OPINION:
World-renowned musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has a coronavirus-tied message for his U.K. government that goes like this: Back the freak off.
All Americans should be so bold, both now and in the future — in the future, as leftists continue to exploit COVID for political gain.
Here’s a guy who’s sick and tired of being told to stay home, stay out of work, stay the coronavirus course and listen to what Big Government says — which may mean, according to U.K. reports about emerging coronavirus variants, that theaters and other venues will have to stay closed for weeks longer. Lloyd Webber is saying no more.
He’s saying stop the madness.
He’s saying it’s time to get back to work and hang up the “Open For Business” signs once again.
Specifically, he’s saying this: “We are going to open, come hell or high water,” The Telegraph first reported.
And this: “We will say [to government], ‘come to the theater and arrest us.’”
And this: “If [my production] Cinderella couldn’t open, we’d go, ‘Look, either we go to law about it or you’ll have to compensate us.’”
Lloyd Webber said it’s high time government pay attention to the science and let businesses get back to the business of doing business — and that includes the theaters that he says have been particularly “penalized” by politicians who view musical and dramatic productions in these coronavirus-lingering times as luxuries that can oh-so-easily be let go.
The 73-year-old composer said he’s had to mortgage his homes and may have close theaters for good if government doesn’t let him resume productions. And he’s quite willing, he added, BBC reported, to compel audiences to wear masks and even provide proof of vaccine as conditions of entry.
But the time’s come, he said, for government to step back.
“[It’s] neither rational nor proportionate [for government] to stop us from going forward” with reopenings, he said.
It’s the same for America and for Americans fighting the bureaucratic tendencies of Anthony Fauci and Fauci’s friends in the White House who want to continue shut-downs in select spots, and maybe even expand shut-downs to even more spots, depending on how these coronavirus variants go.
Who knew the fight for liberty would take the form of a musical composer, though?
Lloyd Webber’s resistance to tyranny is an inspiration that should be copycatted in America, wherever leftist governors are in charge, wherever Democrats in power are trying to use the coronavirus to justify continued clamps on personal liberties. He may be British by birth. But he’s American by spirit. Out of this one, hopefully, many more will come.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
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