Whose Freedom Counts?

Anti-lockdown protesters are twisting the idea of liberty.

Lawsuits demanding that stay-at-home orders be repealed have been filed this week in Maryland, Minnesota, and Nevada. In Michigan, a Family Dollar store security guard was shot after telling a customer to wear a face mask, which is mandated throughout the state for all retail stores. In Oklahoma, McDonald’s employees were shot at for asking customers to leave the dining area, which was closed due to coronavirus restrictions. Small but media-gobbling gatherings of armed protesters continue to gather, demanding that state stay-home orders be rescinded, using lethal weaponry to demonstrate a power their numbers cannot convey.

Members of the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin, hearing arguments in a case challenging the governor’s safer-at-home rules, invoked the language of “tyranny” and the Japanese internment to describe the current public health efforts to contain a pandemic. President Donald Trump has tweeted support for the armed militants (“These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely!”) and demanded the “liberation” of the states. Defiant public intellectuals embrace the general democratic principle that being a “grandma killer” is a small price to pay for resuming dentist visits and family trips to the zoo.