# Fucking maskholes and vaxholes **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 14, 2020, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339 "2020-07-14T21:26:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/421 "2020-12-06T06:47:18Z")
Got a match for him in Wyoming. Here’s a doctor who is a state health official saying that the pandemic is a communist plot and the vaccines are biological weapons that are part of a plot to spread communism worldwide. He does not explain how biological weapons are supposed to be able to spread an ideology. > **[Wyoming health official says 'so-called pandemic' a communist plot](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wyoming-health-official-says-so-called-pandemic-communist-plot-n1250096)** > > Efforts to develop a vaccine is a plot by Russia and China to spread communism worldwide, said department readiness and countermeasures manager Igor Shepherd. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/422 "2020-12-06T08:05:00Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Here’s a doctor who is a state health official saying that the pandemic is a communist plot and the vaccines are biological weapons that are part of a plot to spread communism worldwide. He does not explain how biological weapons are supposed to be able to spread an ideology. That’s the same thing “they” said about fluoridated water in the 1960’s. Yeah, no, they didn’t explain how that worked then either. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/423 "2020-12-06T15:32:48Z")
General ~~Jack Ripper~~ Michael Flynn will be all over that. The quickest way to impurify your bodily fluids is to mainline a pollutant right into it. At least for once the lead wacko retired general isn’t USAF. USAF certainly has form with this stuff. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![DeadTreasSecretaries](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deadtreassecretaries/32/4817_2.png) [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/424 "2020-12-06T15:50:08Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Got a match for him in Wyoming. Here’s a doctor who is a state health official saying that the pandemic is a communist plot and the vaccines are biological weapons that are part of a plot to spread communism worldwide. He does not explain how biological weapons are supposed to be able to spread an ideology. IDK, do the vaccines have any flouride in them? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/425 "2020-12-06T15:58:01Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > A good response for something like that would be “For the same reason I support helmets and body armor for soldiers even though they don’t provide 100% protection.” They might not provide 100% protection, but they’re still designed to protect the wearer. I’d compare it more to not drinking and driving or eating cheese before a date. It’s meant to protect others and happens to provide some benefits to you as well. But, regardless, all the analogies in the world aren’t going to change the mind of anyone that’s denying the science. Sure, there’s plenty of people that don’t understand masks, but want to make sense of it and, for them, you can use analogies or explain source control and show them how non-woven fabric stops droplets. But for the people looking that just don’t want to wear a mask and are actively denying or ignoring the science, it’s not worth the time. Ask anyone in retail (I deal with this all day, I’m sure Broomstick does as well), the only effective means of getting people to wear a mask is telling them politely, but sternly, they can either wear a mask or leave, period. I’m surprised at how many people still throw a fit about it. It’s been nearly nine months, get over it. It sucks for ALL of us, but the sooner you act like a big boy and put your mask on for the five minutes you’re in the store, the sooner we’ll get through this. I can’t find it right now, but I saw something a month or two ago that said, very paraphrased, ‘if going back into lock down represents a major change to your life style, then you’re part of the reason we’re locking down again’. I’m not saying it’s 100% true, across the board, but every time restrictions get re-tightened, think about all the people complaining about not being able to go to bars and restaurants again implying that they’ve been going to bars and restaurants. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/426 "2020-12-06T17:06:39Z")
Maskholes are getting violent now: > **[Sheriff: Defiant NYC bar owner struck deputy with his car](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-arrests-coronavirus-pandemic-new-york-city-db90d107a76e4f4543fe20c08b5edc9b)** > > NEW YORK (AP) — The co-owner of a New York City bar that authorities said has been defying coronavirus restrictions was taken into custody early Sunday after running over a deputy with a car, authorities said... ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/427 "2020-12-06T18:12:25Z")
[quote=“Sherrerd, post:417, topic:915339”] > [@filmore](#): > > > [@Akaj](#): > > > > > A friend of mine caught COVID. She had a bad few days but nothing requiring hospitalization. Someone on Facebook asked her, “Why do you still support mask mandates when your mask didn’t protect you?” > > > [/quote] > > > > > > A good response for something like that would be “For the same reason I support helmets and body armor for soldiers even though they don’t provide 100% protection.” > > That’s really good. > > Another possible reply: ‘I support everyone using headlights when they drive at night, even though use of headlights doesn’t prevent every accident.’ Another response: “Because without a mask, I would have likely received a much higher viral load, and could have ended up in hospital or dead. Masks reduce the severity of the infection.” ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/428 "2020-12-06T23:55:18Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Another response: “Because without a mask, I would have likely received a much higher viral load, and could have ended up in hospital or dead. Masks reduce the severity of the infection.” . Absolutely. And Steve\_MB, thanks for posting the links to the Headlights and Titanic analogies. Another relevant one: “ **your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins** ” (which has been attributed to various people including John Stuart Mill and Oliver Wendell Holmes, as well as some other people with fewer than three names). [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/15/liberty-fist-nose/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/15/liberty-fist-nose/) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/429 "2020-12-07T15:07:29Z")
That last one will probably backfire. It strongly asserts that absent clear and immediate harm knowable aforethought, freedom accrues to the doer, not the doee. As applied to masks, distancing, and the whole shebang, that means that unless we both know for certain that my breathing without a mask will promptly and surely infect you with a harmful, not asymptomatic, case, then your concern about “plausible risks” is so much worthless whining. IOW: > My freedom to breath how and where I want ends when I actually factually provably directly harm you with my breath. And not a moment before. > > I’m healthy; get over yourself and your silly mask! The libertarian motto is exactly the anti-masker’s motto. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/430 "2020-12-08T10:37:55Z")
I’ve never heard it interpreted as anything about proof. It’s just that your freedom ends at the point when it causes harm to others. I know Beau of the Fifth Column (a very progressive redneck) has used it that way, quoting it as something other rednecks say. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/431 "2020-12-08T12:45:39Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > It strongly asserts that absent clear and immediate harm knowable aforethought, freedom accrues to the doer, not the doee. > > As applied to masks, distancing, and the whole shebang, that means that unless we both know for certain that my breathing without a mask will promptly and surely infect you with a harmful, not asymptomatic, case, then your concern about “plausible risks” is so much worthless whining. ISTM, that’s like saying it’s no big deal that I shot a gun in your general direction. I was aiming for something next to you, so you weren’t in any actual danger. Or that you shouldn’t worry about me shooting you with my gun since I loaded it with blanks. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/432 "2020-12-08T13:14:14Z")
@BigT: I tucked “proof” in there because proving the harm of a nose punch is easy and uncontroversial, but the essentiality of that proof is implicit in the motto. Punches in the nose are by definition harmful. QED before we begin. But for passing an infection, even if an all-knowing Oracle knows the doer really did pass the infection to the doee, as long as the doer can semi-plausibly assert “No, you caught it from somebody else”, the doer will still consider that they didn’t harm the doee. Strictly speaking, the motto neatly sidesteps the question of “who decides what’s harm?”. But the rhetorical construction strongly suggests the decision of “what is harm?” lies largely (solely?) in the eyes of the doer. @Joey_P: That’s exactly what it means. And that demonstrates to anyone paying the slightest attention just how friggin’ stupid/dangerous it is as a slogan or worse yet, as an actual worldview. Not wanting to hijack this thread any further with a discussion of what libertarianism means, Here’s my post in a recent thread debating exactly that topic: > [@What does libertarianism mean?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-libertarianism-mean/926293/17): > > Speaking to the thread in general … I am far from an expert on Libertarianism. But it does seem to be a very broad church as others have said above. Which invites lots of No True Scotsman and “Is so! Is Not!” arguments. That way lies madness & failure to communicate, so about all we can say with any certainty is pretty high level summary stuff. To me, this gets to the heart of it: It is not a free life to constantly be ducking swinging fists that stop just short of one’s nose. Even honestly i… ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/433 "2020-12-08T23:26:25Z")
LSLGuy–interesting points about libertarianism as it interacts with the “fists/nose” aphorism. But I have to agree with others (quoted below) that the issue isn’t about ‘proof’ of harm. It’s about the _possibility_ of causing harm. Someone who asserts that they have the right to omit to wear a mask because ‘it’s my body’ is ignoring the fact that their body is potentially spewing out virus that can infect others—meaning that “their body” rights _stop_ at the exits of their body (their nose and mouth in this case). The person who breathes in the maskless person’s exhalation particles may get infected then and there. Or they may receive an additional load of virus that tips their immune system over, so that they become symptomatic. Or some other possibility. But that’s not the issue. The issue is that the maskless person put the other person in harm’s way by declining to put a barrier between their exhalations and the other person’s body. > [@BigT](#): > > I’ve never heard it interpreted as anything about proof. It’s just that your freedom ends at the point when it causes harm to others. and > [@Joey\_P](#): > > that’s like saying it’s no big deal that I shot a gun in your general direction. I was aiming for something next to you, so you weren’t in any actual danger. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2020, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/434 "2020-12-09T00:42:28Z")
😃 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/E2bYkRNMAhA/maxresdefault.jpg "Woman Escorted Off Plane For Refusing To Wear Mask | NowThis") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2bYkRNMAhA) ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2020, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/435 "2020-12-09T00:45:39Z")
One might hope that this woman was escorted off the plane while it was in flight. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2020, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/436 "2020-12-09T05:11:14Z")
Articles like [this](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/12/08/943990136/what-changes-minds-about-masks-in-this-small-town-it-was-a-childs-death) make me so tired. Short version: city council member changes his vote to enforce a mask mandate in a small town, because a child the same age as his died of Covid-19 in their community. > “That hit pretty hard,” Obermark said later. Though the councilman doesn’t like wearing a mask, he said it’s worth it to prevent even one or two people from getting COVID-19. So other peoples’ lives don’t make a damn bit of difference, until it’s someone like you or one of your loved ones. Suddenly an epiphany. Give me a fucking break. (Cue emoji for banging one’s head against a wall.) ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2020, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/437 "2020-12-09T07:40:39Z")
More maskhole terrorism, this time in Idaho (you’ll never guess whose name comes up! 😉): > **[Idaho health board meeting halted after 'intense protests'](https://apnews.com/article/us-news-public-health-police-coronavirus-pandemic-boise-8f13d99fa5ddc8720c106a2f8ff50663)** > > BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho public health officials abruptly ended a meeting Tuesday after the Boise mayor and chief of police said intense protests outside the health department building — as well as outside some health officials' homes — were... ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/438 "2020-12-09T15:21:38Z")
Yes, I knew who without reading. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2020, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/439 "2020-12-09T15:48:41Z")
I was getting ready to post the same thing. Bundy is definitely king of the Fucking Maskholes tribe. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2020, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339/440 "2020-12-09T17:24:18Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > More maskhole terrorism, this time in Idaho (you’ll never guess whose name comes up! 😉): > [Idaho health board meeting halted after 'intense protests' | AP News](https://apnews.com/article/us-news-public-health-police-coronavirus-pandemic-boise-8f13d99fa5ddc8720c106a2f8ff50663) Does it rhyme with “Bay of Fundy?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-maskholes-and-vaxholes/915339.md?page=23)