There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being ordered to do something absurd and being helpless against it. That was exactly the feeling that washed over many residents of Dane County, Wisconsin, on Tuesday when an unelected decisionmaker decreed that just two days later, a mask would be required for entry into virtually every indoor space.
The blow might have been softened and resulting ire lessened if there were any reason to believe this action was going to save lives in the county that’s home to Wisconsin’s capital city of Madison. But it’s hard to improve a daily death average of zero.
That inescapable reality — that almost nobody is dying of the Wuhan virus in one of the most vaccinated counties in the country, yet breathing uninhibited is verboten — is the premier form of gaslighting from the ruling class of power-drunk elites.
For a year and a half, well-meaning Americans have complied with anti-science executive decisions and been scorned when they merely disagreed with the conventional wisdom pouring out of the corporate press. Each time, lawmakers and bureaucrats weaponized private businesses to do their dirty work, ordering them to enforce mask-wearing and social distancing and to keep the peasants in line.
They got away with all of that, despite the mitigation measures causing catastrophic side-effects such as a waxing mental health crisis, a massive surge in drug overdoses, and a huge blow to the education and other cognitive development of the next generation, the extent to which we will not possibly be able to ascertain for years to come.
Life is a game of tradeoffs, and there may be some formula of factors that makes the above trade-offs worth it. But what is Dane County trying to prevent? Whom is it trying to protect?
Tuesday’s order prompted a look at the numbers, which revealed an incredible sustained straight black line at zero — ZERO deaths for the seven-day average since the middle of May, when the seven-day average was a whopping single death. The last time the weekly average was higher than one was before Valentine’s Day. Only one death has been attributed to coronavirus in this county of more than half a million people in the last two weeks, with deaths across the entire state down 34 percent in the same timeframe. See for yourself:
That’s why, when one of the unelected Dane County health tyrants unilaterally decided it’s time to mask up again — for everyone including the vaccinated and even toddlers as young as 2 years old — weary residents were driven to rage and worse, to despair.
What on Earth are logical residents to do when the anti-science authoritarians in power refuse to relent with disruptive rules? What are they to do when there’s no end in sight and to obey is to betray what they know to be rational and true?
The exasperation runs deep because a healthy person wearing a mask among healthy people is way more than an inconvenience. To obey the absurd mask rules is to play into the delusions and games of the sadistic ruling class. Wearing a mask to “save lives” even though nobody is dying is on caliber with calling a man “she” because he playacts as a woman. It feels wrong because it is.
The things we say or don’t say, wear or don’t wear, and do or don’t do are based on more than religious conviction. They’re based on a fundamental worldview of whether we’re committed to living within the bounds of reality. We shouldn’t govern ourselves based on what our neighbor thinks of us. We should live according to what is good and right and true based on evidence and truth, and we make trade-offs.
If you live in Dane County, you know that East Washington Avenue, the three-mile thoroughfare west of Sun Prairie that leads to the Capitol, is a disaster zone, known for crashes, hit-and-runs, and reckless driving including drag racing at all hours of the night. With five fatal accidents so far in just the first eight months, 2021 has proved to be the most dangerous year on East Wash in at least a decade. Just more than a month ago, two pedestrians were fatally struck on that road within the same week, a tragic reality but a higher number than Dane County’s weekly COVID death average of zero.
Yet each day, thousands of drivers and plenty of pedestrians and bicyclists still opt for East Wash, risks and all. Drivers might get a ticket if they drive too fast and pedestrians might need to double-check for the all-clear before they trust the crosswalk, but they assume the risks and act accordingly.
What happens if those same people, most likely vaccinated, assess the risks of COVID and then try to go out to dinner without a mask or attend church or use their gym? They’ll be forced to mask up or be denied entry. Within the latest Dane County order is a directive for private businesses to enforce the new rule because nobody is allowed to individually assess virtually nonexistent risks from COVID.
This is an outrage, and maybe we’re partly to blame for ever agreeing to mask in the first place, or at least for continuing to mask after “two weeks to flatten the curve.” We can’t do anything about our conduct last year except to learn from it, but we can think about how the choices we make today will empower callous bureaucrats to exercise tyranny over our lives tomorrow.
We all have some choices to make. Maybe my maskless self will be excused from my favorite coffee shop or denied entry to the hair salon, and I’ll have to suck it up. But what about activities that are harder to avoid, like getting groceries or using public transportation? At what point do we stop putting on a mask just to avoid confrontation despite knowing that at this point, it’s all a farce? If not after a year and a half and zero average deaths, then when?
It’s way beyond time to reclaim truth and live according to our principles, not someone else’s lies. We must refuse to wear a mask in counties where nobody is dying from COVID. Today, that’s Dane County. Tomorrow, it could be wherever you live.
