Saturday, August 07, 2021

"Lock-em Up!" Covid and the Absurdity of Tyranny

"If our hope is in this life only, we are to be most pitied" (I Corinthians 15:19)

My writing motto is, "Sometimes offends; Never offended." It's more than just a saying for me; it is my way of living. 

Those who know me understand that the more people ridicule, threaten, and shame me for a position that I take, the stronger my resolve becomes. I have made it clear from the beginning that I will not receive a Covid-19 vaccination until I am persuaded it is best for me, my family, and those around me. I will not conform to any mandate. I have built personal natural immunity to Covid-19 since the summer of 2020 (laboratory certified). In addition, blood laboratories have petitioned me to donate blood to those sick with Covid-19. I do not believe it is beneficial for me to obtain the Covid-19 vaccine.

I've made my position clear on many occasions. However, there are other issues now at play, issues that should disturb every single American citizen. Well-meaning Americans, people who have little understanding of the big picture, are advocating tyranny and the flip-side absurdity that always comes with tyranny. Let me illustrate. 

There's a woman named Sarah whom I have never met, but she obviously reads what I write. Sarah wrote to me with a suggestion. Sarah said that I should take national leadership in establishing a "national registry" for "Conscientious Objectors to mandatory vaccinations, a registry for people like you."

Sarah went further. She said that the United States government should treat all those on the registry like those who consciously objected to fighting during World War II or Vietnam. There are three possibilities in Sarah's mind: 

1. Those who refuse to register as "Conscientious Objectors" should be hunted down, prosecuted, and institutionalized until the completion of our "war on Covid." 

2.  Those who voluntarily register as "Conscientious Objectors" should be forced to isolate themselves in their homes. They cannot travel, even to the store or the doctor "lest they infect others." Their refusal to be vaccinated, says Sarah, is detrimental to our nation, and they should be treated as criminals. I suppose, in Sarah's mind, wearing an ankle bracelet and being confined to home instead of jail or an institution is enough incentive for the unvaccinated to register. 

3. Sarah then gave her suggestion to me. She stated that those who voluntarily register as Conscientious Objectors to the vaccine should go to work "on the front lines." She continued "you should take the lead and go get training to become a Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA), working on Covid units with those sick with Covid." Sara said working as a CNA would be similar to Conscientious Objectors working on the frontlines as medics during war, putting themselves in the middle of danger. "Wade Burleson becoming a CNA," wrote Sarah, is the only way that "you might clear your now toast reputation a bit." 

I am sure Sarah means well. She comes, however, from a perspective that is completely foreign to me. Read her rationale and justification for why she feels I should now become a CNA or EMT:

"It would only take you a few months to complete basic EMT training, and I can promise you would have no trouble gaining employment or better yet, to bwecome a volunteer on duty in Covid wards. Many emergency departments are using EMTs to first assess a patient to protect the paramedics from covid. Or, CNA training only takes a short time, and at least here in the Ozarks, a volunteer who is willing to work the Covid unites would literally be a God-send. Delta is causing more diarrhea and vomiting even in the patients needing vents. More butt wipers and chin wipers are desperately needed, freeing up higher trained personnel for other jobs. Or you just start immediately with only a few days of training if you were willing to work on the sanitation crews.  This would be true servant leadership. It would be true willingness to stand the heat along with the rest of us and might clear your now toast reputation a bit. The tide is turning and the 60's era "my freedom comes first" has turned into "damn the torpedos and full speed ahead" in the war on covid. Care to take the challenge, prove your courage, and take the risk of leading?"

Sarah actually thinks she makes sense to people like me. Truth be known, people like Sarah in government leadership are the problem we face in the United States. They focus on specialization ("wiping butts and wiping chins")  and lose sight of the big picture. The absurdity of tyranny is only surpassed by the false belief in absolute immunity. As David Epstein once said:

“The bigger the picture, the more unique the potential human contribution. Our greatest strength is the exact opposite of narrow specialization. It is the ability to integrate broadly."

There are bigger issues at stake today in America than mandatory vaccinations. Resistance to the Sarah's of this world who calmly proclaim their desire to lock up Americans who don't agree with their views is the biggest issue. What drives such narrow views of liberty? Their fear of death. "For it is through fear of death that people are subject to bondage throughout their lives" (Hebrews 2:15). 

I close today's highly disturbing post about Sarah's deeply disturbing thinking with my response.

Sarah, 

"I appreciate your explaining at length how you feel and think, and offering a suggestion to me. However, I am already with the sick and dying every day. I am on the front lines in hospitals and nursing homes. But I am ministering to them spiritually, not physically. In the Kingdom in which I live, spiritual encouragement is eternal; physical encouragement is temporal. Absolutely, CNA's are needed! But I am not called to be a CNA. Further, I am unaccustomed to other people telling me how they feel I could serve the world best. I am quite capable of determining God's direction for my life. Your desire that I become "a butt-wiper and chin-wiper" to "clear (my) now tarnished reputation" may seem logical to you, but it borders on absurdity to me. Those who serve as CNA's are to be commended, but in the end, the patient's butt will stop pooping and the patient's chin will stop dripping.

I am working on the front lines trying to help people to discover that this life is temporal and will soon come to an end. Death is universal. The resurrection to eternal life is conditional. I’d rather help those facing imminent death to know how they can find eternal life."

Blessings, 

Wade

19 comments:

Celeste said...

The fact that there was been almost no discussion of natural immunity is one of the biggest gaps in the current media/propaganda swirling around this virus. Natural immunity works, likely better than vaccination with the downside that for the susceptible, you may die getting it.

Just saw an article suggesting (haven't verified the source) that the vast majority of current illness in Israel is the vaccinated. However, Sweden who kind of had a "if high risk, self isolate but otherwise, let this thing rip 'cause it's a virus" attitude, seems to be doing very well these days. (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/). Of course, it is my guess that the Swedes are at baseline healthier than Americans.

Christiane said...

sometimes we call it 'foot washing' or 'self-giving', it has many names and examples:

there is an expression in the Church, this: "embracing the leper"
which means that when we stop thinking about how we can be wounded, injured, made filthy, infected, or killed; we then are free to love and care for others who are shunned and in need of care.

I think this has to do with 'humility' before the Lord, but it can't happened alone, as in the story of St. Francis and the Leper, St. Francis says, "for when I was in sin, it seemed too bitter to me to see lepers. AND THE LORD HIMSELF LED ME among them and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned in to sweetness of soul and body. And afterwards I delay a little and left the world”

The love of God changes people and they are able to give of themselves to care for others in the most humble and, yes, disgusting circumstances, sometimes even to the point of dying for another person's sake as in the case of a father who saved his son who had Down Syndrome from drowning when the boy fell into a cesspool filled with filth and the father jumped in and went underneath his son and pushed the boy's head above the filthy water until help came . . . . but the father died, drowning in the excrement and wastes in the process of helping his boy

I don't see dealing with excrement as 'beneath us' when you have an example of a man like that who died to save his boy, no. I see someone who loved enough to do that, someone that the Lord has led to love THAT MUCH that no amount of excrement or sewage could keep him from helping his son.

I thought about this incident because for those who work with the sick, the very elderly, the disabled; sometimes caring for them means having yourself deal with excrement and wastes, and that is humbling, but it is ALSO honorable work for the sake of another who cannot care for himself. Just a thought about the example,
so that Mr. Vander Woude's drowning in septic excrement can be kept as a pristine example of ultimate self-giving in the light of the love he had for his beloved boy.

https://youtu.be/Im9_iAQhd5E

Rex Ray said...

The father losing his life to save his son, reminds me of a story when my twin brother, Hez, and I were twelve.

I’d planned to swim to an aircraft runway that extended to the middle of a large lake. I could ‘dog-paddle better than him, but he kept following; calling “Come back, come back.” He got strangled, and his words were garbled.

I was angry, but I went back because I knew he was about to drown. I know now, if he’d stayed on the bank, I would have drown.

Where would we be if Jesus had stayed in heaven?

Christiane said...

REX RAY, I knew if anyone responded to that story, it would be you. :)

Lissa Roberson said...

Fear is a powerful weapon indeed. A vaccination campaign that includes Sarah's terrible plan to black-list "conscientious objectors"...our media propaganda that accuses non-mask wearers of being heartless and selfish...these are nothing but smokescreens. They sound like plausible arguments against COVID infection, but when I look underneath them, each cause is rooted in fear. Fear of death, the weapon that Satan has used from the beginning of man to keep us in bondage.

Such fear compels us to "follow the science" even when science contradicts itself from one month to the next. Mask mandates, forced vaccination, lockdowns and public shaming are all effective tools when fear runs the day.

Most recently (last week) Newsweek broke the story of a coming Doomsday variant of COVID on the horizon. Now there's a fearsome prospect.

I memorized that scripture you referenced (Hebrews 2:14,15) so that I can remind myself of God's amazing love toward us. Jesus took on flesh and blood and suffered death in order to render powerless him who had the power of death (the devil). Jesus frees us from life-long bondage that comes from the fear of death.

It's because of Jesus that you (Wade) can live fearlessly in the face of COVID, and stand unfazed by the scorn of those that disagree.

"Follow the Savior" is far more trustworthy than "Follow the science."

Christiane said...

I don't understand how belief in Jesus Christ is the opposite of accepting medical advice. It sounds cultic to me. Can someone explain the thinking here? St. Luke was a physician (we know from tradition). Our Lord healed people, sometimes using the elements surrounding Him to do so. Our Lord was called, is called, the Great Physician.

I don't understand the 'either' 'or' thinking. I need help to see what people are meaning. I don't intend disrespect for another way of seeing things, but under the present circumstances, the idea of not getting medical help when it is known that it can prevent death or hospitalization in most cases, that confuses me.

'Faith' healing is not outside of my own tradition, no. We believe in 'miracles' from God when people are healed. It has been observed that sometimes when an unconcious person in a coma is surrounded by people praying, the person's vital signs improve.
I believe in the miracles that the Church has investigated and confirmed over the years for example at Fatima and Lourdes. Not everyone is physically healed, no, but some are. And for many, there is a 'spiritual healing'.

I just don't understand the influence of politics into this culture of abstaining from vaccination, especially now when the present Delta variant is attacking children. This frightens me that children are considered 'expendible' to be sent into schools unmasked and put into harm's way.

What am I missing? What am I getting wrong. I trust good people to try to do the right thing for themselves and others and especially for the vulnerable.
How have I failed to understand what seems not to make 'sense' to me, as I am also a person of faith, and I wouldn't, couldn't, use Jesus Christ as 'the reason' not to protect the ones who are vulnerable, no. Please help me see what you all are meaning. Thank you. Am very worried and very sad for people now.

Christiane said...

This is terrifying:

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-right-wing-rhetoric-trivialization-pandemic-casualties.html

RB Kuter said...

"I don't understand how belief in Jesus Christ is the opposite of accepting medical advice. It sounds cultic to me. Can someone explain the thinking here?"

Key word here is, "medical advice".

I like the invitation for explanations. It opens the door to giving my opinion.

Based upon my personal response to the current COVID madness, the way that my faith in Christ relates to my response to the "fluid remedies" being offered by political power players is that I don't trust them. The presence of Christ in my life leads me to assess them as being "deceivers, liars, and greedy fear mongers" who are willing to deliberately sacrifice the lives of thousands for their underlying purposes.

I don't trust their statistical numbers, I don't trust their constantly changing remedies and mitigation strategy, and I certainly don't trust their motives as genuinely having the health of the nation as the priority.

The distrust is not unfounded. It is supported by the actions taken by those promoting the fear-mongering assessment of the status of things and the causes, i.e.:

To be in positions having authority to control the civil structure and to use it to propagate mandates over individual behavior of "citizens" while at the same time inviting in "millions" of un-monitored, untested, non-treated, COVID-carriers to enter our country and then facilitating their deployment throughout the nation can only be assessed as their concern for health being disingenuous.

Heard news report today that there is verifiable proof of unmarked buses transporting thousands of un-documented illegals into Georgia with an increase in violent crime that is unprecedented. No doubt the spike in COVID-variant presence is affiliated with the intentional strategy of federal government players to increase illegal, undocumented, residents.

To apply force upon the populace to depend solely upon a suspect vaccine as a remedy while rejecting any and all methods of alternative remedies for cure is asinine and another display of those in control having ulterior motives and not genuinely seeking a remedy and save lives.



My resistance has little to do with my being "political conservative" other than in regards to the true definition of that term, not political party affiliation. I insist on maintaining an independent brain that is only submissive to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and dependent upon following the path I believe He leads me to travel.

Lissa Roberson said...

Christiane,

I am blessed and challenged when I read your posts because your relationship with Jesus is sincere and your faith tradition is very different from my own. I learn a lot when I consider your viewpoint about matters of faith and culture.

I think it would be absolutist and utterly simplistic to reduce the vaccine argument to "faith versus science". By faith we believe that God is sovereign over all creation and over every detail of our lives. He has complete power over COVID. He could eradicate COVID instantly if He chose to do so. He has not.

Meanwhile, He has gifted man with a slice of His knowledge, allowing man to discover cures to disease. Through science, vaccines are developed and lives are saved. Sadly, our government is taking a gift of God (scientific knowledge) and is manipulating it for less than altruistic purposes. Thus the conflict.

I'm one that tends to view the world with a "big picture" perspective. The big picture as I see it here is that above all things, God is sovereign over our lives. He has ordained the number of our days on this earth independent of whether we've taken the vaccine. I believe it is faith, specifically faith that God has predetermined the length of one's days, that gives a person peace should they elect to pass on the vaccine.

Wade Burleson said...

Lissa and Christiane,

A Jewish physician and scientist spoke to the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court this week. I find that when the message is contrary to an official narrative, the character of the physician and scientist is attacked. In my way of thinking, a doctor who successfully treats 6,000 Covid-19 patients with ZERO deaths is someone who should be heard. I'd be interested in both your thoughts. Just posted it on my blog.

Rex Ray said...

Wade,

Just made a comment on your next Post. Dr. Zekenko points out that doctors etc. try to make people take the Covid-19 shots that’s causing deaths.

I’d like to ask a question: Is there an effort to keep people from getting hooked on pain-pills gone too far?

I asked Walmart to refill a pain pill prescription, but they said I’d have to get another request by the doctor. When he gave it, they requested I.D before they’d give it to me.

Instructions said to take one pill every 6 hours. (That’d be 4 pills a day, but the number of pills was 10. (That wouldn’t even last 3 days.)

Right now, I’m waiting to get sleepy enough and for Tylenol to work to not feel pain so I can go to sleep.

Scott Shaver said...

Your choice to "terrified".

Scott Shaver said...

Pretty much what we can expect with gain of function virology, huh Christianne?

Engineered virus with a supercharged ability to morph into variant strains, impervious at some point to innoculation?

Scott Shaver said...

Good Response RB.

Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said...

This Sarah implicitly believes that the Obama 60th birthday bash, BLM riots, and the Southern Border have a magic shield that prevents Rona virus transmission, while church events and conservative rallies are super-spreader events where the participants deserve to be jailed. The inconsistency, arbitrariness, and hypocrisy of political diktats has done more to cause distrust than anything anti-vaxers have said, and I speak as a strong pro-vaxer.

Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said...

“a doctor who successfully treats 6,000 Covid-19 patients with ZERO deaths…”

That is an overstatement. Even Zelenko's own paper didn't say that. It said that 2.8% of the treated patients were hospitalized and 0.7% died. This is hundreds of times greater than the hospitalization and death rates reported, let alone proved, from the vaccine. We also have no information about the control group in that study.

Scott Shaver said...

👍 Thanks Jonathan.

Unknown said...

Well , my name is Sarah too . My name is Sarah Elizabeth Anderson . We have never met but I am named for your Great Grandmother . My Dad loved her very much and spoke of her often. By now, I think you may have figured out that I’m a distant cousin.. Sally is a nickname for Sarah so I might have to take that nickname on so not to confuse anyone . More than anything , I am writing because the wind has been taken out of my sails and I had to defend the name Sarah today :) I just wanted you to know that I am not the Sarah that you wrote about .I am almost positive you would find me a lot more vexing. Lol

Yours Truly ,
Sarah Elizabeth Anderson

Unknown said...

I’d like to share something with you . No shade intended .

I Refuse to Participate in Worship that Leads to Devastation https://sojo.net/articles/i-refuse-participate-worship-leads-devastation via @Sojourners