Freedom terrifies some people, and they’ll do anything to escape it. Bill Whittle and Zo Rachel explore the mentality of lockdown junkies who welcome the reimposition of mask mandates as the Delta variant of COVID-19 surges in some areas.
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20 replies on “Lockdown Junkies: Freedom Terrifies Them and They’ll Do Anything to Escape It”
Yeah, you were right the first time untethered is good. Unmoored is good.
The cost of freedom from choice under government-monopoly healthcare:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/englands_national_health_service_planned_involuntary_euthanasia_for_the_elderly.html
Death is the ultimate escape from freedom. Some unsolicited (and no doubt unwelcome) health advice for all the ‘fraidies out there: Instead of fanatically worshipping the idols of scientism beguiling you with false promises of immortality, maybe you should hone your critical thinking skills and reckon your surrender of personal responsibility out to its inevitable conclusion?
Booker T. Washington addresses this very issue in Up from Slavery. He specifically talks in Chapter One about how longtime slaves were disconcerted when all of a sudden they were responsible for their own well-being.
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography, by Booker T. Washington
When I worked in a bicycle shop I would determine the needs of a potential customer and then show them no more than two bicycles. If I showed them more their eyes would glaze over and they’d exit the store confused.
That’s good advice for real estate agents as well, though many, many people look online first, so it’s not quite as relevant as it might have been some time ago.
Probably why there are still 30 year-olds living in their parent’s basement.
Younger friend of mine was in the same boat in his late 20’s I guess? I know his mom liked having him around rather than living alone. He helped out a lot around the house. But man I couldn’t wait to get out of my parents’ house. I was chomping at the bit.
Plus my dad told us when we were maybe five that we were leaving the house at 18 one way or the other…work, military or school. He was only half-joking, which set a standard of self-reliance from an early age for which I am deeply grateful to this day.
If those people didn’t exist we would have no democrats.
From your mouth (keyboard) to God’s ears (eyes).
What Bill and Zo said here is true as far as it goes but … There’s more to this than some people being terrified by freedom(s) and there are human considerations besides entropy and sloth.
Many people are too timid to speak up where and when it counts. They avoid confrontation at all costs, they’re the “go along to get along” crowd. Basically they abdicate their right to make choices and decisions to other more direct personalities.
A prime example of this type were the good hearted, well meaning citizens of Nazi Germany who did not join The Party, did not like The Party, secretly disagreed with The Party but also did not oppose The Party and did as they were told. They let The Party make the decisions and look what that led to. I think that this applied to a majority of Germans of that day and more’s the pity.
America cannot be like them or we will end up like they did. Sadly there are far too many such types in our Nation, a country known for its obstinate insistence on personal liberty and hard headed pragmatism in the past is becoming a land of taking the easy path to self destruction.
I detest Nazis and all things totalitarian but I happen to be one of those “more direct personalities”. My powers of persuasion and the force of my personality are formidable. That is not always a good thing, even if I were always right. Which I’m not. I tend to run roughshod over people close to me if I don’t work to avoid doing that kind of thing. I have to be careful to listen to my friends and family so that I hear what they are saying, not just try to invoke my own will or opinions on everyone … Because if I’m not careful about this it generates resentment and people lose respect for what I say, even if what I say is very, very carefully thought out.
One of my daughters-in-law once said “When Grampa begins with ‘Well, first of all …’ he’s about to hit you with facts and figures that will destroy you.” I love that girl dearly and think the world of her. The feeling is mutual and she was speaking out of respect for me, but there’s also the “It’s a real bitch to win an argument with Grampa” aspect too. People don’t like to be destroyed and I don’t blame them so I try to limit that kind of thing to matters I consider of significant importance or temper my delivery to something more gentle than total devastation.
Then there are people who may have choices but consciously refuse to make them. I know a person whose default is “no”, no matter what. He’s discovered somewhere in his past that if a decision confronts him and he declines or at best refuses to commit to a course of action, eventually an action will become unavoidable and the decisions all get made for him, not by him. He feels safe in his little cocoon because he won’t be the one who made the decision and whatever happens, he’s not the one responsible for it. This guy is an ace at blaming others when their decisions lead to unfavorable outcomes without likewise praising decisions that have favorable results.
This person has personal liberty, the freedom to make choices, and intentionally refuses to apply that choice. He isn’t a “victim” in the way we on the Conservative side of things generally use that word. He considers himself a Conservative and votes Republican. He doesn’t look at the world as having done things to him, he uses his default “no” so that he can be critical of the decisions he himself refuses to make. This causes his wife to be the one who actually has to make decisions in that family, over his protestations and insistence on “no” and she never gets praise for correct choices — Only condemnation when something doesn’t go perfectly. He will sometimes sulk for months because his “no” was overridden or countermanded even when the result of a “yes” decision is entirely positive. It’s a very dysfunctional situation and I feel terribly sorry for her.
While sloth and entropy are problems, there are also other problems with how people deal with the negative aspects of reality. I’ve spent years thinking about this and I have yet to discover a means to combat this sort of human foible, if indeed there is any means at all to accomplish that.
That said, in all these years I’ve discovered that being a bellicose old fart that insists on his own way and saying things like “butt out” to people who are not trying to butt in, calling everyone else stupid, assuming that anyone who isn’t like me is fragile, petty or puerile — Accomplishes nothing at all. Doing things like that is nothing but vanity. It has no effect on anything outside of being a kind of virtue signaling where the virtue signaler is the only one who benefits and even then the benefit is questionable. I’m sure there are people who get some sort of self satisfaction out of doing such things, but that satisfaction is empty and pointless. It is just another form of cocoon and cocoons are dangerous.
I am impressed that life has brought you much wisdom into the human condition. Having said that, has it not also brought you to the place where it seems there are more questions than answers? We are complicated beings, emotionally and intellectually, and are swayed by all manner of what life throws at us. How we react varies wildly, from person to person, but this is not to say there is no better way than another…there is. Saying any behavior is equal to another is foolish, there is that which is healthy and positive, and that which is distructive. Unfortunately, we are witnessing an era in which so many are on the distructive end of the spectrum.
Of course it has. No doubt I have more answers now than I once did and that’s a lot more knowledge than I once had. Even so, the questions increase exponentially to the answers. For every door that opens on an answer there are always several more doors with questions behind that one.
It’s a chain reaction and standing at the threshold of ever more uncountable questions reaching infinitely past the horizon of my own grasp — then turning to look back at my meager store of answers — makes me appreciate if not the details then at least the scale of all I do not know.
.
If I somehow gave you the impression that I had all the answers then I didn’t make myself clear and frankly I’m certain I had made myself quite clear. So I’m afraid I don’t get your point with this.
Because when you say …
… the truth in that is undeniable. Equally undeniable is the fact that in appreciation of the scale of knowledge one does not have, awareness of the volume of questions whose answers are not possessed; does not make the knowledge one does possess any less valid.
If it is true that turning a bolt one way tightens it so turning the opposite direction must loosen it — then that is an absolute. You cannot loosen a bolt by tightening it and you cannot tighten it by loosening it. That is so clear a truth as to be black and white in sharp relief.
Human beings make bolts, they are not themselves bolts, gears, nuts and washers to be assembled into a desired construction. If it were that simple them we would not be human beings. Our lives would be pointless to us and only useful to the machinist constructing the machine. It would be no more noble to serve and offer your life for your country than it would be for a nut not to work its way off its bolt. Nuts are supposed to stay on bolts and other people are supposed to provide security. The machine is built to serve the machine operator and only the machine operator. A machine cannot be built to serve its components.
Which is why the Left places no merit in human nobility and no stock in self determination or individuality. To them you’re just a wayward washer which has fallen off and gummed up the gears. The sooner you’re removed from the machine and discarded the sooner the machine will operate smoothly.
This is a critical, self-destructive mistake of the Left. Their actions indicate a sincere conviction that anyone can be manipulated into anything by pushing the right button or pulling the correct lever. The mechanism they employ to accomplish that manipulation must always entail destruction of balky, recalcitrant parts that do not fit their machine. That view contains the seeds of it’s own destruction and is why neither the far Left nor the extreme Right have been able to usher in their promised Utopias..
Note I include the extreme Right also. Both roads lead to the same place by different routes. You don’t want to live in a new Reich anymore than you want to live in a Communist Worker’s Paradise. The result to you as an individual is nearly identical.
There is always a better way but that better way is not always obvious. What seems obvious to the Left is that humanity can and should create its own paradise. Which appeals greatly to those with little knowledge and much ambition, who undeservedly think too highly of their own knowledge and motivations.
They are worshipers of themselves and they make very poor deities. Believing themselves to have answers they do not actually possess they seek to tear down and start over. In their hubris and discontent they bring a living Hell to all but a very few of themselves and to most everyone else. Even then will not admit they’re mistaken. If that were not so they would have learned the lessons of past tyrants and not sought to become tyrants, no matter their claims of good intentions, themselves.
Those good intentions are merely the beard on the face of the prophet, they are not the prophet themselves.
On the right side of center we look to what has been accomplished and try to improve on it as we go. We are not always successful, we are human, but we have been more successful than any of our antecedents in human history. Western culture of renaissance Europe was an improvement over Roman hegemony, the advent of private ownership an improvement over serfdom, industrialization made marked advances over agrarianism, information and knowledge morphed industrialism to a standard of personal wealth never before seen. Modern Western culture following that evolving path moving towards the good has so far culminated in the most prosperous, most powerful and most just societies ever known to man.
That’s a terrible thing to be pissed away by people who have never known hunger or lacked in the basic needs of a human being. Worse yet, a majority of those people are not only not needy, they’re often wealthy and themselves privileged by their own or their parents wealth.
That they claim to represent the needy in our society is preposterous. Their actions speak louder than their words and their actions have resulted in suffering and dehumanization far, far out of proportion to their stated altruistic goals and their crocodile tears.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Democrat politician and a consummate cheat and liar, but I repeat myself, instituted the policies of the “Great Social Experiment” and the “War on Poverty”. Those concepts with the force of government behind them have done more to destroy our society and increase poverty than the actions of any other single person. He did these things not out of conscientiousness and concern, he did them for political power and he was successful in his goals to the great detriment of our nation.
There’s an important lesson in that. As I have observed my fellow man over the years I’ve learned to ask myself “Just what exactly does ____ mean by what he says?” And “Does the meaning of what’s being said fit reality or is there something else behind it?”
Often, but not always, the meaning is obvious. If a child says “I’m hungry”, he wants to eat something. Even though it is very unlikely that in our modern society here in this country that child has ever experienced true hunger. I’ve met some hungry people around the world and Thank God that’s rare enough here to be remarkable. What he means is that his tummy is empty and that’s OK, I understand that’s what he means and if I have it available at the moment I will give that kid something to eat. The meaning is obvious if not technically precise and this is very often true of many things people say.
Here’s an example, just to clarify:
If Bill Whittle is standing at a podium rebutting a Leftist student for mistaken ideology and telling them they have no right to impose their poorly developed opinions and misguided will on others — That meaning is also obvious. He’s saying “Grow up, wake up, and take a look at what your ideas really lead to. Look into this for yourself, the conclusions are obvious. Until then, butt out, sweep your own doorstep and mind your own business.” and he ‘s right to say that.
If a person is in this forum, where ostensibly and theoretically we’re all on the same side, more or less, and he posts a comment out of the blue and addressed to no one in particular to “Butt out …with your childish fear of boogeymen and fragile minds …” then what is he really saying and to whom? No one is trying to “butt in” and those who might be aren’t likely to see those words here. So the comment really doesn’t make any sense in context.
Except that it does, it just doesn’t mean what the words say.
Which is kind of sad, if you really think about it … I’ll leave you to work that out, you seem bright enough so that shouldn’t be a problem.
My reply to your comments were not meant to suggest you are a know it all. I was simply attempting to join you in a discussion on human behavior. However, your response tells me you are somewhat overly sensitive, and could perhaps be open to other perspectives. You and I seem to have more in common than not, and I am dissipointed that you found it necessary to find fault in my comments, as if I were finding them in yours…quite the opposite. As I stated before, I am impressed with your wisdom regarding human behavior in general, but am disappointed with your response to my comments.
I’m not “overly sensitive”, I didn’t “find fault in your comments”, I just wasn’t clear on your meaning and wanted to be perfectly clear about my meaning. I even agreed with you on multiple points.
There was one sentence out of all those in my comment that you could misconstrue as finding fault and a whole lot of sentences that were an open, clear response to the discussion you were “simply attempting to join”.
I’m not slagging on you, if I do that it will be so obvious that you can’t miss it. Considering all I said and the one thing you focused on, maybe I’m not the overly sensitive one between the two of us.
Lets set egos aside and let it go. I respect your take on many issues, and apologize for saying you may be too sensitive, perhaps I have been too. Take care my friend, and God bless America.
Deal. That’s a very mature and sensible attitude that I will respect and reciprocate..
Getting things across in a text discussion, without the other vital cues that humans have developed over millennia of personal interactions, can be tough. It’s one thing to write a “to whom it may concern” essay, it’s a totally different thing to have a back and forth discussion in text.
I.E. you can’t see the wry smile on my face that tells you I’m not picking on you and I’m not being hostile. While the same words delivered with a scowl and an aggressive body stance mean something totally different.
That is completely lost in text.
Also the “voice” you read something in may not be the same “voice” I wrote it in. Neither of us have any control over that either. And …
That’s why I say that if I’m slagging on you for something you say, it will be unmistakable as to my intentions.
Because I do slag on people when I think they’ve said something dumb or malicious. Not something ignorant, ignorance can be cured and an open discussion in good faith is a good way to effect that cure.
Freedom of Speech means anyone can voice pretty much any opinion they choose. It does not mean they are free from the consequences of what they said.
That goes for me the same as anyone else.
I appreciate your time and thoughtful response. It seems as if you’re a thought leader in many situations, and so am I. I have to also remember to listen sometimes. It’s very easy for me to take over a conversation surrounding an issue.
Having said that, I’m sure you’re familiar with “lead, follow or get out of the way.” I don’t mind conflict avoidance or people afraid to make decisions so they can reserve the right to say, “I told you so,” when it doesn’t work out. To the latter I say critics are a dime a dozen. What’s your solution?
Both types are followers, and we need to get them to understand in our current situation that they are following an establishment government and a leftist propaganda machine they can no longer trust.
Thoroughly enjoying the downfall of the fake news. To those who insist “both sides do it” (as lefties often do when cornered and caught redhanded), I say no way Jose. Countless examples of blatant lies from CNN and the rest. Conservative media tries to get it right most of the time, the recent sins of FOX aside. Tucker’s doing some amazing work.
But I digress. If we are to save our country, the conflict avoiders and the naysayers need to be disabused of the notion that they are receiving solid advice or that they can trust any Marxist Democrat in office, their controlled RINO opposition or the fake news propaganda juggernaut. Good news is that all three of these are self-imploding, but we need to keep pushing them off the cliff and regain our country by leading the blind through the muck and the mire.
My position as a self-employed business owner makes this much easier for me than others who need to be concerned about job loss. To them, the threat isn’t immediate enough to risk firing, and I get it especially if they are supporting a family. I think CRT being taught in schools though is pushing many of them off that dime, and it’s going to be really hard for an employer to fire someone for wanting to see all Americans as equal.
Circulating this will help grease the wheels. As more Americans discover we vastly outnumber the Marxists and that it’s Americans vs. globalist Marxists as opposed to Republicans vs. Democrats, we will gain momentum quickly:
Color Us United…Advocating for a Race-blind Society
https://colorusunited.org/
Plus the left just keeps getting crazier. It’s obvious to anyone who has been following closely that this is a worldwide power grab by the globalists against the free world…Australia, UK, Canada, etc. Australia is in military lockdown and has helicopters clearing the beaches. But that’s a good thing as the insanity of the left will just make more and more Americans aware of how we need to lead the world in standing up against the globalist Marxists as led for the Democrats.
So with all due respect to the conflict avoiders and the naysayers, they need to lead, follow or get out of the way by agreeing with us to ditch their masks as we defend our position and save America. Once we do, these evil, globalist, soulless Marxists complete devoid of ethics and integrity and lacking any moral compass should never be allowed near power again.
At least that’s how I see it, but I don’t think I’m that far off.
Last note. I think we are connected to many more resources and likeminded thinkers than we realize. The reason might be that as conservatives / moderates, we tend toward independent effort and want to do things on our own without bothering others unless necessary.
We need to get over that just like Bill got over his reluctance to ask for people to contribute funds during the last subscription drive. It’s preventing us from organizing as well as the left does.
Like most of my posts, that’s a lot to respond to also. I really hate it when someone picks a single point from what I say and uses it out of context as a “gotcha!” — Most of my posts are conscientiously considered, carefully written and tie themselves all together. A single point isn’t representative of the context of the whole … You didn’t do that to me so I’m not going to do that to you. What I will do is answer your direct question and make a couple counterpoints of my own.
(1.) Yes, I’m familiar with that saying. Like many things in this context, it’s dangerously oversimplified. People who avoid conflict are not necessarily being led, once the conflict has been averted they just go on as they would have otherwise. It doesn’t really change their behavior. It’s not that they avoid conflict by doing as they’re told, it’s that they avoid confrontation because confrontation makes them uncomfortable. So avoiding conflict or confrontation isn’t the same as following or getting the hell out of the way.
That’s a great saying that makes a good point, but it’s not a solution it’s just a saying that makes a point.
(2.) That depends on the situation. The scenario I used for an example above isn’t a “naysayer” situation. The person is relevant to the situation. Some people you can just blow off as dime-a-dozen critics and some you cannot.
That guy doesn’t sit and tell everyone why something is wrong or won’t work, etc. He does not fit the dictionary definition of a naysayer. He also does not avoid decisions so he can say “I told you so.”
He says no and if someone ignores him he uses that to try to modify their behavior so they won’t ignore his “no” next time. It doesn’t really matter to him if the outcome is positive or negative, it’s that he said “no” so if it works out he’s no happier than if it doesn’t. If you decide against his “no” then you’ve made the decision, you’ve taken it away from him to decide “no”, the decision wasn’t made for him it was made in spite of him and he gets upset about that.
His default answer is “no”, he doesn’t explain why he does that. He doesn’t criticize the choices presented, he doesn’t give excuses or reasons, he just says no.
I.E. One time we were in a grocery store. His wife was there. I picked up some fancy ready made burger patties and said “Wanna have a BBQ Sunday afternoon? My treat.” He said “No.” About 15 minutes later his wife walked up to me and said he had thought about it and changed his mind. I told her “Too late, I already put the burgers back and I’m not walking all the way back to that part of the store for someone who doesn’t even think before saying ‘No’. The offer is rescinded.”
(I really do feel sorry for her. If she had said “Sure, if you throw a BBQ we’d love to come. That sounds great, just ignore him.” then he would have sulked like a little bitch for hours, maybe days. That’s how he keeps her from countermanding his “no”. Maybe by now you’ve figured out this isn’t just some friends. We’re related, she’s my little sister whom I love dearly.)
It’s bad enough that his default answer to anything and everything is “no”, there is no way I’m going to let him get away with that and still have the benefit of the better choice. My yes is yes and my no is no. I mean it, whichever way I decide. I stand by my decisions and I do not make them lightly. I’m not going to let that guy make his no a yes and his yes a no. Though he’s done that often enough in the past too and gone back on a “yes” at points where the impact on others is serious.
The guy is so afraid of making a decision that he says no to a generous offer made in friendship by someone he knows is trustworthy and dependable. That’s not a difficult decision, it has virtually no negative ramifications. That’s not an error, it’s not a mistake, it’s a neurosis.
So we’re not talking about a naysayer, we’re talking about a wishy-washy decision avoider. I’ve met many like him, it’s a “type”. He has other problems too and knowing him I know what to look for. Sadly, I see those things a lot and I see them in people who should be leading happy, well adjusted, contented lives but have decided to make themselves and anyone around them as miserable as they can.
Nor can every situation be addressed with a hearty, handy, largely correct adage and a positive attitude. In the Marines we would have said “Adapt, improvise, overcome” but not everyone is a Marine.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
Are you familiar with the concepts of “strategic” and “tactical” and how they relate to each other? What you said above is true and correct, strategically. It’s the tactical which is problematic. You have summed up what needs to be done fairly well but not how it’s to be accomplished. That’s the rub, the how is a lot harder to codify than the why.
One tactical suggestion I have is to listen very, very carefully for complaints or signs of dissatisfaction from the other side. If I hear someone I know to be a Democrat bemoaning mask mandates, lockdowns, unemployment and a drooping economy, etc. I say “What? YOU voted for this. We had a booming economy, a military growing back towards the ability to protect us, surging minority participation in the job market, a wall that would have stood between COVID carriers walking into the nation at will and … YOU voted to end that. YOU did this to us.”
To those who would attempt to infringe upon my individual liberty, I don’t want your form of comfort/security. I will create my own, so butt out of my life.
I suspect I am not alone in detesting being told what to do by those who fear their childhood boogeymen that have set up residence in their fragile minds.
Nope. Definitely not alone in wanting people to allow you to be free to do your own thing! I’m the same way. Butt out! If I need your help, I’ll ask for it.