In her article titled “Natural Rights” from 1946, Margaret MacDonald, writes (p. 242), “Does the ordinary citizen consider that he has no right to life and liberty because he agrees to (or does not protest against) the suspension of those rights in an emergency? He would be very unlikely to approve of such suspension if he thought the result would be the massacre or enslavement of himself, his contemporaries and possibly his children and descendants at the arbitrary will of a ruler or government.”
Americans obeyed the lockdowns, enduring sacrifices, for a number of reasons, including the belief they’d be beneficial. They didn’t expect the many negatives lockdowns would cause, and there are many negatives. They didn’t expect an emergency that authorities would extend for many months. They are at a juncture in time and experience in which they are “very unlikely to approve of such suspension [of rights]”, thinking that the result may be their permanent evisceration or loss.
In other words, more and more people are waking up to a situation in which their basic liberties have been curtailed. More and more people are protesting and filing lawsuits. People are exerting more pressures to re-open and this is having the desired effect.
Lockdowns and crazy restrictions and directives are coming to an end, as they must. The sooner, the better.
Rather than teach people to be more obedient to government in the future, this episode will turn out to be a great victory for all who value liberty. The ruling class of politicians and bureaucrats has overstepped its proper bounds, and this has reminded people that they have rights. A new energy of liberty will emerge. An entire old class of politicians is going to be dismissed from office. People have seen who they are and what they are, and they’re not going to want them around much longer. Even if they get re-elected, they are going to be targets for a long time to come.
This has been a case study in unsound government. This has been a loud alarm warning of the totalitarians in our midst and of the weaknesses in our system that allow a totalitarian order to be introduced.
It’s going to drag on in some forms. It’s not over yet, although the people are now stirring in the direction of liberty. The media remain a huge problem. Mandatory vaccination for some unknown and undeveloped vaccine will bother us. Some politicians and health bureaucrats are going to insist on maintaining their directives until some impossible condition is achieved, which means maintained forever. And the men and women responsible for the worst orders and lockdowns are going to be trying to pin the blame on others or on no one at all.
7:11 pm on May 21, 2020
