Let's suppose for a moment that Joe Blough isn't feeling too good. He decides to see a medical doctor to get a proper diagnosis about why he isn't feeling good. Dr. Rowe examines Joe, hits Joe on the knee, puts his stethoscope on Joe's chest, and orders a few tests, maybe a CAT scan, and an X-ray, an MRI, or even all three if Joe has good insurance or Dr. Rowe's lawyer has convinced Rowe that he has to practice defensive medicine, perhaps on account of having been sued before. The test results indicate to Dr. Rowe that poor Joe has a cancerous tumor in his right lung. The doctor tells Joe, "Well, cancer is a bummer, but we'll just try to trim that tumor back a bit around the edges. I think you'll be able to live with that cancer if we just keep it under control. And besides, there are some positive side effects of cancer." The doctor then starts explaining all the good things that happen to people who have cancer, some of which may even have more than a grain of truth to them. "And," he continues, "cancer is perfectly normal. Lots of people get it!" How will Joe likely react?
We all know what Joe will do. His first reaction will be, "Doc, why don't we just get that thing out of there? Take out my whole lung if you have to. Can I live with one lung? Maybe I can have an artificial lung? If money is the issue, I'll set up a crowdfunding site to pay for the surgery or whatever I need. I know things might be difficult for me and I'll have to take it easy, but doc, we really have to get that thing out of there!" Further, we all know that if Dr. Rowe insisted on "just trimming it around the edges," the next thing that Joe would say is, "I think I'd like a second opinion," and select a new doctor, or Joe's wife would just go looking for Rowe so she could beat him with her purse until he stopped acting like a quack.
Today, even among those opposing the anti-social lockdowns and closures, we hear lots of talk about "reopening responsibly," embracing anti-social distancing as "the new normal," and of "reasonable accomodations." I'm here today to throw water on those sorts of naive assessments. The anti-social attitudes that have infected society are nothing less than a cancer that must be excised-- completely, utterly, and absolutely. It isn't enough to try to accomodate the tyrants, bullies, and their backers. When the government has essentially declared war on its own citizens, with only tanks rolling down the streets to complete the process, trimming around the edges isn't going to come close to healing the sick patient known as civilization, which has become utterly uncivilized and is essentially on life support.
People who walk around treating their fellow human beings like nothing but a bundle of germs are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Stores with arrows and X's on the floor are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Limits of ten or twenty people in public assemblies are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Thirty million honest, law-abiding citizens in the United States whose jobs were stolen from them by the government are a far bigger problem than coronavirus ever was. Churches and temples where freedom to worship is unconstitutionally restricted by the government in direct, flagrant violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments can never be "normal." This is not "the new normal," but a deep sickness that can never, ever be considered "normal" except perhaps in the broadly descriptive sense. The diseases we must fight today are known as mental illness and totalitarianism, not coronavirus. A population engulfed by a pandemic of mental illness, which will likely last for quite some time, and a government infested with contempt for its own people must be treated for that, not coronavirus. Everything we've heard so far points to this being a government run amok, media fomenting panic, and a gross, callous disregard for human dignity, not "saving lives from coronavirus."
The purveyors of anti-social attitudes must be stopped in their tracks by all legal means. The attitudes-- not a virus-- that have given rise to our current situation must be confronted head-on, even if what may be an anti-social majority hastens to label us "deniers" or worse. Trimming this cancer of anti-social attitudes around the edges isn't enough. The freedoms we formerly enjoyed in what used to be called "the free world" were hard won by many, many brave soldiers over the last 250 years. Sadly, we have to fight back to defend those freedoms as forcefully as they are being attacked. Can we throw away so cavalierly what many in the "home of the brave" sacrificed their lives to defend? The cancer must be removed-- all of it. We cannot live like this.