NEUROTIC CAT LADIES WHO DON'T WANT ANYONE HAVING FUN.

I've heard that description of Our Progressive Betters a few times recently, both on populist television and among the weblogs that cater to the Militant Normals.  The more I follow the second year of corona tyranny, the more I think that there's something to it.  Consider, dear reader, the Sturgis motorcycle rally, which, last year, was supposed to be The End of The World.  "I suspect, as well, that as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and addiction are not infectious diseases in the sense of Fauci, the good doctor is less than competent to trade off those costs against the benefits of mask up, shut up, have no fun, and no holiday gatherings."  It wasn't.  But that wasn't newsworthy.

No matter, though.  The bikers are gathering again, and the fretful people are fretting again.

While Fauci is once again “very concerned” that we will see another surge related to the rally, he provides zero evidence there was one last year, and the data does not support his contention. Once again, he is saying we have to get the pandemic under control before people can return to normal activities.

It’s just more messaging that reduces confidence in vaccines from the man who is the face of the pandemic response. If the vaccines effectively prevent severe illness and death, attendees have had adequate time to receive one. Those who have chosen not to are making their own risk assessment. Fauci’s continued insistence that the government has a role in managing people’s behavior with vaccines available to everyone is getting absurd. Zero COVID-19 is no longer a rational goal, and it is long past time for Fauci to admit it.

When the public health boffins talk about "a pandemic of the unvaccinated," that's not really a pandemic, is it? I also have a suspicion that "zero corona" is about "attaining zero corona." That I will develop another day.  Today, it's about the use of the corona tyranny to shame people Our Intellectual Betters despise.

It has been obvious from the beginning that the rules that CDC and Democratic governors inflict on the rest of us do not apply to liberal elites. Chuck Todd is not a journalist, and 'Doctor' Fauci is not a scientist. No wonder so many people don’t bother to listen to either one.

Somewhere, there has to be a culture-studies type wondering what the intellectual standards are for celebrating some kinds of transgressivity but not others.  "Vendors at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota are selling merchandise bearing Nazi imagery."  It's not enough that those riders are burning a lot of gasoline and making a lot of noise despite The Climate Crisis, and that they're hanging out and drinking a lot of beer and spreading the Wuhan coronavirus.  They're also buying their grandparents' war trophies.

[South Dakota ABC (of course) affiliate] KOTA interviewed one vendor, Jenny Alonso, who defended selling merchandise with offensive imagery.

"A lot of bikers, you know, it's a freedom thing," Alonso told KOTA. "A lot of bikers want to be free and voice their opinion and I like to cater to what they want. It doesn't mean that I necessarily believe in everything but, you know, I like to please everybody."

Alonso described Nazi merchandise as a way to honor US soldiers who brought Nazi memorabilia back as trophies after World War II.

"So, we're kind of honoring that not necessarily that, you know, we believe in Nazis and Hitler, but it's just kind of a special thing that the US military was able to go and win the war and bring things back as souvenirs and they would put them on their bike," Alonso said.

But if you're a neurotic cat lady, that's having too much fun, in an environment too drenched with testosterone and estrogen interacting the way Nature, or Nature's God, intended, and you have to shame it.