Day 234

It’s Day 234 of The First Ohio Shutdown and Day 170 of Mostly Peaceful Vandalism.

Deb and I are ok. She’s in the final stretch of dealing with her father’s house — a week from tomorrow new owners will take possession. The boys and I, along with a couple of friends, are doing what we can to help. It’s not an easy process, that’s for sure.

When Ohio Governor Richard Michael DeWine addressed the state late yesterday, we all knew it wouldn’t be good — it never is. Sure enough, and in familiar mind-numbing fashion, he announced a return engagement of Pandemic Theater.

He’s re-issuing his decree that everyone’s gotta wear a mask in public. He’ll put retailers in charge of enforcing that “order” in their own stores. He created a new Sicherheitsdienst, too, just for the occasion — goon squads of “retail compliance” agents from the Ministry of Workers Comp.

(By the way, the governor’s newly minted Minister of Health is an attorney, not a doctor, who came directly from running Workers Comp. But that’s probably none of my business.)

Also, of course, we got one of DeWine’s trademark threats:

“If the current trend continues and cases keep increasing, we will be forced to close restaurants, bars, and fitness centers. We will look at this one week from tomorrow.”

Translated, that means he intends to deal Ohio’s hospitality industry a final, fatal blow next Thursday.

I think it’s important to point out that while the governor was waxing hysterical for the TV cameras, none of the orders he described had been issued. As I post this, no new orders have been published on the state’s WuFlu website — according to DeWine’s own press office, the decrees still are in the process of being drafted. There are no details, no word on when they’d take effect.

This is The Rhetoric of Fear, which also happens to be The Typical DeWine. Those of us who have the misfortune to live under his regime have seen it all before.

Since last night’s speech I’ve talked with dozens of my fellow Buckeyes. To a person, their reaction to what they heard is one of anger and disgust. They see this for what it is, and they’re up and done with DeWine’s antics.

Bars and restaurants are hanging by a thread, doing their damnedest to recover. Retailers, especially small businesses, have been counting on the upcoming shopping rush to keep them afloat. And individual citizens have been clinging to the promise of warmth, traditions and normalcy that the holidays would bring.

The governor can’t let any of that happen.

Over the last few months, as the citizens of Ohio began returning to their American Life, they became less fearful. Without their fear, the State lost control. That had to change, and DeWine has the power (if not the authority) to make it so.

As a friend of mine observed this morning, it’s as if there’s a race to hit The Big Red Panic Button, and DeWine wasn’t about to let Daffy McHairsniffer beat him to it.

For those of us who prize essential Liberty more than we crave the illusion of safety, there are some fundamental principles at stake here. Throughout this manufactured “pandemic” we’ve watched those principles — tenets fundamental to the American Ideal, by the way — be ignored by the State.

Because we come from that place of Liberty, we know that we must reopen America. We accept the risks that’ll go along with that, like we accept myriad other risks of living and doing business as born-free Americans. It’s both natural and predictable, then, that as Americans come back together, WuFlu cases — and, presumably, hospitalizations and deaths — will increase.

We’ve seen it happen already. It’s not a surprise, nor is it cause for panic. That’s what the healthcare system is there for.

But no, the State says, misunderstanding the role of government, we must all be safe. Draconian measures follow. A sheepish populace quietly complies.

This cannot continue.

To my friends in Ohio, I urge you to contact your state legislators — and do it before next Thursday. And to keep up with all of the questions that DeWine and his totalitarian cronies refuse to answer, stay plugged-in to Jack Windsor and The Ohio Star.

Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay free.

#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #OhioAgainstDeWine

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