Like most Americans, the protests in Lansing, St. Paul, Sacramento, and a few other State capitals has stirred up the emotions, which, of course, differ depending on your viewpoint. An email from a conservative friend of mine, which is being passed around in conservative circles, finally crystalized in my brain my particular source of disturbance at the actions of my fellow Americans. It’s short, so I’ll just quote it here.
How do you brainwash an entire nation?
How do you get people to start snitching on their neighbors if they aren’t social distancing?
How do you convince people that it’s okay to violate their God-given rights?
All it takes is five little words from our politicians…
“It’s for the greater good.”
“No, you can’t go to church on Easter, it’s for the greater good.”
“No, gun shops need to be closed, it’s for the greater good.”
“No, you can’t leave your house unless it’s for a reason I approve, it’s for the greater good.”
Nonsense.
Baloney.
Here’s a quote from the Kansas Attorney General, a politician who actually has his head on straight…
“Today’s judicial ruling is a much-needed reminder that the Constitution is not under a stay-home order and the Bill of Rights cannot be quarantined.”
“The Constitution protects our liberties especially during times of crisis, when history reveals governments too quick to sacrifice rights of the few to calm fears of the many.”
Amen to that.
I think far too many Americans forget that God gave all of us a brain and we should use it and not just blindly follow what some Governor tells us.
You and I have our own ability to make judgements.
And, as a clever sign said at one of the protests over the weekend, “Give me liberty or give me COVID-19.”
Don’t sacrifice your freedoms…
Don’t let the “sheeple masses” bully you into giving up your rights that our Founding Fathers and so many others risked everything for.
Think for yourself.
Question everything.
Question everything, the author says, and so I did – specifically, this missive. I’m not going to pull this one apart, as is my usual indulgence, because I believe this time the refutation is more effective by addressing its overall failures.
The careful reader will notice how heavily it leans on RIGHTS. Rights, of course, are secularly sacred to the typical American, as they are enshrined in the Constitution.
But notice the relentless splitting of Americans on the political fault line. It’s well known that virtually all the protesters belong in the conservative camp, as has been reinforced by the shameful behavior of President Trump in encouraging protester demands which is believed by most epidemiologists to lead to a substantially greater death toll from the Covid-19 outbreak than we’ve already suffered (roughly 60,000 American lives and counting).
And notice how the phrase greater good is treated with disdain, loathing, as if it was a cover for, oh, I don’t know, fascism.
Let’s take greater good and give it a different name: responsibility.
And let’s ask those protesters why they demand to have unlimited rights without taking responsibility for them.
Let’s get RESPONSIBILITY out there and talked about. Let’s talk about not our RIGHTS but our RESPONSIBILITIES to one another. Our RESPONSIBILITY to care for each other, to not endanger each other, to be a human society, and not a bunch of islands who just happen to have legal ties and have little other connection to each other.
Once we ACKNOWLEDGE that RESPONSIBILITY comes with RIGHTS, and (not to harp on it, but it’s true) American RIGHTS are LIMITED, then we can have a robust conversation about how best to respond to the Covid-19 outbreak, how to best modify the various Governor’s actions to balance RESPONSIBILITY with RIGHTS.
For example, I noticed a protest in one of the Southern states that banning drive-in religious services was overreach. I tend to agree, at least so long as everyone stays in their cars and 10′ apart – not hard to do. Maybe, like a drive-in movie theater, they could temporarily allocate a radio band for the preacher so he doesn’t shout himself hoarse.
But that’s my R-Word: RESPONSIBILITY. It’s funny, forty years ago it was a Republican talking point that the Democrats were irresponsible and the Republicans were the responsible ones. No longer. For all of Governor Noem’s (R-SD) silly blather about everyone will be responsible for themselves, it only takes a few irresponsible people to screw it up for everyone else.
And we all know society has more than a few of them. As Governor Noem and the rest of the nation is finding out. (Time to resign, Governor Noem.)
The fact of the matter is that sometimes proper, moral actions are difficult to discern because they require expert advice, which is often scarce in-person. That’s where the governors come, since by using their political prominence, they can secure that advice and then broadcast it, properly formulated, to their citizenry.
To trust everyone to act RESPONSIBLY without direction in times of crises is to not understand this fundamental truth. And that’s why we need to inject the word RESPONSIBILITY into the conversation, how to fulfill it, and how people should be embarrassed when they don’t fulfill it. To the protester shouting “It’s just the flu!” I suggest that she be told she’s being IRRESPONSIBLE for not gathering up and understanding the known facts about the outbreak.
Etc. Etc. Time for me to go out and garden. Remember, folks, the dark side of this relentless call for RIGHTS is self-centeredness. Selfishness. Like the missive says, question everything. Including the missive. It helped bring focus to my thought processes, and I hope I have done the same for you.
