Crazy Don’t Stop Itself

eugyppius wrote a post today with a very long title, “Masks are not a small thing. They’re not sensible and they’re not normal. They’re ugly, they stink, many of them are full of carcinogens, and they’re ruining our kids and our lives. It’s time to stop.“

Yes. It’s a good read.

The post reveals what most of us already know.

The article update and one sentence at the end really jumped out at me.

“This simply has to stop. I don’t know how to do it, but it’s very important,” eugyppius wrote.

I have a few ideas of how to stop it.

We could start shaming maskers in public. Maybe the person who saw the group of mentally disabled adults could have gone over and started taking their masks off for them. Tell them to breathe fresh air when they are outside. Maybe parents could stop sending their kids to public schools that still mask. Maybe employees could stop coming to work if their job requires masks. But, these all require some type of sacrifice, and most people REALLY DON’T WANT TO MAKE ANY SACRIFICE.

Insanity doesn’t just stop all by itself. Criminals don’t just stop. Mini-totalitarians who love what little power they have aren’t going to give it up. Saying “it has to stop” will do about as much good as crying yourself to sleep at night.

The insanity will stop one of two ways.

1. Sane people will eventually get elected or appointed in the future and they’ll stop the madness sometime, maybe.
2. Sane people will force the crazies to stop now.

Like Vox wrote today, “Remember that most people speak rhetoric; Aristotle explained this more than two thousand years ago.”

Persuasion – words, arguments, reason – only works on sane people some of the time. Coercion is a much more powerful tool.

There was a time in the past when we put crazy people in mental institutions so they couldn’t hurt others. Now we let them set covid policy in various states and countries across the world.