728 x 90

Masks, the Mark of the Sheep

Masks, the Mark of the Sheep

The mask mandates have been lifted on planes and all sorts of other places. Thank goodness! Yet there are some out there still demanding to resurrect the mandates.

It baffled me right from the start how people could have fallen for the mask mandate. It was easy to prove masks were ineffective and not worth wearing. Furthermore, wearing a mask was like wearing a sign saying, “I am compliant, I do what I am told.”

It was also horrifying to see how angry these mask wearers were—and still are. They believe the hype and wear the mask, feeling that they are “saving humanity”; anyone who does not follow suit is nothing short of a potential murderer. They have no mercy. They will not read or watch anything that contradicts their view.

What makes these people so easily led? Fear, I guess! But what made them so susceptible to fear in the first place?

Our media has been grooming us to fear for a couple generations. Polio is one fear I can remember from my childhood. People were terrified of it in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Every day the newspaper would report on the number of children who came down with Polio the day before. The number of deaths was published as well. It was a scary time, as evidenced by how my parents reacted when I came down to breakfast one morning around age eight or nine saying, “My neck is so sore, I can barely move it.” Mom and Dad literally jumped out of their seats and came over to me. They felt my brow and asked if there were other symptoms of my being sick. I sensed THEIR FEAR. It hit me like a giant wave. I reassured them that I felt fine, I just slept “funny” on my neck. 

When television became ubiquitous those who did the programming almost immediately realized what a tool it was for steering people to believe whatever they were shown. A whole industry was born focusing on this ability. It was called advertising, not propaganda, but they are both related.

In the 1950s advertising was for things like cigarettes, cars, hair care products, toothpaste, and coffee. Texaco Gas sponsored by the weekly The Milton Berle Show that we watched, and Hotpoint electric appliances sponsored Ozzie and Harriet. The implication was that “nice people” needed these appliances and other items advertised. Sitcoms were popular and they were all full of cheerful people learning fun life lessons. It was all happy advertising. Very little unpleasantness was depicted on TV in those days.

But the advertisers learned how easily led the public were, and thus the fear campaign began, all in the name of safety. Cars suddenly developed seat belts. Children needed to be taken for rides in car seats. And then one day a campaign to discourage smoking began when “Surgeon General Luther Terry made a bold announcement to a roomful of reporters: cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and probably heart disease.” He said the government should do something about it.

The amount of influence TV has had on people in this country was brought to my attention in an article by John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute, who quoted Rod Serling, the creator of the Twilight Zone. “We’re developing a new citizenry,” Serling said. “One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.”

Basing ideas on what we have been programmed to believe can be dangerous, especially in an era where people have become very conscious of what everyone else is doing. They have become judge and jury for the behavior about which they disapprove.

We have progressed from levying fines for not wearing seatbelts, to fines for not having up to date smoke detectors and for not having our animals vaccinated, and then visits from child protective services who remove children from a home if the parents refuse a medical procedure they don’t approve of. And NOW, because of COVID and the unusually intense fear campaign designed to terrorize a whole country, if not the world, we are scared of each other.

These same frightened people just “know” that everyone else is dangerous. They always do what the TV doctor Fauci tells them they must do without question. If someone else questions it, they vilify such heresy. What they forget is that “tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind” to the devil and his minions, as C. S. Lewis explained in his famous Screwtape Letters.

What is the way out of this dilemma? We can’t unlearn this behavior without some emotional trigger that makes us decide to think for ourselves. Right now the mentality is that personal responsibility is dangerous … so let the government take care of everything.

Well, NO! That is the way to complete servitude. Stand up. Speak up. And walk away from those who impede your personal growth and your ability to decide for yourself. You can do it.

Image Credit: Pixabay

19 comments

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

19 Comments

  • Avatar
    Doug
    May 3, 2022, 2:07 am

    Beautifully said

    REPLY
  • Avatar
    Margaret Owen Thorpe
    May 3, 2022, 5:04 am

    Back in 2020, when we all accepted the novelty of COVID, masks were as much a fashion or political statement as they were any kind of protection for anything. Mine all had cat faces, except for the freebie I got from Blue Cross which advertised its health insurance and the one which depicted Donald Trump as a manure emoji. By 2021, a lot of people had figured out that they weren’t doing much of anything for anybody’s health, but the mandates continued. We could hear the self-satisfaction and smug glee in the voices of the elected officials and bureaucrats who told us we must wear them. By 2022, the mandates still continued even as the rates of infection slowed, and people began to discover that their deceased loved ones were being reported as deaths from COVID even if they came into the hospital with acute kidney failure and acquired COVID only after being in the hospital. "The system", as we used to call it, was profiting – in many ways – from COVID. In 2022, the citizen descendants of Cotton Mather’s Puritans, as in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, began to hunt witches, who could be easily identified as maskless ones – and accosted and shamed them. One approached me in the produce section of my usual grocery from the far side of a bin of oranges and began pantomiming at me by tugging at her own mask and shaking her finger at me as one might a naughty child. She stayed beyond the oranges and didn’t speak. I suppose she thought speaking might allow the viruses she was sure I was disseminating to get under her mask. When she started shaking her head as if in disbelief, I pantomimed back a one-finger salute. Under her mask, she gasped and scuttled backwards toward the brussel sprouts. Just remember, 400 years ago the people who brought this culture to the New World would have hung me. For the sheer witchy disobedience of not wearing a mask or for the obscenity to Goody Two-Shoes, I am not sure.

    REPLY
    • Avatar
      Redoubtable@Margaret Owen Thorpe
      May 4, 2022, 2:26 am

      The term ‘Sheep’ is troubling! Those who claim that masks do nothing seem immune to evidence to the contrary. My wife and I have ‘sheltered in place’, exercised care as to when and where we entered to shop, and worn KF94 masks for more than two years now. Not only have we not contracted Covid, we also have had no colds, flu, or any other sickness other than a two week respiratory viral illness I contracted from an appointment for aortic sonogram ordered by our GP which I passed on to my wife. It was not Covid. Both of us recovered. My point being that we have never been disease free for two years ever prior to practicing Covid precautions. Add to this the fact that during the pandemic, incidence for cold, Influenza and other diseases has been at record lows in the general population. So, please don’t continue to claim that only foolish ‘sheep’ behave responsibly, as responsible sheep have not had to bear the suffering of pretending that it won’t happen to us and then spend months in hospitals or died a horrible death.

      REPLY
      • Avatar
        Not a sheep @Redoubtable
        May 4, 2022, 3:17 am

        Your one piece of anecdotal evidence is not enough to support your argument.

        I am vaccinated and I wore the stupid mask. I had COVID twice.

        See, my anecdotal evidence isn’t enough to support an argument either.

        REPLY
        • Avatar
          Redoubtable@Not a sheep
          May 4, 2022, 1:39 pm

          The obvious question being, what kind of mask and how well was it fitted…..as well as the rest of requirements for hygiene and separation. The little blue pleated masks un-crimped around the nose or worse worn under the nose plus being open to the sides does little to filter air. Research has shown that blue masks when properly worn are at best effective for about an hour while better masks properly worn are effective for 24 hours. The ‘stylish’ transparent plastic face masks open on the side with no air filtering capability are useless.
          That you contracted Covid and suffered is sad. The most fearful aspect of the disease is the fact that carriers can be and often are asymptomatic and communicate the disease unknowingly.
          I wish you well.

          REPLY
          • Avatar
            Don @Redoubtable
            September 16, 2023, 5:21 am

            You are still a sheep. What a way to live your life. You just lost two good years of your life being a coward.
            Congrats. Now go vote for Biden.

            REPLY
      • Avatar
        Margaret Owen Thorpe@Redoubtable
        May 5, 2022, 4:20 am

        "Redoubtable": I’m concerned that all that mask wearing has addled your brain. I never once used the word "sheep". Nor did the author of the original article, Bonnie Matheson. Only whoever wrote the headline used the word "sheep". Please don’t direct your defense of sheep to me or her. If you feel that your maskwearing has made you become a sheep, either accept that you must be a sheep – or stop wearing them. But don’t accuse others of calling you sheep when we didn’t; I said you were the cultural descendants of the Puritans and their preacher, Cotton Mather, but those people were less like sheep than like buzzards.

        REPLY
        • Avatar
          Redoubtable@Margaret Owen Thorpe
          May 5, 2022, 6:24 pm

          Margaret, how would anyone know that the term ‘sheep’ was not part of the original article? The word, sheep, I think you will agree is as insulting as your addled brain comment. The same is true of ‘defense of sheep’.
          There is a difference between intent of insult and being insulted when none was intended.
          Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, there is far, far too much "It won’t happen to me" and far too little concern sorting through facts to get at truth. Tell me, would you accuse folks defusing explosive devices of being too careful? I think not.
          I happen to live in an area where Covid has done its worst. We have seen a lot of death in our area. Death is very permanent and the suffering unbearable, both being the result of having far too little knowledge of a disease so manifest and effective in its war against the human body. Add to this the control freak agenda of politicians bent upon tyrannical control augmented by an ever so compliant media fanning the fires of fear while concealing truth behind walls of untruth. The charade wears people out to the point of not knowing what to believe and outright rebellion, which incites friction and anger where such should not exist. I think that if you will please review my comments, you will discover your reaction to be largely unjustified having found fault that is not really there.
          "That you contracted Covid and suffered is sad. The most fearful aspect of the disease is the fact that carriers can be and often are asymptomatic and communicate the disease unknowingly.
          I wish you well." was sincere when written and still is.

          REPLY
      • Avatar
        Craig@Redoubtable
        May 6, 2022, 7:01 pm

        I never wore a mask except, going to the dentist, and I never sheltered in place and I’ve not been sick in these last two plus years.

        REPLY
        • Avatar
          Redoubtable@Craig
          May 10, 2022, 2:38 pm

          That no symptoms were evident when dealing with a disease carried by asymptomatic folks……? We can all be thankful that you did not become sick and die. Did the dentist wear a mask? Have you been tested for antibodies, evidence that you have carried the disease as some time?

          REPLY
        • Avatar
          Don@Craig
          September 16, 2023, 5:24 am

          I will you are. Sheep. Baaaaaaaaa

          REPLY
      • Avatar
        Katie@Redoubtable
        March 4, 2024, 6:41 am

        I have not sheltered in place and have not worn a mask and have not contracted Covid, we also have had no colds, flu, or any other sickness.

        REPLY
  • Avatar
    Gordon Cruickshank
    May 4, 2022, 10:57 am

    Please tell the administrators of Intellectual Takeout to make the articles available in black print and not gray. My wife cannot read the gray print. Why was a change made? It makes no sense. Thank you for changing it back.

    REPLY
    • Annie Holmquist
      Annie Holmquist@Gordon Cruickshank
      May 4, 2022, 1:19 pm

      Thank you for the feedback, Gordon! We are still working a few kinks out after our website redesign and the font color is on the list of items to be changed. You will hopefully see the change soon!

      REPLY
  • Avatar
    Maureen Moss-Lubell
    May 22, 2022, 3:31 am

    What a load of horse manure! I am 72 years old and I live in an area which has had a very high rate of Covid, especially for the elderly.
    I, my husband, and almost all my friends and the older people I know, have worn masks in public all during the whole time when the Covid transmissibility levels were high — just like doctors & nurses wear them when they must be in close contact with contagiously ill people.
    I, and all of my friends & neighbors who followed similar COMMON SENSE medical advice and guidelines — AND got their Covid shots & boosters as were recommended — came through this sad time without contracting Covid, while so many of people who lived in our area refused to get inoculated or wear masks, and thus were seriously sickened and/or died from it. Wake up, people. Sensible modern medicine is NOT some kind of nefarious hoax against you– it’s meant to protect you & your families & keep you from getting sick — or dying. Ignoring a plague and pretending it doesn’t exist — or worse yet, that it’s some kind of government plot against you — is the worst kind of self-sabotage.
    By ignoring the very things that can protect you, you’re only putting yourselves & your families in danger. Open your eyes, please: the lives you save may be your own.

    REPLY
    • Avatar
      Don@Maureen Moss-Lubell
      September 16, 2023, 5:37 am

      Your stupid. People who took the shots and boosters are the ones that keep getting the China virus. Over your eyes friend. You have been had and still ate had this you are indeed a sheep

      REPLY
  • Avatar
    Frank Bowling
    August 7, 2022, 9:39 pm

    Great read!Couldn’t agree more.Seeing individuals to this day walking about with masks as a new part of themselves.

    REPLY
    • Avatar
      Don@Frank Bowling
      September 16, 2023, 5:33 am

      I was born free and will sue free. I don’t live my life in fear. As a Christian I know where I am going when I die. Imagine the. Ww2 veterans at Normandy saying I can’t jump out of this plane because I am scared You people who wore a dirty diaper on your face are indeed a stupid uninformed idiot
      You sacrificed 3 years of your life cowering in fear while others like me continued to enjoy life. I live in Wv. I never once wore a dirty mask. Yes I caught the China virus almost died but was healed with hydroxy c if these drugs like ivermectin and. H q were not sensored many thousands would have lived but the democrats needed the scare to cheat in an election. That was what it was all about People that wear a mask infringed on my freedom as an American. If those that believe in the diaper wear a mask and believe they work then why do they expect me to.
      And people that took the poison vaccine are having health problems galore and get China virus all the time because they have ruined their immune system
      Hey stupid mask wearers hope you enjoy looking stupid and giving away your freedom and your life.

      REPLY

Posts Carousel

Latest Posts

Frequent Contributors