The 1st Amendment was vital because people have trouble resisting the urge to force others to submit to their religious beliefs. This is true of modern pseudo-religions too, like the Church of Global Warming and, increasingly, the cult of Lockdown Forever.
Every state of emergency tends to become a religion if it goes on long enough. People cling to their faith that the emergency measures are necessary long after they forget why. They prefer to feel motivated by righteous conviction, rather than unreasoning fear.
People tend to be arrogant instead of humble, especially in large groups. Humility is the vegetable you're supposed to eat, but arrogance is the junk food you crave. The sense of superiority that comes from forcing others to submit to your beliefs is addictive.
Submission is not the same thing as conversion. Forcing the unbeliever to submit and acknowledge the exalted nature of your beliefs, without accepting them, is a unique pleasure. Persuasion is hard, frustrating, *individual* work. Compulsory submission is a heady mob rush.
When you're working in a mob to force others to submit, you don't have to listen to any counter-arguments that might make you question your own beliefs. You only hear the voices that agree with you, while delivering lectures to the unbelievers. Backtalk is dismissed as heresy.
The faithful do not engage with heresy; they shout it down. They chant together in mobs and develop language to dehumanize the heretics: infidels, science deniers, haters, "you just want to kill Grandma so you can fatten your 401k."
The key to all religious crusades is denying the unfaithful have valid points of view that should be respected. They aren't reasonable people who have come to a different conclusion; they're fools, monsters, puppets. They must *know* they're wrong because The Truth is so obvious.
This conviction inevitably breeds an urge to silence the unbelievers. The Founders were wise to unite freedom of speech and religion in the 1st Amendment. Every fanaticism makes laws against blasphemy, including the modern ones: "Hate speech isn't free speech!"
Restricting the speech of infidels is an important step toward securing their submission. Of course it's harder for them to challenge the Faith or support each others' defiance if they're muzzled, but also it reinforces the notion they are second-class citizens.
Which in turn strengthens the perception of the faithful as superior, the only ones smart and wise enough to be trusted with the full privileges of citizenship. This perception can be enforced through mob action and control of private resources if the State cannot do it.
Modern fanatics tend to claim intellectual superiority because they disdain religious faith and hate traditional moral codes. Spouting approved dogmas makes them feel like members of the intellectual overclass. Policies and slogans are the new hymns and prayers.
In a remarkably short span of time, possibly faster than any fanaticism before it, Lockdown Forever is acquiring the trappings of a modern pseudo-religion and seeking to compel submission. It fits neatly into the grand communion of state worship and collectivism.
Lockdown fanaticism is driven by a political agenda, giving a veneer of moralistic and intellectual cover to crude opportunism. It's a rather thin veneer, since the statists can't help dancing with joy over the wonderful opportunity the pandemic presents for reshaping society.
Since the dawn of history, moralistic crusades have been fabricated to cover crude power grabs and make them look like noble endeavors supported by all right-thinking citizens. Lockdown Forever is beginning to look depressingly familiar. /end
