As IF Times

source:  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/newsoms-office-tells-californians-to-wear-masks-in-between-bites-of-food-when-dining-with-members-from-same-household-in-public

As time drags on with what I’ll call the Prison Pandemic and we now enter the 10th month of a touted 14 day safe period, the edicts from the ruling regents are becoming more and more draconian and not less as would be expected and logical.  The classic children’s plea of ‘are we there yet’ has never felt more apt.  Like Gilligan’s Island, a 3 hour tour has turned into an apparent life sentence.  If 14 days is a safe period and herd immunity is allowed to take its effect in a society, 10 months is a pretty wide safety margin, even for the most ardent hang wringers.  Or so you would think.

It’s not as if people are collapsing everywhere like pro sports ratings;  the nation’s mortality number and rates have stabilized.  Recall that even the CDC had quietly revealed that of the just over 200,000 deaths attributed to Covid, only 6% were directly caused by Covid.  The rest had ancillary health issues.  In addition, we have a control group society which did the opposite of what most Western nations did and that is Sweden.  They did not lock down, did not impose mask edicts and only exhorted their citizens to socially distance and be careful….as if addressing intelligent adults.  Images from that nation show people going about their daily business, eating at street-side cafes, working and recreating as would be the case in any normal society.  Surprise, surprise, their infection and mortality rates are negligible, their hospital emergency rooms are empty and mask companies are going out of business there.

Even with these bald facts at their disposal, political tyrants in the civilized and developed West continue to enact crazier decrees in order to express their control over their subjects.  The latest edict from California’s Newsom has crossed the line of ensuring public safety to apparently simply enforcing personal whims.  We expect that very soon, masks will be required in showers and while sleeping. Pets will be considered transmitters as well, so they will need to go.   Not content with the cruelties inflicted upon their populace thus far, they now warn of the second wave…because the first one was kind of a dud.  People of course are still free to die, but as long as it’s not from Covid, it’s acceptable.

How can this happen?  How can an intelligent and informed society submit to the edicts of their very misinformed and power drunk public overseers?

Well it turns out that people are pre-disposed to obey rules.  Something in people’s DNA tilts them towards compliance even with no real reason to do so.  A social psychologist named Stanley Milgram made some revealing studies while teaching at Yale in the 1960’s.  In one of his most famous experiments, subjects were placed in a room adjacent to another apparent subject who was wired with electrical probes.   In fact, the wired subject was a confederate who was to aid in the experiment.  The test subject was then told to punish the confederate plant with increasing jolts of electricity if he answered the questions of the moderator incorrectly.

The ‘voltage’ continued to increase as did the screams and discomfort of the confederate.  Even as the test subject felt anxious, they continued to obey the exhortations of the moderator despite the evident pain of the confederate and despite there being no reason to obey the orders.  This revelation about human nature has been harnessed by many smart people in the years since that time. From subliminal advertising techniques all the way to more sinister applications including of course, spy-craft, this human frailty has been weaponized.

People who attain power in political office seem to innately understand this trait of most people and they use it to their utmost advantage.  Employed legitimately, they can inspire patriotism and a sense of duty to a nation or cause.  Unfortunately, this power has been used far less admirably by politicos as they drive the recent crisis.  They have been able to tap into the meek and submissive element that is present in a large part of the population so that they essentially, enslave themselves.  Combined with gaslighting paranoia, they have been able to cripple an entire society with their own fears.

source: https://www.thedailyfodder.com/2020/09/cdc-removes-covid-19-transmission.html?utm_source=gab&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialshare

Now that the pandemic season has run longer than any and all sports seasons, the constant drumbeat of ‘masks, masks, masks” by all media outlets has become ingrained into the consciousness of most people, making the absurd, seem an acceptable aspect of normal life.  The wearing of masks is now as much a part of life’s routine as putting on pants to go outside.

A good friend passed on a quote from the 19th century philosopher Clive Staples Lewis, which is as timely today as when he invoked it over a half century ago.  He writes:

“…Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive…it would be better to live under the robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies; the robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience…”

Who amongst us hasn’t run into the finger wagging Karens and Karls who exhort you to wear your mask at any opportunity as they exert their moral superiority on others not so enlightened in their ‘duty to society’.  Even as the presumptive source of authority on what medically works and what doesn’t, the CDC, has flip flopped on every supposed balm for Covid 19, including masks, yet the constant propaganda of “wear your mask” has burrowed its way like tattoos or rap music, into mainstream ubiquity.

Ironically, the adherents to the mask narrative scoff at the skeptics as being anti-science, when it’s exactly the questioning of ‘settled science’ that advances any hope of real progress in science.  While there are scores of actual practicing physicians extolling the benefits of hydroxychloroquine as a very effective treatment for this flu,  they are marginalized in favor of pushing the vaccine narrative.  If this is legitimate science, we may as well venture into voodoo dolls and eye of newt as prescribed treatments.  It’s as if you could solve a water leak by simply turning off the water valve, but your plumber insists that he needs to divert the flow of the river filling the municipal reservoir.

We can see where this is going.  Apart from the control of the naive masses, there is a potential commercial pot of gold to be gained for enterprising governments. It is not a big stretch to expect that some genius will create the idea that non mask wearers will be able to access the privilege of being mask free by simply paying a tax in some form.  Those not so prepared to pay will be forced to maintain their mask regimen.  In essence, they will be taxing people’s ability to breathe freely.  While this may seem preposterous, consider the global warming carbon tax schemes.

Recall that in the global warming charade, entities or people with big carbon footprints can offset their impact by paying for the privilege of doing so.  In other words if you’re rich enough, you can buy your way out of the charade.  Corporations acquiesce to the regimen by paying carbon taxes which they then recover by raising prices to the consumer.  Thus, the hapless public underwrites the do-gooder scheme.

When governments push out policies that are non sensical, it’s up to the governed to determine whether or not to abide by them.  When the weak minded aid the authorities in the implementation of a non sensical regime, they undermine the very free society they claim to be protecting.  These people are dangerous, because as C.S. Lewis states, they are convinced of their own morality which overrides any logical rationale.  They are the modern day Moonies telling everyone to drink their kool-aid.