To say things aren't looking up in the world is an understatement of breathtaking proportions.  In America alone, the southern border has been erased, crime is skyrocketing in almost all our major cities, inflation is rampant, race relations have been set back by roughly 60 years, and free-market capitalism has been replaced by an essentially fascist oligarchy of giant businesses and massive government protected and enhanced by Big Tech, Big Education, and the legacy media.

And that's just for starters.  The Biden administration has attacked our oil, gas, and coal industries and obliterated our recently achieved energy independence, thereby weakening our national security while strengthening our adversaries.  Moreover, our formerly representative republic has been hijacked by a vast Deep State bureaucracy and a large cadre of leftist activists, politicians, wokesters, and assorted other cranks determined to tell the rest of us what we can and can't do, how to live...and when to die.  Our nursing homes and other health care facilities are soon to collapse due to inflexible, unconstitutional — and immoral — vaccination mandates that are forcing many employees to leave their jobs.

 If the Green New Deal is enacted, in whole or in part, it is curtains for the world's largest economy.

And we all know about the recent disaster in Afghanistan and the catastrophe in Kabul.

President Biden should head to his Delaware basement in shame.  He should hide there.  It would be only fitting, as he has "led" his country into a figurative basement and very real shame.

But, in fairness, the U.S. isn't the only nation in decline.  The entire nation of New Zealand was recently locked down due to the presence of one — count it, one — case of COVID-19.  What will its leaders do to citizens when a large outbreak of another communicable disease occurs?

Spurred by a piece by Mark Steyn, I recently read through the 30-page "Directions from Chief Health Officer in accordance with emergency powers arising from declared state of emergency," AKA "Restricted Activity Directions (Regional Victoria) (No 7)."  This was issued by the government of the state of Victoria, Australia.

The document had a lengthy and disjointed preamble, followed by specific directives for various types of businesses and entities.  Really specific.  These were likewise followed by several pages defining the terms used in the preceding pages of the document.  Lastly, penalties for failure to follow the preposterous preceding proscriptions were posted.  Said document noted that a "COVID Check-in Marshal" would be present at all entrances to most venues.

It further noted that "any dancefloor in a place of worship" would be closed for the duration of the pandemic.  (I was sadly unaware that most churches had dance floors, mosh pits, and the like.)  On the brighter side, the regulations dutifully explained that "Sex on premises, brothels and sexually explicit entertainment venues" could stay open for business, provided that "the number of members of the public permitted in any outdoor space or indoor space at any one time is limited to the density quotient and the total number of members of the public permitted in the whole of the venue at any time is limited (with infants under one year of age not counted towards this limit) to the lesser of the density quotient and 100."

"Infants under one year of age" are "not counted towards this limit"?  Do many people attending "sex on premises venues" bring their infants?  And is it not at least a bit odd that church dance floors are closed to help limit the spread of the virus, but brothels are still good to go?

Yet perhaps my favorite bit of government overreach came on page 27, via definition 52.  This cleared up the ever-so-confounding meaning of "outdoor space."  It did so by defining it thusly: "a space that is not an indoor space."  Brilliant!

Who wouldn't want to have been in the meetings where government officials and officious bureaucrats sucked up their citizens' tax dollars by interminably debating this minutia?  I hope the guy or gal who nailed the meaning of "outdoor space" got a raise.

In a perfect world, or even just a better one, any government so cosmically, gobsmackingly, obscenely vast — and daft — could be immediately locked down by the people.

Image: PxFuel.

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