The way to beat the coronavirus is to study up - not go shopping | Ruben Navarrett Jr | Columns

Speaking of summer, not every American who is jonesing to get outside wants to go back to work. Some people want to go to the beach. They think what Thomas Jefferson meant by "unalienable rights" was the right to surf.

Here in Southern California, some people have come down with a severe case of entitlement. In Encinitas, California -- a coastal town north of San Diego where the average home price is $1.23 million -- protesters recently condemned the state's first-in-the-nation "shelter-at-home" order, which has been in place since March 19. One woman told a reporter: "We want to surf! We want to hike! That's why we live here!"

So what if some of us peasants wind up on a ventilator? Marie Antoinette is alive and well, and living by the shore.

Other Americans worry about losing what they consider their birthright: freedom. We don't know the first thing about the topic. How could we? Most of us have never lived without it. The ignorance is bipartisan. If we propose the slightest restriction on owning a gun, or getting an abortion, special interest groups with a hair trigger will howl about how this is "fascism."

Back in Georgia, Kemp said: "If people don't want to go out, they don't have to."

We've heard variations of that argument before. The left quips, "If you don't like abortion, don't have one." The right snarks, "You don't get to give away my 2nd Amendment rights."

It's time to smarten up, folks. Americans are not just a bunch of individuals roaming through society in giant plastic bubbles that keep us from bumping into other people. We're part of a community. Rights come with responsibilities -- and some of those responsibilities are to one another. Chief among them is the duty to accept that exercising our right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" without the proper care can cost others the most important item on that list: the first one.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, "Navarrette Nation," is available through every podcast app.