The New American Patriot

The United States of America is a nation born of action. We
are raised to believe that if there is a dream, we can make it real through individual
and collective industry. If there is a problem, we can, we must take steps, and
do something about it. Prayer might be a still and quiet act demanded by the
churches, but even the Bible says faith without works is dead (James 2:14). Action
is the cure to most every American ill, until now. As we are seeing, sometimes,
action can also be a fix we are hard
put to resist.

Our Novel Coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic requires that we flex a different muscle; the need to be still to survive. Stay-At-Home orders fly in the face of our every urge to act, to sally forth from our homes at will, to do good, to do well, to go wherever we want, see who we wish, and return home only when we deem it time, if ever.

Yet if we ignore this order to stay home, even if we feel fine, we risk mortal illness for ourselves; worse, we risk infecting innocent loved ones and strangers alike. We also risk deluging selfless, overworked first responders and hospital staff with more patients than can be successfully treated to a healthy release back home. These declarations of rights, of self-determination (which do not seem to extend to women and their reproductive rights) are acts of childish selfishness. There is no economy without healthy people. There is no marketplace of the dead. Why is staying in so difficult for us? It’s worth noting that these state house protests were organized by the DeVos family, with a large stake in an open economy, and zero stake in the health of your family.

Deadly Protests

State house protesters claim sole dominion over their own
bodies, and over their own well-being. They mash in together without face
masks, most of them, to defy the edicts of established science. They want to dine
out. They want their hair done. They want this more, apparently, than they want
to survive.

Anne Frank

Anne Frank huddled for two years in a crowded attic with
almost no relief, and no privacy, no junkets outside. After that, her first
glimpse of sky came upon her removal from this attic haven for transport to
Bergen-Belsen. Many say she was betrayed. We some of us betray ourselves and
others by going out, and by ignoring social distancing, forgetting our masks.
Can we adults, with all our wisdom, not muster the courage and the fortitude of
a teenager?

Patriotism Now

I believe that staying home is the new patriotism. Bank
accounts will suffer. Bills will come due, and perhaps even fall past due. Houses
might be lost. Would you trade your life, or that of your children, or your
parents, for a house? Many are making exactly that choice.

Staying home, and social distancing during essential excursions, are not just for our own good. They are also for the good of those around us, yes, even for strangers we might pass, for the health of strangers who might touch a doorknob or countertop after we have smeared them with the virus. This new patriotism does not ask us to take up arms and kill. It requires that we stay in, stay healthy, and assume the mortal risks of going out only as localities and regions reopen for business in accordance with sound medical advice. A reality TV host who dislikes reading might not be our best guide.

Where are the atomic age Americans who were ready to bunker,
stifled, for months in tiny fallout shelters dug in their back yards? Where are
the preppers who have stored up beans, bullets, and water for the end times?
They have something to tell us, if only we would listen. Or are they too railing
on the state house steps?

Death By COVID19

Dying from COVID-19 is a brutal, lonely death by
suffocation. I had severe allergic and exertional asthma which required
hospitalization as a child. Hospital visiting hours were quite limited and strictly
enforced in those days. I was often alone and scared as I choked and gasped, tight-chested,
breath by exhausting breath through long dark nights. Only the occasional visit
by a night nurse, and the prospect of briefly glimpsing my mother and father
helped keep me sane. Remember, there are no visits from family for COVID-19
patients. A sympathetic nurse might hold up an iPad so you can hear your family
tell you good-bye, but that’s only if you’re not sedated and on a ventilator.
Is that the death you want? Is that the death you want for your loved ones, or
even for a stranger who has done you no wrong?

Be a patriot. Do not become a patient. Hold fast to a vision that you can survive to see a day when more medications like Remdesivir can reduce the duration of COVID-19, when a vaccine might prevent your ever contracting this damnable infection. Survive to see the day when you and yours are still together and whole, and can begin to restore your fortunes from the financial devastation you are staring in the face now.

It’s Not Over

Look at the numbers. We are still dying in droves. Have you
ever watched the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre or on TV? That space holds just
over three thousand souls. Now imagine two-thirds of that audience is wiped out
from the U.S. every day, their bodies to rot in overwhelmed morgues,
refrigerator trucks, and mortuaries. With reopening economies, that number will
sadly rise again. Before you get infected with COVID-19, you still have a say
in who lives and who dies, at least where you and yours are concerned.

Be the new patriot America needs today. You are not powerless. Stay home. Stay safe. Save your life.

Learn how here:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov

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