Drafting an army during war seems severe public policy. A person’s freedom and career choices are stripped from his personhood. This seems especially true for a war with unclear value and political suspicion. Yet, during wartime our nation has relied on the power of the draft many times.
The length of involuntary service is usually spelled out – two years, four years – with added powers to extend service periods for extenuating circumstances. This, too, has been employed by our nation in the past.
For the conscripted this is hard to understand. The public, however, gets it. In time of national emergency, a nation is called on to do extraordinary things and make necessary sacrifices. Authority for such actions are covered by existing laws.
A pandemic is such an emergency – a war against a disease still unknown and unmapped yet causing death and lasting illness and disability for many. To contain it, extraordinary sacrifices are asked of us.
Most of us get this and cooperate. Others, a minority, chafes against restrictions and complains. A smaller minority of this group protests vigorously even stepping over boundaries of law. They become loud and obnoxious. That is their right; but it is the right of the rest of us to preserve order and public safety.
Current handling of the pandemic has been mostly orderly and commonsense. The disease has been studied for its cause, its course, and its treatment. Still we learn more, even catch glimpses of what we don’t know still. But we gain on the disease and hope to move beyond it. Slowly we re-open society and its institutions and economy. The temporary orders are ebbing as they ought. Watchful eyes and experts analyze results. Authorities are hopeful a return of restrictions will not be needed. But that question remains open until data is available.
In this manner we edge back to whatever will become normal following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Temporary actions based on law, science, reason and dedication safeguards public health and safety. Nothing in this battle is permanent other than the scars and future course of the disease. Those outcomes will be known over time as we learn about them.
Until then, we learn more about impermanence. Our very lives are such. It takes work to maintain them.
Thank you to authorities who keep their wits about them and do not yield to the frightened demands for freedom. Thanks also to the first responders in the police, fire and medical fields who answer the call of those in need regardless of their political point of view.
Temporary or permanent, this pandemic will pass.
May 23, 2020
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