This Corona virus pandemic could be the weapon that takes our liberties away , all in the name of saving lives?

This virus was a legitimate problem. Yes the lack of facts, information and flawed prediction models gave off more fear than needed. It was quite evident just from examining China and Europe that the extremely contagious virus was stressing the healthcare systems. We knew we had to plan for that and slow the curve. We had to address the potential problem. The majority of us wanted to ease on precaution.

But unfortunately some people in some states voted for people who in the first opportunity would love to be a totalitarian. In a sense they getting what they voted for.

In a state like mine we had guidelines but nothing extreme. My state is now starting to slowly open back up. Churches are starting to open.

We slowed the curve but now we are seeing meat shortages, businesses failing, the affects of job loss, which also affects people's healthcare, economic turmoil, abuse at home on the rise, mental health issues on the rise and these are the beginning signs that we have a unfortunate choice.

This all carries it's own disturbing consequences that can bring death too.

Are we going to continue lockdown measures and it takes the population forever to grow antibodies? The death will be slow related to the virus but the economy will be destroyed for decades.

How long can we wait for a vaccine? Our President is saying it will possibly be ready by the end of the year. But what if it fails or takes longer?

What if we open back up in the next few weeks and we see a death rise that over loads the system?

We know the majority of cases do not end in death or see the hospital.

Many people are asymptomatic or minor symptoms. Mostly those under 60.

If we open with guidelines only on the most vulnerable then we possibly can save lives and the economy.

As for losing freedoms. I'm happy that General A Barr is stepping in. But ultimately if people dont want to lose liberties then they got stop voting for atheistic socialist communists who hate America or atleast the traditional America that protected liberty for centuries.

This is a well thought out comment on the current situation.

I think many people have forgotten about what America was founded on. Liberty is a fundamental brick stone in which what our society is about. Freedom.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind.

Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture.

I'm thinking when real persecution comes, some Christians will be complaining about their loss of 'rights' rather than:

So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.
Acts 5:41

Paul seemed quite upset. But I cannot blame him or anyone because we are created in God's image. Seekers of justice. When justice fails, it should bother any Christian.

Acts 16:37-38 New International Version (NIV)
37 But Paul said to the officers: “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.”

38 The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed.

To want justice doesn't mean you cannot have the attitude of the Apostles in Acts 5:41.

Take Martin Luther King for example.

Also many was thinking this was or is a biological weapon. No one knew how deadly or if more outbreaks with other biological weapons would be released. This is still a serious threat. The next one could be extremely worse.

It is also important to interpret the difference between liberty, freedom, and rights. This once understood as we actually give up freedom to live in a society. A governing body will either restrict or protect liberty. Liberty being understood as the God given rights to all mankind equally.


-Thomas Jefferson

As spoken on in the Declaration and Bill of rights. And governments main purpose designed by God is to protect such rights.


-William Blackstone


-William Blackstone

Our laws are supposed to protect our natural rights within Biblical morality ( Biblical morality being the foundation for American law and historically influenced English law) So we make laws based on morality. Right and wrong.

John Adams said in 1798, “[o]ur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Within morality this is what makes this virus complicated.

Life and liberty being 2 natural God given rights. Government designed by God is to protect these rights. This virus is taking life and limiting liberty. This is why it is so complicated as both are moral issues.

The Webster's 1828 dictionary is known as the Constitution dictionary as the words are defined in context of the founders interpretations.

LIB'ERTY, noun [Latin libertas, from liber, free.]

1. Freedom from restraint, in a general sense, and applicable to the body, or to the will or mind. The body is at liberty when not confined; the will or mind is at liberty when not checked or controlled. A man enjoys liberty when no physical force operates to restrain his actions or volitions.

2. Natural liberty consists in the power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, except from the laws of nature. It is a state of exemption from the control of others, and from positive laws and the institutions of social life. This liberty is abridged by the establishment of government.

(Laws of nature being understood as created by nature's God. Again that God evidently was the Biblical God in their writings, debates, and personal lives.)

3. Civil liberty is the liberty of men in a state of society, or natural liberty so far only abridged and restrained, as is necessary and expedient for the safety and interest of the society, state or nation. A restraint of natural liberty not necessary or expedient for the public, is tyranny or oppression. civil liberty is an exemption from the arbitrary will of others, which exemption is secured by established laws, which restrain every man from injuring or controlling another. Hence the restraints of law are essential to civil liberty.

The liberty of one depends not so much on the removal of all restraint from him, as on the due restraint upon the liberty of others.

So we are at a point when how far or loose should we go to protect life and liberty. We understand civil liberty has restraints on natural liberty ( absolute freedom) but only as is necessary and expedient for the safety and interest of the society. If a restraint of natural liberty isnt necessary or expedient for the public, it is tyranny or oppression.

Amen.

Check this out. I gave a old calendar to a senior in high school yesterday. It had magnificent pics of tall ships.

One had the USS constitution on it.
I asked her if that pic was indeed the constitution. She said " you mean the Mayflower? "

The schools now skip over most american history.

Part of duping society

Unfortunately very true. Or the history taught is the progressive reimagined history. For example they may teach George Washington's farewell address but only a snippet of it and not include all the religious talk. Or the include all the Mayflower conpact that also gets real religious at the end.

Or try to smear the founders by claiming they was racist, agnostic, athiest, rich white people.

While many was involved in the abolition movement which actually began decades before the independence of America. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson being one of the examples who tried to abolish slavery while under British rule. Atheist by far is just false. Agnostic I would probably only say that of Thomas Paine. And remember we are talking about more than 100 individuals who are considered founders. People only maybe know 3. Many wasnt rich in fact many lost everything during the revolution. As for white well yes that is true to a degree. But American history involves black history. And many black Americans helped fight for independence and worked with these people to bring about the country we see today.

Two stories I love are of Lemuel Haynes and Salem Poor.

Lemuel Haynes

Haynes was born a free black in 1753 in West Hartford Connecticut. He was abandoned by his parents who were “a white woman of respectable ancestry” and a black man. At the age of five months, he was indentured to a David Rose of Middle Granville, Massachussets. His indenture was until the age of 21. According to Haynes, “He [David Rose] was a man of singular piety. I was taught the principles of religion. His wife . . . treated me as though I was her own child.” Part of the agreement for his indenture was that he would receive an education, which he did. “I had the advantage of attending a common school equal with the other children. I was early taught to read.” He developed a passion for reading, especially theology and the Bible. While just a teenager, he began giving sermons in the town parrish.

When his indenture ended in 1774, Haynes enlisted as a “Minuteman” in his local militia. Though he did not fight in the Battle of Lexington, he did write a ballad-sermon about it. The poem dicussed the conflict between slavery and freedom but did not address black slavery. He took part in the Siege of Boston and the expedition to Fort Ticonderoga led by Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys.

After the war, Haynes had an opportunity to study at Dartmouth College. He turned it down. Instead he took up the study of Latin and Greek with a Connecticut clergyman. By 1780, he was able to receive his license to preach. His first congregation was a white one in Middle Granville. He eventually presided over white and mixed congregations in four different states, including New York and Massachusetts. Later he married a white school teacher by the name of Elizabeth Babbitt. He was ordained in the Congregationalist Church in 1785, the first black to be so by a mainstream protestant church.

For more than 30 years, Haynes presided over a mostly white church in Rutland, Vermont. During his time there, he developed an international reputation as a preacher and a writer. In 1801, he published a track called “The Nature and Importance of True Republicanism.” This contained his only published statement on race and slavery. He did argue for the abolition of slavery by arguing that it denied black men their rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He also said, “Liberty is equally as precious to a black man, as it is to a white one, and bondage as equally as intolerable to the one as it is to the other”. In 1804, he became the first black man in America to receive a masters degree, earning it from Middlebury College. He was also a friend and counselor to the presidents of Harvard and Yale universities.

Haynes left Rutland in 1818 due to conflicts over politics, Haynes was a fervent Federalist, and style. Sadly, after living and working with the people of Rutland for 30 years, there was speculation that the departure was due to his race.

Haynes final appointment to a church was in Manchester, Vermont. There he counseled two men who were condemned to death for murder. Their convictions were overturned when their victim reappeared quite alive. Haynes wrote a best seller about the seven year ordeal. The book stayed a best seller for a decade.

During the last decade of his life, Haynes ministered to a church in New York. He died in 1833, at the age of 80. His tombstone read,
Haynes was a great admirer of George Washington. He was a member of the Washington Benevolent Society, and every year he would preach a special sermon on Washington’s birthday

Salem Poor

Salem Poor began life as a Massachusetts slave and ended it as an American hero. Born into bondage in the late 1740s, he purchased his own freedom two decades later for 27 pounds, the equivalent of a few thousand dollars today. Soon after, Poor joined the fight for independence.

Enlisting multiple times, he is believed to have fought in the battles of Saratoga and Monmouth. He’s most famous, however, for his heroism at the Battle of Bunker Hill—where his contributions so impressed fellow soldiers, that after the war ended, 14 of them formally recognized his excellent battle skills with a petition to the General Court of Massachusetts. In it, they called him out as a “brave and gallant soldier,” saying he “behaved like an experienced officer.” Poor is credited in that battle with killing British Lieutenant Colonel James Abercrombie, along with several other enemy soldiers.


But most public schools don't even teach this or if they do it is seperate ar black history month instead of being incorporated in American history in general.

Not sure how I got down this road but I guess it is irritating how our public schools handle history.

good stuff.

sadly, very few people today know or care about history....

What state are you in? In Ga, I notice more people in masks now than I did at the start and half the businesses aren't open. Still a considerable amount of difference pre-lockdown slightly north of ATL.

Yep GA. Yall are also near a hotspot. So are we near Albany. But down here you see a little difference but it seems more people fear the tornadoes than the virus. We had some bad weather a few years ago and then Michael the hurricane came through. Been a rough few years.

yeah, I am near Athens, we were among the first in the state to do a shelter in place ( mar. 17), and currently only have 174 cases.
luckily, uga was on spring break the week before, and other than coming back to their dorms and apartments to get stuff, really never came back to town.

Yah I dont remember going into a shelter in place until early April as Albany started to be overwhelmed