Just how out of control is Governor Andrew Cuomo these days with all of his executive mandates? Here’s your answer. His latest edict declares that the Met and the Yankees can go back to playing ball and people will be allowed to attend the games, though still at limited capacity. But the attendees at these games will now be segregated into two sections. One portion of the stadium will be reserved for those with an immunity passport. They will be able to sit with their friends and families, drink beer and eat peanuts and hot dogs to their heart’s content. The other section will be for the new class of lepers who have not yet been vaccinated. They will remain under all of the current social distancing restrictions. Welcome to your dystopian future, sports fans. (Daily Wire)

Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that Yankees and Mets fans will be segregated into vaccinated and unvaccinated sections starting in mid-May.

He also said anyone who gets the COVID-19 vaccination on-site will get a free ticket.

“New York will set up vaccinated and unvaccinated sections at Mets and Yankees games, Cuomo announces,” reported Joseph Spector. “The teams and the Department of Health will also set up vaccines at the games…”

“And if you get the shot, you get a free ticket,” he said.

This is the “carrot and stick” approach that everyone should have seen coming. Most government officials are still fearful of the backlash that would come if they tried to make vaccinations mandatory for everyone. So they will instead try to incentivize compliance. In this case, the carrot is that you get to go back almost entirely to how you used to support your favorite teams if you agree to get jabbed. They’ll even throw in a free ticket for another game.

The stick is a much heavier one than it even appears at first glance. The unvaccinated will be allowed into the stadium, but they will sit sullenly by themselves, at least six feet apart from their fellow lepers. And they’ll be forced to mask themselves when not actively eating or drinking. (A pointless exercise, since as soon as you lower the mask to take a sip you’re both exhaling and inhaling whatever is in the air anyway.) So perhaps the shame and isolation tactics will convince you to go up to the government pod set up in the parking lot and let them jab you with the dubious J&J vaccine. (That’s the only one that will be offered at the stadium clinics.)

I’m going to risk committing a cardinal sin among writers here by quoting myself. It’s now been more than a year – April 8th, to be exact – since I looked into my crystal ball and predicted that the day would be coming when this new era of segregation would arrive. At the time, I wrote:

“Even if such an ID system worked flawlessly, wouldn’t we be creating a generation of “certified recovered” individuals who are free to go about their daily lives as they wish while everyone else remains in lockdown, unable to earn a living or interact with their friends and families? Perhaps that’s just the price we have to pay to get through a national emergency, but it still smacks of something out of a dystopian science fiction novel.”

At that time I was only talking about those who survived COVID and built up their own antibodies because vaccines were only a distant dream. But in December, when the first vaccines were entering their final phase of testing, I revisited the topic, writing about “A two-tier society of those with and without immunity passports.”

“This is no longer some sort of hyperbolic warning of future events. We’re already at the tipping point when it comes to this question. If you don’t qualify for an immunity passport for whatever reason, you could be barred from going to school, holding a job, boarding a plane, or taking any other public transportation systems. You could be banned from stores, bars, restaurants, or virtually any other aspect of public society. You could fall under laws mandating face masks or even quarantine conditions while your fellow citizens with passports will be free to go about their business in the usual fashion.”

As the saying goes, that didn’t take very long, did it? I wrote that less than six months ago. And that moment has already arrived. The Governor of the nation’s fourth-largest state has just announced – with no debate by the legislature and no new laws being passed – that two major league baseball stadiums are about to be segregated into cheering sections for the haves and the have-nots. And the journalists covering this story aren’t even batting an eye as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. All I can tell you as a free people in a free nation (for now, anyway) is that this is going to keep happening as long as you sit back and allow it to keep happening. And may God help all of us.