OPINION:
The Founding Fathers would be shocked to see America, circa coronavirus 2020. In fact, they’re probably rolling in their graves right now, watching the Constitution they so carefully created — with regard for individual rights as bestowed by God, not government — being crushed by a hammer of coronavirus fears. Especially on fears that are so far misplaced.
It’s not that they would deny the government’s right to declare a national emergency and take actions to protect people from imminent dangers.
It’s just that they would be shocked at the speed by which the Constitution was flipped on its head — based simply on guesses of what could come. Based entirely on widely debunked, wildly inaccurate best-guess numbers of what could come.
“Coronavirus Pandemic: Projection Models Proving Unreliable,” National Review wrote.
“How can coronavirus models get it so wrong?” The Hill wrote.
“Coronavirus: The Wrong Numbers,” The American Spectator wrote.
Despite all this acknowledgement of error, of flawed projections, of false and inaccurate coronavirus numbers — the slashing and burning of the Constitution is still occurring. People are out of work, ordered to stay home, told to wear face masks and keep off the streets, arrested, fined and threatened — all for projections that are widely acknowledged as wrong.
Why the continuance of this constitutional crisis? It’s a free-fall, a snowball, a cycle of disaster.
Hospitals have been ordered by governors to stop performing elective surgeries to make way for the coronavirus cases — the coronavirus cases that may or may not come. The government has issued billions of dollars in stimulus funds to these hospitals, in order to keep the hospitals afloat at a time when their means of making money other ways have been halted. The hospitals, in order to get coronavirus dollars, need coronavirus cases — so coronavirus cases, guess what, they will come. The government takes those coronavirus case counts from the hospitals and uses them to justify more crackdowns, more stay-at-home orders, more business closings.
Where does it end?
When the money runs out, for sure. But before that happens, the Constitution will be completely killed. And for what?
The situation is this: We all know the coronavirus numbers are bunk. Yet we are all expected to live in the chokehold of government control regardless. Just in case.
Just in case.
It’s the power phrase of the day.
Justice Frank Murphy — a Democrat, no less — put it aptly when he wrote, as the Independent Institute noted, “Few indeed have been the invasions upon essential liberties which have not been accompanied by pleas of urgent necessity advanced in good faith by responsible men …”
That means, in essence, the government will always cite a dire need — like national health, like national security, like national safety — as justification to steal away civil liberties.
Founders knew this sneaky nature of government, and responded accordingly, with a Bill of Rights. With a Declaration of Independence that made clear individual rights come from “the Creator,” meaning God — and not from government. With warning after warning about the ever-encroaching nature of government.
Yet here we are, COVID-19, circa 2020, seeing the Constitution cave on a “just in case” line of logic.
The missing elements in this coronavirus crisis are truth and trust — truthful coronavirus numbers that lead to citizens’ trust in government’s response.
And on that theme, founders had plenty to say as well. They knew the link between morality and liberty was inextricable; that without the first, the second would crumble. So there are a couple ways of looking at coronavirus, and coming up with solutions to help the American people.
The short-term solution to this coronavirus crisis is for government to immediately open America back up for business. Get the economy rocking; get hard-working Americans off the taxpayer stimulus-slash-welfare-like rolls.
The long-term? The long-term comes courtesy this: “[L]et us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”
That was George Washington in his farewell address to the nation — and to apply that to modern coronavirus times, that means the long-term solution for politicians who abuse the people’s trust and behave in unconstitutional manners and who overreach powers based on untruthful reasons, is to toss ’em at the ballot box and in their place, elect public servants who are committed to upholding God’s laws.
It’s the morality; always the morality. It’s the moral compass of America and the virtues of individual Americans that matter most. For that, we need God.
The long-term solution to secure America’s individuals rights, post-coronavirus, is for Americans to turn eyes toward God and elect politicians who are boldly willing to do the same. It’s the only way to put a permanent end to immoral, unconstitutional, “just in case” kinds of governing.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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