* * Freedom, American style

* Item: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine rescinded his statewide order mandating face masks be worn in stores to prevent the spread of COVID-19, saying, “It became clear to me that that was just a bridge too far. People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do.”

* Item: Last week in Michigan, belligerent and heavily armed “protestors” or “terrorists” (you pick) bearing swastikas descended on the statehouse to protest Governor Whitmer’s partial shut-down of their state economy due to the pandemic.

* Item: My friend Jennifer in Taiwan wrote to me about her fellow Taiwanese, “We do what the government tells us. They have the experience and the scientific knowledge and we trust them to do the right thing to protect us.”

Taiwan has 24 million people, 439 infected people, 6 deaths and is stable.
USA has 330 million people, 1,230,000 infected people, 75,000 deaths and climbing rapidly. Our USA has had the worst reaction to the COVID-19 in the world and we’ve suffered more deaths.

Our reaction was bungled from the beginning. The core responses to an impending pandemic are scientifically based: national strategy for testing, tracing, and where necessary, quarantining. Instead, our president for the first critical six weeks consistently downplayed the severity of the problem with such ludicrous statements as “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control,” (January 22), “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear,” (February 28), and “We’re doing a great job with it. Just stay calm. It will go away,” (March 31), during which time the virus made a critical toe-hold.

Friends, it is here now, and not going away.

Lacking any national strategy, states have been forced to take measures on their own to protect their citizens, closing schools, restaurants, hotels, conference centers, spas, gyms, theaters, and generally any places where people congregate in large numbers.

While many folks are complying, understanding the serious health implications, others are seething over the restrictions. Because as Americans, we have freedom, blessed freedom! We feel the right to do as we please, unimpeded by heavy-handed governments. 

We boldly and defiantly reject orders telling us what to do. Our forefathers and foremothers fought and died for that freedom, on the battlefields of the American Revolution, on the blood stained soils of Gettysburg and Antietam, on the beaches of Normandy, and in the churches in Birmingham. Generations of families sacrificed bodies and souls so we could be bathed in sweet nurturing liberty that we feel as a birthright.

From ev'ry mountainside, let freedom ring! We’re free! We're free to be entitled, selfish, and righteously angry.

With that freedom, we intimidate and denigrate. We rebel, defy, and disregard. We kill ourselves and each other in massive, appalling numbers.

As my friend in Taiwan pointed out, it’s not that they don’t have freedom. They just view it differently. Their freedom walks hand-in-hand with responsibility to each other, to the shared future of their country.

The motto of our own Montgomery County is “Freedom Increases Responsibility.” How many of us believe that?

Whenever we reopen all businesses and begin gathering again, as at some point we must, coronavirus infections will rise and deaths will mount. This is not opinion or speculation, but inarguable, irrefutable biological fact.

When I wear my mask, it doesn’t protect me from you, but instead it protects you from me. I may be an asymptomatic carrier. Your mask protects me from you. Wearing my mask doesn’t rob my freedom, but instead gives you the freedom to not be infected. It’s what I do for you and ask you to do for me.

What does freedom mean to you, and what responsibility do you feel?