Liberty for Safety...

"Those willing to trade a little liberty for
a little safety, deserve neither

liberty, nor safety..."

                                          Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, 1787

Brother Ben was prescient.  Brother Ben advised us well.  Brother Ben warned us.  Brother Ben foretold the happenings in the early part of 2020...

Are you enjoying your "socialism light" experiment?  You know, being ordered to cower in your homes, and wear masks if you go choose to go out.  Which they don't want you to do.  Sort of like being ordered into solitary confinement without having first committed a major crime.  But don't go out or you'll risk being ticketed by those who want you subservient.  And you might as well enjoy your "socialism-light," because you're ensnared smack dab in the middle of it...

I doubt anyone would have guessed just three months ago that we'd now be "sheltered in place."  That term was heretofore used only to describe what the peons among us must do when and if and when somebody with a gun is anywhere nearby.   

Like within the same zip code... 

And also afraid of what our governor might do to further confound our miserable, useless, plebeian little lives.   Six weeks ago you went where you wanted, when you wanted, and wouldn't have considered wearing a mask unless you decided to give into that baser urge to stick up the local 7/11.  

Now?  Depending upon where you live, you might be forced to act like mindless drones as you don your mask and stand in line at the local Wal-Mart waiting for your toilet paper.  

You might be forced to hide in your homes and pray for better days.  An example would be Michigan.  Its Governor Whitmer decided, all by her lonesome, that buying seeds for planting, and paint for painting, and tools for tooling, and tires for tiring, and kiddie car seats for..., you know, and a whole list of other stuff, is verboten!  Not to be permitted!  No longer allowed!

You can fish from your canoe or rowboat there, but do not try and use a motorboat!  Not to be condoned!

Whaaaa?  

However, it's quite okay to buy lotto tickets in Michigan, and booze from the wide-open liquor stores, and, of course, maryjowanna.  Perhaps the fact that those last items shovel tons of tax money into the MI treasury could have something to do with her decision...  

The Michiganders are pissed.  They've mounted a recall against their governor, and are protesting her actions at the Lansing State House every day.  But she will not back down!  No, no, no!  She says that they're irresponsible to protest, because their "assembling" * could result in the virus spreading more, and the lock-down lasting longer.  

Yeah, she's threatening to extend the lock-down, because her citizens protested.  Can you say wannabe' dictator?

And good ol' Boy Guv Gavin Newsom added in his (our) two cents worth.  He said he's not opening up Taxifornia's economy until he gets damn good and ready.  And then only in pieces.  For example, he says when he permits restaurants to reopen, their waiters will have to wear masks, and gloves.  And the diners will be issued single-use, disposable menus.  And their seating capacity will have to be cut in half, and the diners spread all whichaway, even if members of the same family!  

Geee, Mr. Guv!  Do you think anyone will go out to eat knowing this craziness awaits them?  Geee, Mr. Guv!  Do you think any restaurant will stay in business with your draconian edicts in place?

(Pssst!  Mr. Guv, more than 10 Million souls work in our restaurants nationwide.  That's a lot of people to be put out on the streets because idiots like you with some new-found authority choose to issue dumbass edicts like this one...)

But at least the illegal aliens will be splitting up some $75 Million of our tax money.  He's giving it to them because...he can.

And New Jersey's Governor Phil Murphy decided to limit his serfs to zero get-togethers.  No assembly of more than one person in NJ.  (I'm not sure how that works when you have a family?)  And nobody gets to go to church, either, even if they're in their cars, windows rolled up, and listening to the sermons on FM.  When asked how he came up with this dictate in consideration of the 1st Amendment to the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, he stated that, 

"He hadn't considered the Bill of Rights."  

Doubtlessly true...

And of course New York's Governor Cuomo screamed the loudest about the help he needed from the Feds.  He said he needed "40,000 ventilators."  40,000?  The average big-city hospital would normally maintain only about one per ICU suite.  So, 10  - 12 ICUs, 10 - 12 ventilators.  Only!  These really sophisticated medical instruments cost about $35,000 apiece, and Cuomo wanted 40,000 of them.  Like they'd be laying around somewhere, just awaiting his request.  

But Cuomo persisted; he needed 40,000.  Trump said he doubted that number was necessary.  The MSMedia howled that Trump wasn't a doctor, and yet he was playing one by deciding how many ventilators NY's Cuomo needed.

Postscript:  Trump gave Cuomo a fully-staffed 1,000 bed hospital ship, the USN Comfort, and converted the Jacob Javits Convention Center into a 2,700 bed hospital.  And he sent both the Army's and the Navy's medical personnel in to help.  Plus he gave NY 7,000 ventilators.  Can you imagine what all that cost?

BTW, with exception of a few of the ventilators, New York needed none of the above.  None.  Oh yeah, and the USN Comfort is on its way back to Norfolk.  

No comment from the MSMedia.  But then again, none was expected...

Cuomo and Newsom and Murphy and Whitmer and most of the other Democrat governors got a lesson in civics around this whole deal.  Apparently they thought the Federal Government was responsible to give them anything they need to fight a pandemic, anytime they need it.  Apparently they skipped civics class in high school that day when the 10th Amendment was taught.  You know, that whole "Federalism" thing about the part where the states have both the right and the responsibility to handle this stuff, including stockpiling their own ventilators, and respirators, and masks, and gloves, and gowns, and needles, and syringes, and mops and brooms, and aging copies of National Geographic, etc., with the Government backing them up as needed.  

Sort of like Trump did in this situation.

So while we're hiding in our homes, awaiting the time the deadly "gift" from China goes away, and our respective governors deciding to allow us, permit us, to once again gain the freedom we own, let it be known that deciding to accede to the diktats of weenie governors who cannot remove from us our Rights to say what we want, when we want, and assemble where we choose, and practice our religion anywhere, anytime we wish...

...is trading a little guaranteed liberty

for a little presumed "safety."

(God, how I love that run-on sentence.)

I don't know about you, but I'm damned happy I bought all my weapons and ammo before the rush; being an Eagle Scout prepares one for that...

*  The First Amendment to the Constitution:  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peacefully assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievance."