By Stephen Macaulay
Let’s say for the sake of argument that planet Earth is invaded by an alien species that replicates inside human hosts. You and me. The downside for the human hosts is that the replication has deleterious consequences, in many cases leading to death of the hosts.
The aliens are, well, alien to the extent that they aren’t “living creatures” in the way that is ordinarily thought to be the case, in that they don’t have the wherewithal to make proteins by themselves but must invade another organism for purposes of replication. But invade and replicate they do. Over and over and over again.
But be that as it may, (1) the human hosts become ill and (2) the human hosts can die.
The aliens really don’t care whether the host is young or old, a man or a woman, a Republican or a Democrat.
People get sick. People die.
Jobs are lost. The economy suffers.
People get sick. People die.
Hospital systems are overwhelmed.
People get sick. People die.
The aliens don’t care.
People get sick. People die.
At the end of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, where Earth is invaded by Martians, which lay waste to the planet, it turns out the aliens were “slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared.”
Biological luck.
At present, we are being attacked by an alien species, the COVID-19 virus. Scientists are split on whether a virus is a “living” being. As David Bhella, researcher at the University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research has written, “Life is the manifestation of a coherent collection of genes that are competent to replicate within the niche in which they evolve(d). Viruses fulfil this definition.”
So if we accept that, then COVID-19 is an alien species that is attacking the Earth.
This is not a fanciful notion.
As I am writing this, the alien has killed 4.55-million people on Earth. Some 662,000 of those were U.S. citizens.
As I am writing this, the alien has infected 219-million people on Earth. Some 41.3-million are U.S. citizens.
People get sick. People die.
We have a defense against the aliens. Something against which “their systems [are] unprepared.”
Vaccines. Pfizer. Moderna. J&J.
“My job as President is to protect all Americans.” That was Joe Biden on September 9.
“I’m announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees, that together employ over 80 million workers, to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week.”
Overreach?
Get a couple of pokes in the arm? Or get a nasal swab?
Oh, a violation of your liberties?
In June 1919 the Harvard Law Review published an article by legal philosopher Zechariah Chafee, Jr.,“Freedom of Speech in War Time,” that includes the observation:
“Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.”
And as the virus is primarily invasive in the respiratory system — including the nose — your right to carry a deadly virus that could kill people is really not a right.
We are being attacked by an alien species.
Oh, an exaggeration, you might think. Then I refer you back to the 4.55-million Earthlings that have been killed, the 662,000 Americans.
And so what should a man whose job it is to protect Americans do if not take action when it is necessary?
You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
In his Aphorisms Hippocrates wrote, “For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable.”
If we are not in extremis now, who knows when we will be?
“We have the tools to combat COVID-19, and a distinct minority of Americans –supported by a distinct minority of elected officials — are keeping us from turning the corner,” Biden said. “These pandemic politics, as I refer to, are making people sick, causing unvaccinated people to die.”
People get sick. People die.
The alien species is here.
Do we hope for “putrefactive and disease bacteria”?
Or does Joe Biden do his job and protect the American people with the tools at our disposal?
And if this is overreach, then maybe we can deal with it when doctors and nurses aren’t at the point of exhaustion, when teachers wonder each and every day whether they’ll be infected when they try to teach our kids, when the elderly don’t have to be concerned to visit with their grandkids, when we get back to what we’ve long known as the “American way of life.”
Because right now we aren’t living it.
And people are getting sick. And people are dying.