In the Harry Potter series of books written by J.K. Rowlings, one of the major creatures is the Dementor.
As defined by Wikipedia, “A Dementor is a gliding, wraithlike Dark creature, widely considered to be one of the foulest to inhabit the world. Dementors feed on human happiness and thus generate feelings of depression and despair in any person in close proximity to them. They can also consume a person's soul, leaving their victims in a permanent vegetative state …"
As I listen to reports about events across the country as we all try to cope with this virus, I’m not certain that some of us haven’t become infected with a different virus.
You might be a dementor if you hand out noncompliance with social distancing citations to people who are in their own automobiles attending an outdoor worship service where there is virtually no chance of person-to-person contact outside of individual families.
You might be a dementor if you handcuff a father for being too close to his own daughter while sliding at a playground.
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You might be a dementor if you decide you need to implement a system that encourages people to snitch on other people who may be violating social distancing guidelines. Remember, totalitarian regimes relied on tattle-tale organizations like the Hitler Youth. In the 1950s we had McCarthyism - "If mommy is a Commie then you gotta turn her in.” And the result of implementing such a system in the big cities is the 911 system became overloaded and another had to be implemented.
Maybe we’re just a bunch of busybodies at heart. Or course, you could have been the poor fellow who took a movie of a party of violators only to be ticketed himself for violating distancing rules.
You might be a dementor if you insisted on giving away taxpayer money to causes and organizations that had absolutely nothing to do with COVID-19 virus relief or remediation in the first mega-monster relief legislation and are bound and determined to do it again in follow-on legislative efforts.
Speaking of this virus, you might be a dementor if you are spending more time and effort to fix blame than you are trying to fix the problem.
You might be a dementor if you label those who disagree with you on long-held, solid moral and religious grounds as racist, bigoted, sexist, homophobic, trans-gender phobic and there are likely many more phobias I haven’t even thought of - and neither have the accusers, yet.
You might be a dementor if you are upset that businesses like Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby close on Sundays because their owners believe in keeping the Christian Sabbath. There are far too many near-dementor politicians who want to reduce or eliminate religious exemptions that may be contrary to “civil rights.”
Isn’t it funny how the list of “civil rights” keeps growing?
You might be a dementor if you sue a bakery for discrimination when they refuse to make a wedding cake with decorations that violate their religious beliefs. And even though the bakers won their court case, another dementor couple chose to file another lawsuit.
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I have yet to understand how there is a “right” to buy goods or services wherever someone wants. It might be different if there aren’t other vendors available, but that’s not the case in this example. Dementors can be counted on to resort to the law whenever they can to “get their way.”
What we are going through in this world today is hard enough for nearly all the people. We certainly don’t need those who exist only to suck the happiness, joy and hope out of the rest of us.
In closing, I received an email from one of my sisters stating there are two main factors affecting the spread of this current virus. 1. How dense the population is. 2. How dense the population is. Sure stands to reason.
That’s the way I see it.
