“People are constantly trying to use you to help them create the particular illusions by which they live. This is particularly true of the collective illusions which sometimes are accepted as ideologies. You must renounce and sacrifice the approval that is only a bribe enlisting your support of a collective illusion… You must be willing, if necessary, to become a disturbing and therefore an undesired person, one who is not wanted because he upsets the general dream.” ~-Thomas Merton

Currently, Green Bay Packers’ star quarterback, Aaron Rodgers is lighting up the media airwaves, triggering supporters of vaccine mandates and receiving a slew of backlash. For his personal medical decisions, the establishment media has taken to digitally tarring and feathering him, up to and including, lying about what he’s said in order to discredit him. The hate, vitriol, and slander are flying at him, yet Rodgers has harmed no one.

This is the gamut of scorn that all people in Rodgers’ shoes must go through in today’s society when they challenge the status quo. It has many names but ‘cancel culture’ sums it up well. It is a form of weaponized ostracism and most who go through it don’t survive.

Recently, however, some folks have reached un-cancelable status. Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, and now Aaron Rodgers have reached points in their careers where no one can pull their strings and therefore, the calls from the cancel cult fall on deaf ears.

Canceling or censoring someone’s peaceful views is not done for the betterment of society. It is done because it challenges the collective view of the established norm. The collective hates to have its views challenged because it forces them to defend often illogical, unreasonable, and even completely false ideologies.

In an interview on Friday with Pat McAfee, Rodgers got to tell his side of the story and he held no punches. Out of the gate, Rodgers acknowledged that he was in the “crosshairs” of the cancel culture over his personal medical choices and he immediately pointed out their lies.

I realize I’m in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now. So before my final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I think I’d like to set the record straight on so many of the blatant lies that are out there about myself right now. And I appreciate the opportunity to tell my side of the story on here. First of all, I didn’t lie in the initial press conference. During that time, it was a very witch hunt that was going on across the league, where everybody in the media was so concerned about who was vaccinated and who wasn’t and what that meant and who was being selfish and who would talk about it and what it meant if they said it’s a personal decision, they shouldn’t have to disclose their own medical information and whatnot.

The media claimed that because Rodgers said he was “immunized” that he lied about his vaccination status. But this is simply not true. Again, Rodgers’ vaccination status is no one’s business but he did not lie when saying he was immunized.

I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something. Health is not a one size fits all for everybody.

Rodgers explained that he has an allergy to two of the currently available mRNA vaccines which left him with only the option of the Johnson & Johnson shot. But after seeing all the adverse events reported in the media about J&J’s jab, Rodgers made the wise personal decision to avoid it. This decision was easy considering the fact that it wasn’t available because it had been temporarily pulled from use at the time players were getting vaccinated.

No deaths or anything, but just some really difficult times and physical abnormalities around the J&J shot. And then in mid-April, the J&J shot got pulled for clotting issues, if you remember that. So the J&J shot was not even an option at that point.

Having no other options at the time, Rodgers explained the steps he took to “immunize” himself.

So then my options became, “Okay, what can I do to protect myself and my teammates if there’s not one of the big three options for me in my own body?” And so I looked into and talked, again, to a lot of medical individuals and professionals and found that there was an immunization protocol that I could go to, to best protect myself and my teammates. And it was a long term protocol that involved multiple months. I’m very proud of the research that went into that and the individuals that I met with and we felt like it was what was best for me.

Whatever Rodgers’ protocol was seemed to be extremely effective as he looked completely healthy during the interview — and he currently has COVID-19.

Rodgers went on to explain how natural immunity is not even part of the conversation in regard to mandates, which is devoid of all “science.” Ignoring someone’s naturally immunity they have acquired through previous infection — which is far more effective than a vaccine — and forcing them to get the shot or lose their job, is the antithesis of following the science.

What’s more, as Rodgers pointed out, the establishment continues to focus solely on the vaccine while ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who died from the virus had multiple comorbidities.

At this point in the interview, Rodgers dropped a hard pill to swallow.

“How about we teach people how to be healthy? Until that is the conversation,” Rodgers said, “The non-vaxxed right is gonna champion me and the left is gonna cancel me. And the whole time, I don’t give a sh*t about either of them … Politics is a total sham. I’m not gonna go on FOX News just like I wouldn’t go on CNN. I have no desire to do that. The only desire I have is for people to take autonomy over their body in all forms and facets.

You have a right to make a decision about your body. That should be an unalienable right for all people to make an educated decision based on what they think is best for them.”

Mic drop. But it didn’t stop there. Rodgers went on to call out the billions in our tax dollars that are flowing into the bank accounts of Big Pharma before ending on an incredibly open-minded note.

“I hope we can take a step back and quit lying, quit with the witch hunt and the canceling and realize this is a conversation to be had not a controversy. Let’s move this forward with some love and connection, that’s what we need in this world. Let’s communicate instead of canceling someone or silencing someone. That gets us nowhere.”

Indeed Aaron Rodgers, indeed.