Obrigado

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.

- Pericles

This quote is as true today as it was when it was first recorded more than 2000 years ago. We mustn't assume that our desire to be left alone is going to be honored by our fellow men. Hence, we have to keep up our defenses and hit back at anything that might threaten our autonomy. However, this doesn't mean that we must join in the circus that is party politics. There are more effective ways to keep people in their place than casting a vote every four years.

A strategy that I'm using myself is to come up with ways to signal my intention to stay firm in the face of pressure to conform. When people stated to shout at me for not wearing my mask correctly, I adopted a hostile dress code to keep people at a distance.

Dandy thug dress code

It worked as intended. People stopped shouting at me for exposing my nose.

Things have improved a lot since then, so I've relaxed my style. But I still wear my mask of the beast whenever a mask is required. I don't want anyone to think I'm on board with the nonsense.

Mask of the beast

I've been wearing T-shirts with death related themes through the summer to signal my dislike for the vaccine. But I've stopped doing that now. I figure a more positive statement is appropriate now that the mask mandate has been relaxed, so I make a point of dressing exactly the way I used to dress before the hysteria started.

The response to my return to the old normal has been varied. No-one shouts at me, as they would have done a year ago. But many look at me with suspicion. They tuck their masks extra snugly over their noses as they pass me by. It's a deliberate statement on their part, signaling hostility towards the fact that I don't wear my mask as recommended. However, I'm deliberately misinterpreting their signals. I respond with a friendly thank you and have a nice day.

This stunt has two sides to it. One being a reference to pre-hysteria times when a friendly good day was part of normal social interaction whenever two strangers caught each other's eyes. Thank you would also be uttered at any opportunity to signal appreciation for even the smallest of considerations. Bon dia and obrigado was heard everywhere. It's been a central part of Portuguese culture since forever, but now somewhat lost to hysteria. Taking up this habit strengthens my signaled desire to return to the old normal.

The other aspect of this is to make clear that submission to recommended rules does not make anyone superior. The ones adhering to the rules are serfs. Making a deliberate gesture out of it is nothing more than deliberate submission. It merely establishes a hierarchy in which I'm the sovereign and they are the serfs. I'm fine with that. I can even appreciate it, and I acknowledge this with a friendly obrigado and bon dia as I pass them by.

Reeve and serfs

By anonymous (Queen Mary Master) - this file: scan dated 2009, uploaded (without identification of the source) 12 May 2010 by Ann Scott (medievalminds.comReeve-and-Serfs.original1.jpg), Public Domain, Link

Serfs and Sovereigns

Wearing masks when out in the streets of Portugal is no longer mandated. It's merely recommended, which means that compliance is a direct measure of how well the propaganda is working.

Compliance dropped below 50% on the day the mask mandate was lifted, but is now well above 50%, a mere two days later. I'm not sure what triggered the rebound. But people are clearly scared. I'd say that some 80% of the population is firmly in the grip of propaganda. The spin doctors can make a large majority of people do whatever they like by turning knobs on their propaganda apparatus.

This is why democracy invariably leads to feudalism. People don't think for themselves. They prefer the false sense of security that comes with mindless adherence to rules. 80% of people are serfs by nature. They don't want freedom, and will never vote for freedom. Liberty must therefore be seized directly by the liberty minded, as suggested in my book.

Liberty is by nature a network phenomenon. We achieve liberty through voluntary interactions with others, coupled with sovereignty over our private domains. We follow our own rules, and we consider all outside interference and demands on our properties as hostile infringements. Taxation and regulations are acts of war that we mitigate as best we can.

We must tread carefully because of our inferior strength relative to the state. But at no point do we accept outside interference as justified or morally acceptable. We may comply with their demands. But we never do so willingly, and it is this refusal to honor other people's arbitrary laws that separates the sovereign form the serf.

This is why libertarian parties are doomed. Such parties are unpopular with the serfs who make up 80% of the population, and inherently anti-liberty in that they seek to install liberty upon a reluctant populous through the machinery of the state. The correct way to achieve liberty is not through party politics, but through personal secession. We establish our own domains that we defend as best we can, alone or in partnership with others, and we let everybody else do whatever they please in their own lives.

Fort

By Albrecht Dürer - Collection privee, Public Domain, Link

The Death of an Old Man

The old man was fit and clear of mind until a few weeks after he got his second vaccine shot. That's when his health started to deteriorate. He caught pneumonia and dementia.

Yesterday, some six months after his vaccination, the old man died. It's being noted down as due to old age. No link to the vaccine is mentioned. However, I'm noting it down for myself as due to the vaccine. He may not be part of the official statistics, but he has a place on my list of direct observations.

Smallpox vaccine

By Photo Credit: James Gathany Content Providers(s): CDC - This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #2674. Note: Not all PHIL images are public domain; be sure to check copyright status and credit authors and content providers. Deutsch | English | македонски | slovenščina | +/−, Public Domain, Link

Same as it Ever was

Norway has a new ruling coalition. Yesterday's election results made it clear that the conservatives lost to the socialists. The implication of this is that we'll have a change of faces. But there will be no significant change. The conservative block and the socialist block are two sides of the same coin. The status quo is firmly in control.

This illustrates once again the futility of party politics. Anyone pinning their hopes on a political party will be disappointed. However, those who take matters into their own hands will always be rewarded. The first step in this direction is the recognition that we are all sovereigns. We have the right to establish our own domains where we follow our own rules. This is typically our home and our savings, over which we wield total control. Any infringement by government should be resisted.

Once this is fully internalized, we soon discover that we are much freer than we thought, and that prosperity is something we create ourselves on our own and in partnership with family, friends and colleagues. Government has nothing to do with this. It's merely a hindrance.

Café de Flore

People - By Arnaud 25 - Own work, Public Domain, Link

Relaxation of Mask Mandates in Portugal

As of today masks are no longer obligatory when out walking in the streets of Portugal. However, it's still recommended, and a substantial percentage of people I crossed paths with this morning were wearing their masks. I'd say somewhere between 30 and 40%. I also saw a few individuals driving around in their cars with their masks on, despite being on their own. But it was nevertheless refreshing to go for a walk without any worries about hobby fascists possibly confronting me for not wearing my mask.

An interesting aspect of the relaxation has been a spontaneous chatter among mask skeptics. It's now clear to see who's in the grip of fear and who isn't. Hence, skeptics can strike up conversations with other skeptics in the knowledge that no-one will get offended.

Just back from a coffee with a friend at a local terrace, my wife had a whole set of observations to share, relayed to her by the waitress at the café. The most interesting observation being an alarming deterioration in the mental health of many regular customers. There's a wave of dementia among the elderly. People are going mad. The waitress pinned this on the nonstop fear-mongering we've seen over the past year and a half.

Depression is known to induce dementia, and it has been a depressing 18 months. However, I got a feeling that the vaccine may be to blame as well. My wife and I know of one terminally ill man, sick from pneumonia and dementia, and we suspect that this is due to the vaccine. It seems therefore likely that other elderly people have been similarly struck by their vaccines.

Another interesting aspect was the general mood that the waitress expressed. She could see no logic in the rules and regulations. None of it made any sense to her. Why not relax all the rules? she asked emphatically.

This illustrates the problem that tyrants have faced repeatedly up through history. Tyranny is easy to introduce, but very difficult to unwind. There's always a sense of bravado associated with the introduction of tyrannical measures. There's excitement and a sense of history. Hobby fascists appear out of the woodwork. Suddenly, there are rules for everything. However, once tyranny peaks, excitement turns to depression and anger. The new Status Quo is stifling. People demand freedom. But even the tiniest let up in restrictions have a tendency to unravel the entire tyrannical structure.

Once there's a let up in one rule. There's immediate calls for more relaxations. People start talking to each other, like the waitress has been talking, and the idea starts circulating that all the tyrannical measures have been in vain. Nothing but misery has been achieved. If not handled with great care, the whole edifice of rules and regulations comes tumbling down. More often than not, tyranny ends in revolution, with dire consequences for the tyrants and their minions.

Mask of the beast

Vaccine Passports no longer Required

The UK health secretary Sajid Javid has just announced that the plan to mandate vaccine passports for nightclubs and crowded events in England will not go ahead. This comes eight weeks after Freedom Day when several other mandates were rolled back.

An interesting aspect of the health secretary's statement was what it revealed about the thinking that goes on in the halls of power. Apparently, lying and scaring people into submission is considered acceptable. The goal was to vaccinate 90% of all subjects above the age of 16, and with this target reached, the pressure can be relaxed.

This is not how normal people operate. Rather, it's the behavior of psychopaths. The health secretary has thus revealed the true nature of government. The fact that he is at ease with his own statement adds to this impression. He comes across as cold and void of empathy. He admits that he and his colleagues are habitual liars and scaremongers, and they see no problem in this. It's business as usual. It's how they operate.

I view anything coming from government with suspicions, especially politicians, so none of this comes as a surprise to me. However, the 90% target is a bit of a puzzle. The official reasoning must be that it provides herd immunity. However, we have long known that this is not the case. There's no herd immunity in Israel despite their high vaccination rate.

But the good news is that the 90% vaccination rate appears to be "mission accomplished". There doesn't seem to be any plan to round up the remaining 10% and cart them off to re-education camps. However, we're dealing with psychopaths, so we shouldn't let our guards down just yet.

Boris Johnson

By Ben Shread / Cabinet Office, OGL 3, Link

Compliance, Conviction and Sovereignty

Biden is pushing for more mandates and more restrictions on the unvaccinated. This is to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. Seeing himself as the protector of the vaccinated, he's waging war on the unvaccinated. With more than half the US population vaccinated, he sees this as both politically and morally justified. However, he's confusing compliance with conviction. There's not nearly as much support for his push towards 100% compliance as he imagines.

Biden's push requires conviction, and there's little of it. The only ones convinced of the necessity to vaccinate everyone in order to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated are the most fearful section of the population. These are the people who've taken their two shots, with the intention to take every booster shot required to eradicate the flu. The ones who stopped at one shot is not part of this group, nor are the ones who hate the idea of never ending booster shots.

Biden's base is not the 70% that he imagines. It's more like 20% or less. However, we can expect compliance to remain high, even with very little conviction in the populace. The reason for this is a lack of sovereignty. People are dependent on wages and state handouts. Without them, they face financial ruin. They must therefore comply with whatever is demanded of them.

The current situation is highlighting a problem that has grown large in the shadow of convenience. People have loaded up on debt, and they have spent their savings on frivolities. It's been a fun ride. But it has rendered them exposed to the arbitrary edicts of their employers and other benefactors.

Many employers are in turn dependent on subsidies and state contracts. They too lack sovereignty. If the state tells them to implement one of their edicts, they have to comply or risk going bankrupt. A large portion of the population is in this way dependent on the state, and they will comply with any arbitrary mandate merely to stay alive.

At the root of this, we find the money spigot that is the Federal Reserve. They print money out of thin air for no other purpose than to feed it to the government. The lack of sovereignty at every level of society is linked to this mechanism, and we can therefore expect the push for tyranny to continue as long as this mechanism is intact.

Even large states within the union are dependent on the Fed's money. Without it, they will have to raise taxes or cut state government spending. Any talk of secession at the state level is therefore likely to be little more than hot air. However, personal secession is still an option, and there are enough sovereign individuals in the West to make an impact. A recent example of this is a New York hospital that now has to stop delivering babies due to a shortage of nurses.

The shortage of nurses happened as a direct consequence of Biden's push. Interestingly, thirty nurses resigned immediately while thirty nurses caved and signed up for the shots. This division is due to more than mere conviction. The ones that resigned were sovereigns. The ones that decided to go with Biden's mandate were fully, or in part, pushed by the fact that they would suffer too greatly if left to find other work.

Whatever extra compliance Biden eventually manages to coerce out of people will come with no further conviction. Biden's base doesn't improve through this kind of action. Quite the opposite is happening. People are appalled by what's happening, and many are shocked to discover that they are slaves to their wages and handouts. People are waking up to the reality of debt and lack of savings, and they are not pleased. 

The problem with slaves is that they are wholly unreliable. They cannot be relied on by their oppressors. History is full of examples where slaves have turned on their masters. If Biden thinks himself safe due to 70% compliance, he may one day find himself rudely awakened by reality.

Nicolae Ceaușescu

By not credited - Fototeca online a comunismului românesc, Photo no. #E594,, Attribution, Link