Anti-Mandate Rally in Middletown New York

Anti-Mandate Rally in Middletown, New York

Hey, this is John Harris from the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm out here in Middletown, New York, outside a Walmart, actually, lining the street. We have about 150 people protesting the mandate that New York State just decided to release.

And by the way, they're denying religious exemptions for the COVID -19, quote unquote, vaccine or shot or jab. We might use those terms a little more frequently in this. And we want to talk to people and just find out why they are against the mandate.

We have people here, even in scrubs, there's nurses. I'm not sure why everyone's out here, but we're about to find out. And this is one of the first states, if not, I think, the first to mandate this and deny religious exemptions for health care workers.

So let's go check it out. Let's see what people have to say. Sir. Yeah, someone told us that you'd be willing to maybe to talk to us about opposing the mandate. You have family in the health care field, then that it's going to be.

Yes.

Dental hygienist.

What's the concern that you have about the mandate?

Freedom. The ability to make my own choice when it comes to my health care. I don't even take aspirin. You know, I work it through. I never had a flu shot in my life. I have an immune system that's healthier than a horse.

I don't need all that bullcrap in me. I eat well. I try to take care of myself.

So I don't need all that because it's it's it's poison. It's basically poison for what we've been seeing on the Internet. People are going down and our mainstream media is not reporting it. This is bad for you.

It is poison. And I would never get it. I would never give it to anybody in my family or anybody I know.

Well, I'm concerned about the mandate because I feel like there isn't enough information right now. There definitely are risks, you know, and they're not being talked about. And right now I'm concerned about the health care workers, which is the first mandate that has happened.

I'm concerned about them because a body to them seems to like be that they're going to be fired if they don't if they don't take, you know, do a medical procedure. And that's extremely wrong, in my opinion.

But more than that, what happens if we lose all these health care workers that were that are, you know, in our hospitals and other facilities? I feel like that's a danger to everyone because we are all affected by that.

We all, you know, could need health care for whatever reason other than covid, you know, by covid, too. And so that really concerns me.

So what concerns you the most about mandating this vaccine?

Well, besides just personal freedom, I still don't think there's a good discussion about the safety risk. OK, I understand the vaccines and stuff like that, but you're talking about a lot of experimental drugs and people want answers.

And instead of trying to shut down different opinions, try to convince them to come over and take the vaccines. There's a lot of science reports out there that go on Facebook and then they get blocked or shadow banned.

And people are getting a little frustrated with that because they want to get all the facts before they make that choice. You know, it should be a personal choice. You shouldn't have to be mandated to have that, you know, to take the vaccine.

At the end of the day, it's my body and I choose what goes in and goes out of it. I don't think the government should step in. You know, this is a this is about freedom. A lot of people come to this country for freedom.

And right now our freedoms are being taken away for a virus that is not even that deadly as they say there is.

What kind of risks are you afraid of if you get the vaccine?

I'm worried about the adverse events. Have you looked at VAERS .com? Were there people getting balls palsy, enlarged hearts, heart attacks?

And the kids are next. I mean, right now they're they're masking them. And there's no science to support that the masks work and, you know, prevent the spread of COVID. And there are risks with the masks, you know, with them being dirty and not used properly and and they aren't without risk.

And even our governor, I just saw this past week, she posted a picture of herself, three pictures actually, that I saw on her own Facebook page where she was not wearing a mask and she was right next to people, not social distancing, not wearing a mask, holding hands with people.

Even one of the staffers right next to her was wearing a mask. So I I'm concerned about that because that to me is tyranny, because why is she exempt from something? I don't know of any science that exempts a politician from their own rule.

What this is, is a petition. I'm getting not not really a petition. I'm getting names to start a class action lawsuit for people who have been harmed. We are talking to some lawyers. And so they said, what you need to do before we get, you know, put the right foot in front of the left one is to get a whole bunch of names on there.

Let's see how serious this is.

And not make us people who served in the military or people who are still serving feel like they waste their life or nothing for the American people, you know, being involved, you know, and it's not much to be involved.

The little it can be is to be out here to do something like this. You don't have to do anything really major, you know, just doing something to do your part really matters, you know.

What about you?

You have young children. And if this is to come to the schools, if they're going to mandate vaccines in the schools, which could happen, what would be your. What would you do at that point?

Let's wait.

OK, what would you do at that point if that's mandated?

I don't know. I mean, it's it's something that I have to think about because it's definitely a concern. You know, we don't know the long term effects of this vaccine and we probably won't know for a very long time.

And to do it to all these children all at once without having that information about about what could happen with fertility, what could how it could affect cancer rates, autoimmune disease, all kind of things that it could affect.

And we have no idea. And we don't have those long term studies. So it's it's a concern. I know a lot of parents are thinking about that now and they're thinking they're trying to push back and then they're thinking about what they would do.

I know a lot of people would pull their kids.

How far are you willing to go if this is forced on you to take it? What would they have to do to maybe convince you or get you to take it?

They can't convince me.

So no limit.

No limits. No limits.

All right.

How far are you willing to go if this is mandated if at your place of employment? I don't know if it is yet or not. But are you willing to keep my job, keep it?

And I hope everybody else walks out with me because I don't need their money.

Keep it.

I will never get the vaccine ever.

If this is forced on you, I don't know if you're in the medical field or not, but in whatever field you're in, how far are you willing to go to resist it?

I'm never going to comply.

Would you consider homeschooling?

I definitely would. Yeah, I definitely would consider homeschooling.

Public Fear and Intimidation Around the Mandate

Hey, everyone. So we've left the Walmart parking lot and tried to find a little bit of a quiet place to talk about, kind of just recap and talk about what just happened. Just a few observations for you.

Number one, the nurses that we tried to talk to, and there were a handful of them, at least.

There.

It's probably five or so. I don't know. But we asked a couple of them and they would not talk to us. They can get to more people.

I would rather not.

No?

Okay. All right.

And we were told basically by the organizer, who was a nurse, that none of them would probably talk to us just because if their face goes out on camera, on the internet, and they're recognized, this could be bad for them.

This could really affect their livelihood. And so they don't want to be shown publicly right now, even though they are publicly protesting. In public, they're trying to diminish their presence online.

So that just shows you the level of intimidation. And they weren't the only ones. There was someone talking to us who said, hey, there's a guy who owns a business. He's a barber just down the street, very supportive of everything that's going on, but he will not come and show his face just because he's afraid of losing business.

And I don't know how many people there are like that, but I'm assuming there's probably quite a few. People are afraid right now. And that's one of the takeaways. People are very afraid. Even those who are probably the more brave among us who are willing to go out and make a sign or sign a petition or publicly show I'm against the mandate.

Even many of them don't want to be seen on camera. They're just very afraid. And that gives you a little bit of a taste, at least here in New York, and I think probably across the nation, of how people feel about this.

That's another thing, too. A lot of people are now scared to voice their opinion. You know, we used to have a country where we can disagree on the issues and now it's like, oh, you're an idiot, you're, you know, you're an idiot, they just dismiss you.

It's just a point of dismissing the opinion instead of arguing the points.

And that should scare us. I mean, this should be a country where you're at least allowed to disagree and that could come back to hurt people to the point that they're afraid of losing their jobs. And that's that's something to just realize.

Christian Concerns, Freedom, and Government Overreach

Other observations about what we saw, there's probably, I don't know, 150 people or so there. I'm assuming probably as the month progresses, that number may increase. Social media, I tried to find on social media more about this and I couldn't find anything.

And so Facebook may have already banned whatever page existed at one point. But I think this is spreading more from word of mouth. As far as I mean, I didn't ask a lot of questions related directly to Christianity.

There were there was someone I noticed who was walking around and just praying during this whole time, praying over the gathering. We did talk to a veteran who was a Christian and he he views everything going on as far as forcing the mandate to be related to an attack on not just the United States, but on Christianity as well.

And I believe in God. This is a God sense that we all need to do right by our people. You know, we can't be just looking at a blind eye about things and not caring about what has, you know, people doing a blind eye of it.

But when it goes from your backyard to your house, so to speak, and then it is too late.

I don't think many people can articulate it, though. Some probably can. But I think a lot of people just the sense that I was getting was they oppose this mostly because it's it's against freedom. And that's and that's kind of what they a lot of them said.

Some of them expressed concerns for the side effects for their children, for themselves. But I think undergirding a lot of it and and it's not really articulated that much. You kind of you pick it up in kind of between the lines in a way is this kind of foreboding feeling that the government is becoming so massive and totalitarian and dictatorial.

It's it's the government's taking the place of God. The government is overstepping its boundary so much that this is what's making them. This is what's bleeding to the depression that one of the veterans that I talked to certainly felt.

And I talked to him for a while off camera. And it's just obvious when went overseas, defended this country and just feels like what what why? You know, what what was it for this government that he fought for and that he thought represented the interests of the people of the United States?

It does not actually represent the interests of the people of the United States. And it's usurping the place that once belonged to God and to religion and to Christianity in particular. And so I think I think that's kind of unstated, but it's kind of packed into the notion of freedom when people say that they're there.

This is threatening freedom. What do they mean by that? What kind of freedom? I think that's what they're talking about. They're saying that this is infringing on their personal liberty. They're what they do with their body, the decisions they make for their family, for their children.

But this is also it's not a it's it's it's an overstepping of the boundary that should be there for government. So this is not an area in which they should be involved. And maybe they could understand it under other circumstances.

But these aren't those circumstances that gives you at least a sense for what people are feeling here in the state of New York. One last thing I will mention. I forgot to say it earlier that people on the road, drivers who are coming past, we heard a lot of honks.

It was hard to get some of these interviews in a way just because so much noise, so many people honking. A few people, just a handful, hardly any coming through being trying to oppose what was being articulated by the people who want to stop the mandate.

Overwhelmingly, it seemed very supportive to me. And I think that's probably where people are mostly at. Even people who got the vaccine and are for the vaccine, they don't think it should be mandated even to health care workers.

There might be a few people who think that way, but it's another case of probably the majority being bullied by a very loud and vocal minority who happens to have institutional power. The media, in fact, a lot of people, they were afraid to talk to me at first because they thought I was with the media.

And I said, look, I'm not. No, we're pro we're pro freedom. We're anti the mandate. We just want to get your opinion on it. And then they were some of them were willing to talk to me. But there's a mistrust because the few people who are opposing this actively, they have a very large, a large portion of the elites in our country are backing them up.

And but the common, regular, ordinary people driving down the road, shopping at Walmart, they don't seem to be supporting this. And I think that should encourage everyone. Come on out if you're in the area.

If you're not in the area, find something that's similar, maybe get involved in your local community. And I think if you're involved in your local community with the real people who live there and work there, then you can create a mass of people that can oppose this kind of thing.

And I mean, what what's a hospital going to do? What's what's a and even if it's not a hospital, if it's a place of work and people just leave because they don't want to take the vaccine or not not leave, but they're forced to be fired and the place has no workers, then it's just not a practical situation.

You you need workers to make this country move, to make your local area, move your local hospital. And so if enough people just have the guts that they say they have and oppose the mandate and they stand together, then you're not going to have the mandate is going to fall.

It's going to crumble up. People aren't going to be able to enforce it. And that's that's really, I think, the question right now are enough people in local areas, local politicians, regular ordinary people willing to say I'm going to stand up against this.

Standing Up Against Tyranny and the Coming Fight Over Schools

Yesterday, I was at a church and I ran into someone and I won't say where but they are responsible for thousands of children, multiple school districts, whether or not they will this this person whether he will approve for these school districts, the vaccine for children that are from ages two to 11.

And he's already approved it for adults. And he's having a lot of second thoughts about it. And so we talked for a little while, give him my number. But I could just tell the fear that he even said he's like, this isn't a fight that I was that I wanted to have.

But I encouraged him. I said, look, not many people in history can say they had an opportunity to stand against evil, to stand against tyranny. And if you don't think we're I mean, those who are listening to this podcast probably know that we are heading for tyranny.

We already have it, but we're heading for even more of it. What are you going to say to your grandchildren? What are you going to say to your children? And this is an opportunity right here right now.

You won't get this opportunity forever to stand against this stuff. But what kind of influence do you have? What platform do you have? How can you use it to stand against this? Ask those questions because the timer is ticking and and we're going to be held responsible for it.

And it's here. It's now it's something tangible that you can actually do. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you so much for watching. I hope this was encouraging to you. And we'll have more coming out about this issue.

I didn't want to touch it, but I'm going to touch it. And we're going to touch it a lot more in the coming week and maybe even the coming.

Weeks.

Lots more coming on social justice as well. And and but this is related and the government is not God. And we want to send a clear message to people that this is this is not wise to mandate this and the government does not have this authority and they shouldn't have this authority.

So anyway, hope that helps. God bless more coming soon. Bye now.