We are living history now. The history of early Soviet Russia – and the other place, of course.

People cowed by fear – just trying to keep their heads down and not get into trouble. Hoping it’ll pass – that it will not get worse. They just want to be able to work and get food . . . whatever the cost, not always measured in money.

This comes of dependence and acquiescence, both of which have been increasing markedly over the past 50 years.

Many examples of this but among the most relevant are the bowing of businesses (and the people) to this idea that one should need a license i.e., government permission – to be in business. Which permission can be revoked at any time and the mere threat of which is sufficient to get most businesses to do as ordered by the government.

This is outrageous – if you think that a free country is a good idea, at any rate.

Having to get permission from the government to engage in the free exchange of goods and services?

Don Corleone, phone home.

Where is the crime in doing that without permission? And yet it is a “crime” – in the sense that the government will sic itself on anyone who dares to offer goods or services to people who freely wish to purchase them without its permission.

Which accounts for the base, embarrassing servility of businesses, which grovel at the feet of the government in the manner of Stalin’s chicken.

Also the effrontery of some of their customers – who know they can force themselves upon a business not to their liking by siccing the government on it.

Diapering is the obvious case in point but there are many others and antecedent to Diapering, which is merely the latest and saddest example of business servility.

For example, the forcing of a small, walk-up hot dog joint to provide “equal accommodations” to those who cannot walk-up. The hot dog stand hasn’t got anything against the handicapped; the problem is that the cost of installing a ramp and other “accommodations” far exceeds the money the place will earn by selling a few hot dogs to a few people in wheelchairs. This isn’t evil. It’s economics. The same economics that act upon what everyone else spends their money on.

But businesses are forced – by government – to spend their money on things which they know don’t make economic sense, because a busybody can sic the government on them.

And the busybody can sic the government on them for many other reasons, too – none of these having to do with the voluntary exchange of goods and services. Rather, the coercion of services – as for example the bullying of a bakery owned by conservatives to bake a cake for in-your-face deliberately provocative liberals (the term is misleading; “liberals” are anything but).

It wasn’t much of a jump from that to coercing Diapering, given the totalitarian tag team of businesses needing government permission to be in business and the empowering thereby of noxious minor totalitarians who can sic the government on businesses.

Like the proverbial spoonful of poo ruining a gallon of ice cream, all it takes is one Diaper affronted busybody to call the government – and the government threatens the business with the revocation of its permission to be in business.

This is why Diapering spreads.

Fear – of the loss of one’s business and one’s livelihood – brings many to heel, even if they themselves aren’t fearful of “the virus.”

This includes those who work at a business. Which have become, in effect, adjuncts of the government as well as the bitches of busybodies empowered by the government. Which makes everyone who works for a business – especially the smaller ones, which are most vulnerable to the threat of government and the busybodies – the bitches of both.

This trap has caught probably 80 and maybe as high as 90 percent of the population in its maw. It is probably why in many areas 90 percent of the people you see wear the Diaper.

Their Sophies’ Choice is to do so – or lose their job.

I personally know several people caught in this trap. I have spoken with people who are caught in this trap – for example, the clerk at the shoe store (Fleet Fleet in Roanoke) where I bought my last pair of running shoes (from them) the other day. The people who work there – all of them runners, as the store caters to active people – loathe the Diapers and know it’s Kabuki – but wear them and insist on them because the store’s policy requires them.

Which it does because of the threat of revocation of the government’s permission to be in business and the threat of even a single busybody leveraging the government to do his (or her) business.

Thus, people keep their heads down – and their Diapers on. Economic pressure can be even more effective than physical pressure.

If more people weren’t the bitches of the government – and vulnerable to the shrieking of bitches (of both sexes) Diapering would soon fade away like a bad fad, such as parachute pants.

But the Sickness Kabuki is becoming a national performance because they are – and it ought to be obvious what the final act will be.

Read up on what it was like after the October Revolution in Soviet Russia – or what it was like in the other place, after the odd little man with the funny moustache became the arbiter of the terms and conditions of being in business.

The only holdouts now are those who don’t need to have permission to be in business – independent journalists like yours truly, for instance. And those who can live without having to work for a business that requires government permission to be in business.

These few will be mopped up along with the Kulaks – and the wearers of the gelb stern – if they continue to refuse to Diaper up (and Needle up).

It’ll be a history lesson, all right.

One that keeps repeating because people always forget it.

. . .