Is it good and proper to unquestioningly obey an irrational authority? For most of America’s history, the resounding answer would have been “No!” Rugged individualism and suspicion of authority was a mainstay of our nation from its start, even as recently as the 1960s. Today it’s a different story.
Case in point: wearing masks outdoors. It is plainly irrational. Yet a large number of Americans obey government demands to wear them. Telling people who have had COVID-19 to take a vaccine, when natural antibodies are longer lasting and more effective, is irrational. Telling people who have been vaccinated or had COVID-19 to wear masks is irrational. Prolonged lockdowns of healthy people are irrational. Counting on a long-tried/long-failed medieval technology to stop an aerosolized virus is irrational. Constraining kids for a germ that rarely affects them is irrational. Fanning fears over a virus with an incredibly high recovery rate is irrational. Remaking society because of an average fatality age OLDER than the norm is irrational.
Yet how many of our fellow citizens think unquestioning obedience to such irrational (and thus irresponsible) dictates is the morally correct stance to take?
Rob Kerchner
Valencia
