Jay Peterson
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"Your fears don't trump someone else's rights."

5/15/2020

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Unless you've done a lot of activism, I can pretty much guarantee I've said this phrase more than you have.
Used it a lot when I was pushing for campus carry nationwide. I got a lot of well-meaning but wrong folk going, "don't I have the right to feel safe?" and I had to be the asshole saying, "No. You don't. You don't have the right to feel anything. You don't have the right to an emotion. And even if you did, how the fuck would you enforce it? What, are we gonna shoot you with a tranq dart full of seratonin if your comfort isn't there?"
There's one hoplophobic little bitch of a college professor I had to remind of this on an annual basis. I'm half convinced she was just pushing the emotional manipulation button and I should've just told her to go fuck herself, but that's water under the bridge.
And, as I predicted back in March, the current crisis is slow going and has a lot of us with time on our hands. Which makes panicking and being an asshole even easier.
And as also predicted, government response has been mixed. Ultimately, everyone's trying to get along as best they can.
Which is why, to those adamantly refusing to wear masks in public right now, the best thing I can say is:
you're. not. fucking. helping.
I don't give a shit what report you read. American journalism was a wretched hive before the plague, and having discoveries made on the hour isn't helping. Masks may never be a panacea, but it's a damn sight better than the Chinese methods of using your phones to track down everyone, privacy be damned. Then welding shut the apartments of those who balk.
I want businesses open and people working too.
I don't want a fucking famine when winter comes.
I don't want a totalitarian regime to gain power because they say it's for our own good.
But the thing about rights is that they come with responsibilities.
Fuck, the entire concept behind emergency prepping is about responsibility. It's about being able to take care of yourself so emergency personnel don't have to.
So if you're going to engage in commerce, WHICH I WHOLEHEARTEDLY ENCOURAGE, stay at arm's length and wear the fucking mask.
It's about the only growth industry we got right now. I guarantee one you'll like is out there.
Take it off once you're in the car.
Clean the motherfucker when you get home. I've been sterilizing mine in a rice cooker for months now, it doesn't take a whole lot of brains.
Tip like you're back in the strip joint and trying to impress your boys. Restaurant workers and delivery folk are playing through fire for peanuts here, show them love and cash.
And stay at home the rest of the fucking time.
Look, if I can tell my extended family, who I love dearly but sometimes cannot get a fucking clue, that they need to put the mask on and back the fuck up because absolutely nobody has the capacity to deal with their "we're family so rules don't apply to us" bullshit?
I can tell you, randos of the internet, to wear your fucking masks.
It's not oppression.
It's responsibility.
Happy Friday.
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    Jay Peterson

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