The Disease

Recent weeks have been very difficult for me. While I have dealt with depression for the past 2 decades, I don't think I have ever experienced such hopelessness for the world around me. And while the thought of introducing children into this world has always seemed a little frightening, it now seems as though there is no hope at all. Why do I have no hope? Because I have seen in the last 2 weeks a populous that wants the government to be responsible for every aspect of their lives. People who are willing to give up the basic freedoms of going to church in the effort to 'save lives'. Power-hungry governors and mayors have decided which aspects of the economy they deem essential instead of providing information with which the populous can make informed decisions on how to live their lives. But make no doubt about it, it is what the people want. They want it because they have been indoctrinated into it. Government run schools have been propagating the reliance on the state for decades.
Economic collapse has already begun and the number of jobless claims has skyrocketed. This is not going to be a recession, but a true depression and anyone who went through the last depression will tell you that depressions kill. They kill small businesses, they kill the human spirit, and they cost REAL lives. Suicide rates will rise, homeless rates will rise, and uninsured people will increase. The amount of morbidity and mortality that will be the result of this foolish response will be felt for decades. My children will pay the costs of a $2 trillion dollar stimulus package that was essentially a bunch of pork. Especially since printing and handing out money that the government does not have in surplus will not result in a stimulus, but instead will end in inflation.
I know we're all scared, and I really don't take this virus lightly. There is a very real chance that I will never see my 87 year old grandmother with COPD again. I love her dearly and would be terribly saddened if she were to succumb to this. However, I don't think that her best chance of surviving this is having EVERYONE 'shelter in place.' Our best way to defeat this virus is to build up a herd immunity, and while vaccinations are in the works their efficacy and safety will be poorly assessed if they are released in a time frame in which they could help with the growing epidemic. Rather, natural immunity is the more likely way to produce a herd immunity. Those with chronic conditions and who are at high risk due to age should likely follow government recommendations and shelter in place. But those of us who are fit and healthy should live our lives, get the virus and help provide a defense for those who cannot afford to get sick. Yes, people will still die, but as one can see, even with these mandates, people are dying. This is a disease we cannot see. We are foolish to think that we can stop its spread with a couple months of self isolation. If just ONE person has the virus when we re-emerge from our shelters and there is no wall of immunity to protect us, then we will have to deal with the re-emergence, and will have just kicked the can further down the road while destroying our livelihoods.
I also get the idea of 'flattening the curve' and how this could be important in places overrun with the virus. However, the majority of those needing hospitalizations are those who should continue to 'shelter in place' while the rest of us return to our lives. Anything short of this will continue to devastate our future. Most people don't have two weeks of savings to live on, let alone 2 months. The insanity cannot be maintained. Stop letting the government run us into the ground. Their timeline just continues to extend further and further. We must not allow unconstitutional regulations to bind us. I think one of my favorite quotes is very apropos here: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we lose our freedoms it will be because we have destroyed ourselves from within” ~Abraham Lincoln