At some point during the pandemic, I was at a yoga class outside in our local park. Our mats were dutifully spaced 6 feet apart and we dutifully took our masks off only once we were “safely” on our mats. Some random passerby came and yelled at us anyway for the grave public health threat our activity was creating (to whom?).
Meanwhile my kid and her cohort spent most of their first year of high school online, at home, for no good reason; they still haven’t figure out how to socialize IRL now that they’re allowed to. Other family members missed out on college graduation, post-retirement travel, family get-togethers, etc. also for no good reason. Yes, we were fortunate to not lose jobs to lockdowns, but nevertheless all this was SO unnecessary.
Yes, so unnecessary. And the worst part of it is that many people still look back on that and think they were the better person for the "sacrifices" they made. The fact that it was their children who were being sacrificed seems to be lost on them.
Jun 27, 2023·edited Jun 27, 2023Liked by Ken Hiebert
Ken, I find myself stymied by the numbers of supposedly intelligent people who chose to abandon their own common sense, so quickly I might add, and willingly defer their personal health and well-being to literal strangers at "government central", whether in Canada, US, Britain or other Western countries (save for Sweden). Their willingness to abandon everything we've collectively learned in the past 250+ years regarding viral outbreaks and other contagious diseases is so incredibly sad to watch. When I ask 'why' to others, they look at me as if I'm speaking a foreign language. Without thinking, without giving the question a second thought, instead they simply raise their voice and regurgitate what their media has told them and nothing more, as if saying it louder will make "The Word" comprehensible - because to them, it's just a lack of, or refusal to "understand", on my part. They've been somehow brainwashed into cherishing government's spoken word - above and beyond what their parents, grandparents, and others who care dearly for their well-being say, willingly giving simple, blind obedience to the former. The worst part though? They have no clue how their own government sees them as nothing more than useful idiots to further increase government power against THEM. And when they eventually *do* figure it out, not only will it be too late, but they'll have the actual nerve to act shocked and surprised when their own government no longer finds them useful. It will not end well for them in any sense, mostly because they'll never see it coming.
Yes, I've been thinking about this as well. It seems like people are afraid to take any position that hasn't been clearly spelled out to them by the powers that be, whether that be government, or media, or their university, or what-have-you. Maybe this is simply due to laziness, or perhaps they're genuinely terrified of being perceived as going against the grain.
I have a very difficult time seeing the men and women who came here with nothing and built this country being anything like that.
The Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan is for an influenza pandemic. Coronaviruses are a different family of viruses, aren’t they? It might not be useful to take the very specific advice on one type of virus and apply it to all.
“If you were personally responsible for someone losing his or her job because they weren't vaccinated.” This is a confusing idea. As I understand, by the time anybody lost their job for being unvaccinated, the vaccines had already been distributed, and they were free and accessible to everybody.
I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as "corona masks" and "influenza masks". They're both respiratory viruses. They both spread the same way.
In Canada people lost their jobs for refusing to get the vaccine. Yes, they were free and accessable, which was good. Anybody could get one, but not everyone wanted to get one. The problem here was the mandates - and those who enforced them.
I know it’s cliched to invoke the ‘F’ word here (flat-earther) BUT the big question which I struggle understand when it comes to these evil big governments and their sinister plots is the ‘why’ ? All the other stuff makes sense in an amusing way (the horizon looks flat, so we can’t be on a round planet, right?) but why? Why would the government be covering this up? Okay, so all of the world’s governments decided that they would ‘ignore the science’ and force their trembling subjects to wear masks (insert evil villain laugh) … why? What’s the game plan there? The pandemic is over, no more masks (actually, there still are where I live). What was achieved with this grand scheme of theirs? Doesn’t it seem more likely that they didn’t really know what to do, so it was better to mask and not need than to need and not mask ?
I agree that some peoples’ behavior was extreme and ridiculous though. Some people are hysterical conformists, while on the other end of the spectrum are the hysterical non-conformists. We saw and heard plenty from both these groups during the pandemic (and still now).
I think the reason is that our leaders are spineless cowards. They're much more afraid of being ripped to shreds on Twitter than of making poor decisions that affect millions of people. It's not "governments covering stuff up". It's the individuals in the government that are doing that. In Canada, masks and vaccines were used mainly as a convenient political wedge issue during an election campaign. Whether they (masks and vaccines) were good or bad was secondary to Trudeau's attempt to increase his seat count and possibly win a majority. This is not a conspiracy theory, it was painfully obvious from the start. That was the hoped-for achievement. Didn't really pan out though.
But isn’t that just it? They’re supposed to be afraid of being ripped to shreds, they’re our employees and we’re their boss. If you went back to the height of the pandemic, I’m sure the vast majority of people were in favor of some kind of mask mandate, as well as lockdowns etc.. If Canada had been the only country which didn’t mandate masks, the Canadian people would have looked around at the world and said what the heck are our leaders doing?? Why aren’t we mandating masks like everyone else?? They were never going to make everybody happy. Honestly, what are the downsides? I still wear a mask every day on my commute to work. Not because I need one or I think it protects anybody. I wear it for the same reason I wear pants - because everybody would prefer it if I did. Clothing is legally mandated everywhere, all the time. Why aren’t libertarians so upset about that?
Wearing clothes that are "mandated" has never interfered with my comfort of breathing, or made it more difficult to understand or recognize someone, or delay speech and language in preschoolers. When the mask mandates lifted here, I didn't even recognize many of my newer guitar students when they came in unmasked.
I think it's sad and pathetic that people try to pass this off as "normal", but even though that's also par for the course over the last few years, I refuse to accept that attitude as well.
It’s a very cynical way of looking at things. Another way to look at it would be that wearing a mask during a pandemic is an act of love. People put a mask on because they don’t want to inadvertently kill some stranger’s grandparents. This is especially important when we’re otherwise quite powerless. Mandating them is simply extending this shared responsibility and clearing up any ambiguity around their use which might otherwise cause issues, especially for frontline workers, business owners etc.
BTW I live in a tropical country and clothing interferes with my comfort every single day haha
Why do I get the feeling that if the authorities had done the opposite… if they’d completely banned the wearing of masks from day one, you would’ve stockpiled masks and would still be angrily wearing one right now. : )
Saddening and infuriating.
At some point during the pandemic, I was at a yoga class outside in our local park. Our mats were dutifully spaced 6 feet apart and we dutifully took our masks off only once we were “safely” on our mats. Some random passerby came and yelled at us anyway for the grave public health threat our activity was creating (to whom?).
Meanwhile my kid and her cohort spent most of their first year of high school online, at home, for no good reason; they still haven’t figure out how to socialize IRL now that they’re allowed to. Other family members missed out on college graduation, post-retirement travel, family get-togethers, etc. also for no good reason. Yes, we were fortunate to not lose jobs to lockdowns, but nevertheless all this was SO unnecessary.
Yes, so unnecessary. And the worst part of it is that many people still look back on that and think they were the better person for the "sacrifices" they made. The fact that it was their children who were being sacrificed seems to be lost on them.
Ken, I find myself stymied by the numbers of supposedly intelligent people who chose to abandon their own common sense, so quickly I might add, and willingly defer their personal health and well-being to literal strangers at "government central", whether in Canada, US, Britain or other Western countries (save for Sweden). Their willingness to abandon everything we've collectively learned in the past 250+ years regarding viral outbreaks and other contagious diseases is so incredibly sad to watch. When I ask 'why' to others, they look at me as if I'm speaking a foreign language. Without thinking, without giving the question a second thought, instead they simply raise their voice and regurgitate what their media has told them and nothing more, as if saying it louder will make "The Word" comprehensible - because to them, it's just a lack of, or refusal to "understand", on my part. They've been somehow brainwashed into cherishing government's spoken word - above and beyond what their parents, grandparents, and others who care dearly for their well-being say, willingly giving simple, blind obedience to the former. The worst part though? They have no clue how their own government sees them as nothing more than useful idiots to further increase government power against THEM. And when they eventually *do* figure it out, not only will it be too late, but they'll have the actual nerve to act shocked and surprised when their own government no longer finds them useful. It will not end well for them in any sense, mostly because they'll never see it coming.
Yes, I've been thinking about this as well. It seems like people are afraid to take any position that hasn't been clearly spelled out to them by the powers that be, whether that be government, or media, or their university, or what-have-you. Maybe this is simply due to laziness, or perhaps they're genuinely terrified of being perceived as going against the grain.
I have a very difficult time seeing the men and women who came here with nothing and built this country being anything like that.
Indeed. Settlers from decades past could not possibly fathom what's happened to their countries.
100% agree.
Never mind the origin of the whole thing...
Yes, that origin thing is a whole other story, indeed.
The Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan is for an influenza pandemic. Coronaviruses are a different family of viruses, aren’t they? It might not be useful to take the very specific advice on one type of virus and apply it to all.
“If you were personally responsible for someone losing his or her job because they weren't vaccinated.” This is a confusing idea. As I understand, by the time anybody lost their job for being unvaccinated, the vaccines had already been distributed, and they were free and accessible to everybody.
I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as "corona masks" and "influenza masks". They're both respiratory viruses. They both spread the same way.
In Canada people lost their jobs for refusing to get the vaccine. Yes, they were free and accessable, which was good. Anybody could get one, but not everyone wanted to get one. The problem here was the mandates - and those who enforced them.
I know it’s cliched to invoke the ‘F’ word here (flat-earther) BUT the big question which I struggle understand when it comes to these evil big governments and their sinister plots is the ‘why’ ? All the other stuff makes sense in an amusing way (the horizon looks flat, so we can’t be on a round planet, right?) but why? Why would the government be covering this up? Okay, so all of the world’s governments decided that they would ‘ignore the science’ and force their trembling subjects to wear masks (insert evil villain laugh) … why? What’s the game plan there? The pandemic is over, no more masks (actually, there still are where I live). What was achieved with this grand scheme of theirs? Doesn’t it seem more likely that they didn’t really know what to do, so it was better to mask and not need than to need and not mask ?
I agree that some peoples’ behavior was extreme and ridiculous though. Some people are hysterical conformists, while on the other end of the spectrum are the hysterical non-conformists. We saw and heard plenty from both these groups during the pandemic (and still now).
I think the reason is that our leaders are spineless cowards. They're much more afraid of being ripped to shreds on Twitter than of making poor decisions that affect millions of people. It's not "governments covering stuff up". It's the individuals in the government that are doing that. In Canada, masks and vaccines were used mainly as a convenient political wedge issue during an election campaign. Whether they (masks and vaccines) were good or bad was secondary to Trudeau's attempt to increase his seat count and possibly win a majority. This is not a conspiracy theory, it was painfully obvious from the start. That was the hoped-for achievement. Didn't really pan out though.
But isn’t that just it? They’re supposed to be afraid of being ripped to shreds, they’re our employees and we’re their boss. If you went back to the height of the pandemic, I’m sure the vast majority of people were in favor of some kind of mask mandate, as well as lockdowns etc.. If Canada had been the only country which didn’t mandate masks, the Canadian people would have looked around at the world and said what the heck are our leaders doing?? Why aren’t we mandating masks like everyone else?? They were never going to make everybody happy. Honestly, what are the downsides? I still wear a mask every day on my commute to work. Not because I need one or I think it protects anybody. I wear it for the same reason I wear pants - because everybody would prefer it if I did. Clothing is legally mandated everywhere, all the time. Why aren’t libertarians so upset about that?
Wearing clothes that are "mandated" has never interfered with my comfort of breathing, or made it more difficult to understand or recognize someone, or delay speech and language in preschoolers. When the mask mandates lifted here, I didn't even recognize many of my newer guitar students when they came in unmasked.
I think it's sad and pathetic that people try to pass this off as "normal", but even though that's also par for the course over the last few years, I refuse to accept that attitude as well.
It’s a very cynical way of looking at things. Another way to look at it would be that wearing a mask during a pandemic is an act of love. People put a mask on because they don’t want to inadvertently kill some stranger’s grandparents. This is especially important when we’re otherwise quite powerless. Mandating them is simply extending this shared responsibility and clearing up any ambiguity around their use which might otherwise cause issues, especially for frontline workers, business owners etc.
BTW I live in a tropical country and clothing interferes with my comfort every single day haha
Yes, I'm quite familiar with the guilt trips that were used to make people comply here.
As for your clothes interfering with your comfort level, I'll keep that in mind in January when it's -35 here...
Why do I get the feeling that if the authorities had done the opposite… if they’d completely banned the wearing of masks from day one, you would’ve stockpiled masks and would still be angrily wearing one right now. : )