Back in the spring, Kansas decided it was more important to open bars in June than to send kids back to school in August.

About the same time, Kansans also decided that we cared less about protecting one another from a highly contagious disease than about people’s aversion to face masks.

And simultaneously, as a state and a nation, we decided it was fine to flout pandemic-related laws, especially since so many police chiefs, sheriffs and other law enforcement officials proudly refused to enforce them anyway.

Those decisions came with consequences. We never effectively suppressed COVID-19, and it’s now surging again across Kansas and the country.

Credible health authorities predicted this would happen. The same authorities warn that the state and the nation likely will see daily coronavirus death counts rise significantly.

Not that we have to believe experts.

Another thing we decided across large political swaths of the country is that we would rather smear the reputations of our top doctors and scientists than face facts.

To their credit, that didn’t stop most of the experts from trying to do their jobs. As a result, the death rate among those with COVID-19 is much lower than it was in the spring.

That’s because scientists and medical experts learned a lot quickly. They learned how the virus attacks the body. They developed better treatments. They learned what pharmaceuticals are effective.

Researchers also learned more about how the virus did – and did not – spread.

It’s information we didn’t have in the early months of the outbreak, when lockdowns and business closures were precautions that made sense.

With the information now available, we can target the kinds of activities and environments that put people at risk. There’s no need to enact the widespread shutdowns that were common in the spring. There are, however, plenty of reasons to take reasonable precautions.

No one should expect to eliminate infection risks entirely.

Afterall, risk is associated with many of our daily activities, such as driving a car. What we need to decide is what are reasonable risks and reasonable precautions, given the dangers posed by the illness.

That assessment needs to account not just for the possibility that we will get sick, but that we could unwittingly pass the virus to others.

Most of us have heard of the infamous Maine wedding. Sixty-five people attended. At last count, the wedding was connected to 177 COVID-19 cases and the deaths of eight people, none of whom attended the wedding.

The current proposals for “herd immunity” heralded by the White House basically call for 200 million Americans to get sick – while hoping millions won’t die. The plan is to encourage most people to get the virus, while further isolating those most vulnerable to developing deadly cases.

National expert Dr. Anthony Fauci calls the plan “ridiculous,” saying it would be impossible to manage or enforce such an endeavor. The death toll would be disgraceful, even criminal.

Such measures also would be cruel. The pandemic so far has taken more than 220,000 American lives. Many more people have been kept from their spouses, family and friends for seven months or more; this would prolong their agonizing isolation.

It’s another ploy that substitutes politics for science. From the start, President Donald Trump has pursued a public relations strategy instead of following medical advice.

We are living, and dying, with the consequences.

As the nation watches Republicans rush to approve President Donald Trump’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett to a seat on the Supreme Court, it’s worth asking whether the hurried effort undermines the primary argument conservatives make about the courts.

Put another way, it’s time to push back against those who claim that liberal judges are activists, while conservative judges hold fast to what the law really says, and what the nation’s founders intended when they wrote the Constitution in the 1780s.

The very act of rushing through this nomination out of partisan fear is a form of activism, undermining conservatives’ claims that they don’t want judges with political agendas.

Further, it’s presumptuous for anyone on the right or the left to claim special insight into the founders’ intentions.

If you’ve read a bit of history, you know the founders were not of a single mind. In writing the Constitution, they compromised in some places and blurred the lines in others.

And, no, they didn’t agree on just what the words in the document meant, which is why before the ink had dried, critics demanded amendments, leading to the Bill of Rights.

And after the Constitution was ratified and officials elected, there was almost immediate disagreement over such things as George Washington’s claims of executive privilege.

Little in history suggests the founders’ aim was to issue a strict set of rules that future generations would follow. Rather they created a framework that would allow Americans to evolve, prosper and be part of a democratic society.

Well, that would allow white, male residents to prosper and be part of a democracy.

The founders, if you remember, couldn’t even agree to extend civil rights to women, or basic human rights to Blacks and Native Americans.

It took generations of moral, economic and social progress – and many Supreme Court decisions – to extend Constitutional rights to all citizens.

High-minded talk about original meanings and the founders’ intentions is farce. It’s a fiction created to disguise a political agenda as principle.

Recent Supreme Court decisions involving Trump’s tax returns highlight how freely conservatives put their own political spin on the law.

As you might recall, both the U.S. House and a New York prosecutor sought access to Trump’s tax returns. Trump fought the efforts, asking the courts to block release of the information.

In July, in decisions written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court ruled the prosecutor in New York could continue his pursuit, but that Congress had failed to show its need for the documents.

Four conservative justices opposed releasing the tax returns to either Congress or the prosecutor. Their position is not supported by the text of the Constitution or the 1924 law that House committees used in their efforts.

Instead, conservative justices relied on expansive interpretations of earlier court rulings. They also argued the president has special rights not articulated in any law. Justice Clarence Thomas went so far as to claim the tax returns could be sought only as part of an impeachment proceeding.

There is scant evidence to argue that the founders intended to place the president above the laws others must follow. There is, however, ample evidence showing conservatives have proved as judicially active as liberals.