The latest updates from Russia are that after the New Year's holiday (the Soviets succeeded beyond their wildest dreams at that one, turning a Christian holiday time period into one more valued for turning the pages of the calendar in a little over a generation, and the tax serfs here do it with WILD excitement), the PSA about muzzling up on the commuter train "or else" has added that YOU, tame little tax serf, are protecting yourself against "the flu and upper respiratory infections" in addition to CoVid.
And then today, I saw a PSA showing people sneezing and saying that the FLU cares not about your
social status,
Karate belt level,
number of awards earned,
number of followers,
sex,
nor age- it's coming for you, unless you get vaccinated, "free" of charge, of course (from the 27% the benevolent gov't takes from your paycheck monthly (5% for medicaid and 22% for Social Security)).
Wonder if a similar expansion is awaiting the Western Europeans and us Americans, that we are ALLOWED to interact socially only if we appropriately protect ourselves from the flu. Holy hell!
Now outside the metropolis, in the regions (well, this ONE region) most shop owners have relaxed back into complacency regarding muzzle enforcement. Yet in our great country, as evidenced by that cop shit video just shared, complacency from citizen store owners and government enforcers never comes about.
I think an unintended consequence of our great love for rule of law is that it enables, with the wrong leaders elected, authoritarianism to flourish unchecked. While, here in the former USSR, in addition to the many docile tax serfs (actual hereditary descendents of serfs, BTW), there are equally many cynical citizens who never trusted the gov't then (the common truism was that everyone spoke their mind in the safety of their kitchens), and so in their "freer" post-Communist Russia they feel no guilt about ignoring or weaseling around the laws that they know are absurd.
Now, you tell me who has more freedom! The Cynical Citizens who have at least protected borders and a strengthened culture, or...?