What Do Americans Want?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns freedoms guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Most Americans were cooperative when they were asked to hunker down at home for a time to “flatten the curve” of the Chinese coronavirus. Now that the curve has been flattened, we are anxious to get our lives back to normal.


            According to Kay C. James, President of The Heritage Foundation, when commissioners on the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, asked Americans for comments and ideas on how to combat the economic and health effects of COVID-19, they heard plenty. Americans were concerned about civil liberties because the way some states shut down businesses and prevented citizens from working.

The responses commissioners received don’t just give us a sense of what the American people want but show that they want to be part of the solution. Comments included pages and pages of specific ideas for testing for the disease, isolating the virus, and reopening businesses.

Respondents understand the need to slow the spread of the virus so hospitals can have enough equipment and staff to manage the caseload. However, now that we’ve slowed the spread, they’re anxious to get back to life and work.

They want to reopen small businesses, restaurants, and retail, and they seem willing to make some pretty big changes to do it, like maintaining mandatory social distancing, prohibiting large public gatherings, quarantining people with symptoms, and wearing masks in public consistently.    

            Americans understand that there are public health concerns, but we are just as concerned about the economy. We know that we are capable of doing two things at once. We can continue to slow the spread of COVID-19 and still get the economy up and running. We know that we are fighting two enemies: a disease that spreads quickly and the catastrophe of a depression. Most of us consider the depression to be the worst of the two enemies, but we know that we must defeat them both.


            Americans have several concerns involved in this pandemic. We are concerned about the disease itself. We are concerned about the worsening economy. We are concerned about our civil rights. We know that governments use crises to cease additional power and to drive their agenda. We are not anxious to be a part of any political power scheme. We simply want to stay healthy and bring our lives back to normal. We also want our nation to achieve independence from the control China or any other nation.