All We Ask Is To Be Let Alone

 ... is my favorite Jefferson Davis quote. Not being a fan of old Jeff, it might be his only quote that resonates with me, so take it with a grain of salt.

Drifting through Twitter this morning like undisciplined, emotional plankton, I came across a hashtag having to do with resisting vaccine mandates. There was a substantial number of people who were very, very angry with their fellow citizens for not getting with the program. I even saw a cartoon where someone had drawn a big box of ownerless MAGA hats next to the front door of a city morgue. Ha ha! Dead resisters! What fun!

Elsewhere, Southwest Airlines is cancelling more flights today, making transparently false excuses for the collapse of their flight network. They blamed weather when the weather is perfect almost everywhere right now and they blamed the air-traffic controllers when no one else is having mass cancellations. The news media were the only ones dim enough to fall for it. Conspiracy-minded reds made a strong case for an anti-mandate revolt among the SWA employees, but who knows if that's actually happening?

Finally, there was this essay from some dude at Rabobank about the latest, anemic job-creation numbers.

For once the US payrolls report *was* worth talking about, as jobs only increased 194K vs. the moderate 500K expected, despite an upward revision of the previous month from 235K to 366K. You think this whole data series is bananas now, as job openings soar even as job creation doesn’t? Wait until we see the impact of the forced lay-offs that begin as vaccine mandates are imposed on the labor force. Also imagine what this will mean for strained supply chains: let’s lose a few thousand more truckers, for example, and see where it gets us.

You know, all of this would calm down if we just stopped trying to force others to do what we want. Live and let live, you know? Get the vaccine if you want, but don't force everyone else to get it. Dittos for the parents howling at the school boards. Let the money follow the children and give the families the ability to make their own decisions. No one would be stomping around and shouting at the school board meetings any more.

As an alternative to President Davis, we could quote Princess Leia instead. "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." If we stopped trying to ram things down each others' throats, all the talk about splitting up the country would probably die down as well.

Maybe socialism and fascism fail because people stop doing productive things and instead spend their time yelling at each other, trying to get the others to obey.

An idea whose time has come.