For two years the whole world has been told that it needs to contain, stop the spread, neutralize, stamp out, control, rid the planet of the threat called Covid-19. Notice that there are widely varying degrees of what we should have done and still need to do in that sentence, from "contain" to "rid the planet," because the only thing for two years that was consistent was inconsistency. Let's focus on two of the main demands coming form a fair number of people in power, elected and not: masks and vaccines.
A lot of us from day one thought the masks were ridiculous. Sure they make sense in a hospital setting. Especially in a room needed to be sterile as possible (i.e. form fitting, fully functioning, barely breathable N-95s), not while playing a sport or exercising or alone in your personal vehicle. Just like a .50 caliber Desert Eagle makes sense at the range, or exploding watermelons on a fence, in a country field, not trying to conceal a 10 and 3/4 inch, 4 lb 12 oz behemoth inside your waistband. And the vaccines were never really such. That should have been acknowledged from the very beginning. There was never access to the original Covid strain, therefore the "vaccines" were bound to be porous, hence the unending call for boosters. To be clear, I'm not deriding the shots at all and never did. Everyone should have been able to get one if so desired.
But we were all told that both were needed for OUR protection AND to protect others from us. Can you think of anything else where that was or is procedure? Think of the top killers in life. According to the CDC, the Grim Reaper tears through the population as follows: heart disease, cancer, Covid, accidents, stroke, chronic lower respiratory disease, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, Flu/Pneumonia and finally nephritis/nephrotic syndrome/nephrosis. Let's just take the few surrounding Covid. Do we demand that others alter their day to day life to protect the person sitting next to them? I suppose you can't smoke in doors anymore but that's relatively new and as of 2012 you could still smoke in some bars in New Orleans while I lived there. You can't get hammered and drive in honor of societal safety, however you can have a few drinks and still be legal. As liberal as Minnesota is, there's not even a helmet law for riding a motorcycle (where's that fit in with this progressive state's controlling rationale?). Get the flu shot every year or don't, it's your choice to protect yourself. So when it comes to actions that could possibly affect others, basically the mindset is, "you do you." But for Covid, everyone down to almost the littlest of the little ones - who the numbers have said from the beginning are of no significant risk to themselves or others - had to wear a mask to protect the grownups around them.
Since that topic is ripe with division and rage, let's move to one that's totally benign... GUNS. I want to seriously create a simile here. Because for the most part, the same people in power that have demanded all of us reconfigure our lives to fit their vision of safety are the same ones that have completely destroyed cities around the country with progressive DAs, lax or increasingly disappearing laws or downright and blatant attempts "to completely dismantle" police departments as one Minnesota law maker is proudly on camera saying. And I really do feel that this, especially with the current situation around the country, is a fair comparison.
Imagine in a different or alternate universe, the equivalent to Kamala, Pelosi, AOC, Ilhan, Walz, Frey, Carter and all the Minneapolis City Council but on the Right were controlling vast swaths of society. What if I were in control of a magic pen that gave me "Emergency Powers" and I said, "ya know what, crime is spiraling out of control, and to neutralize the perceived threat as I see it, I will vaccinate myself from a potential criminal by carrying my gun.... but that doesn't go far enough, come to think of it. I also want you to carry a gun so you can protect me from a possible threat from a criminal who no longer believes there will be consequences for their actions. You're not comfortable carrying a gun and may possibly injure yourself, you say? I don't care. You carry a gun and that's that. And so it is done with my favorite writing pen, the Uni-Ball Jetstream RT 1.0 ballpoint, everyone must pack heat!" Surely the people that advocated for masks and vaccines would say, "I'm not sure I totally agree with this, but I'll 'do my part' for the safety of society." An argument could be, "it was about hospitals not getting overrun!" In the first two weeks it was, because that's what we were told. Maybe even the first couple months. But no demand or source of data for a demand stayed consistent. Inconsistency stayed consistent. According to Dr. Drew on an August 6, 2021 episode of Megyn Kelly's podcast, the lock downs stemmed from a 13 year old's science project in New Mexico about containing influenza. The 6 foot rule, according to multiple articles and interviews I've heard came from no real studies or data and the plexi-glass, that's just silly.
"Yes but more guns doesn't equal less crime." Some even say, "more guns equals more crime." Does it? Just like with Covid, everyone can point to multiple studies that back up their beliefs. "Yeah but you can't just make people own guns." There are a lot of things people were made to do under threat of fines or jail over the last two years that most people never thought possible. A professor at FloridaState University named Gary Kleck did some fascinating research on the use of firearms to thwart crime (Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force, Gary Kleck, Social Problems, Vol. 35, Vol. 1, Feb 1988) I encourage everyone to look up what the small town of Kennesaw, Georgia did in 1982 in terms of requiring households to own guns. His study delves into numerous instances where crime plummeted when people started carrying guns compared to surrounding areas. And The Daily Wire, where I learned of that study, has a great article on multiple studies on this topic along with relevant statistics, titled "In 1982, One Georgia Town Required Everyone to Own a Gun. Here's What Happened."
I live in Buffalo. If I had to guess, the number of guns in our small, rural, overwhelmingly conservative town of 15,000+ might actually be closer to the number in Minneapolis than anyone would immediately think. Probably most of them registered as well. So the number of guns per capita in Buffalo, MN is probably so astronomically above that in Minneapolis - overwhelmingly registered quite likely - and the crime here is basically nonexistent, save for a mentally unstable man shooting up the clinic. Is it the guns? The majority conservative families? The majority conservative run city? Just asking.
But back to my original simile. An interesting conversation happened a few years ago with a family member, one who does not see eye to eye with me on just about everything in life. I got to my brother's house one afternoon and he immediately said, "you'll have to ask Jane Doe about what happened with her neighbor coming over because she was scared about a car outside her house." I said, "give me a little preview." He said, "there was an armed robbery down the street from her a few days earlier. Then she got home one afternoon and noticed a car parked outside her house that she didn't recognize. So she called her neighbor to come over and make sure everything was ok while she went inside. Apparently he was like, 'yeah no problem, I'll be right over, and don't worry, I'm packing heat.'" I laughed heartedly because this family member despises guns with every fiber of her being and believes there is no reason for them in the hands of people like her neighbor or me. When said family member walked in, I said, "so apparently you asked your neighbor to come protect you from a weird car sitting outside? Don't lie. You felt better knowing that he had a gun on him." I will never forget her response until my dying day. She said, "NO!!! When he came over and told me that, I was like, 'GET AWAY FROM ME!'" Now think about that very hard. Try to dissect that statement of her's, because it is very important in terms of the ultra progressive types who are unfortunately in control of almost every institution you walk through during your daily endeavors. What she is saying is essentially this. "I demand that you (neighbor) come over and protect me from a perceived threat. But you must protect me in a manner which I deem fit, and also yourself. You may not protect me, and yourself in a manner which I disapprove of, i.e. carrying a gun. And if there is indeed an intruder in my house, who is possibly armed, I ask that you get in between him and me and use whatever is available to you to stop the crime, but not a gun." And that is essentially our last two years. It doesn't matter what measures you have taken to protect yourself, or not taken, you must protect yourself and me in a way that I approve of.
This is life under ultra progressive, liberal rule. You must live your life in a way that they have deemed acceptable. I have many V8s under the hoods of my vehicles. I drive them because they are all easy to work on, have cheap parts and run forever (as in, they are not in a junk yard creating waste and an asset to the environment). Do they get great gas mileage? Absolutely not. But it was factored into my living. There's lots of things I don't spend money on that my ultra liberal family members do and therefore I got along just fine using money to buy gas that they didn't. Not today. I had to find yet another old, inexpensive pile of plastic (Saturn) that gets much better gas mileage and is the most uncomfortable vehicle I've ever driven, 4 inches off the ground and will not survive an accident like my other weighty behemoths. "Get away from me!" You may not protect yourself the way you desire. You must protect yourself how I deem acceptable. Wear your mask for me. Get the vaccine for me... Get away from me...
6 more months. Then 2 more years. Hold the line. We can do this.