I am by temperament resistant to authority, but am still left stunned by how little time it took to start building a better genocide.

An ex-Noo Yawkuh, I now live in a very blue community in a mostly libertarian state, and my younger self would have been shocked to find me grateful to have a Republican governor and developing, for the first time in my life, an appreciation for the 2nd Amendment. (Though such attestations should never be necessary, I voted for Obama twice-yes-twice, voted affirmatively for "none of the above" in 2016 and skipped 2020 altogether.)

I chose not to get vaxxed against the current Plague not out of any philosophical, religious (I ain't got no dogma) or political impetus, but for rational reasons--this thing ain't been tested long enough; dissenting scientists have been ruthlessly suppressed, which any normal person would find concerning; I've never gotten a flu shot either and consider this the same category of risk (I got the flu on my 30th birthday, lo these many decades ago, and it was a brutal week but illness gets ya like that sometimes. It's not the Crawling Eye, or something.)

And the reaction to people like me, in letters to the editor in our regional paper (where I was just one of two-count 'em two people to rationally lay out our reasons) would have made Goebbels proud. The paper's circulation encompasses two college towns and by God the intelligentsia have better pitchforks than the peasantry could dream of.

Leighton, you're one of the best essayists on meaningful subjects I've encountered. Live long and prosper.