“These executive orders are not a suggestion. They’re not optional. They’re not helpful hints.” — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D, MI), after barber Karl Manke, 77, vowed to continue working in defiance of Whitmer’s shutdown orders “until Jesus comes,” Breitbart, 5/11/20. Two days later, according to Time magazine, Michigan state regulators suspended Manke’s barber license.

“A flag company in Pennsylvania will not be able to sell flags for Memorial Day observances because of the governor’s shutdown of all non-life-sustaining businesses … FlagZone … had asked [Democrat] Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf for special permission [which was denied] to ship American-made flags for veterans’ graves in nearby Berks County and nationwide for Memorial Day.” — Western Journal, 5/17/20

“They don’t have a right to object. That is the rule and that is the regulation, and they have to comply with that.” — Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D, NY), forcing nursing homes to take covid-19 patients, resulting in thousands of nursing home deaths, nbc News, 4/25/20. On May 17, when questioned about his decision, reports RedState, Cuomo said: “Older people, vulnerable people, are going to die from this virus. That is going to happen … [W]e can’t keep everyone alive.”

Scratch a liberal, as the saying goes, and his (or her) inner socialist comes out. They are unified in their objective: the destruction of American life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — by their targeting U.S. capitalism and free markets. The key word being “free,” as in freedom. Leftists hate it. Because they can’t control free people.

It infuriates them when the peons defy their lockdown orders to, say, go to the park or the beach. The petty vindictiveness of these government apparatchiks knows no limits. Democrat officials are filling in skateboarding parks with sand and mulch. In New York, they enforce the “social distancing” of those who just want to enjoy the outdoors by confining them within six-foot chalk circles on the grass. And don’t even think about going to your nonessential job or opening your nonessential business.

Lockdown U.S.A. bears little resemblance to America. It is a grim, oppressed place, with empty streets and closed stores and snitches. Masked pedestrians, few and far between, trudge to permitted destinations, following one-way arrows painted on sidewalks and in grocery aisles. Tattles and scolds socially regulate their fellow citizens on proper maskage, calling those who question this depraved new normal “murderers” and “granny killers.”

All this hangs like a wet blanket over daily life, a cold fog quenching the national spirit. Liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries — and Planned Parenthood — are wide open. But not churches. The genuine pleasure Democrat officeholders are getting from sticking it to churchgoers and those who just want to get back to work is palpable.

These are people who believe you can never let a crisis go to waste. And this virus is the most promising crisis in their careers. I’m telling you, folks, that everyone treated as a hero by the media, every blue state governor, every blue state politician, every “public health” expert, every leftist advocating for the lockdown and the shutdown continuing — these are people who think this is the greatest opportunity they have ever had drop into their laps.

Look at what they think they’re able to prove after this. We’ve had a confined, restricted populace. We’ve had massive government spending — $6 trillion, with no end in sight. And though we have over 36 million newly unemployed, we are keeping people fed while they’re not working. They think they’ve demonstrated how to usher in their utopia, you see.

We don’t need capitalism! We don’t need people in cutthroat competition stressing themselves out and hurting other people’s feelings. You don’t have to go out and work. Government can take care of you. Government can protect you. Government can handle it all. Sure, that means government commands and controls you; but, hey — look how wonderful the environment is now. The air is cleaner, the water is clearer, the earth is so much happier! We’re getting rid of fossil fuels because nobody’s driving and nobody’s flying; we’re ending pollution once and for all!

It’s a teachable moment. The left is loving this. Democrats who literally want to transform this country into their socialist utopia are reveling in this opportunity, the greatest they’ve had. We’ve never shut down the U.S. economy like this for any reason. Can you think of any other time in history when not only did we shut down, but people pushed like hell to remain shut down, to stay in lockdown, to continue the destruction of the American economy? Can you remember in your lifetime anyone advocating that? They say they just care about “public safety” and protecting you from illness. Wrong. They are advocating the ongoing shutdown of the United States and the destruction of the world’s greatest and most dynamic and most powerful economy.

Why would they want to do this? Because they’re anti-capitalists. Because they think the United States is the destabilizing agent in the world. They think the United States is standing in the way of the shared dreams they have of a giant globalist community where there are no nations and there are no borders. There are more people who think that than you want to believe. They are in the media and in elective office. They are Democrats. They are leftists. And they are hell-bent on taking this opportunity and maximizing it. Here’s just a sample:

• “This pandemic has … laid bare a lot of our country’s deep-seated problems — from massive economic inequality to ongoing racial disparities to a lack of basic health care … [T]he old ways of doing things just don’t work … it doesn’t matter how much money you make if everyone around you is hungry and sick … [S]et the world on a different path.” — Barack Obama, virtual commencement speech to nation’s high school seniors, at The New York Times, 5/16/20
• “The virus fight opens up a climate opportunity. Governments should launch new policies to promote a green economic recovery.” — editorial, Financial Times, 5/15/20
• “We have a chance to institutionally change the way this economy functions.” — Joe Biden, virtual interview, on Twitter, 5/14/20
• “We believe it is unthinkable to ‘go back to normal.’” — open letter signed by Madonna, DeNiro, and a host of “stars and scientists,” afp, 5/6/20

The entire left is pushing this notion that now that we’re on lockdown we have to change everything about America. It makes no common sense to want to turn America into a ghost country. It makes no common sense to want to essentially destroy and wipe out the U.S. economy. Who do these people think they are? But this was their intention if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016. Hillary winning meant that all the transformational work that had begun in the Obama years would continue — the fundamental transformation of America into something it was never founded to be: a corrupt, socialist nation.

So now it’s time you all were taught a lesson: this is what happens to you when you vote against the Democrat Party. They’ll lock your ass down! They’ll shut down your job, they’ll take your career with it, and they won’t think twice. You are nothing but a statistic. You’re a mere voter, and if you don’t vote for them, they don’t have any empathy for you whatsoever. You are expendable.

It is a frightening moment in America. I’ve never encountered the fatalism that I’ve encountered in the past few weeks about the future of the country, about the prospects of individual liberty and freedom. People I talk to are scared to death that it’s over, that the forces arrayed against freedom are going to prevail here, and that they’ll do it by virtue of this shutdown and ongoing dislocation from the lockdown of the U.S. economy. 

The fear is that this is how people will be conditioned and bludgeoned into accepting this new way of life, because they’ll be powerless. If you take away people’s ability to be self-sufficient and self-reliant, if you convert the vast majority to dependence, then you own them. And that’s where the fear lies, that leftists are willing to use this pandemic to forever alter the American way of life. Democrats everywhere say it is time to transform the United States and are joining an effort to essentially ruin it.

Well, not on my watch! I will not sit by and let these people take America, the indispensable nation, down. And neither will you.

On May 8, the 75th anniversary of V-E Day, Victory in Europe Day, marking the end of World War II in Europe with the defeat of Germany, I saw the coverage of President and Melania Trump at the Memorial. I found myself stopping to watch it with rapt attention, because I had not seen this before. It is a memorial that has thousands of gold stars. The President and Melania were standing in front of the huge granite edifice, and the text, the words on the memorial really got me. “here we mark the price of freedom.”

I sat there remembering. I’ve been to the D-Day beaches and Pointe du Hoc and I’ve been to the American cemetery there. It is hallowed ground. It got me thinking of all who’ve made so many sacrifices. “Here we mark the price of freedom.” Seven words. “Here we mark the price of freedom.”

It’s exactly right. What a testament to American resolve, American commitment, American perseverance, and American courage. We have paid freedom’s cost. And the dark forces swirling around liberty can never choke it out.

Illustration ©2020 GaryVarvel.com, Creators Syndicate