Chandler Maddox, 10th grade, Marshall County High School
During this historic event of the COVID-19 outbreak our lives have changed dramatically due to the safety precautions put into place by our government. Many of us are confined to our homes if we are lucky to have one, socially distancing from our friends and family, but we are protecting people’s lives with our confined actions. Our government has put precautions into place for the better of the whole human population. In fact, there are many sections in the U.S. Constitution that allows the government, under certain circumstances, the ability to limit our rights, including the 10th amendment giving any power not delegated for the federal government to the states. In other words, many actions are left up to our state government to problem-solve. Also, if we take a look at other governments that have little central power, their people are paying for it because the government cannot protect their people from making inherently bad decisions. We are very fortunate that our government has protected us from ourselves and other people who do not care or cannot comprehend the importance of the stay-in-place orders.
When our government was being created we had just gained freedom from a tyrannical government, the British. A group of men, now revered, came together to form a new government that would give power to the people; we now call these people the Founders. Now that we have a Constitution it gives the national government a lot of power, but for the most part we get to control who is in the government via voting. We live in a Democratic Republic; we do not vote for every single issue, but we can vote for people who we think align with our beliefs. So when the majority of our state votes for state officials, we should let them do their jobs because they are currently making the tough decisions for Kentucky we would not want to make ourselves. Our Constitution never states our rights are absolute, because the Founders knew that they needed balance and added precautions in the new government they were developing. Another important dilemma was where the power lay. There were two major sides of how to give power: more given to the states or more given to the national government. In the end there was compromise, which leads us to have levels of government that each have their own jobs. One of the national government’s jobs is to provide for the common defense. We may look at this literally and say this current situation has nothing to do with a war, but does it? We are at war with a virus. We are making weapons against it, raising money to fight it, and changing our lives to be able to defeat it. We are in a state of emergency! One body that can bring us all together to act as a single force is the national government.
Simply stated, we are very lucky compared to other countries around the world. Their governments acted too late or with not enough strength, and for some it’s because they cannot. In weak governments where there is no central power due to financial failures or no strong constitution for government there is no leader and consultants to provide the country with someone to look to for experienced and knowledgeable advice. This will hurt them in this time of emergency; they cannot consolidate resources to ensure people are staying inside. They have no power to keep their people safe. We should be so glad that we have a strong government to look to that will ensure the ill-informed, conspiracy theorists, and others who will not stay inside unless the national and state governments can be strong and order them to be sanitary and keep others safe by staying home.
Keeping the country shut down is very important to all aspects of our lives, even if it is causing other complications to our world. While the country’s non-essential businesses are closed, this has created unsteadiness for many families. Some people have no income to support their families in these scary times, but these families are not forgotten by their communities or their government. Stimulus checks are being sent out around the US, so they can be spent and added into the economy. There are many non-profit groups coming together to support these people in need as well. Another reason why opening the government now is a bad idea is if there is business, there is traveling. Many states around the country are at different points in the “curve” of the virus. Some are seeing their peeks in new cases, while others are coming down slowly. If we open the country back at this point, the virus would run more rampant and put many people’s lives in danger, maybe even our loved ones. Is our need to get out of our houses really worth someone’s health?
Overall, we have seen that even though this time in our lives is a difficult hardship, there will be a future of the human race because of how we have come together as humanity to fight this virus and care for the weak. Our government has been very important through this situation because they have kept people from making mistakes that would affect us all. As we move toward remission after the pandemic we will have to rely on the state government to continue to protect us and make the transition the best it can be, unlike other countries where this virus runs rampant and people are dying because of their own or others’ foolishness. The silver lining here is that we see that humans, while not completely secure in our “normal” daily life, we will always persevere to find a new normal.