Rules such as quarantines, forced closures, facility entry documents many times become expanded and semi-permanent.

Taxes levied for declared emergencies become customary obligations. Temporary bureaucracies, created at the time of the emergency, are absorbed into business-as-usual bureaucracies.

When the crisis is declared over, authorities find it difficult to return new powers to the shelf. National and state leaders, to keep a portion of the emergency powers, declare that the current crisis threatens to return at any moment or the crisis never really ends.

The bureaucracy does not return to the size it held before the crisis.

Mandates, such as masks, closures or medical passports, become a tool always lying on the workbench, always available within reach. Public health bureaucrats are reluctant to let the crisis depart in peace; citizens continue to wrestle with what is and what isn’t “misinformation,” what was an honest mistake and what was a continuous lie. On the workshop bench is a vise which holds unruly objects in a firm grasp.

Yet, something slips from someone’s grasp. Hostility to petty, overbearing, arbitrary decisions rise. Consistent arrogance is recognized by citizens. Recognition of common doubts occurs within a variety of social groups. Doubts exist about the apparent self-service of those holding political power.

Is the nation going through a sixth realignment of the political parties since 1800? Possibly. Founded in 1971, Libertarian Party candidates are now on more ballots than at any time in its history. Public comedic commentator Bill Maher currently is getting laughs by poking at laws regarding inhaling sawdust and car alarms that blare when inside temperature in automobiles rise above a certain temperature. 

Close to 2000 Canadian truckers are being welcomed on every highway as they lawfully move toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s estate from which he has just departed. The Libertarian Party now promotes itself as “the only political party that respects you as a unique and responsible individual.” 

Liberty might once again be fashionable in American politics.