Who gives us our freedoms? The Founders declared our rights as “inalienable,” which means the government can’t take them away. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

iTunesStitcherSpotifyTuneInGoogle Podcasts

Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Emma: Hi, Brittany.

Brittany: Hi, Emma.

Emma: So we record these episodes a little bit in advance, but something very major happened this week. So we’re gonna go ahead and bump this podcast up so you guys hear it a little sooner. And the big event that I wanna talk about is that the mask mandate was struck down in court, in federal court, which was great news. Very awesome. Funny enough, my dad was actually on a flight from Tennessee to Seattle when it happened and he had wifi on his computer. And I get this email in all caps and he’s like, the mask mandate was just struck down. Everyone took off their masks and was cheering and the stewardess was clapping and it was this huge happy thing.

Brittany: That’s so cool. I wish you would’ve gotten that on video.

Emma: I know, and I’ve seen, I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the other videos that have been going around of like people on planes when it happened, but I haven’t.

Brittany: I should look those up.

Emma: They are awesome. Maybe I’ll link to one here in the show notes so you guys can watch if you’d like, but they’re, people who have just been overjoyed at the response to this. And, you know, one thing that I keep hearing over and over from people is, oh, we got our freedom back. We got our, you know, our freedom to not wear these masks back, and thank God the government finally did this. And you know, on one hand I, do agree, I’m super relieved that it’s over. Cause I’m, I was so sick of traveling and having to wear a mask or, you know, not wear one and deal with people saying rude things to me and whatever. Like, I’m not trying to get banned from an airline, so I will.

Brittany: Exactly.

Emma: Actually get on the plane, but.

Brittany: Cost-benefit analysis on that one.

Emma: Right? Yeah, exactly. And you know, it’s been such an ordeal and it’s really made traveling pretty miserable to have to do that. And like, my skin doesn’t like it and it’s this whole thing. It’s hard to breathe And, you know, I really feel for people with young kids who, how do you explain to a child that they have to keep this thing on their face or like, you’re gonna get kicked off the flight. That’s not easy to deal with. And I feel for all you parents who have dealt with that over the last couple of years, but kind of back to my point here, a lot of people have been like, oh, thank God the government did this. This is so great. But the thing that kind of bothers me about looking at it that way is that you know, if something can be just taken away randomly by the government and then like given back randomly by the government, it’s not really something that the government considers freedom for you or civil liberty. And we’ve talked quite a bit about natural rights on this show and what those are. And natural rights were a very, very important idea to the founders and the framers of this country who basically said, you know, which this was super revolutionary at the time because no other country in the world was really embracing this idea. But they said people are born with natural rights to be free, to have property, to not be forced to do things they don’t wanna do by other people. And you know, the government doesn’t give them that. Right? It just recognizes it. You have those rights just because you’re born and you know they’re given to you by your creator and not by just some random government bureaucrat who decides to be nice. So it’s been kind of interesting to me to see people’s responses here. And kind of an interesting one that I was talking about the other day. It was actually the day after the mask mandate ended. I was talking with a friend of mine who is from Britain and he had just gone over and he said that the UK had lifted all of their, basically every COVID restriction about three weeks prior he was there and he said it was night and day difference. Nobody was wearing masks, no one was like social distancing. And he’s like, it felt completely normal. But a year prior he was back there and he had to take COVID tests every two days. They assigned everyone like their own government person to check in and make sure they were quarantining. And it was this nightmare. Oh wow. And I was like, well how do they go in such a 180 one way or the other with, you know, everyone just kind of going along with the rules, like in America you kind of have people arguing over it and it’s like this whole thing. And he goes well over there, everyone just kind of blindly trusts what the government does. Like they don’t have a sense of, you know, this is my personal right and the government can’t tell me what to do. Which was super interesting to me because he said that’s kind of how it is across Europe. You know, like once the government ended the lockdowns, people were back out and about and they weren’t thinking about COVID. And it was really fascinating cuz he said people kind of just blindly trust the government and that they don’t really question it. Whereas in America, you know, if you have the government say, don’t wear masks, or you know, we’re coming out with a vaccine and it’s a Republican in office, then everyone’s gonna have a certain response. And then it’s like, there’s all these little qualifiers. And I actually really like that in America. We are freedom minded like that and we’re able to disagree with each other and that we can be critical of the government and that’s just sort of a part of who we are. But I do, I do have an issue with, you know, everyone saying, oh, well, you know, your personal freedom is not as important as protecting other people. And that’s a big one that I kept hearing with vaccines and masks and stuff throughout this pandemic. And I really hope that that’s not forgotten as COVID kind of finally winds down for, you know, at least in the government’s eyes. But it’s concerning to me that so many people were like, well, personal freedom’s no big deal. You know, it’s, it’s not such a big deal. We need to protect people and be safe because that is truly one of the most important things that we have in this country. It’s what makes America unique. It’s what’s made it, you know, such an amazing place to live in such a short amount of time. So, Brittany, I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that or if you noticed people sort of, sort of being wishy-washy on personal freedoms, but it’s scary to me to have seen so much of that.

Brittany: And how quickly it happened, I think is the scariest thing. I think what we’ve always known that there are status, as we call ’em, there are people who love to listen to the government. But it was so scary to me how quickly we all gave up our freedoms. not all of us obviously. And how much it became almost a cult, like a weird, you know, a group that worships the government Yes. That really wanted you to put your mask on. And it’s almost like they just wanted something to yell at you about it. It really felt that way. like people were going out of their way. The funny thing is, and I guess I should knock on wood, but it seems to be over now, I never got yelled at for not wearing a mask cuz I never wore one, until Virginia said you had to, which was only like a couple months. I never did. And I go to Whole Foods a lot, which is filled with people that really like masks. Oh yes. But I think it’s because I have really big headphones and I would just put my headphones on and stare at the ground and look angry and no one ever said anything to me. I think that was my defense mechanism. But, so it was crazy to me how quickly it became, you’re a bad person if you don’t do this and this. And it’s, I have this cousin who’s always nuts anyway, but I, watched, I watched her just lose her mind even more about, you know, you’re killing people if you don’t wear a mask and blah blah blah. And you know, who cares about your personal freedom? Like you mentioned, like, you know, you’re killing grandma and grandpa and all this stuff, but I mean, forget for a minute that we don’t really, the statistics of deaths were way overblown, to begin with, but it was just so crazy how it became what we call virtue signaling. You know, if I’m a good person Yeah. Cause I’m doing this. And even now, some scary things are happening. One, the government, the federal government is actually trying to get the mask mandate put back, of course. Which not surprised. And part of it that they’ve said is literally that they’re scared they won’t have the power to do something like this in the future, which should scare everybody.

Emma: Oh, terrifying.

Brittany: And the people who are angry about it. And it’s almost like they really don’t want the pandemic to come to an end. It’s crazy to me that I think some people enjoy being scared, to be honest with you. And it took us, I’m honestly shocked. And again, they’re trying to appeal it, so who knows, I’m shocked we even got this back in the first place because the government doesn’t like to give up their power. And we’re seeing that right now with them trying to take, you know, to go to court and say, no, we need to put the mask mandate back because if this mask mandate gets, repealed for good, that’s basically us saying, no, we’re taking back our power. And the government does not like that. They don’t like to give back our power. And this was a really scary and great exercise in how quickly and how abusive they will take it away right? And yeah, they don’t wanna give it back. Yeah. Look at the TSA, you know, kids, our listeners today will never know what it’s like to fly before the TSA and all the security lines and everything. It was very easy. It wasn’t, the airport wasn’t as unpleasant of an experience, but, you know, we don’t get these things back. And so that’s why it’s so important that even in times of great crisis of great terrible things that we remember, like, no, hold on to these freedoms because we’re not ever, you know, there’s a good chance we’ll never see them again.

Emma: Yeah. A way better chance of not seeing them again than of getting them back, which is Yeah. That’s, exactly why I’m so nervous. But the TSA thing brings up a good point. I actually saw this hilarious tweet the other day. It was like, it was one of those things where someone was trying to say one thing and then they completely make the opposite point on accident. And it was this kind of like lefty, you know, COVID, very COVID-scared person. And they were like, well, if we don’t have to wear masks on airplanes anymore, I guess we can stop taking off our shoes to go through TSA and I cracked that, but yes.

Brittany: Let’s do it.

Emma: I’m like, yeah, great point. Like one is, you know, COVID theater, health Theater where it’s all pretending that these things are helping keep us safe when we know that they’re not. And there’s all sorts of studies to prove that they’re not. And then on the other hand, you know, you’ve got this security theater and this war on terrorism theater where it’s like, yeah, you have to take your shoes off to go through t s a because you know, we’re scared that you’re a terrorist or something. And I don’t think they’ve really ever stopped. I for, you know, correct me if I’m wrong here, but there’s been almost no evidence of any increase in safety on planes from having TSA scanning. So it’s pretty absurd. But it’s, it honestly, like, it’s such a good example where it’s like, yeah, we do things all the time that make us feel safer or that make us feel better, but in reality, they’re just little ways that our freedom is violated by the government and that they basically take this power for a quote-unquote temporary safety thing and then they keep it forever even though it’s not actually helping us because, you know, it’s convenient for them. And because, let’s be honest, you know, the more power the government has over us, the easier we’re to control and the more of our money they can take away and the more we don’t care when they walk all over us and, and take away our rights. So it’s, you know, people might think that that sounds a little bit crazy to say, or a little tinfoil hatty as we like to say, a little bit like a crazy conspiracy theorist. But it’s true because the more the government is able to get away with those things, you know, the closer we become to a place like China where they forced people to stay in their homes and locked them in during the pandemic and like Canada stopped letting people go grocery shop if they weren’t vaccinated and they would have to be babysat by this government employee who would say, who would make sure they were only buying groceries. You know, it’s like these are scary things that are happening. And kind of my last point that I would make to you guys would be, you know, to keep our country free and strong and prosperous, we have got to understand that our freedom does not come from the government. And it is not given to us by any human being. It’s something that we are born with. And the government’s job is to recognize it. The founders and the framers worked really hard to put limits on government so that they couldn’t walk all over us and take away our freedoms. But that only works as long as we are informed about what our rights are, informed about where they come from, and hold people accountable. And I know that’s easier said than done because it’s hard to hold politicians accountable these days. But the number one thing that we can do, at least to start with is to just be aware of what those rights are and how important they are and to make a serious fuss when people try to take them away. So that’s kind of my closing thought here. We will wrap it up today guys. And thank you so much for listening and we’ll talk to you all again soon.

Brittany: Talk to you soon.