Many Americans are willing to step into the post Covid 19 world. We believe the only path to its end is through it. The vast disconnect between us and the ones who prefer to hide from it indefinitely demonstrates one core value, self-responsibility, a value that also marks a major difference between conservative and liberal ideals.
Conservatives believe that the people tell government what to do. Liberals believe that the government should tell the people what to do. Conservatives believe that the people support the government. Liberals believe that the government should support the people. So in the case of protection, likewise, while conservatives are scrambling to protect the constitution during this government free-for-all of mandates, the liberals are looking to the government to protect them from getting sick.
So who's right? Who's wrong? I suggest in this situation that once again, self-responsibility tips the scale. In the case of the Coronavirus, we have the luxury to constantly take in education and updates regarding its spread worldwide, nationally and locally. We know how to protect ourselves from it and how to treat it. If I don't want to get Coronavirus I can choose to stay home. I can order groceries online. I can shop at odd hours when the stores aren't busy. I can always wear a mask when I go out. I can even wear a mask when someone comes to the door. I can wash my hands incessantly especially when I've been outside my home. I can be more mindful about surfaces I touch when I leave my house. I can avoid friends and family members who I know are going out and living their lives carefree. It is hard to imagine, but I can even avoid them in my own home and if they're grown and they choose to put me at risk, I can insist that they find somewhere else to live. If they aren't grown, then they live under my house by my rules, so that's pretty simple. If they are unpredictable teens, you can bet I'm keeping my physical distance from them. If I'm really serious about protecting myself, I might even start exercising and eating right. Gosh, I'll even spring for vitamin supplements. These are just some of the many ways that I can avoid dying from Coronavirus.
In the case of Tyranny, it's not so simple. When the government tells me I can't leave my house, can't shop in select stores of its choosing, go to work, open my business, attend church services, have a surgery I've needed for some time, attend school, send my children to a playground, ride around in my own boat...what am I to do? When the government tells me if I don't wear a mask covering my nose and mouth everywhere in public, I will be educated and punished, what is my reprisal?
When the government prevents my child from attending school while promising a great enriching online experience that by the way they have failed to produce, what am I to do? I sent letters to every single person who voted. I answered every survey they sent. I'm aware that over seventy percent of parents surveyed said they wanted their children to go back to school in spite of the epidemic. My twelve year old also sent a pleading message to the Superintendent Ann Levett. She did not reply. The few responses we received from board members aired on the side of safety, safety in a vacuum because it completely disregards all of the detrimental truths about confining children to screens in homes alone while their parents try to earn a living to provide for their families.
Trauma from a pandemic has opened the gate for tyranny to invade our country in the guise of protecting the people, veiled in platitudes like Safety First, Follow the Science and Kindness Matters. Anyone who dissents is labeled heartless, cruel, selfish and unenlightened. So where then lies the self-responsibility conservatives hold so dear? How do we retaliate as our breath is being crushed from us, our posts deleted and constantly censored, people we don't even know weighing in on every single thing we say in various forms of social media using group think terms like, "It's obvious you..." "what kind of idiot..." "How stupid..." "ridiculous..." and my new personal favorite, an emojee face laughing hysterically, these all coming from the harbingers of kindness.
Do we wait until the next election and hope that someone better runs for county commissioner? For mayor? For public school superintendent? For school board members? That's a big hope and November is far away. Or do we get in the mix, fight back, get outside our comfort zones and sound the alarms, because right now everything Matters but us.
There is tyranny and there is self-responsibility. In one paradigm, a select few win. The few who make the most noise, point many fingers and accuse instead of seek to understand. To the person who chooses safety over freedom, your victory will be short lived because Tyranny does not stop when the tragedy fades, when the natural disaster has long been cleaned up and life resumes. It takes hold and grows. It is a living thing and it will eventually attack something you hold dear and when it does, just as conservatives feel today, you will be powerless to stop it.
In the realm of self-responsibility, we protect ourselves. Oh we are happy to protect others as well and eager to do so, but not because we've been forced to, but because it is the right thing to do. People are given the choice to wear a mask or not to wear a mask. If it suits the greater good, people are highly encouraged to wear masks. Private businesses can help by requiring masks in their buildings or at their venues as well as social distancing like making aisles bigger, seating people further apart...the possibilities are vast especially when equipping the private sector. We are free to avoid people not wearing masks and you can even think bad thoughts about them if you want. Just don't harass them!
We can make virtual learning available to all the students and teachers who aren't comfortable going back to school in person. Goodness knows we're already in deep with this program "It's Learning" and I don't even want to know what it cost. This will reduce the overall in person class sizes and allow children to have the proper education they deserve. When people take responsibility for themselves, everyone wins. All of these things help us to inch closer to a herd immunity that will never come if we continue to hide away. Eventually we may even get a vaccine that helps quell numbers each season.
This is America. We are Americans, whether your family has been here since the first boat arrived or like most of us, your people trickled in through out her history, it wasn't easy to get here. Every American is either a fighter or born from fighters where freedom was the prize. Don't give it away for the comfort of wellness. Something else will get you eventually, I promise. That's how life works. But freedom, this freedom did not come easy and if you preserve it, it will last long after your death for your children and grandchildren. Just as it takes years to build a skyscraper and seconds to bring it down, freedom will disappear like a vapor in the streets. 
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