...coming after you for your positions on COVID or, as far as I know, anything else. The criticism is one way. That's fine -- I don't care -- but you don't need to defend your positions with me, as I'm not attacking them. My only problem with you on this board is that you misstate what I (and others) say and then criticize us for the positions you invented. I hope you stop doing that.

I do agree with you that businesses -- UNCOERCED BY GOVERNMENT -- have the right to require masks, but that's not what's happening in many cases, as they are being coerced by government. It also sounds like we're aligned on vax mandates. Truthfully, you and I may be aligned on a lot of stuff as far as I can tell (other than Orange Julius Caesar, of course).

Second, your wording is problematic on the vaccines. What do you mean by "have a problem with the vaccine"? I got the vaccine, so I don't have a problem with it in that sense, and I certainly would not dissuade anyone from getting it, but I think the jury is still out as to whether it does what it was purported to do and whether it could cause long-term harm.

Since I don't know -- and nobody knows -- the answer to this question, I rolled the dice and got it based on the information in hand at that time, but it's not my place to tell others what to do, and that's especially true with this vax in light of the uncertainty around it. I'm also not going to pretend that the vax is a panacea, and I will honor good-faith concerns and questions about it. I don't think these are extreme positions. I think they are honest, practical and fair, and they represent exactly how I'd like to be treated.

I do have a major problem with how the powers that be have reacted to COVID generally and won't pull back from that view at all. What has happened and what continues to happen is extremely dangerous -- far more dangerous than COVID itself, in my view. Sorry, but that's how I see it.