We have been inoculated at birth by a virus more potent than COVID. It is the idea of liberty. Maybe we have the Delta variant of liberty. After all we got it from the English. If not for the Magna Carta, the English Constitution, or Common Law, our American founders would never have dreamed up the idea the that we have “unalienable rights,” among them “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Granted Thomas Jefferson consulted some non-English sources too, but the main idea is English in origin.

Our Delta variant just carries it a bit further. We reserve our rights to the general public and allow the government to exercise authority only in areas where we have explicitly agreed to exercise limited control. Or at least that’s how it was supposed to work and still does to some extent, despite a century of Wilsonian progressives fiddling with the 18th century documents.

President Biden is not breaking new ground in grabbing powers the Constitution doesn’t give him. Other presidents have made similar attempts to curb liberty in favor of state power. But Biden has been more in a rush and far clumsier than most of his predecessors. His ordering everyone who works for the US government, including those in military service, to get vaccinated is a raw political move that requires people to submit on pain of losing their careers. It bears resemblance to the American military’s efforts to force every soldier to undergo training in diversity/equity/inclusion on pain of expulsion. The troops don’t like it.