'Freedom Day'?
From the Metro, 12 July 2021: "Despite the Government earlier ruling out plans for vaccine passports following backlash from the hospitality and nighttime industries, Mr Javid has reneged on this pledge and said businesses in England will receive details shortly."
This is not about the government performing the oxymoronic act of "giving us back our freedoms". Freedoms are not in the gift of the government, to grant and remove as they see fit.
No, it's a test. Not so much an obedience test, like the past sixteen months of stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, fines.
It's more of a compliance test.
They want to see how many individuals will, of their own volition, carry on wearing face masks. Avoiding close contact with others. Sanitising their hands at every opportunity.
They want to see how many businesses will buckle under pressure, and implement the government's medical apartheid policy, demanding that people divulge their confidential medical history, and refusing entry to their premises to all who exercise what used to be their right to decline a medical procedure.
They want to see whether their gargantuan propaganda campaign has succeeded in brainwashing sufficient numbers of people into accepting permanent restrictions on their lives, even helping enforce said restrictions through social pressure on the 'refuseniks', and thus normalising pointless authoritarianism.
Of course, if more than a small minority of individuals and businesses fail this compliance test, then cue frowning, grim-faced reporters announcing the emergence of a new super transmissible covid variant, caused, as conclusively proven by computer modelling, by selfish individuals not wearing face masks, or by businesses not insisting on proof of vaccination.
Then the PM, Secretary of State for Health, all the SAGE stooges, will sorrowfully explain how much they really wanted to trust the public, how much they wanted us to be sensible enough to behave responsibly, and how much it hurts them far more than it hurts us to have to take away our 'freedoms' again.
However, as gloomy as it all sounds, there is still hope. There is a chance that, once people have had a taste of freedom, a reminder of the 'old normal', they will reject a return to ruinous lockdowns, mandatory face masks, draconian restrictions on civil liberties, and the wanton destruction of small businesses.
A small chance, perhaps, given the timorous obedience that has characterised most people's behaviour over the past sixteen months. But a chance, nonetheless.
Let's hope and pray that a critical mass of individuals and businesses will fail the government's compliance test.
And refuse to participate in the building of their own prisons.
Image credit Bob's Cartoons
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