What If the Government Has It Wrong?

"What If the Government Has It Wrong?"  by Judge Andrew Napolitano
Published on May 21, 2020

What if the government has it wrong — on the medicine and the law?

What if face masks can't stop the COVID-19 virus? What if quarantining the healthy makes no medical sense? What if staying at home for months reduces immunity?

What if more people have been infected with the virus in their homes than outside them?

What if there are as many credible scientists and physicians who disagree with the government as those who agree with it? What if the government chooses to listen only to scientists and physicians who would tell it what it wanted to hear? What if the government silences scientists and physicians, and even fires one, who attempt to tell it what it didn't want to hear?

What if the government wants to stoke fear in the populace because mass fear produces mass compliance? What if individual fear reduces individual immunity?

What if a healthy immunity gets stronger when challenged? What if a pampered immunity gets weaker when challenged? What if we all pass germs and viruses — that we don't even know we have — on to others all the time, but their immune systems repel what we pass on to them?

What if the COVID-19 virus has run its course and run into natural immunities? What if many folks have had symptom-free episodes with many viruses and are now immune from them? What if the government refuses to understand this because it undermines the government's power to control us?

What if government orders to nursing homes and assisted living facilities to accept the sick and contagious are insane? What if the same government that micromanages nursing homes and assisted living facilities knows that they are not hospitals and are not equipped to cure the sick or contain contagion?

What if the government makes health care decisions not on the basis of medicine or human nature but statistics? What if reliance on the government's statistics has made many folks sick?

What if we'd all be healthier and happier if we make our own choices with our own physicians rather than the government making choices for us? What if it is un-American for the government to tell you how to care for yourself? What if it is equally un-American for you to follow the government when it intrudes into your personal choices?

What if the Supreme Court has ruled many times that your health care decisions are private, personal and to be made between you and your physician? What if the Supreme Court has also ruled many times that your private health care decisions are none of the government's business?

What if we never elected a government to keep us free from all viruses, but we did elect it to keep us free from all tyrants? What if the government — which can't deliver the mail, fill potholes, stop robocalls, or spend within its income — is the last entity on earth into whose hands we would voluntarily repose our health for safekeeping? What if the government won't admit that its understanding of science is colored by politics?

What if the government has misunderstood its mandate? What if the government thinks it can do its job by keeping us safe but unfree? What if — according to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence — government's first duty is to safeguard our rights? What if there is no legal basis for the government to keep us at home or to close our businesses?

What if the government gave itself the power to interfere with our personal choices? What if that self-imposed power violates the basic constitutional principle that the government derives its powers from the consent of the governed? What if no one consented to a government that interferes with our personal choices? What if our personal choices to take personal chances have never needed a government permission slip?

What if the Constitution was written to restrain the government? What if all in government — local, state and federal — have taken an oath to uphold and comply with the Constitution?

What if the government decrees that liquor sales are essential but clothing sales are not? What if the government decrees that abortions are essential but orthopedic surgery is not? What if the government decrees that music stores are essential but the free exercise of religion is not?

What if these decisions about what is essential and inessential are for individuals — and not for the government — to make?

What if to the barber or short-order cook or retail sales person a barbershop and a luncheonette and a clothing store are essential? What if to those who love God, the free exercise of religion is essential?

What if the government makes essential whatever serves its friends, enhances its wealth, maintains its stability and removes obstacles to its exercise of power? What if the Constitution — with its protections of our rights to make free choices — is an intentional obstacle to governmental power?

What if America's founders and the Constitution's framers chose liberty over safety? What if the government doesn't like that choice? What if the government only nominally endorses it?

What if — when the pandemic is over — the government remains tyrannical? What if — when the pandemic is over — folks sue the government for its destruction of life, liberty and property only to learn that the government gave itself immunity from such lawsuits? What if — when the pandemic is over — the government refuses to acknowledge its end?

What if — as Thomas Jefferson said — the blood of patriots should be spilled on the tree of revolution at least once in every generation? What if we nullify the government that has nullified our rights?