Name: The Divisive Nature of Covid Policies
Uploaded: 2021-03-02T23:02:22.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Divisive Nature of Covid Policies' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-02. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Divisive Nature of Covid Policies' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-02. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan experience.
- Because with COVID, there was a sense,
there's this big bad thing from the outside,
this virus that's coming to get all of us.
We didn't know a lot about the virus,
but the more we find out, the more we adapt,
the more you would think that some of these intrusions
into our privacy, into our liberty,
that would, you know, it would stop
and we would be able to be free.
And in some countries, even in some states here,
people are still insisting that the government
has those powers.
The government still has control over,
my husband is from the UK and I just asked, you know,
who has been to see your mother?
We call her granny.
Who has been to see granny?
- Well, daughter and boyfriend,
but they were sitting outside.
And why can't they sit inside?
And he says, well, the rules haven't changed yet.
But there's something in me that asks myself,
who's enforcing those rules?
- Yeah.
And why, in the age of testing, are those rules applicable?
Why, when you can find out if someone's negative
for the virus, why can you keep them from them?
- Well, the fact, so why initially, I think we were all in agreement,
it was to curtail the virus,
but why the rules are still in place when the threat is gone?
That's a very good question.
Well, why wouldn't we understand what the virus is now?
The rules were put in place when we thought it was the Black Plague.
I mean, we thought it was going to be like the Spanish flu and kill a vast
majority or
a large percentage, rather, of the population.
It's not the same thing.
It's still terrible for the people that get it and die and the people that have
poor health
and the people that have underlying conditions and comorbidities.
But it's not what we thought it was going to be.
But we're still treating it like we treated it a year ago.
We're looking at it the same way we looked at it in March of last year.
- I think what bothers me, you're absolutely right,
but what bothers me now is that it's not even possible to have a debate about
that.
- Right.
So anytime people say you should be suspicious of government, don't give
government any powers
because once they have that power, they won't give it back.
- Yes.
- I think those people are being vindicated in the sense that, and I would say
in the past,
no, of course not.
If there's no need for government to have that power, they'll give it back.
But now the government wants to just skip the power, even though the threat is
gone.
- It's just human nature.
There's a tremendous drop in cases in Los Angeles, and yet you still can't go
to the gym.
You have to eat outside.
And they just opened up eating outside two weeks ago.
- Yeah, we never understood that.
- It doesn't make sense.
- Because it doesn't spread outside.
- Well, it doesn't make sense.
- Yeah.
- For a fact, I know that they did it for optics, because I know someone who
works with the government,
who literally had this conversation with someone saying, "Why are we doing this
when there's no
evidence whatsoever that it spreads outside?"
And they said, "It's for optics."
So they're closing businesses down, and they're denying people living for
optics.
But what they're doing is, they're using power.
They have power.
And these are just individuals, they're human beings, and they're subject to
human nature.
It's human nature to exercise power.
You see that with bosses over employees.
You see that in the Stanford prison experiments.
You see, it's just things that people do.
You give people power over people, and they use it.
- But in this case, when you say optics, what will they use that power for then?
Because they will be voted out of power if they carry on like this.
- I don't know if they will.
I don't know if they will.
Because there's so many people that are so...
Their cursory understanding of human nature, and their lack of real inquisition,
their lack of real questioning of the government's motives,
and also this terrible fear of the virus.
The terrible fear of what it actually is.
If you go to Los Angeles today, and when I talk to my friends,
they have a totally different idea of what the virus is than if you're here in
Texas.
It's one of the things that I noticed immediately once I came here.
It's one of the reasons why I moved here.
People like, they treat it like it's a bad cold.
- Yeah.
- Which is what it is.
- Yeah.
- It kills people, but so does the flu.
But we never close down schools for the flu.
The flu actually kills kids.
This kills very few children.
A tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny percentage.
My kids both got it, and it was nothing.
It was like a headache.
It was gone in a day.
This is what we're seeing with human nature.
When people have the ability to tell people,
you can't work, that's very dangerous.
Or to tell someone, your business is not essential, but target is.
Well, maybe you have a small store that sells goods.
Well, you can't open.
But this big store, this big chain, why?
But they're part of special interest groups.
They contribute to the politicians.
You know, there's unions that are involved.
Like that woman that we were talking about before the show,
who had a restaurant in Los Angeles, and she had outside dining
that she paid thousands of dollars that she probably didn't even have
to set this up so she can keep her business afloat.
And then they told her you have to close down outdoor dining.
And across the parking lot, the television and movie studios were allowed to
have outdoor dining.
Yeah.
Like literally, she could walk 10 steps, and she could be in their outdoor
dining,
and her business was being forced to shut down.
It doesn't make any sense.
Because it doesn't have to, because it's optics.
They're just giving the optics that they're doing something.
The cases rise.
Because here's the thing about lockdowns that have been pretty clearly
established.
One of the things, first of all, they don't work.
They don't really curtail the virus.
But what they do do is they force people inside.
When you force people inside, and you force people to congregate,
it spreads easier.
Absolutely.
It spreads easier.
And that's part of the problem.
It spreads easier inside than it does outside.
Yes.
It doesn't.
There's no evidence, no real evidence that it does spread outside.
Yeah.
But it does spread inside.
And so you force people inside.
You tell people they can't work.
And they're all congregated together.
Inside.
Yes, inside.
And they're more fearful.
They're not getting vitamin D.
They're not getting sun.
They're not getting exercise.
You have more domestic violence.
Yes.
And more mental health issues.
More suicide.
And all that stuff's through the roof.
And more drug addictions.
And more drug overdoses.
And all those problems that don't get calculated in the risk assessment,
when you're talking about the risk of the virus.
There's a lot of other risks.
There's a lot of other problems.
Yeah.
And the government doesn't give a shit about that.
They keep getting paid, no matter what, when they close down these businesses.
I think the government, I think the state, I think the governor, and I think
the mayor,
they should be paid proportionately with the amount of money that's generated
by the businesses,
particularly the businesses that are forced to close.
See how fucking quick everything opens up.
It opens up.
It would open up like that.
Yeah.
See how quick everything opens up if you give people the freedom to go places.
You don't have to go to these restaurants if you're worried about catching
COVID.
You don't have to go to the gym if you're worried about catching it.
You can stay home.
You can social distance.
You can wear masks.
You can exercise in the park, out in nature.
But you can't because the park's shut because they're worried about COVID.
Yeah.
Like these are some of the rules that people have had to deal with over this
past year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nonsensical rules like you can't go to the park.
You can't go to the beach.
It's nonsense.
It's nonsense.
And everybody knows it's nonsense.
And it's not science-based.
When they say follow the science, well, you're not following the science.
Because if you did follow the science, you'd let people do anything they wanted
outside.
Because the science clearly shows it doesn't spread outside.
Well, if you follow the science, you would say, let us have a debate.
And you would have an open debate where you let both sides speak out.
Yes.
What we are now seeing, and it is absolutely horrifying, is that you let one
side, the side
that's speaking for lockdown, invoke science and say the science says lockdown.
But there are other scientists who are saying, no, not so fast.
And those ones are not allowed to speak.
I have a colleague, Scott Atlas, at the Hoover Institution.
And he's made a few points about why some of the things that we're being told
to do are
not actually supported by science.
But people like him can't get their voices out because they're demonized.
demonized, shut out, kicked out of the whole debate.
And, and I think we can't go on like this.
No, no, we can't.
And it's, it's, it's forcing a massive divide in our country.
And it's, it's terrifying.
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