Mask Mandate: Year One

Editor's Note: I wrote this wearing a mask.

In rushing somewhere I felt the icy cold on my face and with shock exclaimed out loud 'my mask!'

Then with a mental dexterity for which I am not accustomed, I thought 'No, not 'mine' as I climbed the stairs to my apartment to retrieve it with bitter resignation, grumbling "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's..."

There has not been a new opinion on the mask mandate since The Great Quarantine of 2020 began, and I am not going to reiterate my obvious dislike/disproval of it. 

Instead, I am going to make an observation (those are fun!): 

In March 2020, it was 'Don't go outside without a mask.' In March 2021 it is 'Don't go outside without your mask.'

The mask is no longer the 'new' normal. On the first anniversary, it is now simply normal; it has become 'yours' and 'mine.' (They even got me to say it!) For some, the mask has become so personal that it is like a Guardian Angel needed at all times to protect our precious lives. For others, it is a shirt that we must wear over our face, so why not customize it? The 'classic' blue mask is just a liner; wear something that more fits your personality! Make it your own! 

Now I need to stay vigilant in the oppositional language (while still using 'cancelled' insults). In the very least my language--and eventual sentiment--is not changing without me noticing first. (Though still begrudgingly changing.)

So long as it is forced on me it is an impersonal alien, a tumor, a parasite. It is a facehugger. I'd rather have the Coronavirus than wear it. (I couldn't help but give my opinion anyway! Sorry!)

Unpopular Opinion Within

I'll say it because no one else will: Fuck "Essential Workers"

Now that I have your attention, I'm not saying it to be a contrarian, or an anti-natalist, a misanthrope, or a goth. Worse. I am saying it as an (armchair) activist with an agenda, a conspiracy theorist that doesn't read MSM and on every level, a free thinker using the internet for its intended purpose.

So grab your popcorn because someone on the internet is about to explain his big idea...

First of all, I am proud to have medical doctors in my family. By sharing a last name, their achievement is my achievement. They send weekly emails about their work during the historic P A N D E M I C, and explain their day-to-day experience.

I abhor this analogy, but my doctor relatives are like medics. Or grunts. They show up, heal the sick, write down objective facts, go home, repeat. Their superiors take their reported data and give it to The State, and The State crunches the numbers and makes a daily report that the media publicizes. The media then ask them questions at a press conference and all us 'Non-Essential Workers' quake in fear about getting sick and *gulp* dying so we sit around eating snacks all day.

My problem with the title "Essential Workers" is the same problem I have with titles like "White Privilege" and "Social Distancing." It is a catchy label of perfect hashtag length that describes a thing of questionable veracity not previously labelled, and yet somehow completely sums it up with a very digestible and understandable soundbite. It is of such marketable length that it is easily shared across the internet without hesitation or critique. Overnight it is everywhere. Not being on Twitter is no longer acceptable for ignorance of these things; they have been entered into the lexicon and therefore, you should know what we mean when we say these phrases

Except there is plenty of room for questions and disagreement. Are Persians white? Are Greeks? Italians? How far is distant? What is social? Why can liquor stores and golf courses be open but not churches? People can spread out in pews, no? How can the economy be crashing if only 'Essential Workers' are employed? How many people are actually still sick? How essential are these workers if the vast majority of people are healthy, immune, compliant, quarantined?

Wandering around my (now) ghost of a town, I see signs plastered on closed businesses saying "We Thank Our Essential Workers!"

Why? Doctors and nurses don't own mom and pop stores on Main Street. They do not make up the majority of customers. They alone are not essential to the life of the town. (Even if 250 people are sick.) They are essential in the teeny, tiny context of sick, hospital bound people, of which my doctor relatives admit there is a dwindling number.

The term "Essential Worker" is a useful shield for dissent. Question them and your opinion is null. 'What, you hate doctors? We can't trust your opinion, heretic!' As stated, I don't "hate doctors." They have their place, as do we all. 

We can absolutely thank doctors for doing their difficult job, but that is like thanking firemen for making guacamole--they are just doing their job. They didn't 'sign up for danger' like a soldier who willingly chooses to be put on the front line, in harm's way. Essential Workers did not expect a P A N D E M I C when they signed up. Essential Workers are not typically in harm's way. They work in a safe, controlled environment. Is that why we thank them? Because they are working in a dangerous zone? It is still a much safer environment than construction workers, who risk their lives to build extremely necessary shelter. As someone thanked unnecessarily for doing his mere job, I find these signs condescending in the very least. A doctor doesn't need thanks, they are not an intern, a volunteer, or a child. They receive compensation.

If Essential Workers left their job because of the P A N D E M I C, then they would be cowards. So, Essential Workers are heroes by default. Because they are not cowards. Seems stupid.

(For the record, I was never essential and never fooled myself into thinking I was. But I also wasn't a coward--they fired me for my own good! Would I be a hero if I chose to work instead of hang around all day, eating snacks? Nope. Society would deem me an asshole and send me to jail as warning to other dissidents: behave.)

"Essential Workers" is too vague to be taken as anything more than suspicious. There are too many kinds of essential workers. Does our economy grow and prosper because it is inessential? Is that why there are so many Instagram Tastemakers, Yoga Teachers, and obese streamers? Seems like this is an existential problem bigger than Covid-19...

As an activist I want to open the state. As an conspiracy theorist I think this was not as bad as "they" claim, and as a conspiracy I think that there is no single scapegoat. There are many pieces to the puzzle. As an opinionated person on the internet, thanks for reading!

Please: Stop calling them "Essential Workers!" Be specific! Moreover, they are only essential because people are essential! If people were not essential then "Essential Workers" wouldn't be essential....Context is everything!

But let's set hypocrisy aside for good old fashioned appeals to emotion by some objectively unessential celebrities ensuring us--with faux wisdom--something that we can discern from observing reality: 'we are all in this together.'

We have no choice.

Understanding the Faithless

...so I am beginning to understand the point of view of the faithless again, the "nones" precisely, through the permissive perspective of the P A N D E M I C

(All analogies have limits, so bear with me.)

Here is the narrative: A contagious disease found its way to New York City (and everywhere in between) from China. Most people don't have it. Some people have it and recover, some people don't know they have it, and some people that get it die. (But they were elderly/had preexisting conditions like obesity, lung issues, diabetes.) The government says stop the spread, stay indoors: people in old homes are dying! Essential workers are heroes! We must wear masks in public places #socialdistancing, etc, etc

Ok, I can begin believing that Covid-19 is a health threat because I was furloughed by my employer in March, which would not have happened unless it was highly recommended by a higher authority, in this case the city and state. Money is the lifeblood of our standard of living, and nobody would willingly decrease their standard of living if they weren't at risk of losing their life. (This is why people robbed at gunpoint willingly give up their phones and wallets; these materials are replaceable, whereas one's life is not.)

If I wasn't taking the pandemic seriously, rich people making very good money from the fruits of my labor were. These rich investors had more to lose financially, and were only willing to lose it (temporarily) if it meant that lives would be saved in the process (and they were compelled by the government to do so).

But that was only proof of hysteria, not of Covid-19's dangerous and contagious existence, and was my reason for ignoring the story for as long as I did: not enough people were sick or dying. The government *might* be hysterical too, issuing a quarantine-lockdown to cover their own ass with all of our well beings in mind. Even as Americans we trust the government for our protection. And when they tell us to stay home and #flattenthecurve, we oblige.

So: does the slowing of national economies prove the outbreak? China wouldn't shut down their economy as a mere bluff in the hopes that the US would follow suit and cripple their own economy. The US is smarter than that. China is smarter than that. There has to be some underlying evidence of a P A N D E M I C, ie hard data of rising cases, for nations to save their people in the long run by hurting their economies in the short run. This must make Covid-19 true.

Would the news media lie about the cases to increase their own usefulness (power) during these trying times when people need "real news they can trust?" Absolutely. The mainstream news media (with exception of Tucker Carlson) is never completely trustworthy.

Can I have faith that news hungry plebs, the people willingly socially distancing and spreading fear by mass buying water and toilet paper are not just brainwashed tools? They were brainwashed tools before, so it reasons that they are brainwashed hypochondriacs now. That is a less good reason to believe than the news media.

Therefore, I can only trust that the facts I am reading about the outbreak are true, and that leaders are leading not to enrich themselves but to protect the country's economy and people by making tough decisions given the facts from equally trustworthy doctors.

I have faith because I cannot have immediate and personal physical proof. In this case, I do not want physical proof as it could mean becoming sick myself, or having a sick loved one. Therefore, I am forced to take these authoritative superstitious precautions, albeit halfheartedly. By this I mean "washing my hands," "covering my face when I cough" and "wearing a mask in public."

Before the outbreak I was somewhat hygienic; sometimes washing my hands and always covering my mouth when I sneezed. Like most, I never wore a mask. Since the outbreak the government has forced people to wear masks in public places indoors, and some people have extended that to outdoors as well. The line between superstition and science is a fine one when filtered through government regulation/propaganda. I had faith in germs because I have been ill in the past, but taking unnecessary precautions was unnecessary, even for my faith.

Now, unnecessary is necessary, and I follow the law because I am compelled--not because I believe that this is anything more than a superstitious precaution. (People don't tend to casually spray blood and spit from their facial orifices strolling around.) The government doctor on TV says that wearing a mask gives one a sense of ease more than it actually prevents spread of the virus. Therefore most paranoid people do it for both peace of mind and to shame and condemn others that do not abide by the New World Order, while most sane people do it to be polite--and out of a little bit of fear. Propagandists keep telling us that "we are all in this together," like misanthropic loners are suddenly going to want to like people because wearing a mask is currently culturally acceptable.

(Quick anecdotal aside: My local grocery store has taped directional arrows on the floor for a recommended traveling route. For my own selfish reasons I do not abide. A fellow shopper with their face and eyes covered up to their ears gave me an attitude about not reading the arrows. I ignored him because I don't think that one way shopping aisles does anything to prevent the spread, but instead gives paranoid people the unearned authority to enforce the unAmerican New World Order.)

Does one only believe in Covid-19 out of fear? Do I need to get sick to believe? And even then, will I willfully comply with wearing a face mask in public?

Yes, no, never.

Disbelief in God is *similar* because God is immaterial, like Covid. Also like Covid, God's existence can be deduced by the material evidence for God's existence: the Church, the clergy, the sacraments. Where did all of these material things come from, if not faith in God through evidence of His existence?

So 'nones' might not have faith in the Christian God for personal reasons similar to my personal reasons for not caring about Covid: youth and health.

The Nones that see the material evidence for God in the Church etc is "proof" that God exists, though they may disagree in the way that He is worshiped for personal reasons. Just like when I see people wearing masks outside...because we don't spray blood and mucus from our faces at all times, it is unnecessary to wear a mask if we cover our mouths when we sneeze and wash out hands frequently.

Therefore:

Personal reason:

I am healthy, and Covid only truly affects people that have underlying diseases.

(I am a good person. I get along with everyone and treat them with respect. God shouldn't have a problem with me not worshiping him if I treat others with respect.)

Global reason:

The government shut the economy down, which they wouldn't do if everything were fine.

(The Church exists, which wouldn't be the case if God didn't also exist and they had proof that they wanted to share.)

Faith:

Until I get Covid-19, I don't think its as easily transmissible as they are saying.

(Unless I see God and experience God materially, I don't believe that the way the Church worships God applies to me.)

The difference between God and government is that, contrary to popular belief, God doesn't compel us to belief the same way the government compels us to obey the law. The media makes some facts known to us, but also doesn't force us to believe them. (They compel by persuasion.) Humans can never be truly forced, only persuaded, sometimes successfully, and usually with fear of pain.

Therefore: humans without faith rely on material experience to have faith. But Faith is more nuanced. God doesn't provide outright material proof to non-prophets, and gifted us an intellect to reason his existence. Faith in Covid is less nuanced: Believe! Everyone else is doing it!

Being compelled by the government into cooperating has made me more resistant. That is my natture. The same is probably true for many stubborn "nones," who think the Church is compelling them to live a certain way. There is a very good reason why the Church strongly suggests people obey natural law, but I digress...

What reason do I have to believe in God/Covid if I am healthy/respectful? Don't force your way of life upon me! 

Really they are saying, I don't want to think about this stuff. It's confusing and scary and doesn't apply to my immediate (material) life.

Until it does.

Faith cannot be taught, and for some people, they only have faith when their back is against the wall ...when their lives fail the provide materially, the nones will have faith again. I still believe in Covid, but don't believe in the precautions. That could change when I am dying of Covid, but now I think the analogy has run its course...

National vs Ethnic Identity in post-Covid World

The modern liberal arts college campus is a thought plantation, and "The Left" is its ideological default. When I was an impressionable college moron I didn't have any interest in politics, and when it was time for me to care (and vote) in the presidential election, I bought the simple campus lie that the 'Republicans were evil'. With politics--and history--settled, I could focus on my moronic college age dreams.

After I was red pilled I began to mine through the lies that I lived as a result of the lies that I was told. Only when I began this investigation did I understand the contextual dichotomy of the party ideologies. Now, the Left was evil, and not just because their economic ideology resulted in the deaths of millions in places like China, but because they had lied to me about it. It was personal.

"The Right" was a monolith, standing firmly and virtuously against the widespread cultural acceptance of the Left, and now I was voting across party lines in the other direction. The Left showed no signs of slightly decreasing its insatiable evil to accommodate potential swing voters, instead doubling down and moving "further left." The battle lines were drawn. Either you were with the left, or against the left.

Then, overnight, I noticed that my dear, sweet right began replacing its values by appealing to left leaning ideologues. ('How' and 'why' are another topic.) It was only a matter of time for the right to become as reprehensible as the left.

"The Far Right" entered the journalist's lexicon to describe "violent extremists." From experience I knew this to be a lie, but wondered what actually made "the far right" different from "the right?" Answer: Both "the left" and "the right" both move further in the opposite direction; the "far right" stays put.

What follows are two differing opinions from two respectable sources on the far right, and a bleak personal conclusion that only history itself can ascertain.

To paraphrase Steve Bannon:

"The Chinese people are not at fault [for the Covid-19 outbreak.] It is the evil Chinese Communist Party for lying. They act like a criminal organization and crush the spirit of the hardworking, good people of China. They don't just have blood on their hands, they have blood up to their necks."

To paraphrase Nick Fuentes:

"Yes, the Chinese government is evil. But they are a symptom of the culture of China. China has existed for 6,000 years. It is not just in the past 75 years that Communist China has been a brutal suppressor of freedom. The Chinese people want global hegemony. They are colonizers. They colonize Africa, they colonize US real estate, and we let them. The Chinese people may not control the government in China, but Chinese people still have the best interests of China in mind, to the detriment of other nations and peoples."

Can both Steve Bannon and Nick Fuentes be right? Can we blame the Chinese Government as well as the Chinese culture of the Chinese people for the global pandemic?

In short, yes.

Modern nations, and their governments, are made up of people with common ancestry, language and culture. (There is typically violence between populations within borders where this isn't the case.) Governments run downstream from culture, and the government of the United States is different than the government of China because our ancestry, language, and values are very different from China's. America believes in natural rights and freedom, while China believes in power and control at the cost of its people if necessary.

The American government became complacent after the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War, and for illogical reasons gave Communist China opportunities for a synthetic economic rise. China was eventually admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2001.

This trend continued, and a report by the Cato Institute from 2016 about China's Trade Practices at the WTO stated:

"China’s mercantilist state systematically discriminates against foreign products and foreign producers in China while forcing foreign companies to hand over their intellectual property (IP) as the price of access to China’s large and growing market."

This is just one example of China's "unfair" trade (mafia) tactics, but the "mercantilist state'' description stands out, indicating that China is playing by different rules. Isn't mercantilism the system that once nationalist Europe left behind in favor of 'capitalism/socialism?'

("Capitalism/Socialism" lol Another topic: the politicized meaninglessness of these labels.)

The American left and the American right might think they differ economically, but they are still reliant on American corporatism for their respective ideologies, both as a savior and a scapegoat.

For instance, the left generally doesn't want to empower corporate control over human labor and lives, but the right doesn't want the taxpayer to suffer by paying for "universal healthcare." The left wants to empower government control of healthcare through a socialist lens, and the right could meet them halfway through a fascist lens.

Both sides talk past one another, like these antithetical ideologies of fascism and socialism are options at all! American cogs don't realize that these are generalized, politicized talking points. The American founders designed a government for the states to decide such issues to explicitly avoid any unnecessary increase in government power. Unless we want to become more like Communist China by inching towards a fascist compromise this healthcare debate is not a national issue!

Unfortunately, corporate hegemony within America is existential. The left is wrong about using it to defeat it, and the right is wrong about colluding with it. (In reality both sides do both when convenient.)

America is doomed because of the confusion that results from the excessive freedoms from a democratic culture: freedom of thought, press, speech, religion begets oxymoronic 'freedom of rights': the right to healthcare, the right to abortion, the right of marriage. Freedom requires responsibility, and excessive freedom begets cultural leftism.

China has genetic knowledge that 'freedom is troublesome' for order. Fact. But China is morally wrong about her methods. Throughout her 6,000 year history, every Chinese government has known to keep their populations orderly. The population knows this too, and traditionally do what they are told. (At least on the mainland.) The USA could not be more different. In the past ten years, each president has seen a new rebel group: From the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street to BLM to Proud Boys and Antifa.

The USA is a young country rebelling against itself in its inconsistent teenage years, and yet we are the dominant economic, political and military power in the world today. It is foolish to believe that 6,000 year old China and her vast experience is not envious, does not want that power, is not willing to take that power, and that the Chinese people are not complicit. After all, China is comprised of common Chinese people whose ancestors have always been under the yoke of some regime. Nothing in their DNA desires the freedoms that so confuses modern Americans. The Chinese government will use this confusion to seize control on behalf of the glory of China.

Modern America is needlessly confusing. Its politicians are untrustworthy ideologues/gainfully connected, its people a mixture of races and cultures and languages, its border porous, its criminal laws unenforced. We are a corporatist-individualist empire with a democratic veneer with a genetic rebellion for government and a brainwashed rebellion of culture. 'Resistance as a cultural right' is thanks to cultural leftism, which has infiltrated and influenced the youth for two generations, the mainstream media its influential mouthpiece.

Modern China is corporatist-nationalist with a communist veneer, a culture of traditional obedience and aspirations for empire. China purges the Uyghurs, an ethnic and religious minority. They purge the Catholic Church, Falun Gong, political enemies and enforce abortion. They do not tolerate homosexual behavior or any other modern Western cultural leftism. They therefore don't fall for European style colonial guilt or environmentalism. There is no way for a commoner Chinese to engage in politics, and both the government and the people aren't complaining.

Destruction follows in the wake of the left, and China was no different from Europe in this regard as millions died in China under Mao, for the "greater good" of China's future generations. As evil as this was, Mao was thinking waaaay ahead. Before Covid-19 annihilated their credibility, China was enjoying ripping off the world and holding a historic record for the time in which the living conditions of her people improved. But China knows what to keep (economically) and what to discard (culturally) for her nationalistic goals, and isn't going to dominate for 6,000 more years with bullshit leftist cultural ideology.

In this post-Covid world, open borders and immigration will doom nations to sickness in addition to dilution, followed by invasion. Nations will need to be as nationalistic as China--but not as authoritarian--to protect themselves from China.

My thumbnail prediction:

When states reopen for business and the economy slowly recovers, mouthpieces of the opposition party will blame Trump for not "acting fast enough." They will side with "our friends" in China that "gave us two months to prepare" for the outbreak....Bird Flu, SARS, Covid-19...these are not American viruses. The mainstream media needs to be bitch slapped.

It would come as no surprise if China used our freedoms against us by paying these mouthpieces to brainwash our people that already hate America's current leaders. Do the Chinese people think this is wrong? No. They don't think, or care, not just because they have different values or don't know anything their government does, but because what hurts America benefits Chinese dominance. It is natural. Meanwhile, Americans are ready to criticize their government for protecting her borders (and her people), march in parades for abortion "rights" and protest any pipeline that would make the lives of fellow citizens in remote areas better.

Want abortion rights asshole? Move to China.

China's state run media will blame others and lie to its people by omission. Morally wrong by objective standards, but correct to maintain order and build a strong and obedient nation. Machiavelli and Lao Tzu would be proud.

No matter my age or maturity, I will always be a cog in the American political machine even if I exercise my right to participate in government. I do not have money, connections, or political ambitions. That's ok. The purpose of America's founding wasn't for any schmuck to become Senator. That's missing the point.

The purpose of America's founding was to divide government into branches and municipalities to hinder it from controlling and defining human freedoms. Ironically due to this freedom our government--and now our culture--is slowly dissolving into corporate kingdoms. At least China's corporations work for China.

In a post-Covid world, as long as American battle lines are left vs right we will lose to China because China is ethnically coherent and nationalistic. America self divides politically, has a brainwashed populace and no common national ethnicity anymore.

tl;dr

Democracy eventually kills itself and leftism speeds up the process.

The Chinese will outlast Western Civilization. So will the Jews.