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The actions by (mostly) blue state politicians over the past 18 months have reinforced this pointed observation by activist and author David Horowitz: “Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.”
Previously unthinkable, we’ve witnessed public officials set parameters of who can work and who cannot, arrogantly classifying certain groups as “essential” compared to their “non-essential” brethren. We were told by the “expert class” to hunker down for two weeks to “slow the spread” and to “flatten the curve,” a temporary measure of inconvenience and economic discomfort that would keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. We’re now approaching 600 days from that original “two weeks” pledge, only to have Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), incredulously intone that “we can halt this [Delta variant] in just a matter of a couple of weeks” if Americans would just heed her agency’s latest directives.
On the subject of the CDC, Americans have also learned since the pandemic began that the administrative state is as sprawling as it is intrusive. Unelected bureaucrats at this federal agency, for instance, have granted themselves the power to abolish private property rights with the stroke of a pen. We’re speaking of the “moratorium” on tenant evictions that, despite the do-gooder rationale offered, have denied landlords access for more than a year to what is legally theirs.
Joe Biden did acknowledge that this “moratorium,” which was just extended another 60 days, is most likely unconstitutional and will be struck down eventually by the Supreme Court. But whatever… the CDC will proceed anyway. The agency even warns that those violating this decree, which, again, Biden openly admits is legally dubious, could be sacked with fines up to $250,000 and could spend up to one year in jail.
As one Twitter user wryly noted, “So glad we got rid of the authoritarian dictator and replaced him with the guy who unconstitutionally took Americans’ property rights by proclamation.”
So glad we got rid of the authoritarian dictator and replaced him with the guy who unconstitutionally took Americans’ property rights by proclamation.
— Razor (@hale_razor) August 4, 2021
Then there are the mask mandates, which are making comebacks in all the predictable places — Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, among other liberal enclaves — regardless of a person’s vaccination status. There is no “science” behind the new mandate. And “science” was never behind the old one either. But don’t take my word for it.
Here is Biden’s own transition team adviser for COVID-19, Dr. Michael Osterholm, admitting on CNN, of all places, that consumer masks are pointless:
“I wish we could get rid of the term ‘masking’ because, in fact, it implies anything you put in front of your face works…. We know today that many of the face-cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out.”
In any event, if face coverings were really about their efficacy and not about our fealty, then the politicians imposing them on others wouldn’t routinely get busted violating their own orders in private. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser takes the cake on this one. Not only did she party it up indoors mask-less with Dave Chappelle hours before her last mandate took effect — the COVID doesn’t spread around famous comedians apparently — but after her mandate took effect she was caught socializing at an indoor wedding reception without donning any of the facial “protection” that she has forced upon her residents.
Did Bowser fine herself $1,000 for the violation, which is the penalty she authorized for doing exactly what she was guilty of? Silly question, I know. The rules don’t apply to the ruling class.
Perhaps no progressive, though, better epitomizes the totalitarian impulse that David Horowitz described more so than Bill de Blasio, the astoundingly awful mayor of New York City. He barely has six months left in office, but that didn’t stop him from enacting mandatory vaccinations for New Yorkers who seek to participate in routine activities, such as working out at the gym or patronizing a neighborhood restaurant.
While Comrade de Blasio referred to this mandate as the “The Key to NYC Pass,” what it really boils down to is a medical system of segregation, as he himself outlined: “if you’re vaccinated, all of that’s going to open up to you. You’ll have the ‘key,’ you can open the door. If you’re unvaccinated, unfortunately, you will not be able to participate in many things.” He’s even hoping his plan to discriminate against unvaccinated New Yorkers is adopted elsewhere. “Now as to the fact that this should be picked up all over the country, and emulated, what clear, clear support we got from President Joe Biden,” de Blasio exulted at a press conference.
Does that liberal mantra only apply to carving up innocent babies in the womb and not to free citizens who object to injecting experimental biological agents into their bodies?
And what about the left’s alleged concern for “disparate impacts” of government policy on minorities? That’s an accusation repeatedly asserted when Republican legislatures pass laws to strengthen voting integrity, such as ID requirements at the polls or limitations on ballot harvesting. Well, what of the “disparate impact” that de Blasio’s mandate will have on black residents in the Big Apple? Nearly 65 percent of them are unvaccinated. Will they be barred from their local bar or gym for not complying? And where are all the usually vocal “civil rights” agitators raising holy hell over such blatant discrimination?
You know the answer: de Blasio has a D after his name. He’ll get a pass because his agenda serves the left’s greater aim: Total control over American life. Once progressives realized that the totalitarian inside of them could be unleashed via the desk of Dr. Anthony Fauci, this became a pandemic that wasn’t ever going away. They had the cover they needed to regulate every aspect of American society, from church gatherings to funeral services to supermarket capacity. Even Thanksgiving dinner was in the crosshairs.
The totalitarian doesn’t let go of that type of raw power, especially now that the appetite has been whet. Which is why we’re now seeing reports about the “Lambda” variant coming from South America, a strain that Newsweek is breathlessly calling “highly infectious” and “thought to be more resistant to vaccines than the original version of the virus.”
The “Lambda” variant, however, should not be mixed up with the “Delta Plus” variant, which has been identified in South Korea as a mutation of the “Delta” strain and is “supposed to be overall more transmissible than previous COVID-19 variants.” And, of course, all those strains must be differentiated from the one called Silver Medallion, which allows passengers priority boarding and one free checked luggage on all Delta flights.
As for Fauci, he is predicting that cases will surge to 200,000 a day here in the United States and claims that we’re “in trouble” soon if we don’t do exactly what the Biden administration tells us to do.
