Jay Inslee is killing me

Help! Help! My governor is a moron!

This has to stop. Actually, that's what I was originally going to call this post before Eric Clapton screwed up my plans by releasing a song with a similar title.

I'm admittedly going to let my anger skew this post. I'm seriously struggling with what's going on right now, and I need an outlet to vent.

There are two major oversights that Jay Inslee has made during this pandemic. The first has been to treat indefinite compliance as a long-term solution. The other has been to overlook the fact that even during a pandemic, there's more going on than a virus.

It was clear from the beginning that there would be serious consequences to Inslee's dictatorial behavior. He was taking away people's livelihoods and attacking mental health. His solution for saving lives was guaranteed to kill people. It's likely that more lives are being saved than lost, but there is a big difference between taking actions that harm others and failing to take action that can protect people. I never viewed killing people as an ethical approach to saving lives.

There was some good news for Inslee. The media has been on his side. They have downplayed the undeniable and predictable spikes in suicides, violence, and substance abuse. When they do acknowledge these things, they refuse to mention the role that the spike in oppression can play on mental health. Thanks to the media, people have become convinced that Inslee's policies are mere inconveniences. In reality, they can be lethal.

Inslee has a few other things working for him. This includes our schools. Government workers are training children to show obedience to authoritarian figures from an early age. Without this destructive process, there is no way that Inslee would still be our governor. There's no way that we would support someone who mocks those who are suffering under his policies. There is no way that we would support a man who insists that if we are struggling with oppression, we are killing grandma. Instead, we are blindly loyal to the Democrats. If Adolf Hitler ran as a Democrat, we would have no problems electing him.

While I'm at it, let me ask a few questions. Does anyone honestly believe that Jay Inslee wants this pandemic to end? Does anyone honestly believe that Inslee wants to lose his emergency powers?

This might be impacting me more than most people. I have been told my whole life that I have no right to be me. I have lived the bulk of my life as someone I hate out of fear for my survival. As much as people don't want to hear this, I have even referred to the supposed land of the free as a conform-or-die nation.

Despite my problems, we appear to be looking for ways to make our country more oppressive. One political party in particular has made numerous efforts to further restrict our lives. I'm definitely not a Republican. Even more so, I'm not a Democrat.

I have already written about the rights and freedoms that Democrats have tried to restrict, but there's one that I want to emphasize for this post. It goes back to the mini-outbreak of measles we had years ago. The outbreak was definitely newsworthy but overblown. There weren't many cases, and people weren't dying. Despite this, the state responded by eliminating the philosophical exemption for vaccinations.

The removal of the philosophical exemption was a big line to cross. It effectively meant that we were only allowed to have beliefs that are controlled by religion. It meant that the government could use the measles as an excuse to control our belief systems.

After my issues with exploitation of the measles as a means of control, do you know what I didn't want to hear? Inslee issued a proof of vaccination mandate, and there was no philosophical exemption. I get that a lot of people are against vaccines for ridiculous reasons, but this is still a big line to cross. Unilaterally rejecting all personal reasons because of misguided reasons is flawed. Similarly, there are serious consequences to allowing the government to control what beliefs you are allowed to have.

I want to make one thing clear. I am not anti-vax. I have been vaccinated. I want more people to get vaccinated. That said, I refuse to go as far as telling you that you must believe in the vaccine.

That's the problem. There's a big difference between wanting people to get the vaccine and forcing others to conform to my viewpoint. Would you rather live in a society where people get vaccinated because they understand that it's the right thing to do, or a society in which people do things only because they are being forced?

To make matters worse, we have changed the narrative regarding vaccines. The vaccine was supposed to be the solution. Now, they're talking about adding boosters to the indefinite compliance. Simply getting vaccinated is no longer enough. So what's going to finally end the pandemic? Unfortunately, we no longer have an answer to that question.

There are more things that I could say about the vaccine to clarify my viewpoints, but the mishandling of the vaccine is just a part of the problem. I will likely leave clarification to another day in which I can think a bit more rationally.

I have tried to be a good person. I have tried to comply with measures intended for safety. There was at least a light at the end of the tunnel that I could utilize for motivation.

You never know everything that's going to happen. It would be stupid of me to claim that surviving this pandemic was ever a certainty. The light at the end of the tunnel has been extinguished, and we have strengthened indefinite compliance. This pandemic is harder to handle today than any previous point of the pandemic.

I was warned that the vaccine could paralyze me. I never believed that narrative, but I have been paralyzed in a sense. Anxiety has been building, and I have reached the point where I am frequently unable to sit down and get any work done. This pandemic has taken a serious toll on me. For the first time, I have found myself seriously wondering if I can survive the pandemic. I'm not afraid of the virus. I'm afraid of the government. I don't know how much longer I can last.

There's no way that I'm alone on this issue. Jay Inslee is killing me. He's killing others as well. It's clear that his solutions to the pandemic haven't solved anything. Perhaps lives have been saved, but the life we are forced to live in exchange isn't worth living. This absolutely can't go on forever. As much as people don't want to hear this, I think that it's best to admit that what we're doing isn't working. It's best to end indefinite compliance.