Despite revelations that the “COVID19 infection rate” in both the U.S. and England has been massively overblown, Breitbart’s Alana Mastrangelo and Cleveland.com’s Courtney Astolfi note that Cuyahoga County just announced its creation of a “hotline” and website for residents to tattle on others they see outside “in public” without their precious face masks.
In other words, the county is lifting a page from Nazi and Soviet Germany, when, first, the National Socialist German Workers Party under Adolf Hitler and his aide, Reichstag President Hermann Göring, established the Gestapo, and, later, when the communist occupiers created the Stasi. These were the hated and feared secret police forces that utilized hordes of “civilians” to snitch on their neighbors so that the state could fine, arrest, and ship many of them to work camps and death camps.
Cleveland.com’s Astolfi explains that the government suggests this:
Individuals who see others failing to abide by the mask requirement should call in complaints to the county’s new hotline at 216-698-5050, or file complaints online at cuyahogacounty.us/maskexperience.
This, insultingly, as County Executive Armond Budish had the gall to say they want people to don masks “voluntarily”:
‘This is not intended to be going out and finding people not wearing masks. We want people to wear their masks…We want people to do it voluntarily,’ Budish said.
Which is curious, since:
If the county receives repeated complaints or cases of ‘serious non-compliance,’ the Sheriff’s Department could investigate or potentially file charges.
And…
'Local municipalities and police departments also could respond to violations however they see fit, which could include proactive policing,' Budish said.
AND…
'Violating the governor’s order is a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $750 fine,' Budish said.
This in a state where Republican Governor Mike DeWine recently INDEFINITELY EXTENDED his unilateral, unconstitutional mask mandate, his “large gathering” (how large - over how much space?) ban, and his “social-distancing health rules” for private businesses.
Indeed, this diktat to mandate masks and even the distance at which people must stand in order to freely associate does not just apply to people on government-run, tax-funded public land. It applies to people in private businesses.
Those would be private businesses where everyone involved makes voluntary decisions to associate, based on their own free wills and their own determinations about risk, cost, and benefit, as they should, as free people.
It is the government no one can keep away. If cops or “health authorities” want to get into your home or establishment, want to grab you, touch you, take you away to a place where you might be at even greater risk of infection? In most cases, the state, county, and local “authorities” can find ways to grant themselves permission – and you’ll pay taxes to have it done.
So, which entity is really the risk of spreading a pathogen to people against their will?
The answer is clear.
It is not hyperbole to liken to Nazi and Soviet Germany this move by DeWine and the subsequent attempt by Cuyahoga County politicians to get people to snitch on “transgressors”. As Astolfi writes:
People can also file complaints directly with the Board of Health or their local governments, though Budish said the county established its hotline to better allow the Board of Health to focus on contact tracing and testing rather than mask enforcement.
The Germans had a word for this: "duninziant." It means "informant."
Welcome to Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Don’t forget your dimes.