AMERICA'S DYSTOPIAN COVID POLICE STATE: PART I

               SR has heretofore refrained from posting on the ubiquitous coronavirus or COVID-19 (hereafter CV19) crisis, and the utterly unprecedented police state excesses imposed in its name.  Our reticence was not rooted in lack of interest or ideas on the subject, but rather on the reverse:  The moment one appalling idiocy of the CV19 gestapo drove us to the keyboard in furious outrage, it would immediately be superseded by a still more incredible totalitarian atrocity that rendered the previous topic of subordinate urgency. 

                So much COVID Lunacy, and so little time.

 Assembly for Declaration of Independence:  Illegal Gathering under COVID Rules

                For example, yesterday's news was that the crass and clueless Governor of Virginia had extended the temporary closure of the State's public schools to at least a complete closure for the entire academic year.  He imposed this ruthless totalitarian dictat even though there was not the least justification for such a premature announcement at this time, other than to engage in the crude one-upsmanship of COVID extremism that the nation's governors are currently playing. 

                The reported 14 CV19-caused deaths in Virginia barely approaches the annual toll of the ordinary seasonal flu (or one month's murders in Baltimore), yet the notion of closing the schools based on the seasonal flu would surely have been met with unanimous and well-deserved popular derision.  Yet relegating Virginia's youngsters to long months of educational, recreational, athletic, and social deprivation in order to reduce the potential CVD risks for aged retirees (like me) – who are already "playing with house money" anyway --  is accepted by today's feckless sheeple without a murmur of dissent.  

               The concept of cost-benefit analysis  is apparently beyond the ken of today's nanny-state tyrants, let alone their cowering constituents.  The crude COVID-based closure of the schools now sets the precedent for similar draconian measures in the future, justified by similar threats, like the recurring seasonal flu itself.  When it is pointed out next year that the seasonal flu is apt to cause illness and deaths comparable to this years corona virus, how will the government justify avoiding the kind of extreme measures it has adopted against COVID-19?

                But today we learned of a bizarre new expansion of the COVID Police State that not even George Orwell, in his wildest and darkest imaginings, would have contemplated.  The Mayor of Chicago (one Lori Lightfoot) -- who lacks the cognitive powers to manage a neighborhood garage sale let alone the welfare of the nation's third largest city -- has darkly declared that lengthy walks, runs, or bike rides are now criminal acts under the COVID Regime, and perpetrators are subject to citations, fines, and even arrest by the Stassi that once passed for the Chicago Police.  Since this dangerous mayor's crude declarations do not require embellishment to portray their grotesque excess, let them speak for themselves (foxnews.com, March 26, 2020; emphasis added):

                “Be smart,” Lightfoot said Wednesday, according to  CBS Chicago. “Not only will our police be deployed to shut them down if you are not abiding by these orders, we will be forced to shut down the parks and lakefront.”

                Lightfoot went on to announce that spending long periods of time outside or in playgrounds is not allowed.

                “You cannot go on long bike rides. Playgrounds are shut down,” she said. “You must abide by the order. Outside is for a brief respite, not for 5Ks.”

                She added: “I can’t emphasize enough that we abide [by] the rules.”

                "This is an order that’s enforceable by law," she reportedly said. "We’re going to give you an admonition. And if you don’t turn right away and head home then you’re going to get a citation.   And if worse, yeah, we will take you into custody."

                She added: "I hope that it doesn’t come to that, I hope that I don’t have to shut down the lake front, shut down all the parks, but I will."

  

                If this police state madness does not drive the reader to furious resistance to the COVID madness, it is hard to imagine what will.  A crude, uncultured, power-mad mayor of a dysfunctional American city dictates to American citizens that they may not take a hike, run, or bike ride unless they restrict it to an approved brevity that is not specified – in short, the police have full leeway to arrest any walker, runner, or cyclist at their unfettered discretion.  

                Welcome to the totalitarian dystopia of COVID America.  Where venturing outside your home is limited to the "brief respite" allowed by the government.

                And the same civil libertarians who howl in outrage at the slightest government interference with the violent protests of Antifa anarchists are now grotesquely silent in the face of the most comprehensive police state restraints on the rights of ordinary citizens since the founding of the Republic.

                Merely for starters, the widely adopted and spreading state COVID-based prohibitions of gatherings in excess of ten people blatantly and indisputably violate the Constitution's prohibition of any infringement of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  U.S. Const., Amend I.  

                In COVID America, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and the rest could not legally have gathered in Philadelphia to declare independence.

                This is the opening salvo in Splashing Rocks' protest against the extreme Police State measures that have been adopted by federal, state, and local governments in grotesque overreaction to the COVID-19 virus -- a passing disease that is little more than a variant of the seasonal flu in terms of its threat to the public health.  In order to "get the ball rolling," SR will end this post here, but will enumerate in subsequent posts the totalitarian atrocities and stupidities that have been imposed – and, worse yet, docilely accepted by a cowed and emasculated citizenry.