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The Dead House Plant And What It Tells Us

Up until March of last year, my wife worked at an office downtown. Since the covid-19 restrictions have hit she’s been working from home and unable to go into the office.

Unfortunately, that means that the plants that have been sitting on her desk for some time have been sorely neglected. Sadly, the majority of them have died.

It got me to thinking about what we have lost in this last year or so. It turns out to be quite a list, far more than would be obvious.

Among other things, I’m an amateur radio operator, (call sign K2ENF). Ham operators in my area like to get together for breakfast or lunch a couple of times a week. There’s usually quite a turnout for these things. They haven’t been able to do that for close on a year, now. How many social functions have disappeared in the last year, just in your own life. Now multiply that by the population of an entire nation and you begin to understand the effects of these government lockdowns have had.

Obviously that lack of business is creating a problem for the local restaurants. Family gatherings are out too. I haven’t been able to visit with my mom for almost a year now. Doctor visits, dentist visits, haircuts, date nights for my wife and I, live music events, theater, all of that is nigh on impossible these days. All the small businesses around the neighborhood that depend on such activity for their income slowly slip under the water never to be seen again. Social interaction is out too other than through the narrow channels of Facebook Twitter and whatever social media you happen to be on so long as you don’t step outside of their politics. Trump supporters are being rounded up and escorted out the door as if supporting a republican was a criminal act. They’re open to other views, and they’d like to hear them, but they’ll escort you out the door if you dare to other them and are forever offended that other views even exist. Free speech dies under such circumstances.

Up springs Parler, a free speech centered platform, whose servers were melting down under the load of people moving off of Facebook on Free speech grounds.

Well, presto chango..

Google yesterday decided that the application for parler wasn’t going to be allowed on their systems unless parlor institutes Draconian limits on Free speech which are akin to what Facebook and Twitter have been dealing with. Then,Facebook and Twitter deplatform the president, and a lot of the people around him.

The cause for that is increasingly clear. They’re trying to make the Democrats Happy …Democrats who will be running government very shortly.

Eliminate opposing views and the Democrats will turn a blind eye to their monopolistic practices and their anti-free speech actions. All that chatter about breaking up Facebook and Twitter over Free speech goes out the window when the Democrats are in power because the Democrats know they have a friend in big tech, someone who will limit the damage to Democrats.

The aforementioned restaurant closings, closing of bars, mixing of family gatherings? That too, limits opposition.

Lest you think I’m kidding, consider the bars restaurants taverns and inns at the time of the American revolution. It was these places that provided the forum, the Free speech platform if you will of the time. It was in those places that the freedom in our society was given room to grow. That’s all gone.

Family gatherings too were platforms to discuss and become informed about the issues of the day. How very convenient for the Democrats that covid-19 has given government the opportunity to shut all those chances for free speech down.

You think it’s just coincidence that the government has placed us, essentially, under house arrest? Clearly somebody doesn’t want us getting together and comparing notes.

I’m telling you, folks, it’s all part of the same deal.

We are left, I’m afraid, with the rather frightening prospect of either compliance or enforced silence. Governmentally enforced silence.

Like the dead plant all these things that we’ve lost, we have lost as a result of governmental enforcement. My fear is like the house plant, we won’t be able to bring it back.

And somewhere, George Orwell is shaking his head.