States of emergency tend to linger after emergencies end. This is a natural tendency of bureaucracy I remind myself as I throw away the bottle of mouthwash at the airport. That rule – the three-ounce limitation on liquids – emerged in response to a specific and very real threat. In case we’ve forgotten, it was because a group of UK-based, Pakistan-directed Islamist militants planned to detonate explosives carried in soft drink bottles on passenger airplanes departing from London to the United States. I recall that in detail only to make the point that the threats our government makes rules about are often very real, and their actions often in direct response to our odd suggestion that the government's number one role is to “keep us safe.” That’s a phrase oft-repeated by leaders from both parties, and much less often questioned.
As it relates to terrorism, we don’t hear the phrase “chatter” much anymore, nor are we warned of its rising as the holidays approach. Even less so do we hear about terrorist threat levels and the associated color scheme. Yet ‘See something, Say something’ culture is normalized, and Red Staters and Blue Staters have taken to their own online forensic efforts to identify citizens participating in the civil unrest of the type that offends them most, be it insurrection or urban riot.
The lessons here are threefold. The first is simple: the American people will need to decide to get back to normal, both the ‘what’ and the ‘when.’ We must determine these things, not the CDC nor our governors with their emergency declarations, they cannot be left to their own devices here nor are they qualified for this particular job. We will have to decide the timing of when the emergency measures end, demand that the restrictions are formally and clearly renounced, and then come to terms with what that means in our practical lives besides more crowded restaurants. It’s nearing time to get back out there. I say that while simultaneously thinking about the 247 people who died Sunday - their families' mourning is just as painful and stark as those who died last year in the time when we all felt temporarily united. There will be no parade, no clean ending to bookmark the start of our next era, but we ourselves can make it the start of post-COVID normalcy finite, recognizable, and bold.
It might be Labor Day, or maybe Thanksgiving when many Americans are fed up wearing masks on airplanes, but do we think the federal government will move that fast to end the mandate? Americans will need to pressure their elected appointees at both the state and federal levels to end restrictions and mandates. The Era of Emergency Law must end. We must not rely on government operators to decide for us when for they will naturally tolerate them too long. Reject now the Rule of Public Health Officials.
The second requires us to digest something significant. Our lives have changed in so, so many ways, and we haven’t yet the distance to realize all the ways it has, in our ingrained new behaviors and interrupted patterns. But most important to recognize, to take some time to reflect on, is this: despite our narrative of reprobate Red states and browbeaten Blue states, the nature of the threat was extreme and so was our cumulative curtailment of civil liberties in response. At one point, more than thirty states had restrictions on the freedom to worship. We didn’t really, at any point that I can recognize, ingest how literal those civil liberties restrictions were because we often debated them only in the context of commercial concerns such as rules about restaurant closing times or whether a 25% seating capacity even justified opening at all. This past year saw a major curtailment of pieces of the First Amendment – the right to assembly and the free exercise of religion – and we need to come to terms with the how and the why as precedent guides our future response.
The third lesson? Once we’ve ended this Era of Emergency Rule, reject the post-COVID half-life. I know many families who will make the decision to wear masks on airplanes and in other mass settings going forward, and I understand the caution inherent in that decision. But the era of imposing those requirements on your neighbor ends soon. So maybe not yet, but soon: embrace your full humanity. Life is messy, and proximity to other humans carries with it the risk of germs and viruses. Stay home when you’re sick, but when you’re out: smile at people, share a plate of wings with friends, or popcorn at the movie theater – yes, from the same giant bowl. And when you meet someone for the first time offer them your hand and if they reciprocate, recognize what that means at the moment about societal trust and human companionship. Then shake hands.