Face Masks & Courage: Is Family Your Excuse for Cowardice, or is Family Your Motivation for Standing Upright?

Parents used to stand up in life for the benefit of their kids. They realized that no matter how much money they left their kids, the inheritance of freedom was worth so much more to a child than the dollars and cents a parent could leave behind.

Today so many parents make their child an excuse for why they refuse to stand up in life, and they say they are keeping their lips zipped BECAUSE of their child. They are doing it BECAUSE of their child they say.

That’s not okay.

A Kentucky soccer coach who refused to go masked and refused to enforce the mask didn’t keep quiet because of his daughter. He stood up because of his daughter. He lost his coveted position as a result.

But because of his courage, he is also the father of the only soccer player in the county who plays without a mask.

The father who wrote me from Arizona didn’t back down from his values because of his kids. No he doubled down. A decorated teacher, when the lockdowns began he didn’t put on his mask and mask his two sons. No, he quit his job, pulled his two sons out of school and now homeschools them, a far more nurturing environment for all three of them.

These are heroes of 2020, not the 16-year-old Trader Joe’s bag boy yelling at his 60-year-old elders to mask up, emboldened by the unhealthy public health dictates and the trillion dollar media machine that wants to sell us all manner of bad ideas.

These parents are the leaders of 2020, not the chattering classes who go on guilt-filled tirades in the media, trying to get regular folks to do the most irregular and unnatural things: such as placing a ten-cent polypropylene mask from Wuhan province on their kids faces and calling that normal, or letting a child be put on house arrest and calling that “lockdown” normal, or letting the public health bureaucrats know that every weird experiment on their child that a bureaucrat could possibly come up with is an experiment that your family will willingly sacrifice their youngest and most precious to.

We are experimenting on our children, people! We are subjecting our most precious members of society to experimentation that is demonstrably neither safe nor effective.

You tell your child everything that he needs to know about you in a moment like this. Your words mean so little. Your actions say it all.

If you can’t be courageous in the moments that really matter, then you have no virtue.

All other virtues depend on your ability to walk through life courageously. It is at such moments that your worth to those around you is shown. All your talk of virtue means nothing if your own sense of duty and courage do not undergird that virtue and move you to action.

For this reason, courage has been called the greatest of virtues, for upon courage, all other virtues rest.

I call on you, dear reader, to be as courageous as possible in a moment like this, to err on the side of courage, to err on the side of valor, to err on the side of bravery.

This moment needs that of you. The people around you need that of you.

If you can’t give that, and give that 110%, then you owe those around you the honesty of letting them know that, so that they at least can realize that you are not the protector in their lives that they can count on at a moment like this, to be there when all else goes wrong, because at least then they have the clarity to realize that they must step up and protect themselves. At least then they won’t walk alongside you thinking that you have this under control. At least then they won’t be left delusionally thinking that you are watching out for them no matter what.

You can at least do them that favor of providing them clarity.

Everyone from 8-months-old to 108-years-old in your life deserves to know that from you if you choose to walk through this important moment in time as a coward.

The face mask signals exactly that to the world, but your loved ones may not see your cowardice as clearly, as they are prone to have more faith in you and may give you the benefit of the doubt. As quickly as possible, you owe them that hard dose of reality that says “I will not be your protector. You are on your own in this fight. My actions may even prove me as a friend to your enemy. I may be one whose cowardice rubs off on you, undermines your sense of decency and corrupts your values.”

Reality is harsh, and reality is what they need from you now more than ever.

History presents decisive moments. Such decisive moments are looked back on as a moment when everything was able to go so right or in which everything could go so wrong. We are living through a moment like that. The next century of human history may very well be built on the actions taken by individuals in the months ahead.

Act now, for soon the opportunity will have passed.

If you choose to walk through such a decisive moment as a coward, those placed under your stewardship at least deserve the honesty of being told you will not be there for them.

They deserve that much.

It is my hope that you can give them so much more, but perhaps not everyone has that ability at their disposal to look such a moment in the face and stand up tall.

I would not know.

I have many flaws, but cowardice is not one of them.

I refuse to let cowards around me.

I’d rather surround myself with those who disagree with me on 75% of issues, but who I know have courage, than to surround myself with those who agree with me 95% and are filled with cowardice.

A coward you can never depend on.

Their 95% agreement is in their words, but when placed under pressure, you can be certain that they will no longer agree with you 95%. Their actions will communicate everything you need to know about them.

The days that have followed since the Ides of March 2020 have told us who the cowards are and who the upright are. Hardly could I have asked for a better gift than the wisdom those days have brought into my life, as the most vocal and outspoken about the topic of virtue cowered.

It quickly became evident who they were. As painful as that realization may have been, that clarity about who was a coward and who was courageous has truly been a blessing in my life.

“It’s just a face mask,” is something only a coward or a weasel would say to you. “It’s just a face mask,” is something that will only be said by someone looking to downplay the role of courage, the role of bravery, the role of valor, the role of wisdom in the world, someone looking to convince you of an agenda that provides you with no benefit.

A face mask says so much. It says nearly everything you need to know about a person. Because if they will cower, their words are worth so little. If all they need is the right reason in order to acquiesce to the unwise, then their wisdom means so little.

I do not care if a man agrees with me, but I care if he is steel-spined enough for his actions to match his words.

Give me a table full of men gathered around who agree with me on just a little, but whose actions match their words, and I will trade them for an entire army of the most doctrinaire who lack courage. I will trade them for an entire free state full of the most doctrinaire who lack courage. I will trade them for an entire country full of the most doctrinaire who lack courage.

What will you be?

Will you be a person of faith? A person of values? A person of boundaries? A person of courage?

Or will you be a person of fear? A person of preference? A person obedient and flexible to the world? A person of cowardice?

You tell the world everything it needs to know about you when you put on that face mask.

Never put on that face mask again. Not once more. Not for any reason. Let us put the past behind us, but starting today the mask must become part of your history. Read “Face Masks in One Lesson” if you don’t know how to do that. Read my LewRockwell.com writings on the topic. Sign up for email pointers and videos at RealStevo.com, totally free of charge. Most importantly, all you really need is to resolve to never again wear that face mask.