During this time of insanity, some of us went about our lives as best we could and ignored the restrictions. The rest of the world is now coming to terms with the understanding that the “precautions” don’t do much. At best what is going to happen anyway, happens. If there is no off ramp then the change is either permanent or it will go on until failure is evident and people stop caring. Then they will go back to normal one by one.
How do individuals know what’s best for them? While the scientific knowledge, theoretical or technical expertise of one person, or one profession, may help shed light on what’s best for individuals, it can never be enough. Only individuals themselves have the unique knowledge that all others do not have, about their individual-specific ever-changing circumstances, constraints, needs and preferences.
Which Pandemic Response Achieves the Greater Good? Read More
It shouldn’t be needed, but it is. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has introduced a patient protection bill, so that ‘if you’re in a hospital or long-term care facility, you have a right to have your loved ones there present with you.’ Every other state and country will hopefully follow. Some places have even prevented the dying from dying in the company and warmth of loved ones.
The biggest challenge is for policy makers. What is the goal now? Covid-19 cannot be stopped; it will spread across all people and we are likely to be infected several times over in our lives. What is the goal then? Policy makers have never said what their goal is.
How we navigate the end of mandates determines whether we win our freedom or whether we allow our leaders to normalize a Brave New World with conditional rights that can be turned off again during the next “emergency”.
Ending Mandates Does Not Strip Government of the Ability to Do This Again Read More
Freedom matters—even in a pandemic. Without freedom, elderly people may spend their remaining time on earth isolated from their loved ones, and we know that social isolation kills. Without freedom, people may lose not only their livelihoods but the momentum and opportunity to build careers as flight attendants, orchestra musicians, chefs, or scientists working on viruses. Without freedom, children may lose important and irretrievable experiences and milestones. Without freedom, life becomes a shadow of itself.
The lockdowns were and are an intolerable attack on property rights, the freedom of association, free enterprise, and basic rights of trade and exchange that have been a bedrock of a thriving economy since the ancient world. They were also without precedent on this scale. We need a clear statement from the top that this was wrong, and did not achieve the aims. A well-constructed reparations package would make the point.
There is nothing more central to the idea and practice of freedom than bodily autonomy. It is the basal freedom from which all others are derived. Without it—as the history of slavery starkly reminds us—all other liberties are comparatively ornamental.
BJ Dichter is one of the organizers of the Canadian Truckers for Freedom Convoy and its media spokesman. We had an opportunity to speak with him earlier this week about the situation in Ottawa, the convoy’s strategy and about some of the political elements that are at play as this extremely fluid situation makes headlines and continues to inspire people all over the world.
“The Honking Will Continue”: A Conversation With BJ Dichter Read More
The destruction wrought by the lockdowns has many fathers—computer-modelers who terrified federal policymakers with guesses dressed up as certainties; health officials who were given the levers of government without any sense of or care for unintended consequences; governors who ruled by executive fiat.
Freedom is not an option, despite what they say. It is not something granted to us by the powerful at their discretion. It is a universal right, one protected only by a culture that loves it, institutions that guard it, and people who fight for it. We can get there. We are in a position to help prove this, to rebuild, and work for a world in which nothing like this ever happens again.
If progressives were still progressives they would be fighting bio-fascism with every cell in their body. Some are, but most are not.
