If you can’t identify your boundaries, communicate your boundaries, and defend your boundaries without the need to justify it by saying “It’s the law,” you miss a far more important law: you are created in the likeness of God and have certain qualities that merit honoring.
You are a human. You don’t need a law in order to exist. You don’t need a law in order for you to want to have preferences and for you to want to be treated according to those preferences in line with a common standard of decency. You don’t need a law in order to have boundaries that you will not cross.
To invoke such laws is akin to paying honor to those laws and recognizing them as legitimate. They have so many illegitimate applications. Be very careful with decrying them legitimate. It just takes a vote from a crooked legislature to do away with them. Moral codes of decency on the other hand are not up for determination by legislature, executive, or judiciary.
Have A Human To Human Conversation
So many are so used to resorting to force and escalation with people, saying things like “Let me speak to your manager!” Or “I’m going to sue you if you don’t _______!” Speaking to managers can be good and suing people can be good too, but to prematurely resort to threats to get your way is not good.
The prevalence of this behavior across the political spectrum is merely a symptom of the moral decay that socialism has wrought, particularly among conservatives and libertarians.
You’d think they were Communist Party supporters, the way they threaten bringing matters to the state for resolution literally within 45 seconds of an uncomfortable problem arising.
Don’t escalate prematurely. Handle things calmly and with the lowest level person who is able to address the concern. If you need to escalate, escalate. When the state gets involved, there will almost always be two losers in the process. Almost no one walks away from an interaction with the judicial system 100% whole.
Invoking Laws Prematurely Is The Same Bad, Socialist Route
And I also mean that about invoking laws such as HIPPA or the ADA around medical privacy. These are great laws to have in your back pocket, but really, they virtually never need to be mentioned. What should instead be mentioned and is far more helpful is the moral foundation that is used to empower those laws: common decency.
If someone asks something Private don’t say HIPPA, say “That’s private.”
If someone says “I can’t do that for you,” don’t say “ADA accommodation,” say “That doesn’t work for me. What else can we do?”
If someone “doctor’s note,” to you, don’t just go fetch your doctor’s note for them, be just as comfortable saying “That doesn’t work for me. What else can we do?”
I Am Unable To Wear A Face Mask Safely
There are so many things that can be said that simply indicate what you need from the person and do so with little need for conflict. The sentence “I am unable to wear a face mask safely,” appears to be among the most effective of them. This is not a lie. Very few people are truly able to wear a face mask safely. They cause psychological, sociological, and biological harm.
This Issue Speaks To A Deeper Uneasiness In Many People
This is really an issue of being comfortable in yourself and being able to say “I am a fully functioning human and I am fully capable of telling others what I want.” You don’t need a law to do that. If you really feel the need for a law, sure use that crutch, but you are kicking a can down the road.
I am a 71-year-old Michigan pastor. I read all your articles on lewrockwell.com and am in full agreement. My wife and I have been married over 50 years; we trust in God and are not afraid of the coronavirus. I haven’t believed any of the government/media propaganda from day one. The best way to fight off a virus is to stay healthy. Governments love crises and want to take away our natural God-given liberties.
Our church has continued to worship in person every Lord’s day as we have for the last 31 years. Almost no one wears a face mask, and nobody in our congregation has gotten Covid. We give the glory to God, not to our cleverness.
I do not wear a mask outdoors or at the grocery store. I do not go to stores that have a no-exceptions mask policy.
My wife had knee replacement surgery recently. I was not allowed to go with her to her doctor appointments because of Covid restrictions. We were forced to wear masks at the hospital and at her physical therapy.
Tomorrow we will visit my mother-in-law at her nursing home. We haven’t been able to visit her except outdoors 10 feet away or standing outside her window. She hasn’t had a hug from a family member for over a year. But now the governor is relaxing restrictions. We will have to stay in our car and receive a Covid test; if we test negative we will be allowed to visit but must wear both a mask AND a face shield. I will submit to this indignity only for my mother-in-law.
Any ideas for how to get into doctors’ offices, hospitals, clinics and nursing homes without a face mask?
Blessings,
ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη
—
Dear Pastor Peace,
Thank you for this wonderful note, and thank you for keeping your church open.
The question you ask is well described in my book Face Masks in One Lesson. It outlines why one should never wear a mask and how to do that easily, safely, ethically, and legally.
Below I’ll offer a few pointers for your specific situation and I will try to make it quick.
1.) Have a look at the policy that applies to you
Read the state policy on face masks (which should be easy to search for “state name” AND “face mask policy”)
Read the county order (which should be easy to search for “county name” AND “face mask policy”). You will want to find the PDF of the actual signed order and not media coverage of the order, nor a press release. Secondary sources, as you know in your line of work, tend to leave out important details from the primary.
Read the local establishment’s policy. This may not be searchable and may not be online. I usually do this by calling the establishment and saying “I’d like to come by this afternoon. I see you have a face mask policy. I’m unable to wear a face mask safely. What can you do for you me?” to begin the discussion. That may be enough to have the discussion that lets you in the door unmasked.
2.) Keep your private matters private
If asked why you can’t wear a face mask safely, I encourage you to say “That’s a private matter, and I would prefer not to speak about that.” If you have still not been accommodated, then you can say “Can you send me a copy of your written face mask exemption policy?”
3.) They may defer to county orders
The larger an institution, the more likely it is to have an official policy. The smaller the institution, the more likely it is to have no written policy and to say “We follow the county orders.”
That means different things to different people. Sometimes they have never read the county orders at all, and the policy they really follow is the headlines in the newspaper or chyrons across the TV screen. Whether they watch Fox or read The New York Times, the chyrons and headlines are equally likely to be salacious and unhelpful to you in communicating what the details of the orders actually say.
If they say that though, you are fortunate, because every local face mask order is supposed to have clear exemptions in them for those who cannot wear a mask safely. You just need to identify and invoke them. “I am unable to wear a face mask safely,” usually takes care of that.
4.) No one can wear a face mask safely
I’m not asking you to lie when you say “I’m unable to wear a face mask safely.”
After the many studies of 2020, I wonder if anyone can wear a face mask safely, whether for 20 minutes or 20 hours. The devices are not safe for use in the general public.
5.) Michigan is a special case
You are doubly fortunate because you are in Michigan. The state face mask policy permits and encourages businesses to adopt an honor code around mask orders. If someone in Michigan says “I am unable to wear a face mask safely,” businesses are encouraged under the state face mask order to honor that claim by the person making the statement, rather than asking for clarification or a doctor’s note.
Michigan has such a pro-freedom contingency that this policy has been included in the official order. This speaks volumes about the state. No matter how tyrannical the governor, these mask mandates at the state level have giant loopholes that have been influenced by that pro-freedom contingency.
6.) Religious exemption
As a pastor you may also be interested in knowing that no one is to be punished in the state of Michigan for not masking up in a house of worship. It’s a shame that such crumbs on the table are even worthy of mention in the land of the free and home of the brave, but Michigan stands out in this way as having a face mask order that is particularly full of exemptions.
I suspect few in the local media have pointed this out and that few local politicians have pointed this out. Full compliance seems to be a more pressing narrative. If you read the Michigan order, or any order for that matter, you tend to find wide exemptions that anyone interested in invoking can easily invoke to go unmasked.
7.) This process works very well
Thousands of readers of LRC have recognized that even outside of Michigan, very few people are denied when they use this process and make that statement.
This should be very helpful in getting in to the nursing home or in to visit your wife at the doctor, but a slightly different approach may be needed with your own doctor, an approach which I will leave for another time for the sake of brevity.
8.) Make the statement away from the compliance checkpoint
It’s very important that the statement not be made at the compliance checkpoint, where tensions may run high, but it should instead be made on the phone beforehand with a supervisor who is more likely to be aware of exemptions and able to honor them.
9.) What is their exemption policy around face shields?
Some people also cannot wear a face shield safely. If a face shield is still required of such people, it is worth noting that the above steps also apply to face shields and to all alternate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
10.) What is their exemption to the Covid test?
As for the notoriously unreliable Covid test, I would not take it. I don’t want to be deemed a false positive. It comes with stigma, social impact, and individual psychological impact.
I have no question that some people I have encountered have convinced themselves they were sick after a false positive Covid test, despite being 100% healthy for months until the Covid results came, and only hours later taking to bed as their thoughts started to spin out of control.
It may be hard for some to react any differently to a false positive, or to an asymptomatic positive. There’s risk to subjecting yourself to this bad use of science and putting yourself under the influence of a trillion dollar media machine that has pumped unprecedented fear into the air for more than a year.
If it must be taken, a less invasive saliva test is preferable. Alternately, one may find success blowing the mucus of your nasal passage onto a Kleenex that you then invite them to swab.
I strongly discourage the introduction of a swab to the back of your nasal passage, as is being done en masse. It’s inappropriately invasive, much as the new suggestion of anal swabs for Covid is inappropriately invasive.
Any sample needed for testing can be collected with your own hands and without being invasive.
11.) Your finesse, compassion, perseverance, and tenacity is the key to making this all work
Covid tests are under an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA. No one is to be forced to take one. Face masks are as well. The mRNA shot is as well. EUAs are not granted without that being clear. You are legally in the right about all of this. Being right is only part of the battle.
Now, it is your job to approach this situation with finesse and compassion to make this all work for you. Be sure to know what you want out of the conversations you are having and bring a lot of compassion for your conversation partner.
Everyone is in a tough situation right now, and you just need to convince them to do the right thing, even if they want to do the easy thing, or even if they think something else is the right thing. Finesse and compassion go a long way.
12.) I wouldn’t be surprised if..
I wouldn’t be surprised if you wrote me tomorrow saying “Your technique worked great. We went for that visit with no mask, no face shield, and no test.”
Thank you for writing. I wish you well with your visit. Please let me know how it goes.
For anyone reading this who isn’t sure how to get through the day 100% unmasked, I’ve written the bestselling “Face Masks in One Lesson,” I have a year’s worth of LewRockwell.com essays on the topic, and I have a newsletter and classes on that topic at RealStevo.com. Ultimately, as with Pastor Peace, it comes down to being able to stand your ground with finesse and compassion.
One person at a time life goes back to normal. That’s how lockdowns end. It doesn’t matter what a 38-member blue ribbon panel says about ending a lockdown. It doesn’t matter what the media says about ending a lockdown. It doesn’t matter what a governor says about ending a lockdown.
In fact, anyone on this planet who says “It’s not safe to end the lockdown,” should be treated as a con artist for the entirety of your life, whether that be your favorite journalist or your closest friend. They should be treated as a con artist in perpetuity, until one day they are discovered to have come to their senses, repented, and made amends.
There are many ways we can bring life back to normal in our own lives. The most apparent and pernicious one is the face mask. It must be done away with.
My friend, please acknowledge this and digest this: YOU MUST NEVER WEAR THE MASK.
Not for any reason.
Not because you have a clever mask with pithy words on it.
Not because you “just want to get through the door.”
Not because you “just want to be left alone.”
Not because you are “fine” in a mask.
Doing so is cowardice. Doing so is telling a grand lie to other people. You owe better to yourself and to those around you than to be a liar.
The world looks very different than what the media tells us. Being aware of the ways different states, different regions, different cultures, different families, and different individuals handle common concerns can inform our own behavior, shorten our learning curve, and enrich our lives in unpredictable ways.
If I walk out my door into this most locked down city in the country, I might find half the people in the park unmasked. The media won’t show that. They tend to speak a narrative and show images that demoralize the audience and bring about compliance. They are not our finest institution.
I would like to encourage you to follow people internationally on social media in order to get a feel for what is taking place in other places. The media isn’t doing that and if they were, they would not truthfully report on it. Social media allows us a glimpse into other cultures without having to pass through the approved channels that inject their own narrative.
Two Strikingly Different Scenes
In the past weeks, I saw two adjacent posts on Linked In. One was posted by a California-based reader of Austrian economics. He stood in a spot well known to many legal immigrants in Silicon Valley.
He captioned the photo “Today we are finally able to join our children as fellow Americans, it was a long road but it was certainly worth taking.”
If it were not for the face masks, the social distancing, and the lockdowns that continue over this past year, it would be particularly touching for me to see such a wonderful person legally join the ranks of the land of the free and home of the brave. We need more good men, and we need them encouraged by living in community with other brave and good men. Freedom and bravery is hard to find in America today and the very existence of this version of America does dishonor to a different era that found meaning and inspiration in the flag he was handed as he took an oath.
Our national mythology can mean something special, but moments in our recent history do it such injustice, Covid-19 being but a culminating moment. How dare anyone muzzle a man as he is handed an American flag and takes an oath to the Constitution.
There are bad people who glory in such a moment being as demoralizing as possible. To put razor-wire around Congress — a reminder of who those within consider the real enemy — to muzzle a person taking an oath to the Constitution, to muzzle a preacher speaking the word, to muzzle a child telling his mother “I love you.”
I don’t care what the muzzler claims as his intent. If you force muzzles upon people in moments like this, you are pretty low.
The other photos below, in sharp contrast, were posted by a European Bitcoin options company. For some time there has been worry in the Bitcoin industry that this company might be declared illegal in the Europe Union or in the United States with a harsh crackdown. In the photos they are having a well attended meeting describing their product, in totalitarian Beijing of all places. The narrative in the US is that the US is free, the EU is free, and China is unfree. Not only is this company able to attract a group of people interested in their services in Beijing, but in the room are approximately 100 people, and I see a maximum of ten wearing masks.
The photo above and these, posted two hours apart, are striking in their contrast.
The Contrast Begs Many Questions
The contrast begs many questions.
If masks work why aren’t they wearing them religiously in China?
If China is ground zero for the economy-destroying CCP Virus, why aren’t they living in fear?
If the Covid-19 is so deadly, and decimates populations, how can they be at this event pretending that all is fine?
If China is so oppressive and the US so free, why is it that the Chinese above are unmasked and the Americans masked?
If social distancing works, why aren’t they social distanced?
Maybe they have all received the mRNA shot, although the Chinese shot is both unsafe and ineffective. If they aren’t masked, social distanced, and locked down after their unsafe and ineffective Chinese Covid shot, then why does the unsafe and ineffective American shot still mean Americans need to triple mask, lockdown, and social distance?
Are all 100 people in the room perhaps part of the same household? If they are not, and are safely unmasked, what is the reason Americans are to be masked at all, even at home, alone in cars, and while walking outside?
If the people above are okay to carry on conversations unmasked 24-36 inches from each other, is there a reason Americans cannot do the same?
Why are super-spreader events okay in China while vast portions of American culture from opera to church, from business meetings to family gatherings, from schools to stores shuttered? Are the Chinese even frivolous enough and brainwashed enough to have a term such as “super-spreader event?”
The narrative doesn’t stand up to the slightest introspection. The powers that be are a Potemkin Village of lies, a Hollywood set, ready to be taken down by a firm gust of wind, a gentle tremor, an effortful push against their weak construction.
And it’s not just this wonderful man and his family above who are masked. Everyone knows so many people who are obediently masked, especially inside businesses, but also outside, and also when doing other important activities.
Being Preposterously Hypocritical By Focussing On Oppression Around The World Rather Than The Oppression We Ourselves Aid Daily
We cannot obsess about the Uyghur genocide in China while we wear our face masks, our face masks of submission, and prepare the way for our own obedient entry into a less free world than we now know. Doing so is preposterously hypocritical.
Perhaps in masking, in obediently locking down, obediently complying, we prepare for a genocide on our own shores. We can’t predict the future, but we do know that giving up freedom lightly always leads to the most heavy tyranny. It is a thing regrets are made of.
The Uyghurs are not the problem that needs our attention. Beijing isn’t. The CCP isn’t. Iran isn’t. Klaus Schwab isn’t. Bill Gates isn’t. Even that clown Fauci isn’t. Those who wear masks in our midst are a far more pernicious problem.
If that is you, please never wear a mask again. Please don’t add to our problem.
It’s good to be aware of all the other problems in the world, but we need to focus at home — at the totalitarian uniparty on own our shores — and more importantly in our own homes and our own individual lives. These are the places we can truly impact. The rest is distraction.
It Was Not The Virus That Did So Much Damage To The US In 2020. It Was Our Response To The Virus That Did So Much Damage
It was not the virus that did so much damage to the US in 2020. It was our response to the virus that did so much damage:
the forced and voluntary closing of businesses,
the forced and voluntary closing of schools,
the forced and voluntary closing of churches,
the forced and voluntary masking of children,
the forced and voluntary masking of society,
the forced and voluntary isolation of the handicapped,
the forced and voluntary isolation of the elderly,
the forced and voluntary decision to let the sick die in hospitals alone,
the forced and voluntary decision to let mothers die alone, brothers die alone, children die alone, yes, in 2020, we let scared children die alone so that their parents would be safe from the bogeyman, so that nurses, doctors, and hospital administrators would be safe from the bogeyman, we let children die alone without a loving hand to caress their face as they slipped from this world,
the forced and voluntary decision to let people die alone and to not honor them with a funeral, to not give the living the gift of resolution that this ceremony is so adept at offering,
the forced and voluntary decision to hide at home and to tell ourselves the story that it’s not so bad,
the forced and voluntary decision to declare people’s entire lives non-essential.
The Government Is Not To Blame
Please note. I say both forced and voluntary. It isn’t government that visited this evil upon us, though those in power truly played their role with a moral turpitude that is historical in its magnitude and in need of culling from any position of leadership, but in so many more ways, it was individuals outside of government making voluntary decisions in their own lives that made the past year so awful.
Each Year, 2020 Including, About 1% Of Americans Die
One-third of society did not die, as took place with the bubonic plague. One-tenth of society did not die. One-tenth of a population dying is the source of the verb “to decimate,” a reality of human history that is recorded in the living history book that is language. No, it wasn’t one-third or one-tenth that died.
Each year about one percent of American society dies of something. And in 2020 about one percent of American society died of something. Causes of death for one percent of American society each year can include heart disease, car accidents, respiratory disease, and many other causes. Maybe when more concrete final morbidity and mortality statistics for 2020 become available, which usually happens around mid-summer each year, we’ll see 0.75% of the population died in 2020. Maybe we’ll see 1.25% of the population died in 2020. It won’t be 30%. It won’t be 10%. It probably won’t be 2% and it probably won’t be 0.5%. We will see that about 1% of the population died, as takes place every year.
A List Of Things That Won’t Rescue Us From This Fraud
This wasn’t the danger to humanity we were told it was.
It is not the danger to humanity that we are still being told it is.
And that means we don’t need the lockdowns to protect us.
We don’t need the mask.
We don’t need an experimental Covid therapy to protect us, in which we throw all caution to the wind and conduct a Phase 3 trial on the public — not with medical release forms and waivers and counseling about all the possible risks of experimentation, but instead — with the faulty narrative that the Covid shot is “safe and effective,” a narrative that the FDA won’t even make in its own Emergency Use Authorizations. The airwaves are filled with marketing on this topic, not science.
We don’t need any of this.
The Only “Safe And Effective” Solution To This Nightmare Is Entirely Within Your Control
We can’t move politicians to act on our own, we can’t force another to change on our own, but we can change our own behavior and in every way possible we must live our own lives as normally and as freely as possible.
One person at a time life goes back to normal. That’s how lockdowns end. It doesn’t matter what a 38-member blue ribbon panel says about ending a lockdown. It doesn’t matter what the media says about ending a lockdown. It doesn’t matter what a governor says about ending a lockdown.
In fact, anyone on this planet who says “It’s not safe to end the lockdown,” should be treated as a con artist for the entirety of your life, whether that be your favorite journalist or your closest friend. They should be treated as a con artist in perpetuity, until one day they are discovered to have come to their senses, repented, and made amends.
There are many ways we can bring life back to normal in our own lives. The most apparent and pernicious one is the face mask. It must be done away with.
My friend, please acknowledge this and digest this: YOU MUST NEVER WEAR THE MASK.
Not for any reason.
Not because you have a clever mask with pithy words on it.
Not because you “just want to get through the door.”
Not because you “just want to be left alone.”
Not because you are “fine” in a mask.
Doing so is cowardice. Doing so is telling a grand lie to other people. You owe better to yourself and to those around you than to be a liar.
There are many resources to help you stop wearing the mask easily, legally, safely, and ethically. On top of that, the mask does not work. We knew this unequivocally by May 2020 when three weeks after the mask mandates were put into effect by the political hacks at the CDC, the editors of the CDC’s peer-reviewed journal of epidemiology, Emerging Infectious Disease, shared a very different perspective and published the best face mask study of 2020. It states that masks are not effective against the spread of respiratory viruses and that improper use may, in fact, help to spread disease. These scientists and editors were quickly informed that truth would not be welcome on this topic, and the article was swept under the rug.
Do not do things that are supposed to work, but which you know do not work. It is a lie to go through such motions.
It does not matter who you make comfortable. Don’t do things to make others comfortable if they do not work. It’s not your job to help others feel comfort in a lie. If you are an honest, ethical, and moral person the exact opposite is your job.
If you don’t know that, please read Face Masks in One Lesson, which tells you how and why to never wear a mask again legally, safely, ethically, and with very little conflict. Please read the last year of my Lew Rockwell articles, which say the same. Please sign up at RealStevo.com (https://realstevo.com/) and I’ll send you information and classes on how to never wear a mask again, but really, all you need to do is resolve to never wear a mask again. That’s really all you need to do. The details on how to do that are out there if you need them.
The pictures above speak a thousand words on how we are being conned.
Please stop being conned.
Please stop others you love from being conned.
Please stop, and share this article with everyone you know, the masked and the unmasked alike.
…the so-called experts’ notorious about-face on masks this past March. Having said for weeks that face coverings do not stop transmission of the virus, Anthony Fauci, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Surgeon General, and others, did a 180 virtually overnight.
It’s summer. The heat on the streets of São Paulo is over 90°F. Without a facial mask, it’s hard enough to breathe. Nevertheless, 98 per cent of people are wearing facial masks (I do a mental accounting of this percentage every day). They pass by me and I see the torment they’re going through. Many squealing under the cloth that clog his breath, with sweat dripping down his forehead. In addition, these people don’t even lower their masks to leave their noses or mouths out. They spend the days, the weeks pass, the months… It’s been almost a year, and I can’t settle for the daily repetition of this abnormal scene – with varying climates, of course, sometimes a torrential rain and there’s the unfortunate under the umbrella wearing his facial mask. Sometimes it’s the only human being on a deserted street… and he’s wearing his facial mask.
The scenario is shocking to any thinking being, although the masses do not realize and seem to have assimilated an abnormality as something normal. If many people do something abnormal, the abnormal does not become normal, but only common. What is common may not be normal. And obstructing your breathing and hiding your face for no reason is definitely abnormal.
Not only is there no evidence that mask use by the general population reduces virus infection, but there is also no deadly pandemic virus to avoid. The data is available to everyone. Covid-19 was touted as being highly fatal, an existential threat, but it soon emerged that its mortality rate was very low. As Donald J. Boudreaux reported in this article,
Seasonal Flu Infection Survival Rate (for population as a whole): 99.90%
This single slice of information should be sufficient to put Covid-19 in proper perspective. It makes plain that the risk that this disease poses to humanity as a whole does not differ categorically from the risk of seasonal flu – or, for that matter, from any of the many other perils that we humans routinely encounter. And because these figures show the estimated chances of survival of those who are infected with Covid, even for persons 70 years of age or older Covid obviously is not a categorically unique threat.
And yet, again, humanity has reacted to Covid in a manner categorically unique. It’s as if a hornet rather than a honeybee found its way into our home, and so to protect ourselves from the somewhat-more-threatening invader we commenced to frantically scour every room of our home with a flamethrower.
These data are confirmed by comparing the concrete result of the year of the “deadly pandemic” with other years: there was no increase in deaths outside the normal increase from one year to the next. And the numbers are available for anyone who wants to see. In fact, what happened was an unprecedented and inexplicable dramatic decrease in the number of deaths from other causes – an indication that probably many deaths attributed to such a virus were actually due to these other causes. Obviously, every death is something to regret, but the fact is that the vast majority of deaths of this disease are from people of age within normal life expectancy.
So even if the facial masks really offered protection against a virus, why would anyone under 70 care to wear them? However, they don’t. Before this mass human experiment, scientific studies pointed out that the universal use of masks does not decrease a viral epidemic (see here,here,here,here,here andhere). And after the experiment (which is still in progress) it was found empirically that the studies were right (see here,here and here). That’s something anyone can infer. Here in São Paulo, as I said, the use of masks easily passes through 95% of the population, and the number of “cases” (which does not mean “sick”, only “positive PCR tests”) not only did not decrease but also did not decrease. Another empirical example is the case of Sweden, one of the places where no one wears a mask , not even on public transport, (and which has not imposed quarantines) and the number of deaths per inhabitants in 2020 is the same as in 2015. Despite the evidence, people around here are still wearing masks. And they do it just because they told them to do it. It doesn’t matter that the people who told them to wear a mask are the same ones that days before told them not to wear a mask. Jenin Younes comments on this article on
the so-called experts’ notorious about-face on masks this past March. Having said for weeks that face coverings do not stop transmission of the virus, Anthony Fauci, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Surgeon General, and others, did a 180 virtually overnight.
Here in Brazil we also have our famous youtuber “scientist” prophet of the apocalypse doing the same thing. In this video he laughs at the facial masks saying they don’t work, just to shortly after recommending them. Now these same people change their minds again and say that the masks don’t work anymore, that now we have to wear 2 or 3 masks at the same time!
And none of this is capable of making people question the use of masks; they keep using. In an excellent psychosocial analysis, Julian Rose tries to answer why:
Wearing ‘the mask’ is for those who suffer feelings of fear and/or guilt. Think about it.
One might reject such a notion “No, no, I’m just worried about being fined, that’s why I wear it”. Or “I don’t want to take any risks, the health authorities wouldn’t tell us to wear masks unless there was some protection benefit.”
Are these valid responses? Both are based primarily on fear. Fear of what an authority might do if one was to disobey the rules, and fear of sickness should one not follow the authorities’ instructions.
Indeed, fear. However, these fears are completely unfounded, which means that the basis of this fear is stupidity. As we’ve seen, facial masks don’t protect anyone from viruses, and even if someone gets the coronavirus, the risk of getting sick is small, and of dying, even smaller. Influenza and tuberculosis, to name two airborne diseases, together kill 2,150,000 people worldwide each year (650,000 flu and 1.5 million tuberculosis). That’s pretty much the same death toll that Covid-19 has reportedly hit so far. That is to say, in general, the world is not facing any greater threat than the threats that have always existed.
Regarding the fear of a fine, at least in my region, I’ve never even heard of anyone who was fined for not wearing a facial mask. You see, I wear seat belts for fear of a ticket. What should be a personal choice based on an individual risk assessment has become mandatory in several places. I’ve taken several fines. And a lot of other people I know, too. Thousands of people keep taking this ticket. So, after being one of the great funders of the fine industry, I was domesticated by the whip of the State Master and am today a generally obedient puppy. But I don’t know anyone who got a ticket for being out without a facial mask. In fact, only 327 people were fined for not wearing a facial mask in the State in five months. With a population of 45 million this makes the chance of receiving a fine for lack of facial mask as 0.00000727%, making the fear of the fine even more stupid than the fear of the virus. (With the caveat that the facial mask could actually protect you from a fine, but not from a virus) Of course, this number may vary from place to place, but, thank God, for now, only in some places in China there is monitoring citizens by facial recognition cameras, which can identify people in the same way that license plates are identified, and fine them. Therefore, there’s still a chance to runaway from these very rare tax. However, as the Communists taught the world, an even better way than ordering you to do something is to make you feel bad about not doing something. And making a stupid humanity believe the sham that they’re saving lives against a fatal virus by hanging a piece of cloth on his face wasn’t difficult.
Fernando Chiocca is an anti-intellectual intellectual, abolitionist and praxeologist. He is the editor of the Brazilian Rothbard Institute. (https://rothbardbrasil.com/)
For twenty years, the average and above-average American alike have been laying in bed, ever since those planes hit the World Trade Center and government said “Go to your room. We’re in charge now.” It can be no surprise that some muscles have since atrophied. The emergency they said they were handling never came to an end. The terror alerts never stopped. Some people never stopped talking about them. To this day, I don’t know what those terror alerts mean or why they matter, and not for the life of me do I care.
But I know the tools I need to be a free man in this world.
And do I ever feel lucky to be able to train with them so much this year.
A pope once wrote “Let us thank God that He makes us live among the present problems. It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.”
If I were to lay in bed for the next twenty years, and to then rise, I would not have much strength in my muscles to do the activities I once enjoyed.
I might collapse onto the ground, with my poor quivering atrophied muscles shocked by the sudden immense force that they have been called on to exert in this untrained state.
If I trained every day for a week, I might be able to get out of bed again. If I trained every day for a month, I might be able to go for a walk again.
It’s going to take some doing to work through that kind of rust, and to train yourself out of that kind of neglect — but if you know that going in, maybe that little bit of effort won’t be so bad.
You’ve done harder things. There was a time in your life, early on, when you spent every waking hour for about six months trying to figure out how to just roll your body over. You were also working on learning other tasks at the same time. Imagine how simple that movement probably is for you today and how hard it once was.
For a year, maybe a year-and-a-half, you tried your best to figure out how to balance head atop neck, atop shoulder, atop spine, atop hips, atop femur, atop knees, atop tibia, atop ankles, atop all those little movements in those cute little feet and toes that it took to keep you balanced that first time you let go and stood, and then dared to take a step. Why’d you do it? Because it felt as natural as walking out into the fresh air and feeling the sunshine on your entire face. Just feels right, this thing we call freedom.
To this day, you still probably trip and fall from time to time. Balance and coordination are a lifelong endeavor. Many efforts are a lifelong endeavor that not only stop growing, but atrophy, and even die if neglected.
Would the most innocent, lump of happiness and love that makes up a child ever sabotage her own growth, her own progress, her own advancement toward being a full, free and capable part of this world?
I’ve never heard of that child.
Then what would cause any adult to do that? Somewhere along the way something changes in some people.
It took you about two years to learn how to grasp a thing as simple as a pencil, and another two years of work before you could bring any precision to the process, perhaps even longer. To this day, you probably still have to work pretty hard, if you’re going to operate a pencil with much precision.
I’m not asking you to do anything that hard at all, nothing as hard as the work it took you to learn how to operate a pencil, which when you think about it is a pretty amazing accomplishment. Compared to all the thousands of challenges like these, that you’ve worked so hard at and accomplished, this one is a walk in the proverbial park.
For twenty years, the average and above-average American alike have been laying in bed, ever since those planes hit the World Trade Center and government said “Go to your room. We’re in charge now.” It can be no surprise that some muscles have since atrophied. The emergency they said they were handling never came to an end. The terror alerts never stopped. Some people never stopped talking about them. To this day, I don’t know what those terror alerts mean or why they matter, and not for the life of me do I care.
People have tried to explain it to me, perhaps not realizing that I stopped listening to them about twenty seconds before they started explaining, right around the moment where their tonality shifted away from the “I-am-telling-you-something-sincere-or-original” voice to the “I-am-now-delivering-a-preprogrammed-message” voice.
We still have alerts. We still have security at airports that touch passengers’ private parts “for the safety of all.” We still have a two decade unending war. We still have an even bigger military with all its parasitic appendages that a United States president and general once called the “military industrial complex” in his farewell address on January 17, 1961.
Many write me about this topic. The most common face mask request I receive is how a person can exercise an exemption at their grocery store.
This has worked for me every time.
Step 1.) Look up the store’s phone number online.
Step 2.) Take out a pad of paper, write the date, time, and phone number.
Step 3.) Call and ask for the manager, writing down the name of anyone who says their name. If asked, your reason for calling is that you have a question about the face mask policy. If the person on the phone claims sufficient authority over the topic, just talk to them.
Step 4.) Say to them “I am unable to wear a face mask safely,” may I still shop with you? I was thinking of coming by this afternoon.
Step 5.) Be patient. Don’t say anything. Let them have their turn. Don’t interrupt. Listen. Take notes.
They will A.) Say “yes,” B.) Offer to shop for you, C.) Say “no,” D.) Ask you more about your condition.
Step 6.) If they say “yes” (88% of the time), you are all done. Congratulations. That was easy. After completing the next step, just go shopping. If they offer to shop for you (10% of time), get your shopping list and go to the store. If they ask about your condition, which they almost certainly won’t (1% of time), tell them you aren’t comfortable talking about it. There are lots of good reasons not to go down that road with them. If they say “no” (1% of time), ask to speak to someone else.
If you encounter one of the very few managers who deny you entry, and refuse to let you speak to someone else, please honor their property rights, go shop elsewhere, and try again during a different shift. And by all means, make it a point to call their corporate office about the matter.
Step 7.) This is very important. Ask this: “So should I ask for someone at the door? Or what should I do when I arrive?” This is a question that will get you a higher level of service. The person on the phone will likely suggest you ask for them or another manager. Get the name of anyone you should ask for. Be sure to use that name when you arrive.
This is an important step, because often a manager doesn’t want you standing in line unmasked; a manager doesn’t want you freaking out other customers; a manager doesn’t want you lingering around the store unhelped.
Because of this step, I am often escorted to the front of the line (some cities still have two hour long lines for groceries, and the people living there put up with it). Because of this step, my presence in the store will often be announced across the employee communication channels and employees will be instructed not to harass me, nor to allow anyone else to harass me. Because of this step, I am given white glove service at the grocery store, the same level of service I hope you are granted for your bravery. I’ve never in my life been treated like such a valuable customer at the grocery store.
Please don’t cause a scene. Calling ahead of time is the right way to do this. Tensions run high at the door. Approaching a face mask compliance checkpoint unmasked puts you at a disadvantage and may put the person manning the checkpoint unnecessarily on edge.
Please don’t avoid the trouble of making this phone call. This three-minute phone call is vital to the process. It peacefully, respectfully, and reasonably resists a one-size-fits-all medical order.
Please don’t go into the store with a mask, even if you are just in a hurry. If you have a legitimate reason not to enter a store without a face mask, don’t push yourself to wear it. Instead, push yourself to stand up for yourself and your legitimate and honorable boundaries. There is little that can be more important than spending five of ten extra minutes on this. Please vow today to never again wear a face mask at a store.
Some point out that freedom isn’t free. No one is asking you to spend your Christmas in a fetid French trench. No one is asking you to storm Omaha Beach. No one is trying to get you to travel half a world away in the mind-numbing name of “defense,” and to undergo all manner of horrors.
What I am asking, is that you take this unpopular stand and not wear a face mask if you are one of the many millions of exempt people.
Don’t avoid the grocery store. Don’t avoid the unpleasantness of the phone call to a manager and the tiny risk of uncomfortable, but calm confrontation.
Your liberties are being incrementally denied you and denied many others. You are stopping the picking away at freedom with this seemingly tiny, but incredibly meaningful act.
When 100% of people stop complying with the face mask orders, the face mask orders are null. They’ll be null long before then.
When 100% of people comply with face mask orders, there will be a goggles order, and a face shield order, and a visor order, and a hermetically sealed helmet order, and who knows what else.
You do the world a great favor when you don’t wear a face mask. You do the world a favor when you fit into an exemption and live your life unmasked.
In this specific situation, and in many others, you do so much for the world by identifying your boundaries, communicating your boundaries, and defending your boundaries.
In 1933, when Roosevelt closed the banks, my great-grandfather, Marion Hezekiah (Kye) Holden, old man Hendricks and old man Chitwood (that’s all I ever heard them called) saddled their horses and rode into town … Atoka, Oklahoma. When they arrived at the bank, they pinwheeled the horses up to the front door. Each man had a Winchester laying across the saddle horn.
There was a U.S. Marshal on either side of the door. Old man Hendricks got down and went into the bank and withdrew all his deposits in gold and silver coin. He returned and re-mounted. Then Kye did likewise, followed by Chitwood. They were the only ones that got their gold and silver deposits out of the bank.
The U.S. Marshals never moved.
Be blessed.
-H.S.
For my own well-being, I have not once complied with a face mask order, and I have no intention of ever complying with a face mask order.
I hope you will join me.
Are you with me?
Send me your stories from the checkpoint and help me put an end to this tyranny.
The BBC describes the American death count with this problematic sentence: “At present in the US, any death of a Covid-19 patient, no matter what the physician believes to be the direct cause, is counted for public reporting as a Covid-19 death.”
Probably happening everywhere.
More free government/EU/UN money, more grants, more publicity. The entrepreneurial spirit is strong.
If your church still refuses to open, have your own service.
Neil Ferguson has called for an 18-month rolling quarantine. Many government officials have cited his Imperial College paper as defense of the corona lockdowns. Like every other algorithm, this too has turned out to be based on the mere guess of an academic. Algorithm is another word for “guess.” Model is another word for “guess.”
It turns out that those guesses aren’t actually panning out. We have wagered a lot on those guesses, and taken unprecedented anti-social action. New York, for example, has needed some 18,000 hospital beds, not the 55,000, 73,000, or 136,000 that some predicted.
Data from Oregon shows the lockdown to be unnecessary. A professor there demonstrated more than a week ago that lockdowns are not working.
Though there are severely inflates death counts, only 150 healthy individuals are believed to have died of Covid-19 with no pre-existing conditions. The BBC describes the American death count with this problematic sentence: “At present in the US, any death of a Covid-19 patient, no matter what the physician believes to be the direct cause, is counted for public reporting as a Covid-19 death.”
Wow. Corona wasn’t that big of a deal? That’s great news.
These lockdowns aren’t working? That’s some pretty big news too.
What are officials doing in response? Doubling down on lockdowns.
What are people across the country starting to do in response to that? Saying they’ve had enough. The resistance is here.
The Face Mask Resistance – If You’re Gonna Wear A Mask, Make It A Guy Fawkes Mask
75 people showed up outside the Ohio State House to protest the lockdown. Some came masked, not in the obligatory fear mask mandated by the national top-down fear mask movement, but in Guy Fawkes masks!
Video footage of Ohio state house protests can be found here and here. Photos here.
Early Victory: Philadelphia Fear Mask Resistance Forced The Hands Of Pols
People were being pulled off busses in Philadelphia for not wearing face masks, some of the thugs doing the enforcing weren’t wearing face masks themselves.
Philadelphia‘s SEPTA public transportation system required passengers to wear a face mask as of Thursday, April 9. Passengers refused and stood their ground.
In the exact opposite of social distancing, passengers were violently pulled off buses by gangs of cops in Philadelphia for not wearing masks. After these shameful displays of police violently removing unmasked passengers were captured by bystanders on social media, the face mask requirement was rescinded.
In our heavily charged political climate, somehow the willingness to not wear a face mask has itself become a potent sign of civil disobedience in some corridors of America.
A Gulag California Restaurant Owner Has Quietly Stayed Open
In his essays these past weeks on black markets and corona, Arizona sheriff candidate David Hathaway has predicted that, just as the prohibition on alcohol caused speakeasies to form, speakeasies and other informal arrangements will open around restaurants. Daniel McAdams proves him right.
America Was Founded In Religion
Religious freedom has been an important theme since America’s European settlement began. It can be no surprise that some of the most active resistance to corona communism is taking place among the religious.
Mississippi Preacher Taunting The Police
Temple Baptist Church of Greenville, Mississippi had a drive-in prayer service this past week. Police raided, ticketing the congregants $500 each, saying the mayor wanted to make an example of the congregation.
How did the pastor respond? Did he cower? Did he apologize? Did he admit he was wrong to worship against the will of the local officials? In his words “I told them to get some more tickets ready because we will be preaching Sunday morning and Sunday night.”
The media in the weeks preceding Easter was vocal about the need to shut down the church, but was afterward surprisingly silent about whether the Easter service took place.
When I called the church to verify that they held an Easter service, the most distinguished sounding Southern gentleman picked up the phone and said to me matter-of-factly, “We’re Christians, we hold church every Sunday.”
It’s “Legal” To Go To Church Again (Sort Of)
Laws are made by legislatures. Laws are not made by governors. Rights are granted by God, or some would say by nature of being a human, but not by constitutions. Any governor who thinks he makes the law is a fool. A few governors have gotten the message.
Church was made legal again in Texas too, before Holy Week got under way, with the Governor being reminded that he’s only a visitor in the governor’s mansion. A handful of other governors have gotten the same message.
In Colorado churches are now “exempt” from the lockdown after a Baptist group threatened a First Amendment lawsuit.
When encountered with intimidation, Thomas DiLorenzo points to the “Sonny method” for dealing with cops and media hacks attempting to interfere in a religious ceremony.
This Serbian Bishop refused to comply with the orders to shutter the churches and boldly said mass.
More Courageous Californians
Parishioners of Bethany Slavic Missionary Church are said to be meeting in small groups in private homes for worship. Some would consider this admirable. The church, perhaps tiring of the legal attention, tiring of the media publicity, and wanting to be left alone, denies this.
From the back of a U-Haul in a parking lot, this priest refused to abandon his flock. In contrast to some of the many cowardly clergy out there, the image of the U-Haul and the sea of cars is something to behold.
In a hilarious video, a police officer came after a man running down what was ostensibly a closed beach. The guy’s response: he just kept on running.
Power To The People
Pulling out a camera is a potent statement to someone in power that they are being put on the record. This gentleman called out an officer’s arbitrary rules and filmed the officer.
San Francisco Style Corona Response
A freedom cell in San Francisco responded to lockdown orders with some disruptive entrepreneurship. They opened an underground night club. Police responded by confiscating the booze and arresting no one.
There Are Even Examples Of Government Coming To Its Senses (Very Slowly)
Thomas Massie, will go down as a hero during this chapter in American history, for his bold stand against corona communism.
Courage Is Contagious
If this collection of notes from the resistance inspired you, please pass it along to others. Courage, after all, is contagious. Resistance thrives on courage.
If you have inspiring tales from the resistance to share, shoot me an email.
MCViewPoint 