Informants: Good intentions with a totalitarian edge

“People who reported stay-home violations harassed,” (TNT, 5/10).

Did the people who responded to Gov. Jay Inslee’s request for online informants on quarantine violations really think that it would be a consequence-free virtue signal?

Perhaps the violation was a mistake by a family who wanted to see each other, or maybe a business owner needed to put food on the table or pay employees.

Who knows for sure? The self-deputized?

However well intentioned, the optics of turning in a local business or neighbor has a totalitarian edge that hasn’t turned out well in the last 100 years.

This story was originally published May 16, 2020 at 8:10 AM with the headline "Informants: Good intentions with a totalitarian edge."