HaveAlreadyWonVille
A philosopher from Southern California named Eric Schwitzgebel recently wrote a piece in the Atlantic that is provocatively titled 'The Covid Jerk'.
Here is his lede:
The rest of the piece is much more thoughtful and nuanced and is very much worth reading in its entirety.
We all know the type. First appearing in the spring of 2020, the COVID jerk strutted unmasked through the supermarket, exhaling clouds of risk on worried shoppers and employees, and daring low-paid workers to try to enforce the new policies. Flaunting their disdain for scientific consensus, they stepped close behind you in line, breathing on your shoulder, complaining about maximum-occupancy requirements...
The rest of the piece is much more thoughtful and nuanced and is very much worth reading in its entirety.
Regardless, given recent events up here in Canada it would be easy to think that the entire country is filled to bursting with such people.
It turns out, as the 'Covid 19 Monitor' project from McMaster University has demonstrated with longterm polling throughout the pandemic, this is most definitely not the case, including the citizenry's feelings about vaccine mandates:
The thing is...
Given how well vaccination is working to decrease the risk of serious illness coupled with the advances in treatment and the decreased virulence of the current viral variant, it would appear that the time is coming where we're going to have to all get along as we start to interact more and more as things start to (hopefully) gradually loosen up in the coming weeks and months.
Thus, it seems to me that the need for collective tolerance, rather than dunking and/or owning the other side, is something that our civic leaders might want to start talking seriously about sooner rather than later.
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Please don't misunderstand me...I'm not advocating that we stop putting bullies and jerks in their place when required...I'm just suggesting that everyone needs to think about what really matters so that they don't become a bully and/or jerk themselves as we start to engage in collective behaviours and events once more.
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3 comments:
one, of many, commenters in the report:
"Truck drivers spend hours alone in their cab and have very little contact with crowded venues for their job. The survey in this article doesn’t touch on their situation in any way at all."
Which probably means that when the truckers return home from Ottawa, there will be a landslide of Truck Drivers, their families, etc. with Covid-19, spread all across Canada and probably into the USA too
news reports today inform us that many of the truckers have their families with them and that includes quite a number of children. This will make the jobs of the police more difficult..
Yes, we do have to get along, but its a tad difficult if protestors are making life difficult for those trying to get into a hospital, cross a border or live in the Ottawa area or run a day care near the Pacific Truck Crossing.
The protestors don't appear to care about those who live in the areas where they are protesting. i.e. City of Ottawa, by a day care center.
These protestors want to be part of the government. I actually laughed, but hey they're serious, they want to be part of the government which would consist of them and all the other parties except the federal liberals and they want the G.G. to be part of the government. Excuse me but that sounds like a desire to over throw a dually elected government. Who are these protestors? They haven't been elected. They're a bunch of rabble who don't even have consideration for the people in Ottawa. What they remind me of is the terrorists on 6 Jan. last year in the U.S.A. who tried to over throw their government. In Canada we now have a group who would like to do the same here and have themselves become part of the government. I don't know what these boys and girls are smoking or drinking, but they need to get help
Report of Ottawa's standoff with Truckers from MSNBC
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/canada-afflicted-with-right-wing-american-covid-conspiracy-chaos-132832325668
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