It bothers me that the noose constricting our freedoms has been so continually tightened of late that our rights have been all but dissolved in the name of protecting us from ourselves and others from us individually. I don’t object to the broader reasons of ‘flattening the curve’ of the virus, but it seems to me that fears have been stoked, not just in metropolitan areas but in rural areas as well, to support the total obliteration of our rights.

Our homes have become jails without physical bars; our Governor scolds us like children, and further tightens the noose; the Police have become overzealous in their arrests and apprehensions of innocent people out walking a beach. Give them an inch, they take a mile; this ‘crisis’ plays to the innermost worst instincts of just a few.

Never have a people who supposedly cherish freedom and who have paid in blood to defend it for three centuries handed over their rights so rapidly as in the last month, without a squeak, driven by fear of death and disease hammered home by a shameless, lying media.

This has been called a “War.” Maybe it is. But remember the old proverb that “In War, the first casualty is always the Truth.”

We were told in the beginning not to wear masks, “they don’t protect you,” then “wear them “because you will protect others,” now “wear them all the time, you can even make them yourselves.” There is no truth here, just a fabric of convenient lies for base purposes.

There were always other reasons for each response. First, if a particle mask doesn’t protect you, it won’t protect anyone; no reason to wear it. And then a homemade mask made out of rags will only keep out dust; it won’t protect you but will make you feel good, like you are doing something to help yourself. We are lied to by people who don’t know what the hell is going on, other than that corpses are piling up in major cities. Meanwhile, the Leftist press rants unreasonably against the only drug that has proven to be somewhat effective, synthetic quinine, because the President, whom they hate and cannot rule, supports the drug.

A cop will arrest you for not wearing a seatbelt. That’s an old ploy; laws enacted to protect you from yourself. The other concept is to arrest you for doing something that someone has decided can endanger others, no matter how far-fetched or indirect; like walking outdoors, where a gust of wind might pick up a virus from you and carry it half a mile to come to rest on a poor old lady and kill her.

Government uses a lot of flimsy excuses to take away our rights, but all too often they work. It’s like smoking; if you get sick, it costs the taxpayers money, so smoking is wrong, sinful, a burden on others, etc.

Now, our Governor says to go to the grocery store only once a week to shop for food. But of course, people go more often because the shelves are empty of necessities, so they go back to see if what they need is in yet. Who can blame them?

None of this is our fault, but this crisis has enabled unwise and unethical power brokers to frighten people into surrendering everything, not just what is prudent, wise, and necessary to temporarily fight the pandemic, but over the top. In truth, we’re living under Martial Law but without calling it that — not that it makes any difference.

You might say, “Oh nonsense, that’s alarmist, that’s hype and hyperbole …” OK, I’ll shut up and let’s see. Things of great value easily surrendered are always difficult and sometimes costly to get back. To government I would say, “Take only what you really must, and be sure to return them as quickly as possible, for we will be demanding them.”

We have been forewarned by Dr. Faustus, or whatever his name is, that nothing will ever be the same again, that we won’t return to the way things were. I think they are right, whichever way you read the tea-leaves. Only a fool believes in the inherent virtuousness of government or civil authority.

Michael L. Martel
Bristol