After dutifully following the "expert" advice of doctors, big pharma and the government's pediatric vaxx schedule, we watched our 17-month-old son regress before our eyes (after his MMR jab).
He's now a junior in a college honors program and a black belt in Kenpo Karate.
However, his recovery from Autism was not without a price. It took 10 years, a quarter million dollars, a good chunk of our marriage, my wife's career (and the lost earning opportunities) and his childhood.
The bright side is, the journey with our son most likely saved us from participating in the biggest medical experiment in the history of mankind.
This resonates with the plight faced by the parents of offspring with eating disorders. We had been through Plans A, B, C and D; Plan E began "First steal one ski mask."
For me it's a family trait: trust, but with caveats.
Can the trust be verified? What happens to me if the one you trust betrays you? What do you do then? Is it someone actually betraying a trust or is it yourself overreacting due to similar past experiences? (That one is really important!) What recourse is there against a betrayer? Always look at a deal no matter big or small with an eye if it's set up without any kind of tangible liability for any party.
All of this I got from my upbringing, not codified as such but in proverbs and examples and explanations from parents and grandparents.
Trust but verify. Don't confuse your own self with the surface that you use to interact with others: you own self is for you and your family to know, not strangers. Don't give out information which gives others leverage. Learn the difference between knowing what is real, and what the system wants you to know as real - this is why you should keep up with main stream news:
When in the company of true believerswhich you are dependant on, you need to know what you are supposed to know so as to not give the game away. Also, with careful phrasing you can fish for like minded people, only with care: fanatics might do the same to ferret out dissidents.
As you can see, growing up in a socialist democracy leaves it's mark upon those who simply can't kill their own soul, and those who grew up in the real communist dictatorships had it much harsher.
But if I have to pick a similar childhood experience, it's this:
In our third grade book on natural sciences, there was a black and white image of the Milky Way. My grandmother's book on astronomy had that same picture as an example of how you make compound images by extrapolating from radio and other energy sources in space. (Used to read that book with the dictionary next to me. Was grandma proud or what!) But the school's book and our teacher (a lifer) said it was a photograph of the Milky Way.
Taken by satellite from outside the galaxy and sent here via radio.
An argument ensued which got me sent to the principal and psych eval. That psych later barred me from military service, which back then was done by conscription.
Can you imagine that we used to have a system where teachers were life time employees? Barring certain crimes, they couldn't get fired, only transferred.
My mother-in-law, also a teacher, told me where they used to transfer the worst numbnuts: teacher's college, meaning the very worst trained the next generation of teachers.
I had to come back to say this is a really breathtaking commentary. I didn't know anybody anywhere had a family like that, teaching you actual real essential survival skills that would arm you throughout life with what you needed to have. I absolutely salute your parents and your grandparents.
I think being raised half the time by my grandparents really helped. Respect towards adults and elders, yes, but as something one must earn and prove worthy of, meaning one must be mindful of one's actions so as not to shame oneself.
So while you might have to obey an employer, if he acts unmanly (or unwomanly I guess) he deserves no respect.
Respect in swedish originally had no connotations or associations with obedience or being subservient - it simply meant showing approval and that you are suitably impressed with someone due to the way they act. It originally had nothing to do with authority or position.
Speaking of survival skills, you mean it's not normal for a father to teach camoflage, trapping and shooting not to mention close combat to his children? I'm only being half-facetious: to me, and my family is far from unique in this, teaching your children to fight - physically and spiritually - for themselves, for rght and for the defenseless is the right way to parent.
Right, enough self-aggrandizement, or I'll be in violation of the Jante law.
You know, it's a funny thing. I'd never understood why people like guns and city-born-and-raised, such weapon-craft was both alien and unnecessary, I thought.
A few years ago a friend recommended the Jack Reacher novels as tolerable entertainment. I resisted at first because of Tom Cruise playing him in the movies but my friend advised me to just imagine Sean Bean as the protagonist until I'd cleansed my visual memory.
Anyway, in one of the books there was a very detailed episode where Reacher goes target-shooting at a gun range owned by a vet, where they challenged each other, and I was just mesmerized by the descriptions of the discipline and skill required to be good at that. Absolutely the first time in my life I could imagine attempting to test myself that way.
Further, a writing friend commenting on a story on a webzine we both read explained to me in the most beautiful persuasive way why some people love to collect weapons. Gave me quite the perspective on why perfectly rational non-violent people might have a not-unhealthy interest.
I remember that novel, I'm pretty sure. It turned out the gun range guy had hidden the targets showing one of his customers could have made the shots, right?
I got a little tired of Reacher's idiosyncracies (one pair of underwear and a toothbrush to wander through life? Pressing the one shirt by sticking it under the mattress?) but the technical details were pretty compelling. But perhaps not quite as memorable as the assassin's preparations in The Day of the Jackal.
Guns (and close combat practice) self-select for discipline, sacrifice, and learning to win (i.e. survive) byt taking the pain if needed.
Be stupid with guns or other dangerous equipment and you or people around you pays a tangible price.
Neglect even basic physcial training (like my daily constitutional, walking or skiing or biking at least one hour with the dogs) and you get fabby, fat and sickly.
I mean I think I'm pretty good with the wordsmithing and the semantics and such, but I could never bring myself to think that changing the name changes the thing, the way the woke, the PC thugs and the liberal fascists do.
Maybe it's a combination? Self-discipline as to what is real, but also humble acceptance that the world is what it is, not what we perceive it to be or wish it to be.
Which - I realise as I write this while the squirrels and the crows are fighting over the compost heap* - was fully understood by Diogenes and Sokrates and the rest of that gang. Guess that's why we stopped teaching the history of ideas, logic, and rhetoric here: let people think, they'll get ideas, then they get uppity with notions above ther station.
*How's that for a metaphor for a two party system? One party squirrels away much as they can and just sit on it, the other gobbles up anything in their path until driven off.
If guns self-select for discipline, why are there so many stories of people being shot to death bc their music was too loud, or a family member was mistaken for an intruder, or -- most commonly -- a family member was deliberately shot to death when someone lost their temper? What kind of sacrifice does it take to carelessly leave loaded weapons around little kids? We seem to have quite a few of those bozos.
When virtually anyone can have a gun, statistically at least half will have below average marksmanship, below average self-control, below average ability to swiftly calculate distance and wind speed, etc.
What most gun owners have in common is outsize fear, and a predilection for settling conflicts with violence. Now that scotus has decided anyone can conceal carry with no background check and no training, the fun is just beginning. Who wants to volunteer to be around the guy who's one standard deviation below the mean on anger management? Or the insecure guy who whips out his gun anytime his manhood or intelligence is challenged? How about the wife-beater? Granted, interpersonal violence correlates with mass shootings, but that doesn't mean the men who can't handle their emotions within ostensibly loving relationships won't also resort to shooting if they become flustered or humiliated outside the home.
If guns self-select for discipline, why are there so many stories of people being shot to death bc their music was too loud, or a family member was mistaken for an intruder, or -- most commonly -- a family member was deliberately shot to death when someone lost their temper? What kind of sacrifice does it take to carelessly leave loaded weapons around little kids? We seem to have quite a few of those bozos.
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Can you quantify them for me? Perhaps as a percentage of total gun owners?
There is only one constant in MANKIND (using that for emphasis...not anything else) :
CONFLICT
You will never be able to change that. We are still apes. Apes will ape...and that will be true 1000 years from now. The only difference is we "ape" in a different fashion now - nothing has changed...just the "forums". If you doubt this hangout in a boys high school locker room or a cocktail party amongst Wall Street brokers or an online gaming board. Below our thin veneer of civilization you will find, in these cases, it is just as vicious as apes beating each other with sticks. The difference being, a "stick beating" is quick, judicious and for a purpose. Now the beatings can last indefinitely. Non bipedal apes are far less aggressive and vicious than those who locomote on two feet. Despite our ability to empathize and the miracle of our frontal lobs, we still do the same shit...but worse.
You're asking yourself what's my point. The point is you have to allow boys to be boys or conflict itself has no point.
Why is conflict necessary in the formative years for young male homosapiens?:
To learn how to RESOLVE conflict.
If we don't allow boys to be boys (and we don't anymore) then you end up with young men that can't wrestle around (or god forbid a fist fight) and then be "best buds".
The unintended consequences of trying to "protect" boys from bullying, etc., (or participation trophies) has resulted in boys becoming individual young men who use violence (verbal, bullying or in the rare case actual serial violence) just for the fun of it without a purpose because there are no guardrails established at the group level. Disrupting this necessary process would have the same net result as trying to "protect" females from "gossip". Yes there is a need for gossip and the way females organize structure at the group level (one of which is for my wife to remind me what my best friends new babies name is). There are many reasons for this, but the most important of which is the gathering of "intel" to "protect" the family unit or community unit. Intel is far more important than any weapon (or fist) in order to avoid conflict (true conflict) or to prepare if conflict is unavoidable. This is why women have "long memories" and can have "grudges" for years. Thats a "good" thing on a net basis. Does this have potential downsides for an individual? Yes, but the alternative is far worse at the group level. And guess what? If boys are not allowed to be boys then what was once a grudge match resolved in short order, becomes "gossip". The last thing a group or an individual needs (Yes, even those who are bullied) for safety is for boys to have grudges that last as long as gossip. And that's exactly what is happening as a result of boys not being able to learn how to resolve conflict. You do not want "beatings" to become "gossip". Men have short memories for a reason, just the same as women having "long" memories; to establish order without conflict for conflict sake
Whether you like it or not, males are hierarchical (and sometimes "violent") and this process is for a reason:
To produce leaders.
Think back to high-school, who were the male leaders?
Were they violent or did they incite violence?
No. Why? Because they were a byproduct of the male and female group dynamics; not shielded from it.
Apes are no different. Their leaders are not necessarily the biggest baddest ape in the group; it is the ape who can protect the group from unnecessary conflict; the ape who protects the group from disorder. It is the ape that had the wit and courage to punch the biggest bully in the mouth first. Apes shun bullies because they don't protect the group....sometimes that requires a fist in the face...and wait for it....gossip.
Lastly if you go around clipping peacock tails...well...you can expect that to also affect the peahens...but that's much more complicated discussion.
As far as dumb/irresponsible people. Get used to it; they'll always be with us. They'll always be prone to more "accidents" because... well...they're not smart. Should we outlaw fast food or desserts just because there are fat people? No. That violates my agency and personal sovereignty....and theirs too. Far, far more people die from this then the idiot wielded a gun intentionally or a parent allowing a child to access a gun.
If you want violence in general to go down then we need to go back to how the group level dynamic, hardwired in our brains, "protects" both the individual and the group. If not, we just end uo with a bunch of lost males that create disorder at the group level. The problem is, it is difficult to establish order without the family unit and strong communities. An atomized society is a society of anarchy.
And maybe if democrats stop shooting each then 90% of gun violence would be eliminated. Fact.
Maybe the problem is lack of good father's not guns?
But that conversation is verboten or it would lay bare what I said above.
Simple, I have a good memory and most of the people who try to bullshit me again forget that I remembered the line they sold me the first time around (I can remember news cycles for over a decade so suck it CNN). It can be hard to tell who is lying the first time around but boy does it become easy after that!
Same thing here. My leftie older brother went from middle of the road 25 years ago with very similar political views as mine, to left of Democrats as of 2020 when I last spoke to him. I clearly remember his complete 180 degree reversal of in his views are many issues. But to him, I am the crazy one! Fascinating. He does not remember his own earlier opposing views and goes on with total self-assured surety on his current views. Or is he pretending to have evolved? I just could not take it anymore and have completely stopped communicating with him - I dont like small talk for small talk's sake.
Also growing up, I did not like my teachers and most of the teachers did not like me. So I thank them for inculcating my distrust for authority, although I suspect that most of it is innate.
When I was in my early 20s, I bought the book "The Experts Speak" by Christopher Cerf. I have no idea why I bought it, but I did. And perhaps that is when I lost all faith in those in positions of authority - the "experts" - and shifted to a position of "prove it to me, else, it's BS".
Even as President Trump was fast-tracking the vaxx development, my position from the get-go was NFW. I'm not taking any experimental drug until it has been fully tested on at least a billion people AND has at least 5 years' reliable safety data associated with it. ('course I had no idea how easy it would be to get a billion people to agree to be jabbed...)
I m really so curious about your reluctance to be vaccinated. (Not just yours! A third of the eligible adults remain unvaxed.) Last I checked, over 12.5 billion doses of vaccine have gone into arms worldwide. It's been ~18 months since that campaign began, so although it's not 5 years, there's a fair amount of data.
As of last month, the US vaccine injury compensation program covering covid vaccines has received 8,000 claims, including 3,000 claims for devices, hospital procedures that allowed for disease spread, and other stuff not related to the content of the shots. Those aren't all deaths being claimed; I'm not sure if any are.They haven't been litigated so we don't know how many of those claims are founded. Even if every single one is, that's a minute percentage of all those vaccinated in the US asking to be compensated for injuries. It's an injury incident rate of 0.00001333333 -- 600 million shots, 8k injuries. That's a whole lot less than the 1%+ fatality rate of the infection, and it's not at all clear that those reported vaccine injuries = deaths.
I know people have been concerned about myocarditis (more common among the unvaxxed who acquire covid than the vaxxed), the impact on fertility (no permanent effects on either the vaccinated or un-), or other debilitations. There doesn't seem to be any reported vax side effect that isn't worse if you're unvaxxed and contract covid. The hospital itself is no picnic. Lots of people come out with "ICU syndrome" that sounds awful . . . psychosis, permanent muscle loss, PTSD . . .
Worldwide, there have been 6,360,000 deaths from covid. Although I've searched, I can't find a single verified death caused by a covid vaccine. Can you? I was surprised.
Deaths have been substantially reduced by vaccinations. The risk of long covid hasn't decreased, unless you're vaccinated, so you may not die but at the rate these B variants are infecting people, there will be plenty of misery. Being vaccinated means you're 50% less likely to contract covid, and another 50% less likely to have long covid (which, for some people, resolves in weeks or months. For others, covid damage is permanent). Unvaxxed people are 12x more likely to be infected. I see people claiming the vax doesn't stop transmission, and that's true, but it sure does lessen it. I see people arguing that because the vax doesn't stop transmission, it's useless. That's just . . . not mathematically true.
Vaccination reduces the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death substantially. Getting very wonky: Unvaccinated people are dying at a weekly rate of 1.71 per 100,000. Vaccinated: .22 per 100,000. Boosted: .1 per 100,000. You can see how many multiples there are of deaths by the unvaxed compared to the boosted: 171 times more likely to die. Death is the way-out-there unlikely outcome, 1 out of 87 (87 million US cases, 1 million US deaths). There are so many other terrible sequelae of this disease, and they are so much *more* likely. It's true that the elderly and obese are more likely to have bad outcomes. Their odds are worse. That doesn't mean you don't see healthy 30 year olds drop dead from it. It doesn't mean you want to be walking around with it and transmitting it to the vulnerable.
I'm curious why the infection itself is less threatening to you than the risks posed by the vaccine. If you get the virus, you might die, and of course you'll have a higher chance of lifelong dysfunction -- 20% of survivors will suffer ongoing, life-limiting impairment in their heart, lungs, or kidneys. Based on these numbers, the sensible thing is to take a low-risk prevention to prevent a higher-risk disease outcome.
What I'm curious about is, How does it make sense to you *not* to get the shots? Is it that you don't believe the published data? You think the government is low-balling vaccine deaths, or maybe exaggerating infection deaths and complications? Do you think there's something nefarious going on with the vaccines -- something intentional or unintentional that's being covered up? I don't know what people mean by "covid hoax," but is that something that affects your decision-making?
I don't really have a dog in this fight. I barely leave the house due to pre-existing health problems. So I'm asking this question without judgment or any desire to see you change your mind. I would just really really like to understand the thought processes behind refusal. I'd love it if you'd answer (or any of the other refusers here). Thanks
I didn't get vaccinated because covid wasn't a threat to me, and the jab doesn't stop transmission. When I finally caught the bug (from a vaccinated person), I was over it in 3 days, just like I figured I would be.
I think it's interesting that you're using tiny percentages to 'prove' the vax is safe but also say that a tiny percentage of gun owners cast shadow over the others.
1) I don't think the percentages are tiny when you scale them up from their "per 100,000" reporting protocol. This is a country of 330,000,000+.
2) How tiny a percentage of gun owners can be problematic when guns are the #1 cause of child death? I mean, I don't want kids dying, period. If they do die young, though, I'd sure rather it be at the end of a car trip that ended tragically. Where were they going? What kind of anticipation were they experiencing? Or, the other main cause of child death, drowning. A terrible way to die, for sure. But it was a joyful impulse that got them into that deadly water.
3) The jab does not stop transmission; it lowers it by 50%. That's not nothing. Being "over it in 3 days" -- congrats. Glad you got better. How many people did you give it to? (I'm assuming you think masks are face diapers?) How many people did they give it to? How many of them are now impaired, or worse? We share the air. What we do affects others. No matter how small the probability of harm, we should do what we can to lessen it. If we're behaving morally, our own wellness is not the only metric. Because the rest of us won't contribute to protecting all of us, the cancer patients, organ donors on lifetime immune suppressants, people like me with autoimmune disorders -- we're stuck in amber, living through screens. Don't a shot, and a mask just when you're indoors with strangers, feel like a small gift to all the moms with unprotected infants who fear leaving their homes? Does it really matter if pharma is getting rich when the shot is free to you, and so valuable to so many other people?
Even if the jab lowers transmission by 50%, the virus will continue to go through the population no matter how many people are jabbed. This was obvious the entire time, but people like me were thrown out of polite society for saying so.
The idea that I should just get the shot because it's 'free to me' is crazy. Why on earth would that matter when me getting the shot or not isn't going to make a lick of difference in the real world?
I work in healthcare. Half of those I work with got Covid vaccine exemptions, including myself. Two of my co-workers who got vaccinated have had many blood clots since and also both developed an autoimmune disorder. Also, every vaccinated person at work has gotten Covid and every unvaccinated person has remained healthy. We would be a great group to study. You that are vaccinated and get Covid often say you are very glad you got the vaccine so your case was less severe. Less severe than what? No one should have to take the risk of the side effects of this vaccine unless they choose to do so. I know many vaccinated and unvaccinated. I’ve not lost a single friend or family member’s love due to my choice to not get this vaccine. Not even a little. I feel sorry for anyone that has. As a matter of fact, most vaccinated I know decided to skip the boosters. Look at the numbers. Moderna just had to dispose of 30 million unused doses because so many are done with these vaccines. If you feel they work for you by all means take all the boosters you want. I will never take one.
Jimmy, exactly what I was going to write. Both my parents, a friend (going back all the way to high school days-1976), a former boyfriend, my sister's best friend and another sister's husband...all have died "peacefully in their sleep". None ever contracted covid.
I'm not reluctant to be vaccinated (sic) with the completely untested-for-long-term-safety experimental gene therapies put out by corrupt, dishonest pharmaceutical companies, and prostituted for by corrupt, dishonest, self-interested government officials and bureaucrats. I'm not RELUCTANT.
I steadfastly REFUSE. I don't trust one g*ddam word out of the mouths of the Covidiot vaxx fanboys from the CDC, FDA, federal government, state governments, etc., and of course, from Big Pharma itself. Hell, I fired my own doctor.
As for your statement that "there's a fair amount of data" in the 18 months since the campaign began, it's that data that only serves to cement my REFUSAL to ever be jabbed with experimental, untested, PROTOTYPE (Pfizer's own word) drugs.
I think you need to subscribe to el gato malo's Substack. You'll discover ample evidence supporting our (purebloods') REFUSAL to be jabbed.
But this alone SHOULD be enough for any thinking person: they had to change the definition of "vaccine" in order to call these prototype drugs "vaccines" because they DON'T do what vaccines do. No one would've been jabbed with "experimental" or "prototype" gene therapies, so by changing the definition in order to call these dangerous drugs "vaccines", they defrauded you and several billion other like to you to submit to the jabs, in order to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical companies and in order to get the EUAs.
"I'm curious why the infection itself is less threatening to you than the risks posed by the vaccine" ~ because I've had the virus and I had literally zero symptoms, other than a low-grade fever for 36 hours. Because the IFR is something like 0.15%. As for the vaccine (sic), you really need to read el gato malo's Substack. The vaxxes are leaky, and are major contributors to ADE and OAS, both of which are prolonging the "pandemic" and mostly in the VAXXED.
The rest of your numbers and faux statistics have been ably debunked by a number of Substack columnists. I'm not going to waste my time on any of them. The info is out there; you just have to be willing to seek sources that don't align with your preferred worldview.
I've seen plenty of debunkings. I'm sure they're not all as thoroughly cynical and wrong as Berenson's, but a good number of them are. Substack's a good living. It's tempting to play the wizard who knows better than all those basic docs, researchers, virologists, epidemiologists, etc., who've spent their careers hoping for a pandemic so they can fool everyone and watch them get shots that -- make pharma rich?
Every single one of those self-interested careerists, working day to day to treat patients and protect populations, just clicking their heels 3 times every chance they get that a virus will come along so they can all coordinate, all around the world, and lie to everyone . . . my god, what a paranoid fucking fairytale.
Do you know anyone who works in these jobs? Making less than $200k a year, most of them. The big names, the public faces, the "self-interested"? Deborah Birx cracked $200k in 2008. She was forced out of her career in 2020, when she made $325k. And you think money is what motivates these people?
Because projection (along with denial) is such a common defense mechanism that we all use all the time, when I see args like yours I see a person looking at the world through a deeply cynical lens. That's because you can't imagine doing anything altruistic, or can't imagine that helping people can be satisfying, or can't imagine that being fulfilled turns on the "enough" switch in a lot of people. You picture the faceless medical and public health community as a collection of greedy jerks who don't give a shit about their work. That's the mirror speaking.
About halfway through my career I found myself in the Regulatory Affairs Dept. of a medical device company. My boss thought I should get credentialed, so I attended a study group. When reviewing answers to the mock exam I was told that the correct answers were the ones that most people agreed upon and not necessarily what was attained through logic and reasoning. I knew right there and then that I would never be a certified regulatory specialist and therefore struggle to move up the regulatory ladder. I was willing to stall my career rather than to pin my reputation on bullshit credentials. I just couldn't stomach the lying.
I was a kid a lot like you… I noticed the inconsistencies between what the authorities said and did (my parents included) from an early age. As an early 20 something, I started learning about the killing fields, and the horrible prisons in Cuba. Later I learned about and eventually met a Romanian who had been in an underground prison for 14 years before he was ransomed out by Israel (Richard Wurmbrand.) I became obsessed with understanding what happened behind the iron curtain. Then behind the bamboo curtain. Read tons (and we were still in the cold war). The Russian Doctor, Gulag Archipelago, Life and Death in Shanghai (and probably 30 others). Later in life, I had my own issues with big pharma and big food. I knew that margarine was bullshit! I saw what food/pharma were going after people who disagreed or raised concerns (about sugar or cholesterol!) I saw them try to destroy some doctor’s lives for suggesting to people that they change their diet instead of resorting to drugs with dubious side-effects. I guess I was primed to be a canary in the coal mine. It all has the same root and they use the same playbook. Act like liberators, punish those who notice the lack of liberation. I was also suspicious of operation warp speed. I had a nurse friend who offered me a vaccine when they first rolled out, before I was in the “age group” to receive it. When I told her, “no thank you I’m waiting for more long-term data” She asked how long I would wait… I said two or three years. She was absolutely shocked. She acted like I was CRAZY. Damn! am I glad I waited for that long term data!
I find it fascinating how many people here have a similar story. Almost all of us had some sort of revelation when we were young that the 'adults' didn't have a clue, either. In my case it was so striking because I couldn't believe that my teacher couldn't tell time -- something that I had (obviously) mastered by whatever age I was at the time.
PS, I grew up in Northern California with beatniks and hippies. They were so against the establishment! They always said “question authority”. And then I saw them start taking over and becoming even more authoritarian; these people who were so against the man. I learned that all those peace love tolerance hippies were a bunch of hypocrites, which really hurt my feelings 😂
Three years was my time frame as well, but knew pretty much that two things would occur...over that time...that the vaccine would start revealing side effects, or people would finally wake up to how dangerous Covid actually was.
I grew up in a family of six kids with a very strict, and authoritarian, academic father, and a sweet but weak mother who defended him, even though you felt she knew it was wrong. I fought hard to stand up for myself, to let my ideas about life have value for me; it sure wasn't easy as my father was also very verbally and physically abusive. Church services were the place where I learned truly what hypocrisy means...most likely those weekly visits planted the seeds of distrust in many institutions and people, and my default mode was to question everyone and everything. Still the only one in the family to do so, have always been the black sheep and so happy to stay so! I'm the only one left in my family of origin with pure blood...none of this BS Covid mess made any sense from the beginning, and I am proud of myself for not caving and believing the false narrative. Stay curious, and question always! I taught my two kids to do the same and encouraged them to think for themselves....they are also unjabbed! There are many of us like this, and these posts make me feel supported!
I’m retired military. Based on personal experience, I don’t trust anyone in a position of authority. It’s nothing personal, but people in authority are always shading and dissembling and outright lying. And it’s not just politicians either.
It's funny you ask about what in our development lead us to become who we are. I have spent a great deal of time getting to really know myself after a difficult divorce, and let me tell ya... found out a lot that I had never really been aware of. My path to being a skeptic started early, I think I remember my first introduction into racism, and it came from a teacher towards one of my good friends. It really opened my eyes to the fact that the world was not the same as I had thought. I also think from a very early age, I tended to be a little bit of a contrarian. Not for the sake of being different or disagreeable, but because I didn't want to sign off on something that I didn't fully understand or agree with. Not sure if anyone else here agonized over test questions that offered absolute answers, but I always did because my mind would instantly recognize exceptions to the absolutes. The older I have gotten the more that I think my "outside of the box" thinking has helped me in my life, as well as my ability to keep my thoughts to myself unless it's safe or prudent to share them.
I also love to debate others who can share thoughts without a deep emotional attachment. In my world there are a TON of left leaning people that just cannot have an honest conversation or defend a position without getting angry or emotional. It strikes me That so many people can have such deeply held beliefs without the ability to explain WHY they think these things. Part of the fun of growing as a person is to discover new information and be willing to open your mind and heart to new possibilities. How sad must it be to have blinders on and only accept information into your world that reinforces what you think you know, even if you kind of know your not right...
Seeing this in others helps me to question my own beliefs, therefore I am very quick to question others. Only seems fair to me, and within civil discourse, we both might learn something.
I started a business before going to business school. I quickly realized the worst way to answer any quiz question was based on real life experiences. It was the way “the textbook” said it or it was wrong.
That was my great awakening.
Also, I didn’t receive this in my Inbox either. Get well, SC.
Your story here reminds me of how, when the pandemic started, I was the FIRST at my college to be laid off. I’d been there the longest out of all the other instructors, highest level of education, in a lead position, raising kids and they knew that…but who cares! I felt so angry and so oh wow this isn’t fair. Then I realized oh they can save the most money this way, oh this isn’t based on fairness, oh the whole thing in the work world is pretty scammy (some places less so than others)…
Anyway, when they offered me my role back after a couple months I said no.
Glad it happened. One time they pulled me into the office to tell me I was getting a 25cents/hour RAISE!
Another time they cut my hours AND gave me a raise At The Same Time.
Needed to get outta there.
Great awakenings sometimes happen slowly, but then you never look back.
I gave the answers the teachers wanted, even when I knew it was wrong. I was very intuitive at figuring out what the teacher's or lesson's goal was.
When I was in grade 8, I read a book about the history of particle physics. It explained how and why wave-particle duality applied to atoms, and how the standard model of elections orbiting a nucleus is a complete simplification, a lie. So all through high school I had to "lie" in my chemistry classes. I'm not sure we even covered the topic in first year university.
At this point, I've come to realize that probably almost everything we think we know in science is incomplete, a gross simplification, or flat-out wrong. Everything. (I'm an engineer in training, doing modeling of stormwater - that's tons of simplifications and assumptions.) It's a bit of a brain-melting position to take, as we still have to keep on keeping on even though we are wrong.
I actually dropped out of school for being chastised for asking to many questions and or why? For years I looked down upon myself until I finally realized being self taught is the very best education you can possibly have. School teaches you what to think not how. I don't own a TV nor have I ever and spend my life reading which I then research relentlessly before believing anything. My philosophy has always been PROVE to me what you're saying is true or accurate. Few people love a good debate more than I do. There is no better form of information than listening to all sides of an argument.
Funny thing, BJ. I dropped out of highschool for the exact same reason. Have not set foot in a cinema in 43 years. Junked my idiot box 30 years ago. Our minds are free from propaganda...and Blue Skies is probably dead by now.
There's nothing wrong with auto-didacticism; as a physically disabled person, I spend the majority of my life reading and learning. I'm also highly educated, so I would quibble with the idea that learning on one's own is necessarily the best. We are all blind to our own blindspots, and unaware of our biases, from time to time. For me, classroom discussions led by an excellent professor and powered by smart and diverse classmates have been so enlightening.
It's why I still participate in book groups that include some people I don't know well. Someone at almost every meeting will say something surprising. I've finished the book, the discussion has covered things in a way that makes sense to me, and ten minutes from the end someone asks a question or makes a throwaway observation that leads to me spending time reconsidering. That's enriching to me.
Sometimes the majority of the group is viewing the book through a lens that literally never crossed my mind (unsettling! Am I an idiot?). Sometimes one astute person will have built an argument through close reading that pulls my understanding of the whole text in a new direction (exciting!). Sometimes one or a few people will have interpretations I don't agree with at all, but that require me to marshal an argument in my own mind as to why.
I've been through my share of boring lectures. And fascinating lectures in giant halls that didn't allow for much back and forth. I wish we'd had the option of watching classes online when I was in school -- you quickly figure out which teachers or classmates are going to create those interesting discussions, and can skip attending the predictable ones in person. I've learned an awful lot in well-run classrooms that I couldn't have learned by watching, unless someone else asked the exact questions I was thinking of. Honestly I'd still be enrolled in a city college and showing up to class if I was more physically capable. Sometimes I really miss the foreign language classes where everyone is spending their energy trying to understand and be understood. That gets the mind working in a very different way.
This is so morbidly funny. Hopefully they just lost their account info. Or they decided substack was too full of “extremists”. They seem like the type.
I posted part of this with Eugyppius back in January.
My 4th grade teacher was a pedophile and the school tried to cover it up while he was touching my friends, two preachers at my Baptist church were caught with their pants down with parishioners, and my Boy Scout troop leader was caught lying about his own Eagle Scout accomplishments ( he didn'tsave any lives), plus, my wife works with autistic children and the studies and trends from that part of Healthcare are ridiculous.
AND, my mom lied about Santa Claus!! (ok, that one was harmless)
Blame is squarely laid at Bill Watterson’s feet. He’s the cartoonist behind Calvin and Hobbes.
Memories are a bit fuzzy, but I was reading that stuff as soon as I knew how. May have helped teach me to read.
If you’re unfamiliar with it, a six year old kid and his stuffed tiger/imaginary best friend run roughshod over everything and anything that comes their way.
Going back and reading it now I’m shocked and slightly embarrassed how much influence it had over my life. Well, maybe I wasn’t reading John Calvin or Thomas Hobbes, but I suppose Bill wasn’t a terrible option at the time.
And you can just imagine my face when I ran across Wormwood (cartoon Calvin’s teacher) in C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.
Any time I see Hobbes celebrated I am compelled to point-out the following.
His fundamental error in his 1651 book, "Leviathan", was to declare without substantiation, that the natural condition of man absent the state was "war of all against all".
The book was published during the English Civil War -- in order to justify a tyrannical central government as the price of peace.
In the view of Hobbes, life without the monopolist state was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." He didn't see the natural state as production and trade. Quite odd.
During his time, conflict was indeed ubiquitous. But what was the conflict about? It was over who would control the state and how that state would operate. This was not the "state of nature" he decried, but rather, a society under Leviathan's control.
It was precisely the Leviathan that bred that very conflict that Hobbes was addressing, and he proposed a cure that was essentially identical to the disease.
Don't have a clue. I was always questioning the narrative from a very young age. I used to get in trouble all the time in public school for not doing things the way we were told we *had* to do them. Or if 4 out of 5 doctors recommended something, I want to find out why that 5th one doesn't recommend it! In the military I got a lot of that brainwashed out of me and it took quite a few years for me to remember who I was. I'm happy to say I've experienced a full recovery and don't trust anyone or anything anymore. Even my own family gets questioned at times. Lol.
I had a horrible childhood. That's what taught me not to trust. But here's the thing. That concept was reiterated over years. The most valuable lesson was this. I was in Physician Assistant school. One of my preceptors was an old, old, doctor who told me to never be the first to try out any new drug. He said for me to let others try it. If they succeeded after a while, go ahead. But wait, be cautious, and never be an early adopter.
I learned the lesson well, and it came in very handy about the time that the COVID vaccine came out. A little caution and a little skepticism can be excellent.
After dutifully following the "expert" advice of doctors, big pharma and the government's pediatric vaxx schedule, we watched our 17-month-old son regress before our eyes (after his MMR jab).
He's now a junior in a college honors program and a black belt in Kenpo Karate.
However, his recovery from Autism was not without a price. It took 10 years, a quarter million dollars, a good chunk of our marriage, my wife's career (and the lost earning opportunities) and his childhood.
The bright side is, the journey with our son most likely saved us from participating in the biggest medical experiment in the history of mankind.
"Like" isn't exactly the accurate response to this but...
I like that you "liked" it. Thanks!❤️
Incredible story.
This resonates with the plight faced by the parents of offspring with eating disorders. We had been through Plans A, B, C and D; Plan E began "First steal one ski mask."
For me it's a family trait: trust, but with caveats.
Can the trust be verified? What happens to me if the one you trust betrays you? What do you do then? Is it someone actually betraying a trust or is it yourself overreacting due to similar past experiences? (That one is really important!) What recourse is there against a betrayer? Always look at a deal no matter big or small with an eye if it's set up without any kind of tangible liability for any party.
All of this I got from my upbringing, not codified as such but in proverbs and examples and explanations from parents and grandparents.
Trust but verify. Don't confuse your own self with the surface that you use to interact with others: you own self is for you and your family to know, not strangers. Don't give out information which gives others leverage. Learn the difference between knowing what is real, and what the system wants you to know as real - this is why you should keep up with main stream news:
When in the company of true believerswhich you are dependant on, you need to know what you are supposed to know so as to not give the game away. Also, with careful phrasing you can fish for like minded people, only with care: fanatics might do the same to ferret out dissidents.
As you can see, growing up in a socialist democracy leaves it's mark upon those who simply can't kill their own soul, and those who grew up in the real communist dictatorships had it much harsher.
But if I have to pick a similar childhood experience, it's this:
In our third grade book on natural sciences, there was a black and white image of the Milky Way. My grandmother's book on astronomy had that same picture as an example of how you make compound images by extrapolating from radio and other energy sources in space. (Used to read that book with the dictionary next to me. Was grandma proud or what!) But the school's book and our teacher (a lifer) said it was a photograph of the Milky Way.
Taken by satellite from outside the galaxy and sent here via radio.
An argument ensued which got me sent to the principal and psych eval. That psych later barred me from military service, which back then was done by conscription.
"Pathologically anti-authoritarian", it reads.
WOW
Can you imagine that we used to have a system where teachers were life time employees? Barring certain crimes, they couldn't get fired, only transferred.
My mother-in-law, also a teacher, told me where they used to transfer the worst numbnuts: teacher's college, meaning the very worst trained the next generation of teachers.
No one is "transferred" to teachers college. No one in a school district HR dept. can enroll a new student, who hasn't applied to any college.
I'm surprised anyone would believe such a tale.
In spades.
I had to come back to say this is a really breathtaking commentary. I didn't know anybody anywhere had a family like that, teaching you actual real essential survival skills that would arm you throughout life with what you needed to have. I absolutely salute your parents and your grandparents.
Edited: Thank you, I'm blushing over here.
I think being raised half the time by my grandparents really helped. Respect towards adults and elders, yes, but as something one must earn and prove worthy of, meaning one must be mindful of one's actions so as not to shame oneself.
So while you might have to obey an employer, if he acts unmanly (or unwomanly I guess) he deserves no respect.
Respect in swedish originally had no connotations or associations with obedience or being subservient - it simply meant showing approval and that you are suitably impressed with someone due to the way they act. It originally had nothing to do with authority or position.
Speaking of survival skills, you mean it's not normal for a father to teach camoflage, trapping and shooting not to mention close combat to his children? I'm only being half-facetious: to me, and my family is far from unique in this, teaching your children to fight - physically and spiritually - for themselves, for rght and for the defenseless is the right way to parent.
Right, enough self-aggrandizement, or I'll be in violation of the Jante law.
You know, it's a funny thing. I'd never understood why people like guns and city-born-and-raised, such weapon-craft was both alien and unnecessary, I thought.
A few years ago a friend recommended the Jack Reacher novels as tolerable entertainment. I resisted at first because of Tom Cruise playing him in the movies but my friend advised me to just imagine Sean Bean as the protagonist until I'd cleansed my visual memory.
Anyway, in one of the books there was a very detailed episode where Reacher goes target-shooting at a gun range owned by a vet, where they challenged each other, and I was just mesmerized by the descriptions of the discipline and skill required to be good at that. Absolutely the first time in my life I could imagine attempting to test myself that way.
Further, a writing friend commenting on a story on a webzine we both read explained to me in the most beautiful persuasive way why some people love to collect weapons. Gave me quite the perspective on why perfectly rational non-violent people might have a not-unhealthy interest.
I remember that novel, I'm pretty sure. It turned out the gun range guy had hidden the targets showing one of his customers could have made the shots, right?
Yes I think so.
I got a little tired of Reacher's idiosyncracies (one pair of underwear and a toothbrush to wander through life? Pressing the one shirt by sticking it under the mattress?) but the technical details were pretty compelling. But perhaps not quite as memorable as the assassin's preparations in The Day of the Jackal.
I figure he's spent his life in the military, anything more than that would be a luxury :p
Maybe that's why the wokesters don't like guns:
Guns (and close combat practice) self-select for discipline, sacrifice, and learning to win (i.e. survive) byt taking the pain if needed.
Be stupid with guns or other dangerous equipment and you or people around you pays a tangible price.
Neglect even basic physcial training (like my daily constitutional, walking or skiing or biking at least one hour with the dogs) and you get fabby, fat and sickly.
I mean I think I'm pretty good with the wordsmithing and the semantics and such, but I could never bring myself to think that changing the name changes the thing, the way the woke, the PC thugs and the liberal fascists do.
Maybe it's a combination? Self-discipline as to what is real, but also humble acceptance that the world is what it is, not what we perceive it to be or wish it to be.
Which - I realise as I write this while the squirrels and the crows are fighting over the compost heap* - was fully understood by Diogenes and Sokrates and the rest of that gang. Guess that's why we stopped teaching the history of ideas, logic, and rhetoric here: let people think, they'll get ideas, then they get uppity with notions above ther station.
*How's that for a metaphor for a two party system? One party squirrels away much as they can and just sit on it, the other gobbles up anything in their path until driven off.
I call it SMASH -- Steady, Meaningful advances, staying humble.
ie: Go SMASH your weekend! :)
If guns self-select for discipline, why are there so many stories of people being shot to death bc their music was too loud, or a family member was mistaken for an intruder, or -- most commonly -- a family member was deliberately shot to death when someone lost their temper? What kind of sacrifice does it take to carelessly leave loaded weapons around little kids? We seem to have quite a few of those bozos.
When virtually anyone can have a gun, statistically at least half will have below average marksmanship, below average self-control, below average ability to swiftly calculate distance and wind speed, etc.
What most gun owners have in common is outsize fear, and a predilection for settling conflicts with violence. Now that scotus has decided anyone can conceal carry with no background check and no training, the fun is just beginning. Who wants to volunteer to be around the guy who's one standard deviation below the mean on anger management? Or the insecure guy who whips out his gun anytime his manhood or intelligence is challenged? How about the wife-beater? Granted, interpersonal violence correlates with mass shootings, but that doesn't mean the men who can't handle their emotions within ostensibly loving relationships won't also resort to shooting if they become flustered or humiliated outside the home.
If guns self-select for discipline, why are there so many stories of people being shot to death bc their music was too loud, or a family member was mistaken for an intruder, or -- most commonly -- a family member was deliberately shot to death when someone lost their temper? What kind of sacrifice does it take to carelessly leave loaded weapons around little kids? We seem to have quite a few of those bozos.
----------
Can you quantify them for me? Perhaps as a percentage of total gun owners?
I have an answer you may not like.
There is only one constant in MANKIND (using that for emphasis...not anything else) :
CONFLICT
You will never be able to change that. We are still apes. Apes will ape...and that will be true 1000 years from now. The only difference is we "ape" in a different fashion now - nothing has changed...just the "forums". If you doubt this hangout in a boys high school locker room or a cocktail party amongst Wall Street brokers or an online gaming board. Below our thin veneer of civilization you will find, in these cases, it is just as vicious as apes beating each other with sticks. The difference being, a "stick beating" is quick, judicious and for a purpose. Now the beatings can last indefinitely. Non bipedal apes are far less aggressive and vicious than those who locomote on two feet. Despite our ability to empathize and the miracle of our frontal lobs, we still do the same shit...but worse.
You're asking yourself what's my point. The point is you have to allow boys to be boys or conflict itself has no point.
Why is conflict necessary in the formative years for young male homosapiens?:
To learn how to RESOLVE conflict.
If we don't allow boys to be boys (and we don't anymore) then you end up with young men that can't wrestle around (or god forbid a fist fight) and then be "best buds".
The unintended consequences of trying to "protect" boys from bullying, etc., (or participation trophies) has resulted in boys becoming individual young men who use violence (verbal, bullying or in the rare case actual serial violence) just for the fun of it without a purpose because there are no guardrails established at the group level. Disrupting this necessary process would have the same net result as trying to "protect" females from "gossip". Yes there is a need for gossip and the way females organize structure at the group level (one of which is for my wife to remind me what my best friends new babies name is). There are many reasons for this, but the most important of which is the gathering of "intel" to "protect" the family unit or community unit. Intel is far more important than any weapon (or fist) in order to avoid conflict (true conflict) or to prepare if conflict is unavoidable. This is why women have "long memories" and can have "grudges" for years. Thats a "good" thing on a net basis. Does this have potential downsides for an individual? Yes, but the alternative is far worse at the group level. And guess what? If boys are not allowed to be boys then what was once a grudge match resolved in short order, becomes "gossip". The last thing a group or an individual needs (Yes, even those who are bullied) for safety is for boys to have grudges that last as long as gossip. And that's exactly what is happening as a result of boys not being able to learn how to resolve conflict. You do not want "beatings" to become "gossip". Men have short memories for a reason, just the same as women having "long" memories; to establish order without conflict for conflict sake
Whether you like it or not, males are hierarchical (and sometimes "violent") and this process is for a reason:
To produce leaders.
Think back to high-school, who were the male leaders?
Were they violent or did they incite violence?
No. Why? Because they were a byproduct of the male and female group dynamics; not shielded from it.
Apes are no different. Their leaders are not necessarily the biggest baddest ape in the group; it is the ape who can protect the group from unnecessary conflict; the ape who protects the group from disorder. It is the ape that had the wit and courage to punch the biggest bully in the mouth first. Apes shun bullies because they don't protect the group....sometimes that requires a fist in the face...and wait for it....gossip.
Lastly if you go around clipping peacock tails...well...you can expect that to also affect the peahens...but that's much more complicated discussion.
As far as dumb/irresponsible people. Get used to it; they'll always be with us. They'll always be prone to more "accidents" because... well...they're not smart. Should we outlaw fast food or desserts just because there are fat people? No. That violates my agency and personal sovereignty....and theirs too. Far, far more people die from this then the idiot wielded a gun intentionally or a parent allowing a child to access a gun.
If you want violence in general to go down then we need to go back to how the group level dynamic, hardwired in our brains, "protects" both the individual and the group. If not, we just end uo with a bunch of lost males that create disorder at the group level. The problem is, it is difficult to establish order without the family unit and strong communities. An atomized society is a society of anarchy.
And maybe if democrats stop shooting each then 90% of gun violence would be eliminated. Fact.
Maybe the problem is lack of good father's not guns?
But that conversation is verboten or it would lay bare what I said above.
Given that, the only way to
Well, good on you!
Simple, I have a good memory and most of the people who try to bullshit me again forget that I remembered the line they sold me the first time around (I can remember news cycles for over a decade so suck it CNN). It can be hard to tell who is lying the first time around but boy does it become easy after that!
Same thing here. My leftie older brother went from middle of the road 25 years ago with very similar political views as mine, to left of Democrats as of 2020 when I last spoke to him. I clearly remember his complete 180 degree reversal of in his views are many issues. But to him, I am the crazy one! Fascinating. He does not remember his own earlier opposing views and goes on with total self-assured surety on his current views. Or is he pretending to have evolved? I just could not take it anymore and have completely stopped communicating with him - I dont like small talk for small talk's sake.
Also growing up, I did not like my teachers and most of the teachers did not like me. So I thank them for inculcating my distrust for authority, although I suspect that most of it is innate.
When I was in my early 20s, I bought the book "The Experts Speak" by Christopher Cerf. I have no idea why I bought it, but I did. And perhaps that is when I lost all faith in those in positions of authority - the "experts" - and shifted to a position of "prove it to me, else, it's BS".
Even as President Trump was fast-tracking the vaxx development, my position from the get-go was NFW. I'm not taking any experimental drug until it has been fully tested on at least a billion people AND has at least 5 years' reliable safety data associated with it. ('course I had no idea how easy it would be to get a billion people to agree to be jabbed...)
I m really so curious about your reluctance to be vaccinated. (Not just yours! A third of the eligible adults remain unvaxed.) Last I checked, over 12.5 billion doses of vaccine have gone into arms worldwide. It's been ~18 months since that campaign began, so although it's not 5 years, there's a fair amount of data.
As of last month, the US vaccine injury compensation program covering covid vaccines has received 8,000 claims, including 3,000 claims for devices, hospital procedures that allowed for disease spread, and other stuff not related to the content of the shots. Those aren't all deaths being claimed; I'm not sure if any are.They haven't been litigated so we don't know how many of those claims are founded. Even if every single one is, that's a minute percentage of all those vaccinated in the US asking to be compensated for injuries. It's an injury incident rate of 0.00001333333 -- 600 million shots, 8k injuries. That's a whole lot less than the 1%+ fatality rate of the infection, and it's not at all clear that those reported vaccine injuries = deaths.
I know people have been concerned about myocarditis (more common among the unvaxxed who acquire covid than the vaxxed), the impact on fertility (no permanent effects on either the vaccinated or un-), or other debilitations. There doesn't seem to be any reported vax side effect that isn't worse if you're unvaxxed and contract covid. The hospital itself is no picnic. Lots of people come out with "ICU syndrome" that sounds awful . . . psychosis, permanent muscle loss, PTSD . . .
Worldwide, there have been 6,360,000 deaths from covid. Although I've searched, I can't find a single verified death caused by a covid vaccine. Can you? I was surprised.
Deaths have been substantially reduced by vaccinations. The risk of long covid hasn't decreased, unless you're vaccinated, so you may not die but at the rate these B variants are infecting people, there will be plenty of misery. Being vaccinated means you're 50% less likely to contract covid, and another 50% less likely to have long covid (which, for some people, resolves in weeks or months. For others, covid damage is permanent). Unvaxxed people are 12x more likely to be infected. I see people claiming the vax doesn't stop transmission, and that's true, but it sure does lessen it. I see people arguing that because the vax doesn't stop transmission, it's useless. That's just . . . not mathematically true.
Vaccination reduces the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death substantially. Getting very wonky: Unvaccinated people are dying at a weekly rate of 1.71 per 100,000. Vaccinated: .22 per 100,000. Boosted: .1 per 100,000. You can see how many multiples there are of deaths by the unvaxed compared to the boosted: 171 times more likely to die. Death is the way-out-there unlikely outcome, 1 out of 87 (87 million US cases, 1 million US deaths). There are so many other terrible sequelae of this disease, and they are so much *more* likely. It's true that the elderly and obese are more likely to have bad outcomes. Their odds are worse. That doesn't mean you don't see healthy 30 year olds drop dead from it. It doesn't mean you want to be walking around with it and transmitting it to the vulnerable.
I'm curious why the infection itself is less threatening to you than the risks posed by the vaccine. If you get the virus, you might die, and of course you'll have a higher chance of lifelong dysfunction -- 20% of survivors will suffer ongoing, life-limiting impairment in their heart, lungs, or kidneys. Based on these numbers, the sensible thing is to take a low-risk prevention to prevent a higher-risk disease outcome.
What I'm curious about is, How does it make sense to you *not* to get the shots? Is it that you don't believe the published data? You think the government is low-balling vaccine deaths, or maybe exaggerating infection deaths and complications? Do you think there's something nefarious going on with the vaccines -- something intentional or unintentional that's being covered up? I don't know what people mean by "covid hoax," but is that something that affects your decision-making?
I don't really have a dog in this fight. I barely leave the house due to pre-existing health problems. So I'm asking this question without judgment or any desire to see you change your mind. I would just really really like to understand the thought processes behind refusal. I'd love it if you'd answer (or any of the other refusers here). Thanks
I didn't get vaccinated because covid wasn't a threat to me, and the jab doesn't stop transmission. When I finally caught the bug (from a vaccinated person), I was over it in 3 days, just like I figured I would be.
I think it's interesting that you're using tiny percentages to 'prove' the vax is safe but also say that a tiny percentage of gun owners cast shadow over the others.
1) I don't think the percentages are tiny when you scale them up from their "per 100,000" reporting protocol. This is a country of 330,000,000+.
2) How tiny a percentage of gun owners can be problematic when guns are the #1 cause of child death? I mean, I don't want kids dying, period. If they do die young, though, I'd sure rather it be at the end of a car trip that ended tragically. Where were they going? What kind of anticipation were they experiencing? Or, the other main cause of child death, drowning. A terrible way to die, for sure. But it was a joyful impulse that got them into that deadly water.
3) The jab does not stop transmission; it lowers it by 50%. That's not nothing. Being "over it in 3 days" -- congrats. Glad you got better. How many people did you give it to? (I'm assuming you think masks are face diapers?) How many people did they give it to? How many of them are now impaired, or worse? We share the air. What we do affects others. No matter how small the probability of harm, we should do what we can to lessen it. If we're behaving morally, our own wellness is not the only metric. Because the rest of us won't contribute to protecting all of us, the cancer patients, organ donors on lifetime immune suppressants, people like me with autoimmune disorders -- we're stuck in amber, living through screens. Don't a shot, and a mask just when you're indoors with strangers, feel like a small gift to all the moms with unprotected infants who fear leaving their homes? Does it really matter if pharma is getting rich when the shot is free to you, and so valuable to so many other people?
Even if the jab lowers transmission by 50%, the virus will continue to go through the population no matter how many people are jabbed. This was obvious the entire time, but people like me were thrown out of polite society for saying so.
The idea that I should just get the shot because it's 'free to me' is crazy. Why on earth would that matter when me getting the shot or not isn't going to make a lick of difference in the real world?
I work in healthcare. Half of those I work with got Covid vaccine exemptions, including myself. Two of my co-workers who got vaccinated have had many blood clots since and also both developed an autoimmune disorder. Also, every vaccinated person at work has gotten Covid and every unvaccinated person has remained healthy. We would be a great group to study. You that are vaccinated and get Covid often say you are very glad you got the vaccine so your case was less severe. Less severe than what? No one should have to take the risk of the side effects of this vaccine unless they choose to do so. I know many vaccinated and unvaccinated. I’ve not lost a single friend or family member’s love due to my choice to not get this vaccine. Not even a little. I feel sorry for anyone that has. As a matter of fact, most vaccinated I know decided to skip the boosters. Look at the numbers. Moderna just had to dispose of 30 million unused doses because so many are done with these vaccines. If you feel they work for you by all means take all the boosters you want. I will never take one.
I'm happy for you that your identity has been boosted by your non-vax status. Everyone deserves a reason to feel good about themselves.
Blue Skies? Care to follow up? Hello? Heeelllloooooo? All is ok? Hello?
This comment has not aged well and continues not to age well.
We just got lucky that we predicted the future.........again.
Not luck. Experience and knowledge led us to the correct way forward.
Our "luck" is subscription to Classical Liberalism, the system of honesty that leads to truth, of the past *and* the future.
Jimmy, exactly what I was going to write. Both my parents, a friend (going back all the way to high school days-1976), a former boyfriend, my sister's best friend and another sister's husband...all have died "peacefully in their sleep". None ever contracted covid.
Sorry to hear this. I sense a great deal of sarcasm in “peacefully in their sleep.”
Perhaps I was a bit too vague somehow.
I'm not reluctant to be vaccinated (sic) with the completely untested-for-long-term-safety experimental gene therapies put out by corrupt, dishonest pharmaceutical companies, and prostituted for by corrupt, dishonest, self-interested government officials and bureaucrats. I'm not RELUCTANT.
I steadfastly REFUSE. I don't trust one g*ddam word out of the mouths of the Covidiot vaxx fanboys from the CDC, FDA, federal government, state governments, etc., and of course, from Big Pharma itself. Hell, I fired my own doctor.
As for your statement that "there's a fair amount of data" in the 18 months since the campaign began, it's that data that only serves to cement my REFUSAL to ever be jabbed with experimental, untested, PROTOTYPE (Pfizer's own word) drugs.
I think you need to subscribe to el gato malo's Substack. You'll discover ample evidence supporting our (purebloods') REFUSAL to be jabbed.
But this alone SHOULD be enough for any thinking person: they had to change the definition of "vaccine" in order to call these prototype drugs "vaccines" because they DON'T do what vaccines do. No one would've been jabbed with "experimental" or "prototype" gene therapies, so by changing the definition in order to call these dangerous drugs "vaccines", they defrauded you and several billion other like to you to submit to the jabs, in order to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical companies and in order to get the EUAs.
This, too: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/reasons-not-getting-covid-vaccine/
"I'm curious why the infection itself is less threatening to you than the risks posed by the vaccine" ~ because I've had the virus and I had literally zero symptoms, other than a low-grade fever for 36 hours. Because the IFR is something like 0.15%. As for the vaccine (sic), you really need to read el gato malo's Substack. The vaxxes are leaky, and are major contributors to ADE and OAS, both of which are prolonging the "pandemic" and mostly in the VAXXED.
The rest of your numbers and faux statistics have been ably debunked by a number of Substack columnists. I'm not going to waste my time on any of them. The info is out there; you just have to be willing to seek sources that don't align with your preferred worldview.
I've seen plenty of debunkings. I'm sure they're not all as thoroughly cynical and wrong as Berenson's, but a good number of them are. Substack's a good living. It's tempting to play the wizard who knows better than all those basic docs, researchers, virologists, epidemiologists, etc., who've spent their careers hoping for a pandemic so they can fool everyone and watch them get shots that -- make pharma rich?
Every single one of those self-interested careerists, working day to day to treat patients and protect populations, just clicking their heels 3 times every chance they get that a virus will come along so they can all coordinate, all around the world, and lie to everyone . . . my god, what a paranoid fucking fairytale.
Do you know anyone who works in these jobs? Making less than $200k a year, most of them. The big names, the public faces, the "self-interested"? Deborah Birx cracked $200k in 2008. She was forced out of her career in 2020, when she made $325k. And you think money is what motivates these people?
Because projection (along with denial) is such a common defense mechanism that we all use all the time, when I see args like yours I see a person looking at the world through a deeply cynical lens. That's because you can't imagine doing anything altruistic, or can't imagine that helping people can be satisfying, or can't imagine that being fulfilled turns on the "enough" switch in a lot of people. You picture the faceless medical and public health community as a collection of greedy jerks who don't give a shit about their work. That's the mirror speaking.
So, what are your thoughts on all this now?
You are a liar.
Wow, you've given me a lot to think about. Are you this articulate and persuasive all the time?
It being several months since you posted this, I wonder what your thoughts on the vaccine are now.
Blue Skies,
Hello? Heelloooo? <chirp> Knock knock, anybody home? Hello? <chirp, chirp>
Perhaps they are a casualty of the vaccine?
ALL your numbers are false or misleading. Not worth addressing.
OK don't address the numbers. Address the rest of it. 
About halfway through my career I found myself in the Regulatory Affairs Dept. of a medical device company. My boss thought I should get credentialed, so I attended a study group. When reviewing answers to the mock exam I was told that the correct answers were the ones that most people agreed upon and not necessarily what was attained through logic and reasoning. I knew right there and then that I would never be a certified regulatory specialist and therefore struggle to move up the regulatory ladder. I was willing to stall my career rather than to pin my reputation on bullshit credentials. I just couldn't stomach the lying.
Sadly the people who "succeed" are the people ARE willing to stomach the lying.
I was a kid a lot like you… I noticed the inconsistencies between what the authorities said and did (my parents included) from an early age. As an early 20 something, I started learning about the killing fields, and the horrible prisons in Cuba. Later I learned about and eventually met a Romanian who had been in an underground prison for 14 years before he was ransomed out by Israel (Richard Wurmbrand.) I became obsessed with understanding what happened behind the iron curtain. Then behind the bamboo curtain. Read tons (and we were still in the cold war). The Russian Doctor, Gulag Archipelago, Life and Death in Shanghai (and probably 30 others). Later in life, I had my own issues with big pharma and big food. I knew that margarine was bullshit! I saw what food/pharma were going after people who disagreed or raised concerns (about sugar or cholesterol!) I saw them try to destroy some doctor’s lives for suggesting to people that they change their diet instead of resorting to drugs with dubious side-effects. I guess I was primed to be a canary in the coal mine. It all has the same root and they use the same playbook. Act like liberators, punish those who notice the lack of liberation. I was also suspicious of operation warp speed. I had a nurse friend who offered me a vaccine when they first rolled out, before I was in the “age group” to receive it. When I told her, “no thank you I’m waiting for more long-term data” She asked how long I would wait… I said two or three years. She was absolutely shocked. She acted like I was CRAZY. Damn! am I glad I waited for that long term data!
I find it fascinating how many people here have a similar story. Almost all of us had some sort of revelation when we were young that the 'adults' didn't have a clue, either. In my case it was so striking because I couldn't believe that my teacher couldn't tell time -- something that I had (obviously) mastered by whatever age I was at the time.
PS, I grew up in Northern California with beatniks and hippies. They were so against the establishment! They always said “question authority”. And then I saw them start taking over and becoming even more authoritarian; these people who were so against the man. I learned that all those peace love tolerance hippies were a bunch of hypocrites, which really hurt my feelings 😂
Three years was my time frame as well, but knew pretty much that two things would occur...over that time...that the vaccine would start revealing side effects, or people would finally wake up to how dangerous Covid actually was.
I grew up in a family of six kids with a very strict, and authoritarian, academic father, and a sweet but weak mother who defended him, even though you felt she knew it was wrong. I fought hard to stand up for myself, to let my ideas about life have value for me; it sure wasn't easy as my father was also very verbally and physically abusive. Church services were the place where I learned truly what hypocrisy means...most likely those weekly visits planted the seeds of distrust in many institutions and people, and my default mode was to question everyone and everything. Still the only one in the family to do so, have always been the black sheep and so happy to stay so! I'm the only one left in my family of origin with pure blood...none of this BS Covid mess made any sense from the beginning, and I am proud of myself for not caving and believing the false narrative. Stay curious, and question always! I taught my two kids to do the same and encouraged them to think for themselves....they are also unjabbed! There are many of us like this, and these posts make me feel supported!
I’m retired military. Based on personal experience, I don’t trust anyone in a position of authority. It’s nothing personal, but people in authority are always shading and dissembling and outright lying. And it’s not just politicians either.
It's funny you ask about what in our development lead us to become who we are. I have spent a great deal of time getting to really know myself after a difficult divorce, and let me tell ya... found out a lot that I had never really been aware of. My path to being a skeptic started early, I think I remember my first introduction into racism, and it came from a teacher towards one of my good friends. It really opened my eyes to the fact that the world was not the same as I had thought. I also think from a very early age, I tended to be a little bit of a contrarian. Not for the sake of being different or disagreeable, but because I didn't want to sign off on something that I didn't fully understand or agree with. Not sure if anyone else here agonized over test questions that offered absolute answers, but I always did because my mind would instantly recognize exceptions to the absolutes. The older I have gotten the more that I think my "outside of the box" thinking has helped me in my life, as well as my ability to keep my thoughts to myself unless it's safe or prudent to share them.
I also love to debate others who can share thoughts without a deep emotional attachment. In my world there are a TON of left leaning people that just cannot have an honest conversation or defend a position without getting angry or emotional. It strikes me That so many people can have such deeply held beliefs without the ability to explain WHY they think these things. Part of the fun of growing as a person is to discover new information and be willing to open your mind and heart to new possibilities. How sad must it be to have blinders on and only accept information into your world that reinforces what you think you know, even if you kind of know your not right...
Seeing this in others helps me to question my own beliefs, therefore I am very quick to question others. Only seems fair to me, and within civil discourse, we both might learn something.
They say that you're not supposed to debate religion or politics, which (IMO) leads to people who are unable to do so.
I started a business before going to business school. I quickly realized the worst way to answer any quiz question was based on real life experiences. It was the way “the textbook” said it or it was wrong.
That was my great awakening.
Also, I didn’t receive this in my Inbox either. Get well, SC.
I didn’t get it in my inbox either!
Your story here reminds me of how, when the pandemic started, I was the FIRST at my college to be laid off. I’d been there the longest out of all the other instructors, highest level of education, in a lead position, raising kids and they knew that…but who cares! I felt so angry and so oh wow this isn’t fair. Then I realized oh they can save the most money this way, oh this isn’t based on fairness, oh the whole thing in the work world is pretty scammy (some places less so than others)…
Anyway, when they offered me my role back after a couple months I said no.
Glad it happened. One time they pulled me into the office to tell me I was getting a 25cents/hour RAISE!
Another time they cut my hours AND gave me a raise At The Same Time.
Needed to get outta there.
Great awakenings sometimes happen slowly, but then you never look back.
I gave the answers the teachers wanted, even when I knew it was wrong. I was very intuitive at figuring out what the teacher's or lesson's goal was.
When I was in grade 8, I read a book about the history of particle physics. It explained how and why wave-particle duality applied to atoms, and how the standard model of elections orbiting a nucleus is a complete simplification, a lie. So all through high school I had to "lie" in my chemistry classes. I'm not sure we even covered the topic in first year university.
At this point, I've come to realize that probably almost everything we think we know in science is incomplete, a gross simplification, or flat-out wrong. Everything. (I'm an engineer in training, doing modeling of stormwater - that's tons of simplifications and assumptions.) It's a bit of a brain-melting position to take, as we still have to keep on keeping on even though we are wrong.
I actually dropped out of school for being chastised for asking to many questions and or why? For years I looked down upon myself until I finally realized being self taught is the very best education you can possibly have. School teaches you what to think not how. I don't own a TV nor have I ever and spend my life reading which I then research relentlessly before believing anything. My philosophy has always been PROVE to me what you're saying is true or accurate. Few people love a good debate more than I do. There is no better form of information than listening to all sides of an argument.
I remember a few other unruly kids who were kicked out of or quit school for that very thing.
https://www.quora.com/Was-Thomas-edison-expelled-from-school?share=1
Funny thing, BJ. I dropped out of highschool for the exact same reason. Have not set foot in a cinema in 43 years. Junked my idiot box 30 years ago. Our minds are free from propaganda...and Blue Skies is probably dead by now.
There's nothing wrong with auto-didacticism; as a physically disabled person, I spend the majority of my life reading and learning. I'm also highly educated, so I would quibble with the idea that learning on one's own is necessarily the best. We are all blind to our own blindspots, and unaware of our biases, from time to time. For me, classroom discussions led by an excellent professor and powered by smart and diverse classmates have been so enlightening.
It's why I still participate in book groups that include some people I don't know well. Someone at almost every meeting will say something surprising. I've finished the book, the discussion has covered things in a way that makes sense to me, and ten minutes from the end someone asks a question or makes a throwaway observation that leads to me spending time reconsidering. That's enriching to me.
Sometimes the majority of the group is viewing the book through a lens that literally never crossed my mind (unsettling! Am I an idiot?). Sometimes one astute person will have built an argument through close reading that pulls my understanding of the whole text in a new direction (exciting!). Sometimes one or a few people will have interpretations I don't agree with at all, but that require me to marshal an argument in my own mind as to why.
I've been through my share of boring lectures. And fascinating lectures in giant halls that didn't allow for much back and forth. I wish we'd had the option of watching classes online when I was in school -- you quickly figure out which teachers or classmates are going to create those interesting discussions, and can skip attending the predictable ones in person. I've learned an awful lot in well-run classrooms that I couldn't have learned by watching, unless someone else asked the exact questions I was thinking of. Honestly I'd still be enrolled in a city college and showing up to class if I was more physically capable. Sometimes I really miss the foreign language classes where everyone is spending their energy trying to understand and be understood. That gets the mind working in a very different way.
So, Blue, Did you survive your vaccination?
This is so morbidly funny. Hopefully they just lost their account info. Or they decided substack was too full of “extremists”. They seem like the type.
I posted part of this with Eugyppius back in January.
My 4th grade teacher was a pedophile and the school tried to cover it up while he was touching my friends, two preachers at my Baptist church were caught with their pants down with parishioners, and my Boy Scout troop leader was caught lying about his own Eagle Scout accomplishments ( he didn'tsave any lives), plus, my wife works with autistic children and the studies and trends from that part of Healthcare are ridiculous.
AND, my mom lied about Santa Claus!! (ok, that one was harmless)
I trust no one.
As a mom, I felt TERRIBLE lying about Santa, and I feel like Dr Mengele with all the creepy baby teeth in my jewelry box! 🤣
It's almost as if the purpose of Old Saint Nicholas was/is to teach skepticism of even that most essential authority, the parent.
Love that perspective, actually.
Blame is squarely laid at Bill Watterson’s feet. He’s the cartoonist behind Calvin and Hobbes.
Memories are a bit fuzzy, but I was reading that stuff as soon as I knew how. May have helped teach me to read.
If you’re unfamiliar with it, a six year old kid and his stuffed tiger/imaginary best friend run roughshod over everything and anything that comes their way.
Going back and reading it now I’m shocked and slightly embarrassed how much influence it had over my life. Well, maybe I wasn’t reading John Calvin or Thomas Hobbes, but I suppose Bill wasn’t a terrible option at the time.
And you can just imagine my face when I ran across Wormwood (cartoon Calvin’s teacher) in C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.
Any time I see Hobbes celebrated I am compelled to point-out the following.
His fundamental error in his 1651 book, "Leviathan", was to declare without substantiation, that the natural condition of man absent the state was "war of all against all".
The book was published during the English Civil War -- in order to justify a tyrannical central government as the price of peace.
In the view of Hobbes, life without the monopolist state was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." He didn't see the natural state as production and trade. Quite odd.
During his time, conflict was indeed ubiquitous. But what was the conflict about? It was over who would control the state and how that state would operate. This was not the "state of nature" he decried, but rather, a society under Leviathan's control.
It was precisely the Leviathan that bred that very conflict that Hobbes was addressing, and he proposed a cure that was essentially identical to the disease.
You know I’m talking about an orange colored stuffed tiger, right?
Yes, and the tiger was named after the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. You know that, right?
Any time I see someone taking life too serious I feel compelled to point out the following.
Relax, buddy.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing
Don't have a clue. I was always questioning the narrative from a very young age. I used to get in trouble all the time in public school for not doing things the way we were told we *had* to do them. Or if 4 out of 5 doctors recommended something, I want to find out why that 5th one doesn't recommend it! In the military I got a lot of that brainwashed out of me and it took quite a few years for me to remember who I was. I'm happy to say I've experienced a full recovery and don't trust anyone or anything anymore. Even my own family gets questioned at times. Lol.
This made me laugh... I also want to know why the 5th doctor doesn't recommend it!
I had a horrible childhood. That's what taught me not to trust. But here's the thing. That concept was reiterated over years. The most valuable lesson was this. I was in Physician Assistant school. One of my preceptors was an old, old, doctor who told me to never be the first to try out any new drug. He said for me to let others try it. If they succeeded after a while, go ahead. But wait, be cautious, and never be an early adopter.
I learned the lesson well, and it came in very handy about the time that the COVID vaccine came out. A little caution and a little skepticism can be excellent.
This is solid advice, glad it led you away from the jabs! Thank you for sharing!!