“Besides the Normal Constitution, protective of individual rights, we now have a Crisis Constitution, hostile to individual rights and friendly to the unchecked power of government officials. In national emergencies, the Crisis Constitution overrides the Normal Constitution.”
– Against Leviathan
We are barely halfway through the year, and it looks like 2020 may qualify as one of the worst possible years in the history of the world. It started with a virus, which was only made worse by government interference. Then quickly followed by a case of police brutality resulting in the death of a Minneapolis man. That precipitated weeks and likely months of rioting, looting, and arson, as governors and mayors stood by and watched. Now the statues are going down, one by one; we are renaming syrup and country music groups, and every loop we find in a rope is most certainly a noose. Government on every level: federal, state, and local, has failed us spectacularly. After using scare tactics and unreliable data, 95 percent of Americans were at one time under some kind of restriction. The politicians insist we are at war, and only they can save us.
Whatever the dilemma, the government always claims to be the cure. The benevolent father, the fair mother, and the understanding friend. They stand ready at a moment’s notice to lift us when we fall. Yet, in order to take such a cherished place in society, they have eaten away the very institutions necessary to preserve it: families, churches, charities, mutual aid societies, and other voluntary arrangements.
When the coronavirus was finally acknowledged in March 2020, a British researcher warned us that 2.2 million Americans would die if we stood by and did nothing. If we behaved ourselves, however, our minders could drop that total to a mere 250,000. This was quickly adopted by US government officials without a speck of evidence. Yet, to date, we’ve already spent over 6 trillion dollars, we’ve seen over 40 million people lose their jobs, and an estimated 100,000 small businesses will not survive. The majority of the $1,200 stimulus went to people who lost no income, with another 1.4 billion that went directly to the deceased. Add to that, three-fourths of those out of work are now getting more with government largesse than they would if they returned to their jobs.
On a federal level, the antiquated CDC and FDA have failed miserably. Testing was delayed, and once we did get the tests, they were deemed defective. Private labs were hamstrung with red tape and the approval process created long delays. We were told masks weren’t necessary before we were told masks were critical. Social distancing of 6 feet would make the difference between life and death, that is, unless you were woke enough to march in a Black Lives Matter protest. The government then started labeling all deaths as coronavirus whenever the deceased tested positive, even if by gunshot wound or car accident. What used to be categorized as pneumonia or flu, would now be called coronavirus as well. As if on cue, the numbers soared.
On a state and local level, governors, and mayors, at the advice of the CDC, closed schools, shuttered non-essential businesses, and issued lockdowns. This was done to flatten the curve, so hospitals wouldn’t be overrun with critical patients. People were deprived of sunlight, had medical treatment for other diseases suspended, and any chance for viral immunity was stymied. Some state governors began returning infected individuals to nursing homes and long-term facilities, despite knowing that age was the strongest factor for hospitalization and death. A one-size-fits-all approach was applied to metro, suburbs, and rural areas statewide, despite their obvious differences.
Enormous attention was given to the majority of Americans who had little risk of dying from the virus. In fact, more people are dying from the consequences of the lockdown via suicide, drug abuse, domestic violence, untreated illnesses, and isolation. And now we learn there is no correlation between the severity of the lockdown and fatalities. Targeted quarantines would have put the focus on the most vulnerable group while allowing the remainder the option of self-protection. Before the initial shutdowns, businesses were already adapting to social distancing recommendations, yet they are still not allowed to fully open. A free, unencumbered market would have immediately provided masks, personal protective equipment, testing, and vaccines, at the lowest cost possible.
And then came the untimely death of George Floyd and the madness that ensued. The Minnesota Governor and the Minneapolis Mayor permitted the incineration of the Police Department's 3rd Precinct building, with little more than a shrug. Seattle officials allowed a 6-block takeover, ala the Occupy Movement, on their Capitol Hill CHAZ/CHOP, calling it a summer of love. Rioting and razing gave way to cancel culture and resulted in the takedown of statutes and misnamed products, while we all sat and watched.
In Robert Higgs's 2004 book, “Against Leviathan”, Higgs provides a thorough review of the unchecked powers that the government has accumulated over the years, which grows bigger with every new mandate and every new crisis. The problem is, people are not running from the overreach of government, they are demanding more. And these liberties once taken are never returned.
Alexis de Tocqueville, in his groundbreaking book, “Democracy in America” feared the soft despotism that could overrun a nation without its knowledge when he wrote, “Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates (weakens), extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd”. Well, it looks like we’ve arrived!
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