Here we are, June of 2021. A full year after "fifteen days to flatten the curve / slow the spread" which somewhere got transformed into "stop the spread." Sneaky. You'd think one could never tire of saying the words "I told you so" but 2020 kept reaching for my beer. Now we have the Fauci Emails, Facebook rolling back the naughty-notes for voicing the theory maybe the WuHuFlu was lab-made, and news outlets which promise us they care about TheScience(TM) surreptitiously editing past articles about COVID. And I'm over here wishing there was an app which could quickly translate "I told you so" in multiple languages to change things up. Maybe there is one, I've only been too pompous to take a break to find it.

For transparency, Brodigan penned the above headline for me way back in January when he saw the video below. His headline tickled me whenever I saw it and I couldn't bring myself to hit the trash icon. Like that random cord you have in the junk drawer, I suspected it would one day come in handy. Lo and behold.

This video, from January, is actually relevant to the thru-line.

This is how you spot a scam. Here we have a politician using COVID to push through climate change policies by calling climate change a "public health challenge." Why? Because of how easily controlled Americans showed themselves to be for "public health challenges."

At this point, you may be asking yourself "Courtney, did you break your long writing hiatus just to show up here to gloat and rub people's dirty masks in their faces?"

In a nutshell.

For the past year we've witnessed the rise of the Karens and whatever we're calling their equally insufferable male counterparts, leveraging their fear as a virtue to cow the rest of us into silence. Aided and abetted by Big Tech tyrants. We've watched our personal freedoms ceded as sheepish hordes stayed at home, proudly splashing their "Stay Safe, Stay Home" stickers all over their social media profiles, believing their dutiful obedience made them better people (and how dare you believe otherwise). We've seen livelihoods destroyed, businesses shuttered, young people robbed of life milestones, suicide rates skyrocket, governments both state and federal amass even more power.

The emails of the beatified Pope Fauci of the Mask have revealed a great many things I, and others, have known all along. Though COVID-19 was always a real virus, the reaction to it was about gaining more control. Over you. Because they got it. Instantly. With nary a fight. Read also OPINION: Coronavirus Panic is a Trojan Horse for Socialism.

I didn't need to know "TheScience(TM)" to understand what was really happening. All I needed was the results, which I saw days into this way back in February and March of 2020. I saw what the government asked and how many millions were willing to give it. Helped by traditional and social media companies eager to exercise even more control over our speech. That's when I knew "Slow the spread of COVID-19" was actually a campaign to quickly spread socialism. I didn't have to read about transmission or droplets, vaccines, medications, or any of that to know what was really happening to us was an experiment to see how obedient and compliant we really were. I cannot express how disappointing it was to see so many Americans went along with orders to stay at home. Especially on day 16. Too many were disturbingly gleeful to comply.

I'm saying all of this not just to gloat, but to warn. Government tyrants ran a test to see how easily we could be controlled. They now have their results.

Maybe you were hoodwinked. Maybe you believed your mask saved lives. Maybe you believed keeping your kids home from school would save grandma. Maybe you believed staying six feet from someone would help. Maybe you believed having your three year-old-child in a mask was somehow beneficial.

Maybe your compliance without question put the rest of us in danger.

Learn from COVID-19. Next time, and there will be a next time government ushers in an emergency, ask questions. Next time, and there will be a next time, don't become one of the herd going along with the rest just to get along. Look at the results of the actions put in place, how people amended their behavior, and ask if something more is going on. Because more is always going on.

Stop complying. Go live your life.