Today, May 25, 2020, is Memorial Day, now and since 1971 a national holiday which was first commemorated in the United States as Decoration Day to remember the soldiers who died in our Civil War. In 1971 Congress declared that Decoration Day would henceforth be celebrated on the last Monday in May, and it would be renamed Memorial Day to remember all members of the United States military forces who have died in all wars for the cause of liberty.
This Memorial Day there are fewer parades, fewer assemblies of any kind to commemorate and honor our war dead. The reason for fewer assembly celebrations of the lives of those who fought and died for us is not that we have surrendered our liberty to a more powerful foe. It’s that we have surrendered it to the debilitating fear of a microscopic corona virus known formally as SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 introduced into our country by the Chinese Communist government of the People’s Republic of China (ChiCom) in late 2019/early 2020.
If we believe the ChiComs, the COVID-19 virus was zoonotic, born naturally near the city of Wuhan and not created or refined by man as an agent for biological warfare. Likewise, according to the ChiComs, its release that has killed thousands of people worldwide was accidental, not an act of biological warfare forbidden by international convention.
Regardless of whether you believe COVID-19 is the product of bats in a cave or beakers in a lab, the fear of the highly infectious disease has been as devastating as the disease itself on the social, political, and economic institutions in the United States. That fear has been intensified by our news media whose obvious and abysmal lack of subject matter knowledge of virology, immunology, and epidemiology make it impossible for them to ask relevant questions and then translate the answers into relevant understandable information.
Similarly, decision-making public officials at state, county, and municipal levels may often have access to truly knowledgeable public health experts providing accurate, complete, and timely information, but like the news media and those of us in the general public, our representative officials may lack the subject matter knowledge to even ask the right questions of the experts, let alone translate their good information into good public policies and practices.
The officials’ initial reaction may be to close everything down. Close businesses, institutions such as schools and courts, public buildings and offices, shut down air travel and freight. Force people into social isolation, usually stay-at-home orders or quarantine.
The question is, for how long must everything be closed down? It seems as if at that point, the political decision-makers, the scientists, and the medical professionals all stand in a big circle facing inward, point to the person on his right, and say, “Ask him!” Unfortunately, the rest of us (AKA: normal people) are outside the circle and unable to get answers from those who have locked arms to form the circle.
Eventually, those of us outside the circle get tired of our questions being unanswered and we begin to take matters into our own hands.
Now comes The Reopen Movement. In the hyperlinked report, it also refers to itself as The Reopen the States movement. Even if you choose not to read the entire report, the reasons for the movement are clearly and concisely explained in the Introduction on pages 4 and 5. Please take the time to at least read the Introduction on pages 4 and 5.
As I read the report, I thought of the words spoken by attorney Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775, to the Second Virginia Convention assembled at St. John’s Henrico Parish Church in Richmond, Virginia. Please turn your computer audio on (.mp3 format) and listen to this seven minute vocal interpretation by Richard Schumann for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
