May I present to you, fellow Americans, King George VIII:

I mean, c'mon... fReEdoM.

Let's just skip the idea of firing unvaxxed first responders who aren't at risk of Covid (or have natural antibodies), which will lead to a cascade of failures in our emergency systems, leading directly to unimaginable numbers of deaths.

Let's start here:

Very few people anywhere on the planet are going to die from Covid, even though more than 55 million of us will continue to die every year from various things because none of us get off this rock alive. This is not, as James Madison would put it, where liberty is threatened "by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power."

The American experiment was predicated upon the idea that liberty is more essential to human dignity and flourishing than any "security" or "assurance" given to us by kings. Freedom is what makes our very short lives worth living.

A few quotes:

• "Is life so dear, or peaceful so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" – Patrick Henry
• "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." - Edmund Burke
• "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
• "The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasoning, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice." - Alexander Hamilton

And yet here we are, with a man who has assumed the mantle once worn by men like Washington and Jefferson (who risked their lives, families, and reputation to take up literal arms against a king) and makes verbal air quotes around the word "freedom" like it's a joke.

Freedom isn't a joke. But I think we know who is.