At some point, we will not comply
When Massachusetts’ Governor Charlie Baker issues a so-called stay at home order, he did so on the basis of it lasting for two weeks. As the COVID-19 pandemic gained steam in the United States, and public health officials projected that millions would die without mitigation, such was a patriotic duty.
I said then, and it remains true now, that the state has no power to order you in to your home. Your free movement, and free assembly are outlined at the top of the Bill of Rights. The state of course, in times of emergency, can compel your participation in activities which save lives, and so we have all complied. We shuttered businesses, threw away jobs, shed incomes, and effectively ended our participation in society.
Now nearly a month later, and with the deadline of the President’s second series of guidelines looming, the question of what to do next is prevalent in the national awareness. Some, such as California’s governor have suggested that life cannot return to normal for the balance of the year, maybe beyond.
The question now facing citizens of every state in the union is; do you consent?
In the subsequent weeks we know that the number of unemployed Americans will soon soar past 20 million – far eclipsing Great Depression numbers. We know that businesses, the total investment in someone’s dream, will fall. We know that dreams of education will die on the vine. We know that elective medical procedures on hold. And we know that people who cannot control the thing for which they are being detained or being held prisoner by a government force that cannot control it either.
Subtly what was cast as an emergency, predicated on millions of deaths and an overwhelmed health system has been transitioned in to a new normal, predicated on tens of thousands of deaths, and a health system collapsing under the burden of stagnation. Of course in hotspots medical professionals are in a very real war, I don’t diminish their sacrifice or their heroics. But that war is being fought in a few counties, while a wide majority of the country will be spared the tsunami.
The state cannot hold you indefinitely. Despite what the Raleigh Police Department may suggest on Twitter, or what pure public health advocates would wish for. As ever, society is a balancing of factors, and desires, and no one side of the ledger can dominate without crushing the other.
If you feel like I do, that this aggressive mitigation tactic must yield to a longer term strategy that tries to give public health officials tools to fight Covid-19, while allowing Americans the right to continue their God-given lives, then we better start thinking about what that looks like.
The first and most obvious thing is that people are scared. Some of that fear is rational. There’s a lot of Lysol being dispensed in my house too. I understand the nature of this disease, and I’m not cavalier about its impact or existence. For some people, that will be enough to prevent them from going back in to free society just yet, and I get it. Particularly in the case of older Americans, or those with the underlying health conditions that seem to ensure a bad course with this virus, we must provide a real safety net so that they can isolate safely.
Secondarily we have to focus on getting kids back in to their social circles and back to school. In reality it is the kids who endanger adults, not the other way around, thank God, and we need to acknowledge that locking them away is doing more harm than good. That may require some painful distancing for older family members who can’t expose them to risk, but the well-being of marginalized and healthy children is being diminished every day, and it can’t continue.
For the average adult who commutes on the highway, flies, operates machinery, works with tools, or really any other function you can think of – risk is part of life. Risk, and danger didn’t come with Covid-19, and they won’t be gone when it is. We always have to make some decisions about what we are willing to accept, and what things are important to us. For the small business owner, that person has lived risked on 11 since the day that they plunged everything in to their dream. To lock them out of the chance at realizing their fullest potential is as criminal an act as the government can commit. It’s time to free them.
Lastly, free movement and free assembly are the inalienable birthright of every American. No state has the power to silence you, lock you up, or restrict your movement arbitrarily. Part of the future management of Covid-19 is going to require the consent of the people. Just as the second amendment is not a pass to go hunting, other amendments aren’t some sort of a pass to go to work. You have the right to see your family if they choose, you have the right to go out of your house, and the right to hug anyone who wants to hug you. If the state wants you to give that up, they better make a compelling argument, because its up to you, not them.
As protests begin in some states around the country, most notably Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, I can only say this: I’m on board until May 1. After that, I will not comply with any orders I don’t deem legal or appropriate. If I’m arrested, I look forward to the challenge in court.
We can continue to intelligently direct our resource, ingenuity and energy to the fight to stop Covid-19. We have a moral obligation to do it. But we have an equally strong moral imperative to understand that this temporary state of mitigation, if applied for too long, will have opposite, dire consequences that will likely harm more people the virus.
