Shelley Luther, the Texas salon owner who reopened her business in defiance of the shut down order, has a strength of character that the drones that comprise larger society rarely encounter. Luther, also a mother of young children, was arrested, and then given the option to either apologize for her actions in return for no jail time, or have the book thrown at her. She refused to apologize without hesitation, and stated the reasons for her refusal to the judge. He tossed her in jail, but the ensuing uproar throughout Texas and the world forced the government’s hand. She was released early, and will now live out her life as a hero. She also has a damn good story to recount for the rest of her life, and there will be many thousands eager to hear it.
Let’s ponder for a moment the character of a person with the courage to stare down the State in the midst of the rapid rise of pandemic totalitarianism, as our fiat liberty, as phony as our money, burns. Government at every level immediately arrogated to itself complete control over the economic and personal lives of its citizens, the greatest coup by the State against its own people in history. There are very few people that could do what she had done, vanishingly so. And yet we owe what liberty we’ve enjoyed up to now thanks to people just like her who refused to yield before galloping authoritarianism. There are endless writers and commentators for liberty: there are very few who put their necks on the line when liberty is actually at stake. Luther is one of those few. This is a significant point, and her defiance of the State is a significant event. A decisive battle, one of many, was fought and won. Luther fought it alone and emerged the victor. Something else is significant here. An apology for her actions was asked of her. Throughout history, the State has always demanded a recantation from its victims. Some type of confession, or conversion, the imprisoned is always compelled to make, under threat of punishment. This is a harbinger of government’s final transformation into the total State; one of its abiding characteristics. In the midst of our confused, morally decayed, and rapidly rotting modern age, Luther faced off against this ancient evil. Few others could do the same.
