OPINION:
We’ve all endured levels of insanity from our government since the coronavirus arrived from China. It is during a crisis when we find out what we’re made of as individuals, and we certainly find out what our government is capable of.
And now the Thanksgiving holiday has eliminated all doubt that what at first may have been a well-meaning effort by the federal government to “slow the spread” for 15 days became something else entirely.
In all likelihood, various political bureaucrats enjoyed watching the American people comply, at first, without protesting at the most draconian of measures, like lockdowns and the shutting down of our economy. It would appear our acquiescence has emboldened madness of the bureaucracy to overflow.
First case in point, Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon. Ms. Brown is now encouraging neighbors to call the police on each other if they see someone violating her coronavirus restrictions enacted just prior to Thanksgiving. A rather ironic request considering Oregon’s place in embracing the defund the police movement.
The Washington Times reports: “In a Friday virtual interview with KGW-TV, Ms. Brown agreed that Oregonians should contact authorities if they see their neighbors hosting more than six people … Those committing infractions could face misdemeanor penalties of up to 30 days in jail, fines of up to $1,250, or both, according to the governor’s executive order.”
Rep. Jim Jordan noted the hypocrisy in a tweet: “In Oregon you can be jailed for having too many people over for Thanksgiving. But if you want to riot and loot in Portland, no sweat!”
Not only is it a ridiculous public policy, it is being pushed by the governor of a state whose voters just passed a measure decriminalizing hard street drugs, including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and LSD.
In the name of COVID-19, Ms. Brown is telling the police and the citizens that they can be arrested and thrown into jail for celebrating Thanksgiving in their own home. But in that same state you can be shooting up heroin, or destroying yourself with meth, and that’s perfectly fine. Got it.
Why shouldn’t self-important bureaucrats feel as though they have every right to dictate every breath you take and every move you make (apologies to the band The Police). After all, the vaunted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now fully in on the act.
As the nation approached the Thanksgiving holiday, the CDC issued a “holiday focused health and safety guideline” within which they decided to dictate not just every breath you take, and how you take that breath. In your own home. We are to not sing, or shout, or play loud music, or drink alcohol. Why? BECAUSE COVID! One of the CDC’s bullet points tells us to “encourage guests to avoid singing or shouting especially indoors. Keep music levels down so people don’t have to shout or speak loudly to be heard.” They also suggest that we not enjoy any alcohol because that might affect our judgment when it comes to the virus.
We all know viruses are serious. We have spent the better part of 2020 listening to orders from bureaucrats and politicians. Many of us have lost loved ones to the virus, or we have been destroyed financially and personally by the government business lockdowns.
We understand what’s at stake with our health. And yet what this government hysteria exposes is a seemingly universal governmental belief that we are all infants, incapable of living our lives and their compulsion to see a crisis as an opportunity to condition us into passive sheephood.
It is perplexing how the human race survived without government apparatchiks meddling, harassing and bullying us.
In the meantime, as exemplified by Ms. Brown in Oregon, the national bureaucratic interest in turning us against each other, neighbor against neighbor, citizen and citizen, continues. And yet we’ve seen this throughout the last several years trying to pit each of us against the other with cries of racism or sexism or “privilege.”
Now they tell us it’s time for “unity.” Dare I say, the moment we all do come together and unify it will be in backlash against the Democrats’ and federal swamp totalitarian instincts. At which point unity will also be declared a crime (by executive order) because, of course, COVID.
• Tammy Bruce, president of Independent Women’s Voice, author and Fox News contributor, is a radio talk-show host.
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