I should preface my testimony with a brief character sketch. Yours truly has always been the curious type. Inquisitive, no less. In fact, suspicious and skeptical might be better descriptors. Today I find this ironic, since as a child I was more obedient than my parents deserved. Though I frequently fell into disfavor because of my desire to know how and why and where and when. Asking questions for clarification struck my elders as exploiting their good nature.
Due to my experiences as an older teen with the public school system, Protestantism, and authority in general, my talent for recognizing duplicity, deceit, and ineptitude caused me to question and scrutinize so much that I’d formulate independent ideas frighteningly akin to conspiracy theories.
From raising a brow over claims
strangers made and squinting over accounts witnesses provided, to grimacing at ads
marketers produced and scowling at headlines found most anywhere, my talent for
skepticism not only developed beyond my desires. This talent appeared to exceed
that of my peers to such a degree that I became increasingly mortified by the
gullibility these same peers enjoyed.
But it was most notably during my stint in the U.S. NAVY that my faith in institutional power was most shaken. I discovered that those at the top of the hierarchy, those responsible for defending a nation against foreign and domestic attack, rarely fired on all cylinders and were frequently complete and utter morons. It was then that I began to seriously question the trust we ascribe to those holding positions of high station or office.
Today, as an older gentleman, as I increasingly lose faith in most human institutions, the public’s trust in authority and frightening willingness to submit baffles me. I admit that to be young and cynical isn’t healthy. But cynicism at my age is indicative of wisdom. My caution and wariness are benefits. The point is, and this is where I’m bound to offend, I generally feel either pity or scorn for those naïve enough to unquestioningly obey or comply.
Two years ago, when COVID struck our shores and the government – unprepared and unequipped to deal with the pandemic – first insisted on closing businesses, I cringed, realizing our liberties were already jeopardized. When some defied such tyranny, police throughout various states arrived to arrest those entrepreneurs. Imagine. An American citizen led out in cuffs for wanting to feed his family. I remember gazing Heavenward and daydreamed about the logistics of overturning a government. (But that’s just between you and me.)
I’d like to think today the public is complying begrudgingly. But I know some Americans are still convinced mask mandates will preserve us all. Protests periodically sprout up to criticize governors who’ve dropped the mask mandates in their states. It’s a sad commentary, but many are more than willing to relinquish their liberties in exchange for a false sense of security, an implied guarantee of supposed protection. Unfortunately, they likewise insist everyone else follow suit.
Because many of us feel helpless about things we’re convinced we can neither change nor prevent, we, tragically, resign ourselves to defer to others. But this quite often leads to all sorts of disasters. I’d argue that in some sense this group fits the traits found in victims of Stockholm Syndrome. Government oppresses its citizens. And yet some of those citizens, rather than becoming indignant, are inspired, perhaps by a sense of loyalty to king and country and the motherland, to instead regard the abuse with a sort of resolve. Such power, however brutal, commands their reverence, or at the very least their fear. The strong arm of government is almost comforting. It’s good to be obedient, they tell themselves. Compliance is healthy.
It’s the pattern found in those abused who blame themselves for the abuse they receive. As a government relentlessly abuses the trust of its people, some of those people simply capitulate. Like the battered housewife who declines to leave her abusive husband. Instead, she weighs the benefits of a familiar monster to something she regards as worse – potentially living alone for the rest of her life.
Withstanding such oppression likewise increases one’s sense of virtue. Perhaps lacking confidence in their own autonomy and potential, such people view government as religious people might misconstrue God as a surrogate father whose wrath they wish to avoid, convinced that to respond with outrage requires too much effort, needless conflict, and is ultimately futile. Such people, preferring to be coddled rather than truly liberated, are lured into the more attractive posture of conformity, subservience, and the collective.
Still. To extend an olive branch to the docile and the timorous, I acknowledge that leaving important things to the experts is frequently well advised. I can’t perform my own surgery, for example. If you drive to work every day, you rely on mechanics and engineers to have manufactured your vehicle to spec. You trust you’re in compliance with state and federal standards, road ordinances, and own a reliable enough engine to get you from point A to point B without mishap (even if you’re an awful driver and never use your turn signal).
However, deferring to the experts, while frequently necessary, perhaps even natural, shouldn’t extend to governmental officials or politicians. And it certainly shouldn’t apply to the mask mandates which numerous, often censored, medical doctors have insisted (for over a year) that children and healthy adults should abandon.
While our representative democracy is the best form of government on the planet, it’s still appalling, inefficiently operated by the incompetent, the ignorant, and the corrupt. If you’ve ever gotten bored enough to waste time watching CSPAN, you’ll know these tired old fools in Congress are oblivious. They’re not qualified to vote on, much less compose, legislation for the entire country. Yet they do.
Moreover (a word I haven’t used in quite some time), these politicians know little more than the public. Yet they’ve insisted on things that, as the months have elapsed, science has either disproved or contradicted. Meanwhile, these same clowns refuse to acknowledge that their edicts have made matters only worse. And despite the damage done by their buffoonery, they face no repercussions whatsoever, partially because not enough people capable of voting them out of office are paying attention.
Over the past year alone, I’ve watched as doctors whose research showed results contrary to either Dr. Fauci’s claims or to the CDC’s ordained wisdom were either systematically removed from social media or invited on only those programs predisposed, or narrative-aligned, to exposing government corruption. For example, as far back as early 2020, when Fauci and other duplicitous authorities were insisting that the Coronavirus could be traced to Chinese people eating bats, a Chinese virologist was invited on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to caution against that narrative, insisting instead that the virus originated in a lab.
She wasn’t invited on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, or ABC. Those government sponsored cable networks don’t cover stories counter to their narrative. Whereas whenever Fauci wishes to issue guidelines or lie again to the American people, he is given carte blanche with these same networks, not to mention an entire channel on YouTube devoted to his propaganda, plus interviews hosted by likeminded people on additional YouTube channels via a digital cross pollination process.
It doesn’t matter that email and other correspondence, now public, show Fauci and others conspiring to malign and impugn the credentials of those specialists with whom they disagree, only because these independent specialists refused to toe the line. Depending on one’s predisposition or political sympathies, one is inclined to either acknowledge the sources or the reports themselves, or instead deny or relegate such stories to irrelevancy.
Not to harken back too far, but as I expounded at some length in a previous post entitled Why Atheism Fails, our personal sentiments and individual presumptions determine our premises about the world and human nature. This view of the world pre-establishes which press and media sources we're prone to believe. Ultimately, our own echo chambers and circular philosophies predispose us to either trust or renounce those in the press who make claims that we regard as comporting with our world view.
I’m aware of this in myself. My default mode is to doubt government and to instead honor the individual. Humanity, for all its faults, has value. Whereas government is beyond redemption – wasteful, corrupt, inefficient, incompetent, and ultimately unaccountable.
Of course, I realize my philosophy is in direct contrast to my political rivals who appear predisposed to trust government and relegate the individual to its value as measured by its contribution. This is most pronounced in that rival’s insistence that our principle pressing issues are manmade – global warming, overpopulation, exhausting resources. Whereas my argument is that only by looking inward and changing ourselves, not outward and demanding change from others, will we repair the damage and potentially make the world a better place.
It’s a curiosity embedded in human nature to appreciate concern, despite the ineffectual nature of that concern. Case in point, one state governor imposes mask and vaccine mandates. Over the course of six months, that state produces X number of COVID patients per capita. Meanwhile, DeSantis, the state governor of Florida, disregards mask and vaccine mandates, has either the same or fewer COVID patients per capita (keep in mind he has a greater number of elderly than any other state), but is nonetheless castigated by some as reckless or indifferent because he refuses to impose such oppressive policy.
I’d argue he instead honored the liberties and individual choices of Floridians regarding their medical decisions while those who pushed policies to reflect their concern caused far more harm than good. We’ve seen this play out throughout history. When government tries to remedy a problem, it typically only exacerbates that problem.
We’ve had more COVID deaths under the Biden Administration than under the Trump Administration. And yet because the Biden Administration has imposed both mask and vaccine mandates throughout, no one in legacy media has accused Biden of these COVID deaths under his watch. Whereas more than one of these same press sources has suggested that the deaths under the Trump Administration essentially make Trump a murderer. Because despite Biden’s ineffectual mandates, their existence implies effort, action. While those who might know better than to impose ineffectual policy – closing schools and businesses, imposing mask mandates – are regarded by some as either foolish or heartless or both.
Over the past year, against my better judgement, and admittedly only within my periphery, I’ve watched as CNN, MSNBC, and ABC, who, by the way, were (and are still) sponsored by Pfizer throughout these entire vaccine mandates, echoed the democrat party’s edicts unquestioningly (vax, boosters, masks indefinitely) and mocked those who expressed doubt or dissent.
I also watched as other news organizations learned of Dr. Fauci’s duplicity. We the People eventually saw the emails and other exchanges showing that Fauci’s self-interests led him to lie to the nation about his own knowledge of the NIH’s efforts to fund the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s research that led to the gain of function of SARS-CoV-2 and the subsequent COVID-19 virus, consequently ending in the virus spilling out into the public sphere and contaminating the world, resulting in an avoidable pandemic.
Fauci committed perjury. At the very least, the cad should be imprisoned for conspiracy to deceive the public and withhold his knowledge of experimental modifications on an exceedingly dangerous pathogen without concern for humanity’s welfare or safety. Instead, he maintains both his position and his salary, while his apologists in the press insist on redefining gain of function to defend him.
The average IQ is 100. Only 1% of the world’s population has an IQ of 145 or above. Some functioning adults have an IQ of around 90. They’re eligible to vote, by the way. Many hold positions in government. Many are voters who can’t locate the Atlantic Ocean on a world map. Yet they’re going to vote for or against a candidate (without even cracking open a single book on pediatrics or the latest peer reviewed research on the psychological ramifications of masking children) based on that candidate’s stance on things he or she knows nothing about.
No published report justifies policies to mask or vax children. And yet Pfizer, as I compose this post, is manufacturing a vaccine for children between six months and four years of age. Why? Because the government is funding it. Big Brother wants you to know it cares. To target an untapped demographic, regardless the social consequence, is lucrative.
Both the government’s tyranny and the public’s fear of the pandemic has created a perfect storm for a reimagining of Orwell’s novel 1984. As Michael Malice, an anarchist, has pointed out: half the country is so cowardly, so inept, and so prone to place their faith in anyone or anything that assures them they’ll be taken care of, that if our Zombie in Chief President Biden issued an edict today claiming that consuming dog urine would immunize us against the COVID virus, tens of millions of Americans would flood the web searching for the best dog urine available for sale. “Oh! Both Wikipedia and Vox claim it’s the urine of a dachshund!? Shop. Go to cart. Buy!”
So when I caught COVID this past January (on the 25th), my first reaction wasn’t to listen to Anthony Fauci or Xavier Becerra (the latter being the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services and a duplicitous ass who committed perjury when questioned by Rand Paul under oath in the Senate). Instead, my first reaction was to seek out those who, rather than say anything to preserve their positions of power, instead investigate and question those in power – the Joe Rogans (a self-professed far leftist) of the world, the Tim Pools (libertarian), the Ben Shapiros (right wing), and the Jimmy Dores (leftist).
Likewise, I didn’t unquestioningly quarantine myself in my apartment for two weeks and hope my flu-like symptoms didn’t include my lungs filling up with liquid and drowning in my own pneumonia. (Should your symptoms include respiratory complications, doctors do recommend checking yourself into hospital and being placed on a ventilator.)
Instead, I considered the fact that I’m not just as important as the President of the United States. On the contrary. I’m far more important than that septuagenarian who, as Vice President during the Obama Administration, would, on camera, loom over children from behind with his wrinkled claws on their shoulders, and creepily stoop to sniff their hair.
That pervert’s private doctors will do far more than advise against going out in public for two weeks. Indeed, those doctors will throw everything but the kitchen sink, both FDA approved and experimental stuff, at the symptoms, as they did for our knuckle-dragging troglodyte President Trump when he contracted the virus. Yes. Neither major political party is of any use to me. They’re comprised of foul, below average thinkers, as well as reckless abusers not only of the English language but of the power and authority with which they’re invested. With rare exception, every politician is an incorrigible scoundrel.
But enough pontificating. Back to my testimony. As I say, it began on January 25th, on a cold Tuesday morning at three a.m. I awoke feeling like a shell of my former self, not me but rather my ghost. I showered like an automaton. Dressed like an invalid. Could hardly tie my shoelaces. Could barely lift my arms. I was a black hole at the stage of supreme implosion, drawing into myself, ever shrinking and condensing. Sore all over.
My boss sent me home. I drove in a haze, all the while assuming I had a hellish case of the flu. Once home, I took Naproxen Sodium, Mucinex, Vitamin C, sprinkled salt over my left shoulder for luck, and passed out in bed. I hibernated until that afternoon when I had to run my afternoon route since no one else could. Barely made it home afterwards to immediately crash again.
I lost track of time, of my surroundings, of my identity. Had no appetite. By Friday, four days later, having missed two morning routes (which marked the first time I’d missed a day of work in nearly five years), I managed to drive myself to the VA in town and ask to see a doctor.
I was refused admittance. Told that instead I had to get tested for COVID. Less than 24 hours later, over the phone, a VA nurse at the emergency branch in Temple gave me the news. The news was followed by instruction.
I was reluctant to bow to her expertise. Instead, I stressed a hypothetical. “Suppose I can’t take off work entirely. Suppose I’m indispensable, at least for my afternoon shift.” The nurse only reiterated her earlier instruction. She advised against work, assured me she couldn’t prevent it, but that I should take every precaution to avoid any more interaction with others than necessary, that I instead required isolation and rest.
Keep in mind I already knew the prescribed policy, a policy handed down not from a consensus of epidemiologists, economists, virologists, and geo-political theorists locked in a room to seriously address this issue like our perhaps more astute elders who attended the Manhattan Project had, but rather from the corrupt WHO, the lying NIH, the duplicitous Fauci, and a certain government administration helmed by a dazed corpse who escaped his sarcophagus.
Their panic policy? Shut down businesses (killing the economy), indefinitely barricade the public in their homes (which only spread it more rapidly among family) and tell the now unemployed public to await further instruction (instruction which likewise proved detrimental to their livelihoods). Carry out this policy until tens of millions of Americans get fed up and refuse. Then call those frustrated citizens white supremacists to discredit their criticism.
So, dissatisfied with my nurse’s generic prognosis, I steered the topic toward that exclusive club to which only the privileged, the elite, have access. Celebrities, athletes, and politicians were allowed to cut in line. They were given what I call The Platinum Membership Treatment. They’re no better than me, so, I asked (having done a little homework) about taking Prednisone, z-pack, monoclonal antibodies, and the controversial Ivermectin.
While the nurse (and later a VA doctor) said she could officially authorize most of that stuff, supplies were limited. The only thing she could guarantee me was Prednisone. Instead, she returned to the official policy – rest and wait it out. If your heartbeat becomes irregular or you find that you can’t breathe, go to emergency. Otherwise, abstain from work, drink plenty of water, and quarantine yourself for two weeks.
After that phone conversation, I rolled my eyes and began to scheme. “I’m not missing any more work,” I told myself. “I make good money, and I’m saving for a mail order bride, preferably from South Korea. Also, side note, I need to learn the Korean language.”
Without naming names, I phoned a savvy acquaintance and explained my plan. To protect his identity, let’s call this savvy acquaintance Wilberforce. “Wilberforce,” I rasped, due to my COVID condition. “You, like me, served in the U.S. military. Unlike me, you climbed the ranks and led operations. You’ve had access to secrets few of us will ever know. Rubbed shoulders with uncouth brass and bawdy officials. Know the meaning of the word propaganda. Privy to the latest government sponsored lies of both other nations as well as our very own government. How am I doing so far?”
Wilberforce’s deep voice inspired reverence. “A slanted, if not cynical, spin on my resumé. By the way, for the record, I deny all of it. But to what do I owe the pleasure of this military montage?”
“Just wanted you to know that I know you’re qualified, as far as I’m concerned, to wax eloquent on the corrupt underbelly of this otherwise pristine landscape dubbed America. Plus, you have access to what, for lack of a better term, we’ll refer to as contraband.”
“Fair enough. But where’s this coming from? Are you in the neighborhood for a spare bunker? Or wait. You need a tank? You sound terrible, by the way. As in possessed. Like that tragic teen in The Exorcist movie. Are you ill?”
“Steady, general. No, no bunker. If it comes to that, it’ll be us against the zombies when we emerge from our underground lair smelling of filth and brandishing a rusty can opener. And, yes. I’m so sick I feel as if I could levitate. As far as tanks go, are you asking me whether I need something comparable to a Sherman or a Tiger? Or do you mean an iron lung of some descript?”
“Well, I’d say judging from what sounds like Mephistopheles speaking on your behalf, an iron lung might be in order.”
“No, nothing like that, my good man. Set all ordnance and anachronistic hospital appliances aside. Rather let us place a fresh pale canvass upon the easel. Imagine, if you will. I’m the suzerain of my demesne, for what it is.”
“And a fine demesne it is.”
“Thanks. You should see my demesne at dawn. It’s spectacular.”
“Are we still talking territory? An estate? Land?”
“Let’s evaluate my circs, shall we? Or shall I say survey my estate, to maintain the metaphor? I, as it were, am in the soup, old boy. I have the dreaded pandemic squirming throughout my sexy body. Or, again, for the sake of a consistent metaphor, you might say I have moles in my fields.”
“I refuse to say that. Sounds disgusting.”
“No. Not moles. Moles.”
“What did I say?”
“The mammal that digs. Related to the marmot, I think. Not the skin –”
“I get it, David Attenborough. Anyway. It just so happens that I can help with your current malady.”
“Then you’ve anticipated the reason for my call. Frown at your ceiling, and rub your chin as if in deep thought, general. My question is as follows. Have you access to the things forbidden? The drugs that – including the COVID vaccine until quite recently – aren’t FDA approved? Because I want the lot, 友達.”
“Tomodachi?”
“Yes, 友達. Means friend in Japanese.”
“Of course, it does.”
“Perhaps even both the detergent and the bleach. Everything including the kitchen sink, the Tuscany styled tiles, the monogrammed dish towels, and the frilled apron.”
“Meet me for lunch.”
“As soon as tomorrow, per chance?”
“Today.”
Wilberforce provided me with the controversial Ivermectin, as well as a few other essentials I can’t disclose for reasons associated with a certain American rogue agency prone to illegally applying battering rams to the doors of private residences on either frequently false pretenses or ironically the wrong address.
That was a little over a month ago today, the first two weeks of which I had no appetite. I lost 18 lbs. I’m practically at one hundred percent now and twenty pounds lighter, but my sense of taste and smell only recently returned. Hearing in my right ear was significantly diminished, too, which is only now reinstalled. The medical professionals assure me such side effects are common and usually temporary for many who survive the virus, which is most people, by the way.
Consider: after two years, of the roughly seven billion people on the planet, there’s been about 403 million COVID cases worldwide now. Of those 403 million cases, 5.7 million have ended in deaths. That, at the risk of sounding callous, is a very small percentage. Various estimates place the mortality rate at about 1%. One percent!
Look. This pandemic isn’t comparable to burning popcorn in your microwave and opening the windows for half an hour to air out your house. COVID, as one of my nurses assured me, is here to stay. So might I inquire as to why the hell we’re still wearing masks?
Instead, we should doff these absurd muzzles and, if we can, immunize ourselves against the virus. Not by coercion or by force or by fiat. Not by way of tyranny. Not by having our civil liberties trampled. No. But rather by choosing to vax and booster or, if, like me, you’d prefer, abstain from the vaccine (as did I), contract the virus unprotected (as did I), survive it (say it with me, as did I), and consequently build the subsequent antibodies to withstand yet another strain or attack. Because, to reiterate what my nurse said, COVID is here to stay.
Which is why I’ve been saying since day one, doff the mask. You can’t live your entire life bubble wrapped. Or you can, but as for me, to quote Emiliano Zapata, “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” And if you’re masking your otherwise healthy children, well, there should be a special spot reserved for you in one of Dante’s nine circles of Hell, because that’s child abuse, pure and simple. The chance of a child dying from COVID is estimated at one to two in one million. Not to be morbid, but the odds of a child dying in a car accident are much higher. Should we not allow kids in cars anymore? Many of us seem to have forgotten that navigating our way through life requires risk assessment.
If you’re still masking yourself and you’re not either elderly or have a compromised immune system, then you’re applying lipstick to a warthog. Because even if you plan to don a mask every day for the rest of your life, you could still (as with those who’ve been immunized) contract the virus. And if you do contract the virus, you’re going to either die from it (unlikely) or survive it (highly likely). And then you’re effectively in the clear. Equipped to survive possible future strains.
Otherwise, you’re merely postponing the inevitable while sporting the early twenty-first century’s fashion I’ve dubbed the poor man’s version of a HASMAT suit – vaxes, boosters, gloves, masks. Think about that. Even if you never contract the virus and live to the ripe old age of 114, you will have worn that poor man’s version of a HASMAT suit for Every Day for the Rest of Your Entire Life. And probably drinking dachshund piss, too.
I realize it’s easier to abandon personal responsibility and leave our fates in the hands of government, but when has that ever benefitted us? Thanks to the funding that led to gain of function, our government indirectly created this pandemic. As other specialists have noted, our government wasn’t adequately prepared for it. Our government further failed to protect our shores against it, failed to contain it, failed to prevent our current inflation resulting from its subsequent imposed lockdowns.
Speaking of which, remember when our leaders told us the lockdowns would last for only a few weeks to allow hospitals to prepare for the predicted influx of COVID patients which, by the way, never came? Remember when our leaders promised we could doff the masks once we got the vaccine? And yet the vaxxed are still mandated to mask, right? At least we were told we could instead doff the mask once we got the booster, right? Oops, again.
I remember when the rule of distance in public was measured six feet indoors. For those who may not know, without providing details, I live in Texas. Our governor lifted the mask mandate statewide roughly a year ago. However, this state policy doesn’t extend to federal operations or property. As a result, I have a federal client who, until only four days ago, insisted you mask when alone, in your vehicle, outside, driving on a paved expanse the size of about four football stadiums toward the dock doors, with no one else around for at least 600 yards if that.
That’s paranoia in policy form. Anti-science. Cowardice. And stupidity. In short, government. The sooner this nation recognizes and defies the gaslighting villains in this narrative, the better for this nation’s physical, mental, and economic health.
