Updated 3 years ago
Though I never approved, in New York over the years I knew a few people that got into heroin. Almost all of them are dead. I got numb writing obituaries. What they truly need to get better is a complete 100% change in environment and friends, the complete stability of a safe space, plus some medically supervised withdrawal, as well as separation from their old environs for many months afterward… and that is far beyond what I can offer as an acquaintance. That is for their family and friends. Luckily, I am not acquainted with anyone who does that now. If I did, I would assume they will die. It’s just how it goes.
They are pre-ghosts.
I feel the same about people who don’t wear masks, such as Rudy, who basically begged to get infected through his actions. I will not feel bad should he die in disgrace. It was his choice, conscious or not. He is worse than heroin addicts, for he did not have a mental disease and should have known better. Worse, he knowingly exposed hundreds. He is, in effect, a mass murderer.
2020 has been a very bad year for Rudy. But clownish antics aside, he has done more harm this year than any opportunistic, pretentious heroism he displayed after 9/11 could absolve.
It would have been easier to cure him of heroin addiction. There is no treatment for arrogance, pride, ignorance, and stupidity.
I used to think conservatives had a larger amygdala, the “risk assessment” part of the brain. But later I realized, much as with the false dichotomy of left-right brain hemispheres, that things aren’t so simple. It’s not so much a greater concern for safety. They simply knee-jerk disgust more easily over trivial, sensory things.
So it’s not a benefit, but a liability – and this distinction explains why so many so-called safety-conscious conservatives are resistant to masks in 2020.
So be it.
Keep the good and innocent safe, and let the wicked kill each other.
