Although he was Swiss, I think Americans have always seen William Tell as a kindred spirit, a person who would refuse to bow to arbitrary authority, no matter how high the stakes. So it seems natural to wonder: If William Tell were alive today, and if he were commanded to put on a mask rather than take off a hat, would he comply?
The Swiss think of that event as the moment that their country was born. (As Smithsonian put it, ‘one shot of a crossbow that started the centuries long series of events that turned a few isolated settlements of poor, backward medieval mountaineers into the prosperous modern nation of Switzerland’.) The moment they stopped cowering before authority, to stand up for freedom.
I think he would refuse. But given our collective quivering in the face of a virus with a 99% survival rate, I also think that most Americans would want him to comply.
Which is why I think that in the future, many people will look back and think of this as the moment that our country died. The moment we completely gave up on standing up for freedom, to cower before authority.
