Seriously? Part 2 for the Introduction to Masks are Bullshit?

Last week, I made a poor choice in choosing to review “Masks are Bullshit” for my new segment about crazy books to get this blog going. I think I wrote nearly 5,000 words taking down his personal attacks and bullshit arguments in his book. However, we’re not quite done with the introductions yet, since Kevin wrote two separate introductions.

So, let’s double down on a bad bet and continue reading this grifter’s book on why masks are bullshit. But one thing I want to ask is… why didn’t he have some other grifter write a forward to this steaming pile of bullshit?

Kevin J. Johnston Doesn’t Understand Induced Demand, Blames Multiculturalism for Traffic Jams

The introduction goes a whole page before saying something crazy. As crazy as claiming that the California wildfires are caused not by climate change but rather, Jewish Space Lasers. A new record for Kevin. He talks about when he wrote this heaping pile of bullshit, “the second, third and fourth week of September of the Year 2020”. Which is a bit odd, as he claims that:

North American Media started picking up on the story in December of 2020, but sparsely.

Kevin J. Johnston, Masks are Bullshit, page 18

Whatever. He also makes it clear that at this time, he was still living in Mississauga, nearly one year before he would lose the Calgary mayoral election. But as the next page starts, he gets back to his hateful, nonsensical bullshit.

These highways have more traffic on them than most cities in Canada combined and are hell on Earth to drive on because Canada has a ridiculous Multicultural policy which aims to import the most useless, uneducated, unemployable, disrespectful and incompetent drivers in the world all of whom congregate in the Toronto area and drive on these highways with both their eyes closed.

TRUE STORY!

Kevin J. Johnston, Masks are Bullshit, page 15

The first issue is that this isn’t actually a true story. Not even remotely. Rather, Canada takes advantage of failings in the U.S. immigration system to pick up high skilled workers the U.S. lets slip through their fingers. In fact, high-skilled immigrants are a much higher percentage of the immigrants Canada accepts than in the United States.

Furthermore, Johnston’s claim that immigrants are “unemployable” runs contrary to his claim in the last introduction that it’s impossible for white guys to get jobs in Canada.

The problem isn’t multiculturalism, why the hell would it be? The problem is car-dependency. That’s why we see the same problem south of the border in the less multicultural United States. You know where we don’t see this problem, though? In cities that actually favor modes of transport that can move more people, like Amsterdam.

It’s not immigrants that create traffic. Rather, it’s prioritizing infrastructure for cars and creating car dependency that creates traffic.

Why does Kevin think “Masks are Bullshit”? Simply put, “Nobody has COVID-19”

Kevin prattles on about an irrelevant point about Lester B Pearson International Airport, Canada’s biggest airport. Then, he leaps to one of the most illogical conclusions that I’ve ever seen.

My point? Nobody here has COVID-19!

You know what that means? COVID-19 is bullshit. You know what else that means? Masks are bullshit!

Kevin J. Johnston, Masks are Bullshit, page 15

This was, at the time, manifestly untrue. According to Public Health Ontario (archived), there were 50,232 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with the highest number of cases being in the area Johnston lived in. So, we are able to debunk this claim of Kevin’s… because of math. He claims that nobody there had COVID but we can point to 50,000+ confirmed cases of the disease.

He also got COVID-19 himself after he moved to Alberta. However, he tried to deny it and claim it was pneumonia, but everyone in the house he lived in caught it. He may claim masks are bullshit but clearly, Kevin’s claims about not having COVID are bullshit.

Kevin J. Johnston doesn’t just think he’s an investigative journalist. He thinks he’s the “best social commentator and investigative journalist”.

My name is Kevin J. Johnston, Canada’s best social commentator and investigative journalist. I am the type of guy that believes absolutely nothing that anyone says to him, does not believe that authority exists and does not believe that any Canadian politician has an intelligence quotient above 83. Naturally, I will investigate everything that is said to me making me the worst customer you could ever possibly have because if you lie to me once, you’re fucked.

Kevin J. Johnston, Masks are Bullshit, pages 15-16

Considering that Kevin was a political candidate himself (and thus, is a politician), I think he’s projecting a bit here.

But the thing is, Kevin is a terrible journalist if we take him at his word that he is one at all. He quote mines like you wouldn’t believe to support his own nonsensical arguments. He accepts as true any sort of right-wing conspiracy that strikes his fancy, hence this book.

And as for his claim that he “believes absolutely nothing that anyone says to him”, that’s not necessarily true. He believes many things that he picked up from other grifters and bigots. His anti-vax nonsense comes from a “Dr.” James Sears, who writes the most infamous Neo-Nazi newsletter in Canada and who was found guilty of the willful promotion of hatred.

Kevin J. Johnston claims his 2020 conviction was about his reporting on COVID.

As a social commentator I began talking about Coronavirus everyday and all I would do is report on what I knew to be true at the time. However, because Canada is both a Marxist and Communist country, my efforts to expose the Canadian government’s incompetence in handling the Coronavirus problem landed me in handcuffs. I had to watch the world falling apart on a single television set only a couple of hours a day from a super maximum security prison. That is correct, if you have a dissenting opinion in Canada, the Canadian government will put you in jail and they did that to me for six weeks between February 1st and March 14th of 2020.

Kevin J. Johnston, Masks are Bullshit, page 22

Honestly, I’m not sure if this is true or not and I’m leaning towards the likelihood that it probably isn’t. I tried to look up details on this arrest and I couldn’t find anything. The only prison time I know that Kevin J. Johnston was serving or was sentenced to was for his hate speech against Muslims in Ontario in 2017. Additionally, the court sentenced him for his contempt of court for continuing to defame Mohammad Fakih in 2021. To put it simply, he makes a career out of spreading hate and lying.

But as for his early 2020 conviction, there is enough evidence to suspect that Kevin’s conviction was for harassing the prosecutor in his hate crimes case at a grocery store. Not for reporting on COVID-19. It was only after the government started taking the pandemic seriously here that the right-wing started politicizing it.

However, we do know that Johnston’s claim that he was calling out the Canadian government’s incompetence in handling COVID is nonsensical. In fact, in early 2020 (yes, I made sure to take a backup of the video to archive it), he was advocating for the liberal use of masks and sanitizer. Futhermore, he supported the shutdowns and heavy lockdowns in Italy. He knows that those lockdowns were the government abiding by its duty to protect its citizens.

Good move. No, it’s not an over reaction, it’s a very, very good move

Kevin J. Johnston, in this video, at 3 minutes 12 seconds in about the Italian government implementing a lockdown.

Which, and I truly can’t believe I’m saying that, Kevin J. Johnston was right about. Countries that locked down and locked down hard fared better than those that did not.

Don’t move to Canada if you’re going to be a shitbag like Kevin

Kevin gives arguably the best advice he’s probably ever given in the following paragraph.

If you’re ever thinking about moving to Canada, please reconsider. If you offend somebody or you disagree with our treasonous Prime Minister Jihadi Justin Trudeau you will go to this prison or one just like it, WIHTOUT [sic] A TRIAL, NOR A CONVICTION like I did.

Kevin J. Johnston, Masks are Bullshit, page 24

Yes, don’t move to Canada if you think it’s okay to harass or intimidate a prosecutor working on your case. I assume this is what Kevin means by “offend somebody”. Don’t move to Canada if you’re going to spend your time writing hate speech like Kevin does. And certainly don’t move to Canada if you’re going to defame innocent people like Kevin has. The courts in Canada take hate speech seriously.

If the court can’t trust that you’re going to abide by the conditions of your release, why shouldn’t they lock you up? Bail and release conditions are all about making sure that you’re going to show up for court and not be a shithead on the outside while you’re waiting for trial.

Kevin J. Johnston whines about facing to consequences of his own actions

In fact, he pisses and moans so much about the state of Canadian prisons and having to face the consequences of his own actions. He goes on for three pages about prison until we finally get to a point relevant to his thesis statement that “masks are bullshit”. As he was waiting for a court hearing to try to get release conditions, all the sports leagues were cancelling their games in response to the pandemic.

In short, the pandemic was so serious that multi-million, if not billion, dollar organizations like sports teams were shutting down their operations.

At 4 p.m. another guard that I had never seen before announced that the courthouse was going to be closed at 5 p.m. due to COVID-19 and was not going to reopen for 6 months and within a couple of minutes another guard announced that the Maplehurst Prison was also closing down which meant that I was going to have to stay in the courthouse jail cell for up to SIX WEEKS. Now I was really pissed off. The way this was being sold to us is that the end of the world was around the corner and I was stuck in a cage for speaking publicly about COVID-19 instead of being at home protecting my family FROM COVID-19.

Kevin J. Johnston, Masks are Bullshit, pages 27-28

Why would he need to be “protecting [his] family FROM COVID-19” if he believes it didn’t exist? Also, if “protecting [his] family FROM COVID-19” was so important to Kevin, why did he choose to harass that prosecutor?

And when he got released, he whines about his release conditions given to him by “the Crown Attourney [sic]”. Including the prohibition against going to mosques, which seems like an unintentional slip in his narrative. If this were truly about his “reporting” on COVID-19 and not the hate crimes charges any reasonable person would suspect they’re about, why would it be such a big deal for him not to go to mosques?

Though, the release condition about not being able to use social media does neatly explain why he didn’t make any videos until October 2020.

Kevin claims he has a good lawyer

Kevin claims that “because [he has] a good lawyer, [he] can tell [us] all the reasons why masks are bullshit”. No, Kevin, you don’t. You’ve lost nearly every legal battle you were in. The only one that you’ve come close to winning is when Dawson Creek allowed you to plead guilty in the case against you for assaulting Dave at the No Frills and serve no jail time for it.

In short, your attorney is the Canadian equivalent of Lionel Hutz. If I didn’t know he actually exists, I’d think you made him up. The tragic reality, however, is that this dude does exist. Someone wasted so much time going to law school only to be so pathetically bad at lawyering, he only defends right-wing nutters. He’s so bad at his job, if given the choice between remaining unrepresented or having Kevin’s lawyer, I’d rather remain pro se.

“Fake News”, a/k/a Kevin J. Johnston has his nose so far up Donald Trump’s ass, he’s tickling Trump’s prostate.

Donald J. Trump, the greatest president the Americans have ever had, has all but destroyed the left-wing media by pointing out that most of them are fake news… which they are! CNN, Buzzfeed, Vice, New York Times, CBC, CTV, City TV, The Toronto Star, Huffington Post, National Post and others are all losing money because the public has caught onto the fact that they are LIARS. Bullshit can only be peddled for so long before your customer base catches on and you start losing money. These sad and useless media outlets MUST have you tune in to be able to sell a couple of commercial spaces to left-wing businesses and they only way to get a FED UP public to pay attention is to CREATE FAKE PANIC!

Kevin J. Johnston, Masks are Bullshit, pages 18-19

It’s always amazing seeing someone so fringe that they think CNN is “left-wing media”. The thing about traditional media (which includes everything but Huffington Post, Vice, and Buzzfeed, which I’ll come back to later) is that they’re getting lower viewership. With more people cutting the cord and with lower cable TV subscriptions, we’re starting to see a shift away from traditional media. In fact, the CBC predicted this all the way back in 2015.

Also, I wonder if he considers any business that took the pandemic seriously to be “left-wing”. Apparently, you need to be “left-wing” to take efforts to protect your employees and customers. It’s somehow “left-wing” to reduce your legal liability. I honestly thought this was the action of any responsible business owner. If Kevin ever ran a successful business, he would know this. However, like his idol Trump, all his businesses fizzled out.

Kevin J. Johnston claims masks are bullshit, but tries to make it all about the fear.

He claims that the real concern is the public “ACTUALLY PANICKING”. However, I think the COVID denialism that people like Kevin promoted helped encourage the spread of COVID and kept the pandemic alive. On pages 19-20, Kevin lists “really stupid shit” he claims people did during the pandemic. He attributes it to this fear he alleges people had. However, nothing on his list could be considered “stupid shit” at all. Hell, one of the things he listed likely wasn’t happening at all.

Enforcing mask wearing

For the sake of brevity, because I’m already sensing that this is going to be another long post, I’m rolling “Swearing at people who don’t wear a mask”, “Scream at the top of their lungs in public places at people who aren’t wearing a mask”, “Shouting at 10 year old kids who aren’t wearing a mask”, and “ASSAULTING people who are not wearing a mask” into this.

Again, how is this irrational or “stupid shit” in any way? Especially given that this is a respiratory virus. A mask is the best way to control the spread of the virus. Especially before we can develop and release a vaccine. Wearing a mask is a reasonable measure to take to control the spread of this virus. If someone adamantly refuses to do so, they are showing contempt for the safety of everyone around them, including you. In short, they have chosen to be a threat to you. In which case, swearing, screaming, and “assaulting” (which, in reality, is a form of self-defence because they’re trying to get you away from them) are perfectly logical responses.

Stocking up on supplies

He wrote it up as “Buy 600 rolls of toilet paper and then realizing that you have no money left for rent.”, but the thing about stocking up on supplies is that in the early days of the lockdowns, we didn’t have a great understanding of what we would need. This isn’t “stupid shit”. It is, instead, the result of panic buying.

Misdiagnoses of COVID

Kevin wrote it up as “Watching your son bleed to death in front of you
from an accidental gunshot wound to the throat, and then believing your local hospital when they tell you the cause of death was COVID-19.” However, I’m writing it as “misdiagnoses of COVID”. Either way you slice it, I’ve seen no proof that this is actually occurring and Kevin has provided no proof.

Believing politicians

Even though I don’t trust politicians like Kevin, there was a good reason to trust politicians here. COVID-19 was infecting innocent people all across the country. People knew people who died from this pandemic. Others were severely injured by this pandemic. And the people who claimed that “masks are bullshit” only made it worse.

However, I would argue that politicians used this opportunity – though not in the way Kevin thinks. This was an international tragedy that helped bring people together and helped politicians connect with people on a legitimate cause for concern. It was like every politician in the world had their Rudy Giuliani moment. I just hope they don’t throw it away for a grifter… like Rudy Giuliani did.

In Conclusion, Masks are not Bullshit

We got through the introductions, people. Thirty pages in, Jesus fucking Christ. Thankfully, I was able to skip over three pages in covering this review because they were just him whining about the conditions of his release. And I’m also thankful that this response is nearly half the length of last week’s response to his first introduction. Which, to be fair, is a problem in the unlikely event that the things he’s saying are actually true. I’m definitely more of a fan of a European prison system that seeks rehabilitation rather than pure punishment. This is another thing Canada and the US get wrong and other countries get right.

However, Kevin does not strike me as the kind of person who learns from the consequences of his actions. He refused to wear masks, claiming that masks are bullshit, even after he caught COVID-19. He refused to stop defaming innocent people, even though the court punished him for doing so. In fact, he chose to cross the US-Canada border illegally rather than face accountability for his continued defamation of Mr. Fakih in Ontario. He’ll piss and moan about the consequences of his actions but he won’t once reflect on them and how he can avoid those consequences in the future. In short, he’s unwilling to learn from his actions, choosing instead of whine about them.

I am reminded of how people on the right referred to masks as “face diapers”. Which I think is a bit more projection than anything else. After all, if you spend your time spewing as much bullshit as Kevin does, it makes sense that your view that a barrier to your shit is seen as a “diaper”.

Series Navigation

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