Freedom isn't free

Several weeks ago we passed the one million mark in terms of COVID-19 deaths in America. In deaths reported per capita, we continue to come in ahead of other developed countries. In total deaths, without adjusting for population size, we lead the world. What accounts for our “victory” in this most lamentable of competitions? As an economic powerhouse and world leader, is there more we could have done to protect our people? What went wrong? Is there something we can learn from this pandemic in order to be better prepared for future public health emergencies?

More recently, we have suffered two major gun massacres, in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas. So far this year, more than 200 incidents where four or more people were killed by guns have already taken place in the United States. In other developed countries, mass killings per year can be counted on one hand, if they occur at all, but we are already dealing in the hundreds at the end of May. What accounts for this rather astounding difference?

What, if anything, do these two public health emergencies have in common?

Two and a half years ago when the pandemic started, the government response was sometimes clumsy, and occasionally mistakes were made. At times bad, or at least confusing, advice was delivered from high places. In fact, no one quite knew for sure what we were dealing with at first. Some of us left our groceries on the porch and sprayed them down with sanitizer because we were told it might be a good idea. Sanitizing became an art form in some of the public places where we work or eat or go to school or visit the doctor. Once the scientists went to work and determined that the virus was transmitted almost exclusively through the air in tiny droplets, most of us understood that the endless sanitizing had been theater, a way to make us feel better, more in control of an adversary we couldn’t see or smell.

Masks were recommended all along as a way to block those droplets, but masks were hard for some folks to accept. Mask wearing had a logic to it that challenged many people. If I wear a mask, you are protected from any virus I might be carrying. But I am not really, fully protected unless you are wearing a mask, too. We were in it together giving “Love thy neighbor as thyself” a whole new, practical dimension. But not everybody was willing to step up and learn the Bible lesson.

When vaccines and then boosters became available, the argument shifted to getting or not getting the shots. But the issue in some ways was the same. Are we in this together, with an obligation of some sort to one another, or are we meant to be “walking as free people,” as Doug Mastriano, our state senator and the current Republican candidate for governor, likes to put it. Quite a few politicians, in fact, seem to have sensed an opportunity in the pandemic. Public health measures, shut downs, masks, vaccines and so forth, might be necessary but they were and are a pain in the neck. Nobody likes them. Resentment against those measures turned out to be useful tool, a way of mobilizing the base, of rallying the folks at home to the defense of “freedom.”

I put that word in quotes because it seems to mean different things to different people these days. But freedom and our disagreements about what it is and what it requires of us may be exactly the place where our two public health emergencies, COVID-19 and gun violence, connect.

As currently interpreted, the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution grants us the right to “keep and bear arms.” But is that right absolute, exempt from regulation or limitation in any way? Or does that right, like most if not all constitutionally guaranteed rights, carry with it certain limitations and obligations? Even Justice Scalia who wrote the Supreme Court opinion that reinterpreted the amendment did not see it as an absolute right exempt from appropriate regulation.

In a time of pandemic is the requirement to wear a mask in certain circumstances really an infringement on a person’s “freedom”? Would a vaccine requirement (with exemptions for religious reasons) really have kept us from standing up straight and “walking tall”? How many lives could have been saved if political leaders of both parties had fully embraced the necessary but annoying public health measures the emergency required and worked together to protect their people? How many lives could have been saved if Republicans had resisted the temptation to weaponize pandemic pain?

Freedom isn’t free. There’s a price to pay. Most often, our world being what it is, we think of that price in terms of military service. But I would argue, and I think our current public health emergencies demonstrate, that freedom carries with it some other significant obligations. To really walk tall in freedom we must acknowledge our responsibilities to one another and to the well-being and flourishing of the community and our nation at large.

Will Lane, known to his 100 best friends as an “insufferable optimist and knee-jerk moderate,” grew up on York Street in Gettysburg, one-half block from the Square. He teaches courses at Gettysburg College focused on writing about environmental issues; hosts the Green Gettysburg Book Club, a weekly online discussion group; and is a member of Gettysburg DFA, a grassroots community organization dedicated to protecting and strengthening American democracy.

This post originally appeared in the Gettysburg Times.