Tyranny is a word I see thrown around a lot these days. And it’s starting to annoy me more than when people misuse the word ‘literally.’

I get it, this is getting old. These mandates are pushing people beyond their comfort level. Regardless of whether I support vaccines or not, a government coercing its population into receiving one is a concern for many — and you aren’t wrong to feel unease.

By definition, tyranny is a “cruel and oppressive government or rule.” One could argue that these mandates are, in fact, tyrannical. Then again so could speed limits, taxes or legal drinking ages, depending on one’s subjective interpretation.

Many agree that this is a government overstep. A dampening of slopes perhaps, even setting a dangerous precedent.

This situation is a lot of things.

But it’s not tyranny. Not in the true sense of the word — the tyranny that resonates through history, that spurs revolution and civil war.

If you grew up and live in a Western democracy, you don’t know tyranny. That is, you don’t understand what it’s like to live under a tyrannical government.

• In Saudi Arabia and Belarus, for example, journalists are imprisoned, tortured and killed for criticizing the government.
• In Cambodia during the ‘70s, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge massacred most of the population.
• During the anti-gay purge in Chechnya, gay people were thrown from windows.
• The Taliban stones rape victims to death for “committing adultery.”
• Millions of Ukrainians starved to death under Stalin’s forced famine.
• The Armenians living under the Ottomans. The Tutsis under the Hutus. The Kurds under Saddam.
• North Korea.
• And let’s not forget the Holocaust.

Wearing a mask or getting a vaccine may go against your beliefs. It could very well violate your liberty and personal freedom. And that isn’t ok. But you aren’t scared, not really. Your beliefs don’t cause you to fear for your life.

You have every right to be wary of the government, to question their actions, to protest, to stand up and voice your opinions. Exercise those rights because you have them. Under actual tyranny, they do not exist.

Have your concerns, ask the questions. But don’t call this something it isn’t. Don’t water down the meaning of a word reserved for the most abhorrent of regimes.

Doing so is a slight to those who are forced to live under it.

I’ll end with a profound quote from Sebastian Junger’s book: Freedom.

“For most of human history, freedom had to be at least suffered for, if not died for, and that raised its value to something almost sacred. In modern democracies, however, an ethos of public sacrifice is rarely needed because freedom and survival are more or less guaranteed. That is a great blessing but allows people to believe that any sacrifice at all — rationing of water during a drought, for example — are forms of government tyranny. They are no more forms of tyranny than rationing water on a lifeboat. The idea that we can enjoy the benefits of society while owing nothing in return is literally infantile. Only children owe nothing.”