BJ LOAM
Well, shit, there’s you and all your fellow sheep hogging all the damn airwaves; I may as well ramble about hot Israeli soldiers who wouldn’t give me the time of day five hours outside Panama City. Jesus, I don’t know who’s worse: vegans, Crossfitters or the yammering vaccinated. Y’all can’t seem to zip it with your shirtless wods (workouts of the day) and tofu Thanksgivings and braggadocious post.
The way you’re flexing it on Facebook, you’d think you’d tapped out Khabib or graduated BUDS summa cum laude. You got a flu shot, Francis, lighten up. But seriously, you remind me of the same sheep who rushed headlong into buying a house. When was that shit show again? Oh yeah, not long ago.
Dumbasses wound up serving up themselves and their country a shit-filled sandwich. I remember my ex flipping me shit about it, too: “Why is everyone buying a house and we’re not?” I told her we needed to be patient, that something stank about this whole bender. She wasn’t patient. We divorced (over more than just that for the record) and guess what? Dumbass here kept waiting. I waited and waited until the market bottomed out. And now I have a stupid mortgage and a stupider interest rate, thanks to all those savvy dip shits who knew or should have known better what they could afford. I have zero compassion for them. Come to think of it, I have zero compassion for granny and gramps snubbing even the masks. It’s more than just a few vets, Bro, at least where I live.
So, my resistance to a vaccine that took less than a year to develop? In part premised on a thought similar to the one I deployed pre-Recession: wait. And wear my mask and cough into my elbow (been doing that since I was civil) and maintain social distancing and sanitize my hands–all in what I might brazenly chalk up as–wait for it– looking out for my fellow Americans.
Wait until when? Shit, maybe until the FDA blesses it? Until y’all shut up for a sec? Until it’s effective?
And I’m right to wait. Bro, I’m tired of being right. You know why I was right, though? Lean in just a little. You hear that? It’s the plastic wrap on your 8-month booster shot peeling back.
It’s. Not. Working.
But I’ll save a more thoughtful treatise on the efficacy of this vaccine for the later rounds; ya know when I’ve worked your liver and kidneys a few more rounds, got you up against the ropes with your arms starting to drop, and ready to go to final work to find that nighty-night button on your mandible. For now, Bro, I’ll just say this: science is not in your corner.
Right now, though, and furthermore at this very juncture, I’m just going to act the dumbass like during the recession. Like those cranky vets you cited earlier. Ones the far lefties like to paint as uneducated and unread and Trump-like and blah blah blah. Saying fuck you, stay off and away from my body, all dumb and unpatriotic-like–them there guys.
Tell me something, though: you seem to be supportive of that pregnant woman who stares down the government, tells them, Don’t you fucking dare tell me what to do with my body.
What’s with the double standard?
BLAH
Ooooo, you were itchin to dispatch that closer. I could smell it. Thought you had me leanin’ in with some actual reason in that second to last paragraph. After all that dancing about earlier. Have me leaning in with some real talk, but then here comes that fake ass uppercut I can see packed and ready a mile away, cocked and loaded and itchin’ and twitchin’, and then sprung at the end like a bad punch line
Tryin’ to reverse logic, right wing me with an abortion metaphor. Thinkin’ its a nuclear truth bomb.Abortion the supposed holy grail of liberal leftism. And maybe it was twenty years ago, but now Team Hillary and I have moved on to climate change and ownin’ the fascists..
Actually I’m so not Team Hillary it’s not even funny. That was the housing collapse that looked fairly clear to me. Not so much that she would lose but that she could. And as for pre-collapse housing bubble, brother, I was with you. It was clearly musical chairs, but anybody in Seattle that bought then and held on is doing more than fine now, so not sure what that says about your concerns that vaccines will make you grow a third eye on your dick.
But if you’re masking and distancing, as well as ducking and jiving, then I don’t know that we need to have an argument about. It IS your body, Gloria Steinem. I said the same in round one. Don’t get it if you don’t want it.
This here 30 page mini novel I read about the development of the vaccine, the one that explained that the vaccine had been created before the epidemic even came to America, and had been developed to combat SARS, had been in development for years before COVID even existed, and all that was rushed about it was the production. This here article had me feeling pretty ok that my dick would never be able to read. But to each their own. For some, it’s probably more convenient to read with their dicks any way. Just hold the book in your lap and no need for glasses or squinting. Might even be able to train it to turn pages. It’s just like those of us here in the PNW enjoying some warmer summers of late, saying thanks for the tan Climate Change, others might love the chance to read restaurant menus without ever having to pick them up, thanks to their vaccination. (Ladies I’m not sure of your side-effect, lets just assume you grow dicks that then grow eyes).
Anyway, let’s go back a bit. Back to the cause of this cage match, back to the Facebook post you got all Ben Shapiro’d about, sliding into my DM’s and demanding to duel. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Atlantic calling you a schmuck. Arnold questioning your patriotism.
Or not you, the way I read it. Arnold’s beef was with manly men not masking. If you’re on team mask, you’re in the clear. The literal title of the article was “Don’t be a Schmuck, Wear a Mask.” And it was aimed at non-vaxxers who are also non-maskers. The very same people that are acting irresponsibly and filling up hospitals and sending us hurtling back towards shelter-in-place orders again. Why the anger for Arnold and not them?
And you know these people. We all know them. They are the people who are going out of their way not to help. Not to protect. Not to be of service. They are the people putting us all at risk. I’m angry at these folks, it’s true. My patience has run out. I lost two relatives to COVID and my kids lost a year and a half of school so far. Friends have lost businesses. Others lost purpose stuck for so long alone, and because of it, almost took their lives. It’s a big fucking deal, and the least anyone can do is wear the mask and maintain distance.
So I’m team Arnold there. And regarding the patriotism of vaccination, or what it is that makes an American, that apparent abortion-like third rail that Arnold went and touched and you got all electrified by–I will concede to you that being an American is in fact more about selfish individualism than collective concern and coming together. Free-dumb more than Share and Share Alike. I think we’re proving that right now for sure. Seeing Taiwan and other Asian countries contain COVID in the early days of 2020 while we “We’re Number One’d” our way to the top on the death charts was as damning an indictment of the American Way as I have ever seen. Especially when we had free and fairly-elected Mr. TV-Business in charge to completely bungle it.
Despite all that, I find myself in an odd position, and one that you can probably relate to. The woker the left gets, the more rugged individualist, pro-capitalism I get. I do not want pseudo-socialist millennials whose parents still pay half their bills in charge of anything. I fucking hate the cultural shame police of the left (the right has them too, but they don’t control the culture like they did in the 70s and 80s). So much of the social justice movement is merely self promotion. The Anti-Racist guy sells anti-racist baby books, anti-racist shoes, claims that the country is irredeemable while getting rich off it, which, good on him! That’s a benefit of being an American. Anybody can still get rich, even somebody selling a story about how bad Americans are, or white Americans are, and I’m all for it.
Now, most people are not going to get rich, and like the former president, the best way to get rich in this country has for the last half century been to be born rich, but regardless, there is still an opportunity for anyone to become anything in America that is unique in history and sprouts directly from our individualism, from our freedom, from some of our founding. And it’s that spirit that resulted in America being the country to create a vaccine and get it produced and sold faster than any other country. Our triumph once again coming from ingenuity, not collective action. So yeah, vaccines are definitely patriotic in that sense.
Which is not to discount collective action. Arnold referenced the big pull together of past war efforts and he is not wrong to do so. The collective action of the American entry into World War II is one of the greatest instances of a people coming together for a common cause ever. That this rugged individualist nation could have done it is amazing. But as we are all aware, those were different times, we were different people, and the threat was much clearer then than now. But I love the idea that we can be both. That we can be both the pioneers and the people’s republic of getting shit done. And I think appealing to Americans to come together is exactly what we need right now. In that sense, the headline the Atlantic slapped on Arnold’s article wasn’t helpful. Not that all you non-vaxxers and right leaners are snowflakes and can’t take a little name calling, right?
Okay, that was my hidden left hook and now I gots to go to work. Looking forward to round three. So far I’m not sure either of us has landed a blow.