How did masks become SO political?! It's a mystery! (06-13-2024--Hour3)

[00:00:00] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily

[00:00:17] show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to the Pete Kaliner show.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] All right, let me start this topic with a request. Please don't be a jerk. This and it's not for you. It's just a general pleading. Don't be a jerk. If you see somebody go into oil change place, they bring their car in for an oil change

[00:00:56] and they're wearing one of those masks. You don't need to pretend to cough all over them. That's not necessary. I saw there was a interview I saw a couple of days ago. Ben Shapiro was being interviewed by somebody, I forget who.

[00:01:18] And he was talking about, you know, the Overton window is named after, I think like a political science guy. But it's this concept of like what is achievable, what is up for discussion, what people are willing to accept. And this window, so you're working within a window, right?

[00:01:39] Let's say that you've got a timeline left to right, not a timeline, but we'll say politics, right? Like Uber left, Uber right, you know, political philosophy. Even though that's not really the line. The line is actually, by the way, no government and total government.

[00:01:59] That's actually the line, right? Anarchy on one side and tyranny on the other side. And our founding fathers wanted to get as close to the anarchy side as possible so as far away from the tyranny side as possible.

[00:02:14] Not that they were anarchists, but how do you get a government that is so limited so as to be as close to that anarchy side as you can be without being anarchy, right? Anyway, I digress.

[00:02:24] So let's say politics wise, you got left and right and this window kind of slides around. It moves around on this line. And so ideas that were once incomprehensible become doable, become possible because the population shifts.

[00:02:42] For example, prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I don't think Americans would have been okay with interning, in other words, imprisoning Japanese Americans. I don't think they would have been cool with that.

[00:03:00] Maybe they would have been, but you probably could not have done that kind of an operation but for the bombing of Pearl Harbor because that moved the quote Overton window. It moved you to a now position where you could do something that you otherwise would not have done.

[00:03:18] And what Shapiro was talking about in regards to the Overton window was that the left over the last 20 years, and it really is much, it's a larger project and has been going on for far longer.

[00:03:32] But over the last 15, 20 years or so, the left has so shrunk down that window to what's allowed in our discourse, right? The demands that you're a particular political party espousing a particular philosophy, so now we're going to shut you down on campus, not allowed to speak, right?

[00:03:59] I'm going to require you to use my preferred pronouns, right? That's a shrinking of the window. It shrinks, it expands, whatever, and it moves along this line. And the idea that Shapiro is putting forth is that the left over 20 years shrunk that

[00:04:19] window to such an extent that when the right, and particularly a lot of Trump supporters come along and they say there is no window, the reaction is blow up the whole window. And now it becomes something where it's like I can say whatever I want. Well, no.

[00:04:40] There's no reason, and this goes for left, right, old politics, whatever, just there's no reason to be antagonistic towards people for no reason at all. You just walk up to people and just start coughing on them because they have a mask on. You know nothing about that person.

[00:04:56] But. Up in Cary, North Carolina, Cary, which is the acronym for the containment area for relocated Yankees, I believe. A Cary woman. Says she was accosted and coughed on, but it was a it was a fake cough.

[00:05:17] But I don't know if you can really fake cough because even when you do that, you're still expelling the lung juice, right? So whatever. That she was accosted and coughed on for wearing a mask. Her name is Sherry or Shari Stewart.

[00:05:35] And she's undergoing treatment for stage four cancer. And so she's wearing a mask in public to try to protect herself because the treatments have weakened her immune system. And she happens to bring her car, according to her.

[00:05:53] No, I don't know if this according to the media reported WRAL. She brings her car into this repair shop. And she's going to get an oil change done at the service station. And so she puts on the mask before she walks in.

[00:06:10] And as she does so, she's confronted by a guy who starts shouting expletives at her. And called her a liberal for wearing the mask. I don't know if she is a liberal or not. I don't know, like. He starts screaming profanity at her. I'm not sure.

[00:06:29] Like, is it possible maybe she misunderstood? He could have just been a pro-Palestine activist. That's possible, right? I mean, who am I to judge? She says the man identified himself as a conservative and he falsely told her that wearing a mask in public was illegal.

[00:06:47] Well, it used to be, but now it's not anymore. But they're trying to they're trying to rein this in. Right. North Carolina, the legislature is looking to reverse the reversal. So North Carolina adopted laws years ago in order to combat the KKK. Because.

[00:07:09] Like psychologically speaking, when you wear masks. It frees you up. It frees you up. You feel emboldened to do things that you otherwise would not do when people can see your face and identify you. It's kind of like a keyboard warrior.

[00:07:27] You know, people say all sorts of terrible stuff online to each other. They would never say in person. Usually because they're afraid of getting a punch in the face. Right. So. People, when they wear a mask, behave, wear a mask, behave differently.

[00:07:45] This is this is known, OK, this is not like this is not my opinion. This is known people behave differently when they put masks on. And you see that in the in the protests, right, in the riots.

[00:07:58] Going back to the summer of love 2020, height of the pandemic, people have all the masks on and they engage in all sorts of criminal activity. And they continue to do so with the pro-Palestine, pro-Hamas riots and such.

[00:08:13] Right. The intimidation, the threat, the threats that are leveled against Jews on college campuses. Right. It's like they're always coming from people wearing masks. The most violent and and destructive forces in these protests are always people

[00:08:28] wearing masks. And so North Carolina lawmakers are like, hey, you know what? Pandemic's over. We undid that the KKK era mask law. We gave an exemption for public health reasons. But now people are taking advantage of that.

[00:08:45] Right. Criminals. People who want to engage in criminal activity are taking advantage of the relaxing of that law. So now the state lawmakers here are looking to reimplement the law. And so now you've got people that are coming out saying you shouldn't go back to

[00:09:04] the way the law was. We shouldn't go back. You need to just keep the law as it is. I don't know if this actually happened. I find it conveniently timed right in time for the debate.

[00:09:22] But according to Stewart, this woman, Shari Stewart, she told the man that it was dangerous for her to go into public without a mask because of her diagnosis. She says it's not a political statement. And she even showed the man a medical card describing her condition.

[00:09:40] She claims there are people that are at the shop that saw this and the and WRAL's reporter, Carly Haynes, indicates that this was confirmed to have happened. Now, maybe it happened because of all of the coverage of this issue. Right. So now this guy became aware of it.

[00:10:00] But I do find the hand wringing. Over the, quote, political tensions surrounding masks, I find it to be a little rich coming from WRAL. That browbeat people into wearing the masks for the last four years.

[00:10:18] Right. And the the the stoking of the animosity between groups of people over their opinions about the efficacy of masks. I find it to be a little ironic, not entirely persuasive to me. WRAL reports on a story out of Cary, North Carolina, Sherry Stewart or Shari Student Stewart.

[00:10:42] She went to an oil change service station, put a mask on because she is undergoing treatment for stage four cancer and she has a weak immune system due to the medication she takes. She walks in and gets yelled at by some guy who starts screaming profanity at her

[00:10:57] and calls her a liberal for wearing a mask. She says the man identified himself as a conservative. And he falsely told her wearing a mask in public was illegal. She told the man that it's dangerous for her to go into public without a mask

[00:11:11] because of her diagnosis, showed the medical card describing her condition. He then proceeded to approach her and feigned coughing on her repeatedly before telling her that he hopes the cancer kills her. I don't think she's dealing with somebody who is of sound mind.

[00:11:35] Stewart says she called the Cary police, but ultimately did not file a complaint. Why? Why would you not file a complaint? You go up and start coughing on somebody that's assault. I don't know if people are aware of that, but that you can charge somebody with

[00:11:50] assault for that. And if you are in treatment for stage four cancer, that's definitely assault after you've told them that. Spitting on somebody's assault. Actually, I don't even have to make contact with you to assault you. Cary police confirmed the call.

[00:12:07] Witnesses at the oil change store also corroborated her account. Now, I don't know. The reporter here just leaves it at that. Witnesses at the oil change store corroborate the account. I don't know if the reporter went out and found the witnesses or if she's saying

[00:12:23] that there are witnesses that corroborate. I don't know if it's in the police report that witnesses corroborated it. The incident follows outcry among disability rights advocates and Democrats over a GOP effort to restrict the use of face masks for health reasons.

[00:12:38] In North Carolina, the Republican led state house passed a bill this week that would adjust the exceptions to the state law that governs masks. In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers made an exception to

[00:12:54] the state mask law that allowed people to wear masks in public to protect people from catching or spreading an illness. The bill that passed this week. Would trim that would narrow that law to allow masks only to prevent the spread of contagious diseases.

[00:13:15] The House agreed to a compromise bill after it rejected the bill. The original version of the bill that came out of the Republican led Senate. And they were trying to roll it all the way back to ban masks for any health

[00:13:29] reason. The the House leadership said there should be some exemptions made for health reasons. And the State Department of Health and Human Services warned that harassment over masks could harm public health if a full ban were approved. Again, I find this to be a bit ridiculous.

[00:13:51] Again, I find this to be a bit rich coming from some of the same folks. That were telling me I was trying to kill people. If I didn't agree with their particular protocols, which, oh, by the way, turned out to be crap.

[00:14:07] Republicans sought to change the law, saying protesters have abused mask rules to hide their identities at protests. And that's true, by the way, that is absolutely 100 percent true. Protesters have abused the mask rules.

[00:14:24] And so now the lawmakers are trying to figure out a way to write the law to stop that abuse. Democrats, I would implore you. Reign your people in. I know you know who they are.

[00:14:42] The people that are engaged in these protests all wear in the masks, I'm sure to prevent the spread of diseases. Reign them in. You've been warned up in New York. You've got all of the anti-Semitism and anti-Israel protesters in New York, and

[00:14:59] now there's a push for a ban on masks. So, I mean, you guys, you better reign your crap in. Or you're going to be you're not going to like the way this thing goes. Message here on Twitter, formerly X, who said Russ says in this Kerry mask

[00:15:18] incident, I think one under discussed issue is that left or right political leaning. There are just a lot more bleep holes out there than there used to be. Yeah, I I yeah, it seems like everybody has just not everybody, but it seems like

[00:15:35] we we have increased the the proportion of jerk faces. Right. I yeah, I think the pandemic did it. I don't know. It can't be unrelated, though. They've got to be related. It just seems like we have a lot more bleep holes out there than there used to

[00:15:57] be. I don't know. They've got to be related. It just seems like we have we were maxing out our quota of of of dumbassery, you know. And let me go over to the phone here and get Lauren on. Hello, Lauren. Welcome to the program.

[00:16:10] I think you are absolutely right to be skeptical of that WRAL story out of Kerry. I don't believe one word of it. As we all know, WRAL is the PR arm of the Democrat Party in this state. It is rich.

[00:16:28] Now, I'm not going to excuse anybody going up and saying something to one of the sheep that are still out there wearing a mask. But I remember being harassed very nasty ways because we wouldn't wear masks

[00:16:42] because it was obvious you could read on the side of the box will not protect you from coronavirus. So it was just Fauci and the left trying to see how far they could push the sheep in

[00:16:56] this country. But early on in the pandemic, we went to Harris, Tater and Moorcroft and some guys across across the meat section from me started screaming at me to put on my F word mask. And I'm just like looking at him like he's crazy.

[00:17:13] And I said, I'm sorry, I don't believe that that's doing any good. And then he started screaming at me that he hoped I died. And in the same store and how did that later, how did that make you feel?

[00:17:28] You know, it didn't make me feel good at all. But it made me feel smart because I knew the mask didn't do any good at all, which has been proven correct. Well, now, hang on.

[00:17:40] If the guy was screaming and yelling, if the guy was screaming and yelling, then the mask his mask was blocking all of the the bigger chunks of spit and stuff. It was catching all of that from him.

[00:17:53] So you probably the mask probably saved everybody's meat cuts that were on that were in the counter from getting spit on. So they did serve a purpose. I mean, the mask does serve that purpose.

[00:18:05] But this I don't understand if he wanted to wear a mask and so-called protect himself. Right. Why did he care whether I wore one? Right. This was one of the logical breakdowns in the argument at the time as well. Absolutely. But here's the clock shot.

[00:18:20] Right. Now, what if everybody else wants to get the clock shot and get the vaccine? That's fine. I didn't want to do that. I didn't do that. Why are they trying to protect themselves from me? Yes, they were. No.

[00:18:34] So here's the thing, though, Lauren, the very same behavior that you experienced is is now is the same behavior that this woman says she was subjected to. And this is my point about just not being jerks to other people.

[00:18:47] It's the same argument, the same message I was relaying back in 2020 as well. If people want to wear the mask, if they don't want to wear the mask, they shouldn't be subjected to people yelling and screaming at them one way or the other.

[00:19:00] And the same thing goes for the shots, too. There's no reason to yell and scream and get mad at people for their own personal medical decisions, because this woman, she's undergoing cancer treatments.

[00:19:11] And I don't know what she's you know, if people are especially if this guy goes up there and starts, you know, fake coughing on her, it will his his or her mask will stop any of that spit from landing on her face.

[00:19:24] That's being covered. It will stop that. But you have to believe that that really happened. And I am very skeptical, especially W.R.A.L. I've had personal experience dealing with the lies of W.R.A.L.

[00:19:38] And also, it's just real convenient that this comes out now when the legislature is trying to say, you know what? You shouldn't have to wear you shouldn't be able to wear a mask in the bank anymore. Right. No, I get it.

[00:19:52] I am skeptical of it, but apparently they're saying police were called. Police did show up. Police confirmed that they went there. And then there's this line that says witnesses at the oil change store also corroborated Stewart's account.

[00:20:07] So and again, I don't know if that's in the police report that the cops talked to other people that were there or if she relayed that to W.R.A.L. And they did not confirm it or debunk it.

[00:20:18] I don't know. So we're both at a loss here to know whether there were witnesses that were verified that that confirmed her account of it, which is why I would submit you need to submit. They need she needed to file the complaint.

[00:20:32] And that to me sends up a flag that by not by not filing the complaint with the cops, calling them there but not filing the complaint. First off, you're not going to stop this guy from doing it to somebody else.

[00:20:45] Right. He's now going to like you're you're you're not punishing the bad behavior. So he's going to be free and probably emboldened to keep doing this kind of stuff. But also, you don't have confirmation now and people on the record to help support your

[00:21:00] story. And I'm not excuse if this happened, I'm not excusing the guy if he did it. Right. But maybe he got tired of getting abused for two years by every Karen and

[00:21:13] Fauci in the world who was screaming at them to put on a mask or being denied entry into places because he wouldn't wear the stupid face diaper. Right. And that's right. And that's what I'm getting at with like this W.R.A.L.

[00:21:27] now lamenting, oh, my gosh, how did this become so political? Well, that's how it became political, because this very kind of behavior was directed towards the non maskers during the pandemic. The very same behavior. Lauren, I appreciate the call. And that's that's how we got here.

[00:21:43] It's the same thing when people like I can't believe that all these people, you know, stormed the Capitol on January 6th. The protest turns into a riot. Really? You're unaware of the current dynamic on the ground in America from 2020 through 2021.

[00:21:59] About protests that turn into riots like that was the norm, what are we talking about? Right now, all of a sudden you're like, I can't believe this kind of thing would happen. I can. I've been watching it every weekend in every big city in America.

[00:22:15] That's what I mean. The activist crowd that engaged in the behaviors first. Set the norm, they set a standard and by Democrats and media, but I repeat myself willingly adopting that as a normal standard as well, this is just, you know, First

[00:22:36] Amendment speech or we can't punish people for violent riots in Raleigh, we can't do this. You've now set the standard and now you're going to pretend to be outraged when everybody starts following your standard, please. New rules, people.

[00:22:51] OK, if you're listening to this podcast, you are obviously paying attention to the world around us. You also have really great taste, I might add. But if you haven't started getting prepared for various emergencies, I got to ask, what

[00:23:03] are you waiting for? Please call my friends Bill and Jan at Carolina Readiness Supply and they'll help get you started. If you have no idea how to start, they can help you. If you're an experienced prepper, they can help you to being prepared is just smart.

[00:23:16] We've already established that you're smart. I mean, you listen to this podcast after all. So let's put those smarts into action. Go to Carolina readiness dot com. That's Carolina readiness dot com or call them at 828-226-7239.

[00:23:32] Carolina Readiness Supply has 2000 square feet of supplies as well as educational materials that you're going to need for any kind of emergency. Veteran owned Carolina Readiness Supply. Will you be ready when the lights go out? Got a message from Steve. It's a Pete tweet. He says.

[00:23:49] Pete, I don't think people's dumb assery shall ever max out. It is infinite. That is. That's fair. That's that's fair. Jennifer says despite the corroboration in the article. This whole story just reeks of juicy small A. To me. Jussie Smollett, right, but as as the philosopher, but what?

[00:24:17] Why am I drawing a blank on his last name? Dave Chappelle. Yeah, Dave Chappelle called him juicy small A. It could be a hoax. I don't know. Up in New York, New York Post reporting an explosion of blatant anti-Semitism by

[00:24:32] anti-Israel protesters in New York, nearly all of whom cover their faces to avoid being publicly identified, is leading some Jewish leaders to call for the return of an anti-mask law that was previously used to fight the hoods of the Ku Klux Klan.

[00:24:49] In one shocking incident on Monday, protesters took over a New York City subway train. Have you seen this video? Yeah, they were all packed in there. And they're all wearing covid masks and keffiyehs and balaklavas. Baklava baklava. That's the dessert. Never mind.

[00:25:09] And sunglasses all to obscure their faces, true, courageous, courageous protesters that they were. And while they were packed in the subway car, they started demanding that, quote, Zionists raise your hands. This is your chance to get out. Kicking Jews off the trains, which is.

[00:25:33] That's not the historical norm, usually the other way around there, but I'm sure they'll progress to that point, too, just not you're not to be on the train with them. So they're asking they're telling Jews, identify yourselves so we can remove you.

[00:25:47] From public transit earlier in the day at Union Square, two protesters faces also covered unfurled a banner that read Long Live October 7th. Scott Richmond, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, ADL, said a mask law will make a difference.

[00:26:07] The group had first championed similar laws around the country back in the 1950s, and he said we should back them again. It effectively tanked the KKK because nobody wanted their face to be seen. New York's law was on the books for nearly 200 years until it was repealed in 2020

[00:26:27] during the covid-19 pandemic. For 200 years, this law was on the books. So it predated the KKK restoring the law. Would strip violent protesters ability to operate anonymously and unpunished, just as it did for the Klan that, according to a recent brief by the Manhattan Institute.

[00:26:52] It's a think tank. I don't know if it's based in Manhattan. There's a Republican, essentially a city councilman, but a Republican from Staten Island named Michael Riley, who said anti-Semites are no different than the KKK. Quote, there are large mob wearing masks to scare and incite people.

[00:27:12] Doesn't that sound like the KKK? The ban on masks should have never been repealed, he said. Now, a lawyer named Matthew Schweber at Columbia University Jewish Alumni Association said two groups in particular. SJP. Students for Justice in Palestine. And another group called Within Our Lifetime.

[00:27:39] I don't know what within their lifetime, but within our lifetime, they both these groups both encourage anti-Israel protesters to wear masks to protect themselves from accountability for unlawful behavior. Schweber, whose first or rather whose practice has included free speech cases, said,

[00:27:59] quote, these protests are not protected under the First Amendment because they are engaged in targeted harassment and incitement of violence. Let me go back to the banner that they were marching under. Long live October 7th. Right. What does that mean? Raping, killing Jews, right? That's what that means.

[00:28:27] That's what that means. When you celebrate what happened on October 7th in Israel, that's what you're celebrating. So when you're calling for that to be, quote, long lived, that means you are calling for more of that. That is an incitement to violence. That is not protected speech.

[00:28:46] New York Attorney General Letitia James, always on the wrong side of like everything, and the New York Civil Liberties Union both support the mask bans repeal as health officials told people to mask up to protect against covid.

[00:29:01] So going back four years ago, they were both on board with repealing the mask law in order to keep people safe. They argued that the law could be weaponized against black people. But what how how does this become a racial thing?

[00:29:19] What the state's ban wasn't originally enacted to fight the Klan, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union brief. Instead, it was passed in response to the rent protests in the eighteen hundreds. New York's anti mask law banned gatherings of people covering their faces and it

[00:29:42] carries a penalty of 15 days in jail. The guy from the ADL, Mr. Scott Richman, Richman said that any new mask ban should have appropriate exceptions for medical or religious purposes. Right. So, you know, if you are religiously required to to dress up in the the burqa,

[00:30:06] you know, cover head to toe, you'll be able to still do that. Right. But here's the thing. You don't get to wear masks and incite violence, intimidate people and harass them again. Like, let's just not be jerks, everybody. Come on. All right. That'll do it for this episode.

[00:30:24] Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here.

[00:30:34] You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the peak calendar show dot com again. Thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.