"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." I'm pretty sure that was the takeaway from George Orwell's Animal Farm. Inspired by the Russian Revolution in the early part of the 20th century, its lesson could just as easily have been drawn from the French Revolution, the Cuban Revolution or any number of other failed dreams of a more egalitarian society gone horribly wrong. Even dreamers have a pig like Napoleon hiding just below their surface, as Stanley Milgram proved nearly two decades later in his experiments underscoring obedience to authority.
Coupled with Aristotle's observation, "horror vacui," generally translated as "nature abhors a vacuum," we have a pretty good glimpse of the political dynamics being facilitated by the current pandemic.
Leaders of countries—notably countries that have histories of totalitarian leanings—have been using the pandemic to grab power in such a wholesale fashion the legerdemain has been dubbed "coronavirus coups." While such moves toward unbridled power might be expected in countries like Serbia, Hungary, Philippines and Myanmar, for example, even countries considered bastions of democracy have not been spared political overreaching.
Since it comes near the bottom of a long list of personality failures of the Orangutan-in-Chief south of the border, I won't bother mentioning what's going on there. But the combined opposition rose up on outrage when our own Prime Minister reached for economic fiat unprecedented in any parliamentary democracy recently. Like I said, Napoleon isn't that far away for any of us.
Which is why it is all the more important we consider the possible consequences of our behaviours that run counter to the admonitions and pleadings of public health officers across the country.
A very long time ago, I entered a public tennis court where I lived in New Mexico. It was a free court with a nice, resilient surface. There weren't many rules of play but an important one was, "No street shoes. Court shoes only."
Made sense. Hard-soled street shoes marked the surface and the marks were a bitch to remove. They also abraded the surface and weather did the rest to leave the courts pockmarked.
So I asked a guy who was wearing such shoes and leaving such damage whether he'd read the sign. His response was a guttural, "So who are you, a f@*king cop?" I hadn't noticed his knuckles were dragging on the court as well.
"No," I responded. "Is that the kind of world you'd prefer? The kind where there's a cop standing at every entrance to make sure people who are too f@*king stupid to abide by simple rules get busted?" An intemperate response, to be sure, but my racket was bigger than his.
Fortunately, his opponent had a shred of decency and was silently disturbed by his friend's shoes and attitude. He suggested leaving and they did. End of story.
Except it isn't. Because there still seem to be too many people who are too f@*ing stupid or ignorant or uncaring to abide by simple rules. Except this time it isn't a tennis court surface that might be harmed. It's themselves, it's people they care for, it's people who may care for them and it's people they don't even know, it's people who are loved by and important to a whole world of "others."
Again this past weekend, there were congregations of people who just couldn't seem to grasp the concept of personal distancing, the two-metre tango. They got together on a local lake. Others got together down in Squamish and other places. They partied like it was, well, a couple of months ago. They showed a blatant and dangerous disregard for the simplest of directives: Don't get too close to each other.
That they tended to be young is neither an excuse nor a good reason. Hell, I know seven-year-olds who have mastered the concept of staying two metres apart and admonish their parents if they inadvertently draw closer than that to neighbours they're chatting with.
They're selfish, spoiled, hedonistic miscreants and their behaviour threatens us all... in ways that go well beyond the spread of an invisible virus.
Health issues aside, their behaviour threatens the free movement we currently enjoy. Unlike many places in the world, Whistleratics are not under lockdown orders. We've been encouraged to stay home but we are free to wander the hundreds of kilometres of trails that encircle Tiny Town. We're free—currently—to walk the Valley Trail, although I won't be surprised if that gets cordoned off due to people crowding each other and walking in groups. We can get together for two-metre cocktails... and we do.
But we've lost the freedom to skin up Whistler and Blackcomb. The official reasons given for that closure didn't mention the inappropriate behaviour of people who were partying there or the idiots climbing the lift towers but you can be certain that was back of mind.
What freedom of movement we enjoy can only be threatened by two things: rapidly increasing local cases of COVID-19 and blatant disregard for the basic rule of safe behaviour—distancing. So I take it personally when people can't control themselves enough to do something as simple as stay a few steps apart from each other. So should you.
It's hard enough to keep decision makers who live far away from instituting rules we don't need to live by. Whistler has, for example, very good municipal water. But it used to be better. Before 2,000 people were poisoned with E. coli and six died in Walkerton, Ont. two decades ago, Whistler treated ground water with chlorine and well water with next to nothing. But federal regulations in the aftermath of Walkerton meant our water had to be treated as though it was all downstream from a feedlot. The failure of two unqualified employees in Ontario cost the town a great deal of money.
The failure of a small percentage of people who think they're either immortal or special may well cost all of us access to the outdoors, certainly a major reason we live here.
So get with the program, folks. Put a brain on.
