Paradocracy

Recent news reports released out of Santa Cruz, California, suggest that some members of the public are finally fed up with the ongoing lockdowns, mask mandates, and restrictions on our daily life.  The latest news report covers a group of Santa Cruz shoppers attempting to patronize local grocery stores without wearing any masks. Asked to leave by employees, the mask-less shoppers reportedly insisted on making their purchases, insisting that they have a right to shop freely at any business open to the public, that the mask mandates are unlawful, and that the public is following orders by officials who don’t have the authority to issue them:  “There is no law passed by the legislature requiring anyone to wear a mask. Contrary to popular opinion, any store open to the public cannot unlawfully discriminate by requiring customers to wear a mask.” According to the report, in what has been called Operation Cash Drop, “The group is seen picking items, documenting the prices and placing money

“Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better". That is the title of an article from the World Economic Forum in November of 2016. The title is essentially socialism in a nutshell: no private property, no self-ownership, and no privacy, but somehow, they contend, life will be better.  This is the budding trend in America, away from freedom and capitalism in favor of government and socialism; and the data bear this out. Decades after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, socialism has reemerged as ungracefully as bellbottom jeans in the classroom and the collective conscience.  According to a 2015 Reason-Rupe survey, 53 percent of Americans under 30 admit to having a favorable view of socialism. Likewise, a 2016 Gallup poll found that an astounding 69 percent of millennials say they’d be willing to vote for a “socialist” candidate for president. For comparison's sake, roughly a third of their parents' gen