You may have thought after watching patriots in Michigan, Kentucky, and North Carolina defiantly protest their lockdown status, as well as sheriffs in Michigan telling their governor in writing that they refused to comply with her tyrannical nonsense, that the old saying “desperate times call for desperate measures" was in full effect.

But you would be wrong.

These are indeed desperate times, but what they call for is the sort of action that true citizens should have been engaged in on a regular basis before it ever got to this point. Protest and self-government isn't remotely close to a desperate measure. It's your danged birthright as an American.

I think that's what President Trump really means when he repeatedly says America wasn't built to be shut down. The context he's addressing usually relates to the economy, to be sure, but it is a transcendent notion above and beyond even that one monumental issue.

We have allowed ourselves to be bullied as citizens of a constitutional republic for far too long. This country belongs first and foremost to “We the people," but the so-called “experts" have seduced us into believing we could somehow put this entire experiment in liberty on cruise control while pursuing our various Epicurean delights and leaving the heavy lifting to others. Expert-in-Chief Anthony Fauci embodies this spirit of the age, as he simultaneously doubts we'll ever be able to shake hands again while signing off on strangers using Tinder to hook up and swap bodily fluids.

Give those others an inch, though, and they'll take a hellish mile. They did it on taxes and debt. On religious liberty. On gender. On life. And each time, instead of rubbing their nose in it like a dog who made a mess on the carpet inside, we shrugged and often re-elected them. We inverted the master/servant relationship.

What we should have been doing all along is treating these usurpers on both the political left and right as Trump treated the press pool earlier this week, with his fantastic video montage of their bias and hypocrisy. Absolutely no quarter. One reporter seemed to actually be begging for mercy when he whined, “Why would you do that?" Because you deserve it, that's why. And the tarring and feathering will continue until morale improves.

You deserved it for betraying your nation and choosing fiction over truth, just as every bureaucrat and civil servant does when they forget who they work for and what God they serve. Our rights come from Him and Him alone, and they can't be suspended or forfeited by force for any reason — including a virus that has been twisted out of all proportion to be used as a political weapon.

First China did it, and then all the power hungry little Barney Fifes and Karens in our country dialed their lust for controlling other people's lives up to 11 as well. Why wouldn't they? We've been giving up ground to them for so long that they've forgotten what a good tarring and feathering feels like. They believe us to be beneath them, and by our lack of action we have actually shown them to be effectively correct on that front.

This is a Republic, said Benjamin Franklin, if only we can keep it. That means we need to draw lines in the sand always and everywhere to protect the true nature of our relationship with government — government by the consent of the governed.

We are the rulers. We call the shots. And to that end, we are grateful the president seems ready, willing and able to return this great nation to its rightful owners. However, if you truly want to see him deliver on that instinct, don't just assume he will, or even can, do it without you. In politics, you should always hold your allies to a higher standard than your adversaries. Why expect more from those who hate you than you do those who claim otherwise? Trump is not our mosaic deliverer — we are. He is to carry out our deliverance, not initiate it.

Let us never again forget who we were destined to be as Americans and children of God. We weren't built to be shut down. We were built to rise up, and prove ourselves worthy of the lives, fortunes, and sacred honors sacrificed on our behalf, long before any of us knew what a coronavirus was.