A reader writes:
I work for an airline. I am done with face masks.
What strategy can we use to get masks off people in airplanes and airports?
Now is the time to do this. The way I see it, we have until the midterms in November while they are loosening things to make themselves look better for the election.
Things will get a lot worse after that. So the time is now to make this happen.
—I Really Want To Ditch This Mask
Thank you for your note.
Answer #1 — Replace Your Boss
My number one answer is to go find a different job. I find it hard to believe that what has become of the airline industry is how you saw yourself spending your prime years. However, I may be wrong. All your travel and hospitality dreams may be fulfilled in what you are doing.
Answer #2 — Replace Your Boss
My number two answer is this, then, because you sound like a person who can smile through anything. If you know what you are doing in the airline setting and have worked a few jobs, please email me and let’s get you started founding an airline and running an airline. Please do not say to me, “Oh, well I heard someone else was doing that already.” That is about the worst excuse I have ever heard. One committee of people trying something does not a marketplace make. That is, instead, how an obedient command and control economy works, also known as a socialist economy, also known as an economy that does not actually work.
I used to take a few dozen flights a year on commercial airlines. I now take zero. I am not alone. You will have a customer base if you promise to stand up for your customers. You might even become the airlines that Southwest was supposed to become. Today, they have the honor of not only being the airlines in which people are most likely to bring a garbage bag as their carry on luggage, but they also have the distinction of being pure mask Nazis.
I suspect you will be a billionaire within a decade if you follow through on this. Also, you will have saved civil aviation and protected your country from its worst enemies to freedom — the government. But maybe you do not want that. Maybe you do not want to go down in history as the magnanimous billionaire who protected freedom, all made possible by leaving a five-figure job in which you were getting bossed around by all manner of people.
Before We Talk About Answer #3, Let’s Talk About Answer #2 Some More
Now, for the third option — fight for the privilege of being able to continue enduring that nightmare. This is definitely the worst option. If you are still convinced you want to continue reading, perhaps you could do me the favor of re-reading the other options (especially 2) before continuing.
Listen, you could be like the Mike Lindell of airlines. You could employ awesome people, be an awesome boss, with an awesome product that people love, you could hire during a financial crisis rather than laying people off, and through it all you could be a face for freedom to the most passionate members of society. That is pretty cool, so why not go back to point number 2 as I move onward with the less impressive cohort of readers.
Oh yeah, and Mike Lindell was a junkie living before that happened, doing the worst of the worst things to himself and to other people. If you are holding down a full time job, you have probably got about eighty advantages in your favor that Mike Lindell did not.
Okay, less impressive cohort of readers, let us continue onward to option #3….
Option #3 — Fight For The Privilege Of Being Able To Continue Enduring That Nightmare
You might be saying to me:
“The federal airport and airplane mask mandate has been extended again. Now it is to mid-April. They never give any specific reason. What can I do to help you with this? I just flew a trip and am sick of this.”
Then I would be saying to you:
What will your airlines require for you to be exempt from wearing a mask? Illegitimate Biden’s January 21, 2021, executive order says exemptions are required.
The TSA does not care enough to enforce these mask mandates (at least that is my experience). No entity within the federal government cares enough to enforce these mandates (at least that is my experience). It is the airlines alone that care (at least that is my experience).
That means the airlines are the terrain on which this battle must be fought. The other two entities do not really care and back down when they encounter a serious person dedicated to asserting his rights.
Quit Parroting Their Lies
You might be saying to me:
“The airlines says they will not allow any airport or airplane employees to work without wearing masks regardless of vaccine status as they are following federal rules. The only non-mask jobs are at corporate headquarters and are non-customer facing positions for those who are vaccinated.”
Then I would be saying to you:
Thank you. Do you have that policy in writing ?
This will require you to get the policy in writing and to read it.
Then you will need to get the federal policy in writing and read it. This should take five minutes and should be identified within your company policy.
I believe what you are saying is what you are being told, but I do not believe it is what the federal mandate says.
It has been my experience that the last time I looked at this issue, the airline (either it was United or American) was bluffing and had not followed federal guidelines.
Can you get these policies? Or I should ask — do you want to get these policies? Of course, you can get them.
Quit Bending To Their Will, At Least Demand The Policy In Writing
You might be saying to me:
“Yes, I want to get these policies. My company says that it is FEDERAL LAW that all passengers and crew MUST WEAR MASKS in AIRPORTS AND AIRPLANES. I have never seen that law in writing. I think they might be bluffing, too.”
Then I would be saying to you:
I find that when people in authority put policies on big signs, the words on the sign are usually a lie or some other type of social aberration. The same tends to be true for all capital letters, and yelling tends to fall in the same category. He who has truth on his side does not usually need all capital letters, yelling, or propaganda posters, though there are opportunities for exceptions to be made.
Clearly, a policy has been communicated to you by your superiors. When we are told such things are federal law, we just need to get in the habit of telling them to show us that federal law. When I see people do that, it easily eliminates 50% of impositions (usually more).
If you want more on this, you can find that approach as it relates to cops, outlined in the article “Do This Before Backing Down To A Cop.”
You can find that approach as it relates to bosses, or anyone who wants to boss you around, in the article “Show Me The Writ: The Spirit You Must Always Have In Order To Be Free.”
Quit Negotiating Against Yourself
You might then be saying to me:
“My co-worker friend asked about the rationale for requiring boosters. No response, but someone else forwarded her email to a supervisor to add her to the naughty list. It felt like a threat to her. Anyone who asks questions is considered to be against the narrative. I would have to do my research in stealth, otherwise my name would be put on the naughty list, too.”
Before we go on, I would say “Naughty list? Is that really who you want to work for? Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider option number 1 or 2?”
We Finally Get Down To The Heart Of The Matter — It Is Not That Complicated, So Quit Telling Yourself That Lie
But here we have finally gotten to the concern. The problem has little to do with federal law. The problem has little to do with corporate policy. Of course, those play a role, but we have really gotten down to the heart of the matter — it is your unwillingness to take a stand and defend yourself. It is your unwillingness to stick your neck out. It is your unwillingness to risk losing something that you clearly value more than your rights, your country, your family, your values, and your posterity — your job. You are clinging onto that job as if everything depended on it, as if it were irreplaceable, as if there were nothing else from that list that mattered as much as that job.
It is complicated. I know. I get that. But sometimes, you just need to stop being a 21st century person and talk like you would talk to your parents or grandparents. Because you know what — 21st century people are as about touched in the head, affected, as one can get. And people who lived through the Great Depression are about as back to basics as one can get.
What Would A More Clear Thinking Generation Think Of Your Words?
To illustrate this, let me point you to a cartoon series called FreedomToons and an episode called “Fighting Nazis Then Vs Now.” In the 3 minute episode, American soldiers from World War 2 are brought to the future by American social justice warriors to aid them in their cause. It does not go as the SJWs had planned.
Alternately, let me share with you a Saturday Night Live skit in which a grandmother humorously insists her grandchildren stop lying to her with intentionally vague and deceptive words, so permissible in this frivolous era. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M43Oukqr2Rw) She says little more than “What?” every time they tell a lie. She keeps doing this until they stop telling the lie. Though Saturday Night Live is a net-negative benefit with an intentionally demoralizing humor style, that technique of saying “What?” to a liar repeatedly until the lie disappears is brilliant.
Alternately, let me point you to the television series All in the Family, in which the anti-hero protagonist Archie Bunker looks more and more like the good guy with every passing year.
Sometimes a no nonsense and sincere approach can be so refreshing. It can feel like a breath of air when one is drowning in the ever present lies. All it takes to claim that breath and to stop drowning is to refuse to allow the lies in your presence. In an instant, the drowning comes to an end.
No matter how much you may try, you are probably a lot more like the 21st century people in the FreedomToons piece than brave soldiers. You are using words to lie to yourself and others. You are using words to trouble yourself and others. You are using words to put on airs before others. The truth of the matter is this: You are not showing the guts to stand up for what matters?
That is the heart of the matter.
The Job Of An Adult In Every Era
“What matters?” you may ask. Well, that is the job of an adult to identify his boundaries, communicate his boundaries, and defend his boundaries. It is the job of an adult to identify his values, communicate his values, and defend his values. Those are the basics.
You are simply not doing that soberly and honestly. I do not know your job. Even if you were the CEO of that airline, you have no business trading what you are trading for that job.
To continue your concerns, dear reader, you might write:
“My colleague was already vaccinated eight times with twelve boosters and had a special stamped card copied to the blockchain to prove it, but because she was questioning the booster and a specific of the company’s requirement for it, she was accused like she had done something wrong for even asking.
Imagine how much worse they would treat me, if I didn’t tiptoe around their rules?”
Oh boy, here we are back at the naughty list.
Well, then I would be saying to you:
That is how they want you to think.
Don’t bet against yourself.
Ask God for guidance, then act.
If the right thing is for you to fight this fight, then you will fight it and people will step out of your way.
David was not the wisest of the wise or the bravest of the brave or the toughest of the tough, but God plucked him out of the pasture from among his sheep and used him to sink that stone into the forehead of the giant Goliath.
Every Time Someone Wants To Control You
This is what you need to do anytime someone tells you to behave differently.
1.) Identify the policy — and you do not want the glorified press release on the website or a copy and paste from your boss, you want the PDF of the official policy drafted up by some lawyer and passed by some board.
2.) Identify the consequences to not following the policy — My article link above about cops gives a little bit of a gutsy reason you are going to want to do that.
3.) Identify loopholes or exemptions in the policy — When time allows, it can be helpful to fully inform yourself of all options before deciding how to act.
4.) Deal with the consequences mentioned in 2 if that is preferable to you OR invoke the exemptions in 3.
5.) Go on with your life like the (unmasked) VIP that you are — This does not just apply to face masks, this applies to all manner of situations. Face masks are merely a useful training ground for returning to the foundational societal idea among a free people that no one has any business forcing another to alter one’s behavior.
Is It Really That Easy?
“Is it really that easy?” you might ask. Not always. But often. My bestselling book Face Masks In One Lesson helps with the rest. Read it. If you’re still wearing a mask, it’ll change your life within ten minutes of opening it up.
The most important part of that is getting yourself right and drawing a firm line to never again comply with the nonsense.
If you somehow still think face masks are safe for anyone to wear, then you’ve got to check out Face Masks Hurt Kids.
It also makes a great gift for the maskholes in your life. With 500 pages of insightful science on the topic and over 800 journal article citations, it’s going to be the most enjoyable $20 you’ve spent in a long time, a gift that promises to relieve the most ardent mask Nazi of his or her self-righteousness.
And if you like videos too, sign up at RealStevo.com. You’ll get some rocking videos that will help you navigate the maskless and pureblood life like a VIP.
And then I’d say to you. Please go back and read number 2. Because while all this other stuff is cool, being the average guy or gal who steps up and saves the world is way cooler.
