Over Memorial Day weekend, I watched the new Lord of the Flies on Netflix and found myself thinking back to high school, when I first read William Golding's novel. Like many readers, I was struck then by its brutal insight: beneath the surface of civilization lies a darker human instinct that can emerge quickly when fear, isolation, and group pressure take hold. As an adult who lived through COVID-19, I now read it as a cautionary tale about exactly what happened.

That is the lesson COVID-19 should have taught us. Instead, much of the governing class concluded that an emergency was not a condition to manage but a power to retain. Public officials, public-health elites, and their media allies spoke the language of caution and concern. The effect was often something closer to coercion. Skepticism became selfishness. Dissent became danger. Obedience was dressed up as civic virtue.

I've coached youth football and rugby for years, and I've testified as an expert witness in federal and state courts on fiduciary duty. Both roles demand the same thing: accurate information, honest judgment, and the willingness to say what's true rather than what's comfortable. The lockdown years were a masterclass in the opposite. Dissenting doctors and scientists were labeled anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, their medical licenses were investigated and their peer-reviewed papers were retracted. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn actively suppressed views that challenged the prevailing orthodoxy, not because the evidence was wrong, but because it was inconvenient.

Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, has........

© Townhall