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So You Think You Live in a Communist Country
What makes a policy inherently communist and why you shouldn’t use words you don’t know
“You know this is communism, right?” The lady looked me right in the eye as she pulled off her mask for the tenth time. It was a kid’s store, and most of the children who came in were better at keeping their masks on. “Mask wearing, having to wear masks,” she gestured at her face and spoke louder like I couldn’t hear her. Other customers left the store, looking back worriedly. “Mask wearing is communism. Canada’s becoming communist.” I accepted the fact that, yes, she was talking to me.
I took the high road and didn’t mention that I have a degree in political studies. “Okay,” I said as the woman’s full-grown daughter hushed her, told her she was scaring away customers and ushered her out of the store. Her last words had to do with my generation being too self-absorbed to notice. Meanwhile, I was naming the (self-proclaimed) communist countries repeatedly in my head, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos, North Korea. After an almost hour-long lecture on how pandemic rules in Canada were communist, she didn’t even buy anything. Staying on the high road, I didn’t flip her the bird. I avoided saying that most of her complaints ignored that health policy and by-laws were provincially or regionally mandated and not…
