Op-Ed: Complying with Tyranny on Masks Will Bring on More Tyranny, Not Less
The left has sprinted past what we previously thought was a line in the sand between personal freedom and forced state dictates for personal behavior.
The breach of that boundary has led to numerous other fundamental rights crumbling to dust along with our historical monuments.
There is still time to restore those boundaries and our rights but only if we start telling the truth en masse and defying unjust edicts from lawless lawmakers.
Sadly, we can no longer expect that there will be enough lawful lawmakers to protect our liberties. We must protect them ourselves.
Coronavirus is still being used as an excuse to crack down on our freedoms despite false projections that even the CDC dramatically ratcheted down months ago.
Democratic governors and other politicians are refusing to relinquish the “emergency powers” they have awarded to themselves that allowed them to continue lockdowns and restrict businesses.
As if they somehow thought of it independently, they continue to act simultaneously to tighten their demands and micromanage our lives. They have now moved from suggesting to demanding that we all, no matter our health, risk level, or opinion, be forced to wear masks in public.
What a perfect and ever-present reminder that we are not in charge of our lives. They are.
Even weak-willed Republicans like Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas have become lost in this masquerade.
To leftists, it doesn’t matter whether masks work or make sense. It only matters that they have been a wildly successful tool for obedience training in collectivism for Americans. Socialism can’t take hold without it.
Both the secret and the avowed socialists among us are engaged in an all-out battle to punish America for being built on individualism and for flourishing because of a Constitution that was created to protect it.
While Democratic tacticians have their Democratic politicians ramping up threats of fines and jail time for refusing to wear a mask, they’re also pushing the idea that masks are “cool.” There is a whole new cottage industry marketing masks as an opportunity to make a “signature” fashion statement.
There’s nothing quite like superficial individuality to “mask” one’s prostration to serfdom and conformity.
Savvy watchers of the left were suspicious early on when they noticed a familiar leftist tactic being warmed up and served for public consumption. They went to work making it socially acceptable to vilify dissenters and brand them as selfish. They rush to reward it.
How dare anyone question the efficacy of masks or the use of bullying and intimidation to force Americans to comply? How dare anyone care about their own personal freedom and the freedom of their fellow citizens, even those too ignorant or complacent to care? “We’re in the middle of a pandemic!” they self-righteously scold.
Masks create further alienation and suspicion between friends, neighbors and business associates. They muzzle us while helping snitches to easily identify dissenters.
We have seen how deadly the combination of collectivism and social bullying can be. It can often lead to mob rule and violence. At that point, politicians don’t have to worry about enforcing their unconstitutional orders. The mob does it for them.
Masks also blur the lines between criminals and law-abiding citizens. We are indistinguishable from antifa and other groups who now commit heinous crimes in plain sight and with impunity. The backward subliminal message is that masked people are law-abiding and unmasked people are criminals.
After watching the same Democratic politicians refuse to impose their own orders on rioters, looters and vandals, their credibility is lower than the fatality rate of the coronavirus.
In light of such a blatant dereliction of duty to protect their innocent constituents, they still have the chutzpah to claim that it is compassion that compels them to order us to wear masks.
The good news is that a growing number of people believe that these suffocating orders are ridiculous and even dangerous. The bad news is that most still only whisper it in muffled tones behind their cloth masks.
As we have seen, complying with the orders of authoritarians only brings more authoritarianism. Masks will continue to be a major battleground on which we can beat it back.
Previously polite, law-abiding citizens must unmask themselves and let their voices be heard. Unlike their oppressive opposition, they have little interest in vilifying those who choose to wear a mask for their own reasons.
In the 1982 film “Gandhi,” Ben Kingsley portrayed Gandhi as saying, “100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate.”
It’s time to stop cooperating.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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