It has been interesting to watch the development of the response to the virus. At first, a significant minority of people derided the initial warnings about the virus and the recommended responses. One need only watch saved news clips to see both major news and political figures deriding the findings and recommendations of health professionals. One can even find clips of major conservative news figures accusing health authorities of engaging in a political plot to denigrate the reputation of President Trump in an election year.
That has all changed now. It has been inordinately interesting to watch the same news figures and political figures saying the outright opposite of what they were saying two weeks ago. One wag has even compiled a news clip and put it on You Tube® showing side-by-side the utterly contradictory statements made by these figures. The reality of the coronavirus virus, its spread, and its effects are now much better understood by these figures.
President Trump has now come out and taken decisive actions to fight the coronavirus. I must commend his invocation of the Defense Production Act. It was exactly the right thing to do. While he has not yet issued mandates under the act, the simple action of invoking it has put manufacturers on notice that it is always better to act willingly than to act under compulsion. I do realize that there are those who are criticizing the President for some of his other actions. I must admit that some of those engaging in the criticism are those who would have been unwilling to commend President Trump even if he were to have taken every action they have recommended.
But, this post is not about whether President Trump is correct in all that he or the governors have decreed. It is about the reaction to those decrees. For years now various conservative groups have been encouraging those who claim that governments should have little authority. Civil rebellion has been approved as the normal response of a citizenry to almost any government regulation. While those who have written have been careful to speak of a ballot revolution, the concurrent encouragement of arms ownership as a right that can be used to limit government does give the clear impression that the populace should always be on the edge of resorting to armed resistance against some supposed overreach of the government.
The result can easily be seen in various Facebook® and other social media posts. President Trump’s actions have triggered the ire of the groups and individuals who have bought into the “government has almost no rights over a citizen” group. They continue to deride the actions taken against the coronavirus infection as though now even the President and Fox News are wrong. Various have written about civil disobedience and about how we must ready ourselves to resist the government in its overreach.
The invocation of the Defense Production Act has drawn particular ire. Sadly, the deliberate misuse of the word “socialism” by many in the Republican Party as a false accusation against all Democrats is now showing up in the group opposed to the Act. Many of the writings I have seen speak about how the government does not have the right to take over the means of production. You see, those who misused the word “socialism” defined it falsely as meaning that anything but the most minimal regulation of businesses was socialism. The Act invoked by President Trump clearly authorizes the government to direct the means of production. While this is not legally a takeover, it has been seen by the opposition group as a takeover. And, they have blown up during this time when we need unity.
This group of people continues to deride all facts and all actions taken. Now, they are speaking again those words which were tolerated in the past, which is that we must resist to the point of rebellion. So now we see the harvest of these past years of the encouragement of the view that the government should have little authority. Words have consequences, and the words spoken in past years denigrating the government for political gain has now spawned this wrongful refusal to obey and to pull together for the common good. We have taught this group that there is no common good. We have taught them that obedience is surrender.
As the saying goes, we have sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. You see it online in those who are speaking words of rebellion. You see it on the store shelves which demonstrate that there is no regard for the common good. You see it on the beaches in which the generation which will someday be in charge shows that they no longer believe any authority and believe themselves to be immune to what they perceive as a little-to-no-danger situation. Lord, have mercy.
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