Will the government relinquish power once the COVID-19 crisis ends? This is a great question, and one that doesn’t have a simple answer.
One of the ways to look at this question is to examine what our own history tells us about government and the ways that it slowly, incrementally obtains power.
For example, the Affordable Care Act was neither about affordability or care. If you look at its design, it was created to incrementally take over a larger and larger portion of American citizens' healthcare.
I use this example of government expansion of power as it relates directly to the COVID-19 crisis. With one fell swoop, the government jumped in with a military response to set up hospital beds and distribute PPE. The cost was a military presence across the nation.
Then they mandated we stay home. Employers temporarily or permanently closed, the non-compliant were shamed, and penalties were imposed on a free citizenry--all in the name of health--for simply doing the things we’ve always done: shop, eat at a restaurant, take a walk, ride our bikes, or visit the park.
If the response to an unknown virus (something we’ve faced many times in my lifetime) is to shut down a $20 trillion economy for an undetermined time because of fear, how do we stop them from doing this the next time? Why don’t we do this every year because of the flu?
Consider this: the flu kills 30,000 to 80,000 Americans each year, and we have vaccinations for the flu. They tell us once we have a vaccination for COVID-19, everything can go back to normal.
But can it? Will it? If so, why? If the normal flu and COVID-19 kill so many, are we now committed to wearing masks and gloves and practicing social distancing, all in the name of community health?
What does this new behavior do to erode the family, church, and community groups--the very fabric of our free society?
In truth, unless we are committed to returning to the America we know and love, the new normal will be a society of germaphobes that look at their neighbor with fear and approach any community gathering through a filter of judgment rather than friendship.
How might this feed into a culture that has grown hostile to religion, free speech, and the unborn?
Let’s not also be so naïve to think that a bureaucracy that feeds off of their own growth and power won’t jump at the chance to expand and encroach on its citizens.
After all it was Rahm Emmanuel who said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
