With most of our honey-do lists completed, and our financial anxiety now relegated to a steady, gnawing gut-ache, many of us have turned to a familiar pastime: finding someone to blame for all this mess.

China conspired. Donald Trump dawdled. The WHO are schmucks. CNN reporters are all lying liars. Fire Fauci. Fox News … isn’t. Take your pick, then shout loudly.

Many are. Among them are the new wave of sign-waving self-appointed constitutional scholars noisily asserting that all lockdown restrictions are, by definition, a violation of our constitutional rights.

It’s amazing to me how so many people can suddenly decide that every one of our 50 governors, the majority of whom are Republican, are actually constitution-destroying socialist stooges, waiting in secret for just this moment to show their true colors. Who knew?

Within the lockdown orders, and the accompanying protests, are two issues drawing the most criticism. The first includes restrictions on public assemblies for religious worship. Many pastors and parishioners are declaring such restrictions to be a violation of our constitutionally protected freedom of worship.

This strikes me as stupid. Most churches have gone online with services, where followers are free to watch and worship as they please. The only difference is that the plate doesn’t get passed during online services, which (forgive my cynicism) I suspect may be the driving force behind some of these pastor-pumped protests.

Meanwhile, to my knowledge, not a single institutional denomination as a body has opposed the current shuttering of religious sanctuaries. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The second issue concerns how we’re going restart everything following our self-induced economic coma. I’m not sure it’s a constitutional question, but it is certainly shaping up to be a battle of sharply conflicted morality.

Like you, I’m watching our economic slow-motion train wreck with alarm. When businesses go down, people go down — many of whom are friends and neighbors. One way or another, their loss will become our loss.

But state governors are the ones responsible for the implementation of strategies during emergencies caused by pandemics or natural disasters — a fact even the president has finally acknowledged. We elected them all to do a tough job, and they’re doing it. Clearly, we’re closing in on an eventual economic kick-start, but we’re not there yet.

Should significantly more testing be available before we crank the handle to reopen the Jack-in-the-Box? Seems reasonable, if your goal is to save as many lives as possible.

But a growing number of critics say that’s just wimpy talk. Folks are gonna die anyway, we’re told, so we may as well let ‘em all die at once and get it behind us as quickly as possible, so the rest of us can get back to working multiple part-time jobs with no benefits.

Exhibit A for this growingly popular point of view is Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, R-Texas, who spoke on Fox

News this week with Tucker Carlson. In his interview about reopening the economy he stated that, “there are more important things than living.” He specifically singled out older people, who, he said, ought to be willing to die from lack of available treatment — or, as he phrased it, “step out of the way” — if it means a quicker economic recovery for everyone else. I am not making this up or taking his remarks out of context. You can find the entire interview on YouTube. Check it out.

I guess I can admire his candor, but not much else. His remarkably callous idea, as far as it goes, is correct. Every week the economy remains in lockdown is a strain on us all. So props to Mr. Patrick for putting his cards on the table. Deciding that the lives of an entire class of people are worth less than the rest of us isn’t something we typically come right out and say in America. Pre-war Germany? Sure. But America? Usually we do it in a more wink-wink kind of way.

But at least it’s good to know where I stand. I suppose that when my time finally comes, my wife will sit at my bedside, hold my hand, look into my eyes and say, “Goodbye, sweetheart. Thanks for taking one for the team.”

Chris Huston is an author and award-winning columnist living in southern Idaho. Connect with Chris on both Facebook and Instagram at Chris Huston-Finding My Way and at chrishustonauthor.com.