Are you still sticking to ALL of the rules?

[CallTheSheriff]

Our family has followed all rules to date but with two weeks left until social contact restrictions are lifted I see more and more people using a ‘common sense’ approach for their own risk.

My DC go to school (primary), attend swimming lessons, attend dance classes and indoor football classes but we decline the offer of play dates with other DC in their class.

DH and I have not mixed indoors with any other adult since last March. We both WFH and are both partially vaccinated. We do not attend gyms etc as we didn’t pre covid anyway.

Our friends and family think we are being OTT, especially in not allowing DC to visit others after school but allowing them to attend classes.

It made me wonder how others are doing it?

Middle parking - I’m not making anything harder for myself? What do you mean by that? I don’t understand.

It’s about who I am - my self identify and my pride in myself. I can look at myself and know I am a good law abiding person. I did the right thing, I comply with the law. Breaking the law makes you a bad person. If this was speeding, stealing, vandalism, physical abuse, a racial hate crime, fraud - no one would be gleefully shouting ‘I broke the law and I don’t give a fuck I feel entitled too’! The law is there for public good. If you have proper mental health problems then it isn’t actually against the law to have broken some rules - because it was written into the law that vulnerable people could. But if you just think your need to see your friend indoors rather than outdoors cos you dislike the cold or whatnot trumps others than actually, yes, I just think you are a bad person. It is akin to speeding (eg no one wants to drive at sodding 20 on a city street if it’s empty but you just have to do it),

If you think the laws are silly and not effective then don’t vote conservative/for Boris as they are the ones that made them (and also often broke them themselves - but still doesn’t make it the RIGHT thing to do).

Yes, I can see that you fail to comprehend rather a lot of things. Not to worry, you’ll find out soon. By the way, “Boris” wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.

@Mumbot345635

Might be a little bit mad

No it doesn’t make you weak. It makes you selfish. Because you think your needs are more important than anyone else’s. We ALL struggled. Breaking the law has no excuse.

When are people going to understand that calling people selfish has no effect whatsoever

As for "breaking the law" I bet the majority of people on here have done that at some point, even if it's just something like underage drinking.

If ‘it’s against the law’ is what stops you from committing racial hate crimes or vandalism then you’re definitely not a good person. And speeding is a pretty hilarious analogy for a law that ‘no one’ would break and not give a fuck.

* I can look at myself and know I am a good law abiding person.*

Being law abiding dues to make you “good”

You followed the law blindly. You think you’re a good person.
I didn’t follow the law blindly. I think I’m a good person.

@Mumbot345635

Might be a little bit mad

No it doesn’t make you weak. It makes you selfish. Because you think your needs are more important than anyone else’s. We ALL struggled. Breaking the law has no excuse.

Well that's ok, I've always known I'm selfish and am quite happy to own it.

@Mumbot345635 you see life in black and white. Life is rarely like that.

You talk about being a law abiding citizen and that makes you a good person as you would never break the law. Let's look at one of your examples - stealing. Yes it's wrong, but what if you were stealing food to feed your family? What if that's the only way you can think to feed them on that day? Should you not steal so you can be a good person but let your family go hungry? It doesn't make stealing right, but in that situation it's the lesser of the two evils.

Covid rules are just the same. Sometimes people break them as it's the right thing to do in that situation.

I just can't see things in that strict black and white. Recently, a work colleague lost their dad and was upset in work. Should I have just stood 2 meters apart and let them sob or should I have been a decent human and given them comfort and a big hug? Following the strict letter of the guidance here certainly wouldn't make me a better or good person. In fact it would make me a pretty awful person.

How many of the covid rules are actually law? And how many are guidance? I suspect the government have deliberately muddied that water in order to force compliance.

Should we not challenge laws we disagree with? I'm in Scotland and there was an interesting case where religious leaders challenged the ban on going to church in court - and won. The court agreed the rule was unlawful. I suspect many of these other "laws" would equally lose a legal challenge but sadly it's expensive to take them to court.

Tigger - yes absolutely you should be challenging the laws you don’t agree with! This is the basis of a civilised, democratic society. The trouble in this country is that everyone knows Boris is a lying self serving cheating swine and the laws he makes ridiculous and yet they still vote him in.
Instead of breaking the covid rules - write to your MP about them. Half of the covid rules would be changed if challenged as most of them were made illegally and without due consideration of things like human rights.

Fwiw I wouldn’t have considered giving your colleague a hug breaking the law. It’s supporting a vulnerable person which is allowed.

The issue here is that the trust in government and the law has been eroded by the current government. Yet people don’t vote for anything different.

I follow them where I have to - I wear a mask in shops and social distance from randomers. But in every day life no not sticking to rules, I've been inside my parents house since we came out of the first lockdown, they have been inside mine, I've seen other family indoors, I've seen a couple of friends indoors.

I don't know anyone sticking to the rules now, even CEV people

@Mumbot345635

Tigger - yes absolutely you should be challenging the laws you don’t agree with! This is the basis of a civilised, democratic society. The trouble in this country is that everyone knows Boris is a lying self serving cheating swine and the laws he makes ridiculous and yet they still vote him in. Instead of breaking the covid rules - write to your MP about them. Half of the covid rules would be changed if challenged as most of them were made illegally and without due consideration of things like human rights.

Fwiw I wouldn’t have considered giving your colleague a hug breaking the law. It’s supporting a vulnerable person which is allowed.

The issue here is that the trust in government and the law has been eroded by the current government. Yet people don’t vote for anything different.

Do you think the PM and his government is a liar You think many of the laws were made illegally and without consideration of human rights

And yet you still are insistent that you and your family follow them and anyone who doesn’t is selfish?

Also on the law/guidance issue - absolutely. They definitely did this. This government rules by PR conference. For example they announced the first lockdown last year but it was another week before they actually made the law which underpinned it. They deliberately hoodwinked the public by deliberately deceiving them into strict compliance. Yet people still vote conservative. If you don’t want that don’t vote for it and challenge it. Breaking the law underhand won’t change anything.

Egghead - yes. Because I am a good law abiding person. But I despair at those like yourself who very likely voted for Boris whilst at the same time discarding all the laws, rules and ways of governance he put in place!

You’re law abiding
But that has bugger all with being “good”

You would have done well under the Nazis.

You think the government is abhorrent
You think many of the laws have been illegally made and are against human rights

And yet you still blindly follow

Don’t be ridiculous. Of course being law abiding is part time of being ‘good’. It’s not all of it but complying with national law is a fairly fundamental first part of being a good person, yes.

@Mumbot345635

Tigger - yes absolutely you should be challenging the laws you don’t agree with! This is the basis of a civilised, democratic society. The trouble in this country is that everyone knows Boris is a lying self serving cheating swine and the laws he makes ridiculous and yet they still vote him in. Instead of breaking the covid rules - write to your MP about them. Half of the covid rules would be changed if challenged as most of them were made illegally and without due consideration of things like human rights.

Fwiw I wouldn’t have considered giving your colleague a hug breaking the law. It’s supporting a vulnerable person which is allowed.

The issue here is that the trust in government and the law has been eroded by the current government. Yet people don’t vote for anything different.

In in Scotland - our rules re covid are not made in Westminster but by the Scottish government. And in some ways they have been stricter than England's. I haven't seen my own mum in over a year now.

It's interesting though that you see hugging an upset person as ok (I agree by the way) when the rules don't allow for that shade of grey. Is anyone who is upset vulnerable? What if your parents were upset and you had to go into their house to comfort them? Who gets to decide what is vulnerable?

I am finally getting to meet up with my mum tomorrow. Ok to hug or not? Should that even be a governments decision to make??

I wouldn’t vote for those cunts if they held a gun to my head, so I don’t see any contradiction in disregarding their contemptuous ‘rules’.

And it’s not blindly - I’m fully aware of ridiculous and nonsensical a lot of the rules were. Incidentally i haven’t always complied with all of the rules/guidance - just the law. I have taken the time to find out the difference deliberately. I’ve followed the rules where I can. The law always.
Did you always know the difference between what was law and what was guidance egghead? If you didn’t you should be cross with your government about that. It should have been clearer - they deliberately made it unclear to trick people into behaviours they wanted.

@Mumbot345635

Don’t be ridiculous. Of course being law abiding is part time of being ‘good’. It’s not all of it but complying with national law is a fairly fundamental first part of being a good person, yes.

Can you explain why you think that?

@Mumbot345635

Might be a little bit mad

No it doesn’t make you weak. It makes you selfish. Because you think your needs are more important than anyone else’s. We ALL struggled. Breaking the law has no excuse.

I guess I'm selfish as I have broken the rules and had family in my house (or I have gone to theirs), after losing both parents within a few months of each other last year. You expect a grieving family not to break the "no hugging" rule? What kind of a heartless individual thinks like that.....except maybe a selfish one.

Meeting people indoors for example is currently illegal. Only going out once a day or only exercising for an hour was NEVER law. It also wasn’t ever law in the first lockdown not to drive anywhere. Later it became an offence to travel between tiers.

Aren’t you cross you’ve been forced into breaking the law because 1. You’ve not known what it was and 2. You never got a say in those laws because mps never voted for them (only the latest legislation has ever gone through a parliamentary vote).

I am pretty much!

I work in a school and fully vaccinated

Ds goes to college, swim training and is on work experience this week. He's had first vaccine dose.

We don't visit others indoors except our support bubble which we've done since you could have them. We didn't meet our support bubble for few weeks in this lockdown due to cases being so high as risk was greater.

Ds and I LFT twice a week.

The rules I don't follow to the letter now are SD when outside with friend and family and my immediate family is 7 people and so we've had rule of 7 outside!

Trapped - once again supporting a vulnerable person is not breaking the law.

I’m sorry for your losses.

@Mumbot345635

Don’t be ridiculous. Of course being law abiding is part time of being ‘good’. It’s not all of it but complying with national law is a fairly fundamental first part of being a good person, yes.

But YOU have said that the laws in questions have been made by an abhorrent government, the laws have been illegally made and many areas against human rights!!

Middle parking - most people believe complying with the law is part of being a good person. I think it’s strange that you don’t!

Egghead but I respect the rule of law. We live in a democracy - if you don’t like the laws work to change them !