“…to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
“The consent of the governed” – and what a concept, hey? And outlined in our very own Declaration of Independence. That the government has authority only as far as those it governs permits, allows or tolerates; a notion which seems to have escaped the more stubbornly authoritarian among us, such as the governors of certain states: among them Gavin “Gruesome” Newsom, of California, the Unspeakable Kate Brown of Oregon, Gretchen Witmer, the Grand Karenator of Michigan, J.B. “Jabba the Hutt” Pritzker of Illinois, Ralph Northam, the Baby-Killer of Virginia and the weaselly and nipple-pierced autocrat of New York, Andrew “Missed It By That Much!” Cuomo. All the above-listed, and a good few others of lesser notoriety and office went on an authoritarian kick: “Close all the things!” seemed to be their rallying cry, after first ignoring the first warning signs of the Wuhan Coronavirus, aka the Chinese Commie Crud, and then losing their damned minds when the National Establishment Media lost theirs.

So having done nothing much until the Commie Crud was upon us, then instituting a near-total lockdown in the name of keeping the hospitals from being overwhelmed, the above and others then mounted that specific goal on wheels and sent it careening all over the field. This, despite it becoming obvious by early May that the rate of fatalities was not such that bodies were piling up a dozen deep in American morgues, nor were mass graves having to be hastily dug, nor funerals held around the clock, as was in the case of the last massive pandemic, that of the 1918 Spanish Flu. In fact, most people who had active cases of the Chinese Commie Crud had no noticeable symptoms at all, and those fatalities from it were mostly, although not exclusively, over the age of 65 and/or with preexisting health conditions.

But never mind – the petty authoritarians did not like having their dictates flouted, although it has been noted, with considerable resentment, that they themselves felt perfectly free to go to their holiday homes, have their hair cut, or hang around with more than ten non-family members. Members of the advantaged classes, whose income is secure and whose work can readily be done from home have been rather brutally contemptuous of those whose income and mortgages are dependent upon them physically going back to work. It’s a very ugly kind of class snobbery, quite unfitting those who otherwise appear to pride themselves on their toleration and sensitivity. What seems to send the snobs and authoritarians over the moon with frustration alike is that many of us are fed up with confinement without any charge other than “You wanna kill Grandma!”

Yes, we want to go out and shop recreationally for non-essentials, get a manicure, go to a movie (if there were anything worth seeing, that is) walk in the park, float the river, see a live band at a bar, eat at a sit-down restaurant, go on a road trip, participate in a book festival or a historical reenactment, camp at a national park, or just go to the beach – practically the safest option around, what with sunshine, warmth and naturally-acquired Vitamin D apparently being inimical to the Chinese Commie Crud anyway. And after two months of having those simple pleasures denied to us by as septic a bunch of tattle-tales and professional Karens of both sexes as ever afflicted a middle school or a neighborhood home-owners association – and for no good purpose – we will have them.

Signs of quiet and not-so-quiet defiance are cropping up all over.
Again, I circle back to “consent of the governed.” Yes, we will observe such reasonable precautions, as long as those precautions appear to serve a real purpose. What the ‘drunk off their heads with authority’ civil Karens don’t seem to grasp is that on the whole, Americans obey the laws because we are generally a civically responsible and generally law-abiding people. We obey laws because we see the sense of them, and we consent, sometimes rather grudgingly, to obey them. We cannot be driven, harassed, hectored into obeying the irrational dictates of the professional political class – or at least most of us cannot. We are Americans: we can be led, but we cannot be driven.

Comment as you will. Personal observances and anecdotes of defiance are especially solicited. My own defiance, BTW – is on-line reference to the Wuhan Coronavirus (AKA the anodyne Covid19) as the Chinese Commie Crud, my own raised middle finger to the idiot mayor of my fair city, as well as those other scum-seeking politicians seeking to have any such descriptor cast as racist.