Home Jeff Louderback's Columns Reflecting on Escaping Apathy

Reflecting on Escaping Apathy

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Back in the earliest days of the so-called COVID “pandemic,” I was skeptical. Mike DeWine and Amy Acton conducted their fear-mongering wine tasting, tie-wearing fashion shows while gaslighting Ohioans to believe that, if they didn’t lock up in their homes and wear one, two and even three masks, they will kill everyone they come across and even kill themselves.
It didn’t make sense. While small businesses were closed, the big-box grocery stores and department stores were stocked with people following arrows down aisles and masked up like bandits. If this was as serious as they say it is, I thought, then people would be dropping dead in the aisles, and stores like that would be closed to begin with.
So being the inquisitive journalist I am, I started digging. And writing article-style posts on Facebook. Interviewing doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, and virologists not fooled by propaganda-peddling government agencies, public health departments, and health care facilities.
At the time, I was an editor and publisher of a community magazine, and a freelance writer and publicist. I had left the full-time mainstream media world years ago because I was unhappy with what it had become – propaganda peddling more tied to what big-money advertisers wanted to see than actual reporting without an agenda.
Before March 2020, I was apathetic about politics and about topics in general that were not related to my comfortable cocoon of life that included my work as a feature writer and publisher, a die-hard sports fan, a guy who just liked to enjoy life without getting involved with anything that might be controversial. Let others do it, I thought.
So back to the spring of 2020, when I started writing journalistic-style posts about COVID, questioning lockdowns and masks, and supporting that writing with detailed research and interviews from medical professionals who actually knew the truth about what was happening, and knew that what people like DeWine, Acton, Anthony Fauci and county public health agencies were either outright lying and being extremely deceptive.
I wrote about how piles of studies show that masks don’t work. They don’t mitigate viruses. And later on in COVID, we saw the truth when reports showed how COVID cases escalated when mask-wearing was at its highest. Of course, there was never any reason to be afraid of COVID. Sure, it impacted people with multiple comorbidities – just like the flu and other viruses. But data showed it had a 99 plus percent survival rate for most age brackets. If you got sick, stayed at home, and treated COVID with holistic methods, you recovered. If you went to the hospital and were susceptible to their protocols, many of these people died from reasons not even related to the actual virus.
What was amusing is this. Those who believed what they were told by the DeWines and Actons would tell me, “So where did you get your medical degree?” I would respond with a smile, “I don’t have one. I have 12 medical degrees.” That was in reference to a team of 12 sources that included physicians, nurses, epidemiologists, and virologists who provided me with insight throughout the entire “pandemic.” Word spread that they could trust me, and they took the risk to speak out to me because they couldn’t publicly or else they would lose their license and be censored and canceled by medical organizations and healthcare facilities.
In 2020, I emerged from apathy and not only started reporting on the truth about COVID, but I became an advocate. For medical freedom. For honoring the Constitution. For supporting businesses that stood up against the COVID nonsense and actually respected their customers. For informed consent so people actually know what is in these vaccines before they inject something in their bodies that could kill them or at the least lead to severe chronic health issues.
As part of that advocacy, I helped organize and promote the Celebration of Liberty events that drew as many as 800 in 2020 when all of the COVID nonsense was at its peak. I organized mask-free grocery shopping trips so that people who didn’t want to wear a mask could get their food in peace because of safety in numbers. I held Five & Jive events at restaurants and taverns to support businesses that didn’t require masks and had the courage to stand up against tyranny. And I organized rallies and protests at the State House. Me. The same guy who didn’t care about politics and events that didn’t directly impact my daily life.
I had help with all of this. I wasn’t the only one. I got to know so many people who were so more advanced in their advocacy and had the privilege of working with so many remarkable people who showed courage and conviction.
All I can say is the person I became when the calendar turned from 2020 to 2021 was different than who I was on New Year’s Day in 2020.
That eventually led to working with Ohio Press Network and then my current role as a national reporter for The Epoch Times, where I feel that advocacy is part of reporting news without an agenda.
Along the way, I was called the most vile names you can think of. Some I can’t post. Some I will, like Charles Manson, super-spreader, and mass murderer. I had people trying to smear my name on social media and even mailing derogatory things with my name on it that I didn’t send. I had a few death threats. And I had plenty of people talking behind my back.
But guess what? During that same time, I grew in my faith in God like never before. I have always been a Christ believer. I grew up in a non-denominational church surrounded by family and a focus on the true Word of God – the Bible. As an adult, I was still a believer, but a lukewarm believer. Just as I was apathetic about politics and getting involved, I went to church now and then and read the Bible now and then, but I hadn’t given all of my heart to God.
COVID, and waking up about how much we are lied to by our government and so-called experts, changed me for the better. I became closer to the man that God intended me to be. I felt the Holy Spirit for the first time and started seeking God and abiding by God.
That doesn’t mean I stopped making mistakes. Though I’m an even-keeled guy who rarely gets worked up, I haven’t always handled things the way I should. I make mistakes. I’m a sinner saved by grace. But when I fully committed to Christ, I started striving each day to live my testimony, and to live by the Golden Rule and Biblical principles and values. A key element of that is standing up for what you believe, even if it is against the narrative and even if you will get torn apart by naysayers and people you thought were your friends.
In an odd way, all the false information about COVID jabs and vaccines in general and standing up for informed consent and medical freedom – all of the COVID nonsense that so many people fell for – was a positive in my life because it led me to where I am today.
I love being a national reporter for The Epoch Times. I love building All In Ohio, and leading a rural and more self-sustainable life. A simpler life. I love being a part of Strangers Helping Strangers, the recently formed incorporated nonprofit that focuses on disaster response and community projects. I love all of the above because of the people who have inspired me, the people I work with, and the camaraderie of working together for a purpose.
And though I love all of that – what is most important is that is not my identity. What I want to be known as is getting closer and closer to being the man God intends me to be. I never want to go back to the man I was before my heart wasn’t where it is now. And as long as I keep on that path, I will never slide back into apathy and not being involved in projects that have a meaningful purpose.
To those of you who have inspired me and motivated me because of your involvement in medical freedom, sustainable living, Constitutional respect, and related topics, I thank you and appreciate you. We all have our niches – gifts and talents that we make an impact with. We all can make a positive difference in our own slice of the world. Over the last five years, I’ve seen so many people escape from apathy and get involved.
Not only is there greater hope because of the outcome of the presidential election, and the potential of what RFK Jr. can accomplish as HHS secretary, but there is an awakening in the importance of sustainable living and embracing a simpler life. Most importantly, I see an evolving revival of people committing to Christ and seeing God’s word from a new lens.
My testimony isn’t all that interesting because I haven’t overcome tragedy. I haven’t gone through anything difficult in life other than surviving a major tornado and hurricane. I haven’t experienced substance abuse or physical abuse. I don’t have vaccine-injured children. I didn’t lose a loved one who was kept alone in a nursing home during COVID or died because of hospital protocols that encouraged Big Pharma treatments and ventilators over the effective holistic treatments. I don’t have a story that would wow you if I stood on stage and told it. But the story I do have shows that it is never too late to give your heart to God and keep on striving to become a better person.
It is important to escape apathy and stand up for what you believe in, even if you know many people won’t like it. It is important to always be yourself as long as you are striving to abide by God’s word, treating people the way the Bible instructs, and sincerely repent when you fall short. It is important to be forthright and outspoken about who the Lord is and what He has done for me, even if there are much more interesting stories to be told. And it is important to tell meaningful stories when storytelling is a gift God has given, something I think about in these new chapters of life.
Faith, writing with a purpose, getting involved to help others, sustainable living, rural living, simple living, and advocacy for medical freedom and following the Constitution – they are all inter-related. I think that is what I have learned the most over these last five years, and I’m grateful for God opening doors and all of you who He has put into my life.
Because of all this in this lengthy column, I especially welcome 2025, and I hope you do, too.