The Militarization of Social Distancing in America Essay

Socialization into Militarization

Life definitely seems a lot more militarized now that social distancing norms have become common place and the National Guard is doing its part to make sure people are adhering to stay at home orders. All the workers at the grocery store are now wearing masks (even though they were not two months ago—so it does not make sense why all of a sudden now it is important that they all wear masks as though it is somehow keeping everyone safer or as though the mask itself was a threat to the virus and the virus was going to back away because it saw a mask). The ridiculousness with which people are simply obeying all these insane rules and orders looks very much to me like how a truly militarized nation would act. Orders come, they are not questioned, and no one says anything. Of course, if anyone does step out of line, there are the police to haul them off to jail. A mother was taken to jail for having a play date at a park with her kids (Farberov, 2020). A Louisville woman was arrested for allegedly violating self-quarantine orders (WDRB, 2020). Everyone is working from home, and though there have been some protests, I have not seen any governors dragged out of their homes or capital buildings so I don’t think the mobs have become too disorderly.

The point is that everyone does as he is told for the most part, which is how it goes in the military. When the commands are issued from on high, there is to be no questioning. If the media says there is a deadly virus going around and that everyone needs to shelter in place and wear a mask, then it must be so. If we are told that all doctors and nurses are heroes then it must be true and we will need to sing their praises for the next 20 years as we did with soldiers and firemen after 9/11. We will have to stand up at the 7th inning of baseball games and honor the nurses and doctors at our local hospitals because they were risking their lives on the front lines for us, so we…

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…facet and aspect of our culture? We are taught to pledge allegiance to the flag when we are little. We are taught that the authorities are the expects and they will not betray us—even though they have embroiled us in an endless war in the Middle East for two decades. We are taught that we are little more than cogs in a machine.

And now just the act of socializing has been militarized. I cannot hang out with friends without fear of violating some rule that we are supposed to be following. How ridiculous is this? Are we supposed to stop being human until the experts tell us the virus, which anyone can see is no worse than the flu for most people, is gone and is no more a danger? I am more worried I might lose my life from hospital error than I would from the coronavirus but now we all have to stay six feet apart and if we want to go out we can’t because of the rules! It is as though the world has gone full totalitarian mad and everyone accepts their place…