What happened to civility?

Truthfully, were you ever scared at any point in this pandemic?  I was.  For about 1 hour.  OK, maybe a couple of hours.  The event that scared me was when it was reported in early 2020 that a health care worker in New York contracted the virus and died shortly after. I can only assume that the report was true, but I never heard the details of what happened.  Health care workers are not supposed to get sick from the people they are caring for! We now know that adults with comorbidities are more susceptible to complications.  Maybe the health care worker had other confounding health issues that made recovery more difficult.  Maybe the virus was more “virulent” back in early 2020.

We know a lot more about the Covid-19 virus today than we did 2 years ago.  (Has it been that long??)  We know that the survival rate is very high (99.9% for most folks) unless you are very elderly or have other illnesses.  It is not much different than the flu (and in my mind, a certain percentage of cases might actually BE the flu).  But the media has been pushing an unfair narrative that makes it sound like “if you get it, you will die!”  Clearly, if you go to a hospital and they put you on a ventilator and they give you remdesivir, you might very well die (remdesivir causes kidney failure).  A survey of Americans at the early part of last year indicated that when asked what percentage of the population they thought had died of Covid-19, many folks answered 30%!  Thirty percent is a HUGE number and the reality is more like 0.15%.  People have been misled.

When people are scared they may act inappropriately.  How many of you had to put up with someone in the grocery store yelling at you for letting your mask drop?  I had a woman walk past me in the “canned goods aisle” and as she got conveniently about 10 feet past me, turned slightly and mumbled fiercely “put your mask on!!!”  I followed her around the corner into the next aisle and said firmly “no thank you!!”  She kept walking as fast as she could.   I was ready to have a conversation with her!  She was not.  This was long after our governor removed the mask-mandate in my state.  Some of you may be saying, “Well, the masks stop the spread”.  My state (Texas) lifted the mask mandate months ago and we are doing better than some other states that continue to mandate face coverings.   I prefer not to get into the mask argument at this time.

Anger drives bad behavior as well.  Did you ever feel as though people were worse drivers in the last year?  And, have you noticed that people are less courteous?  They cut in line, and don’t say “excuse me”.  Even I, myself, fell victim to some angry behavior last year.  Somehow you feel justified in behaving badly because everyone else is doing it and the world is out of control, so why not? 

In reality our freedoms are being taken away little by little and we are sliding down the slippery slope into increased government control.  That is what angers a lot of folks.    Can you imagine if you were told 5 years ago that you would have to wear an item of clothing (a mask) to enter a store or that you would have to take an experimental drug in order to keep your job?  Can you imagine if you were told 5 years ago that churches, gyms, and businesses in the future would be forced to close due to government mandates? 

By the same token, other folks are angry because they are trying to control others and force compliance to their dictates.  Like the lady in my grocery store.  She might have kicked me if she thought she could get away with it.

Yet we seem to be “OK” with these rules and mandates.  It is in the interest of “keeping us safe”.  We seem to have no realization that we are giving up things that our government might never allow us to have again.  Yes, we have to keep ourselves “safe” but in the United States of America that is a personal responsibility.  The lady in the grocery store that I just talked about is not responsible for my health only hers.  I am responsible for mine.  If she wants to cover her nose and mouth with a face diaper, what do I care?  As long as I am well, I don’t need the mask.  If I am sick I stay at home. 

First Amendment rights are being withheld so that you cannot post your own words on social media platforms.  I was aghast when one of my talks to a local support group was removed from YouTube because it had the word “vaccine” in it.  (I posted on Rumble instead, but that is not the point).  It was an informative and civil document.  We as Americans should not have to consult a list of vilified words in order to open our mouths or put pen to paper.

I have friends who were born in eastern European countries that are aghast at what is happening in America right now.  They can “see” the problems arising with government control in ways that we Americans cannot.  But you may say…. “It’s not that bad, it’s still America”.  However, unless you are really paying attention and seeking out alternate news, you may not be aware of the many transgressions that are happening. People are being fired from jobs because they do not want to take an experimental “vaccine”.  In Houston, some hospitals had to close some services due to lack of personnel. Firefighter and police are being let go. People are arrested on beaches for not wearing a face covering.  Some people are actually being held against their will in hospitals and not allowed to leave while family members are stopped from entering the facility to advocate for them.  I personally talked to a lawyer who told us his story about this very thing.  A woman (his client) was not allowed to leave a Kentucky hospital and was getting treatments for Covid-19 that she disagreed with (ventilator and remdesiver).  She wanted to leave and try something different.  Neither her lawyer nor her family could get her out.  She died after 2 weeks of this. (Attorney Michael Hamilton)

So, what do we do?  Can we re-direct our uncivil behavior toward better outcomes? Yes. If you were inappropriately fired from a job, you can sue.  If you are booted off social media sites, you can find alternative social media sites to post material on.  You can talk to your government representatives.  Tell them you know what is going on and you will vote them out of office the next time around (assuming the voting machines are not rigged).  Some folks are saying that civil disobedience is the only way out.  Just imagine if all the 8 million people in New York City said “we’re not taking it anymore” and walked into every restaurant and store and gym without showing a vaccine passport.  Who’s going to stop them? This is one place that “civil disobedience” might work, and it doesn’t hurt anyone.

“We must reclaim our sovereignty, our right to live free, to open our businesses and move about freely. We must communicate with our elected leaders and demand they not infringe on our constitutional rights. We have to engage in political processes and help educate our local sheriffs of their role as defenders of the constitution. We may also need to support legal challenges”. Doctor Joseph Mercola.

 Let me diverge from the topic for a moment.  Is there precedent for what is happening in the USA and maybe the world?  Yes, there is. A totalitarian system of government is one in which the people have virtually no authority and the state wields absolute control.  Merriam Webster dictionary says that in times of crisis, when a nation’s people are frightened, there are often calls for totalitarianism.  An example of this is Stalin’s purification scheme in the 1930s, which led to the death of about 80 million people in a single decade. The mid-30s is also when the Nazi regime began its insane cleansing, which resulted in the Holocaust. These horrific things occurred after vocal opposition had been quenched (Mattias Desmet Why do people willingly sacrifice).  The warning to us is this:  Once our voices are shut down, the worst might yet be coming.  Hence, we cannot stop voicing our opposition to government overreach.  Of course, we are also an armed population, so that is the main difference between history and the present day. That is why our Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment to the Constitution.  It is the last bulwark against tyranny. 

Gary Barnett (retired investment professional) wrote an excellent piece on tyranny and totalitarianism, and here is part of it:  “With the advent of this fake crisis, and this fraudulent pandemic, came every aspect of tyranny possible, setting the stage for a world takeover of epoch proportion. Nothing about this was random, nothing was natural. This has been an openly admitted plan for decades, and as 2020 began, so did the final plot to capture humanity. The tool used to bring about the bogus initial ‘emergency,’ thus creating the “special goal to the exclusion of all others,” was the fake ‘virus pandemic,’ and that is still the case today; at least temporarily. All resources were concentrated, and directed toward this false flag deception, and the high cost to the people and their freedom was never once considered, at least not from any moral perspective; the harm was in fact intentional. The horrific results of this state coup have been extreme and without compassion, but the evil among us is wicked, and evil has no soul.”

He goes on:  “If the destruction of life and family… the loss of everything of value in your lives, and an existence based on permanent bondage is to be avoided, then each individual has to make the decision to resist all forms of outside ‘authority,’ and to fight back against every single form of totalitarian rule. This does not mean that everyone has to participate, but large numbers of us must oppose the state.”

I am reminded of this quote by Martin Niemöller a prominent Lutheran pastor after WW2-

Imagine the above quote says “First they came for the unvaccinated, but I did not speak out…”

“In my opinion (says Mattias Desmet) it is not an option to stop speaking, it’s the most important thing we can do.” For me, this is one reason why I wrote this blog post.  I want to speak out.  I think we should be civil to the people around us but at the same time be wary of how are freedoms (including medical freedoms) are being slowly eroded. Please comment on this post.