The healing journey of a widowed, unschooling badass in Delaware.
Facebook is forcing “fact check” information along with posts about this talk from Tom Woods.
Edit: Youtube pulled the video, you can view it here: https://tomwoods.com/the-covid-cult/
I believe people can watch the video on their own and determine its validity.
I am grateful for having a place to share without censorship.
For more info:
Some COVID Resources
Protests are messy. There are always elements we don’t agree with. We don’t chant and we don’t hold signs. We differ on a lot of issues from the speakers and attendees, but I choose to stand with those who are fighting against a Lockdown that is destroying lives all over the world.
The Lockdown is keeping social, educational, physical health, and spiritual resources away from children and vulnerable individuals. It puts us all in harm’s way. It weakens our souls, bodies, homes, budgets, and immune systems. It has broken peer support groups and strained relationships.
The Lockdown is an experiment without metrics. It is arbitrary and full of the usual corruption. Those who impose it do not know you and do not know what is best for you. Only you can make the best choices for yourself and your family.
Trust yourself and fight for your freedom, every darn inch of it.
I missed my gratitude blog post yesterday. I haven’t trained jiu-jitsu in weeks due to a skin infection. I yelled at my children. I didn’t know how communicate with my girlfriend. I’ve made people uncomfortable. I missed some cold therapy showers. I haven’t been all that I could be.
I can forgive myself for these things. I can accept Jesus’s forgiveness of my innumerable sins. I am thankful for today and all the opportunities I have to make the world better.
I’m thankful my son’s jiu-jitsu tournament is happening as scheduled. I’m thankful to see friends this afternoon. I’m thankful for live theater tonight. I’m thankful for a beautiful, caring, and patient girlfriend and a chance to work on my communication skills.
It’s a beautiful day.
Jordan Peterson talks about how at one point in Soviet Russia, 1 in 3 people was informing to the government police. That meant that there was likely someone in your home who might report on your activities or “wrong” thoughts or words.
We’re getting a sample of what that society looks like right now. My business owner friends are terrified of misstepping on a Lockdown restriction and being reported. These informants rarely give the owner a chance to reconcile.
I haven’t seen one person who wears a proper mask properly. So what does one do when they know they’re not in strict compliance? Point a finger at someone else. These screamers in supermarkets know they can’t follow the rules, so they look to put the spotlight on someone they perceive to be an easier target.
Without principles and an understanding of history and psychology, we are heading down a dark, familiar road. The French who started their Revolution ended up dead at the hands of their proteges. The Russians who supported their Revolution ended up in gulags. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a party loyalist until he was locked away and became the Soviet’s greatest enemy.
Am I making a slippery slope argument? I don’t know, our society is different from those and I’m a ridiculous optimist. But we’re human and fallen and vulnerable to all the same fears that the Jacobins and Societ Communists were.
Either way, I don’t need a slippery slope. I don’t like the society I see right now. I think it is worth fighting against these radical changes that continue to destroy lives every day.
I’m going to be the guy that won’t rat. I’d rather be locked up on Thanksgiving or Christmas than be the one to lock someone else up. That’s the choice. If you think you can lay low and let this blow over, if you think you can give up a couple family get togethers and get back to “normal,” if you think you can be compliant enough to not take a side, I promise you’re taking the wrong side and you will end up crushed under the thumb of the regulatory state.
I’m grateful for history, psychology, and my God given love of the individual. I’m grateful for the fight that He has put in my heart. I’m grateful that I was made this way.
I’m grateful for the rebel heart that God has put in my chest. My love for life blazes fiercely.
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When I see a meme that claims there are alternatives to living this short life to its fullest, I wonder what that looks like?
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A car ride can kill me. A soccer game can lead to a broken skull. A camping trip can lead to weeks of poison sumac infection. Love will hurt. The list of life’s dangers is infinite.
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I choose to live with infinite blessings, looking for the love in each moment.
I sat at my dining room table with three new friends today. These were home educating moms who had brought their children over to build in our Lego workshop.
We didn’t talk politics, Covid, nor any of the mainstream narratives. We discussed unschooling and our greatly varying paths to a similar mindset.
I don’t know if I would have met these amazing women if not for the Lockdown and happy coincidence. In the chaos of the new social divisions, I have sought out those who would think for themselves and be willing to meet and connect in honest exchange.
That has meant forming new groups and opening my home when so many doors are closed.
I am grateful for these opportunities to connect. I am more a social creature than most. These connections are lifeblood.
If there hasn’t been full compliance (With what exactly? Guidance has been shifting, they lied about masks, restrictions are confusing and sometimes contradictory, and the “laws” are ad hoc and unenforceable), what rational mind would expect 100% compliance to occur?
Without the compliance you call for, our numbers are magnitudes below the predictions. The noncompliant have been reinforced in their beliefs by results.
How is calling them stupid going to get your desired results?
The Lockdown is killing untold numbers. Many sources have numbers already beyond covid deaths. The years of life lost due to the economic restrictions are outweighing the likely years lost by covid deaths.
I don’t think it’s a close call. But if it is, if more freedom will equal approximately as many deaths as less freedom, then YES give me more freedom and allow me to use my own capabilities of risk assessment.
I don’t take any of this lightly. My seemingly healthy wife died from complications arising from influenza. Did somebody go to work when they shouldn’t have? Did somebody not wash their hands? Should she have skipped a hug? A party? A homeschool field trip?
Would she have lived a smaller life knowing she might die in her 40s? Or a larger one?
I’m opting for a large life because I don’t know how long it’ll be. That includes doing the only thing I can do to combat any pathogen: make healthier choices.
Suffering is essential to life. But when it is imposed by a government that has no concern for my wellbeing, then I will fight against it through civil disobedience, sharing information, and applauding those who do the same.
I started this blog category near the beginning of the Covid Lockdown. I used this space to explore the gut-level intuition that the popular narrative was wrong and dangerous. I felt powerless and confused. Little information was available and huge things were happening. I was reading and searching and fighting for a truth that wasn’t clear.
I found clarity through writing, praying, and living by the principles that had ushered me through dark times. It was like becoming a widower again: easier in that I had done that before, harder in that the whole world was experiencing the trauma collectively. There was no one with an outside perspective.
I don’t know how I moved through the malaise exactly, there are many movements to the process and they’re complicated by past traumas and assumptions. But I did move through it into a place of meaning and happiness. As tribes collapsed, I found the individuals who shared my journey and new bonds formed. I saw a rebuilding of community out of the wreckage of government restrictions on assembly. I found my place and purpose.
Part II: Weariness, accumulation of pain, old trauma back for healing, another business shutting down, self doubt, looming threat of increased restrictions, and a salad bowl of shit storms are riding me again.
It’s easier this time. Second rodeo and all that rot. I know there’s a stronger Jason waiting for me at the end of the day. Heck, I know there’s a stronger Jason at the end of this post (’cause the end of the day might not come).
So, back to it. I’ve got a fantastic life that’s only going to get better. I’m grateful to God for the strange miracle gift of language and for this crazy brain of mine that will not accept defeat.
My fears are no higher than those due to influenza. Influenza appears to be more prevalent among, and more dangerous to, school children.
I have the choice to keep my children out of those institutions. I do not have the choice to keep anyone else out, so we maximize our health and engage freely with anyone who respects our choices.
Lots of schools around the world are open, many never closed. Between suicide, depression, abuse, and delayed care, it seems those societies that chose lighter restrictions have come out ahead.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-19/covid-s-spread-in-schools-is-questioned-in-latest-nordic-study