America Has Been Lulled into a Coronavirus Stupor [OPINION]

When was the last time you had a conversation with anyone that didn't begin and end with talk of the coronavirus pandemic? It's everywhere. It's everything we do. You can't even turn on the TV without being slammed with feel-good messages about the coronavirus that are sponsored by this company or that. There simply is no escape from it all.

Social media doesn't even provide an escape from the COVID-19 pandemic. No matter where you turn, someone is lecturing you and telling you to wear a mask, stay at home, or insisting that you thank a front line worker. Social media has been taken over by the coronavirus do-gooders who know what is best for you and want to force their views down your throat. Everyone on social media has become an epidemiologist.

You can't even sneak off to the movies to hide out for a while all because the coronavirus Nazis have closed the theaters.

A trip to the market to break the coronavirus fatigue is met with lines outdoors where folks are kept six feet apart and aisles dotted with directional arrows tell us which way to walk and at how many squares away from everyone else. We are standing in line to buy food. Think about that.

Human interaction has become Zoom meets and FaceTime. Funerals for loved ones are being replaced by memorials – to be held at a later date. And don't even think about walking on the beach because some Facebook troll is just waiting to call you a moron for doing so.

Our kids haven't been to school in weeks and are being gypped out of their prom and commencement exercises. Basketball hoops, soccer fields, skate parks – they've all been seized by out of control governments. A mother in Idaho was handcuffed and taken to jail for taking her small kids to the swings at the park.

As is usually the case, we have gone way overboard on all of this to the point of absurdity. Who decided that this is the best course for us to follow? Did anyone ask you? How is it that 350 million people let a handful of know-it-alls talk us into submitting our souls "for our own protection?" If you resist you are branded as "dangerous" or wishing to put your greedy economic needs ahead of people's lives.

Never in a million years would I have imagined that the American people would be so easily lulled into a state of submission such as this without even so much as a whimper.

Barry Richard is the host of The Barry Richard Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. Contact him at barry@wbsm.com and follow him on Twitter @BarryJRichard58. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.