The Fear of Freedom

“Economics is not an ideology, it is a principle in nature, nothing is wasted in nature.  There is no separation of health and economy, we support our health by working for our existence.” 

I love this quote by businessman and philosopher Daniel Model, who is the subject of a fascinating interview in the video below.  He expounds a lot on freedom and how fully living requires the belief that your own thoughts and actions can and do influence the direction of your life.  This is called personal agency which is essential to psychological well being and healthy relationships. 

Some other quotes from the video:

“Money is the big illusion, work is the real purpose in life and to have experiences and a journey of development.”

“If money is used (by the government) to prevent you from working, then you in a way have lost completely the contact stuff of your life. Then you are a kid, maybe getting milk from your mother.  You’re not independent, you’re not thinking, you’re not really a respectful person anymore.”

“The fear spirit speaking is government, you must do something, it is urgent, it is life or death!”

Personal agency is a large part of what makes us human.  Living in fear erodes this and moves us towards the animal instinct of survival; merely existing over living.  Governments and media are experts at taking us down this path through hyperbole and demonization of our so called enemies, which primes us to willingly give up our freedoms in return for the illusion of safety.

The obvious example here of course is the shutting down of large swaths of society to combat a virus for whom most people the odds of dying are very low.  The drumbeat of fear from the media egged on by exploitive and power hungry politicians and the censoring and shaming of less apocalyptic views all but assured the general public’s acceptance of unprecedented societal lockdowns and the overall thrashing of civil liberties.

This has been and will continue to be devastating in many ways for many years, not least of which is the giant shove towards more government dependency coming our way. That shift has been happening in America for several decades, the Pandemic merely exposed it for all its rotting glory.

In other words, the government used fear and hysteria to get us to agree with the closing down of most societal functions and destroying million of jobs.  Now they want to spend trillions of dollars to repair this damage which will fail. Money cannot replace dignity and purpose, nor bring back lost human connection or restore mental health.  It is very good however at creating a victim mindset and increasing dependency on more pay outs.

On top of this, the government crippled our own personal agency in deciding what’s best for ourselves and families in dealing with the virus. I believe it’s the moral duty of those of us who don’t face much threat from it to keep things running as normal as possible, while sharing in the risk of getting it and becoming immune.  By taking this choice away from us the government made itself the moral arbitrator of accepted behavior and decider of what is and is not considered acceptable risk.

This brings to mind British-Indian Infectious Disease Epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta who often uses the phrase social contract when discussing the pandemic and how lockdowns badly warp it.

In her words from this article:

“What politicians can do is maybe alter their language to reflect that we do live with risk, we have to make quite difficult decisions about trade-offs that exist between ways of life, between livelihoods, and sacrifices that have to be made at a societal level. They would do well to urge people to think at a communitarian level.

I think the lockdown is really individualistic in its general construction. Things that we normally disperse within the community, such as individual risk, and individual blame. Now I see young people being terrified, even though they realize the risk to themselves is low, that they might infect a friend who will then give it to their grandparents. This chain of guilt is somehow located to the individual rather than being distributed and shared.

We have to share the guilt. We have to share the responsibility. And we have to take on board certain risks ourselves in order to fulfill our obligations and to uphold the social contract. So I’d like the politicians to remind people of that, because that’s what they’ve been elected to do – to see the social contract is being properly transacted.”

Yes, exactly, but this is impossible for people saturated in fear to grasp.  The outlandish hostility Ms. Gupta has received for her perfectly reasonable coronavirus views is a testament to this.

Excessive fear is a direct threat to personal freedom.  The greater the fear, the larger the perceived threat and the more acceptable sweeping, normally unthinkable measures become to combat it. 

Endless school closures, mask mandates for years to come, digital vaccine passports, no international travel, social gatherings, concerts, plays or festivals, new variants, wash, rinse, repeat…..when does this all end?

Only awareness can stop this panic and a strong sense of personal agency that is naturally allergic to government overreach.  Until this happens, we will continue our merry slide towards authoritarian rule.

 

 

They Won’t Stop Until We tell Them To

“The mask is about compliance, next they’re gonna tell you, you have to contact trace, then they’re gonna tell you, you have to take the vaccine and guess what kids, once you take your vaccine, they’re gonna tell you sorry the vaccine isn’t as effective as we thought it was gonna be so now you’re still gonna have to wear your mask, still gotta get contact traced, still have all the restrictions and social distancing and still take the vaccine.  And what did you get out of all of this?”

I don’t know who this guy is, but he completely nails it in this video clip from last spring on the charade of coronavirus restrictions, the destruction of small businesses and turning life as we know it upside down.

While he infers that the end game here is a master/slave society where us compliant little sheep are ruled by elite technocrats, I just can’t give our current crop of hapless pro lockdown politicians that much credit, at least here in the U.S.  They are just too dumb to be such masterminds of evil.

Don’t get me wrong, many are without a doubt exploiting the pandemic for their own benefit, but I think most of really have no clue what to do as far as combating it so they enact endless and senseless dictates that give the illusion of doing something and then run around with their hair on fire when this has 0 effect, blaming and shaming their citizens for behaving like human beings and doing bizarre things like spending time with other people.

Take pro lockdown Governor extraordinaire, Gavin Newsom, of California where I live.  We have been in some sort of hard shut down since last march, with even outdoor dining banned in most counties and schools, gyms, nail & hair salons still shut down.  Mask mandates too have been in place for several months and yet despite all this California has some of the worst Covid #’s in the country.

Here’s a little secret that’s not so secret really because deep down everyone knows this.

“They’re isn’t much that can be done to stop the spread of a highly communicable, airborne, respiratory virus.”

Oh you may slow things down a little, maybe, but in the end the virus is gonna do what viruses do, which is infect as many people as possible until herd immunity kicks in, either naturally or in combination with a vaccine. There is nothing a governor, mayor, city council person or even president can do to protect you other than provide truthful stats on transmission methods, death rates and demographics of who it affects most seriously so you can decide on the proper precautions best for yourself and family.

In fact, I would argue the more the government tries to help you, the worse things get and nowhere is this more apparent than with the never ending ill conceived lockdowns and forced distancing policies.

While it’s questionable whether lockdowns have done any sort of good at all towards squelching the virus, we do know the devastating consequences they have brought. Sky rocketing poverty, mental health woes in children, major suicide and addiction issues, and increased in non-Covid related mortality rates to list just a few.

The worst in my view is the societal effects from the constant fear mongering and shaming.  It’s a form of psychological abuse really and has  always been part of politics, but many politicians have taken it to an art form during the pandemic. Combine this with mandated work closures, forced isolation of others, restricted gatherings and the breakdown of interpersonal communications through anti-science mask mandates and this will break society.  In many cases it already has.

As I’ve said in previous posts,“I believe the extended coronavirus lockdowns to be the single biggest public policy mistake made in our lifetime, if not ever, whose negative effects will be with us for years to come and in many ways we haven’t yet realized.”

We have a severe crisis of courage within our political class in that instead of telling us the truth about this virus and leading the way in fearlessly facing it, they cower and hide behind nonsensical mandates and shutdowns, pretending that this will somehow eradicate it.

What will people do when they realize it’s all been for nothing? I was hoping by now that more would have caught on and be willing to just ignore the mandates and get on with life.  Many of us in California are doing just that to the extent we can, but so many others here are crippled by fear, clinging to the restrictions like a life preserver and angrily lashing out at anyone pointing out their gaping holes of logic.

Maybe folks will finally come around after the vaccines are administered and cases still rise and politicians double down on restrictions.  More likely that will usher a mass descent in to madness and chaos as the public realizes the shiny coin of vaccine that was supposed to open the door to normalcy is not the panacea it’s being made out to be.

Look, the virus is a nasty bug, no question but it affects mainly very old and/or very frail people most seriously. For most of us we are looking at mild to moderate symptoms (if any at all) with an overall estimated survival rate is 99.5 percent, according to the CDC,  Yes, there are always outlier cases which are tragic, but this is true of the flu too and the numbers just don’t justify a complete re-ordering of society

The fact of the matter is many of us will get the virus and most will end up just fine.  The best we can do is keep things as normal as possible while directing resources and brainpower towards protecting the vulnerable.   As Donald Henderson, the man credited with eradicating smallpox once said,

“Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of community is least disrupted.”

We must learn to do normal life along with the coronavirus, there is just no other way.  We will get there eventually either with or without a crushed economy and broken society.  I choose the latter.

A Different Perspective on The Last Few Days in Washington, DC — The Praetorian Writers’ Group

I’d been struggling with what and how to write about what happened in DC Wednesday, when I came across my friend xPraetorius’s post that sums up my thoughts perfectly so I thought I’d re blog it here. x brings some fantastic insight so please make sure to read his post.

In x’s view, the important message of why so many people showed up in support of Donald Trump has been completely overshadowed by the Capitol building fiasco in which a small faction of protestors did some pretty stupid and awful things. Exactly who participated in that and why remains to be seen until a full investigation is done. Punishments should be given accordingly once that process plays out.

Do not be fooled though in thinking a chapter is closing and a sense of normalcy and calm will return once Biden takes office. As the left keeps hammering their false narrative as to what happened, they will push more and more for conservative thought to be labeled dangerous and its followers to be canceled out of existence. You’ll be hearing a lot more about domestic terrorism in the coming months and it won’t be pretty.

This is only the beginning of a new and uglier chapter.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer my news as, you know… news — “Hey! This interesting thing just happened!” — not as pre-written narrative into which some manipulative, scheming bastard, trying to control my perception of things around me*, then fits or fabricates any events he can to support that narrative.   * “Manipulative, scheming bastards, trying to control our perception of things around us” — a nice summary description of today’s media!

A Different Perspective on The Last Few Days in Washington, DC — The Praetorian Writers’ Group

Ombuds

Is the pandemic behind us? Have people stopped dying from the virus? Have crushed businesses reopened? Have the unemployed got jobs? And how’s that opioid crisis going and our exploding homelessness problem? The ginormous budget deficit all squared away?

Apparently so because the House of Representatives just introduced the mother of all idiotic, fluffernuttery bills that “will honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral.”

Thus, among many absurdities, “the Office of the Whistleblower Ombudsman would become the Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds.”

Ombuds. Really. That one made up word pretty much sums up all the quackery.

But wait there’s more, a new Office of Diversity and Inclusion has been established too!

Aren’t y’all relieved to know Nancy Pelosi’s House agenda is focused on such important things for 2021?

Between this and Representative Emanuel Cleavers closing a prayer with “Awomen“, I’m not sure I can turn my tv on ever again.

It’s gonna be a long 4 years.

Hope For 2021

This time of year is always a bit off.  All the Christmas build up and anticipation is gone, gifts long since opened, wrapping paper put away, the cookies, cakes, turkey and perhaps a tad too much alcohol already fading in to memory, leaving only, unfortunately, my stretched out belly behind.

And four days from now we will ring in a New Year, which, like living in the shadow of a super star sibling, never quite lives up to expectations.  And how can it not?  Competing with the the birth of Jesus Christ is no small feat!

This waiting period for 2021 to arrive brings good opportunities for prayer and contemplation and something tells me we are going to need plenty of both. An extremely contentious election year tainted by voter fraud will bring a chaotic start to the New Year, which kicks off with a potentially game changing special election in Georgia and the inauguration of a new president who 70+ million people do not feel was duly elected.  And that’s just January.

The Coronavirus is still center stage and so are blue state governors doubling down on lockdowns, whose devastating consequences will only grow exponentially well in to the New Year.  Their unprecedented attacks on civil liberties will seem pale in comparison to when a vaccine mandate comes out.

These are trying times, indeed!  But also a good opportunity to reflect on values and what it is you stand for.  The truth never goes out of fashion, but its defenders shrink and grow periodically.  I believe we are at a time of growth, where many people intuitively know things have gone batty and are not willing to enable the charade any more.

That is my hope anyway for 2021.  Happy New Year!

America The Beautiful

As today is one of giving thanks to our creator and for for the unique and various ways He brings abundance to our lives, I’d like to give a shout out to America.  Yes, I have been to plenty of countries around the world, who all have their own amazing parts, but America is the place I know best and where I would rather live above all else.

She’s a rather beautiful mess these days, with all sorts of divisiveness between her people, and outright dereliction of duty among many of her politicians, who are supposed to be upholding and protecting her founding documents, but are in fact doing the exact opposite.

This speaks to the corruption and evil doing of people and not the principles of which the country is based; individual liberty, divided government, free speech, equality under the law, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and a limited government  to protect those rights.

So while I’m certainly happy about and grateful for my wonderful family, new husband, great friends and the truly remarkable blogging world here and all the people I’ve been connected, I am truly thankful for America and the privilege of living within her borders.

Thank you God, may you continue to bless America and her people!  And Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

What’s It All For Anyway?

In this fabulous Medium post by A.J. Kay, the author asks, “if safety requires us to indefinitely forfeit the most valuable parts of our lives, what exactly are we trying to save?”

She then goes on to smartly point out that with a 2.8 million annual  (in America) all cause death toll, this could be the last Thanksgiving for some of our loved ones or perhaps even ourselves.  Do we really want to spend it isolated from the people we care about most because it’s not safe to gather?

Or freezing our butts off outside while keeping our masks on between bites of turkey à la Gavin Newsom and his beyond absurdly comical  coronavirus dictates that HE AND HIS HEALTH ADVISORS DON’T EVEN FOLLOW THEMSELVES?

Oh hell no.  Loneliness and isolation were were big enough problems  before COVID, I can’t imagine how much they’ve grown now that we’ve institutionalized staying home and staying safe and turned avoidance of others in to a collective virtue.

According to this article from Mercolca.com:

• In 2018, 54% of American adults over the age of 18 reported feeling lonely. By January 2020, it was 61% and now, nine months into the pandemic, we’ve reached 66%
• Loneliness isn’t relegated to the elderly. In the 18 to 34 age group, 75% report feeling socially isolated, compared to 61% of those over 50. Among those aged 18 to 34, 19% say they’ve gone as long as two to three months without interacting with another person.
• 10% of 35- to 49-year-olds, 9% of 18- to 34-year-olds and 7% of those over 50 say they’ve not interacted with anyone outside their household or workplace since the pandemic began.

Going several months without interacting with other people is not healthy in any way shape or form, virus or no virus. Human beings were designed to be social and this continued, dystopian world of forced people avoidance, with face masks crippling our ability to effectively communicate with one another, has done much damage to our already fractured and lonely society.

Extended  loneliness changes the brain.  It not only hurts us emotionally, but physically too, both in terms of actual aches and pains and negative health effects like increased blood pressure, obesity and heart problems.

Blue state governors enacting new state shutdowns will only cascade those ill effects and that’s not even factoring in the severe economic hardship of forced shutdowns and sky rocketing addiction and suicide rates which all feed in to the loneliness factor.

Just what are they doing and why, oh why are we putting up with it? As I wrote in a previous post, Pro Lockdown Politicians Remain stuck in March, we know so much more now about the virus, who it effects most seriously and how to effectively treat severe cases.  And thank goodness we now know that for most people the lethality rate is extremely low

Politicians calling for more shutdowns should not get another pass on this. Their fear mongering and incessant focus on “positive cases” is an insult to our intelligence and the damage they are doing is probably beyond repair. From the same post:

“I believe the extended coronavirus lockdowns to be the single biggest public policy mistake made in our lifetime, if not ever, whose negative effects will be with us for years to come and in many ways we haven’t yet realized.”

Lockdown is a term that evolved from the prison industry and is a way of exerting control over an unruly and dangerous population.  That governors like Gavin Newsom continue to impose it on their citizens should tell us all we need to know about how they really feel about us and their intentions moving forward.

It’s not about controlling the virus, it’s about controlling us.

Beauty in Chaos

So, I got married this past weekend. It wasn’t what we originally planned of course, the pandemic having ripped our original blueprint to shreds, but somehow amidst the craziness of two famously unorganized people throwing their own backyard wedding, constantly changing COVID protocols (we broke many I’m sure), an unexpected rainstorm and the never ending worry of creating a super spreader event, it all came together and it was an amazing day. Magical really.

Actually it’s no mystery to me why things worked out so splendidly.  God was working behind the scenes as He always does, showing me once again His incredible love and caring nature.  The personal way in which He showed up was undeniable, leaving me both ashamed of my doubting, worried nature and completely in awe of Him.  Again.

That being said, with “everything wedding” having taken over these past few weeks there was little time to focus on that other big event, the election. I kept up with headlines of course, but couldn’t dwell in the outrage factory like I normally would and what a blessing that turned out to be!

It sure didn’t seem this way at the time however; knee deep in vendor contracts and frantic late night googling (who walks down  the aisle in what order, which ring goes on first, we have to tip HOW much????), but the distraction was a good lesson.  A gentle reminder on what’s truly important in life.

Of course a pivotal presidential election is important, as is the serious blow from which our electoral process may never recover, as is a fractured country seemingly beyond repair, as is the continual COVID fear mongering, outright censorship of  opposing views and rampant destruction of civil liberties.  All these things are worthy of our attention, righteous anger and action if necessary.

Nothing of this world however can ever nor should ever take precedent over our one true calling of knowing and loving God, gladly receiving His gifts and living out His truth.

And so I tell you, keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for.  Keep on seeking and you will find.  Keep on knocking and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who seeks, finds.  And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.~Luke 11: 9-10

Because Everything is Political

This perfectly sane and inspiring tweet from The Girl Scouts of America congratulating Amy Coney Barrett on being appointed to the Supreme Court was quickly taken down after  hysterical social media screeching from intolerant, shallow minded boobs the progressive left.

So of course the GSA, an organization whose central focus is to empower young girls through learning good character and leadership skills, fell in line and took the tweet down, offering this explanation:

 

Political?  How could anyone but the most obnoxious, blinkered thinking  ideologue think that post was remotely political?

It wasn’t of course, but in today’s Orwellian world, words hold no meaning except to promote the correct political narrative, which in this case is that Amy Coney Barrett is the anthesis of justice a hater of the LGBTQ community and the reason many Girl Scouts won’t have access to healthcare, equal pay or any of the other rights we take for granted.

Sigh, it’s all so exhausting, isn’t it? Not to mention this type of hyperbole is actually the anthesis (to use the word correctly) of women’s empowerment.

Reducing an accomplished mother of 7, a highly credentialed lawyer who has made it to the top justice position in the land down to a negative cartoon character stereotype based on differing political beliefs is ignoring the personhood of Barrett and how she came to those beliefs.  It can’t possibly be from a position of good faith and reasoned philosophy, as that would allow her to be human and imply there is room for debate on issues, something  the left wants no part of.

This type of world is so stifling, where everyone has to think alike and dissent is not tolerated.  I’m not saying we don’t have freedom of expression in America, we most certainly do.  This is instant shaming though of those who fall outside of accepted political orthodoxy is troubling, because then people start self censoring themselves just to avoid the hassle.

How refreshing it would have been if instead of caving to the mob, the GSA kept the congratulatory tweet up, explained it wasn’t meant as any sort of statement and that the organization believes in uplifting all women, not just those on one side of the political aisle.

It would have been a great example of how to live out their mission statement that Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

 

The Dehumanizing Nature of Today’s Politics

I liked the meme above when I first saw it on Facebook so I decided to share it on my own page, thinking finally, something we can all agree on!

And like clockwork a few moments later comes this comment:

“Hum. So if we look back in history to Germany and the rise of the the 3rd Reich are you suggesting that Germans should treat those supporting the extermination of Jews with kindness? Or we can come into this country and a time when people believed they should be able to own other people. So if someone voted to keep slavery the response you would respect is how nice, want some tea? I can understand compassion and respect for different opinions until those opinions include the oppression and inequitable access to rights liberty and the pursuit to happiness.”

I don’t shock easily, but the acidity of the comment and speed at which it came stunned me, really drove home how far gone some folks are.  And from a middle aged, normally very sweet school teacher no less!  Thankfully there were several responses to this nonsense pointing out how today’s political platforms don’t equate in any way shape or form to slavery or the 3rd Reich.

It got me thinking more about the demonization of politics virus that’s ripping through our culture.  It’s been around for awhile, but social media and a frenzied, biased press have caused this tactic to explode, where tribes harden and those that think differently aren’t merely wrong, but immoral and evil.

I thought things were bad enough when I wrote about this a few years ago in a post called The Calcified Mind.  Little did I know what 2020 had in store!  At least then there was some natural order to things, a base of knowledge we could all agree on, like that our country’s founding principles are good things, that law and order is important to free societies and that making judgements about people based on skin color is bad.

Today that’s all flipped on its head as truth is now how a person feels about things and so debate is pointless; facts and stats have nothing on emotions.  My former ways of pleading with people to assume others who think differently mean well, but disagree on how to improve things now hits a brick wall of refusal and is naive in hindsight.

The hate out there today is really palpable, fed by fake news stories with cartoon character type villains and encouraged by dim bulb politicians who campaign on fear and exploitation because that’s all they have. As I wrote in my post:

“Some have hearts so hardened that those others can’t merely be human beings who want what’s best for society but have other ideas on how to get there, they must be morally deficient, evil, stupid, etc….”

Once you start dehumanizing people this way boy does it open a door to ugliness that I’m not sure can be shut and we’ve come a long way with it.

Honesty it’s this type of thing that keeps me up at night.