[Originally published April 19, 2021]
From my journal - March 7, 2021
I started to pay closer attention to the unjust actions of corrupt government about twelve years ago. It’s been a very interesting journey. I’ve learned a lot about the subtle ways the very desire to self-govern is being eroded in the U.S.
Because so many have lost the historical context of what self-government is even supposed to be, which is at the heart of the American experiment, my fear that we are losing our desire and ability to do it has often been dismissed and disrespected. It hurts to have people you love and respect treat your fear as irrational.
With that as context, you might imagine the consternation I’ve felt in the last year. I am told I am an uncharitable person to disrespect the very real fear of people who are afraid of dying of a virus that has proven to have a 99% survival rate. To me, fear of a virus with that survival rate is the very definition of an irrational fear.
Until just the last few years, the United States I have lived in my whole life has been a place where individuals could decide for themselves whether they wanted to take precautions for their own health. Those who feared getting sick - rational or not - could do something about it. Their fear - rational or not - had nothing to do with using compulsory means to change the way anyone else lived their lives. The fact that it’s considered selfish and even reckless or cruel to do this now, a year into “flattening the curve,” would suggest that MY fear of a loss of liberty has been the most rational.
I work very hard to not allow myself to be offended, but I’ve got to tell you - I am now officially offended that my fear of the last twelve years has been dismissed, and even mocked and derided for being irrational, while at the same time those who may have been germaphobic to begin with are treated as if their fear has genuine merit.
I respect the precautions of more hand washing, more attention to improving my own personal immune system, and staying home when you’re not feeling well. All other precautions? I can’t respect any of them because of the outlandish inconsistencies in implementation. But I’m made to comply with these inconsistent policies, and from the look of it, the reason is to assuage others’ fear.
I’m particularly offended when over a hundred illegal immigrants were released into Texas last week, who tested positive for the virus! This - at the same time I’ve just spent the last year being denied the unalienable right of AIR, all in the name of calming others’ fear. Well, what about MY fear that we are losing our freedom? How seriously can I take this if illegal immigrants who have the virus aren’t quarantined before being allowed into the U.S. at large, while at the same time, people are policing each other about keeping a mask up over the nose, and families are being kicked off planes because a terrified little child doesn’t want to keep a mask over his face for a 4-hour flight?
What of my fear that power-hungry people have seized the opportunity of a crisis - as they always do - and have used fear to get us to comply with an important loss of individual liberty? Naomi Wolf has written recently of her concern that “emergency” powers - once taken, are historically NEVER relinquished. And lest you think this is a partisan issue: Naomi Wolf is a Democrat.
Self-government means that not only are we capable of making the best choices for our own lives, but that we’re capable of allowing other people to do the same - even if their choices look completely different than our choices.
Self-government means we’ve outgrown the first-grade tendency to tattle to teacher, pointing to our neighbor at Table 1, and shouting, “He’s doing it wrong!” My apologies to the more mature first-graders everywhere.
Self-government means we realize that freedom means we have to give each other room to learn from our mistakes by doing it wrong, because WE need that room ourselves.
I need to change my answer. I’m not offended; I’m heart-broken. I’m heart-broken and stunned at the widespread ignoring of logic which has been necessary to bring us to this one-year anniversary of two weeks to flatten the curve. I mourn that the United States of America’s beautiful experiment in self-government seems to be lost. All rational evidence points to the curve being flattened a long time ago. But the more contagious virus - irrational fear that a healthy neighbor can kill you - may never be flattened if we don’t turn our frontal cortexes back on. It’s the only thing that will override fear, and the only thing that will save our liberty.
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