5
OPINION

Thursday, May 28, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5
OPINION

A

s COVID-19 continues to run its
course across the United States,
there are few aspects of Ameri-
can life that have avoided this pandemic’s
disastrous impact.
According to medical data compiled by
Johns Hopkins University, over 100,000
Americans have succumbed to COVID-19.
At the same time, the Institute for Health
Metrics and Evaluation at the University of
Washington projects that our nation will
see over 130,000 deaths by early August
as states begin to relax social distancing
measures.
While the deaths from COVID-19 con-
tinue to mount, the economic carnage
from shutdowns aimed at stopping the
spread of COVID-19 is unprecedented in
modern American history. According to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national
unemployment rate has skyrocketed to
nearly 15 percent, with the economy slash-
ing over 20 million jobs in April alone.
Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan Chief Invest-
ment Officer Bob Michele predicted that
our economy may not reach the levels of
employment we enjoyed before the pan-
demic for 10-12 years.
But as thousands of Americans lose
their lives to COVID-19 — and millions
more forfeit their livelihoods — another,
more subtle level of loss is rippling across
the nation. It’s become clear that as this
global pandemic continues to threaten
people’s lives and our economy, our essen-
tial and celebrated freedoms as Americans
are coming under increasing fire.
Since governors across the nation have
imposed stay-at-home orders in an effort
to “flatten the curve,” our country has wit-
nessed a slew of disturbing civil liberties
violations that seemed unthinkable before
COVID-19 turned life upside down. While
it’s perfectly reasonable — and necessary
— to expect changes to our daily lives in
trying times like these, it seems that people
across the nation have forgotten that our
freedoms are never put on hold, even in the
midst of crises. It’s clear our government
has gone too far.
While COVID-19 continues to undoubt-
edly be a formidable threat, leaders have
gone to unacceptable, sickening lengths
to enforce government-mandated social
distancing, threatening arrests and even
jail time for violating stay-at-home orders.
(Meanwhile, the stay-at-home orders
themselves have come under scrutiny as
Americans question how constitutional
they really are.) In Dallas, Texas, a judge
sent Shelley Luther, a salon owner, to jail
for reopening her business and defying
the stay-at-home order; Luther was called
“selfish” in court even as she argued that
she had no choice, saying her children
were going hungry. After shock across the
state, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott prohibited
jail time for those who violate social dis-
tancing, freeing Luther.

Similar scenes are playing out across
the country. In Philadelphia, PA., police
violently removed a man from a bus for
not wearing a face covering. Others have
been fined or arrested for simply ventur-
ing outside for a walk or exercise. While
this excessive, dangerous enforcement
of social distancing is threatening for all
Americans, the New York Times reports
that people of color are being dispropor-
tionately arrested in particular.
Beyond these incidents, it’s clear that
our freedoms have been violated in count-
less other ways as well. For instance,
Americans have been barred from visiting
places of worship like churches and syna-
gogues to exercise their freedom of reli-
gion, which meant that, for example, most
Christians couldn’t go to church on Easter,
their holiest day of the year. Meanwhile, in
our criminal justice system, although the
Constitution gives the accused the right
to a speedy trial, a number of defendants
have been forced to sit longer in jail as
trial dates are pushed back. According to a
recent article in the Lansing State Journal,
“For defendants who are not in custody,
the delay likely is an inconvenience. But for
those in the county jail, the shutdown is an
extra month — or more — that they have to
wait for justice.” Moreover, governments
across the country now openly discuss
implementing advanced contact tracing
and surveillance programs to help curb
COVID-19, even though these programs
would clearly infringe on our freedoms
and privacy rights.
In addition to these civil liberties vio-
lations, the rhetoric of politicians and
leaders across the country is downright
disturbing. In New York City, Mayor Bill
de Blasio suggested that New Yorkers
turn in those that are breaking social-
distancing rules to the city, a move that
some Americans quickly denounced as
“communist.” In Chicago, Mayor Lori
Lightfoot told residents that they would
be treated like criminals if they didn’t
follow social distancing regulations, say-
ing, “We will shut you down, we will
cite you, and if we have to, we will arrest
you.” Lightfoot continued, “Don’t make
us treat you like a criminal, but if you act
like a criminal and you violate the law and
refuse to do what’s necessary to save lives
in the middle of a pandemic, we will take
you to jail. Period.” It is understandable
that New York and Chicago — along with
a number of other hard-hit cities — are
continuously grappling with how to deal
with COVID-19, but there is a way to curb
the spread of COVID-19 without such bla-
tant disregard for our precious freedoms
that we all celebrate as Americans.

Don’t let COVID tread on our freedoms

EVAN STERN | COLUMNIST

Evan Stern can be reached at

erstern@umich.edu.

ZACK BLUMBERG | OP-ED

F

rom the end of World War
II through the present day,
the United States has main-
tained a position as the world’s pre-
mier superpower. For decades, the
American values of hard work, indi-
vidualism, liberalism and free-mar-
ket capitalism appeared to lead to
massive successes, including tech-
nological advancement, economic
prosperity and high standards of
living. However, as COVID-19 has
exposed, the values which people
once associated with America’s
brand of strength and prosperity
now appear antiquated and out-
dated and are ultimately holding the
U.S. back. While countries around
the world have responded to the
virus in different ways, American
society’s fundamental focus on indi-
vidualism, freedom and economic
growth have exposed the inequal-
ity, distrust of government institu-
tions and lack of protections for
vulnerable populations within our
country.
First and foremost, the spread of
COVID-19 has highlighted Ameri-
ca’s extreme inequality, something
which is largely a product of Ameri-
can society’s fanatical devotion to
economic growth. As economist
Milton Friedman declared in a
1970 New York Times Magazine
article, “The Social Responsibility
of Business is to Increase its Prof-
its.” In the decades since Friedman’s
article was published, it’s clear that
America has taken his advice to
heart. Today, the U.S. has 10 of the
world’s 20 most profitable compa-
nies, but at a cost: It also ranks 39th
worst in income inequality, worse
than countries such as Angola, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
and Turkmenistan. Last year, a
study found that nearly 60 percent
of Americans had less than $1,000
in their bank accounts, another
sign of America’s staggering income
inequality.
Unsurprisingly, America’s focus
on profits, and its acceptance of the
inequalities that philosophy inher-
ently produces, has greatly con-
tributed to the nation’s disastrous
response to COVID-19. On April 21,
a day on which over 2,600 Ameri-
cans died of the virus, Texas Lt.
Gov. Dan Patrick said that “there
are more important things than liv-
ing and that’s saving this country.”
Similarly, former New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie commented, “there
are going to be deaths no matter
what,” but “we have to stand up for
the American way of life.” In saying
this, Christie clearly implied that

the American way of life is primar-
ily focused on economic growth
— inequality and public health be
damned. When faced with skyrock-
eting unemployment rates, the U.S.
Congress was both unwilling and
unable to come up with an econom-
ic solution that addressed America’s
income inequality. Although the
federal government ultimately sent
out a one-time $1,200 stimulus
check to citizens, by April 23, only
10 days after the first checks were
deposited, 84 percent of Americans
said they already needed another
check to make ends meet. That fed-
eral relief bill, which cost over $2
trillion in total, simply proved how
unassailable American inequality
has become.
The COVID-19 pandemic has
also revealed the problems with the
American society’s support of free-
market capitalism, as workers often
find themselves under-protected
and devoid of rights. Although there
has consistently been some opposi-
tion to America’s overly laissez-faire
attitude — such as Upton Sinclar’s
1906 novel “The Jungle” — support
for deregulation and limited gov-
ernment oversight of the private
sector is a major component of both
America’s society and economy.
As of 2015, American employees
worked an average of 1,779 hours per
year, the seventh most of any nation
globally. Additionally, American
workers often have far less nego-
tiating power with their employ-
ers than their global counterparts:
only 10.6 percent of Americans are
part of labor unions, far lower than
countries of comparable wealth and
development such as the U.K. (24.7
percent), Canada (26.5 percent) and
Germany (17.7 percent).
COVID-19 has exposed the fun-
damental flaws of this anti-regula-
tory attitude, showing the danger
of limiting workers’ rights in favor
of supporting businesses. A quar-
ter of U.S. workers have no paid
sick leave, meaning many essen-
tial workers face a difficult choice:
do they go into work and risk get-
ting themselves or others sick, or
do they stay home and risk getting
fired, losing essential benefits such
as healthcare? Even when workers
have attempted to demand better
treatment in response to the virus,
the power imbalance between them
and their employers makes this an
impossible battle: On March 30,
Amazon fired an employee who had
planned to lead a strike demand-
ing
safer
working
conditions.
Ultimately, America’s support for

businesses has hamstrung work-
ers’ ability to receive the protections
they deserve, leading to preventable
deaths.
American society’s individualism
and distrust of government institu-
tions have worsened the COVID-
19 crisis, creating an atmosphere
in which necessary measures are
seen by some as totalitarian attacks
on freedom and liberty. Across the
country, protestors have come out
to defend their self-proclaimed
rights to things such as haircuts,
believing that the government’s
stay-at-home orders infringe upon
their personal liberties. While other
countries’ citizens appear to under-
stand the importance of deferring to
public health experts in the name
of safety, the American ethos of
individualism appears to include
defending one’s right to contracting
the virus. More broadly, this rep-
resents American society’s funda-
mental distrust of government: At
a time when trusting institutions is
essential for a cohesive response to
a deadly virus, some Americans are
unwilling to put aside their personal
biases for the communal well-being.
This focus on individual liber-
ties above all else is also apparent in
the federal government’s response
to the pandemic. In comparison
to America’s constant concerns
about creating too extensive a wel-
fare system, which has limited the
federal government’s willingness
to intervene, other countries have
taken much more comprehensive
responses: Canada’s plan includes
C$2,000 stimulus checks for four
months, while Denmark’s govern-
ment “agreed to cover the cost of
employees’ salaries at private com-
panies as long as those companies
do not fire people,” effectively freez-
ing the Danish economy until after
the worst of the virus has passed.
In conclusion, COVID-19 has
exposed a bevy of problems with
the once-fabled American value sys-
tem, showing the downsides to the
tenets which had previously been
associated with creating the world’s
wealthiest nation. Today, those same
values of free-market economics
and individual rights are responsible
for America’s inhumane response
to the pandemic and have laid bare
the deep-rooted inequalities, weak
worker protections and unwilling-
ness to sacrifice for the greater good.

How COVID-19 exposed America’s failing values

Zack Blumberg is a junior in

the College of Literature, Science

& the Arts and can be reached at

zblumber@umich.edu.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com