What makes some Kiwis feel entitled?

Should we go back to an old-fashioned punishment for those caught flouting lockdown rules?

Well now we know definitively that we can travel back in time, anything is possible.

Texas has banned freedom of choice. The Taliban have taken back Afghanistan. And Kourtney Kardashian has reinvented herself as a rock groupie.

Now surely that means we’re heading towards, or

‘‘backwards towards’’ the notion of hauling Covid lockdown escapees, in iron cages, on the back of wagons to the central city to be publicly shamed.

Get your tomatoes ready folks, but wear a mask and remember to stand 2.5 metres away from any other human in the public square, sanitise, and for goodness’ sake remember to ‘‘be kind’’, as you hurl the squishy fruit at those who are locked in the stocks.

A couple of hundred years ago the whole town would travel from their houses in a festivaltype parade to the town square to watch other people be hanged for their wrongdoings. Or if the accused had just done something jocular like run about naked, or pinched a loaf of bread, they’d be cuffed, have their arms and hands locked in a contraption, and be subjected to jeering and public humiliation. Oh, such community spirit, as people clambered on the shoulders of other townsfolk to watch someone die, or at the very least get pelted with expiring produce.

It’s 2021 and our government is taking lockdown hella seriously. It’s not like any of us are unaware of the rules, and as much as we’d love to hop on a train, or plane, or even jump on a bike and ride off into the sunset, (the sunset being Rotorua, Wa¯ naka, or the snowy slopes of Ruapehu), we know we can’t.

It’s not a secret. It’s a firm rule. It’s a boundary. Most of us seem aware that the cops and government officials are not messing about. The woman on the TV and radio, who even pops up on YouTube and Spotify, tells us endlessly, in that voice that seems to be getting ‘‘kinder’’ and ‘‘sweeter’’, exactly what to do, and most certainly what not to do.

Can we just stick to the rules please folks?

Now I may be wrong, as often I am, but I assume that if you have the money to fly off to

Wa¯ naka, or jaunt off to the skifields, then a monetary fine

‘Sanitise, and for goodness’ sake remember to ‘be kind’, as you hurl the squishy fruit at those who are locked in the stocks.’

will be an annoyance at most.

We could throw them behind bars, but unfortunately, our prisons seem to be filled to capacity with people who can’t afford a good lawyer, have a debilitating addiction, or have had very lousy parenting. Possibly not enough cells available in Hotel Rimutaka or Villa de Waikeria.

What then should be done with these rascally scoundrels who somehow imagine themselves as special cases or magical unicorns? Well, in Game of Thrones, they stripped Cersei Lannister and chanted ‘‘shame’’ as she was pelted with turnips, old cabbages, and rotten oranges. We could try that perhaps?

Sure, it’s going back to corporal punishment, but it would make a spectacular Paddy Gower special, and at least we’d see the flouters get their just desserts.

I don’t believe we should flog Covid line-crossers. Nor do I think they should be slowly paraded down Queen St to Civic Square and placed in bespoke stocks crafted from real NZ rimu.

But I am concerned that privilege may get certain people off the hook because of a system and culture that enabled them enough to believe they were special, and beyond the law of us ‘‘common folks’’.

I am concerned that they will get a punishment that in no way fits the crime. The late, great Celia Lashlie wrote, and I recklessly paraphrase here: ‘‘Let not the first time your child learn a lesson be whilst riding in the back of a police car’’.

Overripe tomatoes anyone?