Standing Up for Freedom: My Graduation Protest Against California’s Medical Tyranny
By James Rose
As we surpass five years since the world was plunged into pandemic-induced lockdowns, it’s crucial to reflect on the freedoms that were stripped away—often at the hands of Democratic leaders—all in the name of a virus with a survival rate exceeding 99% for the vast majority of Americans.
When President Trump initially advised states to issue lockdowns under the “Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread” campaign, he did so with the best interests of Americans in mind. He sealed the U.S. border to China, a decision that likely saved millions of lives. Yet, when Trump returned power to the states, granting them control over their own lockdown and mandate policies, the response varied drastically.
For some Americans, this meant an immediate return to normalcy and freedom. For others—especially those of us living in deep blue states like California—it meant years of medical tyranny, authoritarian mandates, and forced compliance.
I was one of those unlucky Americans.
Surviving California’s Tyranny
In March 2020, when California Governor Gavin Newsom issued his draconian stay-at-home orders, I fled to Missouri, where freedom still mattered. I spent months enjoying normal life while much of the country remained paralyzed by fear and overreach.
By fall, I returned to Santa Barbara, bound by a contracted lease at a stunning oceanfront property. While college students across the country were back on campus, the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) remained locked down. For fifteen months, students were barred from entering their own campus.
Yet, I made the best of it. I lived in a house with close friends, and next door, we had ten beautiful women as neighbors. In a sense, I was thriving. Online classes were easier, and I didn’t have to endure as many leftist professors spewing their ideological nonsense in person.
Still, the California government’s obsession with control was inescapable. Everywhere I went, I was forced to wear a mask, even though the so-called science behind it was laughable. I complied—not because I believed in it, but because I valued my ability to move freely.
But the moment that truly opened my eyes to the insidious nature of California’s government was when Gavin Newsom’s administration mailed me four excess election ballots, addressed to former tenants at my property.
Yes—four extra votes sat in my hands, each ready to be dropped into an unmanned ballot box. I could have easily voted five times in the 2020 election. But I didn’t.
Because I am a patriot.
The Deep State uniparty, as even Time Magazine later admitted, used the pandemic to weaponize election procedures, bypassing state election laws and installing Joe Biden into the White House. Like millions of other Americans, I knew something was deeply wrong—but we were powerless to correct it.
Then came the final straw: vaccine passports.
California businesses demanded proof of vaccination just to enter public spaces, piling even more restrictions on top of mask mandates. Suddenly, basic freedoms were conditional—not based on science, but on obedience to government overreach.
Enough was enough.
Graduating on My Terms
In June 2021, UCSB finally allowed students to step foot on campus again—not for a real graduation, but for a pathetic, twenty-minute “ceremony”. No faculty. No guests. Just a conveyor belt of students walking across an empty stage to claim their degrees.
At first, I considered boycotting the entire farce.
But then, I realized my true mission:
I was going to give these bureaucrats the final middle finger they deserved.
So, I prepared my grand finale.
I refused to wear a cap and gown. Instead, I donned a mask—but not just any mask.
I custom-made a vaccine passport mask, plastering on the very document California forced me to carry just to live my life.
I marched onto campus with my entourage of friends, as UCSB staff frantically tried to hand out masks to students like we were still in 2020 pandemic hysteria.
The moment I stepped onto the stage, the Graduation Committee Chair panicked.
“NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!” she screamed, chasing after me as I confidently took center stage.
Dressed in Steve Bannon-style black attire—symbolizing resistance—I removed my vaccine passport mask, exposing my face to the world.
In that moment, I was finally free—but only within the confines of Biden’s America, where tyranny had become the new normal.
The Fight Continues
I refused to comply quietly, and I will never stop fighting for the freedoms we lost during the pandemic.
What happened to America from 2020 to 2022 should never happen again. The media, Big Tech, the Deep State, and Democrat leaders worked in unison to strip away our rights, rig an election, and push their radical agenda—all under the guise of “public safety.”
We must never forget what they did.
We must never stop fighting back.
And if that means standing center stage and ripping off the mask of medical tyranny for all to see?
Then so be it.