The main problem the liberty minded face as regards preserving – and recovering – their lost liberty is that they are enmeshed among those who either do not understand or want to even try to understand liberty.
And those who actively loathe it.
It is not like the Late Unpleasantness (1861-’65) which was fundamentally geographic as much as it was ideological. On the one side – of the Mason Dixon line – you had the South. On the other, the North. Both sides were clearly different, in terms of where each lived as well as their respective languages, culture and history.
Savannah was not Boston.
But how do we separate ourselves from our next-door neighbor? From the authoritarian collectivists who sit on the town council? From the Clover who believes he has a “right” to health care – and “free” education – and thus, a right to force you to provide it? Who demands you “buckle up” for “safety”?
Who insists others wear a Face Diaper or close their businesses . . . to keep him “safe”?
Even in areas that are still culturally a bit more liberty minded – i.e., the “red” states – the canker is there and it is spreading.
Many of the “red” states are purple – on their way to turning blue. Even Texas.
The process has been accelerated, ironically, by the flight of the not-so-liberty-minded from places like New York and California, where their mindset created the fouled nest they now abandon – to foul new nests, elsewhere.
How can liberty survive, given this?
There are two main possibilities.
The first is a terrifying and awful one; a literal civil war (which the Late Unpleasantness was not; it was an unsuccessful attempt at secession, very much like the successful effort of 1776-1783). A fight between brother and brother – and neighbor and neighbor. To the death, probably – as the two ideologies cannot reconcile.
We would be willing to leave them alone – but they are determined to never leave us alone.
They are morally and philosophically incapable of that kind of restraint.
This is the one commonality between the Late Unpleasantness of 1861-’65 and our time. The Southerners sought to get away from what they styled the Yankee mentality. By which they meant the priggish Puritanism of New England; the obnoxious, moralizing insistence on their way being the only way In contrast to the idea – articulate so beautifully in the Declaration of Independence – written by a Southerner – about the pursuit of happiness.
An inherently individual thing.
Yankee collectivist totalitarianism manifests today in so many ways it is almost difficult to see it – as a fish probably has difficulty seeing the water he swims in. Everywhere, there are commandments restricting, defining, micromanaging what we are allowed to do – and punished for not doing.
Our rights – once respected by law and custom – have all become conditional privileges. The debate, such as it is, has been reduced to the extent our privileges will be restricted.
Not whether our rights will be respected.
Repeal and replace Obamacare.
How much we’ll pay in the theft styled “taxes.”
When – and under what terms – we’ll be allowed to open our businesses; or enter them.
We are no longer free from unreasonable searches; we are required by law to bear witness against ourselves (every time you file a tax return that you’d rather not and would not were it not for the barely disguised threats regarding what will happen to you if you don’t; now sign here).
We may not engage in the free exchange of goods and services; we are required to obtain permission – at our expense – and the exchange is hugely conditional. We are not free to offer a product or service – and other people are not free to choose to hire us or to buy from us.
Everything we buy – and everything we sell – must first be approved by the government. By the Yankees (in mindset) who control it.
The freedom to associate has become the requirement to associate – rendering the once-upon-a-right to choose with whom you associate as dead letter as the right to keep what you earn.
Not just some of it.
No one is free to travel. We are allowed to – under certain conditions, sometimes. And then sometimes not.
Ownership – of property, including ourselves – is denied at the most fundamental level.
There are laws forbidding what we may do or even put into the bodies we occupy but which the government owns.
Soon, perhaps, we will be forced to submit to having a substance injected into our bodies – the final degradation, making it crystal clear who owns “our” bodies.
Our homes are no more our property than the renter’s apartment belongs to him; both are tenants obliged to pay regular rent to the true owner, who also decrees what the tenant may and may not do on the owner’s property.
All of the above affronts are premised on the Yankee mentality, which now mottles the entire country.
There is no form of moral persuasion that will convince a Yankee to leave us be – and to mind his own business; he does not understand the concept. Or he has contempt for it.
How does a liberty-loving person live among such people?
There are two ways.
The first, much to be preferred, is by not living among such people.
This could be achieved by a decentralization movement with its long-term goal being the peaceful division of the country into sovereign autonomous states, some free – others, not. Pick and choose where you’d like to live. Let others pick and choose where they’d like to live.
And then live – and let live.
There would difficulties, including the logistics – such as the mass migration of the liberty minded to liberty-respecting regions. Still, it could be done.
Except for one problem.
The problem of the people who either do not understand or care about or loathe liberty.
These people will fight us with every means at their disposal, as was established during the Late Unpleasantness.
And they are enmeshed among us.
How do we regain our liberty when our next-door neighbor wants to take it away? Or rather, will support any candidate for office who promises to take it away?
For this reason, it is horribly probable that it will eventually come to blows. Put more finely, it will come down to the liberty-loving fighting for it against those who are determined to extinguish it.
And the verdict will be final. Them – or us. No quarter given, by either.
It is a dreadful prospect. For them and us. Most of all, because it could so easily be avoided.
If only they would allow it.
. . .
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“How can liberty survive, given this?”
Unlikely that it will, in my view.
Black’s three rules of government:
Rule 1: All government is evil.
Rule 2:The stronger the capabilities of its citizens, the more evils government will perpetrate, and for longer.
Rule 3: Government grows until it destroys the civilization it is built on.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/04/11/the-pied-piper/
It is important for the states to exercise their sovereignty now, nullifying stupid federal laws, before the feds get any crazy ideas. By crazy ideas, I mean the ultra-fringe leftist idea that the states should be abolished altogether. Like other fringe-left ideas that came before it, it will inevitably become mainstream. While state sovereignty has been eroded over time via withholding highway funds and popular senate elections, that would be the final push for absolute power over us.
Also, I don’t think we have been taught the truth about the constitution and its real purpose. We have been taught that the articles of confederation left the feds too weak to keep the union together, but perhaps the constitution is enabling the destruction of the states via the opposite route. I think our original government better served the name United STATES of America, whereas our current system may be better named the Uniform Subordinate Administrative Regions of America. Just a thought.
My wife shared with me a Tweet from someone in the official Pfizer vaccine trial – I don’t know if it’s an acquaintance or just a circulating Tweet. But the person is getting their fourth injection. Four. The latest two are for variants. It’s like they want to kill themselves, and will keep trying til they do.
So I guess, as we knew, variant booster vaccines are coming soon. But, apart from that, some people seemingly can become addicted to Covid vaccines – they are insane and need to be committed before they kill us all.
But there can be no escaping these people. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll die from their vaccine poisons. The trash takes itself out.
I wonder if these “vaccines” are putting pressure on the virus to mutate. If that’s the case, they’re making it worse, and should have just let it run its course, right?
The vaccines, assuming they work, are causing selection pressures that favor virus mutations that escape/get around the immune response generated from the vaccine. This could, in some cases, result in new and more virulent strains, more infective strains, or both. Hence, boosters and pharma profits in perpetuity. They know exactly what they are doing. This shit show was intended, in part, to fast track and validate the quick and cheap-to-mass-produce RNA approach.
They can’t work, even assuming that vaccine theory were valid (which it isn’t), because they are not even vaccines. Vaccines by very definition have to contain either a live or dead virus. They admit that these ‘vaccines’ contain neither- therefore they are not vaccines.
VACCINE$ n. a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease…..
So either COVID is not a virus….or these concoctions are not vaccines.
Hi Nunz
Hey, I’m on your side! By work, I mean produce some antibody or T cell response, which they do, as almost any macromolecule you inject into your body is bound to do. They also seem to lower symptom severity, even if they don’t prevent it or its transmission. Now, whatever else they do, or will do or cause in the future remains to be seen, and therein lies the scary part. And, as I have maintained, these needleheads must be made to bear and accept the consequences of their decision, except we all know they won’t and, even if they did, it would be too little too late for them and us.
Hi Ya BAC!
Awww, I know…. You know this stuff, and you’re a genuine Libertarian. I was just putting a fact out there for everyone to corroborate.
Worst thing is, BAC, they wont die right away (Well….some will…)- but ot’ll take a while before the cancers and various debilitating diseases manifest themselves (So of course, no one will connect them with the vaccines), and these fools will end up just further burdening our collectivized societies with the expense of their care until they croak.
Heck, that’s already largely the case with the standard extant vaccines, and why it is that in many rural places, healthcare has eclipsed farming as the major industry- to the point that people for many counties around all flock to the hospital in one county to work- and such hospitals are the largest employers, and virtually the only choice for decent paying jobs.
This may be a li’l diff’rent though; these [non]vaccines may just cause quicker deaths- likely by causing the next pandemic- only this time a real one. Just imagine if everyone who takes the vax in order to ‘protect themselves from [just] the flu’ is really being injected with a bioweapon grade flu (or code for their DNA to manufacture such) which will in fact be like what COVID was purported to be like?
And since the world has now been psychologically ‘prepped’ for the indefinite existence of pandemics, nobody would think it odd when this injected bioweapon starts manifesting itself and people really do start dropping like flies (Like the media would have us believe they already do from COVID, -and when even more draconian tyrannies are implemented to ‘save us’.
I chose to wear the face diaper in public, just to please the camellites, UNDER my chin.
If you are in FL, I would hope it wouldn’t be hard to just not wear it at all. Many of us are still in “mandate” areas where there is a Karen behind every tree.
The problem is that only one side is actually fighting this “war” — and it isn’t ours. Liberty-minded people generally want to be left alone, whereas psychopathic control freaks are like rust — they never sleep. They never quit trying to gain more and power and never quit trying to find ways to fuck with someone else’s life.
And frankly, we have ceded all the institutions to them. At this point they can do whatever they want. Any pushback will be a rearguard action, and will be met quite brutally. Look at what they did to Trump and his associates (Rudy just got raided by the FBI). Look at what they did to the raucous protesters on Jan. 6. And they’re just getting started.
Most people on our side of the fence have contented themselves with voting Republican. Republicans have talked a good game for decades about smaller government and more liberty, but never really delivered. At this point there are no real good options any more. Going forward the choice will be either radicalism, or submission. That is the reality.
I agree, X –
The time has come for our side to radicalize. To be uncompromising with regard to principles. No Face Diapers, for instance. No toleration for weaponized hypochondria and derisive contempt for the idiots who “practice” it.
For openers.
I’m too old to fight with these people and it seems everywhere you look our society is moving in a leftward direction. But the arc of history always has bent towards freedom. I have a feeling that today’s infants and soon-to-be-born will grow up to be a “counter-culture” generation much like the youth of the 1960s. One of the best things us old folks can do nowadays is to encourage this next generation — teach them critical thinking and other useful life skills; to always question “conventional wisdom” and authority; learn to become skeptical; and above all value their independence and find ways to undermine the government’s efforts (especially in the school system). I doubt I’ll live to see it, but today’s “woke” idiots will someday have their commie agendas shoved back into them where the sun doesn’t shine.
Vince, those counter-culturalists of the 60’s ARE the entrenched leftists of today….. People tend to rebel against the wrong things. Many of the very things the hippies were rebelling against were in-fact the things which built and maintained freedom (They at least got a few things right though- like being anti-war).
There is a third path. It doesn’t require vast armies or involve mega deaths. But it does require intelligence and creativity. Not to mention some personal risk. Which of course means that most people will never even consider it. Monkey Wrenching. Learn to think outside of the box. Learn to see solutions to problems that most people can’t even see. Below is a good start. But only a start.
https://archive.org/details/101_Things_to_do_til_the_Revolution_Claire_Wolfe/mode/2up
Congratulations Eric!
After (only) one and a quarter years of the covid crisis, you have managed to momentarily set aside the obsessive-compulsive mask tantrums……….to step back and look at the Big Picture. 🙂
Earlier would have been better, but it is probably not Too Late to do some good.
Keep Your Eye On The Ball, and you may start smashing home runs out of the park.
Everyone loves a “comeback story.”
Glad it’s “just a mask” to you.
No – In my opinion, the people with the obsessive-compulsive complex are the Heads of State, various Health Directors, Mega-Corporate CEO’s and assorted billionaires and zillionaires here in the US and around the world – Freaks all.
Eric has drawn his line in the sand that he will not cross, to face-diaper – an act of submission to tyranny, and he has kept the issue in front of us so that others would be inspired to disobey inhumane dictates before it devolves into something even worse and more horrible.
Why do you continue reading and commenting? Are *you* suffering from OCD?
**”Are *you* suffering from OCD?”**
No, I think he enjoys it.
Suffering? No, I enjoy every moment of it… ^^
We have become a “society” of busybodies.
The irony of it all, most of those individual busybodies have terrifying personal problems and are hardly housebroken themselves. Yet they believe in the need to tell others how they should live.
Though maybe because they can’t take care of themselves, they think that is the case for everyone, when its not.
The academic type is a good example of a busybody. So smart about some obscure subject nobody should care about, but yet not able to change a tire on their car.
“So smart about some obscure subject nobody should care about, but yet not able to change a tire on their car.”
In some area we are all deficient. Some understand this.
There are only two types of people in this world, those that accept that they are ignorant and those who do not.
Channeling Dirty…”a man has to know his limitations”
Oops, meant Dirty Harry aka Clint Eastwood
Darn I thought you meant dirty Sanchez…
Or a Hot Karl?
Where’s Eight with his old rusty trombone?
How about a good old fashion tax revolt. Stop paying for your slavery. I find it interesting that often people on various threads talk of civil war and locking and loading etc. etc., but when they get a letter from the IRS they shit their pants.
Easier said than done. Withholding…
6-7 on the W4, 9 or over is red flag
Ah yes, the “temporary emergency” measure that the public was promised would go away after WWII. Shouldn’t be surprising that was a lie since the income tax was sold to the public as a minor nuisance tax for the very rich that would never affect working people. Lies compounded on lies. (Why does anyone believe anything government says or promises?)
The major corporations will never go along with a tax revolt in terms of stopping withholding for employees. (They will move operations and profits out of the country though should their fairshare become too onerous.) However, a huge number of people work for small businesses. Owners of small business would have to be convinced and that is not going to happen since they have their accountants whispering in their ears and they are all scared to death of everyone’s favorite Uncle.
I haven’t filed or paid the federal dirtbags in decades but I’m in business for myself. Most people are not in a position to stop paying for their enslavement even if they wanted to.
Hey Jason!
I still remember my thoughts as a young teen, having figured out that a ticket to the rat race was not an option for me. Serving some corporation, and having a good part of the fruit of labor taken from me before I even get it in my own hand? Un-uh! Not me! As a result, it’s been a nice life of no regrets, and about as much freedom as can be had in this part of the world at this point in history.
The sad thing is, people like you and I are extremely rare. We’ve been in tax revolt our whole lives….and thus far, you and one other person are the only ones I’ve encountered who are in our “movement”- and I’m thinking it’s likely the same for you. So much for a real liberty movement, eh?
I don’t even try talking about it to most people any more, Nunz. With few exceptions they have been so brainwashed into the “Freedom is Slavery” mindset it’s like the old saw about teaching a pig to sing.
Now we have our doddering, senile so-called leader giving a speech tonight about how he and his henchmen are going to further enslave us and how we’ll love it. (I can’t watch it or listen to that crap. Just not in the mood for hurling into the porcelain receptacle tonight.) The lemmings will no doubt give him a standing ovation.
I’m afraid it’s all pretty much over except the shouting. Rat race? The rat race is over. The rats won.
The last line,
**“Again, this is the answer to those that say, ‘Why are you stopping me? You should be catching criminals,’” he tweeted. “You are right… and we do!”**
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/traffic-stop-turns-up-2-million-worth-of-meth-fentanyl-in-indiana/ar-BB1g6MwT
“they” are the criminals. So youre endorsing the endless drug war and unlawful search and seizure. Nice work! Shouldnt you be at one of the communist sites? there are plenty
**During a conversation with the two occupants in the vehicle, the trooper noticed the pair appeared to be hiding something.**
Of course that passes as ‘reasonable suspicion’ today. Don’t even need to bother with the drug dog theater anymore. Plus, they were carrying drugs so the search was obviously justified…… (state logic)
“We would be willing to leave them alone – but they are determined to never leave us alone.”
This sums up the divide rather well in today’s nation. Whether it is masks, vaccines or guns, there is one part of society that demands compliance with group think and the other that says ‘leave me alone’.
I think that the notion of ‘Yankee’ mentality is better described as people who believe in bureaucracy and government as a means of managing society. They do so to avoid personally being involved. These are people who shy away from personal confrontations if at all possible sending the town fathers to deal with the rabble who they deem to be unwilling to conform to their rules.
The sickness is that bureaucracy is like a cancer (or rust on a car) and once it is established it grows an grows of its own accord sucking in more and more of what were solid and independent people using all means possible to promote its growth. After all, the only reason to poison children’s minds in school is to promote more government. Same is true with health insurance and masks and vaccines and other government control programs.
Our problem in today’s times as compared to the unpleasantness of the 1800s is that we; Liberty Lovers; are not geographically isolated from the cancer. This is much different than the North and South in 1861. Keep in mind that even in such Yankee blue havens as New York there are millions of people who have far more in common with the notion of independence and the principles of the south circa 1860 than the cancerous bureaucracy loving Yankees remainder of the population of this state. This is true in pretty much every blue state that the urban drones control the elections but not the real estate if you understand meaning. In other words, the rural folks could starve the urban drone cancer causing population out in a few weeks because the Yankees keep themselves in urban hives.
Knowing that Liberty loving people exist in this nation in what is commonly referred to as ‘fly over country’ our biggest problem we face in countering the blue Yankee influence is organizing and strategy. The desire to resist is already present. All that is needed is leadership and a plan.
I offer this as the daughter of a southern belle having been raised in New York upstate. My mother made the differences between home (Hampton Roads) and up North, I have an acute understanding of both the travails of 1861-65. The present day is a slow motion insurrection that is creeping across the entire nation. The Yankees are on the march!
Resistance is great, but it can’t be done effectively in onesies and twosies. That’s crazy talk. The system is an expert in dealing with that sort of thing. It has to be done en masse or not at all.
“We must all hang together, or we shall surely hang separately.”
No. The system is set up to effectively deal with obvious threats and violence (that being its stock in trade). Real resistance requires intelligence (all types…) and creativity. The system is neither intelligent nor creative. Anyone who has dealt with government and large corporations knows that. The best resistance is individual. It can’t be predicted, and if intelligent and creative, it can’t even be certain it wasn’t just Murphy up to his usual antics. Complex systems don’t require much to interrupt them.
There will indeed be some decentralization/Balkanization coming- but it will do nothing for actual liberty, as those who love and strive for liberty are just too few to matter. It’s not gonna be Lincoln vs. Davis…but more like Cuomo vs. Trump….or Coonman vs. Mittens. It’ll seem more peaceful, as the manufactured chaos we are now witnessing will subside once they carve up the turkey….and to the average schmoe, it will seem like “freedom”- but in reality, this long-planned balkanization will actually reduce true liberty, as it is intended to simply make things more manageable for “the new order”, which requires the dismantling of the US superpower.
The ONLY answer in this life (for the time being) is to physically remove ourselves from the reach of the tentacles of government- the few sparsely populated far-removed places in the forgotten corners of the world where there is just no incentive for them to bother with, and where their agendas/mind-control have not been being propagated for generations.
No matter what happens here, it is ultimately not going to further liberty; Some peace may return, once the chaos which is now being created has acheived it’s desired purpose- and the masses will cheer as they pay their taxes and get their vaccines and ask permission to paint their front door a different color….but liberty? LOL, never. And even the ride to the aforementioned “peace” is going to be fraught with violence and destruction and uber-tyranny. Look for a place to sit it out while the opportunity still exists, ’cause it’s just about gone already.
Your comment caused me to recall the film, Land of the Blind.
Have you seen that one? Predictive programming, I guess.
Hello(t) Helot,
2006? WAAAAY too modern for me…….. Pretty much, if it ain’t in black & white…I ain’t seen it.
black & white. I used to watch them quite a bit. Seemed so much more vivid than color films.
Oddly, my recollection of the film was that it had a black and white feel to it. Most everything in the film was colorless. As I recall, anyway.
Now that I think of it, the film, ‘Children of Men’ was a bit colorless, too.
I wonder about that.
So many of the old Twilight Zone episodes were great. If they had been in color, they wouldn’t have been as good. After the Twilight Zone, Serling made Night Gallery- it was in color….it sucked.
All they have to do is nothing. But noooooo! Busybodies will be the death of us. Literally. Again. Still.
For better and worse there’s no going back to the world of 2/20. That being said, in my experience, most people aren’t up for physical confrontations over this. Maybe the gov’t is and I’ve seen some of the vids, especially in Canada, but I’ve also personally heard some reluctance from AGWs about physically enforcing any of the kabuki and haven’t interacted with a single one this whole time. I see separation, bifurcation in society both in the present and future. Trendies worried about their station and status will continue to slavishly conform to every edict that comes out until the next one that replaces it. Which they did before for other reasons. Now it’s obedience, diapers and vaxxes to be part of that crowd. I didn’t run with that crowd before and I don’t now. I don’t do anything voluntarily that involves diaper heads, which keeps such interactions to a bare minimum. The folks who come into and remain in my circles share this principle. It doesn’t even bother me because the dead wood that fell out were known commies anyway. It used to be possible to be polite or do business without it being an issue. Now it isn’t and won’t be. Like Nunzio said a while back something to the effect of “now we know for sure about these people and it’s a good thing.”
Once you shake off the state indoctrination, you can see how that piece of paper never stood a chance, made about as much sense back then as the “pandemic!!” rules we’re subjected to today..
Spooner said it best:
https://praxeology.net/LS-NT-6.htm
‘From the Clover who believes he has a “right” to health care – and “free” education – and thus, a right to force you to provide it …’ — EP
Reportedly tonight’s address to Congress by the ‘president’ will propose $1.8 trillion of exactly such ‘rights’ to health care and education, with others forced to provide it.
‘All of the above affronts are premised on the Yankee mentality, which now mottles the entire country.’ — EP
In fact, the megalomaniacal Yankee mentality now infects the entire globe, as the US empire clashes with China, assaults rebels in Africa, and presumes to dictate to former Soviet republics Russia and Ukraine where their common border should be drawn.
The unspoken understanding after the Late Unpleasantness was that both sides could keep their culture; their monuments; their heroes. Now, 155 years on, that bargain has been decisively broken.
Southern leaders of the period are retroactively labeled as traitors. Their statues are torn down. Their names are to be stripped from military bases, roads and schools. Even ‘Dixie Highway’ is intolerable to the sensibilities of carpetbaggers, mortally offended by a culture different than their own (and exposing the utter hollowness of their concept of ‘diversity’).
Lawyers and historians say that Lincoln’s War on Southern Independence forever established that secession is not allowed, despite all the pre-1861 evidence to the contrary. It’s time to challenge that complacent consensus. Nothing is forever, particular when it’s repugnant to liberty.
Today the US fedgov is in the process of fomenting chaos with digital dollar printing. Unbridled inflationism will create civil unrest and destroy faith in government. We can prepare to erect a new nation from the ruins left by Insane Yankee Uncle.
Just as the 1861 Confederate constitution contained stricter restraints on spending than the Yankee constitution, 21st century confederates must stipulate a gold-backed currency and prohibit the establishment of a central bank.
By the time John Law Powell’s reign of error has destroyed US prosperity and left cities in ruins, these views will no longer be considered fringe.
Eric Peters has penned our Declaration of Independence. Thank you, sir.
Lawyers and historians say that Lincoln’s War on Southern Independence forever established that secession is not allowed
———————–
The idea that secession is “not allowed”, to my mind at least, has always been one of the most ludicrous assertions in modern political science.
“We don’t agree with your laws or the way you are treating us, but there’s nothing we can do about it because that would be illegal so we have no choice but to endure your mistreatment in perpetuity!” can only be asserted by a legalistic bootlicker ignorant of history and of human nature.
Whoever thinks that does not understand the meaning of the word, “inalienable”.
Which, you get down to it, is the problem at hand.
Went to the grocery store for the first time in many moons. I was the only person in the store without a mask. Every customer, every employee, all were masked up. Not a single one said or did anything to indicate I was committing a sin, a faux pas, or a dastardly deed.
I have no idea what this means, just that possibly the Yankee mentality is pushed by a tiny minority of reprobates, and the majority just go with the flow but do not really give a damn one way or the other.
It is amazing how much easier it is to communicate with your face fully exposed.
The Soviet Union once seemed like an eternal, impregnable monolith. Nothings lasts forever; even tyranny has an expiration date.
Tyranny will end, by the cumulative efforts of determined individuals.
What bothers me are the television commercials with the masks.
Our big grocery store down here in Texas – HEB – has a new campaign on right now where everyone is happily shopping in a mask and then at the end you are greeted by a Brady Bunch grid type shot of dozens of supposed employees who are presumably smiling under identical black masks. I guess some people think that shows the quality of their employees but to me it looks like a lineup of bank robbers with just their eyes showing. It’s creepy.
I get it if someone is paranoid and feels wearing a mask makes a difference. For them. Knock yourself out. Just don’t tell me what to do.
I even get it that business owners feel like a bigger portion of their customers want masks on front-facing employees than don’t, although that is changing quickly. Do whatever you think is best for business. I understand.
But what I don’t get is the way that these television advertisements attempt to normalize this despicable masking nonsense. There is no need for it. Show things normally and don’t give in to the panic. This is all temporary – at least it should be – and pretending that it’s now normal is just pure virtue signaling.
It’s an uphill battle for the forces of good, I am afraid.
The media promote the agenda laid out by the PTBs, so if they’re normalizing masks in advertising, it’s because it has been decided that everyone will be permanently masked. And it’s not because of Covid, either. Masks are apparently the backdoor for reducing human CO2 emissions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM6K7JHrVJ4
Not surprised that TPTB are trying to get a twofer out of it – submission and reduce the “dreaded” CO2. However, plants need our “exhaust” and we need theirs. If they were really interested in reducing CO2, just plant a few more trees.
Better yet, why can’t TPTB just leave things alone???
The ones pushing this shit do NOT want it to be temporary. I’m not talking about the dickless freaks, I’m talking about the ones who CONSCIOUSLY WILLED AND MANIFESTED this shitscape.
It began with the telegraph. Sending words over great distances was expensive, but at least it could be done. As demonstrated during the Civil War, it proved to be a tactical advantage and, along with the high speed printer, a way to communicate a message across a wide area. Soon after came the wire services, literally a sharing of news stories across newspapers to fill up content. Then came wireless, at first too precious and expensive to use for anything but distress and a plaything for rich travelers, but with the innovation of amplitude modulation and transmitting audio, a real-time mass medium. David Sarnoff figured out that broadcasting, with an expensive central transmitters and inexpensive receivers, was key to success. Not only that, but the long distance telephone network led to wire services able to send pictures, and radio networks to share programming. TV of course changed everything, but followed the same model, expensive production and distribution, cheap tools for consumption.
This had the effect of unification of thought. What once was a union of individual entities with their own cultures and ways became a single entity. Culminating in the great wars, new deals and great societies. The penultimate moment was when Armstrong walked on the Moon. Or when Teller’s hydrogen bomb destroyed Eniwetok atoll, if that’s more your thing.
But then production costs dropped precipitously. Soon anyone with an idea and a typewriter could print up a magazine and ship it out using the postal service’s media rate. A few “independent” movie houses opened, along with record stores in bad neighborhoods. In the 1980s video tape and cheap audio production equipment made it even easier to reach an audience, and because it was cheap to do, you could still eke out a living. Radio was able to capitalize on the trend and split out into different genres. Disco sucks? Just twist the knob over to the rock and roll station. Or the country station. Or the news talk station. The kids have their shitty music, the wife has her shitty music, and you have your good stuff. Magazine racks exploded with something for every interest, hobby and point of view. Playboy and Hustler won their first amendment court cases, so High Times was able to exist. It became easier and easier to not pay attention to the unified message that was so prevalent in the 1960s.
Meanwhile the mainstream, worried that they might offend, became irrelevant pablum for the aging and nostalgic. When they did take a chance at “edgy” content there were protest campaigns aimed at their advertisers. No one noticed what was going on at the other end of the dial, or the high channels on the cable TV feed because no one who mattered ever bothered to tune in. Entire products were created, marketed and consumed by segments of the population and at the same time might be unknown to others.
The Internet is basically the sum total of the refinement of the telegraph. Now it is so cheap to produce content that you’re reading my ramblings for free. Think about that: I’m estimating that there are a few thousand people who check in with Eric’s site daily, and a few hundred or so who read all the comments. That’s unbelievable. I would have a hard time filling a 200 seat auditorium, and for sure couldn’t get 200 people to open up a letter I send them (and it would still be a few hundred bucks to do), but here I’m boring you with my bullshit for free.
Democracy? No way we can have a democracy in this environment. There’s no way to unify the message anymore. Until the government takes over the Internet (through municipal broadband and funding for rural Internet), it can’t happen.
There is a “civil war” from the last century that might presage what we would endure if the Yankee Karens have their way. The Spanish endured such a brother-on-brother conflict in the 1930’s. It caused untold suffering and horrors. It did end up with Franco and the Falange in control rather than the Communists, though.
You’re not wrong.
Yankees, descended from Puritans, who proclaimed their theocracy as the ONLY moral and valid form of government. They can’t leave us alone because they claim it their moral duty to force us to “agree”, at gunpoint if necessary. They have simply changed what religion they now adhere to. That being the replacement of God with the state. If the state fails, its because we failed to properly worship the state. I agree with you Eric, I don’t see a peaceful way out of this, unless those of us who love liberty deny and abandon it.
There is little fundamental difference between the current Yankee, and Sharia Law.
Well put!
The State is the universal religion of the USA.