Black Sheep

For years now, we have been told we are sheeple for heeding the advice of government, but there is a breaking point.  There is so much foolishness that it is hard to hold the contempt I feel for persons like Joe Rogan, who uses his social media clout to peddle ivermectin.  Of course, the irony is that the same people that call us sheeple are now taking sheep anti-parasitic medicine specifically aimed at worms.

Still, the level of stupidity is too much to take.  This was never anything more than a stop-gap solution when medical researchers were looking for anything that might effectively battle COVID.  Most of these "cures" have since been discredited, but they resurface when conservative talk show hosts look to boost their ratings.  They know that they will not only attract a sympathetic audience but also a fair amount of nay-sayers anxious to set them straight.  It's a fool's errand to try to do so, as these persons love nothing more than taunting the establishment.  The only problem is that they influence a large number of persons to take these unproven medicines resulting in hospitalization due to ivermectin toxicity that can be quite dangerous.  So, who really are the sheeple here?

I think Joe sees it as a challenge, kind of like the inane stunts he subjected his contestants to in Fear Factor.  Among them, putting persons into a coffin filled with worms.  For most people, ivermectin won't do much harm.  The appeal of these farmyard cures is that they are cheap, but you have effectively wasted valuable time when you could have taken an FDA-approved drug instead, as there are several approved regimens widely available.

What makes me angry is that this willful ignorance has spread to Congress as well, where Rand Paul chastised health officials for not taking ivermectin seriously.  He claims it is nothing more than "Trump hatred" that drives them, although so far His Trumpness hasn't come down one way or the other on this latest wonder drug. Ron Johnson is also peddling ivermectin. 

They are willfully giving horrible advice that may very well lead to a person's death but there is no recourse for their actions other than to call them out.  If Joe wants to make himself a human sheep, that's fine, but he's been actively urging his younger podcast followers not to get vaccinated, which makes him a very dangerous person.  Why is there no accountablity?

The US seems to have topped out at a 62 per cent vaccination rate.  That's how many people have taken at least one dose, and one assumes will take a second dose.  That means more than one-third of the population refuses to get vaccinated.  This anti-vaxxer phenomenon reaches into all corners of the population, including health care workers who refuse to get vaccinated.  It's hard to say where all this resistance stems from but persons like Joe Rogan certainly don't help matters.  We appear to have lost our respect for science, but at the same time are willing to put our faith in drugs for farm animals.  Go figure?

You can cite the overwhelming evidence that shows vaccines work.  You may still get COVID, but the risk of hospitalization and death is greatly reduced.  Not so if you try the latest challenge from conservative talk show hosts.  Mississippi has been one of the worst hit states, where ivermectin poisoning has resulted a great number of hospitalizations, but other Southern states aren't far behind.  As Forrest Gump would say, stupid is as stupid does.

The problem, however, is that these high COVID cases impact the country as a whole, as these persons travel and spread their coronaviruses wherever they go.  Such superspreader events like the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally brings in bikers from all over the country, and will set off a surge of COVID cases not just in South Dakota but wherever these bikers return to.  So, one person's stupidity, or in this case a multitude of persons' stupidity has a direct impact on the population as a whole.  This is something these conservatives haven't been able to figure out.

We are more than 500 days into this deadly pandemic, yet many persons refuse to acknowledge its severity.  They refuse to take basic precautions, refuse to get vaccinated and get all hot and bothered when refused entry to a public venue because of their belief that individual rights trump public safety.  The problems are compounded when state legislatures and governors go out of their way to make it more difficult for private companies and public institutions to issue mask mandates or require health passes for entry.  This has led these companies and institutions to sue their states in order to invoke basic health safety precautions.

This belligerent attitude is largely based on a perverse ideology that seems to view public health organizations as part of a global conspiracy to take away their individual rights.  An attitude long held by hardcore Libertarians like Rand Paul, but now part of the conservative ideology as a whole.  It occurs not just in the US, but all over the world, as people protest health restrictions throughout Europe and even Down Under in the name of their individual liberties.  They seem to think that their health choices don't affect others, blithely unaware of how easily this contagion spreads.  When they do get hit with COVID, they try anything other than prescribed drugs because they are not going to let the government tell them what to do.

Guys like Joe Rogan feed directly off this angst because it boosts their ratings.  Joe loves nothing more than go to toe-to-toe with other podcast hosts who challenge him because it just increases his audience.  Controversy sells and Joe revels in it.  He always has.  However, when so many persons' lives are at stake he can't be allowed to continue to spread his deceit and lies.  His host Spotify has to crack down, but Daniel Elk doesn't want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, as the Joe Rogan Experience is its highest rated podcast.  So, now we get to see whether Joe lives or dies using ivermectin to cure his COVID.  Sad.