Our Post-COVID Loss of Liberty
Jan 16, 2022 19:07:50 GMT -5
Post by J.J.Gibbs on Jan 16, 2022 19:07:50 GMT -5
January 16, 2022
Our Post-COVID Loss of Liberty
By William Sullivan
Polls now show that four in five Americans accept that COVID will be around for good, and those who have been irrationally peddling fear about the virus are finally losing credibility fast. But significant and lasting damage to the country may have already been done.
Remember that when we were promised “fifteen days to flatten the curve,” it was only meant to delay cases, not prevent them. It was a pandemic, after all, and it was fully understood by public health officials and Americans that the virus would claim lives. The idea was simply to spread the hospitalizations and deaths over time so as not to overwhelm the nation’s healthcare system. But by our submission to the newfangled and liberty-strangling government interventions that were meant to work in service toward this goal, we effectively conceded that the rightful role of government is to manage hospital infrastructure and ensure Americans’ access to healthcare.
We may not want to believe that, but it’s true.
Imagine you’re an upstanding citizen in your suburban community. You pay your taxes, you jump through the regulatory hoops and pay all the licensing fees to keep your beloved little neighborhood eatery up and running, and you try to give your best to your family and community every day. Then, one day in March of 2020, the government decides that a health emergency that might overwhelm some hospitals in some American cities is reason enough to make it illegal for you to make a living by selling a burger to your neighbor who wants to buy one.
More than that, it’s also reason enough to force your children out of school and to shutter your church. This is not because any hospitals near you are overwhelmed, mind you, but because some hospitals, somewhere, perhaps far away, might be overwhelmed at some point in the future. And this understanding between the government and its citizens continues long after capacity at any American hospital is seriously stressed beyond the norm, on the grounds that the unseen and omnipresent viral threat we potentially face could emerge and ravage the hospital infrastructure at any moment.
Continued at link
Our Post-COVID Loss of Liberty
By William Sullivan
Polls now show that four in five Americans accept that COVID will be around for good, and those who have been irrationally peddling fear about the virus are finally losing credibility fast. But significant and lasting damage to the country may have already been done.
Remember that when we were promised “fifteen days to flatten the curve,” it was only meant to delay cases, not prevent them. It was a pandemic, after all, and it was fully understood by public health officials and Americans that the virus would claim lives. The idea was simply to spread the hospitalizations and deaths over time so as not to overwhelm the nation’s healthcare system. But by our submission to the newfangled and liberty-strangling government interventions that were meant to work in service toward this goal, we effectively conceded that the rightful role of government is to manage hospital infrastructure and ensure Americans’ access to healthcare.
We may not want to believe that, but it’s true.
Imagine you’re an upstanding citizen in your suburban community. You pay your taxes, you jump through the regulatory hoops and pay all the licensing fees to keep your beloved little neighborhood eatery up and running, and you try to give your best to your family and community every day. Then, one day in March of 2020, the government decides that a health emergency that might overwhelm some hospitals in some American cities is reason enough to make it illegal for you to make a living by selling a burger to your neighbor who wants to buy one.
More than that, it’s also reason enough to force your children out of school and to shutter your church. This is not because any hospitals near you are overwhelmed, mind you, but because some hospitals, somewhere, perhaps far away, might be overwhelmed at some point in the future. And this understanding between the government and its citizens continues long after capacity at any American hospital is seriously stressed beyond the norm, on the grounds that the unseen and omnipresent viral threat we potentially face could emerge and ravage the hospital infrastructure at any moment.
Continued at link
