It didn’t just happen that a majority of the populace bought into the hysteria manufactured about a virus that doesn’t kill 99.8-something percent of the otherwise healthy population. They were primed to buy into it – by decades of programming about saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety being the single most important thing in life. Even to the extent of stifling the expression of life.
It goes back generations and has many facets but the most obvious antecedent is the ululation chorus regarding the Danger of Speed – defined by the ululators as any speed beyond that posted on a sign standing by the side of the road. Such speed killed, they said.
Or rather, asserted.
Of a piece with the assertions made recently about “asymptomatic spread” (and not wearing a “mask”) killing.
Usually, “granny” – the hypothetical old person whose actuality never had to be proven before the asserted asymptomatic, non-“masking” putative killer was actually proscribed and punished.
Perhaps you see the correlation?
It was never a defense – either in court or by the side of the road – to point out to a cop or a judge that driving 65 rather than 55 (often, on a road that it was previously legal to drive 70 on) had not resulted in any harm or even a screech of the tires. Just as it never made any impression – against the hysterics’ feelings to the contrary – that a person who isn’t sick and hasn’t got any symptoms of sickness cannot spread a sickness he hasn’t got by failing to wear a “mask” – or standing closer than six feet to someone else.
What matters – in both traffic court and the open-air lunatic asylum that was once a relatively sane country – is that something bad might happen. That there is risk. It does not matter that nothing did happen, nor that the risk is attenuated even to statistical non-existence. As, for instance, in the case of young people being at any meaningful risk of dying from the ‘Rona, which they aren’t.
The slightest risk that a hypothetical one among them – even if it is only one hypothetical out of an actual 100,000 of them – is sufficient warrant to impose palliatives and punishments upon all of them, just in case.
Because you can’t be too safe.
And if it saves even one life.
Now matter how many lives it actually ends up taking – like the roughly 6,000 (so far) admitted to having been taken by the Needling being pushed by the very government that said destroying everyone’s life (except those working for the government) was a cost worth paying.
These mantras of the deranged – accepted by the stupid – have become as commonplace as injunctions of the past such as a penny saved is a penny earned. Millions of people who cannot grasp the wisdom of saving anything tangible – including the lives of their children, to say nothing of saving their childrens’ having a life worth living – are willing to lay waste to everything for the sake of preventing the hypothetical something bad from happening to hypothetical “someones” whose specific existence never need be established.
It’s a wonder anyone even goes outside anymore, let alone for a drive.
Safetyism hasn’t eliminated risk; it has sucked the joy out of living. A person who fears what-might-happen to an irrational degree is a person whose capacity to act is crippled since there is always something that might happen. This includes going for a walk outside on a sunny day. It might rain. You might be struck by lightning. To never go for a walk because it might rain and because you might get struck by lightning is a manifestation of severe psychological problems, an inability to gauge risk and accept that rational risk-taking is a normal part of life.
It is not rational to stay inside on a sunny day because it might rain. It is not rational to be terrified of driving faster than a number posted on a sign, just because it is posted. It is crazy to live in dread of a sickness that does not kill 99.8-something of the otherwise healthy population – and evil to regard those who do not share in such craziness as disease-spreading, defiant imbeciles.
As it turns out, they’re the only ones who care about the actual risk. About the things that have actually happened – and not to hypothetical “someones,” either.
. . .
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*If I hear that one more time I will SNAP!!!
Ditto, Mike –
It’s almost as annoying as the sight of a Face Diaper – both conveying the same imbecile sickness. Hypochondria turned into a virtue. Such people used to be pitiable. Now they are dangerous.
It did ‘just happen.’
Because it just so happens that lots of people, the majority, are “social” & primed for hierarchical stimulus-response. Pass it on: Codependent enabling is virulent. “Yes, Dr. Milgram.”
“Safety” is a false compartment. As are all the other compartments in Rube Goldberg explanation machines. As the herd-mob becomes more & more itself, “less” closeted as the closet continuously expands, it merely appears to encroach upon previously less infected domains. But that’s just time’s illusion. The herd-mob’s eyes were on all prizes, all along, & it is always just a matter of eta because it’s always coming.
“This country’s hard on people, you can’t stop what’s coming, it ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
Big Vanity Vendetta swallows Little Vanity, Louella (“move over, I said move over…”).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf4UhPuwoGE
“…get a tourniquet on it.”
I stopped paying attention to speed limit signs. They are always about 10 mph below what they should be. I can determine myself what is a good speed. I think most cops realize this and they never pull anyone over for 5-10 over. Unless its a city or a one cop town.
Hi Stephen,
Yup; but it’s a sign of the depraved times that reasonable action is technically illegal and subjects one to being bullied – and mulcted – at any any moment.
I oppose speed limits as such. Speed advisories are a fine idea. But this idea that “x” arbitrary speed is “safe” while any faster isn’t is absurd. It is a fact that many drivers are unsafe at any speed. And some drivers are also safe at any speed. The only objective criteria here is whether one is in control of one’s vehicle or not – and that can be objectively established by loss of control or not. If you wreck, then you were going too fast – ipso facto.
If not, then all the assertions that you might have been driving too fast – for someone else’s comfort – carry as much weight as you might be sick and therefore “wear a mask.”
This being a recipe for tyranny – whether on the road or on your face.
Time to leave and go somewhere more free, safer, and less taxing.
Yeah? Like where?
Whoops! Seems some folks got caught off-guard!
https://twitter.com/PhilipWatson_/status/1409562132153315435
(Scroll down for some more safety theater videos).
We were all supposed to die from a nuclear war sometime in the 1980s. Then the Soviet Union fell. We were supposed to get a “peace dividend” after the Cold War, a drawdown of the military and global hand-holding Kumbaya moment. We got no such thing. The Clintons put their drunken puppet in Russia (and nearly destroyed the Uranium mining industry by selling off all their nukes), we eliminated exactly one carrier group, and quickly started building bases in the old Iron Curtain. When that didn’t work out so well (who’da thought?) Uncle went back to his old playbook of Fear Fear and FEAR! This time instead of the Red Menace, it was religion and military tactics. When that grew tiresome it became the natural world. Pretty soon it will be the Yellow Horde, it’s no accident we’re seeing all the anti-Chinese counter intelligence propaganda over the last few years.
Was on a call earlier today, someone is out ill. Again. turns out he just got the holy Jab. It just occurred to me, ive found out about more people being out ill at work from having the Jab than from actually getting the rona!! How the hell does that make any sense (and why cant anyone else see) !! Granted – the jab illness has not been serious for anyone I know, more than a couple days off work, but i guess it never is serious till it is….
Same here, Nasir. I have actually known more people who have had serious illness (blood issues, lymph issues/lymphoma), and even death within a few weeks of the jab, than all the convid “cases” I’ve been aware of. Most “cases” are nothing more than a “positive test.” No symptoms, and others in close proximity mysteriously not even “testing positive.”
The entire scam is a pack of lies. After all, if convid was a real thing, TPTB wouldn’t be able to control it they way they control this narrative.
And, as has been stated before, the jab wasn’t created for convid, convid was created for the jab.
My boss was talking about getting the Jab the other day. She said she hasn’t had to go to the doctor in years, but after the jab, she has been in and out of the doctors office constantly for various issues. I know she has had issues with blurry vision and severe vertigo.
She said she regretted getting jabbed.
This segment from Timcast IRL is one of the best, most straightforward discussions about libertarianism vs communism and the social engineering/manipulation tactics used to the sell the latter that I’ve heard in a long time. It’s rocket fuel for critical thinking skills. Well worth twenty minutes of your time.
Tim Tells His Story Of Being FORCED Out Of The Housing Market, BlackRock Is Driving Millennials Aw..
https://www.bitchute.com/video/o23aA5-Eorc/
That’s an alarming development, because BlackRock is out bidding people by a huge margin! They’re offering 30%-50% above asking prices on properties. Not only that, they’re offering cash! Cash always wins out, something I learned the hard way when house shopping. I put two bids on a house I liked. The first time, they played games and wouldn’t give me time to do a home inspection, so I walked. The second time, though I offered more; though I was preapproved; they took a $10K less offer because it was a cash offer, and nothing can go wrong with a straight cash deal. Well, combine the sweetness of a cash deal with 30%-50% above your asking price, WTF do you think sellers will do? It’s not a fair fight by a long shot.
The classic libertarian position would be that what Black Rock is doing is all right, because it’s a private business offering what it wants to pay on a property, and people are willingly selling to Black Rock. As far as Libertarians are concerned, what’s happening is nothing more than two private parties willingly doing business with one another. The libertarian says that this is GREAT! IMO, this is one example of how and where libertarianism falls apart and doesn’t work in the real world.
Hi Mark,
I can see it both ways. Blackrock isn’t forcing people to sell and it is a contract between two parties. I can also understand the other position that Blackrock has an unlimited money supply thanks to the Federal Reserve. The average person is ignorant. They are looking at the large amount of dollar signs to be had and do not realize the implications of their actions. This allows the oligarchy to get away with everything. Very few people are able to put two and two together until it too late. Once the majority of single family homes become rental units the transfer of wealth is complete. It will be next to impossible for millennials and Gen Z to build wealth.
Hi RG,
It would be hard to turn down a cash offer, especially that high above asking price, a private party might do it occasionally if they really wanted the property; I know a few real estate agents who’ve told me of offers coming in for $50,000+ above asking for a specific house. The problem with Blackrock is as you mentioned they have unlimited funds behind them and are quietly scooping up lots of single family homes. Kind of what the banks did after crashing the housing market in 2008, except this time they’re paying top dollar instead of fire sale prices.
The long term problem is if this continues then most of the country will be a company town, as per Klaus Schwab’s “you’ll own nothing and be happy” claptrap. I for one will NOT be happy, but I might be dead by then anyway.
No doubt this is playing out the way the WEF wants it to. I barely recognize the world today I cannot fathom what it will be like in 9 years.
Also Bill Gates buying up all the farm land should be setting off alarms for anyone with half a brain. Once he controls the food supply kiss your steaks goodbye, it’ll be soy burgers for everyone…….or Soylent Green.
This is why I like knowing all of my local farmers. I haven’t bought any type of meat from a grocery store in two years. I don’t trust what is in it or where it comes from. I have started growing my own food. Currently, I have 38 different varieties of herbs, vegetables, and fruit underway. I am also teaching myself canning. I am hoping in a SHTF scenario I can outlast most people. We’ll see how good my prepping is.
Hi RG,
I’m really close to pulling the trigger on that greenhouse; I can’t afford it – but then, I can’t afford not to…
Hi Eric,
What is the worst that can happen? You grow your own food. 😊
Not counting on under stocked grocery stores is never a bad thing. I think it took me five minutes to decide. Hubby took a little longer to convince, but after the fuel and material shortages he was on board.
It begins. The grocery store in the nearby rural town in which I do most of my business was out of the Gin I usually buy. Which it has never been CLOSE to being out of before. And Gin is NOT the most popular liquor by far. Perhaps that’s why they cut back on stock.
Yes, being close to out of Gin is what usually drives me to the store, since I tend to stock up quite well on everything else when I’m there. I could go months, maybe a year, if not for Gin. I won’t dedicate much storage space for it, since I yearly test my dependence by going dry for a month.
John,
If it gets too bad I have an unopened bottle of Hendricks that a client sent me as a Christmas gift. I have no idea what I am to use it for. I don’t drink a lot of hard liquor except tequila now and then. Rum, brandy, and bourbon I just use in cooking.
The ABC store I have noticed does look busier over the last several months or so, at least, where I reside.
Hendricks is a VERY fruity Gin. You should try a shot on the rocks. Gin is essentially grain alcohol aged with various biologicals in suspension, mostly fruit and/or flowers. with nearly all of them including juniper in larger or smaller amount. Hendricks is a bit too fruity for my taste. Thanks anyway. I’ve been too poor most of my life to drink such high end liquor so I can’t bring myself to spring for it. I drink a couple of mid priced brands, New Amsterdam and Seagrams. I have enough trouble restraining myself with them. Alcohol ales went up 500% in the US last year. Mine only went up 100%.
It’s quite good with tonic water, which I quit using because of the sugar or artificial sweeteners. If I want to drink sugar, I’ll drink beer.
Was it Victory gin?
Owning it ain’t keeping it. Homestead on his sorry ass.
Hi Mark,
Well, this libertarian does not so regard it. This libertarian considers corporations anathema to the concept of private property; in the first and most obvious place because corporations are by definition creations of government, given special exemptions/advantages and legal protections that are not available to human individuals. In the second place, because no human individual owns the corporation. It is a device engineered specifically to avoid both the accountability that comes with individual ownership as well as the moral incentive to behave decently that most humans have, especially when they know that the consequences of bad behavior will reflect upon them, personally as well as legally.
I regard corporations as Mussolini did – as fasces of the corporatist state.
I can go along with that position. I don’t like corporations, either. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that they’re EVIL! Given their conduct, especially in recent times, I don’t think that’s too strong a word.
Corporations are sociopathic by their very nature. They are not born, and so have none of the usual human virtues, like sympathy, compassion, charity, regret, remorse, etc. Like practically every other creations of the state, the IRS for example, they are evil incarnate. Given Blackwater’s success in being the far largest, one can only assume the MOST evil incarnate. They control TRILLIONS in assets. Once they own practically all the property, they will recoup their investment plus whatever profit they decide to. without any human consideration at all.
I see an individual becoming a corporation as the last saving grace, especially if these passports become more prevalent. The corporations will be following a different set of rules. I don’t see how one is going to create a passport for a business. Therefore, I see no downside of running everything through the business and then the business being owned by a trust. Right now that is the only loophole I see available to us.
The downside being, “an individual becoming a corporation” puts that individual in bed with the devil. They become part of the problem. And let’s not forget, that corporations being a creation of the state, have only those rights the state gives them, and they can JUST AS EASILY BE TAKEN AWAY. In fact far easier than the rights of an individual. For example, the state could arbitrarily decide tomorrow that corporations with fewer than 10 or 100 share holders have NO RIGHTS.
John,
Do you honestly believe the USA can be saved? Actually, I would argue that since the passage of the the Act 1871 that the US, herself, is a corporation, hence a poorly ran one. It is entitled to do business with domestic and foreign entities alike. It taxes it citizens (aka revenue) and only bestows upon her citizens “privileges” not “rights”. Honestly, since the induction of Washington DC as a federal territory two sets of rule books were established. One for the elite, another for us peasants.
You are right – the rules can change at anytime, but I think it is foolish to not take advantage of them while we can. The individual has been trounced and is broken, their rights depleted. Whether one wants to believe it or not we are fighting for survival, in any shape or form. The individual has no value in this country, heck, maybe even the world.
Corporations have been in effect for over 400 years with the Dutch and English East India trading companies being some of the first. They were established to take on the big boys (the Spanish and Portuguese) who wished to destroy the Brits trading with Asia. To do so they needed a large amount of capital because ships and cannons are very expensive to take out one’s enemies.
You and I are not going to see eye to eye on this topic. I, for one though, have no problem using the elites own rules against them especially if it will save my sorry hide even for a short amount of time.
Some would suggest I am giving in. I would argue that I am protecting my assets from TPTB. Individuals are not going to get a fair day in court. Maybe when the economy combusts a new government can be formed with a focus on the individual and the rules of nature, but until then we are not there.
I would argue that the War Between the States was the end of the US. When the federal government killed about 650,000 Americans to take the sovereignty of the States out of the equation. Thus destroying the very fundamental construction of the US.
More than have been killed in all other wars combined, I might add.
I am not arguing against you doing whatever you feel is required to carry on. Just warning of the pitfalls, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically at times. I’m not intimately familiar with the details of the Dutch and English East India Company, nor with the aggressiveness of the Spanish and Portuguese, other than the fact none of them were ethical players. Too disgusting for me to study. Not a thing to be emulated by a moral people.
I would also add that I want people to be aware of, and prepared for the pitfalls.
Hi RG,
Tactically, I agree with you. For the same reason that I’d pick up the enemy’s rifle to shoot him with it on a battlefield. We’re in a fight for our lives – and no holds barred when you’re in a fight like that!
Which is precisely why I switched to .223/5.56 and 9mm almost exclusively several years ago. Best to use the same ammo your opponent does, for resupply purposes. Too bad they don’t use .357 Magnum, which I really like a lot.
Yes, but no/maybe.
It is not unheard-of to booby trap an ammo cache with double charged rounds and leave them behind, so that if opposing forces try to use it their weapons will literally blow up in their own faces.
Treat any and all captured ammo with extreme caution.
No doubt one must be careful. I have guns to spare so a string trigger would be a perfect test. I suspect that they wouldn’t be too eager to do that with the same caliber THEY were using. Since one of their own may pick it up.
I find it telling that you intuitively understand that your anti-corporation position is inherently un-libertarian. That’s because under all generally accepted definitions of libertarianism, it is.
Accepted by whom? The libertarians on the right, or the libertarians on the left? In other words, libertarians in name only. Or perhaps the utter failure known as the Libertarian Party. The party that assumed it could overcome the evils of our political system by becoming part of it. “General acceptance” is what put us in the shithole we are in. Long past time to move on. The state is based om the premise it has sole authority to kill you if you don’t go along. Corporations are its children. There is no natural law governing them. They exist by state law alone, and do as they please as that law freely allows. Their parents the state perfectly willing to feed you to them
You’re conflating a number of disparate things here and are obviously heavily invested mentally in the idea that individuals voluntarily cooperating by engaging in a ownership structure designed to enable a concern to gain economic scale is evil. I disagree but I’d be curious to hear your remedy for the “problem.” I bet it would sound an awful like communism, the adherents of which, as you know, railed against the evils of “capital”, an older word for corporate ownership structures, and aspired to statelessness.
I would even argue that corporations could exist in a stateless society not intent on tearing down others to the lowest common denominator. In AnCapistan, a private, for profit entity could be in the business of chartering/creating contractual “governance” concepts necessary to enable the same sort of voluntary cooperation ownership structure necessary for a business to gain scale.
“individuals voluntarily cooperating by engaging in a ownership structure designed to enable a concern to gain economic scale” Which is NOT what corporations are in the world today. The ownership structure is created and controlled by the state. Without that structure, they are called partnerships. To which I have no objection. The difference being, in the former, the state artificially facilitates the gain of scale, wherein the latter, serving your fellow man does. Which is the only way to gain wealth in a free market. Does Amazon or Microsoft serve their fellow man? Yes, on a per sale basis. Not so much on the combined total balance, where MUCH more is taken than given, without earning it. Because the state helps them do so.
If not paying them directly out of the public treasury.
Rothbard offered a means test of how much revenue is from gov’t and how much is from voluntary transactions by private individuals or other entities. Fair enough. Still, my question to you is what’s your remedy?
Get the state out of business. It has no justification being there. Leave people to form whatever private partnerships they desire.
So laws against any other forms of organization? No stock market? Which, btw, Mises considered the one aspect of an economy that separated mixed economies from outright communism.
No stock market under the control of the state, or the state bank, which has turned it into a casino, and forced savers to invest because interest rates on savings are artificially suppressed by the fed.
All very educational, friends.
I’ve been grappling with these concepts and the proper path with such matters lately, myself.
What I am reading is that your arguments are against the state and its interventions and distortions, not the business organizational vehicle known as the corporation, which I posit could potentially exist even without a state. Care needs to be taken to avoid the equivalent of arguing against capitalism because what we have is crony capitalism or arguing against private property rights en toto because property is under certain circumstances, impaired.
I have nothing but praise for capitalism in a free market economy. It has created the highest standard of living for the most people ever. We haven’t had it for decades. What I am adamantly opposed to is the state, which is founded on the assumption it has sole authority to kill you if you disagree, taking a hand in it with central banking, fiat currency, and collusion with what are currently corporations. If you prefer to call private partnerships with no state control or collusion corporations we have little argument. Corporations as they now stand are a sorry excuse for free market capitalism.
Amen, John –
America reached its apogee of wealth – not debt – when it was still a country full of independent/family-owned/regional businesses in the ’50s and ’60s. The corporate motto – Get Big or Get Out – is enserfing the populace, turning people into “human resources” who have little recourse except to accept what this corporation or that corporation decrees. The reason America is becoming a bleak landscape of homogeneity is precisely because corporations are the same. All the “local color” of towns and cities replaced by the same McFood and McShops all of them selling Chinese-made crap on credit to enserfed Americans who increasingly make nothing themselves – and own little, themselves. What is the net worth of the average American? I’ve read and it’s probably true that most people would have great difficulty laying hands on $1,000 cash money – not credit – for an emergency purchase.
Also: Every awful thing we’ve endured since ‘Rona Fever began would not have been possible – at least, not to the degree it became actual – without the active complicity of a handful of gigantic corporate cartels.
I have arrived at what I’ll style a modern variant of the Jeffersonian idea that mass anything is almost axiomatically antithetical to liberty as it subsumes the individual, which inevitably subsumes his liberty. Decentralization and smaller-scale are the antidotes to what ails us, those of us who desire liberty – even if it means there’s not as much “stuff” available to (inevitably) put on a credit card….
There’s nothing libertarian about it. Blackrock is an investment group that gets money from people who have “first access” to newly minted dollars. So they want to convert those dollars to something valuable, in this case rental property, before anyone else figures out what’s going on. Because they have access to resources other buyers don’t they are happy to outbid those who are using the older, more valuable dollars they saved. This works for a while, until sellers catch on and start raising asking prices. But because there’s effectively an unlimited amount of dollars being created Blackrock’s investors don’t care about price, only that they can safely get a better ROI than they can in other investments.
The reason no one tried to corner the market on single family home rentals is because it was highly distributed and difficult to market. But Air B&B shows that not only is it possible to mass market individual homes, once the system is in place it is almost trivial to add more properties under management. Not only that but it was clearly demonstrated in 2008 that investors would be bailed out of any real estate crash so there’s no down side either. I was pretty surprised that this didn’t happen in ’08. Actually I thought that the banks would convert the mortgage brokers over to rental managers once the jingle mail started rolling in.
But count on all that outrage to be channeled into more calls for ever-greater government, completely ignoring the fact that the government is 100% responsible for creating the Blackrock beast.
Yes, Blackrock manages some aspects of Fed operations. I don’t believe those monies are what’s in play here. Beyond that, its assets are not the same as the gov’t printing press monies. Folks have the option to not sell to them. They don’t enjoy the monopoly on legal violence that the gov’t has so coercion is out of the question. What is your “libertarian” remedy to prevent people from making the voluntary decision to sell to Blackrock that you consider “bad”?
While I might think it ill advised to sell out to Blackrock, I won’t impose my opinion on others. But since you asked, I would only point out that one has to live somewhere and everyone selling to Backrock will quickly be competing with them. No one is forcing anyone to sell (for now), and the available inventory on market is at historically low levels, so by that reasoning I don’t think there’s much danger in the long term to the housing markets.
But Blackrock is a symptom, not the cause of this issue. If we were under a sound money system (or competitive monitory marketplace), no central bank would be issuing currency and determining the rate of interest. The borrowers would have to appeal to creditors (plural) for access to capital. Ultra low interest rates wouldn’t exist and so investors who wanted safe savings would buy certificates of deposit and “widows and orphan” stocks that pay high dividends.
Of course, regarding sound money and end the Fed. In my original comment, I was addressing the anti-corporation sentiment that has gained a certain amount of favor on this board. IMO,while some of the critiques are valid, the “what is to be done” typically tends towards the un-libertarian.
If that’s the standard–Something Bad Might Happen–then that means the following:
1) You can’t do anything, because there is risk there no matter what you do.
2) You also can’t sit around & do nothing. Bad stuff can happen as a result of that, too.
So, basically, anyone who says that is trying to manipulate you somehow, usually into doing something that they want that you don’t want. They cannot possibly be operating in good faith.
Therefore, it is vitally important to resist this wherever and whenever possible.
In addition to that, over-emphasis on saaaafety tends to suck all of the joy and fun out of living life. And who wants that? I certainly don’t.
Amerikans have been trained that the govt is here to protect and provide for you
Mission accomplished
People want safety more than freedom and the pendulum has been swinging that way for a long time
Covid won’t be the last instance of this
Nor is it the first.
“Government is here to protect and provide for you”
Which would be a curious thing, since the very foundation of each and every government is that it has sole authority to kill you if you don’t go along. Such does not attract sane, compassionate, sympathetic people to position within it.
What bugs me about that whole paradigm is that you can ask most anybody if politicians tell the truth and get a resounding “HELL NO”, and then they turn right around and vote for one, and believe what they say.
Government is here to take your money, boss you around, rig the marketplace in favor of whoever pays it the most money, start wars, and generally be useless, annoying and in the way.
Prove me wrong.
Indeed, Publius –
I’ll take it farther, by repeating what Mencken said about government being a conspiracy against the able, using the inept as leverage for the benefit of the corrupt.
Be very, very nervous…..
I just went to the IRS website to opt out of the advanced childcare tax credits. Instead of easily opting out to not take cash from the government I am mandated to participate to verify my identify. Note: I tried putting the IRS link in here, but the server kept telling me it was spam. If anyone wants to give it a try go to the IRS website https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/advance-child-tax-credit-payments-in-2021 and click unenroll.
Biometric Passports anyone?
I have never heard of this and started researching: https://www.id.me/
Who the hell is going to sign up to do this? This is it. This is how they are going to establish the passports. How many fools have already set up an account and provided personal information? I am absolutely sick of this shit. I am not doing it. F’them all.
Indeed, RG –
And I gather the Democrats are working on a “net worth” tax, which means among other things probably some kind of federal property tax on the value of your home.
I’m about at the end of my tolerance for this stuff. They can’t get any more milk from a donkey. Especially one that kicks!
Hi Eric,
The ID.me is scary shit. I am terrified. This is how they are going to shut us out. Government today. Healthcare tomorrow. Businesses will soon follow. This is why the government kept saying they are not establishing vaccine passports they are using this instead.
For anyone that cares here is sample link on how you sign up. They need your email, your cell number (to send a verification), a copy of your driver’s license or passport photo, your personal info (SSN, DOB, address) and then you must provide consent to share your information to other parties.
https://help.id.me/hc/en-us/articles/360054015553-What-is-ID-me-s-role-in-unemployment-insurance-
I feel like I am going to be sick.
RG, you are not the one who is sick. They are.
Hi Anonymous,
It feels like it all starting to connect. Covid, the vaccine, the biometric passports. Id.me was a no bid contract. It is now being used by the IRS, the US Treasury, the Social Security Admin, and 26 states to receive EDD. They also work with healthcare companies and over 200 businesses. This is a trickle down effect. I expect it to be everywhere by year end.
I went on YT to see what I could find out and of course, it is all positive. Steps on how to set it up. What docs to upload. Etc. Of course, online reviews are another matter….about 400 negative candidates 3 positive.
People are willingly inputting the information, uploading their driver’s licenses, and selfies to keep their EDD benefits. This is crazy. It every hacker’s dream.
Time to get ready to eat beans. A lot of beans, to stay outside this monstrosity.
Hi RG,
Never been more glad to be retired; don’t need to get any of that stuff. They probably take the long view figuring us old farts that remember what a free country looks like (hint-not like this) will be gone, and kids growing up today haven’t known anything else. Probably none of that matters though because having recently renewed my driver’s license I’m sure my picture and other info is already in whatever database Big Brother maintains.
Hi Mike,
I agree with you that the DMV database has a lot on us….pic, DOB, and address, but this passport will have everything (health insurance, online purchases, bank accounts, etc.) which will be controlled by a private third party and given to who knows who. I don’t want one centralized data system where everything about anyone can be tracked and traced. There is something very dehumanizing about these logistics.
Indeed, being retired myself, I don’t bring in enough to even have to file a return, and living quite comfortably while I’m at it. Even occasionally buying Gold and Silver to dispose of surplus cash. The other advantage to being an old fart is “what the fuck are they going to take from me, the worst years of my life?” Although I deeply regret what my son and his family will likely go through. Which makes me mad as hell.
If I owned one, I would not be interested in selling. So I would value it at a negative number that happened to coincide with the costs associated with maintenance, upkeep, and my annual property tax bill. Then tell them to kiss my kiester and tax that too.
RG,
Bill Gates is working on this too. Why, having an ID is a right! Did you know that? Check out http://www.id2020.org for more. Click on “Alliance”, and you’ll see that Bill Gates’ GAVI (www.gavi.org) and Micro$oft. GAVI is the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, BTW…
It wouldn’t surprise to me to find out that Id.me is a Microsoft or Google investment. It was a no bid contract. They were pre assigned to this. Being that this is what the federal government and states are using it has some big money behind it. I don’t pity the fools that subscribe to this and sign up. The child tax credits and EDD is UBI. This country is on the brink of communism and most are so dumb they don’t see it coming.
Well, they outright list Beijing-based Lenovo as a sponsor/partner, and they’ve been repeatedly busted for more than a decade harvesting information from individuals and businesses and governments (over their product lineup, including any recent Motorola-branded phones) via malware and even dedicated hardware (chip) surveillance.
What if I don’t want one?
Your view would coincide with the rest of ours. 😉
The only thing you’ll be permitted to do is vote (for the Democrat of your choice).
“The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.” President Ronald Reagan in a speech after the Challenger accident, January 28, 1986.
Speaking of which… this is a genuine letter to the editor, encouraging vaccinated people to continue wearing masks… because?
https://buffalonews.com/opinion/letters/letter-keep-wearing-your-mask-out-of-respect-for-others/article_4d81fa58-d3a4-11eb-bc19-73053bca49fa.html
Hi X,
This letter is a textbook example of sickness psychosis. The person writes: “If wearing a mask for 20 to 30 minutes while in a store or restaurant helps keep a vulnerable person from this deadly disease, I am happy to put one on.”
Bu if you are “fully vaccinated” then presumably you cannot give or get “this deadly disease” (which isn’t deadly in 99.8-something percent of “cases”).
And this psychosis is cast as some kind of noble act.
Extrapolated – why shouldn’t the not-lame ride in wheelchairs. To – you know – show how much they “respect” and “care about” the lame.
TPTB are walking a fine line with the gene therapies. They’re being held up on one hand as a symbol of how the obedient can get back to sorta normal. On the other hand, people are being told they don’t prevent you from getting anything (breakthrough cases) and that you can still transmit something. The only benefit is that they supposedly mitigate symptoms. I think letters like this are part of a pressure campaign to get some of the “I got the jab to get back to normal” people to continue to wear diapers for political reasons or “whatever your reason.” To be so obedient, so virtuous as to get jabbed and wear a diaper. The comments radiate (the appearance, at least) of a continued political divide that some benefit from. The “Trumper” epithets are the best and aimed at the dimmest bulbs as they conflate Mr. Warp Speed with anti-gene therapiers. As you have mentioned a dozen times before, diapers are the new arm bands.
No, Id.me is the new arm band. I posted a link, but my post is still sitting waiting to be approved. The government (IRS, VEC, etc.) now require you to go through ID.me unless you already have an account setup with them. It is the beginning of the biometric passports. It provides a digital identity on every individual. It collects information from businesses, healthcare, government, etc. and puts it on a digital card like an internet driver’s license.
I just tried opting out of the IRS advanced child care payments and I cannot unless I sign up for ID.me. I was reading earlier this morning that the VEC (VA Employment Commission) is also now requiring this to setup unemployment payments.
It is here and we are screwed.
You have to use Id.me to opt out? But not to get the $ automatically? If that’s the case, they’re looking to capture the “high earner” types first, which present company not included presumably, normally constitutes the professional and praetorian class that makes up and defends “the system.” Compliance will be high. Looks like the dependent class, UI bennies and the like, will be second. I’m not planning on doing anything.
Some folks will get jabbed, sign up for this ish, AND wear a diaper. The diaper is the arm band because it is visible and signals more than mere compliance, the others are not and do not.
Hi Hat,
Correct. The IRS basically signed up everyone for the advanced child tax credit, but you have to prove who you are to them to tell them you don’t want the money.
VA is requiring it to receive unemployment benefits (I read an article on that the other day). It is hitting everybody, but yes, is is pretty absurd that one has to verify who they are to opt out of receiving government money. I am not signing up so I guess they are going to be sending a check to which I will have to return to them next April. I expect the banks to implement this ID.me shortly.
Hi RG,
Ugh. In re banks. It may be time to just empty my checking account and transmute the paper into silver. I ponder growing a beard and going Amish…
The banks are all agents of the state. They will freeze your assets at a hint from them. Which is why I’ve kept just enough in one to pay my bills, and a few hundred for online purchases for many years. Going bankless may be tough, but a lot more fun than going cashless.
I am seriously considering getting rid of my Amex card. It is the only credit card I have. I told hubby tonight we are all cash here on out.
I do use a debit card, but I’ve been debt free for 25 years. It’s a cancer we can easily avoid. Those who are in debt would be amazed how much money they would have lying around without their debt.
I’ve been out of the banks for decades, Eric. It can be difficult but for the moment it is still doable. However, it is obvious the elites are tightening the net. Once cash is done away with in favor of the coming “digital dollar” it’s all over.
We’re already partway there. Just like the masses happily volunteer for 24/7 surveillance with their smartphones, they clamor for the “convenience” of digital payment with every purchase down to their last cup of coffee recorded, tracked, and scrutinized. They even get “cash” back and other perks on their purchases, how great is that?
It’s like a wet dream of the old East German Stasi come true. We’re basically screwed.
I would just accept the credit and then file the regular 1040. I haven’t gotten anything from them in years. They can kiss my ass.
There has not bee one shred of truth publicized by the “officials” and “experts” since this psychological operation began. The very first words out of their mouths when they decided to take charge were “for three weeks, to flatten the curve”. Then immediately started using an inadequate PCR test, and not even use it correctly, using far too many cycles, in order to create vastly exaggerated cases. Followed by completely altering the existing protocol for assigning cause of death to create vastly exaggerated deaths. All the time destroying our lives with useless restrictions. After 15 months, the latest being the use of different protocols for assigning cases to the vaccinated, than are used for the unvaccinated, to exaggerate the effect of the vaccine. The big problem with Fauci is that he told so many lies he couldn’t keep track of them. And the faithful STILL worship him.
John,
When my son was in the hospital for appendicitis he tested positive for convid. Now he supposedly had it back in February so the doctors told us he was probably just still testing positive from that but it wasn’t good enough for the nurses and they wanted him transferred to a convid ward. We got a copy of his positive test from the urgent care he went to back in february, but even that wasn’t good enough because and i quote the nurse, it was an instant test and not a pcr test which is the “gold standard” of convid tests. So then of course i couldn’t let that sit out there without challenging her, i asked how many cycles the test was run at, silence, refused to answer me at all. I also reminder the nurse that according to the current cdc guidelines a positive test is no longer enough to claim convid without associated symptoms, which he had none. My wife seeing the tension in the air made sure i was not the adult left with him for the time he was in the hospital because i was clearly going to butt heads with the nursing staff.
That pcr test is absolute garbage and can make anyone test positive, just crank up the cycles till you get your desired results. After the nc state college world series disaster i keep joking that if the nhl really wants a canadian team to win the stanley cup all they have to do is crank up the cycles on tampa’s best players and then force them to sit out the series.
So many PCR experts, almost none of which even know what it stands for. This nurse, so sure of its gold standard status, likely couldn’t articulate the difference between the melting phase, annealing phase, or the extension phase, or tell you what is Taq polymerase vs. reverse transcriptase. But she just KNOWS it’s a gold standard test.
Haha, you’re saying she’s never even played a game of TaqMan, BAC?
Yeah, so many experts in molecular biology just popped into existence in the last year, it’s like THEY’RE being amplified.
“The Gold standard”, even after the guy who invented it, and won a Nobel prize for his effort, flatly stated it was not useful for that purpose.
“Extrapolated – why shouldn’t the not-lame ride in wheelchairs. To – you know – show how much they “respect” and “care about” the lame.”
It’s coming.
That’s part of the plot in Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron.” The healthy, the talented and the beautiful are forced by the government to wear “handicaps” to make them equal to the most lame, the most infirm, and the most stupid. When Harrison illegally removes his government mandated “handicaps,” he is shotgunned to death by Diana Moon Glampers, “the United States Handicapper General.”
Perhaps what is so insidious about the covid safety apotheosis is its outward and inverted projection – to impose affirmative duties and obligations on others to alter their behavior to accommodate the needs and feelings of others. You don’t mandate seatbelts to protect other drivers. But now it’s “my mask protects you.” It’s all upside down and inside out, to the point where we are now expected to put our own health and life in peril to accommodate someone else. No! I ain’t having it.
Exactly, BAC!
Let’s say I have a bad peanut allergy. Does that entitle me to force every store or restaurant I might enter to take whatever steps I think are appropriate to limit my exposure to peanuts? Or is it my obligation to take whatever precautions for myself that seem to me necessary? I know, I know… I’m selfish and mean spirited.
Hi Eric,
Re: the letter to the editor — the writer wonders whether the person in line next to them might have a bad immune system, etc. — wasn’t that *always* a possibility, even as recently as two years ago? They could *always* have had some unknown virus they could (in their logic) “asymptomatically spread” to others? So why did they only start wearing “masks” in the last year-plus or so? Did mankind just invent the idea of face diapers around March 2020? Or did people like this letter writer really just “not care” about others from 2019 on back? What gives? 🤔🤷♂️
To top it all off, the CDC’s own research proves THEY DON’T FRICKING WORK.
Actually, I do require my passengers to buckle up to protect other drivers, namely me. If the SHTF I would prefer them not to be in my lap while I try to drive out of it. But your point is well made. There is no justification for you to be required to do anything to accommodate others.
The weirdest thing in my area is how groups of people, multi generational families mostly, are renting vacation homes, arriving, and almost never leaving the property or even venturing outdoors beyond the deck(s) on the house. It almost seems like they feel the need to “gather” secretly. We’ve had people say things like “this is gram & gramp’s” first trip outside their house in 15 months and the first time they’ve seen their kids or grandkids in that time.” Not everyone, but a lot of people seem shell shocked or spooked. Oceans of alcohol being consumed and more public weed smoking (still illegal here), particularly by older folks than I’ve ever seen in my life. Not unexpected, I guess.
This is one thst gets to me. I never stopped seeing family, even my 94 yr old grandmother, my mom before she passed and my dad. My wife’s side of the family was always together i just cannot fathom hiding inside for 15 or 16 months and not seeing family over that whole time. I don’t understand how otherwise rationale people can be so struck by fear of a virus with 99.8 or higher survival rate. It is such an alien concept to me.
Hi Antilles,
I never understood this either. Who the hell would stop seeing your family? Why would you cancel family events – birthdays, holidays, get togethers? I can understand people being cautious, especially when this virus news first broke, but I never stopped seeing my parents, my sisters, my grandmothers, my aunt. We may have spread out a little more and there was a lot less hugging, but we still sat around the table drinking a cup of coffee and eating a piece of pie while chatting for a hour or two.
After the first few visits it donned on all of us that this was some type of psyche op. By June 2020 we we had celebrated Easter and two birthday parties and none of us had been hospitalized or died. We never wore masks and if somebody wasn’t feeling good that person didn’t show. I think the government’s point was to terrify people so they wouldn’t communicate, meet up, or chat. If people met in person and lived to tell about it people would have seen reason much more quickly and the fear would not have been prolonged and never-ending. Unfortunately, the government and their shills succeeded.
I have clients in this day and age that refuse to see people unless they are vaxxed. They tell family members that they will cannot attend their wedding, funeral, anniversary party, etc. unless they have had the jab. I refuse to participate. Fortunately, I have not been given that ultimatum, but it would not be a hard choice if I had to. If one is that paranoid then I have no desire to have them in my life whether as a family member, friend, or client.
Curious on this if everyone’s observations are the same, the car where the occupant driving is most likely to be wearing a face diaper while driving alone is the toyota prius. 2nd place around me goes to no particular vehicle but a class of vehicles, the mini van. Usually worn by the soccer karen even when she is alone in the van without her fully diapered at all time children.
Around me, aside from one here and there, it’s the person driving the empty or full gov school buses. The last one I saw the woman had her diaper over her mouth but off her nose. Maybe they’re finally realizing the absolute stupidity of it all but I still have my doubts.
Our school district has used convid as the excuse to kick parents and all organizations off of the school grounds. My youger son forgot his lunch one day and you would have thought i was a leper the way i was treated by the school secretary when i went to drop it off. The irony of the way i was treated, if i did have some sort of virus or bug, whatever i have, my kid is already carrying it around and vice/versa.
Also they forced diapers and 6 ft apart most of the year on these kids but those same kids after schools was out were all on the same, baseball, soccer, basketball, football, scouts, ect all with no diapers right on top of each other. It was all an illusion of saaaafety.
Our local schools are basically stating that they will still require face diapers in the fall (we homeschool, but feel for the children of our friends and neighbors). Not much of a peep from the sperm and egg donors (not sure how many qualify as parents anymore). But as you describe, these kids are now all at summer camps and had been doing spring/summer sports all without face diapers. The cognitive dissonance of these people is staggering.
Neither of my kids use an inhaler anymore but both still have asthma plans on file because its easier to keep the plan going than to try and remove it thanks to school bureaucracy. Anyway i used it to my kids advantage this year and told them any time(which with my boys became all the time) they wanted to take off the diaper just claim they couldn’t breath due to the asthma. Worked well for both of them, wife hated it because she is much more a rules follower than me. If the school district declares diapers for the fall i am pulling them and will go broke if i have to sending home schooling them or sending them to a private school.
‘… going for a walk outside on a sunny day. It might rain. You might be struck by lightning.’ — EP
Worse, one might be struck by a silent and deadly electric vehicle, pouncing from behind like a hungry mountain lion.
Evidence? A video has surfaced of a heavily-modified Ford Mustang EV, running a low 8-second quarter mile with no sound save a slight vacuum cleaner hum. Gone is the heavy metal thunder of a Don Garlits dragster, consisting of nothing more than a supercharged V8, fire belching open pipes, and skinny bicycle wheels way up front.
And gone is any interest on my part. I don’t give a damn about racing vacuum cleaners.
If this is the promised land, I’ve had all I can stand
And I’m headed back below that Dixie line
Naw, I just don’t fit in and I’ll never come back again
But I’m busted here with Dixie on my mind
Oh, I’m stuck up here and I got Dixie on my mind
— Hanks Williams Jr, Dixie on my Mind
… and right on cue, an email from the NY Slimes hits my box. Title:
Red America’s Covid problem
GAAAHHHHHHHHHH … for that, you ink-stained, frayed-collar yankee scribblers get another verse:
I’ve always heard lots about the Big Apple
So I thought I’d come up here and see
But all I’ve seen so far is one big hassle
Wish I was camped out on the Okeechobee
— Hank Jr
Slimes is just a mouth piece of the commiecrat party. They should have to register as a super pac for the commies they are so far to the left. Remember according to the slimes and their pope fraudci, ny murdering the elderly and shutting down life and businesses to the point where their population began to flee for literally greener pastures is the blue print for how the rest of the country should have handled convid.
‘ny murdering the elderly’ — Antilles
Indeed. One would think that a state which arguably botched its pandemic response worse than anywhere on earth would keep a low profile afterward.
But that ain’t the nature of big-mouthed New Yorkers, nor of leftist DemonRats with a bloody ideological ax to grind.
Damn … I’d like to cruise down the West Side Highway right now with a big confederate battle flag rippling in the pickup bed, just to stick it to them. But I’d probably get the windshield smashed upon hitting the traffic lights at 59th Street.
One of my favorite Hank Jr. songs.
In fact, because of the ever present danger of getting hit by a meteor, we need to stay at least 20 feet underground at all times.
Fear produces endorphins, which produce what are essentially opioids in our own body. Are we now a nation of opioid addicts that can’t get out of bed without our fear fix?
John,
I believe Eric had the remedy for the meteor, which was a traffic cone worn as a hat. Now required, worldwide.
Are we also not possibly addicted to our fear of being FORCED to play their stupid evil game?