We All Are COVID Cops NowPoliticians evade responsibility when they make civilians enforce mask and vaccine mandates.
By Kat Rosenfield
January 25, 2022
Amid the ongoing debate about COVID-19 restrictions and when to lift them, an interesting argument has emerged among certain members of the chattering class—one where the entire discussion is already obsolete because the restrictions under discussion don't actually exist. To mention the notion of returning to normal is to be met with incredulity: "What do you mean, 'back to normal'?! We're already there!"
It's a glimpse into another world, one where it's possible to forget COVID even exists unless you happen to turn on the news. A world of shuttling kids from gymnastics class to birthday parties, of weekend trips to the zoo, of languorous Sunday brunches with family and friends. Alex Pareene, writing on Substack, describes the idyllic view from there:
For $107 I could book a flight to Bermuda this weekend. The Knicks lost at home yesterday; a fan was spotted at the game watching The Office on mute. Vietnamese restaurant Que Viet, a Minneapolis mainstay famous for the giant egg rolls on a stick it sells each year at the Minnesota State Fair, is opening a St. Paul location. The number one movie in the country is Scream.
It all seems very normal.
It must—and it all sounds very nice. It's no surprise, under the circumstances, that a person living in this world might write an essay with the title "We're all trying to find the guy policing our behavior," the obvious implication being that the guy doesn't exist.
If you're a small business owner or a service worker tasked with enforcing COVID-19 restrictions, it's a lot easier to find the COVID police: You just have to look in the mirror.
"What most of the restrictions on our behavior (and the behavior of most other Americans) have in common is that they are not being imposed on us by power-grabbing authority figures," Pareene writes. It's a fascinating statement, true from certain angles while also being fundamentally detached from reality. Mask mandates, vaccine passports, and other restrictions are being imposed on us by authority figures, but those government authorities have delegated enforcement to individual citizens.
It's a sneaky sleight of hand. The authorities hide behind the curtain, making the rules (and inflicting punishment on those who don't follow them). But the face of the restrictions, the one people spit in when they're angry about the disruption to their lives? That's your restaurant manager, your flight attendant, your minimum wage cashier.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/01/25/we-all-are-covid-cops-now/
