masks are cobblers

Do You Trust the Government?
www.bitchute.com/video/33qWgnYWPr4D

The Truth about Facemasks:
www.bitchute.com/video/O6IpCkpdzR34

Wearing a mask is a bit of a tease
I'd rather be putting one on my knees
For all the good it'll do me and you
With help from above we will all make it through.

A mask on your knee would not stop a flea,
And one on your snout won't keep covid out.
Just pull up a snood when you go to buy food,
And your makeshift nappy will keep them all happy.

Covid, Class & the Decay of Cultural Confidence in the West:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GVP_Nxvjn0

Sorry, but I have no confidence in the opinions of a man with such awful dress sense (wearing an open-necked shirt with a formal suit) and who keeps saying "incredibly" when be means VERY, and "incredible" when he means GREAT.

But seriously, everyone (including me) HATES the lockdowns and restrictions, which are blighting our lives and doing serious harm to many, but the NHS has to be saved from becoming overwhelmed, and there is scientific consensus that the measures do slow the progress of the pandemic. In the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, the vast majority of those who died died at home, but there was no NHS then, and nowadays everyone demands (if he needs one) a hospital bed of right.

Regardless of the shirt and literary style, I can't have full confidence in anyone who was once a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, but Brendan O'Neill does speak well on the issue of free speech.

How can you be sure there is scientific "consensus" if alternative views are censored?

Yes, he does, and he should have (and probably has) by now grown out of his Socialist views. All but the most blinkered and indoctrinated Communists do by the time they reach a certain age and have acquired a certain amount of world wisdom.

There's no consensus on whether or not lockdowns overall do more harm than good (and I am not convinced either way) but the evidence that TO A SIGNIFICANT DEGREE they restrict the spread of the virus is indisputable.

How do you know it's "indisputable" if other voices are being silenced?

It's indisputable in the sense that it's heavily supported by the scientific data and subscribed to by a large majority of epidemiologists, medics and statisticians of all political persuasions.

In an absolute or literal sense, almost nothing is indisputable. After all, there is still a Flat Earth Society and Creationism is still taught in American schools. But in this case what is absolutely indisputable is the overwhelming consensus of expert opinion. And these experts and the politicians advised by them are as much aware as we of the harm - economic, sociological, cultural and political - that lockdown is doing.

As a libertarian, and one who prefers to judge for himself what risks to take, and one whose remaining time may be short, I myself am biased against the restrictions. But I am completely unqualified to judge what is best in the longer term for the greatest number. Should Covid get me or one of mine, however, I am likely to change my mind.

That doesn't really answer my question. You say there's an overwhelming consensus of expert opinion, when free debate is not being allowed. People are at risk of losing their jobs (or worse) if they speak against the accepted narrative, and alternative voices are being censored by the media.

I place my trust in the judgement of Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson, the latter who was extremely reluctant to and hesitated long before imposing the restrictions - and has been severely criticised for his hesitation - both of whom have the facts, and who will have also heard these "alternative voices" which are at least as likely as the accepted wisdom to be wrong.

Do you watch the BBC as well?

No. (I haven't got television.)

Where do you get your news?

From newspapers, mainly.

And you trust that they're giving you the full picture?

No. But in a democracy with a free press, I trust that they give a reasonably balanced and truthful one. Journalists constantly have their noses to the ground, and are the first to sniff out anything that the government of the day might want to hide, or anything that smacks of conspiracy. And I refuse to believe that the columnists of e.g. The Sunday Times, public figures in their own right and anything but government lackeys, would be part of any conspiracy.

fullfact.org/health/can-we-believe-lockdown-sceptics

It might be a free press in theory, but it would be naive to assume that the mainstream news outlets are "balanced and truthful". They spin their stories to fit their own narrative and lie to the public by omission. This is amply illustrated by their recent reporting of the US election fraud, where they've virtually ignored the mountains of evidence and tried to present Trump as a sore loser making baseless allegations.

Journalists might sniff out stories, as you say, but they have to be the types of stories that their editors want, with interviews clipped and slanted to a certain point of view.

Alternative "real news reporters" upload some very good videos on social media, but continually find themselves being removed by the Big Tech giants, who will happily give a platform to leftists and hate preachers but censor anything on the right.

Big Tech is the Biggest Threat to Free Speech in the West Today:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsaX1S8SSv8

I can't gainsay any of that, and have every sympathy for those who voted for Ukip, Brexit and Trump (a MUCH better president with much better policies than he'll ever be given credit for) in protest; I only disagree about the degree to which this left-wing bias has influenced public policy, particularly with regard to the pandemic.

As I've said, the lockdowns, closures and restrictions have been very damaging, and history will judge whether they will have done more harm than good, but the evidence is strong that they have had a significant effect on the spread of the virus prior to mass-vaccination. Faced with that fact, I don't think that any elected leader of any political hue could have done differently.

Suit yourself, but I haven't seen much evidence of this "very strong evidence"!

The Truth about Facemasks
www.bitchute.com/video/O6IpCkpdzR34

fullfact.org/health/can-we-believe-lockdown-sceptics

Ah, that's the evidence, is it? Do you have a rainbow in your window?

No; I don't take all that I hear or see at face value. But nor do I automatically disbelieve and perceive misinformation, conspiracy and hidden agendas in everything I read.

Wisdom is being able to judge what is and what is not likely to be true.

Which is why different people arrive at different conclusions

If there's anything to add on this, I suggest that you read Nigel Lawson (a Conservative but frequent critic of the Government) in today's Sunday Times. He has evaluated the competing claims of the lockdown advocates and lockdown skeptics, and of the experts on whose opposing views their positions are based, and the predictions that they made, vis a vis the (now known) facts. Those facts, the total numbers of hospital admissions and deaths from ALL causes relative to the statistical norms, and the timing of their peaks in relation to the lockdowns, to him (and to me, who like you would prefer the skeptics to be right) are clear.

Do You Trust the Government?
www.bitchute.com/video/33qWgnYWPr4D

the truth about face masks:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9y-O912d1E

Even though when I wear it going into shops (because it steams up my glasses) I can't see, and (as she says) it does little to protect the wearer from Covid, I like wearing my mask, because it hides my old, saggy face and saves me from having to smile at people.

How about going the whole hog and getting a full face mask from Amazon?
www.amazon.co.uk/Bean-Official-Celebrity-Face-Mask/dp/B013GFARZ8

What fun! He looks more like me than I do.
If it offered protection (to others) I'd buy one and wear it.

Incidentally, if you get a cold call purporting to be from Amazon, put the 'phone down. It's a scam, the intention being to get remote access to your PC. They've just tried it on me.

Oh, I've had loads of those. I talk back to them in gibberish until THEY hang up.

My current problem is with Paypal not letting me log in to my account.
They give me a code for authenticating my phone number, and then don't phone me.

When I complain that I cannot log in, they tell me to log into my account and click 'Help'.

If I phone them (thankfully a free number), they tell me they will pass the matter to their engineers, and then it carries on just the same.

Meanwhile, they send me emails about unread messages in my account (which of course I cannot read if they don't let me log in) and bombard me with spam about special offers, even asking me if I would recommend Paypal to a friend.

Tedious and frustrating. But with the cold callers and scammers, it might help to register with Telephone Preference Service (TPS). It doesn't cost anything to do it.

Smiling is infectious.

Welcome to the Masquerade:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tH1p8Bnmwc&feature=emb_title

Here We Go Again:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdSJOcjC0Do

What was the purpose of face masks?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXff6RFxNpY

Tony Blair Demands Masks Return
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ-J2n9iT2U

We were right
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDaqNgOsw6M
www.bitchute.com/video/hDaqNgOsw6M