Hindsight is overwhelming. Forethought is scary. Six weeks ago we were living normal lives, and today we’re questioning what is normal. If we dare to think six weeks ahead, we have to use a new paradigm because none of our presuppositions prepared us for what we’ve been through.
Let me save some time. Paradigm: “A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.”
Mass panic came out of the blue and government leaders at every level followed Europe’s lead and locked down America. Media fostered even more mass panic with wildly skewed data and models, and local and state leaders forced residents to lock down or face fines and jail time.
Seriously, in all of your life before four weeks ago, did you ever believe local police would enforce closing churches in America? “But, it was justified!” some would say. “Certain widespread death was the alternative!” they say.
Few of us are capable of changing our minds. Sometimes we’re forced to change our minds by circumstances. Rarely will we change our minds because of evidence alone. Once we’ve believed a lie, we’re more likely to cling to it regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. As a friend reminds me often, “I’ll see it when I believe it.” Faith, even in a lie, is more powerful and persuasive than sight.
Long ago one of my high school coaches said, “A wise man changes his mind. A fool never does.” Another friend recently asked a rather poignant if not inconvenient question. “Do you think we cannot be safe in the world again and should keep sheltering in place until the coronavirus is eradicated because too many people have died?” Anyone who believes this is a prisoner of his own fear, and a proverbial “useful idiot” for government officials who overrule fundamental individual rights granted by God and guaranteed by the Constitution.
Peggy Ryan, writing in American Thinker said, “How did we get here? Americans aren't cowards who would eagerly surrender liberty for immunity. But therein lies the genius of the left. It's not just about you and me, now, is it? The left has hostages: our aging parents, grandparents, sick relatives. Either we put down the Constitution and slowly back away or the hostages will die.”
She nailed it! The LEFT has forged this pandemic into a hammer and sickle to rip up the Constitution much like Nancy Pelosi ripped up President Trump’s SOTU address. If citizens continue to allow government officials to suspend our individual rights, then essentially we no longer have any rights. At best, we can only ask for permission so that government can protect the safety and security of all.
America is just as locked down in many ways as East Berlin was before the Wall was torn down. But, citizens still have recourse if government leaders will honor the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
COVID-19 infections and deaths will continue regardless. What about our individual rights?
