There Are More of Us Than You Think
Propaganda and self-censorship created a taboo around vaccine scepticism, but this may be a grand illusion
Happy New Year and welcome back to Anxiety, Addiction and Ascension.
I had intended to round out last year with a short note to you, dear reader, thanking you for your attention to my work in 2023 and notifying you that I would be taking a few weeks off for time with family and friends in New Zealand, but Christmas crept up on me fast and I never found the time. So allow me now to briefly thank you for your readership thus far and apologise once more for the sporadic nature of my offerings of late – 2024 offers new opportunities and pathways for me and I hope and expect to push things forward this year.
I’d also like to quickly mention a few of my subscribers who’ve made this endeavor particularly rewarding for me. Special thanks to William Ramsey and Hrvoje Morić, who’ve both hosted me on their podcasts and aided me greatly in building my subscriber base. Thank you also to my readers, Jim Packer, TSBOL, Nous, and Andy Espersen for their frequent comments and engaging discussion. I read and appreciate everyone’s comments, even if I don’t always find the time to reply.
I ended last year on a positive note by relating Three Conversations I’ve Had Recently that Suggest the Tide is Turning, and I’d like to begin 2024 in the same vein, not with a conversation that suggests the tide is turning so much as one that reveals there are more of ‘us’ out there than it might seem.
For those of us who resisted the global psyop of COVID-19 and the attendant biological warfare assault of the so-called vaccine, conversing freely and openly with other members of society presents a challenge that, pre-2021, was hitherto unheard of in our ‘enlightened’ and ‘tolerant’ ‘liberal democracies’.
Navigating the vaccine issue in the workplace is simple enough, likewise with friends – it’s relatively easy to avoid the topic or just agree to disagree.
When it comes to dating however, things get a little more complicated.
Having spent three months processing my relationship breakup and – to use a word I’m not entirely comfortable with – ‘healing’, I decided to venture into the dreaded world of dating apps and try my luck.
To my surprise it wasn’t long before I met a lovely young Melbourne lady who we shall call Sophie. Both beautiful and intelligent I quickly decided this woman was worth pursuing, and we were soon engaged in thriving conversation. My holiday in New Zealand precluded the opportunity of meeting up with her straight away, but we are penciled in for a ‘first date’ this coming weekend (wish me luck, friends).
Everything about Sophie is amazing. Not only is she gorgeous and smart, but she’s funny, driven, and evidently very successful too. We connect on a surprisingly deep level and, it would seem at this early stage, are potentially well-suited as a couple.
There was just one problem as far as I could see.
On Hinge (the dating app where we met) one is able to enter their ‘vaccination status’ in their bio. And Sophie was listed as ‘vaccinated’.
As our conversation progressed and things began looking more promising, this vaccination issue played more and more on my mind. What kind of person advertises the fact that they’re vaccinated? Surely if she were part our ‘our’ camp, and even if she had been compelled by work or family into getting the jab, she’d simply leave that section of her bio blank – as indeed I did.
And moreover, what would happen, assuming everything else went to plan, when we finally got around to discussing the dreaded issue?
Some time ago I promised myself that my next romantic partner would be someone given to my way of thinking and, if not out-and-out antivax (as I have now become), then at least open to the idea that the COVID vaccines were at the very least rushed to market, inadequately tested, and had indeed harmed and even killed people.
So setting forth into a potential relationship with someone who openly declared themself as ‘vaccinated’ posed some problems. Would I simply avoid the issue for as long as possible, hope she fell in love with me, and then only show my true colours once we were in too deep for her to turn back? Would I partially reveal my hand early on, espousing skepticism and reservations about the COVID jabs, but stopping short of the type of invective contained in my writing to date? Or would I come straight out with it and lay all my cards on the table? And if that indeed was the play, then what was I waiting for?
I didn’t want to lose her; scare her off… So I let the conundrum keep rattling around in my head and held my tongue.
But as it turned out, I didn’t need to say anything because a few nights ago while we were talking on the phone, Sophie raised the issue herself. She was telling me about one of her best friends who refuses to date guys who’ve taken the jab, and how hard it is to find unvaccinated men. She even went as far as to say her friend was ‘antivax’.
Suddenly the picture looked a whole lot different. Surely if she could abide a best friend with such views then a romantic partner with the same ideas would be a possibility. But before I could even offer a cautious opinion on the topic she went one step further and told me she never wanted to take the jab and thought the whole thing was BS from the beginning, and she’d only grudgingly complied so she could keep working and also to visit her then partner’s father who was ill with cancer.
I told Sophie that I had not taken the COVID vaccine and then she asked me if I was ‘antivax’. I took the plunge and told her I was and she then went on to tell me her entire family was also antivax. She even went as far as to begin expressing ostensible concern that her vaccination status might influence my decision on whether she would be a viable partner.
This saddened me and I was again reminded of what makes me so furious about that whole sorry saga – that millions of good, honest, otherwise healthy people were forced into taking a potentially lethal experimental medication, in complete defiance of the Nuremberg Code, and at great potential risk not only to their health but also even their future dating prospects!
I assured Sophie it wasn’t a problem and expressed my sympathy for her situation and indeed my anger at what had been done to her and so many others, told her about my volunteering work with Jab Injuries Global and related some of the horror stories I’ve read, then I moved the conversation onto other topics, suggesting we delve deeper into the vaccine issue (and other political matters) once we’d gotten to know each other better.
For indeed, I do have some lingering questions. Has the COVID jab affected her menstrual cycle, and her fertility? as has now been conclusively shown to be a common side effect by many researchers, not least among them, Dr Naomi Wolf. But these are all questions for another day – I don’t even know if we’ll make it to the second date phase, let alone marriage and child rearing! What is important for now is that Sophie was against the jab from the start, took it only under duress, and (I hope) would be disinclined to subject herself to any further shots.
Now maybe I just got lucky. I am under no illusion that a majority or even a plurality of people hold the same views, but it does go to show that all my fretting on this issue had been without cause and indeed – there are more of ‘us’ out there that it might appear.
Both government and media propaganda around vaccine uptake and safety and efficacy, and the very same trepidation and self-censorship with which I initially approached this issue with Sophie have created what I think is a distorted picture. This is of course precisely the picture they wanted to create in order to facilitate their crime and, to a large extent, the illusion has been successful.
But there are more of us than you think and, I would venture, it couldn’t hurt for us to be a little more forthcoming with our views, not only when looking for potential mates, but in day-to-day conversation.
Has enough time passed now? Is the taboo lifting? Sophie evidently felt comfortable enough to express her views to me, having no idea what my response would be – but she is a very direct and outspoken person. Regardless though, I think it could behoove us of the counterhegemonic resistance to have a little more courage in this regard and allow ourselves to start feeling a little less isolated, ostracised, and marginalised.
I spent a couple of weeks worrying that my anti-vaccine views could be the ‘deal-breaker’ that consigned this potential romance to the scrap heap, but either through pure coincidence (which I don’t really believe in anymore) or indeed an act of a loving and benevolent God, my first meaningful ‘match’ in the world of online dating is also a vehement opponent of the death jabs.
There are more of us out there than you think. Keep the faith my friends, and let us continue our fight with renewed vigour and tenacity in 2024.
Once again, happy New Year, and thank you for your continued readership. I hope and expect to return to my regular schedule of once-weekly posting in the next month or so. In the meantime, thanks for sticking around and all the best for the coming year.