The Mask of the Beast
I am not going senile in the title. Yes, I know that in the Last Days, the Bible talks about the mark of the beast. Here’s the famous reference:
“Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon… Also, it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666″ (Revelation 13:11-18).
A. Fauci (Dr. Anthony Fauci) contains 6 letters, and he was born on June 6. That adds up to “666.”
Just kidding.
But I have been thinking of a parallel–the mask of the Beast.
The Mask of the Beast
We now stand one year into the extensive use of masks in many American states. It’s become the new norm. This week President Biden called for indefinite mask use and for “free” states to slow down their opening up for business.
I dislike masks because it’s harder to breathe, to hear other people (for us old folks), and to enjoy the beauty of another person’s smile. It’s also more difficult to share the Good News because of the “barrier” between natural conversation.
Plus, everybody wearing masks seems a little more depressed with the headgear.
The “experts” explain that masks stop the spread of Covid 19. But a recent report from the CDC indicates that mask mandates do little good. With 2,123 counties out of 3,142 U.S. counties employing a mandate from March through December 2020, mask mandates accounted for a decrease of less than 2% in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Two percent is miniscule. That reality shows that we’re really wearing masks for nothing.
Or are we?
The poster child for mask mandates is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of NIAID. He became a cultural icon last year, appearing regularly in the Trump Covid briefings and now on many major news shows.
He said recently he was not certain when he would support ending requirements for Americans to wear face coverings, but said it was “conceivable” that he might support rolling back some “public health measures” by late fall.
“Is there going to be a time when we are going to have no masks?” Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Fauci in an evening interview. “When is that time? If you had to guess — going to a sports game, going to a theater, going to a concert without a mask?”
“We’re certainly not near there yet,” he added. “When do I think that would occur? It’s very difficult to predict, but if everything falls into the right place and we get this under control, it is conceivable that you might be able to pull back a bit on some of the public health measures as we get into the late fall of this year. But there’s no guarantee of that.”
Face masks forever?
Let’s not forget that Dr. Fauci told us early last year that was “no reason to be walking around with a mask.” Then he told us to wear face coverings. In January, he advised that Americans begin wearing two masks, telling NBC News in an interview, “If you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective.”
On March 18, 2021, Dr. Fauci spoke before a Senate hearing. Though already vaccinated and not needing to wear a mask (he can’t infect anyone), he showed up with the now customary garb.
Senator Rand Paul nailed him for the duplicity: “You parade around in two masks for show! You can’t get it again!” said Paul. “There’s virtually a zero percent chance you’re going to get it and yet you’re telling people that have the vaccine, who have immunity — you’re defying everything we know about immunity by telling people to wear masks who have been vaccinated.”
Paul pointed out that if Fauci wants people to get the vaccine, he needs to tell them it’s safe to take off their mask once they do instead of hitting them with more nanny-state control.
Dr. Fauci disagreed and continued to laud masks.
Paul then tweeted the truth: “Rather than listening to government scolds, look to the science of immunology: and once you’re two weeks out from the vaccine, or have recovered from the actual infection, trash your mask and live free again.”
One more angle on the dreaded masks.
In Mask Pollution – Where are the Environmentalists?, Dr.Brian Joondeph states:
- The unintended consequences of masks include face touching as people fiddle with their masks, contaminating their faces and fingers, defeating the purpose of a face covering.
- COVID can persist on inanimate surfaces for nine days, yet infected masks are being discarded everywhere like cigarette butts. Why are not masks considered medical waste?
- The UK alone will generate, in one year, mask waste equivalent to over five Eiffel Towers. Add in the rest of the world and it could be an Eiffel Tower of masks every day.
- Another analysis calculated that single use masks, made from layers of plastic, if worn by every person in the UK for a single day, “would create 66,000 tons of contaminated plastic waste and create ten times more climate change impact than using reusable masks.”
- Masks take 450 years to biodegrade. How many will end up in oceans and landfills, contaminating water and food chains with micro-plastics?
Yet, environmental groups remain silent about this new form of pollution. Why? Because environmental extremism is also about control–same as masks.
So why are we being forced to wear masks? (Though there are good people on both sides of the issue.)
I believe the mask mandate is a clever primer for future tyranny. If they can force us to wear face coverings now, they can more easily force us to receive a “mark” later. Both will be done in the name of public health or safety. But they’ll really be controlling us for their own ends.
Red State explains: “The pandemic is being used as a stalking horse for all manner of changes to society, all of which erode the autonomy of the individual and increase the power of the state.”
Mask mandates allow the bureaucrats and political chieftains to keep the fear flowing. Once deaths and cases recede, they need a new bogeyman and claiming that “new variants” pose a clear and present danger is the latest talking point.
Six months ago, we learned three important things about Covid 19. (Great Barrington Declaration): 1) Lockdowns are not necessary, 2) Masks do little good, and 3) Only the elderly and health-compromised are at high risk. We also should know by now that progressives desire to depress or crash capitalism (to make way for socialism), mainstream fear, and create government dependency and submission.
We are being discipled to accept totalitarianism in the Western World. It’s already prevalent in many other nations. America is the final prize.
The mask of the beast is simply a prelude to the mark–and everything that precedes it. We are being conditioned for tyranny.
I’m standing with Rand Paul. “Trash the mask and let me live free again.” I’m also with Patrick Henry:
“As for me, give me liberty of give me death.”
AMEN…. I agree, Kit!……and thank you, Ron!
Linda Palmer
Mark 12:31 – “The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Wearing a mask is not only for the protection of others, but for yourself as well. Because you believe this is government controlled, you prefer to be selfish and not protect others. That’s not Love they Neighbor actions. People are obsessed with losing their freedom and control of their lives. If you are saved, you gave your life to the Lord. You willingly gave up your so called control of your life to God to live by His Word. You gave up living by your so called wisdom to the wisdom of God. Romans 13:1 – “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God”. In the end, everyone says its their decision…but by not protecting me, you’re deciding for me as well. Then what happened to by decision? I decide to protect you and me both. Love for others and myself is far greater than feeling like my rights are being taken away. Is yours?
You use two Scriptures that I totally agree with, Lorene. But I see them differently.
There’s nothing selfish or fearful about my position. To live is Christ and die is gain. I’ve spent my entire life as a 40-year career missionary “loving people” in over sixty nations around the world.
Love has traditionally been defined as “willing the highest good of God and all sentient being.” A modern translation might be: “Do what’s best for another person from God’s point of view.”
You can have your own opinion on masks, but you can’t have your own facts. The facts are that face masks help very little, they cause some unintended consequences (like touching your face), and they retard the growth of herd immunity.
They also promote government tyranny–which is hateful yet normal in many nations around the world. We don’t want it here.
Mandating and promoting masks is not “loving” by the historical definition. Social distancing, good hygiene, and protecting the vulnerable is the wiser way to go.
That’s why I support the Great Barrington Declaration. It’s the wisest response to Covid put together by three eminent doctors (from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford). You can read about it here:
https://www.aier.org/article/a-sensible-and-compassionate-anti-covid-strategy/
I signed the document months ago. So have scores of thousands of others from many nations.
As for Romans 14, Bible believers have never interrupted it as unqualified obedience to government. The apostles in the Book of Acts didn’t even practice that! We should be obedient to good governments, but submissive and disobedient to bad ones (and willing to accept the consequences of resistance to evil).
Think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany and thousands of others throughout history. That’s the biblical and historical norm.
Ron … Your article is misleading. Read this.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/03/12/fact-check-cdc-study-links-mask-mandates-slowed-covid-infections/6938262002/ and https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/03/08/coronavirus
The research your article refers to is not about whether masks work or not. It is about mask mandates which is a different animal.
You have mixed the two together and give the reader the impression that the CDC has now admitted that masks hardly work.
Tim Svoboda
In all due respect, I believe you’re splitting hairs here. Masks have some value, especially in medical settings where they’re put on with gloves in controlled environments.
I could have used many studies on this issue. I simply chose the latest one. I also could have used various studies on how mandated mask usage prolonged the pandemic by slowing down herd immunity.
Here’s one that especially focuses on some eastern states with mask mandates–complete with graphs: https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/03/30/the-latest-data-absolutely-eviscerates-the-case-for-mandatory-masking-n352629?utm_source=rsafternoonbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=381c8a17d8c487f2a62d46f75c4447ba
One of the most convincing comparisons is between your state (California) and Florida. One locked down and mandated masks and the other didn’t.
Here’s the outcome (from the AP): https://ktla.com/news/california/despite-california-and-florida-governors-drastically-different-approaches-the-states-saw-almost-identical-outcomes-in-covid-19-case-rates/
In the states with mask mandates, the data shows no significant drop in either Covid cases or deaths. USA Today (a strongly progressive newspaper) can spin it anyway they want. But the truth is that the lockdowns and mask mandates didn’t help America–they HURT this country immeasurably.
The best, most balanced, and most scientific analysis of Covid that I’ve seen is the Great Barrington Declaration. It has no ideological bias and has has been signed by scores of thousands of doctors and scientists all over the world.
I signed it months ago. Have you?
Please read Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya thoughts on the subject (one of the founders of the document, along with a doctor from Harvard and another from Oxford).https://www.aier.org/article/a-sensible-and-compassionate-anti-covid-strategy/.
Don’t miss the forest for the trees. Do you want to unwittingly promote the growth of tyranny in America? Can you see how federal mandates of any type during peacetime (even under the guise of compassion or the public good) is more than a slippery slope?
We need you to be a fighter for both freedom and compassion. I commit to being the same.
Ron, your article and they way your phrased it is misleading. That is my main point. You mixed the two separate points together of mask mandates and mask wearing just as the other conservative news outlets did from where you got it. My concern here is how you attempt to speak “truth.”
If you are concerned with how USA today is “spinning the facts” then should you not be concerned with how you are spinning it? Why not be more truthful in your article and rephrase what you said? You said, “The “experts” explain that masks stop the spread of Covid 19. But a recent report from the CDC indicates that mask mandates do little good. … Two percent is miniscule. That reality shows that we’re really wearing masks for nothing.”
Why not be clear and tell the reader instead the following: “The “experts” explain that masks stop the spread of COVID 19. Here is a report not on the wearing of masks but a study on mask mandates. Two percent is miniscule. Are mask mandates worth it? ”
Half truths, shaded truths, misleading statements should not be part of your writing style. You have your right to listen to whatever sources that you deem are “factual” but my point is simply that you be careful of how you attempt to communicate them. I don’t see this as splitting hairs but a matter of how you communicate inaccurately in the direction of your bias. If you disagree with me, I remain your friend.
Finally to compare California with Florida is also misleading. You would be better off comparing SF to another place in Florida. SF continues to have the lowest cases amongst all metro areas because I would venture to say most of us wear masks whereas LA “and other “anti-masks” places in California” is much like Florida in not wearing masks and throwing all caution to the wind.
To answer you question whether I am concerned about the tryanny of the government I would respond by saying, if you come visit me, wear your seatbelt, stop at red lights and please wear a mask! In other words …. I think you are making a mountain out of molehill and not willing to die with you on that.
All the best and keep preaching the gospel no matter who tells you not to! And on that hill I will die as I know you will also which makes us friends despite our other differences.
Tim
masks have been prove to stop nothing with covid, the simple fact is that the open space in the mask weave is many times larger then the covid virus, as in stoping mosquitos with a chain link fence. the vaccinated person can get and give covid the same as the unvaccinated , so the vaccine doesnt work to keep you from getting covid or infecting others. the unvaccinated person is no more responsible for the spread of the virus then the vaccinated.
A Fauci. Six letters. It was a joke. I used to know a Mike Saia….
Thank you Ron.
Thanks, Larry. Yes, I was counting the “A,” and it was simply a joke. Glad you are doing better and still in this world. We have prayed for you (and Irma). And yes, Mike is still with us and is a brilliant guy!
Ron, since when does “Fauci” have six letters?
As a nurse, I will stand with all those who choose to wear a mask. No one thought that gloves were essential when HIV first became a medical issue. I also know that a “simple” cold can devastate a senior citizen or an individual who is immunocompromised. I would love to teach face-to-face. I miss hugging someone who needs a bit of love. I would like nothing more than to feed the hungry. But, that is not today and if it is necessary to wear a mask I shall.
I believe that people are free to choose also. But we’re being forced down the road to tyranny.
You are right, just as the Great Barrington Declaration states, that we need “Focused Protection” for seniors and those at risk. But not the whole population.
You can have your own opinion about masks but not your own facts. The data on the 3,000 counties is crystal clear. We are wearing the mask for “government-sake” not health-sake.
You seriously nailed it. Thank you.