Too many calls to action start with what is to be opposed, rather than what is to be embraced. So, I will start with this: I embrace freedom.
I don’t want to rule the world. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I want nothing more out of life than to write science fiction adventure stories to inspire heroism and speculate upon the possibilities of existence, draw pictures of alien life to inspire creativity, and climb mountains, smell flowers, and take pictures of insects to celebrate creation. I’d like a comfortable home where I can live with a wife and children and have cookouts I can invite friends to.
I want to be happy and I want everyone else to be happy. I want everyone who wants a friend or mate to be able to find one. I want everyone who wants a job to be able to find meaningful work and be paid a living wage for it. I want everyone to feel safe and free.
Unfortunately, this has all been denied me and it is increasingly being denied to others. The problem is arbitrary rule:
When I was young, sometimes smaller kids would kick me, swing bats or sticks at me, and chase me around. When I got tired of being chased off all the time, I fought back using the minimum force necessary to defend myself. They got hurt anyways (though I think it was mostly surprise) and ran away crying. I got in trouble and was told I shouldn’t be fighting with smaller kids. Later, a kid my size (but younger) attacked me and I got in another fight. Then I was told I shouldn’t be fighting with younger kids. Who am I allowed to fight with? Bigger kids? Grown-ups? The police?
When I was young, I was taught never to make eye contact. It creeped people out. Staring contests were hard. One kid even yelled at me for looking at him when we just happened to turn toward each other and our eyes locked. Only in my late twenties did I read in a magazine that those avoiding eye contact were thought of as either weak or dishonest and would fail job interviews. One girl called me out for not looking at her. I also read that the norms are different in different subcultures. Testing it out, I found that people always quickly look away when I look at them. I still don’t know what to do.
When I was young, I was taught not to talk to strangers. That is, I understood that friendships had to develop naturally and slowly from being forced together by circumstance, or from being introduced by mutual friends, never because one person approached a complete stranger and asked to be friends. This is weird and creepy. It’s too fast for most people, who prefer to get to know someone over time before handing out contact information. Now I find that I have no friends and have no acceptable way to make any. The same principles apply even more so to dating. I’ve never once had a girlfriend and the only option left to me is to bother complete strangers in public.
If you are a single lady between 18 and 38, please click here.
When I was young, I was taught that women hate being complimented on their appearance. This is always sexual harassment. Then in my mid-twenties, I discovered that some women feel bad if they never get compliments. I still don’t know how to behave.
At work, people complain all the time. They do it to vent frustration, to bond over common struggles, to make smalltalk, and to warn others of problems so they can be fixed. When I complain, people attack me for being negative. When I don’t complain, they then accuse me of complaining and attack me for being negative anyways. There is no way to win.
At work, people argue all the time. They even try to start arguments with me. I refuse to cooperate, but if I ever utter even a single contrary statement to set the record straight, they tell me I am argumentative. If I answer a question, they tell me I am arguing. If I ask a question, they tell me I am arguing. If I make a joke, they tell me I am arguing. If I sigh, they tell me I am arguing. If I repeat orders back to my manager to let him know that I heard, it is taken as defiance. There is no way to win.
At work, I have been told to “wipe as I go” in the middle of orders and “change your gloves every time you touch a cloth.” How can I do both? Nobody has been able to explain it to me.
So many of the rules I have been given in the workplace are both silly and the cause of hardship. Sometimes I think those making the rules have no idea what it’s like in the field. When I try to engage my managers on the subject to negotiate a solution, they claim innocence and hide behind orders given to them by their superiors. When I ask to speak to those actually in charge, my managers tell me I can’t do that and that I am answerable only to them. They try to have it both ways. One time, they appealed to a binder full of rules handed down from on high. Looking through it, I found that the rules as written simply could not be made to fit our layout – and the binder stated that these were all mere suggestions anyways!
I once worked at a place where I was shoved, threatened, groped, teased, and spit on. People were constantly losing their temper and yelling and swearing at me for no discernable reason. Management did nothing. Then, one night I finally lost my temper just like everyone else. Unlike everyone else, I was fired the next day.
I was once given a check that cleared and then showed up in my bank account just like any other. Days later, the amount was removed and I was charged a fee because the check writer had made a mistake. I couldn’t afford the fee; that’s why I needed the check. What would have happened if I had written checks of my own in the meantime that were no longer funded? Would I be charged additional fees for what was someone else’s mistake? What the bank did was fraudulent and terrible customer service. I would have immediately switched banks, but I was told that this practice is common to all banks. Society is not structured to allow me to work only in cash. I still worry every day that I might wake up to find I owe the bank money because of the actions of someone else. What am I to do?
When I was finally able to move out of my parents’ apartment, I bought a trailer. Within three years, it was stolen from me. The landowner announced the closing of the park and gave me an eighteen-month eviction notice. Since I had already been evicted, and since nobody else would have time to move in, I expected he was not collecting the lot fee. Since the law stipulated that if I had a mortgage, he was the one on the hook to pay the bank, I naturally assumed he was on the hook to pay me if there was no mortgage. Since I paid real estate taxes on the place and so many other details of the law I can’t go into now, I thought I had certain ownership rights. In any case, I knew from talking to others who had been evicted, that there would be a chance to talk all this out in court and if I lost, all that would happen is I be ordered to pay the lot fee for as long as I stayed. Instead, I was ordered to move out in thirty days. I knew the judge had violated the law and I was under no legal obligation to obey, but I didn’t know if the sheriff would see it the same way, so I left. I’ve been sleeping in my parents’ living room ever since. It is absolute torture.
I once knew a teenage couple who had sex and had the baby to prove it. Having sex with minors is illegal, but nobody seemed to care. It was treated as if they had driven ten miles over the speed limit – not a big deal. Later, when I did nothing more than offer to take a 17-year-old out for ice cream when I found out she had never been on a date before, she blocked me on Facebook, I was fired, and I was told that this was illegal and that I should have known better. There is no such law! We never even went out!
Because I considered her my best friend of all time, because I had noticed that she had no other friends, and because I had noticed she sometimes seemed depressed, this action made me very worried about her. I also thought it must have been some sort of misunderstanding, and I couldn’t let a friendship as special as ours die over nothing. After a cooling off period, I sent a single email of love and forgiveness, while simultaneously making it clear this would be the last time she ever heard from me if that was what she wanted. Instead of telling me to leave her alone, she promptly went to the police who helped her construct a false harassment case against me, abusing her in her vulnerable state by feeding her fears and paranoia by telling her that unrelated public posts of mine were about her. Even though what they knowingly falsely claimed I did wasn’t even harassment according to the legal definition, the judge sided against me anyways. What good does following the law do if I get into trouble anyways? What good does following the law do if those I love get abused anyways?
Playing it safe and following the rules has never worked for me. I still get into trouble. I’m not even sure what the rules are anymore. Worse, I hear the same kind of stories all over the country:
Christian bakers are told they must decorate a cake with pro-homosexual messaging or have their businesses destroyed, yet Muslim truck drivers are able to refuse to transport alcohol without getting fired.
Small towns are told they cannot set a nativity scene on public property without violating religious rights, yet the federal government can force a Catholic charity to cover employee insurance policies that cover abortion and this somehow doesn’t violate religious rights.
Police believe they have the right to stop and frisk people walking down the street, yet they freak out if someone films them from afar. The NSA has information on everybody, yet Dick Cheney’s house was blurred on Google satellite images. The people in power are the ones that need to be watched the most! They work for us!
Hillary Clinton has been involved in a lot of shady dealings over the years that have never been properly investigated, but what has been established fact is that she illegally did sensitive state business on an unprotected server, she illegally wiped her server after being subpoenaed for her emails, and the emails she was sent had their top secret tags illegally removed. Nothing happens to her, yet Kim Davis is sent to jail for following Kentucky law by refusing to issue a marriage license to a gay couple. She was sent to jail for refusing to do something illegal!
General Flynn allegedly was a lobbyist for a foreign entity. This is a first-amendment protected activity, but because he didn’t register properly, he got in trouble. Years earlier, Eric Holder lied that journalist James Rosen was working with terrorists in order to get a search warrant on him. He later admitted that he lied. Nothing ever happened to him.
Joe Biden bragged on television that he threatened to withhold a loan from Ukraine unless they did what he wanted by firing a certain prosecutor. Since this prosecutor happened to be investigating Biden’s son’s company at the time, Trump asked the new Ukrainian president to look into it. The Democrats promptly accused Trump (without evidence) of threatening to withhold a loan from Ukraine unless they did what he wanted, falsely claimed this was illegal, and impeached him for it. Will they impeach Biden for doing the exact same thing?
As the coronavirus pandemic began, I watched as business owners were arrested for staying open, individuals were arrested for going to the beach, and yet at the same time, prisoners were released into public for fear that they would catch coronavirus in jail. This was all done before testing was available to ensure the prisoners didn’t already have it. If we were going to release all non-violent offenders anyways, why bother arresting people in the first place? It makes no sense.
I also watched as we were told to avoid crowded places and instead visit parks, where social distancing was easy and sunlight would destroy any viruses on contact. The next week, the parks were closed so that people would not use them and spread the virus around. Then, some cities began closing off roads to be used as replacement parks, where spreading the virus would not only be easier, but traffic would be disrupted. WTF?
In many states, the emergency powers of the governors to deal with the crisis expired, but they continued to post dictatorial decrees anyways. In many cases, the legislatures and the courts agreed that the crisis was over and that it was illegal for the governors to keep the lockdowns in place, yet the police still obeyed the governors instead of the law. Who is even in charge?
As the riots began, I watched as those clearly defending themselves from being beaten and killed were charged with assault and murder, while at the same time those caught rioting often had charges dropped. The media portrayed innocent homeowners and business owners as racist thugs while portraying the riots as peaceful protests.
If those who break the law get away with it and those who follow the law get in trouble for breaking the law anyways, why would anybody in their right mind follow a law that didn’t make sense? There is nothing to gain!
Playing it safe and following the rules has never worked for anybody. Following the rules is no guarantee of safety. Breaking the rules is no guarantee of punishment. What’s the difference?
It isn’t even clear who has authority. When the cops, the judges, the lawyers, the governor, and half the legislature all disagree with each other what the law is and what it means, what is a private citizen who wants to follow the law supposed to do?
All this arbitrariness brings us to the mask issue:
In the early days of 2020, I had heard that a new virus was discovered in China that caused what was described as a bad flu. There was no reason to be concerned. I was told that some people had gone crazy and had bought up all the masks, leaving not enough for medical personnel. Because I was told there was a mask shortage, and because I was promised only two weeks of shutdown, I did not bother buying a mask. Then, with one week down and one to go, masks were made mandatory. I picked up the vibe that most people hated them and thought them silly. I certainly did. I picked up the vibe that businesses only required them because the state forced them to, and that businesses would rather make their customers happy. When all restrictions were finally lifted (at least in Florida), most businesses still kept their signs. What gives? Who is really in charge? Just like my managers where I used to work, stores hide behind the authority of others even when the higher authority has abdicated.
Why mandate them anyways? Those that want to wear them still can; those that don’t should be able to take the risk. If you believe masks work, then one should be enough. Why not just wear one to protect yourself and ignore what others are doing? If you believe they don’t work well, why make anyone wear one? It makes no sense!
What is the point of wearing masks to get in a restaurant if they are going to be taken off at the table? People passing by and air conditioning create currents that can bring viruses all over the store. The longer one sits in one place, the greater the certainty that any viruses have spread all over the room. Someone passing through quickly is no more of a threat. When I see people inside without masks, it tells me that it is okay for me not to wear one. Having rules parsing between sitters and walkers is too convoluted and arbitrary for me to take seriously. Either you require masks or you don’t. No more half-measures! It makes no sense!
There are costs to wearing masks. Those with lung problems can’t get enough oxygen. Exceptions are made for those with medical reasons, but not everyone can get to a doctor, not everyone can afford tests, and so many people have problems small enough not to qualify, but big enough to be an annoyance. I know that when I have one on, it is all I can think about. I have to focus hard on what I’m doing and keep my breathing very regular. I already know I can’t run, sing, climb stairs, or carry furniture with one. Anyways, since medical records are private, there is no way to enforce the rules. It’s all arbitrary!
Furthermore, if one is sick, the last thing you want to do is restrict your oxygen intake. A stuffy nose is bad enough, but a stuffy nose plus a mask is very unhealthy. Furthermore, I have heard doctors say that if you do already have the virus, a mask can maintain your high viral load and force the infection deeper into the lungs where what would otherwise be a mere cold can become life-threatening blood clots. While not all doctors agree with this, it is at least as plausible as saying two masks work better than one when everyone can see the gaps around the sides.
Because of this, some places have even tried banning masks. Just as states mandate seat belts for our protection, and some states have banned plastic bags because they are often found littered on the ground, some stores have banned masks. There is no consistency! The cops were even called on a guy who wore a motorcycle helmet as a mask because people were scared he might be a terrorist. He got in trouble for following the rules. Twenty percent of the people I see don’t even wear masks properly, negating even the theoretical good they might do. It’s all arbitrary!
Some craziness might be forgivable if there were a serious threat, but no one has ever given me reason to take coronavirus seriously:
Republicans don’t take it seriously. They called it a “bad flu,” nothing to be alarmed about, but possibly just serious enough to close the border until it burned out, and agreed to a two-week shutdown to give the hospitals time to prepare. Ever since, they have been attacking the credibility of the numbers, claiming that flu deaths and heart disease deaths are being counted towards the total, among other things. Even if one can believe the numbers, the coronavirus is, at worst, only four times as bad as the flu.
Democrats don’t take it seriously. They told me it was xenophobic to close the border and racist to ask questions about products coming from China. They continually changed the goalposts of the shutdown, first needing two weeks to get the hospitals ready, then four weeks to make sure they were ready, then six weeks for there to be enough tests for everyone that wants one, then ten weeks for the numbers of infections to start going down, then some of them insisted we were not going to open up until there was a cure, and now that there is a vaccine sixty weeks later, many are saying even vaccinated people must continue to wear masks anyways. It’s just like Animal Farm! In Pennsylvania and New York, they sent infected people back into the nursing homes. They banned the use of hydroxychloroquine in some states, even though it has shown promise. Several high-profile Democrats have been caught going to restaurants and getting haircuts. They have never taken the virus seriously at all, yet at the same time they have threatened to cut off electricity to homes that dare to host parties of more than ten people.
While there is debate between Republicans and Democrats over the rate of false positives in the tests, and therefore whether we are still in a pandemic or whether it ended months ago, there is no debate that the rate of hospitalizations and deaths have plummeted. Those are the more important and more easily-verified numbers. Why don’t we look at those? It seems the threat has passed.
Also, the CDC told me within six weeks of the initial shutdown that infections by asymptomatic individuals were very rare and that the virus did not survive on surfaces very long.
Also, Doctor Fauci told me that masks did not work, only later saying that he was lying so there wasn’t a run on masks. Was he lying then or lying now? He has no credibility.
If Republicans, Democrats, the CDC, and Doctor Fauci agree that there is nothing to be concerned about and masks don’t work, WHY THE HELL ARE WE STILL WEARING THEM?
The chaos I have endured for forty years now is enough to make a lesser man shoot up a school or burn down a police station. I still might do this – but only if I feel like it. From now on, I do only what I want. I will not submit to any Earthly authority. I am answerable only to God, the highest authority in the universe.
I invite everyone to join me in freedom, love, friendship, mutual respect, and respect for the truth. If you stand against me, then may God choose between us.
I don’t want to rule the world. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I want nothing more out of life than to write science fiction adventure stories to inspire heroism and speculate upon the possibilities of existence, draw pictures of alien life to inspire creativity, and climb mountains, smell flowers, and take pictures of insects to celebrate creation. I’d like a comfortable home where I can live with a wife and children and have cookouts I can invite friends to.
I want to be happy and I want everyone else to be happy. I want everyone who wants a friend or mate to be able to find one. I want everyone who wants a job to be able to find meaningful work and be paid a living wage for it. I want everyone to feel safe and free.
Unfortunately, this has all been denied me and it is increasingly being denied to others. The problem is arbitrary rule:
When I was young, sometimes smaller kids would kick me, swing bats or sticks at me, and chase me around. When I got tired of being chased off all the time, I fought back using the minimum force necessary to defend myself. They got hurt anyways (though I think it was mostly surprise) and ran away crying. I got in trouble and was told I shouldn’t be fighting with smaller kids. Later, a kid my size (but younger) attacked me and I got in another fight. Then I was told I shouldn’t be fighting with younger kids. Who am I allowed to fight with? Bigger kids? Grown-ups? The police?
When I was young, I was taught never to make eye contact. It creeped people out. Staring contests were hard. One kid even yelled at me for looking at him when we just happened to turn toward each other and our eyes locked. Only in my late twenties did I read in a magazine that those avoiding eye contact were thought of as either weak or dishonest and would fail job interviews. One girl called me out for not looking at her. I also read that the norms are different in different subcultures. Testing it out, I found that people always quickly look away when I look at them. I still don’t know what to do.
When I was young, I was taught not to talk to strangers. That is, I understood that friendships had to develop naturally and slowly from being forced together by circumstance, or from being introduced by mutual friends, never because one person approached a complete stranger and asked to be friends. This is weird and creepy. It’s too fast for most people, who prefer to get to know someone over time before handing out contact information. Now I find that I have no friends and have no acceptable way to make any. The same principles apply even more so to dating. I’ve never once had a girlfriend and the only option left to me is to bother complete strangers in public.
If you are a single lady between 18 and 38, please click here.
When I was young, I was taught that women hate being complimented on their appearance. This is always sexual harassment. Then in my mid-twenties, I discovered that some women feel bad if they never get compliments. I still don’t know how to behave.
At work, people complain all the time. They do it to vent frustration, to bond over common struggles, to make smalltalk, and to warn others of problems so they can be fixed. When I complain, people attack me for being negative. When I don’t complain, they then accuse me of complaining and attack me for being negative anyways. There is no way to win.
At work, people argue all the time. They even try to start arguments with me. I refuse to cooperate, but if I ever utter even a single contrary statement to set the record straight, they tell me I am argumentative. If I answer a question, they tell me I am arguing. If I ask a question, they tell me I am arguing. If I make a joke, they tell me I am arguing. If I sigh, they tell me I am arguing. If I repeat orders back to my manager to let him know that I heard, it is taken as defiance. There is no way to win.
At work, I have been told to “wipe as I go” in the middle of orders and “change your gloves every time you touch a cloth.” How can I do both? Nobody has been able to explain it to me.
So many of the rules I have been given in the workplace are both silly and the cause of hardship. Sometimes I think those making the rules have no idea what it’s like in the field. When I try to engage my managers on the subject to negotiate a solution, they claim innocence and hide behind orders given to them by their superiors. When I ask to speak to those actually in charge, my managers tell me I can’t do that and that I am answerable only to them. They try to have it both ways. One time, they appealed to a binder full of rules handed down from on high. Looking through it, I found that the rules as written simply could not be made to fit our layout – and the binder stated that these were all mere suggestions anyways!
I once worked at a place where I was shoved, threatened, groped, teased, and spit on. People were constantly losing their temper and yelling and swearing at me for no discernable reason. Management did nothing. Then, one night I finally lost my temper just like everyone else. Unlike everyone else, I was fired the next day.
I was once given a check that cleared and then showed up in my bank account just like any other. Days later, the amount was removed and I was charged a fee because the check writer had made a mistake. I couldn’t afford the fee; that’s why I needed the check. What would have happened if I had written checks of my own in the meantime that were no longer funded? Would I be charged additional fees for what was someone else’s mistake? What the bank did was fraudulent and terrible customer service. I would have immediately switched banks, but I was told that this practice is common to all banks. Society is not structured to allow me to work only in cash. I still worry every day that I might wake up to find I owe the bank money because of the actions of someone else. What am I to do?
When I was finally able to move out of my parents’ apartment, I bought a trailer. Within three years, it was stolen from me. The landowner announced the closing of the park and gave me an eighteen-month eviction notice. Since I had already been evicted, and since nobody else would have time to move in, I expected he was not collecting the lot fee. Since the law stipulated that if I had a mortgage, he was the one on the hook to pay the bank, I naturally assumed he was on the hook to pay me if there was no mortgage. Since I paid real estate taxes on the place and so many other details of the law I can’t go into now, I thought I had certain ownership rights. In any case, I knew from talking to others who had been evicted, that there would be a chance to talk all this out in court and if I lost, all that would happen is I be ordered to pay the lot fee for as long as I stayed. Instead, I was ordered to move out in thirty days. I knew the judge had violated the law and I was under no legal obligation to obey, but I didn’t know if the sheriff would see it the same way, so I left. I’ve been sleeping in my parents’ living room ever since. It is absolute torture.
I once knew a teenage couple who had sex and had the baby to prove it. Having sex with minors is illegal, but nobody seemed to care. It was treated as if they had driven ten miles over the speed limit – not a big deal. Later, when I did nothing more than offer to take a 17-year-old out for ice cream when I found out she had never been on a date before, she blocked me on Facebook, I was fired, and I was told that this was illegal and that I should have known better. There is no such law! We never even went out!
Because I considered her my best friend of all time, because I had noticed that she had no other friends, and because I had noticed she sometimes seemed depressed, this action made me very worried about her. I also thought it must have been some sort of misunderstanding, and I couldn’t let a friendship as special as ours die over nothing. After a cooling off period, I sent a single email of love and forgiveness, while simultaneously making it clear this would be the last time she ever heard from me if that was what she wanted. Instead of telling me to leave her alone, she promptly went to the police who helped her construct a false harassment case against me, abusing her in her vulnerable state by feeding her fears and paranoia by telling her that unrelated public posts of mine were about her. Even though what they knowingly falsely claimed I did wasn’t even harassment according to the legal definition, the judge sided against me anyways. What good does following the law do if I get into trouble anyways? What good does following the law do if those I love get abused anyways?
Playing it safe and following the rules has never worked for me. I still get into trouble. I’m not even sure what the rules are anymore. Worse, I hear the same kind of stories all over the country:
Christian bakers are told they must decorate a cake with pro-homosexual messaging or have their businesses destroyed, yet Muslim truck drivers are able to refuse to transport alcohol without getting fired.
Small towns are told they cannot set a nativity scene on public property without violating religious rights, yet the federal government can force a Catholic charity to cover employee insurance policies that cover abortion and this somehow doesn’t violate religious rights.
Police believe they have the right to stop and frisk people walking down the street, yet they freak out if someone films them from afar. The NSA has information on everybody, yet Dick Cheney’s house was blurred on Google satellite images. The people in power are the ones that need to be watched the most! They work for us!
Hillary Clinton has been involved in a lot of shady dealings over the years that have never been properly investigated, but what has been established fact is that she illegally did sensitive state business on an unprotected server, she illegally wiped her server after being subpoenaed for her emails, and the emails she was sent had their top secret tags illegally removed. Nothing happens to her, yet Kim Davis is sent to jail for following Kentucky law by refusing to issue a marriage license to a gay couple. She was sent to jail for refusing to do something illegal!
General Flynn allegedly was a lobbyist for a foreign entity. This is a first-amendment protected activity, but because he didn’t register properly, he got in trouble. Years earlier, Eric Holder lied that journalist James Rosen was working with terrorists in order to get a search warrant on him. He later admitted that he lied. Nothing ever happened to him.
Joe Biden bragged on television that he threatened to withhold a loan from Ukraine unless they did what he wanted by firing a certain prosecutor. Since this prosecutor happened to be investigating Biden’s son’s company at the time, Trump asked the new Ukrainian president to look into it. The Democrats promptly accused Trump (without evidence) of threatening to withhold a loan from Ukraine unless they did what he wanted, falsely claimed this was illegal, and impeached him for it. Will they impeach Biden for doing the exact same thing?
As the coronavirus pandemic began, I watched as business owners were arrested for staying open, individuals were arrested for going to the beach, and yet at the same time, prisoners were released into public for fear that they would catch coronavirus in jail. This was all done before testing was available to ensure the prisoners didn’t already have it. If we were going to release all non-violent offenders anyways, why bother arresting people in the first place? It makes no sense.
I also watched as we were told to avoid crowded places and instead visit parks, where social distancing was easy and sunlight would destroy any viruses on contact. The next week, the parks were closed so that people would not use them and spread the virus around. Then, some cities began closing off roads to be used as replacement parks, where spreading the virus would not only be easier, but traffic would be disrupted. WTF?
In many states, the emergency powers of the governors to deal with the crisis expired, but they continued to post dictatorial decrees anyways. In many cases, the legislatures and the courts agreed that the crisis was over and that it was illegal for the governors to keep the lockdowns in place, yet the police still obeyed the governors instead of the law. Who is even in charge?
As the riots began, I watched as those clearly defending themselves from being beaten and killed were charged with assault and murder, while at the same time those caught rioting often had charges dropped. The media portrayed innocent homeowners and business owners as racist thugs while portraying the riots as peaceful protests.
If those who break the law get away with it and those who follow the law get in trouble for breaking the law anyways, why would anybody in their right mind follow a law that didn’t make sense? There is nothing to gain!
Playing it safe and following the rules has never worked for anybody. Following the rules is no guarantee of safety. Breaking the rules is no guarantee of punishment. What’s the difference?
It isn’t even clear who has authority. When the cops, the judges, the lawyers, the governor, and half the legislature all disagree with each other what the law is and what it means, what is a private citizen who wants to follow the law supposed to do?
All this arbitrariness brings us to the mask issue:
In the early days of 2020, I had heard that a new virus was discovered in China that caused what was described as a bad flu. There was no reason to be concerned. I was told that some people had gone crazy and had bought up all the masks, leaving not enough for medical personnel. Because I was told there was a mask shortage, and because I was promised only two weeks of shutdown, I did not bother buying a mask. Then, with one week down and one to go, masks were made mandatory. I picked up the vibe that most people hated them and thought them silly. I certainly did. I picked up the vibe that businesses only required them because the state forced them to, and that businesses would rather make their customers happy. When all restrictions were finally lifted (at least in Florida), most businesses still kept their signs. What gives? Who is really in charge? Just like my managers where I used to work, stores hide behind the authority of others even when the higher authority has abdicated.
Why mandate them anyways? Those that want to wear them still can; those that don’t should be able to take the risk. If you believe masks work, then one should be enough. Why not just wear one to protect yourself and ignore what others are doing? If you believe they don’t work well, why make anyone wear one? It makes no sense!
What is the point of wearing masks to get in a restaurant if they are going to be taken off at the table? People passing by and air conditioning create currents that can bring viruses all over the store. The longer one sits in one place, the greater the certainty that any viruses have spread all over the room. Someone passing through quickly is no more of a threat. When I see people inside without masks, it tells me that it is okay for me not to wear one. Having rules parsing between sitters and walkers is too convoluted and arbitrary for me to take seriously. Either you require masks or you don’t. No more half-measures! It makes no sense!
There are costs to wearing masks. Those with lung problems can’t get enough oxygen. Exceptions are made for those with medical reasons, but not everyone can get to a doctor, not everyone can afford tests, and so many people have problems small enough not to qualify, but big enough to be an annoyance. I know that when I have one on, it is all I can think about. I have to focus hard on what I’m doing and keep my breathing very regular. I already know I can’t run, sing, climb stairs, or carry furniture with one. Anyways, since medical records are private, there is no way to enforce the rules. It’s all arbitrary!
Furthermore, if one is sick, the last thing you want to do is restrict your oxygen intake. A stuffy nose is bad enough, but a stuffy nose plus a mask is very unhealthy. Furthermore, I have heard doctors say that if you do already have the virus, a mask can maintain your high viral load and force the infection deeper into the lungs where what would otherwise be a mere cold can become life-threatening blood clots. While not all doctors agree with this, it is at least as plausible as saying two masks work better than one when everyone can see the gaps around the sides.
Because of this, some places have even tried banning masks. Just as states mandate seat belts for our protection, and some states have banned plastic bags because they are often found littered on the ground, some stores have banned masks. There is no consistency! The cops were even called on a guy who wore a motorcycle helmet as a mask because people were scared he might be a terrorist. He got in trouble for following the rules. Twenty percent of the people I see don’t even wear masks properly, negating even the theoretical good they might do. It’s all arbitrary!
Some craziness might be forgivable if there were a serious threat, but no one has ever given me reason to take coronavirus seriously:
Republicans don’t take it seriously. They called it a “bad flu,” nothing to be alarmed about, but possibly just serious enough to close the border until it burned out, and agreed to a two-week shutdown to give the hospitals time to prepare. Ever since, they have been attacking the credibility of the numbers, claiming that flu deaths and heart disease deaths are being counted towards the total, among other things. Even if one can believe the numbers, the coronavirus is, at worst, only four times as bad as the flu.
Democrats don’t take it seriously. They told me it was xenophobic to close the border and racist to ask questions about products coming from China. They continually changed the goalposts of the shutdown, first needing two weeks to get the hospitals ready, then four weeks to make sure they were ready, then six weeks for there to be enough tests for everyone that wants one, then ten weeks for the numbers of infections to start going down, then some of them insisted we were not going to open up until there was a cure, and now that there is a vaccine sixty weeks later, many are saying even vaccinated people must continue to wear masks anyways. It’s just like Animal Farm! In Pennsylvania and New York, they sent infected people back into the nursing homes. They banned the use of hydroxychloroquine in some states, even though it has shown promise. Several high-profile Democrats have been caught going to restaurants and getting haircuts. They have never taken the virus seriously at all, yet at the same time they have threatened to cut off electricity to homes that dare to host parties of more than ten people.
While there is debate between Republicans and Democrats over the rate of false positives in the tests, and therefore whether we are still in a pandemic or whether it ended months ago, there is no debate that the rate of hospitalizations and deaths have plummeted. Those are the more important and more easily-verified numbers. Why don’t we look at those? It seems the threat has passed.
Also, the CDC told me within six weeks of the initial shutdown that infections by asymptomatic individuals were very rare and that the virus did not survive on surfaces very long.
Also, Doctor Fauci told me that masks did not work, only later saying that he was lying so there wasn’t a run on masks. Was he lying then or lying now? He has no credibility.
If Republicans, Democrats, the CDC, and Doctor Fauci agree that there is nothing to be concerned about and masks don’t work, WHY THE HELL ARE WE STILL WEARING THEM?
The chaos I have endured for forty years now is enough to make a lesser man shoot up a school or burn down a police station. I still might do this – but only if I feel like it. From now on, I do only what I want. I will not submit to any Earthly authority. I am answerable only to God, the highest authority in the universe.
I invite everyone to join me in freedom, love, friendship, mutual respect, and respect for the truth. If you stand against me, then may God choose between us.