Even as the COVID-19 pandemic begins to wind down and businesses start reopening, we are still faced with overly oppressive restrictions on where we can go, what we can do and how many people can be in one place at a time. In many places, wearing facemasks (of highly questionable effectiveness) are mandated for anyone out in public, and businesses and houses of worship must collect information on people who enter for contact tracing. Politicians and the media now tell us this is the “new normal” until a cure can be found. In reality, it is nothing more than another way for tyrannically inclined politicians to control us, strip away our rights and make us more dependent on the government for our daily existence.
In many parts of our country, it’s as if the Constitution and Bill of Rights has been shredded. Mandatory Stay At Home orders, closing businesses, restricting the ability to travel outside of your own neighborhood, prohibiting the ability to practice your religion, associate freely with those you choose, the ability to protest your government and purchase a firearm or ammunition have been eliminated.
Governors and local politicians have made winners and losers by deciding who is essential and who is not. Big box retailers are essential, mom & pop shops are not. Alcohol and marijuana retailers are essential, firearm retailers are not. Purchasing food at a grocery store is essential, growing your own food from seeds or fishing by yourself in a lake is not.
When the pandemic closures began, the forecast for closing our country was two weeks, a month at the most to flatten the curve. We are going on three months in many areas, with no end date in sight. In contrast to the need to “flatten the curve” before reopening the economy, we are now told it will not happen until there is a cure, an upgraded goal from having a vaccine available or the population developing “herd immunity”. What is crystal clear is the politicians who are keeping their states, counties or cities closed are going to do everything they can to drag out the pain suffered by their constituents.
So what are we supposed to expect in this so-called “new normal”, projected to be at least 12 to 18 months? No gatherings of 100 persons or more, effectively eliminating sports, concerts and conferences. Dine-in restaurants, businesses and theaters will only be able to operate by restricting capacity to 25% to 50% to enforce social distancing. Patrons will be required to have their temperature taken and provide identifying information for contact tracing in order to enter. Schools, if allowed to reopen, will stagger the arrival and departure times throughout the day and dramatically restrict movement of students who will spend their class, lunch and recreation time in the same room with the same teacher. Airlines will screen all passenger’s temperature, block middle seats (unless it prevents the flight from being profitable) and may require “immunity passports” proving they have had and recovered from COVID-19, or have been administered the as of yet available vaccine.
What I want to know is how exactly businesses that operate on small margins are going to be able to survive? We’ve already seen thousands of small, medium and large businesses across the nation close permanently due to the losses incurred from the economic shutdown while the big box retailers deemed essential and awarded a monopoly in their communities are thriving. Millions of “non-essential” employees are out of work and now fully dependent on the government to pay their rent and feed their families.
Consider also that health departments in about two thirds of the states are now sharing the addresses or names and addresses of patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 with law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services. While this would normally be considered a massive HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) violation, “guidance” from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services simply dismisses this legal concern. It’s amazing how many states have readily accepted this federal guidance yet ignored the Department of Homeland Security guidance on firearm retailers being essential. Nor is it a violation of your privacy for your cell phone company to provide tools to health departments to conduct “digital contact tracing” with or without your consent. Snitch lines are available around the country so you can report your neighbors for not following social distancing guidelines.
While the courts have been mixed in their reactions to challenges of the economic and social shutdowns, the people themselves have been making their objections extraordinarily clear. As I’m writing this, I’m seeing news feeds of citizens around the country exercising their constitutional rights to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances, all in defiance of the oppressive and arbitrary closure orders in their area. The people are saying it is time to reopen the country and allow them to take care of their families themselves.
I refuse to believe the way we are being forced to live is going to be the new normal. With every communicable disease from the common cold and flu to H1N1 (Swine Flu) of 2009, we have been able to effectively keep our country running and take care of our sick. Yet with COVID-19, we’ve been told our entire way of life must change for the foreseeable future. Or perhaps, if we vote ‘correctly’, it will only last until the elections are over.
It does NOT take increasingly draconian control measures from oppressively inclined government officials to keep you from passing on or catching COVID-19. The most basic level of personal responsibility, social distancing and sanitation, is enough to stop this, without giving up our rights.
Bob
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