Why Democrats should fight to end Shelter-in-Place orders

In a recent Pew Research Center study it was revealed that 69% of voters that lean democrat or are democrats are also atheists. 

This means that Joe Biden and every Democratic governor in the United States should demand an immediate end to all shelter-in-place orders and a re-opening of the American economy.

Think about it.  If you are an atheist you ostensibly believe in the theory of evolution rather than creation.   If you believe in evolution you, by deductive reasoning and logic, also believe that pandemics are simply part of nature and nature's way of selecting members of various animals - in this case humans - who are most fit to survive the spread of deadly viruses, while the weakest members of the species are naturally 'selected' for their biologically natural fate.

Any follower of Darwin should be perplexed by the fact that we are expending valuable resources to protect the most vulnerable citizens of our country.  That is to say, the elderly.   Atheists should lead the charge to stop this artificial protection of senior citizens under the argument that every dollar we spend protecting a weaker member of our species, the more harm we inflict on younger, healthier member of the human race by subjecting them to greater debt and ultimately higher taxes for decades to come.

Among those 69% of Democrats who do not support creationism, they would also have to argue - lest they come off as ignorant hypocrites - that the shutdown of our economy is unfairly punishing those businesses that had been thriving by serving their customers well.  In biology, only those species that have successfully adapted and mutated as the ecosystem demands it will be selected for success and the rest of the competitors will die off.  So, if you were running a business that had figured out how to serve people faster, or better, or with some unique product or service model that was better than your next best competitor, the government is artificially killing you - and violating Darwin's theories - in two ways.

First, the government is forcing you to shut down, or reduce your service offerings.  This is like a forest ranger forcing a successful pack of wolves to hunt less or move to less productive hunting grounds.  

Second, the government is taking money away from successful members of our species and giving it to less successful businesses all in the name of 'stimulus'.  This is like the same forest ranger taking away the elk that a pack of productive wolves has killed and giving that kill to wolves that heretofore had been hunting in less productive areas, or were not hunting productively.

Now the inferior wolf pack is rewarded for being inferior while the productive pack is left to figure out how to navigate an environment where you are punished for being successful.

This leaves us with the fact that if you are a Democrat - and an atheist - you can only legitimately contend that the pandemic should be allowed to run its course - even if millions die - and that government should not artificially interfere in stopping the pandemic or prevent people from freely choosing to interact with one another.  Atheists can only argue that humans are capable of reason and logic that have evolved over thousands of years and therefore humans should be allowed to freely determine whom they interact with and in what manner.

To argue anything else - like protecting the weak and supporting your brother in his time of need - might sound a little bit like what believers in God would argue.   

President Trump has 'Total' Power? Of course he does....

In case you missed it Donald Trump claimed that as president he has "total authority" and that "that is the way it's gotta be" in a news conference yesterday.   Today, there are no mass protests, no marching on Washington, D.C. while keeping with social distancing standards.   There is no public outrage as far as I can see.  There is no figurative middle finger being extended by the cowering governors of most states in our country.  There is nothing.   And it makes sense.

Did any of us really believe this guy has ever read the U.S. Constitution, much less believes in it?

Does it really matter if he has read it, or remotely cares about it?

Well, no, it does not.

The American people have proven to be all too willing to subjugate themselves to the omnipresent, all-knowing, all powerful government - at every level.    

I just finished grading an all-essay exam for my roughly 200 students at Valencia.  One of the questions asked them to consider the proper role of government in a market-based economy during a pandemic and to discuss our rights as Americans within the context of dealing with the Covid-19 virus.   It was sickening to read that the vast - and I do mean vast - majority of my students want the government to go even farther than it has in protecting us from the possibility of sickness.   Most of my students - and dare I say most Americans - are all too willing and ready for the federal government to declare some form of economic and social martial law and strip us of our rights until we are all safe from this virus.   They want government to use force to keep people inside and not let them move about somewhat freely as is currently the case.   They are in favor of jailing people who are caught outside.  They want government to step in and provide -with no end in sight - the greatest expansion of social welfare spending anyone has ever seen.

Most shocking is that my students and their fellow Americans, have imminent faith in the ability of politicians to make these decisions.  They seem, during this grave crisis, to revere elected officials as some sort of secular gods with perfect knowledge of when to say "all clear" and perfect foresight into what measures must be taken and what enforcement mechanisms would be most appropriate.

I am reminded of the French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who, in 1849 wrote a book called, The Law. Towards the end of this book he writes: 

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”

Which brings us to Donald Trump and his claim of total authority.   If we live in a nation of people who are largely recipients of the gift of liberty and who, with the exception of people nearing 100 years of age - have not had to fight to defend this gift, how can we possibly see that Donald Trump -and other government officials - are simply doing what all politicians do.  That is, during times of crisis, we see those in power push the boundaries of that power in order to expand the size and scope of their authority.  Lincoln suspended many of our Constitutional rights during the Civil War.  FDR oversaw the internment of Americans who happened to be of Japanese descent.   George W. Bush used September 11th to justify the Patriot Act.  President Obama used the last financial crisis to push through Constitutionally questionable banking and health care laws and so on.

Now we get to a president, who appears to be a classic narcissist - and one whose core supporters do not seem to interested in limiting his authority.  What else should we expect but to see him claim total authority?  He knows his supporters will ignorantly cheer him on.  He knows the rest of us will not put on our masks and take to the streets.  He knows that maybe 1/2 of one percent of Americans even know what the Constitution says about presidential power and that not even 1/2 of one percent care about what Alexander Hamilton called, "this frail and worthless fabric."   

Therefore, if history records that the acceleration of Americans slide into a despotic state began during the 2020 pandemic, it will be because of overwhelming ignorance of what our Founding Fathers gave us - and apathy to what it means - that will be the primary cause.