COVID-19: We Need A Balanced Compassion

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covid-19, coronavirus

During this global pandemic all one has to do is show concern about the economy to be labelled worthy to burn in the ninth circle of Hell. If you question the government’s authoritarian policies during a crisis then there is certainly no way you could be compassionate — you must want people to die. The thing these blind, submissive slaves of the State don’t realize is that one can show consideration and compassion for all those affected by the coronavirus, as well as those whose lives are being upended by the economic shutdown.

It is disheartening to see the readiness with which some people are willing to give up their rights and the rights of others for the illusion of safety. The hatred they have for anyone who disagrees with them is equally disheartening. Only a few weeks ago, these same people decried government’s failure to properly prepare us for this disease. Now they wish for that same government to ‘save’ them from it. Anyone who dares question it, or even worse, dares to mention the economic impact of the measures being taken, is clearly as evil as Hitler.

The first problem with those so readily submitting to government mandates during this time is their failure to grasp how individual rights work. Your rights to freedom of speech, privacy, defense, etc. are natural. No one has a right, under any circumstance, to take them away. The government’s function, at least according to the founders of the United States, is to guarantee and safeguard those rights. They do not provide them — you are born with them.

The second problem with these types of people is their lack of understanding about how economics works. I read an article a few years back that claimed as much as 80% of Americans don’t understand basic economics. I think the biggest problem regarding the public’s understanding of economics is that people fail to realize it is a science that is far more natural and organic than other hard sciences like mathematics, physics, or chemistry.

Those sciences have more hard and fast rules that, once understood, can be manipulated in certain ways to use them to one’s advantage. People seem to believe this is true of economics; that the government can simply print money, control prices, and provide stimuli and everything will be just fine. But at its core, economics is the voluntary interaction and cooperation of individuals in the free market. Its primary influence is the needs and wants of living, thinking human beings. So when people show concern for the economic impact of government policies, they aren’t showing a cold, hard-hearted love of money and corporations. They are showing concern for the average person whose livelihood is being affected.

When people say they are worried about the economic impact of the State’s policies during this pandemic, they aren’t saying, “I only care about money and I want vulnerable people to die.”  They are saying, “I am concerned for the small business owner with razor thin profits and their employees who live paycheck to paycheck.”  They are saying, “I am concerned for the single mother struggling to take care of her family.” They are saying,” I am concerned by the record number of people filing for unemployment, and the record number of people using, and exhausting, supplies at food banks.”  They are saying, “I am concerned for the people whose jobs will no longer exist when we are allowed to go back to work.” They are saying, “I am concerned for those who won’t be able to mentally and emotionally handle the fallout and will develop drug addictions, alcoholism, and commit suicide.”

What we are saying is that there is a way to be balanced in compassion. Believe it or not, you can care about those at risk of death due to COVID-19 and those whose lives will be upended by the totalitarian measures so willingly applauded. Other countries are doing this: Taiwan, South Korea, Sweden to name a few. If anyone should be labeled as uncompassionate, it is the State-worshipping buffoons who show no concern for the 90-some percent of people who won’t die from this pandemic, but will have their lives shattered by the drastic, and unnecessary policies of an inept government that has been making this situation worse from the start.

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Paul Murray

Paul Murray is a lover of liberty and natural rights. He seeks to spread that passion for liberty to others wherever he can, and to loosen the grip of tyranny over people’s minds and lives.