COVID-19: Refuse to comply with restrictions

Rumors spread that, once again, Americans are beset by a variant of the plague spawned in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Calls to return to a regime of restricted freedom have begun.

Hell no! Our Republic persevered through crises from 1776 through 2020 without sacrificing liberty. Free Americans endured an international plague worse than COVID-19 in the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1919. Freedom was maintained through Civil War, World Wars, and Depressions great and small.

Until 2020, we had not betrayed ourselves or our Constitution. Then, because of the quiet fear that COVID-19 was a germ warfare experiment gone wrong, humanity panicked.

From Red China to the Centers for Disease Control, the command went out for people to stop living their lives in order to slow the spread. From Beijing to Kootenai Health, most of the world complied.

Yet, COVID was fought with propaganda and censorship. Science was politicized. The public was manipulated, the facts concealed and the government emboldened. An intimate power over the population was grasped by many leaders with relish.

Never again must we permit ourselves to be corralled and branded like livestock. Never again must we give credence to those who argue that our safety lies in their control.

If our leaders ever again try to exploit a crisis like COVID for political gain, we must engage in total Civil Disobedience. We must follow the examples set by Leon Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Peacefully, but firmly, we must refuse to comply.

RALPH K. GINORIO

Coeur d’Alene