The world has changed.
Starting sometime around March 16, 2020, the United States of America changed. I am writing this about six weeks later and a lot has happened.
Like everyone I know, I have experienced a huge range (and rage) of emotions. Teetering on the edge of 60 years old with health complications, I am the fresh meat this virus feeds on. I have a family that I care for that includes my wife, adult children and grandson.
Most of my friends fit into the demographic of coronavirus targets. Most of my friends, like myself, have also served our communities and countries for most of our adult lives. We Americans, We the People, look on ourselves as patriots.
This “new reality” has stretched and pulled at the definitions of words like patriot and freedom. The fictional struggle of Star Trek and Spock with the needs of the many and the needs of the few…and the one, have turned into an historic battle between THE People, THE Government and a thousand tiny fiefdoms scattered throughout the land of the quarantined and the home of the N95.
Predictions of death and suffering triggered responses from all aspects of society. We will spend the next decade debating the appropriateness of these responses. Right now, we are in the middle of the forest and cannot even see where the trees stop.
The one thing that I have seen that has troubled me is the lack of consideration for the basic rights of the People. From mass house arrests to local governments prohibiting the sale of clothing, the petty tyrant has impacted the People in ways we do not even yet comprehend. And they did it without any resistance.
John Adams spoke about this issue during the American Revolution. Read his brief speech and look at it through the prism of current events.
“Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments. That many of our rights are inherent and essential.
Agreed on as maxims and established as preliminaries even before parliament existed. We have a right to them, derived from our maker. Our forefathers have earned and bought liberty for us at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasures and their blood.
Liberty is not built on the doctrine that a few nobles have a right to inherit the earth. No! No! It stands on this principle: That the meanest and lowest of the people are, by the unalterable, indefeasible laws of God and nature, as well entitled to the benefit of the air to breathe, light to see, food to eat and clothes to wear as the nobles or the king. That is liberty… and liberty will reign in America!”
