The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it. --Omar Khayyam

Basic rights in a complex society are necessary for the survival of that society. Individual freedoms typically must be restrained in order for them to exist for everyone. To understand the difference requires only a bit of common sense. Even the historical cavemen who were smart enough to survive understood that they were not free to do anything that the pursuit of individual freedoms would seem to suggest. A caveman strong of body but weak of mind soon discovered that he could not walk about freely bashing in heads for very long. Others would soon take him down in a barrage of clubs aimed at his vulnerable body parts. It was a just social penalty for being a brutish thug. It also helped the more enlightened of the species who understood the meaning of “survival of the fittest,” where survival was the operative word, or grunt, as the case may be. Indeed, tribes and a few rules were almost certainly forged out of the realization that the greater good for the larger number of residents meant giving up some individual freedoms. Fast forward 250,000 years and more than one-half of our inhabitants today understand that survival of the group still must satisfy a larger set of human needs than does head-bashing by the few.

“My life, my choice” is a platitude today that is reminiscent of that caveman of yesteryear who met his fate without benefit of a trial or a lengthy discussion about his personal list of freedoms that he chose to bandy about. Unfortunately, we are much too civilized today to bash some sense into empty or clogged heads. Today, his peers--the stupid, the liars, the cheats, and the “knuckle draggers”--too often elect him to high public office where he is relatively free to bash heads with impunity. It is a turnabout that stands logic and coherent thinking on its head.

Even normal 3rd graders understand that limiting an individual’s free acts are society’s way of assuring them for a large number of people. Traffic flows much more freely and safely when everyone abides by the rules of the road. Take them away, and chaos follows. The same logic applies to health care, education, jobs, entertainment, and virtually any other human activity. Freedom thrives well for all when we each follow a few restrictive rules.

Pandemic viruses are no exception. They will kill anyone who insists that it is only their life and their choices that matter. It is not. Lives and choices are most at risk when we believe we are free to do as we please. Unlike most other choices, viruses are contagious. Refuse to get vaccinated or don’t wear a face mask and you could take down 5 or 500 innocent people with you. That is not freedom; it is both mass murder and mass stupidity on steroids. All the governors, all the legislators, and all the lemmings that ever lived cannot grant you or me the freedom to live if we follow their dictatorial rules, laws, or proclamations. Such men and women are too dangerous to hold any position of public trust. We need to remove them from office.

We forced the governor of New York out of office for the audacious act to kissing ladies—but we let brainwashed governors work their evil acts upon us with impunity. If you live in the U.S. and are not vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus, you are at a 2,979 percent higher risk of contracting and dying from the virus than those who are vaccinated. Moreover, at least 100,000 Americans would be alive today if we had long ago removed from office the governors of Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas—and their ring leader, Donald Trump.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are too valuable to be entrusted to the desires of ideologues and other self-centered zealots. At least 19 industrialized nations have referendums against outrageous laws and votes of “no confidence” against office holders when the people need to curb their actions. It’s long overdue time for the United States to adopt similar measures.