In the last few days, I have begun to see a few of my conservative friends publicly denounce the protests, this is of course in addition to the looting and the riots. While I share their opinion about looting and riots, I am instead grateful for the protests, and not because of the obvious reasons like drawing attention to the serious injustices that need to be addressed.
I am grateful for the protests because they draw attention to things like rights, freedom and the constitution which until recently seemed to have been forgotten. Not only were they forgotten, but from March till end of May, they were concepts purposefully ignored. We were subjected to restrictions from public health officials without legislative or judicial approval, and while there were people who complained, their complaints were met with ridicule and were often ostracised for being selfish and wanting to kill grandma for no other reason than to get a haircut. For a while, it was like we were forced to forego our rights for the benefit of the community. After all, "we're in this together."
But while this was happening, those very public health officials and policy makers were summing up huge sums of money to "save the economy" and what resulted was trillions of dollars going to the richer portion of the nation, whilst everyone else got shoe string payments and their jobs and businesses put on hold indefinitely. The people writing these policies were not affected by a loss of employment or a monthly cheque. In-fact the lockdowns which they enforced only posed a mild inconvenience to them. If there was ever a time to truly understand and be on the level of the people they claim to represent, it should be now. If "we're in this together," then why shouldn't they get zero cheques from the government until everyone else gets to go back to work?
Suffice to say, the people of America were on the tipping point of taking action, and the death of George Floyd only served as a catalyst for what I believe to be an inevitable eventuality. People across the nation poured into the streets to protest the injustice, and they no longer cared about being six feet apart! Surely they could not be dismissed as being selfish, and at the same time, people who imposed "social distancing" were powerless to enforce it.
Public health officials suddenly changed the tune from minor to major and began to praise the protesters, their reasoning being that racism is also a public health issue (that's true). In-fact, a certain governor who a month ago didn't want people buying seeds and gardening tools can now be seen posing for photo opportunities with protesters, violating the very restrictions she herself put into place.
Megan McArdle of Washington Post wrote: "social distancing is over" and from the way things are going at the moment, that is very much true. That said, people who consider their own health and well-being are now going to take responsibility for their own risk. Social distancing may not be enforced but plenty of people will continue to wear masks and keep distance. I for one will not be breaking social distancing for the foreseeable future, certainly with large groups. But as a whole, the American people are no longer going to "shelter-in-place" by government edict.
Freedom is back. And we have to thank the protesters for that!
