You're right, in a separate video [1] he said "We will not wear masks!". He isn't saying "cloth masks suck, I'd be ok if we did better masks" He's saying "cloth masks suck, we should not wear any masks". Directly. No editorializing needed.
> He's also a physician. He might know something about infectious diseases that you don't.
Dr Oz is also a physician. He constantly tells people to buy dumb shit like green coffee to cure cancer.
The fact of the matter is, Paul was an Ophthalmologist. Do you take infectious disease advice from your dentist? The fact that he can say he's a medical doctor is true, but his field is completely unrelated to the field of infectious disease.
The actual experts in the field are telling us to social distance and wear masks. Paul is telling people to rise up, take off their masks, and ignore these plain sense precautions [1].
> I for one want to hear his expertise, even if it disagrees with the conclusions you've already made.
Hear what he has to say, but frankly, he's as big a hack as Dr Oz.
[1] https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1424399282447298563
Edit: Phil->Oz
He's non-practicing physician, but a practicing legislator. His job is to legislate, which includes determining the budget and operating model for the CDC.
Why does a legislator feel the need to circumvent his duty regardless of his prior private area of expertise? If he truly has physician expertise that is somehow superior to that of the CDC why isn't he working to convince his legislator colleagues to direct the budget and operating model of the CDC, as opposed to trying to circumvent due process and rile up his base.
I think you know the reason why.
That's fine. YouTube doesn't want to host it, because in their view it's harmful. What's the problem?
It is perfectly rationale to say that YouTube has the freedom to make editorial choices while also pointing out that they are making bad choices.
You aren't countering any criticism by stating that YouTube has the freedom to make those choices -- you're just changing the topic and ignoring the nature of the criticism.
They could be. Or do you just mean physical handicaps?
So; if YouTube said "we don't allow Christian white men" or whatever, absolutely, that's terrible and shouldn't be allowed. If they say "we don't allow people to say things that are actively harmful" that's quite different.
If you go into a restaurant and insult the servers, or start bothering other patrons, they'll ask you to leave. That's perfectly fine.
edit: typo
Saying "oh but he's a physician so him encouraging mass death is an interesting opinion I want to hear" sounds... a bit nutty dont you think?
Senator John Barrasso has a medical degree from Georgetown and a medical residency at Yale. He advocates for wearing masks.
Is he not uniquely positioned to tell Americans what to do?
which Rand Paul personally invented, and he wrote the cerificarion exam that he took.
That is exactly what I am saying. He knows quite well that N95s are effective, for instance. But that is not the context in which he frames the argument, intentionally.
I addressed much of this in a sibling comment below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28144209
TL;DR: Rand knows what he is doing. He’s not dumb, he knows his base, and he’s simply playing politics.
It means he is being intellectually dishonest. He has a long history of such behavior, and worse, he should know better.
Infectious disease specialists. We already know what they have to say about masks.
Asking Rand Paul for his knowledge on infectious diseases and how they spread is akin to asking a random computer science graduate to tell you how to fix your Windows domain.
> asking a random computer science graduate to tell you how to fix your Windows domain
A random computer science graduate who does a bit of research should be able to tell you everything you need to know about your Windows domain. Certainly, they'd be better suited than asking an accountant.
Rand Paul is an eye doctor, not an infectious disease specialist, and not an epidemiologist. The experts on this topic have spoken AND written AND researched the subject. Any credible information about it would have come FROM them, and THEY say that masks are something that we should do to stop the spread of an infectious disease.
He's not on their level and his opinion on the matter has zero importance other than his vote in the Senate.
Because hearing a high level overview is anything even remotely like having foundational knowledge, much less a deep expertise.
I said equally qualified. You don't get to have the argument you want by disregarding the core of it simply because it disagrees with your politics.
He could have, but he didn't. You're not his editor.
> But he's a senator.
He's also a physician. He might know something about infectious diseases that you don't.
> His statement was a dog whistle to his base.
Maybe it was. So what?
> They're not looking for an argument that people should be wearing N95s, they want to discredit all masking.
It's his prerogative to take whatever position he wants to take. He's a physician and an elected member of the United States Senate. I for one want to hear his expertise, even if it disagrees with the conclusions you've already made.