“I am just doing my job.” These six words together constitute one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language.
“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”
That was Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram’s conclusion to his experiment, wherein he found that 65% of people would shock test subjects up to and beyond the point of dangerous levels so long as the orders came from an authority figure. Milgram had his authority figure wear a lab coat for effect.
Milgram created a documentary on his experiment, titled “Obedience.” And today we continue to see it — even three years into Covid insanity. A security guard “just doing his job,” threatened to cancel my first physical therapy appointment at a clinic for not wearing a mask as I sat alone in a waiting room.
I experienced the onset of Guillain-Barre Syndrome — an autoimmune response where your immune system attacks your own nerves, causing paralysis.
Over the course of five days, I went from working out regularly to not being able to walk, cut up a steak or turn on the water before ultimately winding up in the neurology unit.
Post release, limping into therapy with my thoughts, worrying about walking normally again, running a 5k ever again or working again. Wearing a mask was the least of my concerns.
Yet simply put—I refuse to do it.
I refuse to show obedience any longer — as Milgram’s study found most people will — simply because the person telling me to do something ridiculous is wearing a lab coat.
When the front desk attendant insisted that I put on a mask and I said “I am not doing that,” her response was that she did not know if I would be allowed to continue with my appointment.
And then she called a security guard.
“Please put it on, it’s not a request,” the security guard said.
“For the record I have to have my mask on three years into this nonsense?” I responded.
“If you’re in the facility you have to wear a mask,” he said.
“And you’re threatening to kick me out if I don’t put a mask on?” I asked.
“No, I am not threatening to kick you out. But that’s the policy you need to put your mask on.”
“Or else what?” I asked.
“Well, you can go sit in your car and see if they’ll make a car call but I don’t think they will,” he said.
“It’s sad that the clinic is still doing this,” I responded.
“It’s not just the clinic — It’s sad that we still have to do it because people won’t wear their masks,” he replied.
“There are literally studies that say masks don’t work,” I said.
With all due respect to the guard, he highlighted exactly the problem. We are not still doing this because people like me refuse to wear a mask. We are still doing this because people still willingly enforce rules that have no scientific backing, simply because protocols demand it.
I put my mask on long enough for him to leave — and took it off.
The guard returned to see if I was following orders — showing obedience to policies and displaying my allegiance to the COVID gods.
He walked away saying he was going to “cancel my appointment.”
No industry has damaged credibility more by following orders and just doing their jobs than the medical field.
There are worthy contemporary institutions — the police that shut down small businesses, the teachers’ unions that fought to stay closed as children suffered or, worst of all, the Chicago Teachers Union that claimed “the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny.”
The list of “experts” or petty tyrants on the wrong side of history is long.
If you think that years from now, that the facilities that denied treatment or surgery based on masking or vaccines will be viewed favorably, you are mistaken.
I challenge medical facilities everywhere to “trust the science” and end this charade.
But if not:
Will you deny medical care based on a paper mask, proven ineffective?
Will you discriminate based on my refusal to participate in COVID theater?
Will you violate another person’s rights simply because they refuse to submit any longer?
We are not a few weeks into this fear induced psychosis—we are a few years into this.
The time to end COVID protocols was a couple years ago — yet there is no better time than now. And we can say similar things for many other sectors too, from law enforcement to our bureaucratic agencies.
Do we really want this mindset becoming the norm among our leaders and authority figures? Hopefully not, because masking may be a minor issue, but apply it to other scenarios — no matter how wrong it might be to obey — and see where it takes us.
Matt Keener is a writer and small business owner from Ohio. His work has also been featured at The Federalist, American Spectator, American Greatness, RealClearPolitics, and American Thinker and WND. You can find him on Twitter @keenermb and on Truth Social @mattkeener
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.