Greater good – or granny state?

One of my biggest pet peeves are toasters that don’t get hot enough to toast.  I was thinking about that today when I began my third week of isolation and distancing.  When are our actions done for the greater good of humanity and when are we following grandma’s advice to “wear a jacket.  It’s cold out there?”

That followed with this question.  Did we over-react?  Did the actions taken by government to throw nearly 20 million Americans out of work and put thousands of small businesses out of business, justify saving the potential deaths of 100,000 other American?  Or did our federal and state governments decide they were our grandmothers and wanted to protect us from ourselves?

This urge to protect us for the greater good isn’t new.  It’s been around for nearly seven decades.  This urge to make us safer, to protect our children, to save us from ourselves, is found in the everyday things we do.  Like making toast.

Those of us who have been around awhile can point to hundreds of changes in our lifestyle brought about by government rules and regulations that were put in place for “the greater good.”

These rules, regulations and “guidelines” are so prevalent in today’s society that we forget they were put in place by government for the common good.  We’ve learned to accept them.These rules range from toasters that don’t get hot enough to toast bread, toilets that have to be flushed twice,  gasoline cans that are impossible to pour out of – – to safer cars, safer houses and safer schools.

Doctors operate under a code that says “Do no harm” – yet often we say, “We had to cut off the arm to save the body.”

The same holds true for our actions against the corona virus.  But, we’ll soon see.   In fighting this “pandemic” did we cut off the head and kill the patient?