Posted on 03/20/2020 6:34:19 AM PDT by NobleFree
[…] The government should leave businesses alone unless there are demonstrable market failures and it should leave people alone unless they are doing direct harm to others.
In case it is not obvious, infecting somebody with a potentially fatal virus counts as direct harm to others.
Let us assume that Coronavirus is far more dangerous than seasonal flu and has the potential to kill millions. If so, it is a classic public health problem. It carries serious negative externalities and can only be dealt with by collective action.
[…] Lock-downs and quarantines are economically damaging and illiberal. They might be a last resort, but they should not be off the table. They do not fall under the umbrella of ‘nanny state’ because they are designed to protect other people from you and you from other people, not you from yourself.
[…] Factories pumping smoke into a congested city and travellers arriving at Heathrow with Coronavirus pose a clear risk of harm to others that can justify some degree of coercion. It is not the scale of the risk nor the number of people affected that turns a health problem into a public health problem. It is the lack of consent from those who are at risk and their inability to escape danger without other people taking action.
[…] as we are seeing now, genuine public health crises can still arise, even in rich countries. When they do, our response should be proportionate. We want to keep restrictions on liberty to a minimum and we do not want to damage the economy, but we may have to accept a bit of both - temporarily - if we are to protect ourselves. This is not the nanny state. It is the prevention of harm from an external threat. [emphases added]
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I agree, in order to avoid harming others, and to slow down the spread of this thing, people should be responsible, do their parts, and stay home if they can, keep their distance form others.
They should also take their complaints to and against the ChiComs as well.
Voluntarily.
I have a hard time with this.
This seems predicated on a Guilty until proven Innocent mentality. I have to stay in my house? Because I might infect you? Who said I was sick? How do you know I am a danger to you? I’m basically in jail because other people are afraid. If anything, the fear that other people have is creating a coercive environment in which I am forced to modify my behavior to suit them.
I am no Libertarian. But I don’t think the author of this piece is thinking in a real Libertarian fashion on this.
Losertarians.
Imagine how many lives would have been saved if we had treated HIV the same way?
I call myself a libertarian but I agree with what Ohio has done. I still get in my car and go out, shop, and very selectively socialize. Can I sit in a restaurant or a sporting event or concert? No. Do I suddenly feel like all my freedoms are gone? No. As a libertarian I never felt like I had limitless freedoms in this country. Not even close. ...and while I’m not an anarchist and don’t believe in limitless freedoms and that people should not be free to harm or take from others, I have been a frog in the boiling pot of government controlling me for my own safety all my life, from seatbelts to drug controls. And WTF are taxes even for anyway? Everyone’s good... right? heh
In an ideal world, where everybody had an IQ over 100 everybody would understand what’s happening and just do it.
Just more proof libertarians are nothing but liberals who want legalized pot.
The problem is, many claiming to be libertarians are selfish , well, fill in the blank with your choice of prerogative.
They have their rights and the welfare of others be damned.
If others don’t like what the libertarians do, then they can go somewhere else, but God help the person who infringes on the libertarian.
They are hypocirtes and callous to boot, with NO concern for others or how their actions affect others.
And sadly, I’ve run into too many of that mindset right here on FR.
There’s nothing about being a libertarian that requires one to be stupid or irrational.
the reality is that you could be sick and just not symptomatic.
It’s not a matter of guilty until proved innocent. It’s reality and it’s life and sometimes we don’t always get to do what we feel like.
Sometimes we have to actually adult and think of others before ourselves.
Libertarians as a whole, I have notices, have a hard time with not being self-indulgent, spoiled toddlers.
BOL!
Just more proof libertarians are nothing but liberals who want legalized pot.
The government has no more right to lock down its citizens over a “viral pandemic” than it does to strip people of their right to own firearms over “widespread gun violence.”
Novel coronavirus cases could have been reduced by 95 percent had China responded to the outbreak just three weeks earlier than it did, a March 13 study by the University of Southampton has found.
President Xi Jinping’s The Yellow Peril ChiCom Wuhan Pneumonia Novel Coronavirus aka the Red Death/Mass People Killing Virus, Chinobyl#2, The Yellow Peril, Made in China!
Lockdowns and strict travel bans are necessary but imperfect steps to limit spread of this virus from the “stealth” infected to the susceptible uninfected. If the number of infected grows exponentially so will those who become ill and the heath care system will be overwhelmed. Of course what is desperately needed is an effective or at least a semi effective vaccine and treatments for the ill before they go into respiratory failure.
However it should be noted that lock downs are by definition very leaky quarantines. Heath care , law enforcement, critical industry workers must all go out and about their business. People must seek food and medication. Many will ignore the lockdowns. Also there will be more psychiatric problems in many who are isolated and have had their routines disrupted.
What is also necessary is for the CDC and the WHO to release all the data they have about this pandemic. In addition to the numbers, it is important to the list clearly the race, the age, the habits, the underlying medical conditions , the medications taken or not taken, the vaccination history of those infected, who become seriously ill or die. Then and only then can people be they health care professionals or laymen begin to truly understand and make rational decisions about this pandemic. Sadly the delusional practice of political correctness is preventing the release and discussion of this information.
Yes, yes you do. Because you might infect other people who won’t survive if they get it. Its not all about you.
My cousin is or was the last time I talked to him a libertarian and he explained it to me thusly: a person walks into the bank pulls a gun and says “this is a stick-up”, the Libertarians all pull out their weapons and blast the perp into oblivion.
The governor of Ohio is full of shit. He is exactly what I would expect from someone who has worked in government for his entire adult life.
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