Mask confronters

Of course all shops and restaurants have a duty to keep their customers informed and to not sell them faulty goods (or give them food poisoning), but it is not their responsibility to figuratively hold our hands and tell us which things are safe for us to buy, that's our decision. Regulatory groups like the Trading Standards Authority are supposed to make sure these businesses stay within the law and do not falsely advertise, although not always with complete success. We may not like it too much, but the overriding purpose of any business (especially small business) is to make a profit and stay afloat, they don't have the resources or motivation to police our health choices. It is up to us as consumers to make the choices that will influence how much sugary or fatty foods are displayed on the shelves. If a business acquires a bad reputation for selling junk to it's customers, then vote with your feet and find somewhere healthier to shop (online if necessary) if you disapprove of it. If enough people do this then the shop would either have to change it's ways or sell up, which then limits the availability of unhealthy food. Sometimes a part of making this choice is to pay more money for the healthy option, if you can afford it. Under the rules of free market economics if more people decide to make this choice then it will become more cost effective for shops to to take this direction, the stocks will increase and the prices should start to fall over time. Obviously this is a difficult decision for families to make but it shows that we as the customer always have the power to influence what is sold to us. This is far preferrable to the pointless sugar tax approach in recent years which has had negligible impact on national obesity levels. In fact, the pandemic hysteria will probably have a far greater impact on people's lifestyle choices in the long term than any sugar tax. Even if sugary food and drink is not being sold in many supermarket chains, people will still find ways to purchase it, or something similar, in other outlets. In many cases we are talking about an addiction, if you try to ban something it becomes a guilty pleasure and therefore you cannot change this mentality with a draconian tax. I think there is a similarity with the mask mandate, in that offline retail shopping has declined by 2 million people in the last month. These mandates and taxes DO NOT work in the long term! There's a reason why people who choose to get healthier stay healthy as opposed to people who feel coerced in to making that decision and in time begin to resent it, the person who made the choice for themselves feels proud of their accomplishment and experiences greater self esteem and the enthusiasm to progress. That's why if there is to be any government health intervention i would prefer it to be literally the carrot instead of the stick. They could choose to subsidize fruit and veg growing farmers so that supermarket prices are dramatically reduced, encouraging low income families to eat healthy low cost meals (especially during a bad recession) and possibly saving money on healthcare costs and recouping some of the subsidy money. If you give people the agency to make positive decisions for themselves you will see much better longer, lasting change than coercion and limiting their choices.

Mark, you make a very good point about the population now looking for "surrogate parents" .

I'd noticed it slightly with a general over reliance on the health system, particularly GP's A&E for every little cough, cold or scratch, almost as if people wanted medical reassurance in a way previous generations did not.

But since March 23rd 2020 , I've been truly shocked at how totally trusting of the government and MSM the majority of people across the world have been and the low level of critical thinking or ability to debate or consider another view.

I've since realised that this baby boomer had taken her eyes off of the education system, MSM and general programming through the dumbing down of society in general and it's overall affect.

But your comment makes me question what's changed to create this level of insecurity and needing 'big mutha' to look after us through the actions of 'big brother".

It is truly an interesting social phenomenon?

Obviously a major cause of this disturbing new phenomenon is the rise of social media and the subsequent dumbing down of mainstream media to cater for people on social media. I think the reason this has intensified since the onset of lockdown is that instead of tweeting for 3hrs a day, the average Twitter/Facebook user has probably doubled their social media use, adding to the unhealthy groupthink mentality. It’s also worth bearing in mind that recent generations have lost perspective because modern society has become so sanitised and risk averse due to nanny statist health and safety regulations. We simply don’t realise it can be possible to function with a calmer, more relaxed attitude to peril (ie. the 1968/69 Hong Kong flu, or even the long hot dry summer of 1976) because the media want to label every outbreak as a new armageddon. This hysteria first arose with the ridiculous weekly clap for the NHS, it was almost as if people were worshipping their new pagan NHS god which was going to save them from all harm and which could never be questioned. The low point of this movement was the stupid gathering on London Bridge to pay tribute to the likes of Simon Stevens and Chris Whitty, with the terrible MET police joining in as well. This happened in the middle of lockdown when friends were not permitted to meet socially, nurses who recorded the ridiculous spectacle were appalled at what they were witnessing. If you study the footage it’s noticeable quite a few people are looking around during the clapping, searching for the approval of their virtue-signalling group.

Fast forward to today, and that collectivist cheerleading has morphed into irrational fear and hatred towards non-group members. Witness the absurd spectacle of the blue bearded man in the tube station storming across to a much smaller maskless woman to bully her and accuse her of putting HIS life at risk! That’s the monster that’s been created in recent months, the unthinking sheep mentality that we have to constantly fight against. A section of the public who have been brainwashed to reject scepticism and obey everything they are told by their ‘protective’ group. All this while the overall death rate has been consistently below the 5 year national average for the past 2 months!