Saying intellectually honest makes it sound like they are better people

That’s because they are. And I’m tired of pretending that they aren’t. Treating anti-vax anti-mask idiots as though their opinion is as valid as scientific fact just emboldens them and leads to the kind of shit that is going on in America right now. These people need to be mocked, harshly and repeatedly until their children are so embarrassed by them that their bullshit gets stamped out in a generation or two.

I quote the great Isaac Asimov:

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

That cult of ignorance needs to be stamped the fuck out, and the way to do that isn’t by caring about their feelings and pretending that their flat-earth, anti-vax opinions have any merit.