JoMa,
Thanks for your well-written post.
First, for perspective, my basis is a traditional libertarian point of view, favoring individual freedom and responsibility and small government.
However, over the years, I’ve learned that certain matters are better dealt with from a national view.
I believe a dangerous epidemic is one of those things. There are several debates wrapped around our situation.
Will this lead to loss of freedom? Watching Pelosi and her ilk grab for power is not reassuring.
Is a temporary loss of freedom (1st amendment), a good thing to reduce harming our vulnerable family members and neighbors a good thing? I think so.
How much freedom are we willing to sacrifice, for how long? We all have a different view of that, based on our experience and personal situation. I was very unhappy with government interference before this event.
Is the economic hit worth it? No one knows yet. But we’ve decided to spend $2 trillion to reduce 2,000,000 potential deaths ($1 million per soul), not to mention the economic impacts, and I think more would be reckless.
[[I believe a dangerous epidemic is one of those things.]]
The problem is MV- All flues are dangerous- all flues kill upwards of 80,000 people just in this country alone- right now, we’re nowhere near that high mark- (however, that coudl very well change WHEN folks get back out into the public- peopel start vistittign their elderly folks in nursing homes again, people cram into jammed subways, etc etc etc- We will just have to wait and see how that is going to turn out)
So- do we do this every single flu season? Again- flu seasons were much more deadly in the past than this one is right now- (likely though it’s due to all the sheltering inplace- We’ll have to see what happens when the masses are released back into society)
[[Will this lead to loss of freedom?]]
If they do this every single flu season then yes, we’ve lost them permanently every flu season- and only have them temporarily during periods of no flu- When do we determine which flues need sheltering inplace? As mentioned, many 10’s of 1000’s die every year- Why is this virus any more severe than flues that kill 10’s of 1000’s?
[[2,000,000 potential deaths]]
??? Fuici is only saying 100,000- not much more than regular flues-
Well, there is the rub. Where did the number 2,000,000 come from? Did it come from some government agency? Maybe the United Nations? Please tell me how that number came about so that you could come up with your $1,000,00 per person number.
Additionally, even if you came up with a reasoning of where that ‘estimate’ came from, how is that number compare to the number of people world-wide who usually die from the yearly flu strain when we did not shut down the economy or restrict freedoms (and make it a number that is per capita, so we can compare apples to apples)? What changed? Did we shut down the economy and restrict personal freedoms to “potentially” save some of those people? That 2,000,000 number is supposition and screams as a “burning platform” argument that forces the need for an answer to a question (or number) that is well, just a guess.
My basic problem is that throughout history, crisis and emergency have always been used to perpetrate the growth of the “state” (in quotes because I am using that as a generic term, not to refer to a state in the US union). Rahm Emanuel was publicized in recent years when he stated “never let a crisis go to waste”, which is ultimately just a Machiavellian lesson that many have learned and restated in other words throughout the years.
History is replete with examples of this happening and even in the last 100 years or so of the US experiment, there are plenty of examples of ‘government created’ crisis that were used to argue for ‘government created’ solutions.
The Great Depression, arguably created by government action in the first place according to Milton Friedman, was used to created the New Deal. WWI-WWII, a government created crisis, was an argument for the permanent military industrial complex. Social unrest in the 1960s, arguably created again by government through 150+ years of discriminatory laws, lead to Johnson’s “Great society”, and even what was a minimal recession combined with the housing bubble in the 2000s, arguably created by the Community Reinvestment Act, lead to TARP and Obamacare and ultimately trillion dollar yearly budget deficits.
All of these combined (and plenty more) have led this country to be $23+ trillion in debt with no end in sight. Oh, by the way, we just tacked on $2 trillion more with the most recent ‘government stimulus’ to ostensibly solve an economic problem that was caused by government restrictions in the first place. And this was done to save some people who, in past years, died from complications (many had other underlying conditions) of the flu, just like throughout all of human history.
In short, the United States was started as an experiment to get away from the centralized ‘state’ and distribute power and authority. Yet, here we are, 200+ years later and each new ‘crisis’ has allowed the ‘state’ to consolidate power again.
In the end, Ben Franklin said it best when he stated, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” The idea of weighing personal freedom against societal requirements is not a new question.
Through the course of time, however, it seems inevitable that people, in general, will give up freedoms, fought for and died for by so many before us, just to gain a little, “temporary” safety. The comments on this post alone show how many people are so willing to give up those freedoms.
Thanks for reading.
JoMa