Some people here are doing what a lot of people are doing, trying to put people in two different opposing camps on this issue and that is not valid. Video blogger Liberty Doll, who is a staunch libertarian and pro gun person, as a well as a psychological counselor in real life, made an interesting point last week. She said it is possible, in fact likely, that most people fall in the center of the following Venn diagram. I think is is all too easy to park your opinion in just one of these circles and act like to you don't give a darn about the other two. What is hard is seeing this for what it is, a multi-faceted problem. People give lip service to caring about all three, but for most of them, you can tell they are not.
But you don't have to fall for that and be in only one of the three camps, you can be in all three simultaneously and probably most right thinking people are. It is counterproductive to camp out in just one of the circles and make enemies of everyone in the other two. That does not help. The problem is not just any one of the three circles, it is all three simultaneously and the people who are part of the solution and not the problem have to take all three into account equally.
My thoughts:
Circle 1: The fear of the pandemic is real. I am someone who could very likely actually die from this, no BS. And the solution for me is NOT, "Well you just quarantine yourself and let the rest of us to run around spreading the virus all we want." If someone with active Ebola lived next door to you and was out and about, most people would want something done about it. They all of a sudden wouldn't give a darn about that person's rights. Well that kind of threat is real for me with this and some other people I care about. I also hear some version of "Well you are old, your going to die anyway." That is complete BS and I resent it.
People keep cherry picking information to compare this to the mortality of the flu, auto accidents, heart disease and all kinds of other unrelated killers and the comparisons are apples and oranges. We know about those other causes and how to control them. I personally can do things to prevent dying from those other causes. Nobody knows of an effective way to guard against COVID except by widespread quarantine. Show us a cure, then we will have some control and feel safer. You don't got a cure? Then some of us see the need for caution. The graph below compares some of these causes of death and you can see why they call it a "novel" pandemic. The COVID line is going straight up, not like those other causes of death.
Circle 2: I am very concerned about the expansion of government authoritarian policies and intrusion into our rights. My concern for #1 does not overshadow that. But then I was very concerned and very active about that even before the virus. We have allowed the government to be taken over by people who don't respect the Constitution and we have let that happen over a long period of time. The kind of violations of rights we are seeing with this pandemic are very predictable given that situation. We didn't get in this situation overnight and we won't get out of it overnight. A lot of the people who are complaining about it now are not the kind of people I see on the front lines when I am on the streets campaigning for political candidates and for gun rights. They are people who are whining about being inconvenienced. And what would these people have us do? Violate the quarantines and then shoot it out with cops who try to enforce it? Get real. We don't have the organization required for a revolution. And if you get in a fight you can't win, you only further the enemy's cause.
Circle 3: I am also very concerned about the economy. My retirement savings have been hit hard. I can barely stomach looking at them. And I know the longer this goes on, the longer it will be before they recover. But this has been going on for a couple of months. It sill hasn't hit me nearly as hard as the 2008 recession did. And I don't think it will, when all is said and done. People like to talk about prepping with food, guns, ammo, etc. But what I learned from 2008 is financial prepping. I was nearly bankrupt in 2010. Now ten years later I have no unsecured debt and strong emergency funds. Everyone should. And I am optimistic about the economy. I think once this quarantine is lifted, the economy will get off to slow start at first, but then really take off again.
But here's the big thing that affects all three circles: We need to pull together and get the November election to go right. If we don't all three of those circles will turn black.