In the early days of every crisis, people wonder – what is to be done? Many feel helpless to do anything, as if caught in a ripe tide. This can be very demoralizing. After all, what’s the point of doing anything if nothing you do changes anything?
But there is in fact a great deal that can be done. And things done one by one can add up to great things done.
As for instance what was done by probably hundreds of thousands of individuals who exercised their veto power by not buying Bud Light beer – after Bud Light Beer put something extremely distasteful to them on the can the beer came in. As a result, the distasteful thing is no longer on the can – and the beer may not be around for much longer, either.
A similar veto was exercised by the millions of people who said No to the idea that it was their duty to allow themselves to be injected with whatever the government said it believed was necessary for them to be injected with. In other words, the principle at issue was said No to.
It wasn’t just the particular “vaccines” that turned out to be something else – something neither “safe” nor “effective.” It was this incredibly effronterous notion that we are to accept being treated like someone’s pet – a cat or a dog – and raise no fuss when our owners tell us it is time to be taken to the vet.
In italics to emphasize what was at stake.
As this column has argued previously, if more of us had exercised our veto power with regard to “masks” – and to the loathsome abrogation of our right to freely associate – the three-year ordeal all of us were subjected to would probably have been over before three months had passed. If a third of us – or even a fourth – had simply refused to Play Doctor by walking around looking as though we were headed to the operating room – and ignored government orders to stop going about our business – it would have become untenable for the government to shut down businesses.
Those who doubt the power of such a mass veto, exercised by millions of individuals, forget the prior examples of Prohibition and the 55 mile-per-hour National Maximum Speed Limit. Both became absurd when they became unenforceable. Or – more accurately – when they were ignored by millions, who thereby expressed their contempt for them. By doing that, they undermined the strength of them in that it is difficult to enforce absurdity; people began to see how absurd it was and more and more people joined the ranks of those who ignored these laws. The more who did, the more obnoxious enforcement was rendered until it got to the point that the public-at-large came to regard the enforcement (as well as the enforcers) as the criminals.
Which, in truth, they were.
What other term is appropriate to describe those who treat others as if they were criminals for doing things that were previously accepted as not-criminal. That were, in fact, perfectly legal – such as driving the speed limit (70 MPH) before it was arbitrarily made illegal to drive 70 (or even 60)? Or have a beer?
Not only were these things previously legal, they were always moral – as there was never anything immoral about having a beer or driving 70 MPH on the highway.
Just as there was nothing immoral about refusing to Play Doctor – and “practice” sickness kabuki rituals. Just as it was – and is – the height or moral action to refuse to accept being treated like a dog or a cat who mustn’t raise a fuss when its owners want to take it to the vet to get its shots.
The lesson is our putative owners cannot enforce what enough of us refuse to accept – whether it is a law forbidding us to have a beer or drive at reasonable speeds or edicts that aren’t even laws demanding we “mask” up or roll up our sleeves, just because they say so.
As they are likely to say, again. Will we say enough – and no more?
The power of our individual refusal – when combined with the refusal of thousands, tens of thousands, hundred of thousands – millions – of other individuals has the latent and actual power of an irresistible tide far more potent than the rip-tide of events we often feel powerless to do anything about.
We aren’t.
But it requires each of us to exercise this power in order for it to be powerful. That is the challenge.
. . .
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Slightly off topic, but the media, the authoritarians in Western governments, and the globalist/ technocratic elite may use MERS as part of ANOTHER fear porn campaign and claim it’s “The next pandemic that requires everyone to be ‘locked down’ & ‘masked up’ until a vaccine is available”….however, like with the ‘Rona, MERS is largely deadly to people who already have co-morbidities, and one thing people can do to protect themselves is improve their health and keep up on Vitamin D uptake….
https://thehighwire.com/editorial/current-fear-based-mers-narrative-omits-significant-impact-of-comorbidities/
Oh, no one is boycotting the speed limit anymore?
I didnt get that memo. Red Barchetta for the win!
LOL, I did not get that memo, either.
The Nuremberg Trial of German war criminals was tacitly based on the recognition of the principle: criminal actions cannot be excused if committed on government orders; CONSCIENCE supercedes the authority of the law of the state.
The real “N word” the virtue signaling control freaks don’t want you to utter is (No.)
Almost everything in this world is an offer
The amount of people who cowered under the covid restrictions who could have just said one simple word and played it out in their actions would have flipped the tables in a few weeks would have been what 10%-15%?
“The consent of the governed” is exactly that. No consent=no governance. It cannot be stated enough the ability to enforce through violence is waning in the enforcer class.
Just this weekend I witnessed 8-10 police cruisers unable to disperse a crowd of say 75-100 high schools age kids from a grocery store parking lot. Not even hoodlums, I’m talking pink polo shirts and khakis. The police were driving around in circles on loudspeakers telling people to “go home or they were going to call their parents.” Nobody paid any attention. While I’m not sure how it ended up the sound of hopelessness was apparent in the officer’s voice, he carried all the authority of a stressed mother begging her child to not act up public.
I don’t know why you would find the actions of those teenagers commendable. The owner of the lot probably has a rule against loitering and the police were there to support the business owners rules on their property. This flagrant violation of one’s property rights should be heavily criticized and not held up as some “victory” for anti-government views. Would you also commend the BLM rioters as they burned and looted, expressing their freedom and contempt of the rule of law.
Unless you are a fan of mob violence and vigilante justice it is the role of police officers to uphold the law. As long as the law’s they uphold are just than they should earn your support not condemnation.
Shut up, troll. You have no knowledge or real opinion on this matter. It’s just another Cashy attempt to instigate a pointless argument.
There is an unfortunate tendency for many on this forum to attack law enforcement officers at every opportunity. That is misguided as most of them are doing the job they are tasked to do. And it is a difficult job. It is unfortunate when they have to enforce laws that are unjust or irrational but that is not their issue but an issue of the government that passes those laws. The anger should be directed at the elected representatives.
Furthermore it is common to lump all law enforcement personnel into one group. That is not at all true. The FBI, the Federal Marshalls, the local Sheriffs office, and the local police dept. are all different organizations completely. Many Sheriffs are very upset with some laws and will refuse to enforce them. And any particular officer may have a different agenda then the organization itself so it is unfair to generalize. If you are generally law abiding then the police are your friends not your enemies.
Shut up, troll. You have no knowledge or real opinion on this matter. It’s just another Cashy attempt to instigate a pointless argument.
Cashew writes:
“There is an unfortunate tendency for many on this forum to attack law enforcement officers at every opportunity. That is misguided as most of them are doing the job they are tasked to do. ”
Just as the NKVD (and Gestapo) were “doing the job they were tasked to do.”
What is this bizarre reverence for “law enforcement”? What is so admirable about enforcing “the law”? I will never understand people like you. As a kid, I watched MASH and always got a kick out of the way they mocked Col. Flagg. You remind me of him.
Are you capable of making a distinction between “the law” – and what’s right?
And wrong?
Oh, don’t go all crazy and compare the local cops to the Gestapo. There is no reverence for law enforcement here, just a recognition that they perform the important and often dangerous function of enforcing laws. I guess you are an anarchist and don’t want any laws or law enforcement but the vast majority of people like to live in a society where illegal actions are punished. I’m sure you side with BLM that would like to defund the police, unfortunately most people don’t feel that way so we need to make the best of it.
Yeah Col. Flagg I did like that guy, real by the book, reminds me of Joe Friday another guy I admired. And Reed and Malloy. TJ Hooker, too, CHIPS, and remember the Highway Patrol. That seemed like a cool job.
Fuck off, troll.
ML. I concur.
Cashy,
It is not “goin crazy” to point out your slavishness toward “the law” – and “law enforcement.”
For instance, when you write:
“There is no reverence for law enforcement here, just a recognition that they perform the important and often dangerous function of enforcing laws.”
Italics added, to make the point. The officers of the NKVD, Gestapo and Stasi could (and did) say the same.
Cashy goes on to write:
“but the vast majority of people like to live in a society where illegal actions are punished.”
As good Germans always say.
Cashy: Read more type less.
My point was not whether the police or pink polo boys were right or wrong the point was the ability for the enforcers to impose their will on anyone for anything is just about gone. Which is perfectly in line with the point of Eric’s article. Unlike your unsurprisingly retarded blathering on about nothing. Resistance is not futile the answer to the cunt-trollers is no.
I have no idea what the hell was going on or why the crowd was there. Any police force is only as good and moral as the people in the organization. LMPD is worse than useless. Cowards to the PC fag mayor and the police chief is lost. They deserve any disrespect they get until they prove otherwise.
Your little personal anecdote and how you perceived it means nothing. Many people here have gone on about the militarization of the police and how they are getting more like a military. So which is it? No one obeys them or people live in fear of this new army?
This mixed up reaction is part of the irrational response to the use of force that is a part of any government good or bad. The rational response would be to support it when it acts in the interest of justice and condemn it when it doesn’t instead of saying it shouldn’t exist at all.
Crashy: Your incoherent wallnof text means nothing. Per usual.
The faggotry runs deep with this one….
Cashy: Read more type less.
‘What Libertarians Want from Government’
…”The difference between the Libertarian Party and all other political parties is a simple one: “All political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.” Indeed, this is the root of the difference between libertarians and everyone else.”…
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/09/laurence-m-vance/libertarians-want-government/
Fuck off, troll Cashy.
It appears that the CDC, under new Director Mandy Cohen (who was ALL IN on lockdowns and mask & vaxx mandates when she was a public health bureaucrat in North Carolina) may “recommend” a yearly COVID & FLU SHOT for adults, even though it’s become undeniable that the COVID shots are neither “Safe” NOR “Effective”. It will be interesting to see how many adults say “No F****** way!” to that come fall, especially if Big Pharma also develops new mRNA RSV vaccines and the CDC “recommends” that for adults as well.
Isn’t it true that each year’s dominant strain of flu degrades over time into a series of increasingly less virulent variants? If true, then Covid–which was the dominant flu strain three years ago–no longer exists in its original form and is basically nothing now. I don’t understand how so many supposedly educated Americans can fall for this propaganda of “Covid is a permanent problem!”
Jason:
As I understand it you are right. Hell even the black death worked itself out. Bubonic plague still exists, those who could not survive or develop immunity did not produce offspring those who did, and their descendants are immune.
On a side note. Mass graves of plague victims have since been exhumed and shown extreme malnutrition was the norm of those who died, evidence of rickets and scurvy.
It’s gotten to the point that I look at either boycotts or buycotts of every company I purchase from. At least vendors on eBay don’t insult your beliefs when you order from them. I don’t know what the solution is but all those left wing nut jobs can just F Off as far as I’m concerned.
PS- Isn’t the CDC about to recommend yearly clot shots for all?
Yes, Landru, and Big Pharma is now toying with combining the COVID and flu shots together. Can you imagine getting a healthy dose of spike protein every year, and messenger RNA, as well? What a way to go….
An inspiring article, nice!
The most powerful word in the universe is “NO!” because to say “NO!” implies something deep within the core of one’s being. Most people can’t say this word.
Thanks, Gary!
People have tremendous power – if only they’d exercise it. It was very frustrating for me during the height of Sickness Psychosis, to see almost everyone “masked up.” I never did. I never will.
When I was in the grocery store during the pandemic, I would be walking around without a mask, and when I would see someone else without one, we did not even have to say a word to each other. All we would do is make eye contact with each other, and nod to each other in passing. It was nice to know not everyone had drank full and deep of the Koolaid.
Hi Shadow,
Yup; same. It was like a secret handshake! I also would baaaaaaaaaa! as I passed by the “masked” sheep. Per Ted Nugent, I spoke to them in their own language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVlnE63B3fU&t=84s
Boycotts work. Especially when the protesters are the silent majority. But here’s the 4D chess idea: Get the hoi-polli to boycott something extremely popular, like Disney World. Gate receipts are down for the Magic Kingdom and other Florida parks, down 50% for Universal Studios.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/where-everyone-disney-world-just-about-empty
But what if that’s the plan? Get people outraged enough to quit their Disney addiction, because the physical locations have reached saturation. Skip the annual trek for a year or so and next thing you know, the bloom is off the rose. I went through this with Las Vegas (as most do). The first trips were magic, special and memorable. But over time you start to notice the fading facades, burned out lights and all the horrible smells. But the best time I ever had there was over Superbowl weekend in 2020 (which wasn’t my first trip). No one was in town at all, both because of the ‘big game’ and the mystery disease. So I got great service, no lines and lots of parking. Best time in LV ever or since.
I think there’s a move to destroy experiences for the masses with disposable income and access to cheap credit. This will pave the way for the high rollers to once again have something you cannot. Disney World is just the test since they know they’ll never make money in a world with millions of hours of free content. But there’s only one Disney World. Empty it out, raise the prices and don’t work so hard. Because eventually there will be enough VIPs to make the VIP experience bland.
“But over time you start to notice the fading facades, burned out lights and all the horrible smells.”
%That it took you, “over time”….
I thought this was interesting. John Kerry speaking about starving millions of Americans.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kerry-ripped-demanding-agriculture-emission-cuts-bankrupt-every-farmer
Read the tweets from conservative politicians then read the tweets from other conservatives…it is night and day. Not one of the damn Republicans actually had the guts to point out Kerry’s push toward genocide.
The whole damn Congress needs to thrown out of the Capitol on their heads. They are all sick.
Kerry isn’t talking about bankrupting farmers, but starving people!
John Kerry married Teressa Heinz after Senator Heinz’s death in a small plane crash, as happens so often to people who may run afoul of a certain DC clique.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Heinz#Death
I have a vague recollection of John Heinz as a fairly popular and decent senator, as much as any of them can be. Most people assumed because he came from big pickle money he wouldn’t be bribable but of course that’s pretty naïve, even in the 1980s. He was on the short list of Republican presidental candidates but of course we’ll never know.
Man, you can’t even write a freaking spreadsheet without being pestered to celebrate perversion. I was just looking for a setting in Excel, and ran across this:
Show Your Pride [checkbox]
Celebrate Pride with this special theme, inspired by the colors of the Pride flag.
More ways to celebrate at http://www.microsoft.com/pride
Switch to Libre Office
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/
I’ve already got my tree trimmer pole rigged up to hold a can of spray paint for when the control freaks around here put up the “speeding” cameras.
55 MPH returning as the Federal standard won’t get adopted by the states. The point is to gimp the MPG testing by eliminating the high speed testing when the Federal limit went to 65 MPH and restoring the “fudge” factor to the calculations.
Do you *really* think a K-car got 46 MPG highway?
Wear a mask as a disguise
Or an Antifa costume.
I’ve been noticing more license plate readers going up in my area. I have been contemplating whether I should block them or destroy them entirely, or try to fight them with lawfare. Either way, I don’t like them tracking my movements and I want it stopped.
Do you mean, remote controlled toys, with saws-alls? …Are you saying it could become an online game competition with prizes? …Like, viral? Idk.
I think I saw something like that on that nerd TeeVee show, The Big Bang Theory.
Yes. Just do not tell anyone about it. Do it and do not Bragg. Sawsall. Wear blackface.
@Eric – Brock Yates is gone.
It is ironic that the Canonball record fell several times during the opportunity afforded by the pandemic lockdowns.
The first step is to educate yourself on these topics, from EVs to Covid shots, so you can explain them to others with facts, data and logic.
So many others have heard and believed claptrap, from government paid scientists and doctors, not supported by data, but well supported by the Appeal to Authority logical fallacy.
The next step requires courage.
Here is one example:
Seven-Year-Old Boy Sues California School District for Covid Rule Violations of Civil Rights
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/7-year-old-boy-sues-california-school-district-violations-civil-rights
.
The facts, data and logic also have to be true and unmanipulated.
One other thing, Richard, what say you about this regarding “climate change”:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/07/what_nasa_and_the_european_space_agency_are_admitting_but_the_media_are_failing_to_report_about_our_current_heat_wave.html
That could be a +0.1 degree C. global average temperature increase for a year or two. No climate emergency.
‘Those who doubt the power of such a mass veto, exercised by millions of individuals, forget the prior example of Prohibition.’ — eric
Then another prohibition — the War on Weed — started a generation later.
Today, cannabis remains a Schedule 1 drug: no valid uses, declares the moribund fedgov, even after its own FDA licensed a cannabis-based medication.
Likewise, a moribund Clowngress continues to deny banking privileges to cannabis-based businesses.
Meanwhile, the states and the people simply ignore the irrelevant fedgov, demonstrating the hollowness of its usurped power for all to see.
As in the fable of the emperor with no clothes, if we laugh hard enough at ridiculous, senile nobodies like “Biden,” Feinstein and Mitch ‘Man of Stone’ McClownell, maybe they will just expire of shame.
Into these last nine beers
I have shed a million tears
You are on my lonely mind
I’m gonna keep drinkin’
until I’m petrified
Hank Williams, Tear in Muh Beer
“ridiculous, senile nobodies like “Biden,” Feinstein and Mitch ‘Man of Stone’ McClownell,”
How about Senator Flusteredman?
Eric,
Aren’t we already seeing this with EVs? They’re stacking up on dealer lots; there’s a record inventory of EVs. IOW, they’re not selling. If they don’t sell, then can’t the push to EVs be DERAILED by millions refusing to buy them? Won’t this keep ICEVs around longer? I’m hoping so…
Most of the population *lust* after EVs, Tesla and Ford (to a lesser extent) in particular having success turning them into fetish items, and view the economic conditions causing the vehicles to stack up on dealer lots as only temporary. The masses believe that everyone will eventually cruise to work at Ludicrous Speed in either a Model X or Cybertruck priced at around $40,000 after credits and financed with 2-3% paper, putting the monthly nut at around $500.
After the election, we will have Cash For Clunkers 2.0, regardless of who is in control in the White House or Congress.
People can lust for EVs or anything else they want; if they can’t AFFORD those things, then they won’t be sold-end of story.
Enough people still believe that EVs will take the personal computer route and just get cheaper over time. Failing that, they operate under the delusion that their personal contribution to society is so important that the government won’t relegate them to the majority of the population who will ride the bus to work once the IC vehicle fleet is turned over by 2040.
Thank goodness I will be nearly dead by then.
Roscoe,
Something else to consider is that 80% of EV owners would NOT buy another one! In order for a market to sustain itself, repeat buyers are a must.
Exactly. While Moore’s law will make the motor controllers almost free, the displays cheaper than glass and be so efficient that they have almost no resistance, the copper motor windings, iron plates, cable, etc will still be subject to the whims of the commodities market price. The leather (or Naugahyde) is already as cheap as we know how to make it, and still requires a lot of handling by humans who can’t find a less smelly profession. Maybe Boston Dynamics will invent a robot for the tannary but given the “optics” of a robot slaughterhouse I doubt they would risk their ESG score.
And those pesky batteries…
There’s a reason why most of our home appliances haven’t changed much since the 1960s: The fundemental tech isn’t going to ever get better. Maybe incremental improvements, sure, but not the big exponential gains we see in microprocessors. And the chance there’s going to be a moon-shot revolutionary technological advance (outside of nuclear) is almost nonexistent.
Even the latest room temperature superconducting material announced last week hasn’t been shown to be scalable beyond a lab table. Cool party trick, but until I see factories on the scale of Alcoa’s Pittsburgh operation in 1888 I’m going to assume nothing will ever come of it -and again, no one is complaining about the wires!
> The leather … is already as cheap as we know how to make it, and still requires a lot of handling by humans who can’t find a less smelly profession.
Which is why raw hides from American cattle are shipped to China for tanning, then shipped back to the U.S.A. as finished leather. No EPA to “ride herd” (so to speak) on tanneries in China.
The way to make it cheaper than that is so-called “bonded leather,” which is chopped up leather glued to a fabric substrate. Bonded leather is what you will find on cheap “leather” chairs from office supply stores, and probably on quite a bit of auto upholstery as well.
Depending on use. bonded leather *might* last five years or so. At some point it will delaminate from the fabric substrate, and you will have a very ugly, and messy, place to sit.