Here's a Thought... 'Safety' is a Slippery Slope

Once upon a time, 'safety' was about avoiding real danger, now it's simply a polite way of saying 'shut up and comply.'

Saturday morning was crisp, clear, and cool. After a week of rain and gloom, Joe and I decided to go for an early morning hike. As we made our way down the canopied path, I had the most surreal sense of déjà vu, my brain flashing back to the countless “lockdown hikes” we took during the pandemic. Bars, restaurants, shops, gyms, and churches were closed, the girls were watching TikTok videos remote learning at home, and we were all a little bit stir-crazy. Hiking was a glorious escape. Out in nature, you could pretend that right this minute, people were not standing on little yellow sticker tiles placed precisely six feet apart, their faces muzzled with filthy, useless scraps of fabric, buying groceries that they would take home and wipe down with bleach before putting them away. There were no plexiglass dividers in the forest; no panicked sidestepping if someone forgot which direction the deadly virus was moving on that particular trail.

The trees didn’t know about Covid. They didn’t recoil if we passed too closely. Not a single one gave us a dirty look when they encountered our unmasked smiles or asked to see the vaccine cards we didn’t have. I’m not inherently a denialist, but those strolls were a welcome chance to retreat into a world untouched by madness.

SAFETY BUBBLE

And madness it was. The entire globe was in the menacing grip of a deadly disease, they told us. All of it, all at once. In order to protect ourselves and others, we were going to need to wash our hands a lot, opt for take-out over dine-in and elbow bumps over handshakes, stop touching our faces, and never leave the house without a glorified napkin draped from one ear to the other. Basically, they wanted us to believe that the fate of the global populace was in the hands of the global populace. What could possibly go wrong?

I think about this a lot when I’m on a plane that’s about to take off and the pilot asks—politely, casually—that passengers please switch their electronics to airplane mode. Are you actually telling me that you are going to put the lives of two hundred travelers plus a flight crew in the hands of the angry-looking dude in 13D wearing an ASK ME ABOUT MY MANIFESTO t-shirt under his trench coat? If universal compliance with the airplane mode rule was the only thing standing between an on-time arrival and a mass casualty event, I’m pretty sure they’d confiscate every single cell phone at the boarding gate and return them at baggage claim.

Safety used to mean something concrete—the absence of imminent harm, the presence of reasonable protections. Seatbelts keep you safe. Locking your doors at night keeps you safe. Not playing in traffic keeps you safe. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, “safety” has morphed into something far more abstract, elastic enough to justify nearly any loss of liberty or privilege. “We’re banning that doctor who questions vaccines from social media to keep you safe. We’re removing that book of natural cancer cures from Amazon to keep you safe. We’re tracking your every move and morsel to keep you safe.” The real question is: Where does it end? (It’s rhetorical—because it doesn’t.)

Safety no longer refers strictly to physical well-being but to emotional comfort, ideological conformity, and blind obedience to authority.

Once upon a time, safety was about avoiding real danger. Now, it’s about avoiding discomfort, disagreement, or—God forbid—people who have opinions that are different than yours.

The pandemic put this rebranding into overdrive. Overnight, basic freedoms became threats to public well-being. Hugging grandma was reckless endangerment. Questioning whether a flimsy cloth mask protected anyone from anything was “misinformation.” (The most absurd statement of all, as questions are inherently neutral.) A jog through the park was a selfish act of violence against humanity. The right to refuse an experimental medication evaporated. I mean, you could maybe try to refuse it—it just might cost you your job, your family, or your ability to travel or participate in society.

The crisis passed, but the precedent was set. The word “safety” had been successfully weaponized—an all-purpose excuse for limiting rights. Once Covid mandates laid the groundwork, the logic spread like a cancer in the public psyche. Today, TPTB are working overtime to convince Americans that the greatest threat to our collective security is our First Amendment right to free speech. If we’re not careful, they’ll succeed.

And if we lose the right to express our opinions, there’s literally no stopping the digital IDs, cashless societies, and 24/7 surveillance the globalists are itching to install. We’re told these measures will protect us from fraud, crime, and the wiliest rascal of them all, misinformation. Eating bug burgers cooked on an electric stove will save the planet. In reality, all of these so-called safeguards are about control—wrapped, as always, in the soothing language of security. Are you actually going to let the guy holding the gun to your temple convince you that you need him to keep you safe?

The funny thing is, governmental abuse of power is timeworn and incontrovertible. Seeking security from the same people who have lied to, stolen from, betrayed, and put us at grave risk, over and over and over again, borders on an act of insanity. Oh, this time they’re acting with our best interests in mind? Please. The saying isn’t, “Trip me once, shame on you. Trip me twice, triple-super-extra shame on you.”

At some point, we need to become untrippable. When some unelected oligarchs insist their latest repressive measure is for our “safety,” we need to be able to critically assess whether we are in fact in danger—because it only takes a quick peek at recent history to see that “safety” is often simply a more polite way of saying “shut up and comply.” In the absence of any real threat, our job is to not comply as if our lives depend on it. Because they do.