unmasking the truth

separating reality from perception

motive, opportunity, and memes.

she said this:

and they said this:

they expected a reaction like this:

but what happened instead was this: (watch the videos, they’re great)

Libs of Tik Tok @libsoftiktok

Pilot announces removal of mask mandate mid flight 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

and then this:

R A W S A L E R T S @rawsalerts

🚨#BREAKING: Masks No Longer Required on Planes or trains 📌#UnitedStates l #USA Today TSA said it will no longer enforce mask mandate on planes/trains As Travelers can take off the masks for now. As Delta, Alaska, and United Airlines will no longer require masks on flights

it was not gnashing of teeth. it was joy. and the reason was obvious to anyone who had been actually playing attention:

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

People can argue all day but the fact that every airline immediately went masks-optional the day of the ruling suggests that people with actual money on the line do not believe there is a large group of people with a significant preference for masked flying.

the airlines stepped up with alacrity to embrace this. they got masks off faces so fast there was not even time for the government to consider an appeal. and that won the day, because not even the brandon bois are fool enough to try to stuff THAT genie back into the bottle. it would have unleashed pure national rage because, even just for a moment, everyone saw that everyone else was happy too.

and that’s not the kind of thing you forget.

now the pushy, demanding bio-authoritarian anxiety brigade is flummoxed. because it was not supposed to be like this.

they thought they were in the majority and the people were with them. and they were badly, badly wrong.

there is no reason or requirement that a pilot or aircrew must announce a change in law mid-flight.

they CHOSE to. because they WANTED to. because people hate masks, cabin crew hate masks, and everyone with a lick of sense or a modicum of scientific grounding or even basic logical capability long ago figured out that masks do absolutely nothing to stop covid.

it’s all been oppressive epidemiological cosplay inflicted upon the many by the few.

outside a few deep karentopias, it was never popular, they were just REALLY good at making you think it was. this is the trick the bolsheviks played upon the mensheviks. they were the minority, yet by dint of being loud, strident, organized, and oppressive they convinced everyone that they were the bigger group.

you take over media, message relentlessly, and viciously attack and discredit any who disagree. you ensure that you are the only one talking and everyone assumes you must be the popular view. the real consensus is suppressed in cowed self-censorship, afraid to speak in public, unable to find the likeminded among itself.

spend enough time in this echo chamber, and the dictatorial minority starts to forget that it’s the minority. but one day, the dam breaks and the truth is revealed: almost no one wanted this. they were just afraid and thought they had to play along with the crybullies.

and this is the dark secret, the one the populist demagogues and their platoons of useful idiots and anxiety enabled co-conspirators desperately want to keep from you: you could have stood up any time.

you were always the majority and always had the power. the trick was not overpowering you, it was convincing you you were powerless and to keep you from trying. it was misleading you into believing the consensus was against you. but it was all just scary shadow puppets made on the wall.

they are all going after the judge now, calling her unqualified and partisan (an odd flex after the “we love kenji” motif of just weeks ago) but it’s too late. it’s backfiring. far too many love this outcome and they are just whistling to their own dogs and it’s not only plain to see how vapid and predictably prepatterned their assaults are, in the light of this new day, they look small and hypocritical.

and this is why their terror at the idea of a free and fair public square is so palpable: because if they cannot rig the algorithms and the trends and ability to demonstrate the popularity of their ideas, the jig is up. all the amplified shadow puppets vanish and all the minimized giants come into focus and become self-aware. that which was made to appear mainstream and popular will be supplanted by that which truly is.

the mirage of progresso-authoritarian social ascendency will vanish.

and the very idea is breaking brains all over the internet.

because that will make this our time.

because it always was.

because that will supplant propaganda with truth.

because truth was always stronger.

because the public square is the domain of we the people, not the demesne of didactic dictators.

because we will make it so.

and because the cycle of life is turning.

and we will become the change.

and take back what is ours.