RadixJournal - The Junta Virus

00:00:00.000 It feels like only yesterday that we were all wearing masks and kids were wearing masks to school and these experts were all over the television and people were doing dances for Dr. Fauci on TikTok and nurses were the new heroes.

00:00:16.500 They've always been my heroes.

00:00:18.600 But for the rest of the country, nurses were appreciated.

00:00:22.160 it um and and on the on the other hand it seems like it was like 50 years ago as well because the

00:00:32.060 world has moved on even liberals when you talk to them they don't think that the covid response was

00:00:39.800 uh accurate maybe it was a reasonable mistake but everyone sort of looks back at that time

00:00:46.580 is that was so weird. We're way past BLM. We're way past wokeness, at least as a kind of

00:00:54.560 flamboyant expression of silliness in the public discourse. The liberals have moved on. We're

00:01:02.740 past a lot of the conspiracy theories. There's a molecule with 666 in the ingredients of the

00:01:09.940 vaccine, and therefore you shouldn't take it. All of that stuff was being promoted by the right.

00:01:14.900 We seem to have moved past that to new crazy conspiracy theories that they believe in.

00:01:20.380 We're past QAnon, which was a virus of that point that spread over the Internet during COVID time when we were all locked up.

00:01:30.380 So it seems like a long time ago, yet it wasn't that long ago and it might come back.

00:01:38.420 But what are what are Basil?

00:01:39.900 What are some of your memories of this time?

00:01:42.220 well first of all let me lay the frown work by flexing a little bit and saying that i'm

00:01:47.620 i'm pure-blooded i made it through that whole thing without getting the jab

00:01:50.620 not everyone can say that i was boosted multiple times i'm sure you were let me get the video

00:01:58.780 anyway now let's not don't derail me um but speaking of like looking back actually today

00:02:05.060 this morning i was up in poughkeepsie new york don't ask me why and in their downtown main street

00:02:11.900 they have a statue of a nurse with a mask on i remember i just saw it this morning i was like

00:02:18.040 that's so odd to see in 2026 yeah and what it makes me think of thinking back to covid

00:02:25.000 and the discrepancy between covid's lethality and the junta virus's lethality whatever we're

00:02:30.360 calling it um i remember having a conversation with my sister who's like kind of a lib

00:02:34.760 um and she was like in support of like the lockdowns and things like that and i was like

00:02:40.000 i was like this seems so ridiculous for something that is not more that much more deadly than the

00:02:45.560 cold or the flu or whatever what would you be doing what would the proper reaction be if it 0.51

00:02:50.520 was something that was like 10 times more deadly and i asked her that she's like well i guess we

00:02:55.220 would just do the same thing i was like does that not seem crazy to you that we would do

00:02:59.480 the reaction would be no different with the lethality of something as the flu or something

00:03:03.800 that was hypothetically 10 times more deadly and with the whole the the premise of what's going on

00:03:09.740 now is that this is much more deadly whether it's able to spread or whatever it's like so what we're

00:03:15.640 just you want to just run it back again you want to just do the same thing over and over again i

00:03:19.580 don't know i don't think we can run it back even if we wanted to because covid did ruin it and i

00:03:29.180 say this as a covid believer um i was there you know i i volunteered for the police force

00:03:36.380 while we were soldering COVID-infected people into their homes.

00:03:40.980 And I was like, it's for the public good while I was shutting them in.

00:03:45.700 Yeah.

00:03:45.860 So, I mean, I was a COVID believer, but even then, I mean,

00:03:51.900 I think people were sort of on board for maybe a couple of weeks,

00:03:55.720 but it's a bigger issue.

00:03:58.420 Whether we overreacted and whether we should have just done herd immunity

00:04:03.820 uh immediately or maybe not quite immediately but once we started to get some idea of the

00:04:10.680 fatality rate etc we should have just done herd immunity i think that's a reasonable position

00:04:16.320 to hold and it was wrong but you you have to put yourself in the position of public

00:04:22.660 health officials and in december and january of uh 2019 and then 2020 i mean the the kind of

00:04:31.500 reaction that was on social media, you would see images of Chinese people like wigging out and

00:04:37.640 smashing windows and as if they were infected. And it was like the rage virus or something like

00:04:43.440 that. And so I understand why people overreact sort of better to overreact than underreact.

00:04:49.520 But they weren't able to recalibrate. And I can even remember in 2022, attending a Zoom school 0.99

00:04:58.860 board meeting where they were still talking about masking being like three days a week or

00:05:04.980 semi-voluntary and even I as a COVID believer was at a point where I'm like guys please like can we

00:05:15.780 please just try to learn something from this experience and not pretend like this is December

00:05:22.160 2019 or something like you you have to adjust um but uh anyway i didn't speak up actually because

00:05:30.520 i didn't want to make a uh i don't want to make a i don't want to make a i don't want to turn

00:05:37.120 make create another scandal other people were speaking up and i just let them talk let the

00:05:41.700 cowboys talk february march of 2020 i was in my mom's room and she had she has a tv in her room

00:05:48.100 we were watching the news and they were showing um they were digging up plots like mass burial

00:05:56.340 plots because the the morms or something were overrun or something to that effect i remember

00:06:03.280 physically or like being overcome with uh i didn't cry or weep or something but something

00:06:08.520 like like tightened in me it was like very emotionally evocative and now thinking back

00:06:13.780 and it's like it's so duplicitous and how like overly propagandistic it was because there was

00:06:19.800 no way that you could see that in that time period of february march of 2020 and not be like

00:06:24.140 what's happening something very serious is happening it's like those images being

00:06:29.680 being through your screen to you it's like there's no it's not surprising how crazy people went but

00:06:35.180 the thing about covid was that it was so quickly politicized the the politicization of it switched

00:06:41.540 early on if you remember that is very interesting actually it was like first the right wing

00:06:47.400 exactly first the right wing was overreacting and the nancy pelosi literally did a hug your

00:06:55.760 asian friend benefit in like february yeah wow and then immediately flipped and because of that

00:07:04.200 politicization of it it became intractable in every way right it became intractable if you were

00:07:10.380 covid skeptical became intractable if you were a covid believer and i think hopefully what we can

00:07:16.600 real and probably is too much to ask but if this winter virus continues to go the way it goes

00:07:21.600 it probably will similarly be incredibly politicized but i think like with trump in

00:07:27.280 power now the whole warp speed thing is kind of a very awkward subject thankfully we're democrats 0.99

00:07:34.740 again so i can say fuck donald trump and fuck operation warp speed but it's like that's not 0.99

00:07:40.480 something he like he touts it as an accomplishment but it's something he like begrudgingly touts as 0.99

00:07:45.980 an accomplishment it's one of those things where it's like if you want the epstein files i don't

00:07:49.260 want your support i did the the warp speed operation warp speed was a great success it's like 0.97

00:07:54.600 try it again motherfucker let's see let's roll the dice like i don't know well another thing 0.98

00:07:59.980 just to point out remember when mike pence was debating kamala harris kamala harris said you 0.99

00:08:06.480 know i'm pro science i'm pro vaccine but i ain't taking that trump uh vaccine like no child yeah

00:08:14.140 it's true i mean i'm not even exaggerating her response which gets to this bigger picture

00:08:20.180 that at least concerns me as a fascistic totalitarian thinker which is that you can't

00:08:29.640 like there has to be some sort of obedience on behalf of the public.

00:08:37.620 You know, maybe you're late in paying your parking tickets

00:08:43.100 or you owe taxes or whatever, but you ultimately obey.

00:08:50.440 And there seems to be something really problematic,

00:08:55.640 And it's deeper than maybe we even appreciated where there's no like public spiritedness or good faith effort.

00:09:05.460 But there's there's really no obedience on the part of the public.

00:09:10.560 And it does show some sort of social breakdown that might be occurring when people just say no to things like, for instance, let me say this.

00:09:21.180 On behalf of fellow liberals and Democratic leftists, you know, wearing the mask, look, if we look back on it, maybe we should have just not even bothered to wear a mask at all at any time.

00:09:38.040 It was not effective enough to, in a cost-benefit analysis, to justify the just pain and annoyance and et cetera of mask wearing.

00:09:51.320 I can even agree with people on that.

00:09:54.440 But the mask, it wasn't just about that.

00:09:56.460 It was a signal that you were pro-social.

00:09:59.160 Now it's ironic and contradictory because that was the most antisocial time that we were going through and wearing a mask where you can't, you can see their eyes and their eyebrows. You can't really see their facial expression. You're not, you had a difficult time. At least I did connecting with people, you know, on an emotional level because of the mask.

00:10:20.040 So on some, on a surface level, it was antisocial, but on a deeper level, it was a pro-social

00:10:27.140 signal because you were basically saying, I care about you.

00:10:31.440 I'm not probably not going to die.

00:10:33.160 I'm healthy and I'm 30 years old, but I care about your grandmother.

00:10:36.820 I care about your sick uncle, blah, blah, blah.

00:10:41.320 So it was a kind of like, I'm public spirited.

00:10:44.280 I'm public spirited.

00:10:45.460 I'm pro-social signal.

00:10:47.200 the right refusing to wear it yelling at people at target like it was a shocking display of

00:10:56.860 anti-social behavior on the right i understand what you're getting at yeah it's it feels it

00:11:02.720 feels very much to me like how the person who puts the sign outside of their front door that

00:11:08.220 says in this house we believe in science no human is illegal etc etc i have that that is also a

00:11:13.340 signal a pro-social signal however in reality that pro-social signal is an excuse to be incredibly

00:11:22.200 anti-social to the people around them in the same way that you're mentioning this the mask is a

00:11:27.100 signal of pro-socialness in the abstract but in the concrete immediate is a very anti-social thing

00:11:34.440 that separates you from the people around you and and for speaking for me the whole reason i became

00:11:39.060 of whatever the fuck i became of the anti-left marxist the thing that radicalized me was an

00:11:46.280 afternoon at work i went to go get a slice of pizza at the thing for lunch and they said let 0.96

00:11:52.740 me see your your vaccine card and i was like what it was the first day of it i was like i don't have

00:11:58.320 that and i looked behind me and everyone just kind of averted their gaze not because i'm a fat brown

00:12:03.100 ugly person but just because it was an awkward thing and it's like i had to stand outside the

00:12:07.020 door and wait for my slice of pizza and that was a bca a bc ad type of moment where there i was a

00:12:14.580 changed person because of that intrusion and you know one thing about one more thing i'll say about

00:12:19.560 this thing about the the the refusal to obey yeah the only reason that that works is because of 0.90

00:12:25.980 blacks and it's so funny that right wingers were able to kind of piggyback off of blacks lack of 0.86

00:12:33.380 obeisance to the state in order to like frame it as like a libertarian they're correct yes it is a 0.91

00:12:41.220 a pro-liberty anti-statist type of position but it could only work in this society where we have

00:12:47.460 a 14 of the population that is naturally disobedient to the state etc etc etc that was

00:12:52.060 able to kind of like the same reason why the democrats democrats can't ban menthol cigarettes 0.87

00:12:57.340 you know as a menthol cigarette enjoyer myself i piggyback off of the disobedience of the black

00:13:02.620 community for that reason right a couple of thoughts here though but like let's say 0.94

00:13:09.020 we are being invaded by not a virus but another foreign armies and the government just announces

00:13:20.080 to you we are rationing goods we are sheltering in place in homes uh if you have ammunition and

00:13:28.740 weapons. You need to give a listing of it to your local police officer so they might want to use it

00:13:37.420 or they could know where it is if your home gets taken over by an army and so on. This is a bit

00:13:43.400 far-fetched, but certainly possible, more than possible. And again, would right-wingers react

00:13:51.380 in this way where nothing can get done and the state has no power over anything. The state can't

00:14:00.240 defend itself. Arguably, a virus can be more deadly than a foreign army. A foreign army can 1.00

00:14:08.340 be shot and defeated, the virus less so. It's harder to defeat a virus. And thus, again,

00:14:15.240 And just speaking as a statist myself, there's actually something profoundly problematic about these people who I don't think would obey in any situation.

00:14:29.180 And they'd learn on the Internet that the armies aren't real and that it's a liberal plot to take your guns or to secretly kill you through a vaccine or whatever.

00:14:39.760 and just that if in the 1950s for instance with my um i was talking with my mother she was born

00:14:46.340 she's a true baby boomer born in the my mother and father true baby boomers born in the years

00:14:52.640 right after the second world war when there was measles vaccines they just lined up they vaccinated

00:15:02.200 in louisiana for my mom um and mississippi for my dad's deep red you know it wasn't red at that

00:15:10.760 time if you don't understand it was we're dixie gradationist yeah yeah dixie grad

00:15:15.580 family tradition to be democratic we believe in liberties certain state liberties and rats

00:15:25.980 um but uh both of them there's a new vaccine out and you're in third grade okay we're lining up

00:15:35.200 just literally total compliance and there's just this odd thing and i i think there are all these

00:15:44.180 ironies going on here and i'll just do two and then i'll let you guys talk but this odd thing

00:15:49.980 of like the conservatives want to go back to the 1950s when everyone got along we were one nation

00:15:55.840 well okay but like you wouldn't fit in in the 1950s because in the 1950s people of both parties

00:16:04.380 lined up to get vaccinated when they were told and no one complained um another thing

00:16:14.320 so much of right wing you know thought nationalism is about being infected by the outside world 1.00

00:16:23.720 you know like the illegal immigrants they're destroying our country you know we've heard 1.00

00:16:29.100 this over and over again you get this just gift where all of the liberals now agree with you 1.00

00:16:38.540 in your xenophobic closed border nationalist philosophy and yet you reject it you're like no

00:16:48.540 we don't want to accept this political gift uh that no one could have ever imagined before where

00:16:56.380 we're gonna just shut down the borders and immigration kick people out papers please hey

00:17:03.160 you over there that funny looking person trying to get a pizza papers please oh you left your

00:17:11.080 papers at home on your way sir like i mean i'm sorry but it's like they they have this dream of

00:17:19.620 the 1950s and then when they're given an opportunity to react it they're the ones

00:17:25.360 not complying i i do find i find this very troublesome and i do find it at the very least

00:17:31.280 highly ironic well because your parents and my grandparents etc whatever my grandparents were

00:17:37.580 they had never seen an autistic child before right so there that's another thing that leads

00:17:43.700 into this is this type of pharmaceutical skepticism vaccine skepticism that underlies

00:17:47.640 this where it's like there was no jenny mccarthy to say like or rfk to say they're making your kids

00:17:54.060 autistic etc etc etc so it's like how could you know in the 50s where you're that you're going

00:18:00.020 to need 30 vaccines before you're two years old etc etc etc so it's i i i understand what you're

00:18:07.540 saying but i still think that it was something that was so incredibly heavy-handed that i i like 0.99

00:18:15.340 american liberty i like the american libertarian type of ethos because it lets me be a faggot and 0.97

00:18:21.660 lets all types of things happen so i'm still you know i am an anti anti-covid vaccine mandate 0.99

00:18:31.760 mass deportations democrat whatever that is the eternal queer 0.97

00:18:38.020 so true the the rootless homosexual 1.00

RadixJournal - May 08, 2026

The Junta Virus

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