兜 を脱ぐ : Kabuto o nugu

The little phrase above translates as "take off the helmet". It has passed into Japanese idiom from the feudal period as meaning "admit defeat", or "surrender".

We the People have surrendered to the Plague, and, being a Plague, it will respond by killing thousands and tens of thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of its' prisoners.

Because that's literally what plagues do.

It doesn't have to be this way.

I get that we can't stay locked down forever. People got no jobs. People got no money. People are going to have to get out and work...and that means they'll want to get out and play, too. And, being American and greedy and stupid, we don't "get" that we just can't go back to Dave and Buster's like we did before and not get the Plague.

But.

There are ways to get out, and ways to get out. We seem to have decided to get out the stupidest and most infectious way possible. We're mobbing back into public spaces and, most critically, breathing our infections on each other. Because, it seems, less-stupid-and-infectious would include one simple and effective way to do this better.

Wear a fucking facemask.

"Japan’s population is about 38% of the U.S., but even adjusting for population, the Japanese death rate is a mere 2% of America’s. This comes despite Japan having no lockdown, still-active subways, and many businesses that have remained open—reportedly including karaoke bars, although Japanese citizens and industries are practicing social distancing where they can. Nor have the Japanese broadly embraced contact tracing, a practice by which health authorities identify someone who has been infected and then attempt to identify everyone that person might have interacted with—and potentially infected. So how does Japan do it?"

It's really that simple.

Japan has a longstanding tradition of masking in public.

I've been out and about during the Plague because of my job. Almost no one is masked; easily less than half, and (except in places like the whole foods store) usually about a quarter. I am...but it doesn't help me. I don't have the Plague yet; I need the other people, who do, to cover their nasty diseased pieholes.

And what I hate about that is that a hell of a lot of that has a hell of a lot to do with this:

The Trumpkins are explicit in refusing to cover their faces during a plague because it's not manly, it's not "free", it's sissy...aw, fuck, who cares why. They're goddamn idiots and if they were only killing themselves they could happily go to hell in the same handbasket.

But they're not. They're killing you and me.

So maybe we're going about this all wrong.

Maybe what we need for these chucklefucks is this sort of mask:

Would all these heroes mask up if they could strut around behind a 面頬, a menpō, like a badass samurai?

I'm long past trying to reason with these numbnuts. If giving them a cool ninja mask would make them stop acting stupid?

Works for me.

But, sadly, no. It won't work.

Because the proudly ignorant sonsofbitches wouldn't do it. Not even for a badass samurai mask. Because they'd prefer to burn the place to the ground rather than do anything that might make some pussy lib'rul somewhere smile.

This is what they think wearing a mask means:

That's really it. That's all there is to it. I mean...look at the damn idiot cartoon. "I want safety, not freedom" Wha...freedom to catch the fucking plague? "I want medical tyranny"...medical...the fuck?

Just look at it.

There's no logic there, no sense, no real reasoning. It's just all loud-n-proud fuckyew! because we're a house completely divided, and if they can't do exactly what they want and tell us pinko commie lib-simp cucks to suck it, they'll dynamite that fucker and dance on the ruins.

So.

We're all just gonna get the fucking plague.