Theorizing about conspiracy theorists

What if opposition to covid safety isn’t simply the result of “vaccine hesitancy”? What if it’s round two of an intentional attack on our country?

I developed this conspiratorial belief in two days of Facebook I’ll never get back. A Maine father posted, “I get to decide if my kids wear masks to school, (and they won’t).” Vehemently against vaccination, he is also against testing and social distancing. “I’m going to live my normal life.”

So for two futile days, I tried to counsel him. I shared research from Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins Hospital. I shared graphs from the CDC, the FDA, video interviews with experts and images and interviews from hospitals and morgues. But my concern for his own and other lives was “bullying.” He labeled women “baby killers,” immigrants “illegals,” and then bragged about his own moral leadership (“people come to me for counseling”).

His rejection of authority, and expertise was wide-ranging. He rejected journalists, scientists, teachers, hospitals, universities, religions, even raw data. He rejected everything in our current system of (he called it “your”) government.

My head spun wondering how anyone could simultaneously believe such extreme and contradictory things. He said, “no one cares about [people getting covid] cases,” and “I’m not afraid to die.”

And then it dawned on me. He’s not that stupid. He’s doing this on purpose. He wants to spread the pandemic, not stop it.

It’s a brilliant anti-American plot. Climate change is requiring economic change. The goal of domestic terrorists is always to sow fear and chaos while they grasp at the threads of a dying coal and oil-based economy. Maybe most anti-vaxxer/anti-maskers are just confused foot soldiers, but they are attacking our country, using only disinformation and respiratory droplets.

Jenny Ruth Yasi,
Freeport

Mixed feelings about Blue Angels

I’m not eloquent, so I ask that you Google “The Problem With The Blue Angels” to see the several reasons that they should never return to Maine. They waste huge amounts of fossil fuels, waste our taxes, pollute the atmosphere, endanger the public and celebrate death. My wife and I are former Brunswick residents who were subject to the Blue Angels.

However, I remember their pilots as nice guys, courteous professionals. During their appearance on July 26, 1992, a few small private planes, including our Cessna 170A, were invited there for static display. At the end of the day the Blue Angels waited while I left first, flying at the speed of a Chevrolet.

Richard Dreselly,
South Portland