Known for many memorable aphorisms, Winston Churchill once expressed a determination to “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Over the ensuing decades, some leaders have used such logic to justify taking advantage of people’s fears during perilous times — trampling their liberties in ways the people would never tolerate during more normal circumstances.
The better application of Churchill’s principle, however, is to actually learn the right lessons from crises we encounter — and to apply those lessons in ways that truly protect both lives and liberty.
So it is with the COVID-19 pandemic that remains relatively fresh in our collective memory.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the architect of much of the federal government’s initial COVID-19 response, admitted late last year that many directives — such as 6-foot social distancing — “sort of just appeared” without any serious…