CHICAGO—Government control over people’s lives has spread like fire since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Scott Troogstad, a fire captain from Chicago. Small-business owners were deprived of their livelihoods, students couldn’t go to schools, people of faith were forbidden to pray at their churches. Yet it wasn’t his fight, not at the time. As captain of a firehouse on the Southwest Side of Chicago, Troogstad and his team had to remain on the front line of the pandemic, responding to COVID-19 patients, people overdosed on drugs, and victims of violent crimes. Many firefighters and paramedics at the Chicago Fire Department contracted the virus, beat the illness after days or weeks of symptoms, and returned to the front line. Four died. It didn’t take too long before that fire reached his own station. In August, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced her vaccination policy for city workers, including about 5,000 …