274 Comments

It's not too late to stand up people. I know there's people reading this that still go along with the nonsense. Just stop.

It's time to bring back bullying and let's bully the ever living fuck out of these weaklings wearing n95s to the grocery store. Point and laugh, make them feel stupid and maybe they will finally stop.

I'm so far beyond done accommodating these people's mental illness.

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My approach was this, but I have shifted to being super nice and accommodating - without appearing suspicious. So far, I am getting nice and surprising results! People take the mask off to speak to me and some have even started confiding in me. Most people at my local stores recognise me because I have NEVER worn the face nappy. Not once. THIS is how we get the message out!

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I agree, vorlic! As fun as it would be to scoff and point and bully, it's just throwing mud. Everyone just gets dirtier.

As for me, I will "speak truth in love" and keep my muttering/grumbling to myself (if I can). Proverbs 15:1

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The worst ? Knowing, absolutely knowing that the KIDS are now conditioned to grab that mask. Even I got conditioned in 2020 and early 2021 before I realized. It’s habitual now. And I’m still required at work (HCW; yes I’m a bad cat it comes off as often as I can get away with it). And, in schools, it’s still school policy even in free states they’ve fought our govnr.

So the kids are psychologically and mentally harmed. Permanently. How bad? Kids are resilient, very , but still, a whole 2 years of kids now conditioned. I watch kids walk to local elementary school NO ONE except parent and obvious sibling next to them , all full on masks.

Ps unvaxxed. Will stay unvaxxed. Will leave job behind if CMS forces. See SCOTUS decision. Crappy for judges to use the argument of “transmission” stop with a jab that doesn’t prevent it AND having jabbed nurses and

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I’m with you, Laura. Had a grocery store worker come offer me a mask, I refused and left, keeping my comments to myself about how I didn’t get a masters of science in nursing to let a grocery store worker in a cloth mask try to give me a lesson in public health. We wished each other a good day and off I went to Safeway, which doesn’t say anything....

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I've got a suggestion for you. I brought this up elsewhere and someone provided a link to a story where a judge backed a person up in doing what I'm going to suggest.

You see, neither gov't nor a private company can force you to take a medicine that's not FDA approved. They can't force you to take something only being given on an emergency basis. The FDA approved the "Comirnaty" (just a coincidence that it sounds like "Commie-Nazi") version of the Pfizer injections. But you can't actually get "Comirnaty" anywhere. You see Pfizer wanted to be able to say that their injections are FDA approved but they don't want to give you injections that are FDA approved because they could be held liable for any problems. They legally can't be held liable for what happens with an emergency use medicine. So, they say "Hey! We're FDA approved!" But they won't give you that injection.

But what if a person whose company was trying to bully him or her into getting the injections said "Okay, I'll get the FDA approved injection" and stood on principle and wouldn't let them give him or her the emergency use stuff that they'd actually try to give you? Well, in another thread, someone provided a link to where a person did just this and a judge backed them up. Use their little fraudulent two step against them!

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The masking of children is tied to federal funds. It's grotesque. They've given a TRILLION dollars to "education". my state of Missouri is getting $2B just for education. There are also alllllll these provisions for fighting inequality and suspiciously there's only one classical characteristic missing in the language. It calls for not discriminating against people for ethnicity, age, gender, etc etc...but RELIGION is just not mentioned at all. 🧐

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Precisely. I ain't interested in a race to the bottom. Stay sane, Dan, mumble to yourself until this sh*t castle of lies is brought crumbling down. And then we will all ROAR.

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I did that for the past 18 months... I'm over it. I'm nice to the employees because they are forced to wear the mask, but other customers that are perpetuating this nonsense can suck it.

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I know what you mean, we all do. But stick with it, Doug. All free-thinking people stick together and we will not let the B*stards divide us or divide us from the rest - if it helps, just try to see them as victims. I say this even though I hate defining anyone as a victim, because I am too fond of having only myself to blame for my problems!

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I'm especially bitter because my children haven't had a relationship with my parents for the past 2 years, because they are terrified of the rona and think I'm a danger by being unvaxxed. My kids are 3 and 5. Those are years are never coming back.

I tried to "be nice" and accommodate my parents. I even sourced them n95s from my doctor friend a year ago because I knew how scared they were. Now they are just being jerks and I'm done being nice. Going to flip the script and see how that goes.

They are old so if they never talk to me again then whatever, they going to die soon anyway.

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Meh, don’t be bitter sounds good, but I abandoned a toxic relationship with my father before Covid and it was the right thing to do. These people are not children. They need to get their shit together or get out of the way. I am not impressed by the general lack of principles in the boomer generation. My kids aren’t missing out on any life lessons from him, except how not to treat other people. If I sound bitter, well yeah, trauma will do that to you. Best wishes figuring it out.

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Don't let the bitterness get you. Then they win, and you look like a jerk, when you're just tired of the baloney sandwich. Stay kind, stay rational, stay solid. (i am repeating this to myself, also.)

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It’s largely driven by your parents locked inside watching main stream media. I avoid TV but recently saw a couple news shows and was shocked at the misinformation and fear mongering. No wonder people are fearful, especially those who are not critical thinkers.

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My parents are also old and I can see my father beginning to change - he is finally against vaccinating children. He got the first two shots last january but refuses the booster.

My mother is still drinking the kool aid. I got omicron and her first comment was if i had now taken the shot. She tells me that it reduces the severity to which i reply that first they told you it prevented infection and then changed their narrative. She just replies "whatever".

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How sad for your parents that the media has sucked the joy of their very own grandchildren from them. It’s truly their loss and one that they hopefully will realize sooner rather than later.

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Yup, I feel very sorry for the kids at the register who have to pointlessly wear a mask.

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I always look to see if their mask is under their nose. If it is, I say in an encouraging way that I'm so sorry they have to wear the mask, but I'm grateful to see that they still able to breathe. Cashiers, young and old, really seem to appreciate any recognition that they aren't alone. I've also noticed that a sizable number of workers who are forced to mask appreciate customers who don't. It's as though we are taking a stand for them, too. A smile and a kind word goes a long way in this very ugly world!

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I have noticed this appreciation too-especially the minimum wage workers in the supermarket have shiny eyes when I interact maskless with them. They know I am standing up for them too.

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And as you do your daily business maskless, give all a large, toothy grin. It’s amazing how that works. It’s saying “Look at me, I’m maskless and happy. Have a nice day!”. And when you get the sneers, move on happily.

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Even up in Soviet Canuckistan where I live the vast majority 95%+ still wear the masks obediently. It's just a conditioned habit at this point. The odd time that some tells me to put one on I politely say "No Thanks" and just keep going. They must think I'm daft to treat it like it's optional LOL.

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I admire your resolve. It’s easy for me here in Texas. You have a much harder row to hoe. Keep up the good work.

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It seriously does work! I dance to the good tunes in the supermarket and I ask for help when I need it and I get Service with a capital S. It’s a kick!

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I agree with Vorlic. I have first hand knowledge of what ridicule gets me. I should have stuck with the loving part at least I would have still been getting laid on a regular basis haha. I know ridicule is a tool of the left but understand it's purpose and that is to keep us SILENT (racist, misogynist, science denier, etc.) Perhaps the most effective strategy is comedy without ridicule. These people in the trance have to either admit, as Gato says, they are either a "coward or moron" so ridicule will probably only harden that position. But hell, give it a shot if you fancy, probably can't hurt. We do indeed need to recover that beach ball if we are to make it out of this without a lot more pain. I hope Gato is correct about them being clowns; steel your nerves!!

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They are mostly clowns. Most Champagne Communists are not very bright people.

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It's incredible to me how sheltered and gullible people are...shocking, really.

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It is not just a tool of the left. I’ve seen it applied from both sides, esp when they feel threatened, like an animal cornered. And I’m pretty far “right” from most people’s perspectives.

One thing I’ve noticed however, during THIS fight is the rabid illogical attacks on these good doctors who are helping us. Take a look at Dr Succharit Bhakdi’s “google” listings or Luc Montagnier!!!! (First highly esteemed German MD and the second a Nobel Prize winner). Look at what they’ve done recently to Dr Meryl Nast and the attacks on Malone, McCullough and Kory, etal. And Mike Yeadon! (Hey Dr Yeadon) .

And just take a quick look at Twitter. The vitriol is amazing and mostly without ANY reasonable repartee or fact. I’m not willing to dismiss them all. A very few have some interesting comments about risk and benefits. But many including but certainly not limited to Steve Kirsch, Jessica Rose and Dr Toby Rogers have admitably answered those objections (here on substack) and many more.

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I just go about my business and no one says anything to me.

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I do not care what other people choose to wear on their own bodies. Bodily autonomy is an inviolable right. Wear a mask all day, every day if you want. People did this even before the coronavirus, albeit on a smaller scale.

Where I draw the line is being mandated by bureaucracies to wear masks against my own personal choice. The government (and everybody else) should keep their rules off my body. Ordering people who have freely chosen to don a mask to take it off is just as bad.

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Bodily autonomy is an inviolable right, to be sure, but if grown ass men want to walk around outside looking like fools and cowards in their little maskies, then it is our inviolable right to mock them incessantly.

Enough of this.

We have so many social problems where we bought into the "tolerate and don't stigmatize" and it allowed the people with mental illness to slowly but surely take over.

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Yes, it's your right to be an asshole.

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I agree - choice NOT mandates. My son has taken a stand and was recently arrested for it. I stand with him. (Language) https://youtu.be/_wlwAlMCFxU

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Bravo to your son.

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Thank you !

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Your son is a hero. Please tell him so.

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Yep. Even the most ardent anti-masker is only anti-mask mandate. Ditto 'anti-vaxxers'.

I consider us pro choice.

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Mandates are not laws. The only role government has in my life is if I violate a LAW. Til then, they can pound sand.

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Ugh, and God give me the courage to violate laws when it is the right thing to do.

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I’ve always been a rule follower. I even believe my God tells me not to lie or not to disobey the law. But when tyrants impose unjust and unconstitutional laws or rules on the people, it’s time to resist. I posted this separately too but it’s a truly amazing video of an entire, packed Australian bar prohibiting the police from entering, peacefully disobeying. Go guys!!! We in America feel your pain, stand strong.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/3WjcspCiFcfS/

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I was bullied in the supermarket back in April 2020 for daring to shop sans mask and for going the wrong way in a one-way aisle (remember that stupidty?). So yes, DEFY. DO NOT COMPLY!

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Me too, till I suggested I had a gun in my handbag! Florida. You ever know if a lady carries.

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I stare at them like zoo animals; just like they stared at me in 2020 when I refused to muzzle up.

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Yes! I'll admit to very calmly and slowly looking them up and down, from head to toe and back up, then breaking into a broad smile and saying, very cheerfully, as if we were old friends, "Hello, I didn't realise it was you behind that mask! How the devil are you?!"

It is SOOOO much fun!

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Me too, laugh and point at the idiots in their cars, all diapered up. I told a lady in Publix yesterday “ if you pull your mask off, you can smell the bullshit”. She laughed.

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Exactly! There's still way too many in the "liberty" community going along with too many parts of this agenda! All to "get along". Like a wife enduring spousal abuse... eventually we may just get loved to *death*. If we ever want anything resembling some kind of normal in our lives again, we must have the courage to finally say enough is enough. To me, nothing is more scary than living the rest of my life in a hard tyranny where a government can, at a whim, tell me what I have to put in, or on my body. To tell me I have to prove that I'm "well" by having tests for something I'm not even sick with. *We* allowed this by going along with it. (Not all of us of course, I have said *no* even when I've been in the bluest of blue places EF em!)

"To be nobody but yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you somebody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." E.E. Cummings

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I try not to be mean to people but I've been vocally fighting the entire time. I've been PISSSSED and I've lost a bunch of friends and family. Oh well. They clearly hate freedom & I can't condone their shitty behavior. Today I actually checked myself because I've tortured my poor young daughter enough with crazy public fights over masks. I saw a woman with her 4 or 5 year old son in TWO FUCKING MASKS. It was all I could do not to lose my mind and then I'd look like the crazy one. 🙄

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You have to remember the words of the great Dorothy Parker. In the 1920's at the Algonquin Hotel in nyc, she and other writers and enterainment types like the Marx bros. used to sometimes play a word game where someone would pick a word at random from the dictionary and the next player had to immediately make a coherent sentence using it.

It was Dorothy Parker's turn and a woman flipped the pages of the dictionary, jabbed down her finger and announced loudly "Horticulture!"

"You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think!" said Ms. Parker.

You can't make people think.

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Needed that. Thanks Flywheel. Good spinning.

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I agree. I freak out if my little boy even plays with a mask. I want Nothing over his Angelic face. Ever.

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The poor child. Such abuse by someone frightened out of their senses. Our media should be ashamed.

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Bullies desire power over others because they fear others having power over them. Calling people weaklings just exacerbates within you the logic and potency of Power, and so you will never be free of the cycle of violence endemic to the logic of Power.

"Standing up" is not the same thing as bullying someone you regard as weak. I try to imagine Jesus on the Cross making fun of the criminals next to him or mocking some little kid with a club foot, or imagine Buddha crushing stink bugs or gnats because they're smaller and interrupting his peacefulness under the tree, and such images don't strike me as the kind of morality or divinity or compassion for others that undermines the logic of Power. You might disagree, and maybe your Jesus is the one who comes back with horses, scythes, and the darkening of the skies and bathes the world in an ocean of blood four feet deep —that's a Jesus many people like to believe returns triumphant, victorious, and finally settles the score for all the losers and weaklings and bullied who suffer oppression from the bullies, the tyrants, and the cunning.

Either way, I appreciate that you want to change things and see the systemic violence of suppression and corruption end. I am just not sure that Power will help you, when it was Power that got us here in the first place.

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the whole reason we are in this situation is due to people being complicit and letting everyone else do what they want. If people stood up and berated these dummies a year ago we might be done with this idiocy.

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I give my big boss looks every day. Today she caught me in the lunchroom explaining the origin of the bioweapon virus to a receptive coworker. It’s amazing that people still don’t know this stuff. Not sure but boss said nothing and almost seemed reluctant to say anything. We’ll see. None of them will ever truly apologize, all I’m waiting on is the backpedaling.

Oh and ps I’ve NEVER ever been a conspiracy theorist nor am I one now, this is not Theory. While the absolute proof may never be found there’s enough for the courts definition of “beyond reasonable doubt”. IMHO.

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You're confusing me, Doug. I thought all of us enemies of mask mandates, vaccine mandates, etc. were on the side of letting everyone do what they want.

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I see. So, of all the bullies you know from the time you've been alive, how many in berating others actually did end the idiocy around them? How many of the bullies you've known were actually the good people who lived out their values and inspired others to become compassionate and caring and thoughtful people?

Think of just yourself. When the people who try to bully and ridicule you into mask complaince try it on you, does it work? Do you think someone bullying you and ridiculing you and humiliating you ever will work to change you?

Or will it just make you comply yourself to get over with it? Or will it make you more resistant and angry and frustrated and less likely to agree with them?

I don't think you're thinking it through, but then since you're advocating bullying people into ending a political situation you do not like, you're being consistent with the logic. You want Power to force others to change into people whom you can tolerate, or at least be indifferent towards. Bullying and ridiculing people is what you have available, since you are not on the side who has the monopoly on violence. So, unless you shake off the logic of Power and recognize it for what it is doing to your soul, you won't see how you're part of the world that promotes and fosters "this idiocy."

Not all of the complicit are the compliant. Some of the complicit are the ones who believe they most defy it.

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If everyone can do what they want, then what do you feel you're being forced to do?

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my kids have to wear a mask to go to public school or on a plane. Neither of those rules actually accomplish anything.

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Not the same thing. To comply is to be complicit, and those complicit should be treated with the contempt they deserve.

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Not sure what you're saying are not the same things. Doug says it's time to bring back bullying and bully the ever living fuck out of people. That's what I'm talking about, so it's not clear what's not the same thing to bullying.

"Not complying" is not the same thing as "bullying the ever living fuck out of people." Not attending a sportsball or stagedance event that mandates masks/vaxxes is not the same thing as "bullying the ever living fuck out of people" but it is also consistent with "not complying." Leaving behind the society that's gone insane is not "bullying the ever living fuck out of people" but it is "not complying."

Have you ever changed your own mind after someone has treated you with contempt? Have you ever chosen to live your life the way the contemptuous wanted you to? Even if you had chosen that life, did you do so because you saw the right of it after they had shown you contempt?

There is more to this world than doing the things you want to do. You are growing and nurturing a soul, and holding others in contempt or beneath you and acting upon that hinders your progress and your capacity for love —especially love for *yourself*.

Now, you might not accept that perspective and disagree: understandable. But I'm sure you've known many times in your life where you saw people doing what they felt was good and enjoyed mocking or treating others with contempt, but you were able to see right into their core and recoiled. I've never known a single contemptuous person who modeled decency, honor, compassion, thoughtfulness, or cared for those too muddled to make it through to help them through it. Have you ever known a contemptuous person who inspired confidence and courage in the people around them?

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Nobody reading these SubStacks goes along with the nonsense. Even the trolls who have tried to disrupt the comments have been stunned that they are called out loudly. While I did get the two shots given my age and issues, I've skipped the booster and am pleased with that decision. It's a real shame on society that Google manages to avoid indexing these SubStacks, on purpose. We can get that changed someday if some clever people can expose them for what they have become. The misguided workers at Google must someday understand how ill-informed they are. We are just beginning to understand that our educational system has failed us badly in creating these fools/tools.

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I told one troll, the only thing he was doing is galvanizing us. But think the truly perverse trolls will use tactics to divide and distract. Watch out for them..... cats have amazing discernment for such....

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Unlike the Twitterverse where bots arrive quickly in support of troll attacks, here most of us value the comments area to air our opinions.

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naw bullying is how society teaches people how to be normal. Lack of bullying in school is responsible for the proliferation of the woke movement. These nerds need their fucking asses kicked.

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You do have a point - I suggest you are not talking about *bullying* per se. WHat you describe is more like unambiguous, life-is-too-short-to-be-polite HONESTY! I am a big fan of this approach, the trick is to make sure you do it in the appropriate circumstances.

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I agree, we are dealing with several generations of pussies, here kitty kitty 🐱

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Careful there, this is Gato’s stack and he’s no pussy !!! (or are you a she, I’ve never asked)?

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"How to be normal"? Social pressure to be seen as "normal" has been part of the problem, hasn't it?

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Exactly. TPTB want to sow division among the commoners - we will NOT LET THEM DO IT ANYMORE!

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I don’t think very many people here are “bullying”. I don’t like bullying either. Here, They’ve offered several positive and even fun ways to turn the tables on the folks who just are not thinking this whole thing through.

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“while klaus and co ate prime rib stuffed with hummingbird tongues in a penthouse somewhere and blamed the peasants for not peasanting hard enough” 🤣🤣🤣

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I will never be the same after reading that.

¡ El Gato, thou art a dreadful, magnificent monster !

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hummingbird killer!

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How about: "demagogues and pseudoscience go together like fat kids and cake." 🤣

Lots of gato gems in this post!

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The problem is: that was extremely clever of Gato but it’s too close to the truth for me to laugh too hard. I still liked it!!!!!

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We are reaching the end of the Road To Serfdom.

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The Beach Boys, bless their acid-etched minds 😎 might craft a song: "Everybody's gone serfing, serfing USA..."

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Definitely-stand up. My son recently did and was arrested - mask mandate. I stand with him. (Language) https://youtu.be/_wlwAlMCFxU

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May the world watch and see this. Your son is on the side of justice and all that is good. Watched and liked. I hope he is OK now, Cindy.

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Thank you. He has an attorney now and I hope it all goes well for him.

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If there is ANY justice left, it's on his side. I think of you both.

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Thank you !

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He wasn’t “disturbing” anything, THEY were. Hope all goes well.

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I couldn't believe the behavior of that POS security guard cursing at and bullying your son. I couldn't understand 90% of what he was saying mumbling into his fucking mask.

And Jesus, were they all STUPID. The DMV woman clearly didn't know what the word "amendment" meant. These are people with power over us? Everyone in that room was borderline retarded.

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That's how the elite get people to do their dirty work. They elevate the mentally impaired for the job.

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I remember noticing that when the TSA began hiring after their creation following 9/11: they advertised for the people that now bully and humiliate us at airports on the backs of pizza delivery boxes and the backs of trashy local city newspapers (the ones with sections for escort services).

They knew exactly who they were looking for: low-IQ losers eager to feel powerful.

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It's disgusting. I personally knew one of them years ago and he was an alcoholic wife and child beater.

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I hear you !!

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I hope he sues the county and the state.

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That is a thought!!!

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It was false arrest.

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Congrats on this--beautiful to hear someone being a LION. Sorry to see that the DMV officials were, well, it's an insult to sheep to call them that. Pathetic, that all they could say was "you're a moron" and "you're stupid"--what grade are we in?

You've raised a great kid!

I also think this IS what needs to start happening more in BLUE states/cities, because it may be visceral enough to wake up the zombies--the ones who are not necessarily afraid of covid, but just "going along to get along" and would rather not mask.

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Thank you ! Brave young man. So very proud of him 💕

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Hero!

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I think so ! Brave young man. I sent him several MLK quotes that spoke to the injustice and rising up.

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Thank you

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Horrible. What a bunch of wannabenazis!

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“You die, but you go to heaven.”

“You don’t go to heaven, but you don’t go to hell, either.”

“You go to hell, but you get to live forever.”

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That reminds me of some the Buddhist teachings. (I'm not a Buddhist by any means, I just enjoy reading or listening to the teachings.) Many of the discourses deal with people asking arcane philosophical or religious questions like: "After death, does a Blessed One (Buddha) exist or not exist, or both exist and not exist, or neither exist nor not exist?" Always, the Buddha's answer is that he does not deal in such questions, but that his sole mission was to teach a way out of "suffering" (better called "dissatisfaction"). Bringing this back to the vaccines, then, he might say "Seek out the truth."

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While the writing seems to be on the wall for the end of the globalists’ agenda, and I appreciate your optimism (and humour), places like Canada—where I live—remain firmly in the grip of fear and paranoia with a populace thoroughly dissociated from reality. I don’t think Generalissima Tam and our Blackface PM can maintain the bogus numbers game in the face of global evidence of the vaccine + mandates combined and catastrophic failures. Still, it’s dangerous to assume that the most narcissistic sociopaths, like Trudeau, won’t gladly take the populace to Hell with him as his empire and dreams immolate. The damage that will be done to some societies over others will be grave and incalculable. I fear Canada will inherit one of the darkest legacies of the pandemic: financially, socially, spiritually.

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Hang in there. I believe you folks will get through this, especially as America beats the tyranny back. Trudeau (Castro?) is feeling bold but that won’t last much longer. The covidiians are slowly tacitly admitting defeat.

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Aussies, some, are bravely fighting too (a packed bar peacefully tells the police to leave, it was an awesome video)

https://www.bitchute.com/video/3WjcspCiFcfS/

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Two comments: (a) maybe there is some hope for our mates down under, and (b) wow those cops' situational awareness totally sucks

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That’s exactly what Castros do. They terrorize people. Fidel, Jr. is just a better looking version of his daddy but on the same path. 😜

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I'm (was) a lifelong Democratic voter but told friends even before the coronavirus that the left isn't immune to extremism and the pendulum swings both ways. And here we are. The left lost me when their media enablers started to say last spring, incredibly, that breakthrough Covid-19 infections meant "the vaccines are working". Because supposedly without a vaccine, people would be severely sick or dead. This is unfalsifiable but it didn't stop this specious claim being duly disseminated by the media.

Many people were convinced into taking the vaccines because they were conned into believing they're "effective".

These pandemic times will be studied for many decades and centuries to come by historians and social psychologists..

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Nearly life-long Republican here. I'm done with the losers on this side as well. The Dems and Repubs are just two sides of the same coin.

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I’m like you. Lifelong Democrat but they’ve lost me. Too many things, not just the cv19 response.

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Same here. They've totally lost me. I'd volunteer for DeSantis for President.

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I encourage you to hold to whatever ideals of the left are good. Some of the social justice movement isn’t bad. And the right has a lot of evil too. It’s why I’ve eschewed politics and getting involved before. I often can’t stand both sides. But THIS (I don’t have to explain, you know), THIS is evil and must be stopped.

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The climate fight is going to be a huge one. El Gato is exactly right, their models are bunk. They aim to remove our food rights and have us all eating soy for the rest of our lives. Bill Gates isn’t going to be raising cattle on all that farmland.

Ruminants are great for the earth if raised properly. Look at regenerative agriculture and get involved now.

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Renewables are taking up prime farmland. The Oglala aquifer is drying up, so we won’t have acres of crops from the west central part of the US. California’s policies are drying up the veggie basket. In Build Back Better they wanted to charge farmers for each beef 4600$. Already they are vying for our food. And renewables won’t give reliable energy.

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You mean that 6uild 6ack 6etter command from schwab that biden keeps parroting?

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Hello Gato, another excellent piece, you keep us sane. And I hope you keep yourself sane, too!

I still hold on to the thing which keeps the UK different from the rest - case/precedent law. That is, to your point about "what happens when you try to manipulate complex bottoms up systems with simple answers dictated from the top down", the system of writing laws to deal with things which have been found to create ACTUAL PROBLEMS.

As we know, COVID-19 was never a problem bigger than a fairly bad seasonal flu. Which isn't a problem for over 99.9987% of people - - i.e. not a problem!

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Funny (not really) how Fauci at first told the truth. Masks don’t work, and it will be like a bad flu season.

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Yeah. A lot of these crooks did that from the start. Makes you wonder how much of the last two years was planned by them (planning their defense in advance) and how much was as a result of overactive politicians, ready to jump into action and prove their worth in an "emergency".... Certainly a bit of both.

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You betcha.

I must confess my own early error. Around March/April 2020, when the news from Europe was pretty awful and all we heard was Italian grandmas left alone for weeks with the rotting uncollected corpses of grandpa lying in the bedroom, a small volunteer advisory committee (not health-related) to our city govt. was discussing the pandemic and how we might want to act regarding in-person meetings and general social behavior. One of our members had actually served as part of the WHO delegation dealing with the SARS outbreak in China in 2003, and he was, I thought, a bit dismissive of the seriousness of what seemed to be happening now, and I said that sometimes you need to scare the shit out of people to get them to take things with the appropriate level of prudence.

I hang my head and invite all to hurl cat turds at me from your litterboxes for my evil authoritarian tendencies (expunged now though they may be). But my biggest concern then (and in general) has been not becoming a burden to my adult child as I continue down the ever-tarnishing road of my golden years. I've lived in a place where children die of diarrhea in an afternoon and the bazaars are full of carriers of every sort of nasty bug, and I never blinked an eye. when my kid and I went back there for awhile, I just made sure we had our Hep.B shots.

But in the immediate past, I surely didn't want him to have to deal with mom on a ventilator, or something, so I just stayed home, and he brought me provisions on a three-week schedule so he could ensure as much as possible he wasn't bringing me The Plague along with my cheddar cheese. And believe me, that anxiety about killing off the Parental Unit was pretty awful for him.

Still, I had no intention of getting THIS shot. Not enough data. I don't like doctors and aside from what I've believed to be necessary and appropriate vaccinations, I trust to my own instincts in treating my own ailments. And now to all of this current insanity I say fuck it. I wear the mask where legally required in my community but thank God I otherwise live in a red state and I bless them troglodyte conservative libertarian crotchety types this old Noo Yawkuh shamefully used to have contempt for. Live and learn, right?

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F*ck me! Serious respect to you for writing this - let alone here - in full view of our claws and teeth! You are the kind of person I respect the most - ready to stand up for your ideas, but more than ready to change your course (and admit it) when you see you've screwed up. Cheers!

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Thank you.

The story of my life is whatever I believe in at any particular time, I really believe in...and it's always been extremely painful when evidence starts biting my ankles and I can't ignore it, much as I might want to. That moment when you look down and see your bloody socks...

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haha! we've all been there, it's what makes us humans! meeow!

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See vorlic ‘s reply. Serious respect from me too.

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I'm a devoted reader of and frequent contributor to the letters section of our regional newspaper, whose circulation area represents both a rural area with all the natural hardships therein found, and college towns and their bedroom communities full of highly-educated extremely liberal people. It's been like a poli-sci lesson on how to build a genocide, the cliff notes version.

That'll larn one fer shure.

I appreciate your regard.

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Out of curiosity, what is your son's viewpoint on this now? You say that he had awful anxiety about possibly killing you off by transmitting covid to you, has he accompanied you on your u-turn or did that anxiety stick with him?

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He and all his friends got the vax (later mandated by his employer anyway). We discussed it very thoroughly, and we both felt that perhaps the J&J was least harmful and at least was only one dose. He was already regularly taking vitamin C (which is my absolute Holy Grail for everything) and vit. D, so I just prayed to all the powers of the cosmos that its anti-coagulant and anti-inflammatory properties would counterbalance the vax.

He has never tried to persuade me to take the vax. He felt he was protecting me by taking it and that it would allow him the social life he had almost entirely forsworn during the previous 2 years. During the warmer weather last year (it's brutal here in the winter) we began doing the provisioning together again (I don't drive; in pre-Plague years in good weather I'd take our limited local transport and my trusty backpack to do my own provisioning because I really wasn't ready to be the dependent ma.)

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Melatonin, for you and your son. Cellular protectant. See Dr Mercolas recent article. I think you can find on his mercola.com or substack. Substack is for paid but I think you can read it, just not comment.

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Thank you.

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meme tour de force on this one. Great points - this fiasco has hopefully shown enough of the population that these elites are actually just the village idiots with lots of money. They thought enough of the population was dumber than them that this would be their crowning achievement. The lemmings and sheep would forever hang on their every declaration because they saved us from Covid. Except of course they are way dumber than they think they are. Any rational 25 yr old engineer or finance type knows you cannot centrally control a complex system, and that any attempts to do so will inevitably have myriad unforeseen consequences. The only skill these Davos-types have is a razor-keen ability to keep fooling themselves into believing that they are somehow superior and have all the answers.

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