Over the past year, America’s ruling class has done everything it can to grind our economy, our communities, and our lives to a halt — all without any actual consequences to them.
Under their guidance and leadership, two hard weeks turned into a nightmarish, unending stream of mask mandates, double-mask mandates, shop closures, church closures, school closures, park closures, capacity limits, service limits, funeral bans, travel bans, medical delays, DMV delays, and omnipresent scolding. “Normalcy is just around the corner,” politicians and television experts in lab coats promise every week, every month. “Just buckle up and we’ll get through this.” “And remember: We’re all in this together.”
Not only is normalcy not around the corner, but several states, corporations, and President Joe Biden’s administration are working to institute a COVID regime in the form of “passports” that will haunt, burden, and exclude Americans from a future many of us no longer seem to have a say in. In exchange for an end to lockdowns, we’re offered an unending COVID regime actively championed by corporate media.
The wealthy have largely been fine through all of this. Outside of corporate real estate and a few other hard-hit white-collar industries, it’s pathetic how many in that class have seamlessly transitioned to drinking wine, ordering takeout, and watching Netflix in sweat pants and Fauci T-shirts while “working from home.”
The wealthy, or what we now call the “privileged,” among us now have a new demand: If they’re going to come outside again and be normal, everyone in America is going to need to take the vaccine. In states like New York (with others sure to follow) everyone might soon need to carry a “vaccine passport” if he expects to do business, enjoy live entertainment, and maybe even travel or walk freely about.
The rest of the country might notice a few things amiss here. For one, much of the rest of the country has gone to work every day for most of the past year, if not for all of it. Driving through a poor, industrial area of Washington, D.C. in March 2020, I overheard a man in his 50s waiting on a bus loudly (and colorfully) explaining to his friend that he didn’t have an option to not go to work. He couldn’t take a day off even if he wanted to — and he didn’t want to.
His experience is not unlike a lot of Americans who either continued working or missed only as much as they were forced to, be they police officers, farmers, meat processors, grocers, baggage handlers, trashmen, gas station attendants, cab drivers, EMTs, hotel clerks, firemen, construction workers, nurses, waiters, warehousemen, pilots, soldiers, or any number of others who haven’t skipped a voluntary beat.
Many, although not all, of those who’ve worked through the pandemic fall into the blue-collar middle or lower classes. Only a few of them have been called brave and courageous by our condescending media class, but all of them have been hard at it.
Many of them — from the left to the right to the simply independent-minded — also don’t like being told what to by government, corporations, or the news. And regardless of the merits — whether it’s right or wrong, independent or selfish, wise or ignorant, or whatever people say — many of them are not going to take any one-year vaccine.
Already New York has launched “a free, voluntary platform developed in partnership with IBM” that allows vaccinated people “to gain entry to major stadiums and arenas, wedding receptions, or catered and other events above the social gathering limit.” The Biden administration, the lockdown-cheerleaders at CNN report, is “currently working with a range of companies on the standards, including non-profits and tech companies.”
“We view this as something that the private sector is doing and will do,” acting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Andy Slavitt told reporters Monday.
“[T]his kind of system will play a role in multiple aspects of life, including potentially the workforce, [a] senior administration official told CNN.” Got that? “Multiple aspects of life, including potentially the workforce.”
This isn’t idle talk. Virtually no rule, regulation, or infringement has proven idle in regards to the virus — no matter how much it’s flown against our pre-pandemic notions of privacy, liberty and freedom.
“Don’t want a vaccine passport? Fine,” CNN analyst and Yale University professor Asha Rangappa tweeted Tuesday. “How about a TAX for those who refuse to get vaccinated, proportional to the additional costs and burdens they impose on society as a result of needing to have the ‘freedom’ to spread their potentially COVID variant-infected aerosol everywhere?”
That’s your “freedom” in scare-quotes, and your breathing called a “variant-infected aerosol.”
Fortunately some leaders, such are Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, are already fighting back. “It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society,” he declared in a Monday press conference, promising executive action — and urging legislative action — to prevent any business in the Sunshine State from requiring the “passport.” We need more of that, and we need it all over the country.
But what about the people who forced our economy to grind to a halt because they were afraid of what freedom meant during COVID-19? The people who cost many of us our businesses, our livelihoods, and trillions of dollars?
The people whose lockdowns led to spikes in deaths from overdoses and suicides? The people who championed the closures that led to increased at-home abuse, shuttered schools, and stunted the growth of children? The people who separated our families, closed our churches, and loaded the ill into nursing homes? The people who lied about Texas, lied about Florida, lied about South Dakota, and lied about Gov. Andrew Cuomo?
Maybe more people should be talking about the additional costs and burdens Rangappa, CNN, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Anthony Fauci, the Democratic Party, and all their friends have imposed on society as a result of the lockdowns they’ve demanded and often enforced.
A lot of Americans would love to see accountability — real accountability — from the governors, officials, and corporate cheerleaders who championed and enforced the unmitigated lockdown disaster. Yell it out loud and let your voices be heard. Remember, they’re afraid of your “variant-infected” breath. Expose them for the cowardly frauds they are. Maybe then a little truth and clear thinking will prove infectious.
While we fight for that accountability, demand your governors and legislatures take immediate action against any corporate-government attempt to force a new regime upon us. We don’t need to prove any medical procedures to go to work, conduct business, attend weddings, or socialize at concerts and sporting events. We are Americans, and we’re still free as long as we’re willing to fight for it.
