I quite like the vaccine passport, actually.
The residents of Centretown are subject to levels of noise that can only be described as torture. Sound/noise as a torture method is a documented thing. And the occupiers are using it now, as I type, on the citizens they are professing to be fighting for.
The authoritarian nature of the movement is something I will leave for now, except to say that those running the whole thing, with money from foreign interests, don't give a shit about the mandates. They're simply tapping into the selfishness and childishness of those who are bothered by them in order to acquire an unwitting force in numbers. This letter is instead aimed at those who feel they are protesting in good faith - that they are fighting for our freedom.
You do not speak for me.
I quite like the vaccine passport, actually.
Knowing that public places require such a thing ensures that I can go out and have a lovely meal and a few drinks with my friends, knowing that everyone there has been vaccinated, thereby mitigating as much as possible the risk of catching something I may unwittingly carry to high-risk loved ones, possibly being the cause of their untimely deaths or life-long incapacity is incredibly freeing. Being able to go to the cinema to catch a movie with a high-risk loved one, knowing that the risk to their health is as minimal as possible, frees me of fear and stress. It means I can go out with far fewer worries than I ordinarily would in a world where a single disease has killed 5.1 million people thus far (though likely much more, thanks to under-reporting), and crippled so many more.
What you're fighting for is the end to that comfort. What you're fighting for is the exact opposite of freedom for those of us who care about the health of the people around us.
And you do not speak for me.
Here's the thing, you are fighting for nothing. You are free. No one is forcing you to get vaccinated. There are no posses going door to door, holding you or your loved ones down and injecting them. That is not happening. You are free to choose not to get vaccinated. You are free to choose not to wear a mask. What you are not free from, however, are the consequences of those choices. That's what you're fighting for. You're fighting so that you, specifically, will be free of the consequences of your free choice.
I can understand why the concept of consequence is difficult for the majority of you to take. I don't blame you. I highly suspect that you've not come across it all that much, given how you've faced absolutely none for your illegal occupation and intimidation of Centretown. Your parents have failed you, alas. I lay the blame on their feet.
Your inability to grasp that consequence is not the same as oppression is a mark of the privilege you have enjoyed all your life. It has made you small, cowardly, selfish and soft. You cannot so much as bare to do the very minimum to protect the citizens of your own country. It's an inconvenience. And an inconvenience is too difficult. This is your problem, however, and yours alone.
You do not speak for me.
I fully believe that you have been manipulated by the powers that seek to destroy democracy. I've seen it in every thread online. I'm fighting for YOUR freedom. You have been told you are heroes. Freedom fighters against the unjust oppressions of a smug autocrat. My dear, you have been lied to. Stalking the streets with your comrades, you may feel mighty when you bellow at folks just trying to go about their day, feeling that nothing will happen to you should things turn sour. Mighty is surely how heroes must feel, no? But my dear, you are not a hero. You are an unwitting foot soldier, and as soon as your use is done, they will abandon you, as they have done so many others. You are being used in a larger, more nefarious plot. Your own fears and misguided hatreds are being used to manipulate you.
It is not my freedom you are fighting for. It is your own selfishness that you so violently seek to defend, to justify.
And you do not speak for me.
You do not speak for me.
You do not speak for me.
You.
Do.
Not.
Speak.
For.
Me.