If the unvaxxed are going to be "shut out", we'll have to build new networks

 

There appears to be a growing movement around the world to "shut out" those who will not accept the COVID-19 vaccination.  They're being denied basic rights like access to stores, ordered to quarantine themselves, threatened with imprisonment if they refuse to comply, and more of the same.  A few examples from overseas:

• New Zealand Covid restrictions: Expert says ‘two-tier’ rules are needed even if they seem to ‘violate rights’
• Italy tightens restrictions on the unvaccinated with new COVID pass
• Unvaccinated in Australia now banned from just about everything
• Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory
• COVID: Austria restricts unvaccinated people from public spaces

And in America:

• White House Announces New Restrictions and Mandates Are Coming for Unvaccinated Americans

Every state in the union has its own measures in place - far too many to summarize here.  Some are very restrictive, others less so.

I've made my own position on COVID-19 vaccination very clear.  I regard the existing vaccines as profoundly unsafe, and more of a health risk than the disease itself (which I've already had twice in two years, and come through with no major difficulties despite being in several of the high-risk groups for it).

If you don't agree with that perspective, consider this information from the World Health Organization (click the image for a larger view):

(EDITED TO ADD:  To access the raw information and a breakdown of reported reactions, search http://www.vigiaccess.org/ using the keyword "COVID-19 vaccine".  At the time of writing, the total number of adverse reactions recorded had risen to 2,703,969 in 2021 so far.)

Obviously, those raw numbers are hedged about with official warnings and cautions about the further investigations that are needed.  That's a given.  Nevertheless, if you can look at those bars on the graph and tell me that you're still absolutely confident that the available COVID-19 vaccines pose no risk at all to your health . . . all I can say is, you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

Meanwhile, those of us who won't accept vaccination find ourselves increasingly shut out of normal everyday life in many parts of the world.  Well, if the powers that be want to play that game, let's do the same.  We can inflict just as much pain as they can, if we put our minds to it.  A few ideas:

• If we're restricted to only certain stores, or shopping at certain times, or forbidden to fill our vehicles with gasoline, let's make mistakes, and be in the wrong places at the wrong time, and take our own sweet time about leaving once we're detected.  If each of us imposes a five-minute delay on normal business and commerce, together we'll snarl up normal activity so badly that it'll grind to a halt.
• If restaurants are forced to check for vaccinations at the door, let's make reservations, go there, and stand at the door arguing for a few minutes until we have to turn away.  Again, if enough of us do that, the restaurant won't be able to function as normal.  What are the powers that be going to do?  Arrest everybody?  They don't have enough cops, vehicles or jail cells to even begin to do that.
• Let's enlist the help of freedom-loving friends who've had no choice but to be vaccinated for work or other reasons.  When they go shopping, they can buy what we need as well.  We'll give them the money up front, and if necessary compensate them for their time and trouble.  That gets around restrictions in a relatively painless way for all concerned.
• Let's use online shopping for more of our business, including supermarkets that will assemble our orders and deliver them to us in our vehicles so that we don't have to go inside.  By all means, let's prioritize those stores that are as positive towards individual freedoms as possible, even if they're hamstrung by official edicts.
• Let's let our elected representatives - local, regional and national - hear from us, often and loudly, about our rights and freedoms.  If they're barraged with criticism and promises to organize alternative candidates to stand against them at the next election, they'll begin to think twice - or, if they don't, they deserve to lose their jobs.
• Let's actively work against stores, online services, etc. that discriminate against us, by organizing boycotts of their services and premises.  There are enough of us to make a measurable economic impact by choosing where and how to spend - or withhold - our dollars.  Let's remind them of that, the hard way.
• Let's make use of the alternate networks currently being set up by those regarded as outcasts by society.  (That includes not just anti-vaxxers, but also those with conservative and moderate political views, etc.)  Axios recently referred to that as the right wing building its own echo chamber.  I suggest that's missing the point.  A great many existing networks have become a left-wing echo chamber, and I want no part of them.  I'm not on Facebook or Twitter, or any other social media network that tries to beat me over the head with progressive propaganda.  Why should I go there only to be insulted?  I'm on MeWe and Gab, where I certainly don't agree with everything that's said, but speech is as free as possible and everybody respects that.

As John Nolte profanely points out, speaking about right-wingers in general rather than only those opposed to COVID-19 vaccinations:

And so, like a mob of fat, comfortable, uptight Margaret Dumonts in the face of Groucho Marx, the media’s jaws still drop when our response to their shame campaigns is a middle finger and poke in the eye.

. . .

This is the beauty of building our own thing. All these filthy crooks can do is sputter out their helplessness. But, best of all, they sputter it from their own velvet echo chambers.

. . .

Yes, of course, we will build our own thing, you fascist Nazis.

That’s what free people do; that’s what the human spirit is engineered to do. Even in the Soviet Union, even under Nazi occupation, people never stopped fighting to be free, to live in a country where they could say and do whatever they wanted. If Hitler and Stalin couldn’t stop us, do you think a bunch of snobby “journalists” and a pasty, dead-eyed freak like Mark Zuckerberg will?

There's more at the link.

Don't get mad - get even.

Peter