All of us must make sure that the mistakes of the COVID pandemic shutdown are never repeated.
The important lesson is to never give in to FEAR. In March 2020 when many Americans obediently followed the government’s diktats to self-imprison, they did so because they were afraid. “The Authorities” used emotion, not reason or facts, to make Americans afraid. An irrational fear of sickness caused healthy Americans to distrust their family and friends and choose to hibernate in their basements. In my community, the local government even closed the taxpayer-paid public parks!
Over half of Americans do not know how to swim and most non-swimmers are very afraid when they get in the water. As a result, they panic and are more likely to drown. Knowledge is power. To know how to swim eliminates the fear of water. If Americans are to prevent a repeat of the disastrous shutdown of our lives and livelihoods, we must practice safe citizenship. We cannot allow unelected ministers of health any attempt to cancel our liberties. We should regularly encourage our friends and families not to give in to fear, but to practice citizenship.
Only if we use our strength can we overcome fear. In 2020, I, with a visible smile on my face, would walk into a room of mask-wearers and slowly others would have the courage to remove their masks. There is tremendous power in resisting fear, because not only are you stronger, but everyone around you gains strength.
Is your community assessing their pandemic preparedness? For example, the Virginia legislature has contracted with a company to prepare a pandemic response plan. Will this plan include our individual civil rights and liberties? Will this plan close churches and schools? Now is the time to exercise our civil rights as free-thinking individuals who do not succumb to fear.
As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in 1933, “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
