- Apr 10
- 4 min read
If you live in a red state – Florida, Texas, and Mississippi are on my mind – where your governor has decided that lockdowns (even partial) and mask mandates are pretty much wastes of times, count yourself lucky. If you live in a blue state – oh, say, New York, Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey – with a petty tyrant for governor, an inert or rubber-stamp legislature, and courts controlled by make-the-law-up Democrat judges, you’re still being forced to knuckle under, to one degree or another.
Blue states are un-American – unless America is reverting to some imitation of King George’s colonial America. Or is that too quaint? Maybe it’s proto-fascism that’s rearing its ugly head?
By now, we all know that in the name of battling COVID, Democrats – and some loathsome establishment Republicans – have trampled our constitutional rights. In the main, this hasn’t been done from naivety or good intentions (the way to hell is paved with good intentions). No, for over a century, the Democratic Party has embraced statism most enthusiastically. Democrats are doing what’s in their political DNA.
The progressive movement that began in the late 19th Century was a response to America’s industrialization and urbanization. Early progressives argued that an industrializing nation was becoming too complex for average folk. John and Jane Q. Public lacked the education and sophistication to decide what’s best for themselves and society.
So, Americans needed to be ruled by an educated elite with centralized, bureaucratic government as the country’s driver. Incorruptibly smart and talented politicians and bureaucrats (cue the laughter) would tend to average folk’s welfare.
Long about the early 20th Century, progressivism began receiving infusions of socialism. Progressivism alone would have failed. Combined with elements of the socialist creed (socialism is a faith, not a science), we’ve seen the damage done to society over the decades.
Democrat-run cities are hubs of dysfunction. Underclass blacks suffer from generational poverty. Most public schools are kids warehouses, at best. Crime is rampant. Homelessness (vagrancy, less the Orwellian twist) is permitted to spread like cancer. Cops are discounted and defunded, compounding the troubles. Good money is following bad down the same welfare rat-holes dug by “Great Society” Democrats back in the 1960s.
Urban housing costs are astronomical, thanks to heavily regulated housing and rental markets. The middle classes are being squeezed out. Big cities are beginning to resemble urban hellholes like Rio de Janeiro, where the rich live posh lifestyles protected by security, while the wretchedly poor, disturbed, and criminal own the streets.
Those very enlightened progressive Democrats who run these urban travesties are, pound for pound, some of the most corrupt operators in the nation.
Big government is a pox. It often doesn’t attract the best and brightest to civil service, but, instead, some of the laziest dullards on the continent. Bureaucrats are rarely fired for incompetence, sloth, or maleficence. Laws make it virtually impossible.
Big government is a money pit. Uncle Sam is nearing a mind-boggling $30 trillion in debt. Who’s going to pay for that debt Everest and all the debt piling up in state and local governments? Because the debt collector, like the grim reaper, is coming.
The coming debt crisis – yes, this will be a bona fide crisis – is like a terrible game of musical chairs. When the music stops, who’ll get slammed with the costs? Us? Our kids and grandkids?
The point of this digression is that mask mandates and other ginned up COVID restrictions are inevitable manifestations of the march of statism in America. Sensible public health policy should have confined itself to providing protections to the most vulnerable among us, namely, the old, who’ve borne the brunt of the COVID epidemic.
In fact, in blue states, most notably New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, COVID sick elderly were forced into nursing homes with other elderly. The consequences have been tens of thousands of needless deaths. Big government fails disastrously again.
In typical big government fashion, one-size-fits-all COVID rules were imposed, which might cost the economy a whopping $16 trillion, and will have destroyed tens of thousands of small businesses and millions of jobs, and allowed ugly precedents to be set concerning our freedoms.
Disposal and homemade masks are next to useless. Texas and Florida, in particular, having relaxed or jettisoned mask mandates, are experiencing incidences of COVID with no significant variance from states like New York and Pennsylvania where people absurdly parade around in masks outdoors. Outdoors – where you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than infected by COVID.
Progressivism and socialism (which is billed as democratic and consensual but never is) invariably lead to the choking off of individual rights in favor of “collective rights” – which always translates to the powerful imposing their will on those with lesser or no power.
Today, we shouldn’t be surprised that under the guise of “defeating” a virus, Democrats, primarily, continue to use this “crisis” to show their true colors. We should consider that a blessing – a blessing if we resolve to keep fighting hard this newest expression of homegrown tyranny.
Our pledge needs to be that we make spring 2021 a time to renew our fight for liberty. Masks are the tangible expression of control over our actions and lives. Spread that word among family, friends, and neighbors.
Truth will eventually win out. Progressivism is no match for truth told fearlessly.