A Message to the “Virtuous”

The vaccine issue has allowed people to feel virtuous without being virtuous.

Ben Franklin once said “Praise to the undeserving is severe satire.” Somebody has to get tough with you. If you’ve found yourself on this blog, my job isn’t to coddle you. It’s to give you a hard dose of reality and make you think critically.

You do not deserve praise for getting a vaccine. Your virtue signaling may make you feel good, but it serves no purpose. You want to get my sincere praise? Go to the gym. Eat better. Get a good nights rest. Work harder. Be kind to everyone - especially those you disagree with. Be a force for good. As Rune Lazuli once said, “Love so deeply that even the darkness feels welcomed.”

All that said, you shouldn’t care about getting my praise. It’s your life, you have to take responsibility for it. If you aren’t happy, if your suffering, you need to will your way through it - and in that process you will meet people that will stand by your side. Your job is to be able to rest your head on your pillow every night and tell yourself you’re proud of what your accomplishing. Ignore outside noise. Take small steps. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour. If people aren't listening to you, ask yourself why. Improve your messaging.

Sharing the same meme as everyone else on social media is not impressive. That Black Lives Matter sign you put on your lawn, how many black people did it help? You want to make a difference? Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Slogans don’t mean anything. Actions speak louder than Instagram posts. Rather than enjoy your cocktail in Martha's Vineyard, why don't you practice what you preach and go to the inner city?

Robert Frost once said, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Right now you want to be like everyone else. You want to be accepted. You want to show everyone you're a good person. I challenge you to be who you truly are, and risk becoming what you are meant to be. You might just change the world.

Don’t knock on my door and concern yourself with my business. Don’t tell me how to live my life, it’s not yours to live. You can belittle me, you can call me names, and you can tower over me, but I will not sacrifice my undying right to free thought. I will risk losing everything to stay true to my conscience and the convictions I hold. They will warn you about being "cancelled." The truth? Only you can "cancel" yourself. With nearly 8 billion people in the world, somebody will always be willing to help you.

On July 5th, 1926, President Calvin Coolidge said the following words while commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence:

"If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth and their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary."

In Ancient Rome, popular gladiators would occasionally be granted a wooden sword, liberating them from the horrors of the colosseum and endowing them with freedom. If they however were to lose that sword, they would be considered a slave again. The famous gladiator Spartacus believed "freedom is not a stick of wood," and led one of the largest rebellions in the history of mankind over that principle. He may have lost, but he and the tens of thousands who followed him died believing they were a free people.

Should you have been journeying to Rome in April of the year 71 BC, you would have found 6,000 bodies crucified along the 120 mile length of the Appian way. They say the unspeakable site was greatly magnified by the horrific stench carried by the wind. The message was all too clear - take note, this is what happens to those who defy the will of Rome.

Yet defied it was. That's how deeply these people believed in freedom. It was once said in the show Game of Thrones, "The freedom to make my own mistakes was all I ever wanted."

In Nazi Germany they made Jews carry around papers for simply being who they were. We fought an entire world war to defeat such evil.

Yet now in Boston of all places - the very birthplace of the American Revolution - they want you to show your papers to participate in the city. Not only is this a bad policy, but it is deeply immoral. The question before us is not what should a vaccinated or unvaccinated person do. Nor is it what should a Republican or Democrat do. The question before us is, what should a free individual do?

Merited or unmerited, people have a right to be vaccine hesitant. You can call me "anti-vax" all you want, it does not phase me. I have been called far worse - Hillary Clinton told me I was a "deplorable." CNN called me a "fascist." I know who I am, your labels are meaningless. Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Likewise, Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said, "I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.” Alexander Hamilton said, "The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one."

Vaccine mandates and passports are wrong. People are hesitant for a reason - why don't you engage in meaningful dialogue and find out why? Slander and posting un-substantive memes is not a good way to win friends and influence people to your way of thinking. Attached below is a piece I wrote concerning vaccine hesitancy. I wish I could tell you getting through the end of this pandemic is as simple as taking a shot, but it's not. Just like many love to simplify issues into the prism of race - it's never just that simple.

The NFL, NBA, and NHL are nearly fully vaccinated yet currently experiencing massive outbreaks. On the NFL's own site they boast about how you cannot compare them to the rest of the population, yet they are currently in the midst of an upsurge of cases. We need answers and transparency. To say this is a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" is categorically false.

COVID Mandates: https://www.morethananationblog.com/post/covid-mandates

In New York - once the worlds greatest city - four people who were unvaccinated were arrested for trying to eat at an Applebees. Likewise, six were arrested at a Cheesecake Factory. Jesse Kelly recently said on the radio had you told someone this would be happening a year ago they would have thought you were nuts. Somebody has to tell me how it's possible with a vaccine rate of nearly 71% of people receiving at least one dose of the shot, its possible we have record high cases? I'm genuinely asking this question. Shouldn't we have significantly less cases than ever before if this vaccine was remotely effective? All things aside, can somebody give me answers?

How come record numbers of migrants from many countries beyond South America are flooding into the country via the southern border, yet they are not required to be vaccinated? Should securing the border not be a top priority right now to prevent such a thing from happening? Should the military not be stationed in Texas and Arizona to detain individuals trying to illegally seek entry into the country? Especially without showing their vaccine status? Do you even know records are being broken every month pertaining to the number of apprehensions at the border? Help me understand what I am missing.

Just in Washington D.C. alone where they would like to implement their own vaccine mandate, roughly 53.6 percent of black residents who have chosen to remain unvaccinated will be banned from restaurants, gyms, and entertainment facilities. The numbers are similar in other cities like New York. I want to know - you are comfortable with that? You who put a Black Lives Matter sign on your lawn? Or a link in your instagram Bio? Or posted a black square many months ago? Many people do not want this new and unconventional vaccine, and rather than understanding why you continue to fear monger and berate individuals. Go read "How to Win Friends and Influence People," by Dale Carnegie and then come back to me.

You preach that we must be "anti-racist," but are you not the real racist?

You can keep virtue signaling - I am not impressed. Deep down, I know you aren't either. The mandates are nothing more than segregation disguised beneath your piety.