It’s quintessentially American to not do something simply because you’ve been told you have to. We didn’t have the gumption to declare independence from a monarchy for nothing. Glenn Reynolds, a professor at the University of Tennessee and more popularly known as the InstaPundit, noticed this trend when it comes to coronavirus mandates.

If regular democracy isn’t doing so well, maybe it’s time to fall back on “Irish Democracy.” …

Irish Democracy is when the populace simply doesn’t cooperate with the agenda [of its rulers]. Sometimes there is active sabotage, sometimes surreptitious monkey-wrenching, sometimes foot-dragging and sometimes outright noncompliance. Sometimes it’s all of those at once.

Right now, we are seeing some of that in response to vaccine mandates, mask rules and various other forms of population control that have been adopted since the pandemic struck. Go almost anywhere with a mask mandate, and you will see some people not wearing masks at all, daring anyone to do anything about it (often, they don’t).

You will also see a lot more with the mask pulled down below their noses, providing the vague suggestion of compliance without ­actually going along. These people will usually pull the mask up if asked, but then pull it right back down again as soon as the asker leaves the vicinity. (Hey, why take it seriously when our elites have made clear that the mask rules don’t apply to them and their gatherings?)

Likewise, social distancing is ­often honored in the breach. And why not? If football stadiums and rock arenas can be filled with profitable crowds, how seriously can people be expected to follow other rules?

When I was in New York City recently, restaurants and bars were “checking” people’s vaccination status by taking a cursory glance at a largely illegible photo on an app. Going through the ­motions is a form of passive ­resistance, and lots of people seemed to be doing that.

Others are exiting the workforce rather than comply with vax mandates. Biden administration officials seem mystified as to why people don’t want to work for employers that seem to be operating as extensions of government regulators. And many people who are employed are refusing the shot and daring their employers to fire them in a tight labor market.

This kind of resistance should have been predictable, even if leftist politicians and corporate leaders thought they could force compliance and are really quite put out by all the opposition. This is America, not North Korea.

Reynolds concludes:

Some on the left are calling those who resist the regime names like “domestic terrorists,” but that doesn’t carry much weight anymore. With the left having spent a decade calling everyone Hitler, “domestic terrorist” barely registers. (And given the Biden administration’s craven surrender to the real terrorists in Afghanistan, some Americans might be forgiven for thinking that if they get called terrorist enough, they will be in line for the basket of goodies Biden is giving the Taliban.)

I got the shot, but the bullying has become insufferable and counterproductive. The masks are by now downright moronic. Ditto the arbitrary six-foot rule, based on flu droplets rather than COVID’s aerosols. Resisting government bullying, too, is a kind of public duty. And more and more people seem to be doing just that.

Read the whole thing here.