Freedom to be stupid

In law school, we used to joke that being a trial lawyer was a tougher job than being a brain surgeon.  Why?  Because while a surgeon struggled to save a patient's life, he didn't face another doctor on the other side of the table trying to kill the patient.

Somehow, that joke has come to mind as I watch what's happening in America and -- to some extent -- in other parts of the world.

We have governments making every attempt to defeat the pandemic and, at the individual level, to save their citizens from illness and, often, death.  And in America, we seem to have approximately 40 percent of the population supporting 50 percent of the politicians in their effort to frustrate every such action taken by those governments.

Requiring immunization, with a vaccine whose development was supported by Trump himself?  Those who are now considered the moderate opposition say that vaccination should be a personal choice, disregarding the effect of each person's illness on the entire population.  The more radical right-wingers claim that the pandemic is a hoax, and that vaccination is a covert governmental method of inserting all kinds of nefarious substances into our bodies -- DNA modifiers, electronic chips to control our thoughts, you name it.

Well, we might suppose, if folks won't get vaccinated, for the sake of themselves and of their neighbors, at least they can wear masks.  "Whoa!  Over my dead body!  No one tells me I have to walk around with a mask on my face!  No one puts a mask on my kid, and denies him the wholesome oxygen his young body requires.  Don't tell me that I can't sit in a cramped airplane, shoulder to shoulder with my neighbor, without a mask!  Who do you think you are?  

Our grandparents fought wars to protect our liberty to be spoiled, selfish, self-centered, ignorant fools -- and we will fight now for that same liberty!  My neighbor?  Hell, every man for himself, I say!" 

Not only do many in the minority oppose having to wear masks themselves, they are infuriated when they see other persons wearing masks.  Thus the incidents -- admittedly only occasional -- of some lout trying to rip a mask off a stranger he encounters in a bar or even on the street.

Some Democrats mutter darkly that the Republicans want to keep the pandemic alive and kicking until the next election, in order to discredit the Biden administration.  I'm not given to such conspiracy theories.  I instead see some serious deficiencies in both the intelligence and the character of a large percentage of our population.  No intentional political chicanery is needed to bring these deficiencies to the surface -- they bubble to the surface by their very nature.

Our democracy was founded by leaders who prized rationality and good citizenship, and who grew up among fellow colonists who -- while perhaps largely uneducated -- possessed these qualities in large measure.  And when our founders entertained any doubts about the existence of those qualities, they put some limits on pure democratic government.  Hence, the original concept of the electoral college, intended -- probably too optimistically -- to serve as an elitist group of semi-aristocrats who would act in the best interest of the entire population.

However implemented, do we still have confidence in the concept of democratic government?  The irrational reaction of large portions of the American public to the pandemic, and to every effort to combat the pandemic,  leave me wondering.