“Pro-life” Sen. Rand Paul would rather you die from coronavirus than restrict his or anyone else’s right not to wear a mask in public.
Before Paul appeared on today’s Your World show, a large graphic blared, “Mask Mandate Feud,” meaning Kentucky Senator Paul was about to blast Dr. Anthony Fauci on masks. Never mind that Fauci is one of the foremost experts on infectious diseases and Paul is an opthalmologist.
Although Paul considers himself an advocate for the sanctity of life, that doesn’t seem to apply to those who are no longer fetuses. His philosophy for those who have been born seems to be, "Nobody should have to do a thing unless you can definitively prove to my satisfaction that it would save lives."
Even so, “pro-life” Paul must have known he put his Senate colleagues at risk after he tested positive for COVID last year:
During the Senate GOP lunch today, Moran told colleagues that Rand was at the gym this morning, per two sources briefed on the lunch, and that he was swimming in the pool. Rand got his COVID-19 results back this morning.
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) March 22, 2020
Today on Your World, non-expert Paul claimed that there’s no evidence people need to continue wearing masks after they’ve had COVID or after vaccination. Paul said, “If the government’s going to tell you you can’t go anywhere unless you’re wearing a mask, they should tell you why and they should present the evidence.”
He said that “about 100 million people that have gotten the vaccine” and “30 million people that have been infected. The government needs to prove and show me a study that says that those people are still transmitting the disease and that they are a problem to public health. What Dr. Fauci said is they might be.”
Yeah, why err on the side of caution about spreading deadly germs?
Paul complained about “conjecture” that he called “not science” but rather “emotionalism and fearmongering.”
“So far there’s no evidence that there’s widespread disease happening from people who have already had the disease who have already been vaccinated," Paul claimed.
Host Neil Cavuto pushed back. “But in some cases some you can’t tell,” he said.
FACT CHECK: healthline reports: “You can still spread, develop COVID-19 after getting a vaccine.”
But Paul wants folks to be able to spread coronavirus because he’s “for freedom, for a free society.” Unless you’re a pregnant woman, that is.
He called government officials “nanny staters” and "good for them" if people go back to restaurants and churches.
“Dr. Fauci doesn’t know any of this,” Paul said - as if he does. “He’s making conjecture, saying what if the South African strain, the vaccine doesn’t work against them? What I say to Dr. Fauci is show me that the variants are escaping it.”
Paul went on to accuse Dr. Fauci of “overkill on all of this” and “a government bureaucrat.”
FACT CHECK: “The growth rates of daily COVID-19 cases and deaths slowed significantly in counties where states required masks,” FactCheck.org reported this week.
You can watch “pro-life” Paul prefer death to precautions below, from the March 23, 2021 Your World.
When it came to COVID last year, the standard angry Right Wing approach to it was to deny that there was any problem. Confronted with the obvious inability of the Pence White House to deal with it, the Right Wing decided to declare that there was no actual pandemic and that the whole thing was just a “hoax” to turn the country against Pence’s childish spokesman. When it became obvious that this approach wasn’t working, they then repeatedly declared the pandemic “over”, trying multiple tacks in an increasingly desperate cry of “All is Well!” to hopefully re-elect Pence despite the mess. Rand Paul himself spent 2020 denying that there was any issue with COVID, despite the fact that he himself contracted it.
Rand Paul’s current behavior is sadly predictable. The appropriate course of action for him would be to admit that he made a mistake and do what he can to try to atone. Instead, he’s doubled down and is now just repeating canards in the hope that nobody will call him on it. His latest exchange with Dr. Fauci was in reality another complete humiliation for him. He was once again schooled by Fauci in even the most basic vocabulary. Fox News of course chose to edit out nearly all of Dr. Fauci’s responses and just included Paul’s statements.
When the long-term eye of history looks upon Rand Paul’s conduct here, it will not be kind. As with his other refusals to work with anyone and his insistence on smugly dismissing all but the most Extreme Far Right perspective, he will be remembered for his singular lack of contribution while in office. Libertarians will see his behavior as proving their point – that government doesn’t get anything done. Everyone with a sane mind will see that having saboteurs like Rand Paul in government is what gums up the works.
