“We can dance if we want to,” sang Ivan Doroschuk of Men Without Hats in 1982. “We can leave your friends behind / ‘Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance / Well they’re, no friends of mine.”

The song seems to be enjoying renewed popularity on classic hit radio lately, and its lyrics perfectly describe both the mass hysteria of the last 18 months and the polarization among Americans over the meaning and importance of “safety” in the age of COVID-19.

That trend has a tail dragging back into the past. How far? I’m not quite sure. But as early as 2016, students at Emory University broke into protest over being made to “feel unsafe” (one of the protesters’ exact words) by, of all things, sidewalk chalk. Specifically, sidewalk chalk slogans supporting one of that year’s  presidential candidates (I’m sure you can guess who).

Recently a friend told me that, because the COVID-19 vaccine he received (Johnson & Johnson) might not be highly effective against the Delta variant, anyone not wearing a mask represents a threat to his life.

I believe he believes that. Not because it’s true, but because “feeling safe” has become an all-consuming obsession that trumps science, common sense, and often even pre-existing and seemingly strong ties of friendship or family.

I’ve watched long-time  acquaintances break with each other on social media over such issues as mask and vaccination mandates, sometimes even over disagreements as to what this or that particular disease statistic portends (“if they don’t dance / Well they’re, no friends of mine”).

The COVID-19 Safety Dance seems to have less to do with actually “being safe” than with “feeling safe.” In fact, it arguably has less to do with “feeling safe” than with obsessively finding reasons to continue “feeling unsafe” whether the feeling is justified or not.

In that respect, the COVID-19 Safety Dance has a lot in common with St. John’s Dance and St. Vitus’s Dance. For nearly 300 years, between the 14th and 17th centuries, groups of people in Europe would occasionally  break out in mass hysterical dances and just boogied day and night (sometimes in the direction of shrines to the aforementioned saints) until they collapsed from exhaustion or injured themselves too badly to continue. Sound familiar?

Early in the pandemic, both US Surgeon General Jerome Adams and Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease informed the public that “the science” doesn’t support masking as a way to reduce the spread of viral disease.

Within weeks, though, both turned tail and ran headlong away from “the science,” acquiescing to the political imperative of mandating something, anything, that might make people “feel safe.”

Many, perhaps most, Americans, spent the better part of a year wearing masks as visible symbols of their piety and devotion to the Cult of Feeling Safe, in between ritual baths in hand sanitizer.

After more than six months of widely available and seemingly pretty effective vaccines, many Americans are still looking for excuses to keep dancing.

It’s unhealthy.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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If you only pay attention to the government and establishment media COVID-19 panic machines, you might not know that the US is experiencing fewer than 1/3 as many new daily cases and hospitalizations as in January and fewer daily deaths than at any time since March of 2020.

No, I’m not saying things are great. They aren’t. But neither is the situation even close to as dire as is being sold. The “Panic! Everyone Panic! Please, dear God, won’t you all PANIC!?!” narrative we’re being fed doesn’t reflect the real numbers. The near-daily flip-flops coming from supposed public health “experts” at the Centers for Disease Control and other centers of “public health expertise”  are a function of politics, not science.

And that politics is angling more and more toward a major escalation of government vaccine mandates which would legally restrict the ability of the un-vaccinated to work, travel, even shop for groceries or dine out.

The whole idea is both immoral and impractical.

Before you peg me as some kind “anti-vaxxer,” let me be clear: I’m vaccinated (in fact, I’m a clinical trial volunteer for one of the vaccines). Most of my close family members are vaccinated. Many (I hope most) of my friends are vaccinated. I’d like to see everyone get vaccinated. But not through force or threat of force.

There’s no moral difference between sticking a needle in someone without consent and sticking a penis in someone without consent. We have a word for the latter, I’m pretty sure.

Yes, those who support vaccine mandates have all kinds of excuses for wanting to hold people down and stick needles in them. Just like rapists who claim they were “entitled” to “marital relations,” or that the victim was asking for it by dressing a particular way, or actually needed it to “correct” her sexual orientation, or whatever. To bowdlerize an old saying into more family-friendly form, excuses are like armpits. Everybody’s got a couple and they all stink.

As for the practical case, there seems to be heavy overlap between the people calling for vaccine mandates and the people who think the January 6th Capitol riot was the worst thing that ever happened in American history.

There’s also heavy overlap between those who refuse to be vaccinated and those who supported (and in many cases continue to support) the January 6th rioters.

Does the former group really believe that announcing a mandate will cause the latter group to shrug its collective shoulders, say “well, fine, then,” and line up for shots?

The actual likely result would be multiple re-enactments of January 6th, across the country and for an extended period, without  the desired result of 100% or near 100% vaccination.

Think it can’t happen? It’s already happening elsewhere. As I write this, I note accounts of clashes between protesters and police in France and Germany over the same issues. Italy, Greece, Australia … the list goes on.

Instead of currying panic and threatening force, American government and media should stick to facts and persuasion.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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The 1619 Project “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

Naturally, that reframing has enjoyed quite a bit of pushback, much of which amounts to wrestling over whether the US Constitution, as originally written and ratified, was designed around the goal of protecting the institution of slavery.

“Nikole Hannah-Jones and other 1619 acolytes,” Dr. Brion McClanahan writes at the Tenth Amendment Center, “have been consistently pushing the idea that the Constitution was a ‘pro-slavery’ document.”

McClanahan disagrees — and not just with Hannah-Jones, but also with the namesake of the institution I write for. American abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison referred to “the pro-slavery” Constitution as “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell,” calling for “no Union with slaveholders.”

“The Constitution,” McClanahan claims, “was neither proslavery nor anti-slavery. It was neutral. … slavery was left up to the constituent members of the Union.”

There’s no kind way to put this: McClanahan manages to get it completely wrong even while mentioning the evidence of his error and admitting that that evidence (“the 3/5 clause, the fugitive slave clause, the 20 year lease [sic] on the international slave trade”) “at least seem[s]” to disprove his claim.

It doesn’t “seem” to disprove his claim. It disproves his claim, completely and beyond redemption.

A document which specifically gives additional representation to slave owners based on how many slaves they own is not “neutral” where slavery is concerned. It’s not just pro-slavery, it’s foundational social engineering in favor of giving slavery’s supporters a permanent extra measure of political power.

A document which singles out fugitive slaves as the only “stolen property” specifically required be returned  (from states where that property ISN’T legally property) is not “neutral” where slavery is concerned. It’s exactly the opposite of the “states’ rights” doctrine McClanahan invokes (without naming) on his “neutrality” argument’s behalf. It’s a federal intervention against such “states’ rights.”

The Constitution offered one, and only one, temporary exception to Congress’s power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations.” Want to guess what that one exception was? It wasn’t importation of coffee or linen or foie gras. It was importation of slaves. That’s not “neutral,” that’s pro-slavery.

There are worthwhile arguments to be had over the extent and longevity of institutional racism in American history, and we’re certainly having those arguments in a big way right now.  But this isn’t one of those worthwhile arguments.

Where the Constitution touches on slavery, it was, irrefutably and beyond a shadow of doubt, crafted for the benefit of slave owners and with the goal of perpetuating slavery.

Falsifying our history isn’t a sound way of improving our future.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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