That has been the order of the day as the economy has been wrecked and our civil liberties treated as “non-essential”. Time for a great reckoning. As Lincoln noted at the onset of the Civil War:
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
This debacle has revealed both a shocking level of incompetence in our governments and a willingness, I would say in many cases an eagerness, to run roughshod over the American people which is unprecedented in scope and duration. Benjamin Franklin, as he was exiting the Constitutional Convention in 1787, famously opined that we would have a Republic so long as we could keep it. This virus madness illustrates quite clearly how we could lose it.
You left out the dismayingly large numbers of Americans who meekly submitted.
Good, and sad, point Ernst. Even sadder is the fact that more than a few of those people are ready to risk Great Depression II if it will get Orange Man Bad out of the White House.
You forgot the CS Lewis quote, Don.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.
They think that because they have no idea what a depression actually entails. Plus they think their policies can actually solve/prevent such things.So in their minds all they have to do is let the country suffer a few months and then when the “right” people are in charge, they’ll fix it all right as rain and there will be no more suffering on earth.
Exhibit A: Shea a week or so back.
This is why, in addition to taking back $500 billion from corporate thieves, those who have managed to make, say, $24 billion in windfalls from the pandemic (like Jeff Bezos) should have that taken in taxes too. (Don’t worry, he won’t even miss it given the $143 billion he still has.) This will also help provide economic security for those whom you are so very concerned about that you are willing to risk their lives for it. And, of course, Medicare for All should also be provided so that the people whose economic security you are (suddenly!) so worried about have that security.
Surely, you will be thrilled by that, right? Best of both worlds, right? People saved from having to face sickness and death and able to face the future with economic and health security, right?
Because it’s not all about mammon for you.
Right?
They are literally incapable of asking, “What if it doesn’t work?”
It’s been decades since we’ve had a government run by authorities who govern with respect for law. I don’t know exactly when we lost that type of government, but it’s been long before this crisis. The pandemic just made it impossible to ignore the current state of affairs.
The rule of government currently is this: Every official has power only limited by his ambition and by the unwillingness of anyone else to step in and stop him. Things like the constitution, written laws, judicial rulings, etc. are completely irrelevant.