Everywhere I read, everywhere I go (oh yes, I still go), I'm lectured with the message "stay safe, stay home." Of all the obnoxious, patronizing phrases to emerge from the Era of COVID — and there have been many —"stay safe, stay at home" has been the most egregious. How I lead my life is not determined by a committee of flustering busybodies who adhere to unconstitutional decrees made under the guise of "safety."

So take your "stay safe, stay home" mantra and shove it up the closest rectum. You've got plenty of toilet paper, it shouldn't be that hard.

Some disclaimers for the aforementioned busybody snitches who bridle at the thought someone would dare stray from safety. I'm not encouraging foolish risk for the sake of it. But a life free of risk is both impossible and no life at all. We cannot bubble wrap ourselves and claim to care about our existence. Furthermore, those who demand we conform to their orders for "our safety" are not issuing those orders for our safety at all, but are gauging our degree of compliance.

I haven't complied. I won't comply. I still do not own a mask and any business demanding I wear one is a business that doesn't want my patronage.

For those hate-pecking their fingers insisting I "want old people to die," may I introduce you to the concept of personal responsibility. The idea is simple, but take notes if you must: assess your risk to reward ratio and make personal decisions for yourself rather than imposing your fears onto the rest of us. So if you're binge-watching CNN and are terrified of the WuHuFlu, then bubble wrap yourself and stay at home with only the digital image of Brian Stelter to comfort you. Lysol all that is to enter your house, including people. Do what you feel you must to "stay safe, stay healthy, and stay home." Fine. Your body, your choice. Just do not tell the rest of us to do the same. By the way, that's probably how this whole "pandemic" should've gone down. Not shutting the world off, just letting people take care of themselves and letting the chips fall where they may. I know, I know, what a heartless heathen I am. I guess "rights" is just a word we throw around to feel American.

Anyhoo.

COVID-19 is a virus which seems to have about the same fatality rate of the seasonal flu. Sorry to all you science deniers who have your masked-faced heads shoved down sand holes not on public California beaches. For most of us, the seasonal flu is part of life. We're willing to take the risk of contracting the seasonal flu every time we board a plane, enter a building, touch a surface, meet with others, go to work, go to school, and basically live rather average lives. And yet, when 60k people died of seasonal flu, no chyron graphic mourned them. Life, as they say, went on.

Most of us drive cars. Knowing that drivers can be distracted, or are just douchebags with a capital D, most of us still strap on our seatbelts and hit the open road. No safety feature can completely protect us from the real risks of driving. And yet, most of us make that choice every single day.

Think about how stupid this is: the first endurance horse ride in my area was canceled due to COVID-19. If you give no craps about horses, let me explain so you can fully comprehend the dumb. In endurance riding, 40-50 adults at a time ride horses for a long distance race (25 miles or 50 miles in the example offered). These rides are held in the actual middle of nowhere. No ambulances are present. No doctors on standby except vets. There is zero cell reception. So if Courtney were to fall during the race and her horse went running without her, she is seriously effed. Of all the sports out there, equestrian disciplines rank high on the danger spectrum. And yet a ride was canceled over a fears of a virus so we could all "stay safe."

I chose horses knowing they were dangerous. I chose endurance knowing it was dangerous. If I'm willing to risk my body and its safety for a ride, shouldn't I be allowed the same choice when it comes to risking exposure to a virus by, say, going to brunch? And if others are willing to risk exposure to a virus, why can't they make the same choices? Just as they make the choice when they get into a car or take too big a bite of their steak and might choke.

Look, life is full of risks. That's the point I'm getting at. We should be allowed to decide, for ourselves, if those risks are worth it to us for the kind of life we want to lead, without government shutting everything down. Without fretting ninnies snitching on us to five oh.

Of course, the "stay safe, stay home" cultish mantra isn't about safety at all, it's about controlling your life. It's about setting a new normal, monitoring your behavior, deeming you non-essential, and making you live a different life. Maybe I'll elaborate at another time. If you don't think these government protocols and decrees are overstepping, I'm not sure there's much I can do to convince you they are. By the way, if you use a face mask all the time, just wash it once in a while. You know, for sanitary's sake. I've see how some of you treat your masks, and it's not good.

Even if you do bubble wrap yourself and never leave your home, there are health risks of just staying at home! If you want to lead that kind of life of "stay safe, stay at home" that's on you. But we cannot have a world full of gutless ninnies just because others are. Misery only loves company if one is "allowed" to even have company.

And again, if you're at risk, or afriad of catching COVID, then YOU need to take the appropriate precautions, not demand the rest of the world shut down.

But it isn't up to you, the government, the President of the United States or a board of globalists at the World Health Organization to tell me to "stay safe." It is my choice how safe I want my life to be, my choice to decide what risks I am or am not willing to make, and everyone else can stay the hell out.

You have the same rights. What kind of life do you want to lead?