Patriots Rise Up Against Tyranny

By John Friend

As local, regional, and federal jurisdictions around the world implement more lockdowns and other tyrannical measures under the guise of combating Covid-19, which, according to the CDC’s own statistics, has an average 99% recovery rate for otherwise young, healthy people, patriots around the world are rising up and openly defying the legally dubious and increasingly oppressive lockdown mandates.

Major European cities, including London, Berlin, and, more recently, Prague, as well as countless American cities have seen major demonstrations and protests against the lockdown policies implemented by governments—policies that have had disastrous implications for small and medium-sized businesses as well as millions of average citizens whose lives have been negatively impacted. More and more protests are erupting, highlighting the inherent dangers of vaccines and questioning the elite consensus regarding the need for the development and mass utilization of a Covid-19 vaccination, an effort in which the U.S. federal government has invested billions of dollars through Operation Warp Speed.

Restaurants, bars, retail stores, malls, movie theaters, gyms, fitness studios, schools, churches, and countless other businesses and organizations have been forced to either close their doors or severely limit their operations over the course of the past nine months as a result of government-imposed mandates and other regulations. Millions of small and medium-sized businesses have been devastated as a result, with many totally failing and closing their doors for good.

According to a recent report published by Fortune, nearly 100,000 small U.S. businesses have permanently closed this year as a direct result of the various lockdown policies implemented by local and state governments while thousands more are listed as “Temporarily Closed”—with many potentially never re-opening their doors again.

“If economic trends continue at this rate, one-in-five business owners anticipates they won’t make it until the end of the year,” Kevin Kuhlman, the vice president of federal government relations for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a non-profit business advocacy group, told Fortune.

Restaurants in particular have been hard hit by the lockdown policies. In California, for example, recently imposed regionally based policies implemented by Gov. Gavin Newsom have totally outlawed indoor and outdoor dining throughout the entire Southern California region, forcing restaurants to rely on take-out and delivery orders, which has drastically decreased their profit margins and overall ability to generate revenue. Additionally, countless restaurant owners invested significant sums of money to redesign or entirely create outdoor patios and dining areas to comply with the previously imposed health orders, only to be told that now outdoor dining must cease.

Faced with the prospects of laying off staff and permanently closing their businesses, many owners are openly defying the orders, which many legal experts argue are legally challengeable, arbitrary, and, in many instances, totally irrational.

Dave Foldes, owner of Cronies Sports Bar and Grill in Agoura Hills in northwest Los Angeles County, has decided to keep his outdoor dining operation going, despite the local- and state-imposed health mandates to cease outdoor dining.

“We really have no choice. We’re barely getting by. We’re losing $5,000 to $10,000 a month in our busiest normal months,” Foldes explained to Fox11 Los Angeles. “We’re following all the regulations that the rest of the state and country are following; we just need to survive, and I need to make sure my staff survives because they can’t afford it.”

He continued: “The thing that hurts the most here is we’re here for our staff members during Christmastime who need money more than ever, and we don’t have the heart to lay them off.”

Foldes has been fined by Los Angeles County Public Health officials for his defiance yet remains undaunted.

Chef Andrew Gruel, owner of Slapfish, a network of popular seafood restaurants, has also vowed to keep his restaurants in Southern California open for customers and his staff. Speaking to a local news outlet in Los Angeles, Gruel voiced his frustration at the irrational mandates harming small businesses and restaurants, who have been doing everything in their power to comply with all the various—and constantly changing—health directives mandated by local, regional, and state health authorities.

“Small businesses, restaurants, retail—we’ve been following every single step along the way,” Gruel pointed out. “All of the mandates, all of the requirements, only to get the hand to the face at every turn. We’ve followed the science and what it has shown . . . is that outdoor dining is not an issue, so don’t make it an issue.”

Gruel’s courageous and principled approach seems to have paid off, as sales increased twofold over the course of the past weekend.

“Thank you to all of our supporters,” the chef noted on Twitter. “Our sales were double this weekend. We will be using the increase in sales to give bonuses to all of our hard-working employees so they have extra cash ahead of the holidays.”

With the technocrats and tyrants of the world continuing their fear-mongering and draconian lockdown agenda in the name of combating Covid-19, more and more patriots of all political persuasions are resisting and simply not complying with their tyrannical agenda.

John Friend is a freelance writer based in California.