The Pandemic and the Protests
The Pandemic and the Protests
By Terry James
President Trump and others have said something to the effect that damage done by the coronavirus to society, culture, and the economy might be more horrific than the damage to health done by the disease in America and around the world. By this, I infer that the statement means that by completely shutting down society, culture, and business, the resultant damage will be far worse than if the COVID-19 pandemic was handled like other severe outbreaks of history. Those, for the most part, eventually killed many, but life went on pretty much as normal, and the diseases became much less virulent when the so-called herd immunity kicked in.
The herd immunity is, as I take it, when the point is reached in the spread of disease that human immune systems biologically learn to resist whatever strain of virus or bacteria is involved.
A growing, uncharted-in-America side-effect of the present epidemic crisis is the psychological stress suffered around the country. This nation has never been locked down to any extent, except in rare instances and isolated places. The closest the US has come to this sort of restrictiveness, enforced by government, was during the Civil War when President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and restricted other areas of life that run counter to the Bill of Rights.
At that time of the nation being at war with itself, it was argued that locking down civil and other liberties would lead to dictatorship. Many historians now agree that, had it been a president other than Lincoln, with his great, personal character at the time, the unthinkable would possibly have eventuated. We might now be living under dictatorship.
Governments, once they have been allowed powers to control, rarely relinquish that power when things return to normal. As Lord Edward Acton said, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Or. as one geopolitical figure of our time, Henry Kissinger, has said: “Political power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”
We can all, if we’re honest, attest to the veracity of those statements. We can, I believe, get a hint of the truth in those words by what is happening around the nation in some areas with regard to governors and their draconian steps during this “crisis.”
The Michigan governor, for example, has forbidden many things of normal life by shutting the facilities where people normally go for essential services. At the same time, she is keeping abortion clinics, bars, and even places to buy lottery tickets open, calling them “essential services.”
Protests are ramping up around her capitol, as American citizens are demonstrating against what they perceive as tyranny. Apparently, she is on a power trip, as Lord Acton or Dr. Kissinger would say.
The president has said that he feels these protests are in many cases justified. The nation must begin opening up. This shutdown to prevent the virus spread can’t go on without irreparable damage to the economy, thus, to the people of America.
Agreed. It is un-American. It is antithesis to the nation’s principles of freedom. The shutdown must be brought to an end. To do otherwise brings a genuine threat from ideologies that would bring Machiavellian controls that “the prince that shall come” will one day use in his Antichrist dictatorship.
I received the following excerpt of an article in the American Thinker. The thoughts expressed present a solid case for suggesting that all of us seriously consider what this crisis might mean in total context for future national life as we’ve known it.
When societies lose their freedom, it is not ordinarily because autocrats or tyrants have forcibly taken it away. It is usually the result of the population willingly surrendering their freedom in return for protection against an external threat. While the threat is oftentimes real, it is invariably exaggerated.
This is what we in the United States are experiencing. The general public has been stampeded by the fear mongering in the media into demanding action from the politicians at both the state and federal level. The politicians respond and do not pause to ask whether these actions will work—just do something! They do not ask if the financial and societal cost to the nation is worth the unknown and perhaps nebulous return.
In its 244-year history the United States has weathered seven of the worst pandemics in world history without the hysteria and loss of liberty and freedom. All indications reveal that the Coronavirus will be exponentially less life-threatening than any of these previous pandemics.
Is the Coronavirus pandemic serious enough to warrant putting much of the nation’s population into house imprisonment, or wreaking the economy for an indefinite period of time, or prohibiting worshipers from attending their churches, synagogues or mosques, or outlawing freedom of assembly and travel, or destroying businesses that have taken years to build up, or saddling future generations with unfathomable debt? The nation is choosing to plunge millions of people into depression, heart attacks, suicide and unbelievable distress, though they are not especially vulnerable and will only suffer mild symptoms or none at all.
This is what a police state is like. It is a nation in which the government can issue orders and edicts or convey preferences with no legal authority. Yet, it appears the majority of the American people are willing to sacrifice their freedoms and way of life in order to empower such a potential police state in the guise of conquering a pandemic. Governments never give up power once attained. They only seek to normalize it and now they have in their toolbox the knowledge that the citizenry will meekly acquiesce to any national emergency being declared an existential crisis which requires government to unconstitutionally impose its will on the people. (Steve McCann, “How a Police State Is Formed,” American Thinker)
Such a police state—and much, much worse—is coming, according to God’s prophetic Word. However, we have the right to defend against (and especially to protest against) such tyranny before that time of Antichrist, a time that will be beyond our control.
Accepting Christ for salvation assures that one will not face that ultimate dictatorship.
“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” – (Romans 10:13)
—Terry