When it was clear that our liberties were going to be violated by public officials’ overreaction to the 2020 novel coronavirus outbreak, we considered encouraging Americans to engage in civil disobedience against the unlawful orders that were about to be issued. We regret that we did not write that editorial. We have no such hesitation in 2024, though.

When the COVID test positivity rate surged last month, surpassing the summer peaks of 2022 and 2023, a few voices insisted that we needed to go back to the asinine rules of 2020.

“We all need to prepare for not only the possibility of continued disruptions but for another new normal that might be a little closer to 2020 than how we’ve recently been living,” Aron Solomon wrote last week in The Hill under the headline: “Summer COVID surge shows we may have to return to 2020 pandemic measures.”

Solomon, chief strategy officer for Amplify, a legal marketing and media agency, also complained that “​​the federal government’s response to the latest surge has been tepid at best.”

Earlier last month, the Los Angeles Times reported that “​​a number of health officials, from California to New York, have been suggesting that more people consider” returning to masks and physical distancing, “given the jump in coronavirus infections.” CNN started its summer surge story suggesting that it might “be time to dust off the face masks,” while Patch noted on Aug. 14 that California health officials have implored “residents to wear masks indoors once again.”

The positivity test rate is now in decline, having peaked just before the middle of the month. Maybe the improving data will cool the busybodies’ urge to torment others. But should the trend reverse – and it will during the fall and winter – we expect the nags and the petty tyrants return, barking as noisily as they have in the past. Their assault on liberty should be met with stiff resistance.

Some people live as if it’s still 2020. They want the lockdowns and the mask mandates. They need the lockdowns and the mask mandates. And it matters not to them that neither of those measures worked. Neither do the rules-makers care if their policies were ineffective. Too many of them enjoyed the power they unaccountably wielded and want to bask anew in their fleeting fame.

We cannot allow ourselves to be bullied again. Should mask rules return, they must be defied. Business owners need to keep their doors open. Families should carry on as normal, and refuse to surrender to rules about how many can gather and when. Vaccine requirements have to be ignored.

Despite promises that we’d be saved by masking up, the reality was that it was simply theater – masks did not work.

Lockdowns were a farce, as well. They were actually counterproductive. Their cruel and lethal effects will be felt for years. Not only does research support this, there was a tacit admission of their failure as a therapy in New Jersey, where a gym owner who defied the governor’s orders and refused to close was acquitted in May of more than 80 charges. His “crimes” included violating those unlawful orders, operating without a mercantile license, creating a public nuisance and disturbing the peace, says the local media.

Let the courage and conviction of this one man, Ian Smith, be an inspiration for business owners and corporate executives if they are again confronted with orders to cease their activities.

Those who believe they need to wear masks while in public, at home, driving alone in their automobiles or walking outside with no one nearby are free to do so. It’s the same for those who want to quarantine, as many are still doing.

People are also at liberty to get as many vaccinations and boosters as they wish to – they can even try to beat Anthony Fauci’s six shots (but hopefully none will test positive for COVID as many times – three – as he has).

But they are not free to force the rest of us to live by rules that make them comfortable. Nor are government officials unbound to make rules based on their assumptions, political ambitions and twisted authoritarian personalities.

A society without skeptics, dissenters and critics is a dangerous place. Forced conformity, censorship and surrender, all trending relentlessly in today’s politics, invite tyranny, particularly when government officials say their dictatorial policies are there only for our own good. We cannot let 2020 and 2021 happen again.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board