Well the shit show that is 2021 is proving to be even more entertaining than 2020. Yeah, I didn’t think it could either, but holy crap!
As I sit here allowing my brain to drip onto a keyboard, I’m currently listening to an album by Adam WarRock & Mikal kHill called The Browncoats Mixtape and I think it’s fitting to my thoughts on the State of our Union at the moment. If you don’t know who or what the Browncoats are and what they may have to do with any of the following rant, all I can say is go find a way to watch Firefly, a 2002 TV series from Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon (that only had one season thanks to the f’ers over at Fox, but did have a movie, called Serenity, to try and tie-up the loose ends the cancelation left).
The reason I bring this show up is I think it really shows the way our country (and maybe the globe) could be heading with the current trajectory we are on. But onto what you really came here for…
WTF? So after a year (cough-cough) of “Just 15 days to flatten the curve” we were told that we could stop wearing masks, social distancing, keeping businesses closed and pretty much get back to life, almost like we were living in 2019! But a few “caveats before you go trying to live your life”.
Our current government officials want to recommend a few things…
- You should get vaccinated (a vaccine, they themselves just 8 months ago, said they would not take because it was being done under the previous administration).
- Once vaccinated, you should still wear a mask (those things the CDC said at the beginning of this “pandemic” wasn’t needed to be worn by everyone, just front-line medical workers).
- After vaccination, you can still get and spread the virus, but get vaccinated anyway (because no matter what you hear, it’s safe and works, but may need a booster down the road [they don’t know yet] and if it doesn’t work or causes any medical issues later, you can’t sue or blame the government or the makers of the vaccine, because it was made during [and remains under] an emergency order).
- You can’t question anything about the “governments official” stance or interpretation of the “science” on any social media (no matter how many times they contradict themselves, whether you are a lay person or a medical professional that see something wrong with their “science” or just dare to ask questions before blindly trusting people who have other agendas’, like staying in/or keeping political power).
- Whatever you do, do not use our own actions against us, just do as you’re told (like attending large gatherings/parties, holding protest or traveling in groups without wearing a mask).
All this to get a virus under control, that by their own admission, is going to keep mutating with more “variants” to come, seemingly forever!
My problem is are they trying to get a virus under control or us (the US population) under control?
Let’s look at this from a common sense view (well at least my common sense anyway) shall we?
Masks:
Do they work or not? If they did work, why do we need them again? If they didn’t work, why are we doing it again?
I’m sick of hearing the arguments of…
Q: “Why wont you wear a mask, it’s not that difficult to put one on and just wear it!”
A: Because I’m not scared of living my life without one, plain and simple. I don’t care if you want to wear one, enjoy it. Why do you feel the need to control me? If your mask is working as “personal protective equipment” (the pivotal word being “personal” meaning YOU) how is me not wearing one effecting you personally? Maybe you fear my germs may come flying out of my mouth or nose via a cough or sneeze, but that’s what your mask is there to protect you from, isn’t it? I am an adult and can think and make decisions all by myself (my mommy told me I could).
Q: “Why don’t you care about everyone else? Why are you so selfish?”
A: Because, unlike you, I am perfectly aware that the only person I can truly control is me. It’s a nifty concept you should try it. Does it mean I don’t care about other people? No, it means no matter what I do, I can’t control other adults, no matter how loud I yell or what memes I post.
And one of my personal favorites recently..
Q: “If you’re sober, why would you care if I’m drunk driving? Your seat belt and airbags work right?” in regards to the statement “Why does me not wearing a mask bother you, your mask works doesn’t it?”
A: My response is, one is illegal the other is not.
Q: “But they both affect others, not just you. That’s the point, choices that affect others isn’t something you can choose to do”.
A: We all take risks, it is the undeniable consequence of that thing we call life. As adults, we all have the power to choose which risks we take. Drunk driving is illegal, but what causes it isn’t, that drinking alcohol is legal, driving is legal and so is making stupid decisions, putting them together is when it becomes illegal (for the exception of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Marshall Islands, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Somalia, Grenada, Guatemala, The Congo, Vanuatu, Bhutan, Togo, Kenya, Gambia, and Niger who don’t have DUI laws, but I wouldn’t choose to take the risk of going to, nor driving in any of these countries either, so take that as a sign of using MY choice to/not risk it). Getting in a car is a risk you take the second you sit down in one. Because you have the choice to take that risk, you can even take the risk of illegally driving without a seatbelt and driving a car without airbags if your car is old enough of a model not to have/or require them, and you still can’t control the other (non-impaired let alone impaired) drivers. But if you are afraid of those risks you: a) don’t buy any older car without airbags b) choose to always wear your seatbelt or c) just don’t drive or get into a car. But what you don’t do is go and check every other car on the road and make sure they are wearing their seatbelt, have airbags or aren’t impaired (by drugs, alcohol or have been emotionally triggered by having someone walking in the same store with you without a mask) do you? Stop trying to find something to control that isn’t yours to control, okay? Okay.
The Vaccine:
It’s now recommended to get the vaccine. Once again, this is a recommendation (defined by the Oxford Dictionary noun : a suggestion or proposal as to the best course of action, especially one put forward by an authoritative body.), something I can take as advice and choose to use with my own opinion. People (our government, medical personnel and and media self-described experts) want to keep getting upset because some people don’t do what’s “recommended” by them. A yellow road sign with a speed on it is a “Speed Advisory” sign, meaning it is a recommended speed for a stretch of road, but only the white with black letters are the actual speed limit. So if you believe you can navigate the area at the actual speed limit you are not breaking any laws and not putting yourself or anyone in danger by choosing to continue driving at the posted safe speed limit. Wow, a choice our government has felt the need to leave up to us, because the choice to take the risk is up to the individual and not the public sitting on their porch screaming you need to slow down. See how this works yet?
I don’t trust the pharmaceutical community with a lot of the things they recommend we put in our bodies, hell we as a collective society even laugh and make fun of the fact that the commercials for drugs make it sound like the side effects are worse than the symptoms they are made to treat, even if we can figure out what the hell the guy running in a park, the mother and daughter sitting on a log are suffering from. Pharmaceutical companies are in the business to sell you something, not cure anything. Do I believe there are people in the industry that do want to help cure issues? Yes, but the people paying those people, do not. They just want to (much like the 24/7 media in this country) get it out first and deal with the after effects later. This is not the end all be all of cures for this virus. Cures and vaccines take time to test and perfect. Because everyone has a different body and can react differently that’s why they should take time.
I wasn’t going to take the vaccine no matter whether the orange man pushed it or the snowflakes did. I don’t take medicine I feel I don’t need, period! When I was little I had 2 severe cases of Chicken Pox’s and at 35 I had Shingles, still wont get the Shingles vaccine. My body, my choice, something a lot of these people have conveniently chosen to forget they’ve been yelling for the past 3 decades. “But abortion doesn’t effect other people”, Kind of affects one other life physically and can affect others emotionally, but that’s not my call, I have always been and will always be Pro-Choice, how about you grant me the same courtesy?
Another thing that aggravates me with this whole “pandemic” issue is are we trying to bring the future of Wall-E to fruition? Why are we trying to sterilize the world? It has been medically proven that our immune systems need to fight germs and bacteria to stay healthy and to keep them trained to fight off infections. Why are we trying to kill everything before it reaches us? Do we want a future of human beings that can’t fight a common cold with out hospitalization? I know we have tried our best to stop natural selection from taking everyone that wouldn’t have made it another day, because of our self righteous beliefs, that we know better than nature (which again a lot of these same people have been screaming that we are killing off the planet (nature) because of the same reason, once again, for decades).
I don’t tell you how to live your life and expect the same respect for my life. If you get the vaccine and choose to wear a mask because they work, you do that and since I’m not actively trying to kill you, back the fuck off me and my choices. Not wearing a mask or getting a shot isn’t going to kill you if you believe in what you’ve done to protect yourself. Let’s not act like you care if I live or die, cause the way you talk to me (or about me) when you ask why I’m not doing what you’re doing sure as hell proves that isn’t it. This is a control issue, you can’t control something within your purview and it bothers you. Well guess what, it doesn’t bother me. Call me what you want, but understand, your opinion doesn’t matter to me anymore than mine does to you.
As a wise man once said…
“Listen, you don’t know me, son, so I’m gonna say this once: if I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.” – Malcolm Reynolds