By Edwin Cooney
As Covid19 continues to spread throughout America, it is doing so through unmasked and unvaccinated Americans aided by their determination to be free rather than well.
The uncomfortable truth is that not too many years ago the likelihood that people would refrain from using an effective vaccine, especially because its use was being urged by the national government, would have been most unlikely. Of course, that was a time when federal authority saved us from economic depression, won a world war, educated millions on the GI Bill, and served as the strongest weapon against advancing Communism. Just as significant, government strongly and effectively advanced and supported the Salk polio vaccine. (Note that religious and civil liberty objections to main-stream practices have always been and should be honored to the maximum degree possible!)
Sadly, something has changed thus bringing about a tyranny of a nature that has never been, insofar as I'm aware, identified in a history book or even in a political science tome. I will try to define what it substantially is: this new phenomenon is a political and social anarchy grounded in self-centered individualism!
The root of this anarchistic aggrandizement lies in the tendency to define liberty as individualistic rather than collective. What too many conservatives appear to believe is that you and I are the masters and mistresses of our individual liberty despite the fact that the only individual liberty that exists is an absolute state of nature. (Note: A hermit whose habits are ruled by the environment might be said to live in a state of nature.)
The most graphic example of the borders of your freedom and mine has been that my freedom ends where your nose begins. The best way of describing the borders of liberty or freedom in 2021 terms is that my liberty ends when the exercise of my personal liberty or freedom makes you sick.
To the extent that it can affect your well being, my right to avoid wearing a mask or getting vaccinated is an act of tyranny. One of our most enduring principles has always been that we are eternal enemies of all tyrannies! Tyrannies are political and behavioral acts that generally require political rather than criminal correction.
A state of liberty or freedom exists when everyone's well being is guaranteed. Even more, absolute freedom does not ultimately depend on the existence or absence of government. Those who define liberty or freedom as a purchasable commodity are usually those who have sufficient funds and influence to purchase and protect their idea of their individual liberty!
Much of what I've written above is also true about those who are in denial of climate change, the only difference being that there will never be a need to advocate punishment for those who are in denial about climate change. As the climate evolves, its effect will ultimately punish all of us. How many wild fires, intensive heat waves, hurricanes, and tornados must it take for the most nonscientific person to reach the conclusion that humankind is doing something very, very wrong with the climate?
The debate we are accustomed to listen to in 2021 is whether the national government or state governments constitute the surest path to freedom, safety and prosperity. I think it's vitally important to remember that less than a decade after independence from Great Britain, our founding fathers sadly but realistically reached the conclusion in 1786 that the authority of the states needed regulating by a sufficiently empowered federal system of government. Less than 20 years later, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall (a cousin and political rival of President Thomas Jefferson) empowered the high court with the right of judicial review to judge the constitutionality of all laws. Hence our Founding Fathers clearly recognized the need for adjustment in the newly established government!
Today, at least two state governors, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, are making every effort to thwart the authority and power of the federal government to protect your physical well being in the name of your individual freedom. Years ago, the late conservative commentator Paul Harvey asserted that freedom is more than about individual rights. He stated that in addition to being free to exercise individual rights, "there was also the right or freedom and obligation to do what we ought!”
For openers, let's understand what freedom and liberty are and what they can't be.
First, freedom is a license to function freely and fully in society.
Second, freedom or liberty is not a license for antisocial behavior, specifically that which is destructive of other’s personhood and property.
Third, freedom must belong to everyone living and functioning within society or else everyone's freedom is potentially endangered.
Fourth, true freedom and liberty can't be manipulated to serve the rich and thereby justify the existence of the poor!
Fifth, perhaps the attainment of freedom and liberty began with the founding of this great nation, but freedom and liberty as entities won't depend on this nation or even its existence if America chooses to exchange them for enlightened oligarchy.
Thomas Jefferson often spoke and wrote about "the disease of human liberty" which he hoped would spread throughout the whole world. Unhappily, the disease that's been spreading lately, Covid19, is the antithesis of our individual freedom and liberty. Thus, we're justifiably at war with Covid19 and nothing else. The disease must be our only target for destruction.
What worries me most of all is that it's increasingly difficult to be positive about the future of just about everything. My shining light is gratitude that I've lived seventy-five plus years in freedom and comfort. Another way to say it is that only the past is guaranteed, the future is up to us.
The truest form of freedom and liberty is the inclusiveness that we must insist on to guarantee to one another if we are to "keep on keeping on!”
Thus my opinion: masking mandates and Covid19 vaccinations are precisely the original obligation of the states. If the states insist on blocking or refuse to issue these mandates, then the federal government must so do!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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