by Ron Paul

Governments love crises because when the people are fearful they are more willing to give up freedoms for promises that the government will take care of them.

After 9/11, for example, Americans accepted the near-total destruction of their civil liberties in the PATRIOT Act’s hollow promises of security.

It is ironic to see the same Democrats who tried to impeach President Trump last month for abuse of power demanding that the Trump Administration grab more power and authority in the name of fighting a virus that thus far has killed less than 100 Americans.

Declaring a pandemic emergency on Friday, President Trump now claims the power to quarantine individuals suspected of being infected by the virus and, as Politico writes, “stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease.” He can even call out the military to cordon off a US city or state.

State and local authoritarians love panic as well. The mayor of Champaign, Illinois, signed an executive order declaring the power to ban the sale of guns and alcohol and cut off gas, water, or electricity to any citizen. The governor of Ohio just essentially closed his entire state.

The chief fearmonger of the Trump Administration is without a doubt Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Fauci is all over the media, serving up outright falsehoods to stir up even more panic. He testified to Congress that the death rate for the coronavirus is ten times that of the seasonal flu, a claim without any scientific basis.

On Face the Nation, Fauci did his best to further damage an already tanking economy by stating, “Right now, personally, myself, I wouldn’t go to a restaurant.” He has pushed for closing the entire country down for 14 days.

Over what? A virus that has thus far killed just over 5,000 worldwide and less than 100 in the United States? By contrast, tuberculosis, an old disease not much discussed these days, killed nearly 1.6 million people in 2017. Where’s the panic over this?

If anything, what people like Fauci and the other fearmongers are demanding will likely make the disease worse. The martial law they dream about will leave people hunkered down inside their homes instead of going outdoors or to the beach where the sunshine and fresh air would help boost immunity. The panic produced by these fearmongers is likely helping spread the disease, as massive crowds rush into Walmart and Costco for that last roll of toilet paper.

The madness over the coronavirus is not limited to politicians and the medical community. The head of the neoconservative Atlantic Council wrote an editorial this week urging NATO to pass an Article 5 declaration of war against the COVID-19 virus! Are they going to send in tanks and drones to wipe out these microscopic enemies?

That is not to say the disease is harmless. Without question people will die from coronavirus. Those in vulnerable categories should take precautions to limit their risk of exposure. But we have seen this movie before. Government over-hypes a threat as an excuse to grab more of our freedoms. When the “threat” is over, however, they never give us our freedoms back.

Just a reminder, the author is not a reporter or a politician who wants the job of, or is indebted to, those handling the public response, but an actual M.D. whose medical career consisted of treating patients, instead of research and running a bureaucracy.

There is a story circulating on the internet about Amazon shutting down one of their third-party sellers, preventing the distribution of a substantial inventory of supplies like sanitizer, simply because it costs more to ship things than to sell them off the shelf. So we have a case of a major corporation run by a billionaire shutting down a small business, impeding the ability of their customers to purchase supplies, and discouraging a business model that reduces human contact and pays menial laborers for deliveries, instead of real estate moguls for overhead and store space.

In a fluid situation like this, the big stick of high level decisions is going to have greater collateral damages and is more likely to be a one-size-fits-all action that's going to hard on those who DON'T fit the size. Even above and beyond the problem of the 'government vs freedom' ratchet effect, is the point that they aren't likely to be as effective. Or at bet they will save some of the incompetent from themselves, at the expense of some of those who will be impeded from protecting themselves or are willing to take risks with their own health they deem necessary. What part of "Free Country" and "Adult Responsibility" do people have such a hard time grasping?