Local governments are enlisting area tattletales and busybodies to rat out neighbors who violate social distancing edicts.
Welcome to COVID-1984.
Welcome to COVID-1984.
Tell me, friends. Have you be asked to join your friendly Neighborhood Stasi?
Wednesday I noticed that the deserted school playground up the hill from my house isn’t so deserted anymore. I texted my brother and told him that the kids in my neighborhood must’ve gotten a little stir crazy from being shut in for a couple of weeks. So they’re out on the playground in force.
Who could blame them? You can’t keep kids cooped up for weeks, not when the spring weather is so nice.
On Thursday my brother texted me asking if the kids are still out on the playground, adding this surprising note:
“I guess you can call 911, and now they’ll send a patrol.”
I thought he was kidding. Like the police around here don’t have better things to do than hassle kids on a playground.
He texted back:
“I read that 911 is inundated with nosy nellies ratting out any groups of 2 or more. So, enter Syracuse’s finest.”
I wanted to bang my head into a wall. This couldn’t possibly be true.
But it was true.
What’s worse? They’re being instructed to do it.
I saw this headline at our ABC Affiliate’s website: “Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon advises calling 911 to report people who aren’t social distancing.”
That’s right. Your own friendly neighborhood Stasi – encouraged to report their neighbors for standing too close to one another.
I’m sure Elizabeth Warren’s base of cul-de-sac busybodies are thrilled to take up the call and join the neighborhood Stasi.
But me? That’ll be a pass from me.
But my neck of the woods isn’t the only area enlisting the neighborhood Stasi.
And then there’s this from the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s office in Southern California:
“Commonly asked question this week.”
In other words, some people are so eager to join the Neighborhood Stasi, they’re taking the initiative to find out how to do it even before a dictate comes down from on high.
In Michigan, the inept buffoon in the governor’s office handed down an edict of her own that prohibits doctors in her state from prescribing Hydroxychloroquine to patients with Wuhan virus. You know, because Trump!!!!! In this edict, she also instructs doctors to tattle on any of their colleagues who refuse to obey her dictate.
So it isn’t just a neighborhood Stasi being conscripted to tattle. Everybody has to get in on the act. For your own good, don’t cha know.
Tyranny requires tattletales apparently.
I admit, I never thought I’d see the day when Americans were being instructed by local governments to enlist in this kind of neighborhood Stasi.
What’s worse to me, however, is that Americans – Americans for crap’s sake – are happy to do it.
And you can bet your bippy that quite a few people who happily volunteer for the friendly neighborhood Stasi are those who, for three years, have shrieked about Trump being an authoritarian dictator.
Here’s the thing. The government officials who take to tyranny like a fish to water are also the ones least likely to comply with their own dictates. It’s been that way from the beginning.
So while you’re holed up in your home watching your savings dwindle, unable to work or even go to church, know that many of your government leaders aren’t following the rules they’ve imposed on you.
Case in point:
Well of course he isn’t setting a good example. It’s Bill de Blasio.
Dictates are for the rags and tatters, not for our government betters.
So while you are expected to join the friendly neighborhood Stasi, assholes like Bill de Blasio and his moocher wife can go anywhere they want.
This may be de Blasio’s or Elizabeth Warren’s idea of America.
But it sure as hell isn’t mine.
And it shouldn’t be yours either.