The Kool-Aid Crowd and COVID

Bobblehead DollSince 2000, the US Federal Government has spent billions, if not hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to improve labels and then “educate” people into reading labels.  The laws passed have forced private businesses to spend hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars in changing labeling on packaging and products to comply.  Go to any mask package and you will find similar:Mask Packaging

Recently I sought service at a Xfinity retail store and was denied service because I cannot wear a mask.  During this outing, I received severely dirty and threatening looks and attitudes from shoppers in a Walmart, all because I cannot wear a mask.  People are becoming violent, just as the government has demanded, to anyone not toeing the government COVID line, and this behavior reminded me of the Jim Jones religious cult.

President Biden is expected to force more people to listen to him threaten and try to scare Americans into getting vaccinated.  The mayors of Boston, Chicago, and New York continue to double down on activities that have not worked since February 2020.  The governors of California, New Mexico, Michigan, and others, continue to use powers not available to them in the name of “public health emergency.”  More mask mandates, more vaccination orders, and more “green passes” to exist.  Here’s the rub, how many of these solutions have worked; honestly, look at the data from February 2020 to December 2021, and tell me how many people were saved wearing masks.

People saved from these government freedom theft mandates, I guarantee, the number is NOT statistically significant!  How do I know; Australia, essentially a large island, has the strictest policies, and Omicron was still able to get onto the island.  How do I know; COVID infected children (school age K-12) have the same risks as uninfected children.  Who is the resource for this information, The New York Times!

Real numbers, Israel has one of the highest vaccinations and boosted populations on the globe; guess what, they also have the highest spike in Omicron infections!  Europe, socialized medicine, high vaccination and boosted populations, where the Omicron and Delta variants spiked infection rates.  Think of this for a moment, populations forced by government to vaccinate, and they are still passing around COVID infections, which is precisely viral science in action!

Peer reviewed researchers in the virus infection community have shown this life cycle of viral infections repeatedly since scientists began writing down what they do.  Vaccinated people pass around strains of viral mutation, which then infect other vaccinated people, until the virus mutates itself to death.  Please, do not believe me, look up this science for yourself, and you will come to a similar conclusion.  At the end of the day the viral infection community of scientists are plotting the death of COVID as a viral infection, but government elected leaders, and the bureaucrats powering the echo chamber of political thinking, will not give up the power theft committed since Feb 2020.

Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid cult suicide has been mocked, used as case studies in group think, and represents a dark time in human psychology and the abuse of religious thinking and adherence.  Guess what, the insanity of COVID-19 is as silly, irresponsible, and dangerous as Jim Jones and his cyanide-laced grape-flavored Kool-Aid.  Senator Manchin nailed it, government is beating the “living crap” out of every citizen, the beatings are intensified by the state government, and the county and city governments.  Yet, little Joey is going to continue to threaten, cajole, beat, and denigrate people using COVID as the excuse.

Did you get the vaccination just to appease government and end the beatings?  Are you able to unmask and live your life without COVID mandates, just because you got vaccinated?  I have friends here in NM who have masked, vaccinated, and done everything the government has demanded of them to avoid the government beatings.  They caught COVID, the whole family was quarantined, and extended family still caught COVID from my friends, once the quarantine was lifted, they gathered, and the extended, vaccinated, masked family caught COVID.  The repetition of this story is exhausting and provides clear proof the government beatings, mandates, and exercised powers are NOT helping but hurting, and make the Jim Jones Kool-Aid episode even more appropriate.

The science from South Africa, where Omicron variant was identified, reports the COVID virus stays in the nose and mouth region.  Guess what, so does the common cold virus, and there has NEVER been an attempt to vaccinate against the ever changing common cold.  We, the citizens of representative government, are the owners of government and it is time we take the reigns and stop the Kool-Aid massacre.  Government should never hold the power over an individual citizen’s health, welfare, or ability to pursue happiness.  Yet, this is exactly what the government bureaucrats want you to give to the government to stop COVID.  Since February 2020, has this worked?  Answer this question as well; how much faster would herd immunity have been achieved had government done what it has done for every other Chinese virus, which is nothing?

Look at recent history, Asian Flu, Hong Kong Flu, Bird Flu A (H5N1), Swine Flu, SARS, etc. the government did nothing.  NO shutdowns, no mandates, no economic stimulus, no job losses for those not vaccinating, no Big Pharma money pump for vaccinations of dubious nature, and the world did not end.  Did some people die; yes.  Did some people get sick; yes.  But herd immunity was faster and more effective than any action the government could think would have worked.  Dear reader, to you I ask, “Are you better off for the government intervention on COVID-19?”  I know my answer, but to you I leave the question and the answer.

Now, flash forward 10-years in your mind.  The real death toll of government intervention is still being hidden, but the deaths from a dubious vaccine are scaring populations silly.  When do we ask ourselves if the forced government vaccinations are the cause for infertility, for economic destruction, and for the massacre of human dreams and lives?  Who do we blame after the money is spent and the vaccines have irretrievably destroyed wide swaths of populations?  When vaccinated children whose risk from COVID remains minimal are sick, twisted with pain, or are dying in droves with reduced life expectancies, but the government continues to defend “doing something in the face of COVID.”

If the Jim Jones religious cult comparison is not appropriate now, when will it be appropriate and concerning to every single citizen across the globe?  Do you know the phrase “Judas Goat?”  The Judas Goat is the goat that befriends sheep, and then leads them to their doom in a slaughterhouse.  Belief in the omni-powerful government is a myth and a Judas Goat, yet to not blindly follow the government mandates is to be refused employment (nurses, firefighters, doctors, police officers, etc.) to be denied service (anyone unable to wear a mask), to be refused legal protection, and be castigated as heretic.  Jim Jones’ believers did similarly to everyone not believing, and they are all dead!  Those who are skeptical of the Judas Goat, are also dead, but their fellow sheep herd went first.

I admit, from day one (October-November 2019) when I first began reading of a new viral infection killing people in China, I have been skeptical, concerned, and boring the daylights out of my wife with the reports, the history, the potential ramifications of this new viral infection.  But in my most fevered nightmares I never thought the government could assume and amass so much power without citizens becoming rebellious.  Flash forward two-years, three arrests for not being able to physically wear a mask, fines, and economical losses incalculable, and my horror is just starting, when I see the vaccinated kids, the shutdown schools, the lost opportunities and potential, and the “hits just keep coming” from government and the bureaucrats.

?u=http3.bp.blogspot.com-CIl2VSm-mmgTZ0wMvH5UGIAAAAAAAAB20QA9_IiyVhYss1600showme_board3.jpg&f=1&nofb=1China is using biological warfare against the world; but the Chinese government is to blame, not the people of China.  I repeat, only for emphasis, do the research yourself.  Make your own decisions.  Unlike the government, Big Tech, and the bureaucrats hungry for power, I trust you to use your freedom and powers of critical thinking.  We might not reach the exact same conclusions, but we can still respect each other, and being better informed from reputable sources improves us both.  Political party be hanged, we are humans first and we need each other.  Please, do not go quietly into that dark night like the sheep entering a slaughterhouse, following the Judas Goat who has skipped aside to miss the consequences.

© Copyright 2021 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

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Rights, Liberties, Freedoms, Responsibilities, Privileges: A Definitive Declaration!

Knowledge Check!In a previous post, I wrote about the principle of self-control and liberty in law; I did not realize the turmoil caused by not understanding the difference between a right, liberty, freedom, where responsibility enters, and how these principles work together.  My apologies; I learned these differences as a child and never considered that others might not be able to detail, define, describe, and delineate between these fundamental principles.  My plan originally with this article was not to provide a definitive declaration; then, I researched some of the claptrap online being passed off as learned scholarly discussion and was disgusted!  Thus, my aims and intents changed; I would see this article be referenced and used to aid in clearing up the confusion generated by word plasticity and modular language tyranny.

Along the way, I will include both links and resources for further study for your ability to grow and feel confident in defending rights, liberties, freedoms with responsibility and dedication.  Only through learning can we, the owners of representative governments, begin to change government direction and regain our liberties and freedoms!

RightsApathy

The founding fathers of America understood rights and called them inalienable.  There is a reason for this; rights cannot be taken away.  An individual can give rights away, but because a right is inalienable, it means a power greater than the government has distributed these rights, and all are equal in their possession of these rights.  Inalienable specifically refers to rights that cannot be surrendered, transferred, or removed permanently from a person.

How does a person give away an inalienable right; they refuse to accept that a right is inalienable.  Consider the US Bill of Rights, a document full of those inalienable rights or rights that cannot be surrendered, transferred, or removed permanently from an individual.  Consider one of the first inalienable rights discussed in the US Bill of Rights, religion.  What you believe is your choice; nobody can, or should, have the power to tell you what you believe.  Belief transcends thought into a unique place inside your brain; some would call it a soul.  Depending upon your flavor of religion, a soul could or could not exist.  I am not writing a definitive declaration about religion, I am writing about rights, and your personal belief where religion is concerned is fundamental to you expressing yourself.

Plato 2Is the distinction clear?  A right cannot be stripped from you by anyone, ever unless you choose to deny your inalienable rights to that particular right.  For example, the US Bill of Rights declares your ability to defend yourself is an inalienable right.  You choose how to protect yourself, e.g., guns, fists, sticks, knives, alarms, police, etc.  How you choose to defend yourself is your inalienable right, and you deserve to be protected in your rights to self-defense.  If a person attacks you, you have the inalienable right to self-protection.  This is established through case laws.  How many women have been physically, sexually, and mentally abused by a spouse or partner, who then took action to defend themselves and were acquitted at trial; too many to mention in a declaration on rights.  Just know, you have a right to self-defense, and this right can never be stripped from you by anyone but you.

Liberties

Liberties are a little more complicated to define and detail.  Some applications of the word liberty include freedom from confinement, servitude, or forced labor.  Whereas liberty is also a power to act as one chooses, even if that action breaks a society’s accepted standards, i.e., laws.  Liberties can also include unwarranted risks, deviations from facts (lies), departing from compliance to the accepted and proper methods of prudence.

The Duty of AmericansIn most societies, you can purchase and legally become the owner of an item due to the purchase.  Thus, liberty allows you to become free to use that purchase however you desire.  Until the use of that purchase interferes with someone else’s inalienable rights.  For example purchase of a baseball bat is legal, mostly around the world.  Use that baseball bat for its intended purposes, i.e., to play baseball or softball, and the government does not infringe upon your liberties.  Use that baseball bat outside its intended purposes, to break windows, cause injuries or property damage, and you can lose your liberty and your property.

Imperative to understanding, liberty can be taken by force through the law, government action, and or improper use of liberty.  Perform an imprudent act, and someone is going to take your liberty away.  For example, in Hong Kong, China has ruled that freedom of speech has been curtailed.  While freedom of speech is an inalienable right, China refuses to honor free speech as an inalienable right, and Hong Kong peoples suffer.  The people of China and Hong Kong can still speak their minds exercising their inalienable rights, but taking these liberties to exercise their rights, has been strictly and violently enforced by a government refusing to believe people have inalienable rights.

PatriotismThus the confusion and complication in defining and detailing liberties.  Liberties can be taken and refused; liberties can be eliminated by government force and social changes.  Liberties are not inalienable rights or even a right.  You do not have a right to liberty.  You may pursue happiness, but achieving happiness is not a right, freedom, or liberty.

Consider the purpose of government as detailed in the US Constitution’s preamble:

“… In order to form a more perfect Union (Government), establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Consider also the purpose for the US Bill of Rights, as the first amendments to a brand new constitution:

“… Prevent misconstruction or abuse of its (US Government) powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.”

The government creates liberties, calls these rights, and then attempts to confuse the problem.  For example, welfare benefits as currently understood (2021) are significantly different from welfare benefits understood in (1920) America.  Today, people on welfare benefits consider their government-provided support a right when in actuality, it is barely a liberty.  Most importantly, those welfare benefits can be restricted, removed, curtailed, curbed, and denied based upon the whims of government.  This is why welfare is not a right and barely a liberty.  Welfare benefits are barely a liberty because someone else has to pay for the privilege of supporting another person through forced taxation (legalized theft).Life Valued

Freedoms

Freedoms are even more complicated, and freedoms have been made more challenging to understand purposefully by political design as a means to steal liberties and rights from individuals, under a myriad of different names, i.e., social justice, equality, freedom, and civil liberty, etc.  Let’s start with civil liberties, which are neither a right or a liberty, regardless of the politician pushing the name.

LookCivil liberties are freedoms you pay the government to enjoy.  For example, driving a car requires a license.  By issuing licenses, the government can control the population, even though driving is considered a privilege, a right, and is often confused with “freedom of the open road,” which is two lies for the price one.  Another example is marriageMarriage throughout human history has been a tug-of-war between religion and government.  As a point of reference, marriage ceremonies are unique in the human condition anthropologically speaking.  But, as a civil liberty, the government can restrict you from marrying your pets, marrying objects and can grant and deny marriage privileges as it deems appropriate to the political situation.

The state does not recognize some religious ceremonies for marriage, which means that marriage is null and void under the state’s control. Yet, under that religious belief, that marriage is binding.  Consider China again; China refuses to honor Christian marriage ceremonies as valid under the law and several other religions and religious traditions.  Thus, civil liberties are at best an approved and licensed government action, not freedoms, liberties, and rights.  As the saying goes, “The government giveth and the government taketh.”

quote-mans-inhumanityFreedoms are often defined as political independence, which is fine insofar as civil liberties are concerned.  Freedoms entail several other qualities that the government cannot give, take, invent, or delete.  True freedoms do not need legal support from case law to be enjoyed.  True freedoms include living without restraints, acting without control or interference, and not being bound by conventions, rules, and authorities.  It cannot be stressed enough, even though liberties and freedoms share some components, they are merely similar, not identical.  In trying to push liberty and freedom as equivalent, the tyranny of language is discovered to sunshine disinfectant.  A right, especially those inalienable rights, are not freedoms or liberties to be granted and removed at the power of authority, and the distinction should be clear.

Privilegesquote-mans-inhumanity-2

Privileges are easy to understand; privileges are permission granted at the request of an authority to grant limited power, responsibility, or situational control over something.  What is a driver’s license, the privilege to drive, which can be revoked at the whims of the government issuing the privilege (license).  Civil liberties are a privilege granted by an authority; ownership is not conveyed, legal responsibility extends only for the controlled use under strict supervision by the authority.  For example, while a state employee, I was granted the privilege of operating a state-owned vehicle, provided I followed all the rules set forth by the state issuing that privilege.  Ending state employment ended the privilege of operating that government vehicle.  Easy enough to understand, a privilege is not a liberty, freedom, right, or inalienable right.

A privilege also contains immunity from commonly imposed laws, standards, and social constraints.  Think of the police officer who makes a right turn across multiple lanes of traffic.  To conduct their job and fulfill their duties, police officers sometimes have to break laws to enforce a greater law or protect the safety of others and are immune from breaking those traffic laws that the rest of us must follow.  However, even in this instance, a privilege is not freedom, a right, or liberty, simply authority granted immunity when on the job to act in a manner that supports public safety and enforces the state’s authority over driving privileges.

The Role of ResponsibilityPresident Adams

Responsibility is a word that gets thrown around too often where the definition is muddied, and the intent is to harm and control someone else.  Responsibility is nothing more or less than the condition of being required to account for one’s actions, behaviors, and the consequences of the same.  For example, a defendant in a courtroom can be required to account for and make restitution for behaviors, actions, and consequences that were out of compliance with societal norms; we call this type of responsibility justice.

On a less extreme example, a child is out throwing rocks, the rock thrown breaks a window, who is responsible, the child or the parent?  The child should be held responsible and taught accountability; however, society is moving more and more towards holding that parent responsible.  Except, does this hurt or help the child stop throwing rocks?  Now, I have heard parents proclaim that throwing rocks is a right of passage for children, and the child should not be responsible for the consequences.  Therein lay the problem with freedoms, liberties, privileges, and rights, the role of responsibility.

Exclamation MarkIt has been said that my freedom of speech ends where your nose begins.  Thus, I cannot exercise my freedom of speech through physical violence, or I lose my right to speak and, more likely, some freedom and property as well.  Thus, the role of responsibility begins with knowing the extent of and limitations formed around rights, freedoms, liberties, and privileges, for ignorance of the law is not an excuse.  Our responsibility of living in society is to know the rules that form the laws and the social constraints of that society.

For example, the people of Germany have worked hard to make their country beautiful, and the principle of living in a Germanic society is In Ordnung.  If something is out of order, for example, litter, the person creating that situation outside of order is publicly shamed.  In America, the societal norms have been beaten and hindered, so that a person coming into America illegally has the rights, as granted by the government, not to learn the language, learn the culture, or even assimilate.  Whereas those coming legally into America are required to learn, adapt, and assimilate into America.  Thus, the role of responsibility can be used selectively to provide civil liberties to one group while withholding those same rights from others based upon political conditions.

Conclusion

Image - Eagle & FlagRights, especially inalienable rights, are yours as provided by a higher power than the government.  Liberties are the power to act without constraint, provided your exercise of liberty does not infringe upon the inalienable rights of another.  Freedoms rest upon political independence, something feared by every bureaucrat and power-mad politician in history.  Privileges are permissions granted by a higher authority to conduct business or fulfill a purpose.  Civil liberties are not liberties, but privileges can be taken away by authorities and social changes.  Regardless, the role of responsibility is inseparably connected to rights, liberties, freedoms, and privileges. One day, accountability will be demanded for the responsibilities connected to how a person used their liberties, freedoms, rights, and privileges.

References

Leadbeater, C. W. (1913). The hidden side of things. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House.

Lieberman, M. D. (2013). Social: Why our brains are wired to connect. NY: Oxford University Press, USA.

Poerksen, U. (2010). Plastic words: The tyranny of a modular language. NY: Penn State Press.

Paine, T. (2008). Rights of man, common sense, and other political writings. NY: Oxford University Press.

Tucker, W. (2014). Marriage and civilization: How monogamy made us human. NY: Simon & Schuster.

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.