This past week in Texas, a Dallas salon owner was jailed for opening her business in violation of the emergency covid-19 orders. Some are calling her a hero for her actions while others are deriding her decision as selfish and that she is putting the public at risk by her actions. This action follows other acts of peaceful protests such as the drive-in protest that happened in Michigan and others speaking out or taking similar actions.
We have been living in an era when civil rights have mostly applied to racial, gender, sexual orientation or other classes of people who have advocated for increased protections in society mainly under the guise of equal protection under the law. Civil rights however, also applies to basic liberties of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, press, religion and the pursuit of happiness.
There is plenty of precedent in US history related to health-related quarantines. But I struggle to believe we have taken such an arbitrary approach to applying basic rights in past events. You can seal an exposed individual, a city, a ship or block foreign entrants. That is how past practices operated. But this time around, we picked winners and losers. You? You are essential. You? You are not essential.
Initially, we gave the government an element of trust, but when the doomsayers’ predictions did not come true, those who were deemed non-essential still needed to feed their families, protect their livelihoods and who is to say they do not have the same rights to do so as someone else? If a restaurant is allowed to offer drive through service, why can’t a clothing store? If a factory is allowed to have 500 people under its roof, properly spaced apart, why isn’t a church allowed to do the same? Why is one person’s rights higher than another?
In my first book, Call of Kayden, the central government decided it didn’t like the compliance of the rural farming sector to its totalitarian edicts, primarily against practicing religion, freedom of speech and their ideas of family structure. This was the same sector that produced nearly all of its food supplies. When the government came to enforce its commands, the farmers took their harvests and went into hiding, executing a form of civil disobedience. They lacked the military might to fight back directly, but by their actions they were able shake the foundations of society.
We forget how much power people have when they band together to stand up for liberty. Sometimes it just takes one brave person to remind us what we should all be fighting for.
Leave A Comment