Busybodies Being Busy

Careers and Empires Built On Meddling In Your Life

Although there’s now a pause, recently the Biden White House instructed the FDA to put a ban on Juul, a popular e-cigarette/vaping system.

The reasoning behind this, according to this Newsweek article:

The federal agency started looking into Juul's products four years ago, prompted by accusations that the company's sweet and fruit-flavored products, together with Juul's glamorizing marketing strategy, encouraged people to pick up vaping instead of quitting smoking.

I’m a former smoker. When I was a teenager, I got caught shoplifting two packs of Marlboro Menthol cigarettes from a local grocery store. I was caught, they made me pay a $153 fine, and then released me with the two packs of Marlboro Reds, because hey, I bought them.

That night, I did the math. As I lit one up and passed them around to my college friends, I realized each cigarette cost me almost $4. We laughed and smoked away.

I continued to smoke for a couple of years. The prices started to creep up (this was right after the big-tobacco whistleblower anti-trust litigation in the 90s). Finally the price was going to go from $2.75 to $3. I was bartending while attending tech school, and my money was tight as it was, and for me, that was the straw that broke the Camel’s (pun intended) back. I quit shortly after.

In retrospect, I’ll admit I was probably nudged a bit by the following government efforts to punish big tobacco through the fines and restrictions they placed on these tobacco companies.

This Is Only A (Beta) Test

But the truth is, I’d wanted to quit for a while, and that price hike was the last straw for me. So. Should I thank the powers that be for herding me in a direction that they had pre-determined to be right? Should I bow at their alter in thanks for delivering me from their newly defined sin?

I don’t know. I’m glad I quit smoking.

Maybe I needed a little help. In this case, it came in the form of a price hike, but ultimately it was my own decisions, actions, and discipline that was the reason I actually quit. The reality was, I could have still afforded the habit. I could have continued to find ways to continue, but my desire to quit was something I wanted to do and did. Ultimately, that was my self-determination to pursue happiness.

For as long as humans have existed in societies, there have been busybodies. People who stir pots that they shouldn’t be stirring. Interlopers and meddlers into affairs in which they have no business or right. Self-righteous, misguided fools thinking they are saviors and do-gooders.

It sure seems like these kinds of people end up in all forms of government, doesn’t it?

They appear in your HR departments. School boards. Facebook groups. Church councils. Humanities departments. Municipalities.

They crawl into a cubicle in a tax office or courthouse.

Eventually some of them - too many, it seems - end up in the highest offices and bureaucracies around the world and stay there, like some festering, cancerous growth that metastasizes for decades.

These self-appointed policemen and women of acceptable behavior work like crusading fiends for their causes. Whether it’s kicking Mabel out of church because she had a disagreement with the resident Karen over the color of the new pews, or someone in the Biden administration deciding Juul is evil and should be banned from the market, these superheroes of subjective societal piety have no qualms about injecting themselves into the fabric of countless lives they have no business interfering with.

Most of these people are mildly annoying to somewhat disruptive. Obviously that’s subjective, but a lot of the times, as these busybodies are working away like dedicated worker bees on their own (or mandated) crusades, offsetting their efforts can be somewhat manageable. These are often times small people on their own little power trips, and the ripples they cause are often tiny, infrequent, and not very meaningful. Let’s call them the “pebble throwers”.

Then, you have the next level. These are the people who are constantly hurling bricks. The Brick Hurlers. Their consistent and long-term efforts wear you down. They write laws and regulations that force you to close down your family business that you’ve worked your hands to the bone for 40 years to sustain. They institute “health emergency measures” that are never laws but enforceable through intimidation and threat nonetheless. They do significant damage that’s scalable, and often their efforts create far-reaching unintended consequences.

But those unintended consequences are meaningless to them. Disassociated from their day to day. Hey, they’re just doing their jobs, and it doesn’t matter what the ramifications turn out to be. It doesn’t matter how many real people are affected, because all that matters is their tunnel vision. They go to bed at night convinced their cause is righteous, and that they’re doing their part to change the world.

Last, you have the most nefarious of them all. The grand social engineer.

Whether it’s a George Soros or Klaus Schwab type or some invisible face in some black hole, there are very real and very powerful people who will stop at nothing to remake the image of the world and everything in it. They are the Crazy Makers.

If psychopaths and megalomaniacs had a doctorate, this would be that class. They’ll use everything and stop at nothing to move the world closer to their vision. They create the machines and factories to churn out their visions. The Brick Hurlers are their army and workforce, and they invest heavily in this class to make sure as many bricks are hurled in one direction or another as possible.

For instance, take the WEF Young Global Leaders.

This is an arm of the WEF (World Economic Forum) that recruits, grooms, finances, and empowers up-and coming Pebble Throwers, Brick Hurlers, and even Crazy Makers. A short list of some of the more notable alumni includes:

• Jeff Bezos

• Justin Trudeau

• Jacinda Ardern

• George Stephanopoulos

• Mark Zuckerberg

• Larry Page

• Peter Thiel

• Nikki Haley

• Fareed Zakaria

• Leana Wen

• Pete Buttigieg

• Tony Blair

• Gavin Newsome

• Dan Crenshaw

• Huma Abedin

• Vladimir Putin

• Angela Merkel

• Emmanual Macron

• Nicholas Sarkosy

As you can see, powerful world leaders and influences from across all spectrums.

I’m not suggesting that every person that’s ever been part of this group is nefarious or an evil psychopath. What I’m saying is that very powerful people have created very powerful infrastructures and are churning out proteges and influencers, and then these people are often installed in very strategic and key positions of power and influence.

It’s not a stretch to think that most, if not all, of the people in this alumni group are in some way favorable to their masters or have been molded to their thinking. It’s also a pretty clear explanation for how quickly everyone around the world started to talk about “Build Back Better” in unison. This is a deep network. Well coordinated. Strategic. With nearly unlimited money and resources.

And this is just one of many. If you want to take a deep dive down the rabbit hole of the consolidation of money, power, and influence, I would suggest checking out this banned-from-YouTube video, Monopoly - Who Owns The World. It’s a really fascinating breakdown of who is controlling our global chess board. Do your own research, of course.

There are always going to be busybodies. We will continually be nudged and herded by pebble-throwers and Crazy Makers.

What those of us who despise these run-ins must do is continue to discover ourselves as individuals and fortify our beliefs and principles. We must keep our minds sharp and engaged. We must develop our ability and determination to push back constantly, like working out. Pushback against these small and large busybodies really is like exercising a muscle, and the more we do it, the stronger we’ll be.

Sugar For The Feeble-Minded

In the upcoming days, weeks, and years, pushback must become one of our strongest of all muscles. Not everyone’s going to do it. Or, like a gym membership, some will sign up when the new year hits (or next mandate is proposed), go for a few days, and then quit. Like any other discipline, the key to peak health or production is consistency. The busybodies are nothing if not consistent. We need to match and exceed their efforts, and that starts with us, individually, right here, right now.

I’ll leave you with a couple of questions, and I’d love to hear your comments:

1. How have you been nudged or shoved personally in your life by one of these busybodies? Please share your story.

2. How are you exercising your pushback muscles?