Sunday, July 18, 2021

Bill Crawford: Saying No to Masks Depicts Individual Unrestrained Rapacity

Freedom is a big thing these days. For conservatives it’s often about freedom from government – taxation, regulation, gun control – and from liberal mania. For liberals it’s often about freedom from the rich and powerful – low wages, discrimination, incarceration – and from conservative oppression.

Ironically, both sides say they simply want the same thing, those freedoms our forefathers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and sought to institutionalize in the U.S. Constitution – “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

But each side sees those things through different lenses. And each side wants what it wants now and to hades with the other side. This chasm between the two sides subverts the founders’ goals.

Former Attorney General William Barr, bless his heart, accurately described a root of this dilemma in remarks delivered at Notre Dame in 2019.

“The challenge we face is precisely what the Founding Fathers foresaw would be our supreme test as a free society. They never thought the main danger to the republic came from external foes. The central question was whether, over the long haul, we could handle freedom. The question was whether the citizens in such a free society could maintain the moral discipline and virtue necessary for the survival of free institutions.”

“Men are subject to powerful passions and appetites, and, if unrestrained, are capable of ruthlessly riding roughshod over their neighbors and the community at large. No society can exist without some means for restraining individual rapacity.”

Hmmm.

How to restrain “individual rapacity” in a free society?

Steve Forbes published an interesting perspective of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Hoover Institution’s Policy Review in 1997.

“The order of these rights – first life, then freedom, and then the equal opportunity to pursue one’s own happiness – was written with great care and precision, not haphazardly. The Founders understood the need to balance man’s right to be free with man’s responsibility to be honest, just, and fair. For example, if it makes you happy to shoot and kill someone while you rob a bank – well, the law says you’re out of luck. A person’s right to live supersedes your ‘freedom’ to steal and murder. This may seem obvious, but it is profound.

“Switch the order of these fundamental human rights – putting happiness before liberty, or liberty before life – and you end up with moral chaos and social anarchy.”

In other words, your pursuit of happiness should not infringe upon another’s liberty. Nor, should your liberty infringe upon another’s life.

Life first, then.

Hmmm.

Conservatives argue such to decry abortion. Liberals argue such to decry the death penalty. Otherwise, concern for life seems to get the back seat behind liberty and pursuit of happiness.

The current yaya over wearing masks depicts this. As the Delta variant to COVID-19 surges and state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs calls for wearing masks, unrestrained “individual rapacity” for liberty and lifestyle (hell no to masks) poses great risks to the lives of others.

Such goes life today with so many on both sides contributing to the moral chaos and social anarchy infecting America.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” – Philippians 2:3.

Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.

 

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen! Well reasoned.

Anonymous said...

Get vaccinated, masks go away. Life is preserved.

Anonymous said...

Bill Crawford is so full of __it!

The richest and most powerful people in America (Bezos, Buffet, Gates, the Google boys, Kennedy’s et al) vote Democrat and he knows it.

I’m for wearing masks and I’m especially for private property and business owners having the right to require masks and refuse service to those that won’t. But this opinion does nothing at all to make Bill Crawford any less full of sh__!

KF, there’s nothing racist in this post and to make sure you have no excuse there’s no bad language (even though you allow it regularly) and we all know Crawford is your bud - but if you censor this post like have many of the others that countered his falsehoods, then you’re no better than he is.

Anonymous said...

If the masks most wear actually reduced infection from airborne illnesses, this post would make a good point. Since they don't, however, my liberty to go in public without a mask has no impact on your life.

Anonymous said...

There are too many experts.

Anonymous said...

KF, I'm embarrassed that you would post this level of drivel.

Anonymous said...


July 18, 2021 at 12:37 PM; all due respect, but i'm calling bullshit on this one. LA county doesn't care and is requiring masks when indoors, vaccinated or not. vaccinations are not going to make the masks go away, because now we have the new delta variant, late this year or next year there may be another variant. this variant, that variant, this strain, that strain. and on and on and on..... just like the flu, except this one was created by man, and somehow got out.

Anonymous said...

Never wore a mask and not going to get the jab. You terrified bleeding heard libs can all go to hell. I am a free man.

Anonymous said...

@5:42

There for a second I thought health care decisions were merely health care decisions. Now I understand. Quitting smoking got me started on the road to the world-wide communist conspiracy. Then I gave up dipping. By and by I got my BMI down a bit. I was veering farther and farther to the left. Before long I sold my Harley. I'd become a leftist and I didn't even know it. Then, like a fool, I listened to Faucci and wore a mask. The next step was getting the bad bad shot. Now I'm a "bleeding heard lib" and I didn't even know it. ("bleeding heard" is even worse than bleeding heart)

Now I understand. The "vaccine" really contained a microchip that migrated to my brain and falsely convinced me that my rebel flag tattoo is embarrassing. How I long for the days of strutting around the Walmart parking lot with my "black rifle" and red cap.

Please sir, just this once, may I feel your muscle? Oh, big strong free man. Puleeze!

Anonymous said...

Drink your carrot juice and hush.

Anonymous said...

I don't mind wearing a mask when I go to the doctor.
I also don't mind choosing not to shop in a private business that requires them.

I got the shot.
I am not mad at the folks who didn't.

Because "I" am only in charge of me.

The rest of you can do as you please, and it wont anger me.
I highly recommend the rage-filled Karens on both sides give this way of life a try.

Anonymous said...

July 17, 2021, The Telegraph, Dr. Colin Axon, UK SAGE advisor opines...masks are a 'comfort blanket' that do little to curb COVID spread. (They do work well for a mass occult initiation into the New Age. Like U.N.'s David Spangler informs us "No one will enter the New Age without making a pledge to worhip Lucifer...no one will enter the New Age without taking a Luciferic initiation")

Anonymous said...

let me be very clear people.

Cloth masks, bandanas, etc are WORTHLESS. OK?

N95 masks or better actually do something.

So it's interesting and sad to me to see everyone clamoring on about whether to use a surgical mask or not.

If you want to protect yourself then get vaccinated. If you don't feel that's for you then wear a N95 mask in appropriate settings ( not while driving alone in your car !).

BUT PLEASE NOTE THAT A CLOTH MASK OFFERS YOU NEXT TO ZERO PROTECTION.
It's a virtue signaling marker only.

(Yes I'm a practicing medical doctor)

Anonymous said...

"BUT PLEASE NOTE THAT A CLOTH MASK OFFERS YOU NEXT TO ZERO PROTECTION.
It's a virtue signaling marker only.

(Yes I'm a practicing medical doctor)"

I guess this is why it's called "practicing," at least for some.

While it is true that testing shows that "bandanas" do little and the "balaclava"/"neck gaiter"/"face covering" things may actually be worse than nothing, "surgical"-type masks, either actual factory-made masks or homemade of appropriate materials, do help stop the transmission of COVID. While it is true that "surgical" masks are primarily to keep the wearer from contaminating others (in a surgical environment, the patient - that's why team members wear them, not the patient), that does help stop transmission of COVID. But even with that, such masks do offer some degree of protection to the wearer as well. As a side note, if the wearer does not know how to put on and take off a mask, that can reduce the protection for the wearer if a contaminated mask is improperly doffed, but that mask still protected those in proximity to a masked, infected person. This isn't new information.

To the "practicing medical doctor" and everyone else: ask yourself this - if surgical masks were nothing more than virtue signalling markers, why has the entirety of surgical staff (the surgeon(s) and support team in an operating room) been wearing them for decades? The one thing the practicing doctor is correct about is that non-valved "N95" masks are more effective protection for both the wearer and those nearby - BUT - that does not translate into "surgical" masks being ineffective in preventing the spread of COVID.

That said, the nonsensical effectiveness question probably won't matter because at the current infection and hospitalization rate climb due the foolish refusal of so many to get vaccinated, which will - WILL, not "may" - lead to mutations further away from the "original" COVID, Delta, etc., mask mandates and worse will likely be necessary again. Whether or not governmental mandates are reissued, many businesses and especially large companies that cater to the public (Walmart, Target, etc.) will likely restart masks for all patrons. If there is another wave anything like the last, it wouldn't surprise me to see even more stringent federal action.


Anonymous said...

@4:48.....The founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum writes "the Great Reset will result in the fusion of your physical, digital and biological identities....change the definition of what it means to be human". Maybe check out these largely DARPA/Gates funded corporations...Profusa, Inc, Galvani Bioelectronics, Frequency Therapeutics...Im sure your already familiar with Neuralink. Also, it isnt necessary to put a "chip" into you....DARPA contracted with Profusa to create syringe-injectible "hydrogel" and mRNA technology can program you to produce, at the cellular level, a "magneto protein" which has already been successfully used to "control behavior"....or you can scoff and giggle and all that fun stuff. It's up to you.

Anonymous said...

@10:56

Thank goodness somebody has come up with a way to control my behavior. I've been trying for 76 years and some few months. With very poor results.

Until then, I'm scoffing and giggling -- which is more than the six or so dead sure-enough COVID victims I knew close enough to call "friends" can do. I say "or so," b/c I don't really know if it was the dread COVID or something else that actually killed them. Their families believe their diagnoses. COVID. I'm old and I'm miserable most of the time. But sometimes I get to do tricks for my grandkids or write smartass commentary on the internet and for right now beats being dead.

As for Bill Gates. I admit he's plenty creepy and if he actually serviced Melinda he ought to have to register as a sex offender. And he's rich. But he ain't that smart.

Anonymous said...

Just released ..............60 % of THE VARIANT sufferers are vaxxed !! This thing is a damn placebo at best.........meat tenderizer for Aliens at worst.

Anonymous said...

Someone on this particular comment board has broken my bullshit meter. Would the offending poster please step forward?

Anonymous said...

I can say this from direct personal knowledge, but it isn't anything secret or special in the least because lots and lots (hundreds at least, thousands more than likely) of other people can tell you the same exact thing:

Bill Gates does not have any way - ANY way - to control behavior, his own or anyone else's. Not even in public. I have zero doubt that he wishes desperately that he did and when Melinda gets through with his soon-to-be-formerly-top-5-richest ass, he will certainly greatly regret that he didn't find a way, but nope. As exhibit #2 - Steve Ballmer. QED, EOD, period, full-stop.

Anonymous said...

"Someone on this particular comment board has broken my bullshit meter."

Stop buying your measuring devices from the clearance section at Harbor Freight. Or get offline.

Anonymous said...

Ton of MS folks went to Omaha, didn’t wear a mask the entire time and I personally don’t know a soul who got COVID afterwards. Maybe baseball fans are statistically unaffected???

Anonymous said...

I appreciate you stepping forward. I have an enormous amount of respect for people with integrity.

No, this was not one of those cheap foreign made meters. This was a genuine USDA approved made in the USA, meter. It was broken in by someone reading from the New York Times. It was tuned by the sound of Dan Rather giving overseas news reports from the early 60s. I tell you, this meter had been tested to the max. It was set before a recorded loop of Bill Clinton denying having sex with Monica Lewinsky, and it never faltered. I am sad to say it met its match on this board. I have a sad.

Anonymous said...

It is being reported that a particular person has come out in support of being vaccinated. Granted, most folks down around these parts think she is a suspected Chinese agent, well-known Commie radical (who probably slept with Bill Gates), and voted for Bernie, Hillary, and Biden at least four times in each election. Southerners in general have been suspicious of her for years and wouldn't go anywhere near any of business ventures, which they suspect are nothing more than Cuban-Russian commie socialist indoctrination centers built and secretly owned by the Chinese (or some cabal of pedophiles). Her name? Well, let's the radicals at the NYT give an opinion:

www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/opinion/tennessee-dolly-parton-covid-vaccine.html

OK, look, if someone with THAT lung capacity is at least worried enough to get vaccinated, shouldn't you guys sporting double and triple Ds under the fishin' shirts at least consider it?

Anonymous said...

"It was broken in by someone reading from the New York Times."

Uh-oh. If the Kingster vets my latest earnest submission, this won't end well...

Confused us said...

It will end the same way everything else does. When all is said and done, all will be said and done.

Anonymous said...

China just told the world they're all set to nuke Japan into oblivion for even looking the wrong way. Their C19 attack worked as a test attack to see how weak/strong world populations are. Now they know for sure - with far too many American men pretty much being a bunch of Nancys and Marys today, China will rule the planet in short order.

Viruses are old news, especially ones with a 98.9% chance of surviving....so if you're afraid of getting sick, then you shouldn't go outside ever again.

Anonymous said...

Facci told Rand Paul today, that he didn’t know what he was talking about. The same can be said for most of the anti Vaxers posting here. Hell even Sean said it, get the shot and you live.

Anonymous said...

And Paul read the evidence to Fauci, which only continued to prove Fauci is a lying bureaucrat.

Anonymous said...

"conservative oppression" is a new one for me. Mind clarifying that one a bit?

Anonymous said...

Wearing TWO cloth masks is like building TWO chain link fences to keep the mosquitoes out of your yard.

Understand the cloth mask thing now?



Recent Comments

Search Jackson Jambalaya

Subscribe to JJ's Youtube channel

Archives

Trollfest '09

Trollfest '07 was such a success that Jackson Jambalaya will once again host Trollfest '09. Catch this great event which will leave NE Jackson & Fondren in flames. Othor Cain and his band, The Black Power Structure headline the night while Sonjay Poontang returns for an encore performance. Former Frank Melton bodyguard Marcus Wright makes his premier appearance at Trollfest singing "I'm a Sweet Transvestite" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Kamikaze will sing his new hit, “How I sold out to da Man.” Robbie Bell again performs: “Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Bells” and “Any friend of Ed Peters is a friend of mine”. After the show, Ms. Bell will autograph copies of her mug shot photos. In a salute to “Dancing with the Stars”, Ms. Bell and Hinds County District Attorney Robert Smith will dance the Wango Tango.

Wrestling returns, except this time it will be a Battle Royal with Othor Cain, Ben Allen, Kim Wade, Haley Fisackerly, Alan Lange, and “Big Cat” Donna Ladd all in the ring at the same time. The Battle Royal will be in a steel cage, no time limit, no referee, and the losers must leave town. Marshand Crisler will be the honorary referee (as it gives him a title without actually having to do anything).


Meet KIM Waaaaaade at the Entergy Tent. For five pesos, Kim will sell you a chance to win a deed to a crack house on Ridgeway Street stuffed in the Howard Industries pinata. Don't worry if the pinata is beaten to shreds, as Mr. Wade has Jose, Emmanuel, and Carlos, all illegal immigrants, available as replacements for the it. Upon leaving the Entergy tent, fig leaves will be available in case Entergy literally takes everything you have as part of its Trollfest ticket price adjustment charge.

Donna Ladd of The Jackson Free Press will give several classes on learning how to write. Smearing, writing without factchecking, and reporting only one side of a story will be covered. A donation to pay their taxes will be accepted and she will be signing copies of their former federal tax liens. Ms. Ladd will give a dramatic reading of her two award-winning essays (They received The Jackson Free Press "Best Of" awards.) "Why everything is always about me" and "Why I cover murders better than anyone else in Jackson".

In the spirit of helping those who are less fortunate, Trollfest '09 adopts a cause for which a portion of the proceeds and donations will be donated: Keeping Frank Melton in his home. The “Keep Frank Melton From Being Homeless” booth will sell chances for five dollars to pin the tail on the jackass. John Reeves has graciously volunteered to be the jackass for this honorable excursion into saving Frank's ass. What's an ass between two friends after all? If Mr. Reeves is unable to um, perform, Speaker Billy McCoy has also volunteered as when the word “jackass” was mentioned he immediately ran as fast as he could to sign up.


In order to help clean up the legal profession, Adam Kilgore of the Mississippi Bar will be giving away free, round-trip plane tickets to the North Pole where they keep their bar complaint forms (which are NOT available online). If you don't want to go to the North Pole, you can enjoy Brant Brantley's (of the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance) free guided tours of the quicksand field over by High Street where all complaints against judges disappear. If for some reason you are unable to control yourself, never fear; Judge Houston Patton will operate his jail where no lawyers are needed or allowed as you just sit there for minutes... hours.... months...years until he decides he is tired of you sitting in his jail. Do not think Judge Patton is a bad judge however as he plans to serve free Mad Dog 20/20 to all inmates.

Trollfest '09 is a pet-friendly event as well. Feel free to bring your dog with you and do not worry if your pet gets hungry, as employees of the Jackson Zoo will be on hand to provide some of their animals as food when it gets to be feeding time for your little loved one.

Relax at the Fox News Tent. Since there are only three blonde reporters in Jackson (being blonde is a requirement for working at Fox News), Megan and Kathryn from WAPT and Wendy from WLBT will be on loan to Fox. To gain admittance to the VIP section, bring either your Republican Party ID card or a Rebel Flag. Bringing both and a torn-up Obama yard sign will entitle you to free drinks served by Megan, Wendy, and Kathryn. Get your tickets now. Since this is an event for trolls, no ID is required. Just bring the hate. Bring the family, Trollfest '09 is for EVERYONE!!!

This is definitely a Beaver production.


Note: Security provided by INS.

Trollfest '07

Jackson Jambalaya is the home of Trollfest '07. Catch this great event which promises to leave NE Jackson & Fondren in flames. Sonjay Poontang and his band headline the night with a special steel cage, no time limit "loser must leave town" bout between Alan Lange and "Big Cat"Donna Ladd following afterwards. Kamikaze will perform his new song F*** Bush, he's still a _____. Did I mention there was no referee? Dr. Heddy Matthias and Lori Gregory will face off in the undercard dueling with dangling participles and other um, devices. Robbie Bell will perform Her two latest songs: My Best Friends are in the Media and Mama's, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be George Bell. Sid Salter of The Clarion-Ledger will host "Pin the Tail on the Trial Lawyer", sponsored by State Farm.

There will be a hugging booth where in exchange for your young son, Frank Melton will give you a loooong hug. Trollfest will have a dunking booth where Muhammed the terrorist will curse you to Allah as you try to hit a target that will drop him into a vat of pig grease. However, in the true spirit of Separate But Equal, Don Imus and someone from NE Jackson will also sit in the dunking booth for an equal amount of time. Tom Head will give a reading for two hours on why he can't figure out who the hell he is. Cliff Cargill will give lessons with his .80 caliber desert eagle, using Frank Melton photos as targets. Tackleberry will be on hand for an autograph session. KIM Waaaaaade will be passing out free titles and deeds to crackhouses formerly owned by The Wood Street Players.

If you get tired come relax at the Fox News Tent. To gain admittance to the VIP section, bring either your Republican Party ID card or a Rebel Flag. Bringing both will entitle you to free drinks.Get your tickets now. Since this is an event for trolls, no ID is required, just bring the hate. Bring the family, Trollfest '07 is for EVERYONE!!!

This is definitely a Beaver production.

Note: Security provided by INS
.