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From Social Distancing to Social(ist) Conditioning
We are being conditioned and acclimated to having to stand in long lines for food.
We are being conditioned to finding, after an hour of waiting in line, that the shelves are empty.
We are being acclimated to rationing (my grocery store this week finally had a tiny section of toilet paper. It was an off-brand I’d never heard of, and the sign on the shelf said “ONE PER CUSTOMER”).
We are being conditioned to view other people, even friends, neighbors, and loved ones, as threats. Neighbors are turning on each other. The Mayor of New York is encouraging people to “report” each other for not following government guidelines, helpfully providing an official phone number and demonstrating how to photograph them in the act. The act of standing less than six feet away from another human being. The act of showing one’s face in the open air in a public place.
We are being made to believe wearing a mask makes us Good Citizens, thoughtful people always thinking of the well-being of others. They’re not mandatory everywhere – yet- but in the cities where they’re optional, people are being conditioned to view the mask-free as selfish, ignoble outliers who don’t care about their fellow man. Yet it wasn’t that long ago that they told us wearing a mask doesn’t help at all. They even told us it gives a false sense of security. What has changed? Or maybe the question should be Cui bono?
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The masks make us anonymous. They make it impossible to share a smile with another person. They add to the general air of suspicion, anxiety, and uncertainty, and they add to an overall impression of dystopia. They erase our individuality and make each of us into just another part of The Group. This makes their exhortations about “The Greater Good” fall right into place.
And they’ve thought of everything. They’ve dealt with the inevitable American spirit of individual liberty and the hardy souls who will say, “To heck with the virus. I’ll take my chances,” by telling us that the mask isn’t just for our own safety, but the safety of others. And just in case that isn’t strong enough, they add the heartrending bit about “our elderly loved ones.” So now, if you don’t wear a mask you’re killing grandma. This is now Social Engineering works.
We’re being made to believe that shutting down the economy including every place of business and social gathering is necessary “for our safety.” Why wasn’t this necessary during the Avian Flu pandemic of 1957? Or the Swine Flu or SARS or West Nile or Zika? They’re trying to paint anyone who sees through the hysteria and takes a stand for freedom, whether by protesting or even just making a comment in dissent, as a bunch of nutjobs (and their parents are probably first cousins, and of course they support Trump because their average IQ is that of a houseplant). I mean they just aren’t as educated, intelligent, and discerning as those who believe the entire world economy needs to stay shut down and the Bill of Rights suspended (it’s for our SAFETY!”).
I’m not saying this flu isn’t more contagious than others have been. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be aware and be careful. But I am saying that if you’re someone who’s so scared that you gave me a dirty look at the grocery store for momentarily pulling my mask down so I could breathe, then you can stay HOME. I sure won’t stop you. But your fear (not to mention fatuous gullibility) doesn’t allow you to tread on my Bill of Rights.
It’s impossible not to see parallels to the totalitarian regimes of history. The devaluing of individual freedoms. The individual being subsumed by The Group. I applaud those who are seeing all this for what it is, and protesting and speaking out. It’s way past time we all speak out as our own @rodin did in Sacramento, and that we stand up and say, “This is America. We don’t do that here.”
Because we are not a bunch of closet anti-jewish racists?
You cannot use Nazism as an example then poo poo it. Well you can, but you don’t sell me on anything.
Again, maybe, if you could give me the steps, I could follow along. But since you don’t, I can’t.
I wonder which state will be advanced enough to set up a hotline so people can report snitches and tattlers.
Right. And, as we know, any time the Goverment has ever limited rights, say by rationing food, or locking up Japanese, or even sending out thugs to beat people up for the President, that stuff has never, ever, not once, receeded.
Not once.
Ever.
Here’s Gladys and her first commenter. The whole rest of it was in a similar vein:
-EDIT- Note in the first comment above the attitude that “People do not understand…” – this mindset that anyone who isn’t as hysterical as he is just is not as intelligent or educated. And he spent his afternoon at World of Tennis spying on his neighbors, making mental notes of every “infraction.” So many good little Nazis.
I think you are being sarcastic. Of course that stuff has receded. Two steps forward, one step back.
I am making a point in a way that might sink in. It might not.
Igor, dig up another dozen Covid victims. We must manage the curve.
What does the bolded have to do with a possible slide toward socialism/communism? That’s what we were talking about; wasn’t it? Whether or not restrictions being imposed on us today could eventually lead to a socialist/communist state? My point was simply that changes often happen a little at a time; and sometimes we wind up in places we never would have thought we’d find ourselves.
Ahem. What exactly was she doing at World of Tennis??
Sorry, but if you really believe that in 1909 the Congress introduced the Income Tax Amendment because “This was all about having a manner by which the expenses of our country entering the very well planned out WWI military actions and our involvement in it could be handled”, a war which didn’t start until 1914, and which we didn’t enter until 1917, you’re going on the Conspiracy whackadoodle list. I’ve been against it but maybe Ricochet does need a “block” function.
I’ll probably regret this, but I will indulge a single question – if these shadowy powers were so well connected that they could institute a Constitutional Amendment years in advance of the war, why did it take them three years after the war started to get us directly involved? That’s a lot of war profiteering they missed out on.
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I have an opposite view that it was the do-gooder progressives who initiated the income tax to go after the large amounts of private wealth that had been accumulating. Just one small step in the process.
That’s not to say there was not action in the elements as described by @caroljoy. I think it is even possible that element was indeed looking forward to major international conflict. So one could see both major political parties having their stakes in the game with Republicans looking very much like we have seen today before Trump. Theodore Roosevelt didn’t like it so he put his hat in the ring as a third party candidate but lost. Trump won so it plays out differently but it is clear that he has opposition from both sides.
Out of curiosity I went to newspapers.com and searched for “1909 income tax.” This item from the June 17 1909 Wapo was 2nd in the list of search results and the first item I clicked on:
Note that according to this article, President Taft favored a tax on corporate earnings “because it will bring corporations more directly under the supervision and control of the government.”
And regarding the income tax that had been declared unconstitutional, “The President expresses the firm belief that Congress ought to have the power to impose an income tax if an emergency renders such a tax necessary.”
Well, he got his wish and we got our emergency. And that emergency ended but the tax didn’t. Funny how that works. Maybe it would be best not to be prepared for emergencies.
This is why I’m thankful for quarantine. I get to spend time with my daughter that wouldn’t have been possible with school in session. Online has been difficult for her, but I have no regrets about the time we get to spend together.
Graduation gowns and pictures are this week so she has a lot to look forward to. She has been able to spend time with friends on a one on one basis. It’s not the same, but it’s not the end either.
Utah restrictions have been loosened and it’s helping. There’s lots of places to go in Utah without traveling too far. We’ve been taking advantage of those, especially on hot days.
If this guy believed his own hype, he would have left the World of Tennis, right?
I will buy what you make! Send me a PM so I can support you. I have a number of graduations and birthdays coming up. I need cards.
Sigh. If only the Hong Kong flu had been more lethal, I might’ve been spared listening to so many tedious, “I was at Woodstock”, stories for the past 50 years.
Haha! I know two people who were at Woodstock! I’ll just show myself out
Not at all. We were lending and selling to both sides for a fair bit. Dropping our neutrality was financially disruptive.
Just be sure to get tested.
You’re right, Bryan. So let’s confiscate all the guns, because some of the actions of the gov’t have been rescinded.
You do see the budget going up annually, correct? Do you think that means the reach of gov’t gets smaller, annually? How about the number of laws that are written every year? Does that seem to go down?
Go walk around in a public place without a mask and tell us all how free you are. Test it. Brah.
Do you think points sink in more rapidly, or less rapidly, with several tons of condescension slathered on top?
“
The brown acid is bad…..” “Failure to safe distance is bad. Go back to your homes. We’re filming this and will take names…”— Woodstock announcement, if Karens had run the world in 1969.
Governor Andrew “Paranoia” Cuomo said the same thing. Catch it, you die.
As long as the left used incrementalism, they were accomplishing their goals. However, they are getting so close to the end game, they’re abandoning all pretense and pushing socialism as hard as they can (they want to see success in their lifetimes). In doing so however, eight years of Barack Obama polarized the country so much, the left is doubling down as pushback from the right grows stronger (with the unlikeliest President Donald Trump leading the way). Trump is killing them with his judicial appointments, because most of the left’s accomplishments have come in the courtroom . . .
Just found two tin cans – looking for some string…
Take a look at the bailouts. There are usually strings attached.
I have a cassette player in my 1997 RAV4. Waiting for cassettes to catch on like vinyl so my car can be described as retro.
Oh yeah? Well I have 8-track, and I’m still waiting for BetaMax to make a comeback.
Three.