If you’re keeping score — and clearly I am — this is Day 260 of 15 Days to Flatten the Curve.
Deb and I continue to be well. Long-gone are twice-daily self-checks of our vitals — can we all admit now that those were pretty pointless? — and we don’t worry about every passing headache, cough, sniffle and flush. We’re Boomers, demographically speaking, so certain maladies of age go with the territory.
We do pay attention to the “public health” information that comes our way — but we don’t swallow it whole, nor do we take it as gospel. It’s just information, after all, so we evaluate it in the context of our own knowledge and experience, spiked with intel and expertise from a variety of sources.
Then, like actual adults living in the constitutional republic known as the United States of America, we make our own choices.
You should try it. Really, it’s like annexing your own little piece of South Dakota.
Most of us are living in states where elected officials have seized power in excess of their lawful authority. Edicts are handed out like business cards at a trade show, all emblazoned with the same lie: “The Common Good.”
We’re commanded to close our businesses, stand over there, avoid our friends, stay home, wear a costume, report our neighbors and cancel everything. We’re given little in the way of useful information, we’re lied to and, when our repressive “betters” are undeniably, wildly and repeatedly wrong, we’re expected to give them a pass and obey the next mandate without question.
We’re told we must do it because we’re all in this together. It’s a matter of need.
We have no choice.
William Pitt, in 1783, had something to say about that:
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
So advocating for State mandates based on “need” or “The Common Good” makes one either a tyrant or a slave. I don’t see any wiggle room there.
I can actually hear the sound of eyes rolling, which is what some of you do whenever a right-thinking Patriot invokes any form of the word “tyranny.” You brand us as extremists. We’re definitely not team players.
That reaction overlooks the obvious — this is America.
The principles on which this nation was founded don’t allow government to conduct itself the way it is now. Oh, sure, it’d be much simpler if the State could flout due process to imprison dissidents; ignore the Second Amendment and seize citizens’ arms, or the First to censor and suppress speech; impose taxes, make rules and establish penalties without legislative approval, and so on. How easy it’d be if government could pursue a political vision of “The Common Good” without the burden of a constitution that protects individual rights.
But this is America.
In 2020 we’re all witnesses to tyranny. That’s beyond credible dispute. Roll your eyes if you want to — just realize that makes you a slave to the State.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath
(Today’s header photo — my girl Scout, Hocking County, July, Maiden Voyage.)