Okay, y’all. I’m going on the offensive. Instead of being on pins and needles while out and about mask-less, worrying whether people are going to go full-bore psychotic on me or not, or averting my eyes as to avoid the hateful glares peering from atop people’s muzzles, I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. I now wear a body cam when I venture out into lunatic la-la land.
If you haven’t been subjected to the misplaced moral superiority and peak hostility that define the “mask-holes” who lurk in your neck of the woods, lucky you. But I have been.
I’m Rebecca. I’m a recovering mask-wearer. And here’s my story.
Yes, this really happened, and at the post office, no less. Here’s how it unfolded. (Names have been blocked to protect the innocent.)
Here are some of the best comments and insights from my smart friends.
Here is a link to McClanahan’s podcast, which posits that mask-holes are just Yankees. I couldn’t agree more. Self-righteous busybodies haven’t felt this empowered since 1861.
Since leftists are always taking photos of people’s license plates, I snapped one of the malevolent man’s vanity plate. Perhaps we should get him cancelled for being such a misogynist against an “oppressed” female. Or maybe fed-up folks will just start punching the verbal totalitarians and physical assaulters.
The altercation at the post office wasn’t my only run-in with a mask-hole. The first took place at the height of the BLM-Antifa riots, when leftists were given carte blanche to go maskless while ignoring the social-distancing and no-mass-gathering edicts many a mayor and governor put forth to allegedly fight the spread of the virus. Apparently, social-justice warriors have superpowers that we plebs lack.
Masks have become the symbol for conformity and repellence to logic and evidence. It’s a badge of collectivism for the crazy. This is why unhealthy people berate healthy people, and craven people venture out into the “pandemic” petri dishes of stores and restaurants; monitoring the resistors gives people a sick sense of control, purpose, and belonging. It’s political theater at best and psyops at worst, but either way, keeping people well is not the goal.
A mere two days after the post-office incident, this occurred at my local supermarket, proving again that we are certainly not all in this together.
So, I have had three altercations to date and used three different approaches: the “If BLM can be lawless, so can I” tact, the “Engage with facts and common-sense” method, and the “Try to trigger the tyrant” strategy. But all left me feeling too stressed and too much like a reactionary. Why play on their field of battle? Why let them make the rules? I say let’s take the fight to the bullies.
Full disclosure: My family self-quarantined early on, well before most institutions decided to shut down life in perpetuity. One of my sons had a lobectomy when he was baby and now has only four lobes in his lungs, so comorbidities were a concern for our family.
Back then, I was typically the only person donning a mask in stores. Shoppers would look at me like I was nuts, but those were the “daze” during which we didn’t know much about the virus, so we voluntarily erred on the side of caution.
Did I ever lecture any strangers in public? Nope. And now we all know the data and have nearly a year’s worth of evidence from which to glean information and make good decisions, yet now is when the masses decide to mask up? It’s back-ass-wards.
Moreover, the “rules” are inconsistent. Wear your mask at the store, except for kids under 11. Wear your mask at the restaurant, but you can take it off when you eat. Wear your mask at church, except for the choir. Wear your mask at the dentist, but you can remove it to have your teeth cleaned. Wear your mask walking around town, until you keel over from carbon-dioxide inhalation and someone has to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. None of this makes a damn lick of sense.
In fact, when I was at the dentist recently, the doctor said a patient told him that her! teeth cleaning was only the second time she’d left her house since February And some church friends told us that a man from our parish hasn’t left his house at all!! This is criminal and the mask-holes only enable the insanity.
Even after my crisis-level worries started to subside back in the spring, I still didn’t think masks were a hill to die on. Wear one or don’t. It didn’t matter to me because I was more concerned with the reopening of businesses, rec baseball, homeschool co-ops, concerts, museums, pools, parks, festivals, libraries and all the things that add value to our existence. But now we see that masks are the hill upon which the entire leftist war is being waged.
Let me be clear about churches: I do not think that any Christian parish should have implemented any civil mandates (especially after the original “two weeks to flatten the curve” phase) – no masks, no social distancing, no caps on attendance, no sanitizing Chalice spoons, no banning the kissing of icons, etc.
As an Orthodox Christian, I believe that a parish is a Holy space where Heaven and earth meet, and that God is indeed present. I believe that the Church is the Bride of Christ and the Eucharist is literally Jesus’ blood and body, which are used for the healing of our souls and bodies. It can never be corrupted by sickness.
And I believe that Christians shouldn’t fear death, nor should they mirror the world. That is faith. That is dogma. It is Orthodoxy 101, and to me, it is non-negotiable. Church should have always been our refuge from the chaos, a light in the darkness, but alas, it is now too often part of the problem.
Masks are also becoming racialized, since Pew reports that “black and Hispanic churchgoers” are more concerned about the “safety of in-person services,” and are thus, more committed to masks mandates and other liturgical “modifications.” Like my smart-as-a-whip hillbilly mother in-law has said from the very beginning, if you’re that damn scared, stay your ass at home and leave the rest of us be.
I know plenty of people understand that masks are a virtue signal but still wear them. I get that people are trying to avoid trouble, be polite, be good neighbors, be the gray man, compromise in order to get some semblance of our old lives back, yada yada yada. But if more and more of us go about our business sans mask, I think we can not only lessen anxiety, but we can also change the status quo. Let’s unplug the panic porn!
Hell, get a body cam and let’s take this non-hysterical revolution to the streets! Let’s stop placating idiocy and normalizing something that is just plain dangerous – physically, mentally, and spiritually. Let’s liberate ourselves of our nose-and-mouth shackles and breathe free again.
Interestingly, when I wore the body cam, it was a huge conversation piece. Even masked people would stop and talk to me and tell me how they thought it was “smart” that I was trying to capture the madness because most masked folks even get that it’s, well, madness. I hadn’t had that many friendly impromptu chats out in public since early March. It was glorious. And how many Yankees challenged me? Zero.
If more and more of us refuse to comply, it will embolden others to follow suit. And it will in turn foster a real sense of community, common-sense, and civility, which are all battles in this total war against meaningful human life itself.
We’ll be called “murderers,” but hey, we’ve already been castigated as grandma killers, science deniers, racists, white supremacists, fascists, and Nazis, so what’s another ad hom? As long as we’re not boiling frogs, who really cares? Here’s to tippin’ over the nihilism pot, rebels.
Source: Dissident Mama – Tippin’ over the pot