13 Comments

Thank you for another fine article on the absurdity of all of this. I have stopped paying attention to politicians, the media, Covid restrictions, mask-wearing fools....I have fewer friends, less money but more meaningful relationships. I am also grateful that this plandemic has made me realize that politicians are useless, teachers giving online lessons in a classroom by themselves cannot be trusted, mask-wearing fools are fools and can't be trusted, guys who pull up their masks after finishing a cigarette have no rights to leave the house. I hope they go though with the nonsense. I will file a class-action lawsuit. It will probably be a one-man class-action lawsuit because most people are poltroons.

Expand full comment

As I keep pointing out, a law is only effective if it is respected and can be enforced.

Any govt action is only illegal when it is declared by a court and the govt respects the court's decision.

Expand full comment

I'd be happy if ordinary people just stop masking outside. It's so incredibly stupid and useless, I can't believe most people still do it. Do they not know that masking outside is entirely pointless? Or are they just all posturing to be "responsible"? Anyway, once people generally stop masking outside, I'll start having hope that dropping masking indoors will follow

Expand full comment

I don’t think that is going to happen. Even the misbehaving kids will not take their masks off.

Expand full comment

I'm optimistic. I had a student who didnt wear a mask in school even 2 years ago! The teachers were told they couldn't pressure him because they don't know and have to respect his family's situation. Some of the boys tried to but it didn't work. I think they may have ostracized him after that, but he didn't seem to care probably because he was going to enter a different HS. Anyway, there's hope yet! And a coworker lamented that her mother refused to wear a mask inside shops after her vaccination. Brave Japanese do exist

Expand full comment

Yes they do. I see more now than I did 2 years ago but they are still less than 1% of those I encounter. 2 years ago, no one said anything to me about not wearing a mask. Well, not true. My wife and kid did, but no one else. Then suddenly, 18 months into the madness, administrators burst into my classroom demanding that I wear a mask. I didn’t so the brought in a plexiglass panel mounted on a wooden frame like the portable partitions seen in historical homes and castles in Japan. I am no longer employed there…nor at most of the places I taught before the panic.

Brave Japanese exist during the war years. Sadly I fear today’s brave Japanese will fare little better. I hope I am wrong.

Expand full comment

In order to be granted asylum, an individual is required to provide evidence demonstrating either that they have suffered persecution on account of a protected ground in the past, and/or that they have a “well-founded fear” of future persecution in their home country.

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/asylum-united-states

Expand full comment

That is what the law says, but if you walk across the boarder and say the prescribed phrase, they let you in.

Expand full comment

Over Here, we notice those d****d tests again...

Expand full comment

It could be relevant to Japan's circumstance that this week, when the U.S. Senate debated the resolution that would end the national covid emergency, the senator who defended keeping the emergency cited the threat from "viruses[!]"

Here's the quote and link; it was Sen. Ron Wyden: "Congress ought to be looking here to support medical workers, protect our healthcare system from becoming totally overwhelmed by viruses."

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-168/issue-176/senate-section/article/S6682-4

Expand full comment

Hmmm. Does Senator Wyden know something we don’t?

Expand full comment

I would also like to add that I think it's time for anyone with a brain to apply for political asylum in the United States. Not every sate is the same, so I would recommend Florida, Texas, South Dakota, or Tennessee. We are all in danger in Japan. Our livelihoods are being threatened by hypochondriacs. If we have less money, it makes it difficult for us to eat. That puts us in danger. This is one of the criteria to be considered for political asylum. Who needs help with this? It would certainly be embarrassing for the people "in charge" if a large number of citizens of a developed (psychologically, not so much) country applied for political asylum. Can I get 40,000? I know about 5 people who would do so. Embarrassment is really effective.

Expand full comment

Where on the planet is there a government that cares a damn for the law when it restricts what they can do or dictates what they must do?

Expand full comment