‘Look what you’ve
made us do to you’

It won’t be reported with any degree of sane analysis (‘Killer virus stalks the nation’ etc etc etc), but a small news item out of locked-down Sydney should be enough to give pause to those capable of rational thought — a rare quality, admittedly, in our political class of late.

It seems an aged-care worker with a confirmed case of COVID-19 hopped in his car and drove to a store across town, where he purchased weights for his barbells. The police were on him in a flash and he now faces a court date and a $5000 fine.

Yes, COVID kills people, the old and infirm especially. But what of cases like the unnamed Mr Muscles, who was evidently so unbothered by the virus and so far from death’s door that he couldn’t resist the urgent need to pump some iron? Behind The Australian‘s paywall, Steve Waterson is thinking along similar lines:

… No matter how much you might resent it, you have to admit the scaremongering has been absolutely first-class, judging by the results. Many of us have been reduced to whimpering sadomasochists, grateful for the beatings administered to our livelihoods, our relationships, our hopes and dreams, our self-reliance and self-respect, and quick to spank those with a different outlook on life.

We’re in a Fifty Shades of Grey scenario, or perhaps a Tarantino film: state premiers have us handcuffed to a chair and are repeatedly punching us in the face with one hand, then applying a soothing balm with the other, saying “Look what you’ve made us do”.

Half the population are now imprisoned in their homes, not because of the tiny number of Covid cases, but because of the brutal overreach by the moronic authorities who can conceive of no other way of dealing with them …

For those with subscriptions, the column can be read in full here