In a way, America is getting a taste of life under a centrally planned, collectivist economy and government. Over the past few weeks:

• People are only allowed to do the things a very few “experts” sanctioned by the state think are proper.
• Voluminous regulations are created covering every aspect of daily life and then arbitrarily and capaciously enforced.
• Those in and of the state exempt themselves from the regulations enforced on the people.
• The people bear the burden of the mistakes of the state and its experts, the state and the experts never are held accountable.
• Fear is used both as a motivator and a control.
• Enforcement is often militaristic and excessive (Meal Team 6 rolling out in an MRAP with body armor and AR-15’s shutting down a small bar in Texas).
• The state has assumed control over the economy.
• The only sectors of our economy allowed to operate are those the state deems “necessary”.
• Only allowing “approved” businesses to operate has fragmented and upset supply chains calibrated by price, supply and demand and created shortages and de facto rationing.
• The idea that the state can pay everybody regardless of their output and productivity is considered effective economic policy (remember the old Soviet saying – “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”).
• The state has redirected industrial capacity (a de facto nationalization of industry) to products it deems important (the fact that the actual need for ventilators was far less than that forecast by the state is interesting).
• The entire nation is subjected to be held to the same restrictions as state favored/protected minorities.
• Crimes against the individual are minimized while crimes against the state are maximized.
• There is no goal other than that the state establishes and any disagreement with those goals is considered disloyalty.
• Those non-compliant with state edicts are shamed by other citizens for their disloyalty.
• Neighbors and family members are encouraged to report others not following the proper state approved behaviors.
• A surveillance/police state has been created to spy on and enforce regulations.
• Federalism has given way to a Balkanization of the individual states with the state governors treating them more as regional administrative districts run by a dictator than independent government entities responsible to the people.

Folks, like Ayn Rand or not, we are living among the pages of Rand’s opus, “Atlas Shrugged”.

I expect the “Anti-Dog Eat Dog” and the “Equalization of Opportunity” Acts to be proposed any day now. We are being run by Wesley Mouch and Dr. Floyd Ferris of the State Science Institute. The true Fascism of Fabian socialism has washed up on our shores and we are letting it in.

I think we will beat it back due to GOP governors in the Southeast (Ron DeSantis), the South (Brian Kemp, Bill Lee), Midwest (Kristi Noem) and the West/Southwest (Greg Abbott). The coastal states in the Northeast, along the Great Lakes and the West coast are going to push Fabian socialism to the limits and they are so significant to our national economy that every state will feel the hurt.

Take our current situation and then imagine what would happen if the Electoral College were abolished in favor of a national popular vote.

“Who is John Galt?” seems an appropriate question these days.