The Coronavirus is frightening, lethal, and spreading, but that doesn’t mean that we should curl into a collective fetal ball and wait to die. We must continue living, questioning, loving, thinking, and solving problems.

Hysteria never solves anything. Let’s be rational, then. Let’s listen to the scientists and immunologists. Let us also listen to history and our moral compass. Most people are kind and good, I still believe, although the wolves and morons have always, and will continue, to make life harder than it should be for everyone else.

There has always been a battle between liberty and safety because morons and outliers do stupid things that endanger other people or themselves. Our Constitutional rights are inherently limited because of this. My right to free speech does not include the right to scream “Fire!” In the middle of a crowded theater, and your freedom to swing your fist ends at my face.

This is why we have laws. Our country was built on the ideas of European philosophers like John Locke, who argued that a social contract exists between the government and the people, and that the government exists to protect the people from the state of anarchy that would exit without it. The government exists to serve the people.

This isn’t team sports. The country seems to be following the same pattern with respect to Corona Virus that it has since Barack Obama became president, with Republicans saying one thing and Democrats another and the American people getting smashed in the middle, whether they know it or not. It’s some kind of bizarre knee-jerk reaction in which people instantly disagree without weighing the facts, on both sides. We are needlessly polarized. This isn’t Florida versus Georgia, a vicarious game for bragging rights. With a pandemic, you’d think we’d all be on the same team. Obviously, we don’t think so, and that’s a big damn problem.

The virus doesn’t care who you vote for and will kill with egalitarian efficiency. Rich, poor, black, white, young or old, people are dying. It’s not us versus them… it’s us versus a virus. We have to beat it together.

I live in Jacksonville, Florida, and the beaches opened up with limited hours and social distancing rules in place. Like team sports, the liberals lost their minds, and the conservatives cheered. Here’s the thing. If people can’t do the right thing, then what is the solution? What’s the long term outlook?

I’m going to the beach tomorrow, as long as it makes sense and there aren’t knots of people every where. I’ve been locked in with my family for four weeks, and as long as we keep our distance from others at the beach, this should not be an issue. I hope that police will give out citations for people violating the rules and enforce the law. If it’s crowded, I will sadly walk away.

For liberals… how much central authority do you really want the government to have? How do you subdue the outliers and morons without subverting your own values, particularly with Donald Trump in power? Is this not the path to despotism? How long can the entire economy be shut down? Doesn’t it make sense to discuss how to reopen in a responsible fashion?

For Conservatives… if “Big Government”is what you despise, if state’s rights are important, how can you stand aside and justify the president calling for the “liberation” of states? Do you really believe holding rallies, waving confederate flags and carrying rifles during a pandemic is a responsible way to get your point across?

Back to the social contract… most people don’t care about those ideas. They want a fair, just, government and the ability to live their lives. I believe that seat-belt laws make sense and clearly save lives. Corporations should not be allowed to poison drinking water, police officers should not get away with killing people of color, and presidents should not be allowed to use the toilet paper shortage as an excuse to wipe their ass with the constitution.

I also think people are incredibly stupid and selfish, and that it’s not the governments job to save them from themselves. We as a nation have a duty at this point to use good judgement and common sense.

It’s not the end of the word because the the planet will go on, people will live and die and love without us and the tides will come and go and seasons will change.This virus isn’t an extinction level event, awful as it is.

We all die, so why not take a minute to accept that fact and make our lives mean something by doing a good thing for somebody else. Realize that we are all connected, and take comfort in that truth. Death comes for us all; what we do with our life is up to us. I’m all for continuing to live, obviously! I’m going to social distance and pay attention.

Living in lockdown is bad enough, without the constant drum beat of panic porn on the internet, the rage spilling onto the streets, and the absurdly divided way we seem to be viewing and confronting this virus. Let’s be kind.