Last night’s excerpt from Face Masks Hurt Kids describes Covid as an “IQ test.” A reader rises to challenge that assertion and to correct the record.
A reader writes:
Hi Allan,
Frankly, I'm puzzled. (like the old Amex solicitation letter) Covid-19 should be an IQ test, but it isn't.
If I were to compare the IQ's of the permanently masked Branch Covidians I knew against the IQ's of those who finally acknowledged that it was a hoax, I would say that the IQs of the brainwashed is higher than the IQ's of the "Tyranny Unmasked" crowd. And I'd say that the quantity of medical knowledge possessed by the terminally brainwashed is higher than that of most of those whose common sense reasserted itself. ( "Tyranny Unmasked, " by the way, is a great book John Taylor of Caroline published in the 1820's that I read in my youth- the title just seems apropos - published by Liberty Books. I have the Liberty Books version, but I read a first edition at the University of Virginia, from Mr. Jefferson's personal library. ).
I put those who always knew it was a hoax and refused to cooperated in a separate class (myself, my wife, my four grown up children, for example) and look instead at those who either went along with it at first, and those who formerly seemed even to believe.
It should be an IQ test, but it isn't.
If you have ever seen or read Ayn Rand's play, Night of January 16, the people who don't see the truth aren't stupid, they just will always believe the "official,legitimate" sources. They have what Malcolm Muggeridge called "invincible ignorance."
Invincible ignorance? If you were a good Egyptian subject in the time of Moses, you could likely think that the reason the ten plagues were occurring was that your people did not serve the Sun god, the god of the Nile, etc, sincerely enough, and the solution was not to worship the God of Israel as the one true God who has power over the Nile, the beasts of the field, the heavens, who can block out the sun, but to serve your false gods that much more faithfully. "If only everyone wore 8 masks when alone, instead of 7, and regarded their fellow men as the worst poison ever created and got 18 boosters of the poison death shot, instead of 17, then everything would be okay,"
A puzzled and very friendly disagreement.
Kudos to you for all your great work!
Regards,
-A Reader
I have nothing to add. This reader does the job on this topic well and with aplomb.
Allan Stevo is the bestselling author of Face Masks Hurt Kids and of Face Masks in One Lesson.