The Curley Effect, 21st Century Style
The Curley Effect, so-called after Michael James Curley, four times mayor of Boston and one of the most colorfully corrupt 20th century politicians in Massachusetts, has been noted as a significant factor in city politics, where a long-time and popular ruling politician deliberately makes the city inhospitable to those who tend to oppose them, essentially shaping the electorate into one which will support the ruling politician forever and ever, amen. This tactic, of rewarding supporters with public largesse, and punishing opponents economically, worked well for the individual politician, as it did for the very Catholic and Irish Mayor Curley but at the expense of Boston overall, as those individuals, businesses and institutions who opposed him most frequently, departed, taking their money, businesses and civic involvement with them. Mayor Curley and his cronies throve, but Boston was much the worse for it, over the long run.
That Mask Thing
I’m a simple guy. So why on earth is anyone wearing a mask anymore here in these fine United States?
I was at an outdoor activity with several hundred people in rural Wisconsin for most of the weekend and saw zero masks. On the way home from that today I stopped at a large, chain hardware store in the city of Madison. The majority of people in the store were wearing masks.
Employees were all wearing masks, although that is not mandatory. Indeed, I own a business in the city of Madison and do not require my employees to wear masks although they can if they want to (none do).
The majority of customers were wearing masks. There is no mask mandate locally anymore, although everyone always asks you to wear one if you aren’t vaccinated.
Which brings me to my question. I was told early on that the masks weren’t for the person wearing them, they were for others, because you care. So, if this is the case, my logic works thusly.
If you are vaccinated, there is no reason to wear a mask – because you can’t get covid. If you are not vaccinated, you do not need to wear a mask “because you care”, because those that are vaccinated cannot get covid.
So, logically, cut it out with the face diapers – right? Is the new theory that vaccinated people can give non vaccinated people covid? The evidence locally doesn’t support that as our covid cases are statistically insignificant.
So was mask wearing all virtue signaling all along? Good to know. Cuz science.
When this whole sad episode started I said to my wife “as soon as we start understanding that none of this makes any sense at all, it all makes sense”. When the books are written, I think this will be right.
“the fight isn’t over getting the boot off people’s neck but who gets to wear the boot”
Simple Justice on the persecution of the owner of Masterpiece Cake Shop.
From the comments:
Hunting Guy
June 19, 2021 at 10:24 am
At what point will the trans, gay, lesbian, etc. groups realize these types of activities are counterproductive?They are turning off the middle ground by acting like bullies.
Most people are willing to live and let live, but when you keep poking people there will eventually be some pushback.
Reply ↓
paleo
June 19, 2021 at 12:04 pm
They don’t get that at all. Neither does BLM. I’ve seen several prominent people on the left express the thought that effective protest has to piss people off.It’s incomprehensible to them that making people angry turn them away from your cause, not toward it. The point is to persuade, otherwise you’re just throwing a fit. Scardina in this case hasn’t persuaded anybody of anything except that he/she is an asshole.
The civil rights protests lead by MLK going on 60 years ago are still the most effective movement of my lifetime. King understood the moral high ground and how important it is to have it. Protestors these days are just complaining they’ve got no real interest in affecting change. So Scardina forces the baker to quit his business what in the world has she accomplished for trans rights?
These commenters, like many blue-pill conservatives, miss the point.
Betrayal
It appears that many—perhaps most–of those translators and other Afghans who worked with and supported the US forces will be left behind to face murder by the Taliban. Establishing refugee status and getting them out of the country appears to be just too much trouble for the bureaucracy, and there is no driving force in the Oval Office to force the bureaucracy to perform.
Meanwhile, Biden/Harris are positioning an open southern border as something that is morally required as our duty to all possible refugees from all imaginable (or imagined) situations all over the world. But they appear to feel no sense of special obligation to those who have taken great risks by supporting us.
Perhaps if providing formal refugee status is too much trouble, the Afghans could simply be flown to Central America, dropped off in remote areas, and left to make their own ways to the US via the southern border. They would probably be exposed to a lot less risk that way rather than by remaining in Afghanistan.