfortunately I live in a town with a high level of education and I can tell you Waitrose is mask central even now …. Morrisons, not so much.
Durham is dreadful; Hexham, where I live is nearly as bad, particularly in places where the middle class incomers go, such as Waitrose. The farmers and other local workers gave up a long time ago. My home town, a Red Wall Town, gave up long before July and now masks are rare.
I do occasionally carry a copy of https://evidencenotfear.com/why-face-masks-dont-work-a-revealing-review-john-hardie/ that shows the real efficacy of face masking in a clinical setting.
Even that is over-stating their effectiveness – writing ‘significantly’ implies that there may be some measurable impact. The reality is that there is absolutely no measurable impact – look at infection, hospitalisaation, death graphs for any country, or any state within a country such as the US, and see if you can tell whether there was a muzzle mandate, and when it was imposed. In every case, it is impossible to tell as the mandate has absolutely zero impact on the graph.
The only reasonable conclusion is therefore that masks have no impact at all in the real world (as opposed to contrived experimental situations). Prior to last year this complete lack of real-world impact would have been taken as evidence that they don’t work, but now of course we are ‘guided by The Science’, which means that if some contrived experiments, or even mathematical modelling, says that something works then we (or rather, the government, their advisors and the MSM) have to continue to insist that it does indeed work and is in fact very effective, even though every single set of real-world statistics show the opposite…
Did anyone watch tonight’s Shit Show? Masks, masks and more fucking masks! In between “get yourself pricked or we’ll make your life a bloody misery” it was “wear a [sodding] mask”! FFS! If they are so bloody good at stopping the Wuhan Lab Flu then here’s what we do: everyone wear a mask at all times for the next two weeks. Inside, outside, in a whore’s bedroom, everywhere. That should see off the little bugger – surely?
I can’t watch these choreographed shitshows any more – I’d end up shouting a constant stream of expletives at the screen!
Never worn them for very good reasons. Many I know are saying they’re not going to wear them again. What I am seeing though is a new culture of people coughing, sneezing, and spluttering into their naps, and LEAVING them across their faces!!! Jeez, like when a baby fills its nappy! I saw a young bloke putting out vegetables in the supermarket, whilst hacking into his flimsy mask, and it blowing our at the sides. He did it repeatedly. I thought he must have to change it, it must be disgusting inside. But no he just carried on coughing up plegm…How have we got to this? What is wrong with using handkerchiefs and tissues? Why is it suddenly now perfectly acceptable to have bacteria-ridden rags strapped permanently across incontinent noses and mouths, that are constantly fiddled with…and, even more disturbing why is it that some people seem to bloody love it!!!!
There’s a middle-aged woman who works on the checkouts in one of the supermarkets I use, who always wears a muzzle and always has it below her nose, and constantly fiddles with it while handling the shopping. It’s really not pleasant – and of course even the government concedes that wearing it below the nose is completely pointless.
I try to avoid putting my shopping through her checkout!
Went to see my dental hygienist today amongst the topics of conversation she asked me whether I had my booster shot!.She was complaining of swollen lymph nodes following hers.I gave my opinion which she agreed with.I told her do you know people are dying from these jabs?she was aware though went ahead because BUPA had put pressure on her also they wanted her to charge £40 extra per patient because of PPE and risk which she refused!Increased ‘safety’ measures in place the crazy carousel continues.
Just don’t put the bloody thing in. Never, never, never.
The other day I saw a group of young lads all laughing at their friend because his glasses had steamed-up, and that “he should have mini windscreen wipers for his glasses, ha, ha, ha…” But, all of them were wearing masks and not one of them realised the significance of the glasses steaming-up. No logical connection was made between the inability of the mask to confine air vapour, either in or out.
The obvious issue with mask MANDATES is that they are essentially unenforceable – anyone who disagrees can subvert them by wearing their mask exactly the wrong way (as most people do, even those who think they are effective). So regardless of whether MASKS work or not, mandating them and hoping for the best is utter bs. Somehow this shocking realization has escaped all the clever scientists and serene law makers for 18 months. But maybe that’s for the better, or else they might come up with introducing some sort of muzzle gestapo next.
The sixth form college where I work has just reimposed a mask mandate for all after half term. Apparently it is the teachers job to ensure the students comply. Previously many of my colleagues were enthusiastic mask enforcers and several still routinely parade around with their own masks on, though the most avid of all is currently off sick, with..
More abuse of young people.
When the mask mandate came in I made a mask out of gauze purchased from a haberdashery. You can quite clearly see me smile through it and it was perfectly legal under the letter of the law at the time but not the spirit, however that is irrelevant as this is in England.
There is no law and no letter.
You know what makes me laugh?
You can wear any old piece of rag over your mush and it passes as a virus blocker!
Since when has an old t-shirt been proven to stop a virus from spreading? NEVER! Yet there’s nothing to stop you cutting and sewing one together and the psyched up, dumbed down society accepts it without question!
Crazy beyond belief!
Q7: Leopard print or side vent?
Does my chin look big in this?
The list of exemptions is not exhaustive as far as I know. The wording is pretty classic vague legalese. In general unless stated explicitly wording like “include” before a list means it’s not exhaustive. The law is unenforceable IMO – how could anyone determine what constitutes a reasonable excuse with any consistency based on a non-exhaustive list.
‘If wearing a muzzle causes you acute distress…’
If wearing a muzzle does NOT cause you acute distress, you are subhuman.
Added argument: Someone who’s really a fully-capable human being wouldn’t need protective clothing to survive among them.
An oft-cited counter-argument to the face mask sceptic is that “The NHS insists on its workers covering their faces throughout their shift, so they must achieve something useful, since they are the experts”.
The widely accepted consensus pre-2020 was that facemasks outside of healthcare settings do little or nothing to curb the spread of respiratory viruses. But implicit in this statement is assumption that they do work to control the spread in health-care settings (principally hospitals).
Of course, in a hospital, there is more at stake with respect to the risks of a respiratory virus outbreak – the consequences are greater than anywhere else, barring perhaps care homes. So greater caution has to be taken in these settings. But why are the dynamics of spread and the associated mitigation of it by use of a face mask, perceived to be any different in health-care settings than in, say, a crowded London tube?
If they don’t work outside health-care settings (and I believe they don’t), then why would they work inside health-care settings? Surely they either work, work partially, or don’t work, regardless of where you are.
Would be great to hear anyone’s thoughts on this, but I suspect that it has a lot to do with the fact that they are continually compelled to assert that they work in hospitals and care homes, because as soon as the mandate in hospitals and care homes is ditched, they’ll have to ditch it everywhere else as well, and the psychological control tool of the masked face will be no longer.
.
A proper Covidian scenario would be I’m wearing this mask to prevent viruses in my body from reaching you! vs I’m building this fence to prevent fleas on my body from jumping onto you!
Presumably it could be argued that in health care settings, users are trained in their use and there are regulations (regular replacement etc) that might conceivably make them effective? Also leoparfd print not generally seen there
Surely then, the correct guidance stated by the WHO would have been words to the effect of “masks, properly used, have an effect in curbing the spread of respiratory viruses” (since whether we’re talking health case settings or otherwise the important aspect is their correct use). Assuming that they were effective, the reason to wear them in these places and not others would be that the consequences of an outbreak in a population of potentially hyper-vulnerable patients could be catastrophic. If this were the case then the ONLY places they should be used (taking into account the potential harms from masking) should be hospitals, care homes, and other locations densely populated by vulnerable people.
However, nothing in the meta-data such as that on Our World In Data points to their ability to make even the slightest dent in infection rates in about 90% of the countries Coronavirus profiles I’ve looked at.
The problem with this is that it’s basically impossible to determine what – if anything – the effects of mask wearing in health care settings are. All which can be done here is unrepeatable observational studies establishing correlations. People in favour of mask wearing quote the ones with the correlations. And people who are opposed to it quote the others.
Of coures, correlations not occurring consistently ought to rule out causation. But as this is not about science but about politics, all which matters is to have to right kind of study to prove the rightness of one’s preconceived opinions.
There are studies on this prepandemic if you Google. My memory is that they don’t work there either. They stop droplets, I guess.
In healthcare they are there to reduce spread of bacteria rather than viruses.
The amount of Covid spread which clearly happens in hospitals and other healthcare settings shows fairly clearly that, notwithstanding the higher quality of muzzle and better procedures for use, they still don’t work…
I don’t need 6 reasons. I wont wear a face muzzle.
Doesn’t protect me, doesnt protect others.
This is what virologists wear to protect themselves from a virus. Now tell me that a small, ill-fitting, soggy paper/cloth face mask does the same.
I’ve never worn a mask.. at first i went into shops with a defensive mindset, feeling a bit edgy, ready for confrontation, but fairly confident in my knowledge should i need it.
Near to Christmas, i felt i needed to change my approach. I vowed to enter shops, say hello to everyone, spend a little more time chatting to the staff, be overtly polite and look confident in myself (not that I wasn’t polite before the BS began)
I went to Tesco, the masked lady on the door stood there as i approached..
‘good evening i said.. how are you today, Merry Christmas to you’
She nodded her head, and her eyes squinted so i hope she was smiling, and didn’t question me as i walked into the store. On i went only to find the masked security guard by the inside entrance. I went with same approach, adding if he knew if the flowers were fresh from today.
He followed me over, and proceeded to help me pick out the best flower bunch for my wife, nothing was said about me not wearing a mask..
It was gold!
And encouraging at the same time
I just spent a long weekend walking with some old friends, all apparently intelligent, professional people. Yet they couldn’t seem to accept that masks are, at best, useless, and were happy to argue that they must at least stop something and therefore are worth wearing if mandation returns.
To be fair, not one of us wore a mask for the whole 5 days although we were in pubs, restaurants and B&Bs every evening.
Q7, Are they bad for the environment, being a source of non-recyclable rubbish? No shortage of it being fly-tipped and so on, over the last year.
I’ve not worn a mask at the doctors, in the hospital and going through airports, but my bravest moment was in Gare du Nord when I was told to put a mask on by a policeman with a gun, and just kept walking…admittedly out of the station!
Point of order: I am not “required” to disclose my muzzle exemption to anyone, whether it’s a Day-Glow Denzil, a Stasi, or a bench of frothing magistrates.
It may be in my interest to do so, but there is no (separate) offence committed by refusing, and nothing compels me.
Let’s please be very careful with our language here.
“Face coverings are dehumanising”
The sole reason for their introduction and those mandates.
Google Gessler’s hats.
What is the effect of masks on microbial evolution? First of all, we’d expect Covid to evolve in light of the environment in which it finds itself. Just as it will evolve in response to vaccination, it should evolve in response to masks. So widespread masking could result in the appearance of strains that thrive on masked crowds – perhaps especially efficient at being aerosolized by masked breathing patterns, remaining airborne, and infecting people whose breath is concentrated near their faces.
But Covid isn’t the only microbe in the world, and it’s hardly as dangerous as we’ve been told. What I’d really worry about is bacteria and fungi. Are we cultivating strains of Staph that will become especially skilled at infecting facial skin? We’re already seeing acne, including some really ugly boils on people’s mask areas.
There are species of mites that are adapted to living in the pads on clarinets, of all things. There are microorganisms that inhabit the puddles of water that pool in the leaves of bromeliads. Parasites evolve to occupy every niche imaginable. We should absolutely expect to see a range of nasties that will specialize in masks, even with variations depending on materials.
Won’t that be fun!
“Furthermore, you are not obliged to disclose your specific reason for exemption to anybody other than an official enforcement officer (usually a police officer); “
Eh? I thought my medical details were confidential and just between me and my doctor?
Has anyone got up-to-date graphs showing infection rates since the start of the pandemic in different European countries annotated to show the date mask mandates and lockdowns were introduced?