At first Americans were fully in favor of closures to help stem the spread of the virus. As these closures are spreading indefinitely average everyday people are facing the inevitable consequences of such closures. They are struggling to meet their basic needs. With the stimulus still slowly processing the promised funds have not materialized for many Americans. Put between a rock and a hard place risk exposure to a virus that may get them sick or certain financial ruin and starvation from seemingly endless closure people are sensibly demanding the right to take a risk of bad outcome over a certainty of it. Protesters are lining up outside Capitol buildings Governors houses and other public buildings to demand that the restrictions be lifted. As one protester so succinctly put it: If I get sick then I am going to bear the consequences of my getting sick Lyons told CNN affiliate WTHR. If anybody else gets sick they bear the consequences of their free choice without government coercion to do so. Thats what this is about.
Predictably Government officials faced with criticism are chafing at the reminder that they may not simply do whatever they wish but that there are boundaries on their power. The citizens after all are their masters and they are public servants. They may not simply demand that the entire world cower in their homes in fear when their constituents do not wish to do so. Governors are demanding Trump call off his dogs (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52363318) as if these citizens are beholden to Trump. These protests are not merely wrong headed they are cauldrons of violence waiting to erupt! (https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/493923-illinois-governor-trump-encouraging-stay-at-home-protests-is-fomenting) Yet again the message is that dissent is not merely wrong but evil and dangerous!
This is a cry the media is only too happy to pick up on. Stories of medical professionals opposing such protests are given more respect than the protests themselves. (Compare the favorable treatment of nurses: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/23/us/az-nurse-coronavirus-rally-trnd/index.html with the unflattering portraits of protestors: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/us/protests-coronavirus-stay-at-home-orders/index.html)Protesters are belittled as worrying only about haircuts and golf when millions want the right to work and take care of their daily needs. Even the supposed far right bastion of thought FOX News is telling its opinion columnists to stop supporting the protestors and the news anchors are encouraging that the protests end (https://www.npr.org/2020/04/22/840751725/fox-news-executive-tries-to-rein-in-stars-as-they-cheer-on-anti-lockdown-rallies) Governors are openly telling protesters they have both legal and moral duties to stay at home and let the protests run their course. Dissent is not just wrong it is forbidden.
But is it true that protesting government overreach and expecting it to stay within constitutional bounds is illegitimate? Must we blindly defer to those who openly claim ignorance when they insist that they know what is in our best interests? Do people have a right to decide for themselves what risks they are willing to take with their own lives and well beings to live daily life? These are not unimportant questions. Rather they are the basis of the entire argument itself. What are the rights of the individual versus the power of the state? What is the proper limit of both? These protests bring this question to a forefront.
Our theory of government is that the individual is the master and the government his servant. Government is instituted to protect the rights and liberties of its citizens. Government that transgresses this basic function is not just functioning improperly it is violating its sole purpose. To this end our Founders viewed individuals checking the government through rebellion if need be as an essential part of the system itself. As Jefferson famously said in a letter to Abigail Adams The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere. He warned that a period of 20 years without such rebellion would be detrimental to the government itself. Madison agreed It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freeman of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.
In the theory underlying our government itself the individual has not just the ability but indeed the moral requirement to disregard laws made in excess of government authority. As Thoreau noted Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we have succeeded or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally under such a government as this think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that if they should resist the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults and do better than it would have them?" Put more simply by Martin Luther King Jr. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
There is no question that under the coronavirus epidemic government is doing far more than experimenting with our liberties. It is completely forbidding the exercise of what the courts have called some of the most fundamental liberties of life itself: the ability to move freely and unhindered the right to hold a legal profession the enjoyment of friends and familial association. In the guise of protecting us the Government is now suspending basic freedoms of religion speech and assembly. It has demanded in many states that citizens carry special papers with them just to leave their homes something routinely and correctly derided as a hallmark of tinpot dictatorships. For the first time in American history the government has assumed the role of stern parent that can forever banish an unruly child to his room until it is determined he may come out. And if he dies in the waiting life has its sacrifices! This may continue for the rest of the year if the government determines.
Such over-excess of power cannot be allowed to stand if we are to remain a free people. Temporary restrictions on public gathering may seem reasonable but full fledged quarantine is becoming excessive. At some point the government must declare victory or admit forthrightly that its approach isnt working and give up. Even fans of quarantine are concerned about losing their liberty permanently (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/coronavirus-civil-liberties and https://apnews.com/75e84a13c654bac94befc7a36651ced6) and for good reason. Government is loath to give back power once it takes it. An overwhelming majority of citizens fear the results of the governments efforts on their everyday lives. (https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/493773-poll-74-of-voters-concerned-about-losing-freedoms-due-to-covid) Citizens are demanding a line to be drawn.
That government labels it an emergency does not change the analysis substantially. Government routinely abuses its emergency powers to do things that would never be acceptable in normal times. The Constitution is supposed to apply in good and bad times. The restrictions on the state are most important to observe in times of panic when government is most likely to abuse its power. Our Founders were no strangers to the idea of governments using emergencies to infringe the rights of their citizens. The colonies were so apt to declare a crisis and then create retroactive application or impair property rights that prohibitions were installed in the Constitution to prevent their recurrence. One need only look at the internment of the Japanese and the imprisonment of anti-war speakers in World War I to know that government emergency power is often not at all benign.
Even accepting that a genuine emergency exists (which the previous articles have disputed) it doesnt mean that the Governments response is appropriate or rational. Demanding accountability in how the Government acts is just as important as ensuring that it only acts when it legitimately may. Protesters are correctly saying that the government is doing too much for too long in too unfocused and scattered an effort. By protesting they are providing an essential balance to the publics otherwise grateful acquiescence to what would otherwise be roundly rejected as unconstitutional and excessive. By challenging the public panic these protesters are doing the most important duty of the citizen: telling the government no. This is hardly disrespect to law nor is it dangerous. It is necessary that someone cry stop when everyone jumps on board...even if the stop is wrong. This is the duty of the citizen the highest duty. Far from having an obligation to stop these men and women are providing an important service to all of us. Only be questioning authority can we assure it is properly used.
Public debate of every aspect of this crisis has been sorely lacking. Those we trust to call foul and ask the important questions have been the loudest cheerleaders for any action to combat the spread of the virus. If the media and medical professionals will not ask questions or call attention to problems it ultimately falls down to the average citizen to do so. Fortunately for us we have no shortage of our fellow countrymen willing to shoulder the burden for us. They cannot be expected to be silent just because their actions offend others...even if those offended are medical professionals. Far from condemning them we should applaud their service. We cannot allow the state in its benevolence to protect us to death and to decide for itself when it has done enough. That decision should always remain with the people themselves.
