For the Left, These are the Good Old Days

American liberals will remember the first months of the national quarantine as their finest hour.

In their minds, it’s the moment Donald Trump finally faltered and the career bureaucrats magnanimously stepped forward into the breach.

Welcome to Police State America.

Individual liberty is being suppressed and the "collective good" reigns supreme.

How far of a leap is it, really, from the "collective good" to shutting down Mark Levin, Newsmax, Laura Ingraham, The Washington Times, Fox and other conservative media?

Don’t think the collectivists haven’t thought about it, because once before they tried to silence talk radio. The left already polices Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, removing conservative content they find objectionable.

Hollywood elites, from the soft comfort of their luxurious penthouses and sprawling mansions, smugly lecture and waggle their fingers at the struggling, flyover state citizens, mouthing the easy (and useless) phrase, "We are all in this together."

What’s next, "From each, according to his ability, to each according to his need?" (Karl Marx).

Or how about, "You didn’t build that?" (Barack Obama).

Establishment Democrats shoveled COVID-19 relief packages, with billions in pork spending, to save "the arts" under the guise of serving the people.

Most egregiously, mainstream columnists and journalists ran article after article praising the Communist Party of China for "flattening the curve" by flattening dissent and human decency.

Our historical conservative forefathers and foremothers always knew this.

The great William F. Buckley said, "Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other peoples' freedom and security."

And the revered Margaret Thatcher warned, "Beware the Nanny State. The state that takes too much from you in order to do much for you."

While this virus caught most off guard, the truly surprising part was how nakedly gleeful so many collectivists were. Several writers for prominent publications began using the term "stupid freedom."

The inconvenient tendency of human beings includes making the decision that maybe, just maybe, New York City isn’t the center of the universe. And maybe what’s necessary for Manhattan isn’t necessary for upstate New York or Middle America.

It doesn’t matter to the collectivists.

Through sheer force and terror, their desire for the power to run — and ruin — other peoples’ lives was finally fulfilled.

But as the curve flattens and the states look to reopen, their power is slipping.

But make no mistake however, they’re not going down without a fight, without advancing their cause.

Government agents aggressively target all churches, even those who maintain social distancing. Democrats demand personal data be surrendered to tech bros in Silicon Valley.

All blatantly unconstitutional, but oh so inconvenient to the central planners.

Some of the mossy dystopian nightmares come to life, some seek to deploy unmanned drones that monitor the temperatures of random pedestrians, targeting those who pose a threat.

In Singapore, robot dogs are programmed to patrol parks to maintain social distancing.

The governor of Michigan, the odious Gretchen Whitmer, seems the most gleeful as she passes the most draconian of laws. One can’t go to church, mow their lawn or travel to a second home, but they are more than welcome to sit at home and drink themselves into depression.

Or, purchase marijuana.

Does she smirk just a little too much, as she joyously crushes people’s privacy and dignity?

"All hail Big Sister."

As Hamlet said of Claudius, "That one may smile and smile and be a villain."

Curious too, because the racist liberal governor of Virginia also has a nasty smirk as he issues his edicts clamping down on privacy — except the so-called private right of a woman to kill her baby after the child is born.

The future is easy to see.

Claiming cost overruns, government will exploit the virus to raise taxes. Again.

This, without even considering cutting spending.

And our power will diminish just a little bit more, if we allow it.

Government will find easy excuses to monitor us, "for our own good," of course.

Little by little, our personal power is slipping away.

What’s next? Writs?

How far are we from government bureaucrats moving in to our private homes, taking our private possessions? These are mere baby steps for the collectivists of America.

Even more unsettling is the encouragement by government of citizens to rat out those who don’t abide the government rules. How much of all this reminds you of Orwell’s "1984"?

Government encouraging private citizens to snitch on others?

Police routing private citizens in the middle of the night? Children spying on their parents?

Yet all across America, Atlas is shrugging in reverse.

They are telling the nonproductive members of society — the useless bureaucrats and corrupt government officials — that it is their moral duty to stand up and defend American citizens.

Chief among the mindless cheerleaders of the left will be the low, retromingent clowns of The Washington Post as they drool and fawn over supermodel Stacy Abrams, who in her spare time walked on the moon and discovered a cure for cancer, according to the snowflakes of that yellowest of yellow newspapers.

For this reason, the protests are exhilarating all across America.

Men and women are telling their governments to go to h**l. Glorious.

Maybe Robespierre wasn’t wrong about everything.

While it’s rumored that most stay-at-home orders will week by week be extended to September, it’s unlikely the citizen will abide by this.

As more revolt, the tighter government officials will squeeze their grip.

Like Stalin, they’ll rationalize the brutality, as government "having to break a few eggs to make an omelet."

It may work . . . for a while.

While the liberal elites continue their condemnation, ironically enough, wasn’t it they who once said the greatest act of patriotism was to stand up against one’s government?

For the left, these are the good old days.

Craig Shirley is a Ronald Reagan biographer and presidential historian. His books include, “Reagan’s Revolution, The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started it All,” “Rendezvous with Destiny, Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America,” "Reagan Rising: The Decisive Years," and “ Last Act: The Final Years and Emerging Legacy of Ronald Reagan." He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller, “December, 1941” and his new 2019 book, “Mary Ball Washington,” a definitive biography of George Washington’s mother. Shirley lectures frequently at the Reagan Library and the Reagan Ranch. He has been named the First Reagan Scholar at Eureka College, Ronald Reagan’s alma mater and will teach a class this fall at the University of Virginia on Reagan. He appears regularly on Newsmax TV, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. Read Craig Shirley's Reports — More Here.