When Elvis Presley was drafted into the Army in 1957, it was taken with good grace, indicating the essentially voluntary compliance with the program in the country at that time. Ten years later, the country had lost patience and withdrew its voluntary compliance. The presidency switched parties due to the war, and Nixon gradually eliminated conscription as part of that mandate -- in hindsight, this was a key political subtext.
I think there's an equivalent loss of patience with the COVID lockdown. Feser expresses it this way:
As I have said before, I think that the lockdown that was put in place in the United States two months ago was morally justifiable given the circumstances at the time. In my opinion, under current circumstances, it is no longer morally justifiable. To be sure, I am not denying that some social distancing measures are still justifiable and even necessary. I am also not denying that a more modest lockdown may still be defensible in some localities. But the draconian total lockdown that was put in place across most of the country is at this point no longer defensible, and state and local authorities who are relaxing it are right to do so.What we're also seeing is fairly widespread, and at least well-publicized, incidents of civil disobedience. Here's a YouTube by the lawyer I linked the other day who commented on the Bellmawr, NJ gym that opened in defiance of the governor:
At about 2:10, he says,
This is all new territory for us -- it's never really happened before. None of us ever believed, as criminal defense lawyers, we'd ever have to deal with people being cited for going to gyms or parks, or doing things like that, but again, this is where we are right now.It wouldn't surprise me if the next thing we begin to see is members of the elite finding it expedient to
