Brownstone Institute Policy articles feature opinion and analysis of global policy in news, economics, public health, public dialog, and social life. Policy articles are machine-translated into multiple languages.
A system that would severely damage human psychological health and thus, morality would be one that dramatically uproots every freedom that people had previously taken for granted. The phrase “unleash hell” comes to mind; that is literally what lockdowns did to this country. We see it in surveys of mental health and it manifests itself in crime and the general collapse of public morals.
The biggest problem was an intellectual failing, and it was one shared by media elites and high-end intellectuals. They had not come to terms with the core truth that pathogens are part of the world around us and always have been. New viruses come along and their trajectory follows certain patterns. In humanity’s delicate dance with them, we need intelligence, rationality, and clarity in order to avoid the illusion of control – none of which are strengths of government.
Not only economists but also medical professionals and especially politicians need to step up and admit where they were wrong and work to make sure nothing like this is repeated again. If it does happen again, it should not happen with the blessing of economists, even if they have high-end positions at Ivy League universities.
“As an infectious-disease epidemiologist, I had no choice. I had to speak up. If not, why be a scientist? Many others who bravely spoke could comfortably have stayed silent. If they had, more schools would still be closed, and the collateral public-health damage would have been greater.” ~ Martin Kulldorff
SHARE | PRINT | EMAILThe last 14 months elevated a global group of intellectuals and bureaucrats about which most people had previously cared very little. Among them, the ones who believe least in freedom entrenched their power, thanks to a big push by the lavishly funded but largely discredited World Health …
The World Health Organization Endorses Lockdowns Forever Read More »
SHARE | PRINT | EMAILRecall that the lockdowns that came to the U.S. in 2020 had an unusual origin. It was from Wuhan, China. That city’s experience became the test and the model. We saw all the images of the wicked effects of the virus. People were dying on the streets …
The idea of virus elimination via government is a fundamental threat to all Enlightenment values. It is not scientific at all: serious scholars in this field have observed that virus suppression through force is impossible and foolish. If temporarily successful, it merely results in a population with a naive immune system that is more susceptible to a more serious disease later.
The letter was sent March 14, 2020, a Saturday, and the day after the HHS privately released what amounted to a lockdown order from the federal government. The Trump administration had already been talked into shutting down as much as it could and urging states to do the same. In some sense, then, the latter came too late. Regardless, Fauci ignored it (“Thank you for your note”) .
“There’s nothing particularly wrong per se in the impulse for pathogen avoidance, unless it becomes baked into the social system and becomes an excuse for segregation and for undemocratic forms of political management. Here is where problems begin. Society becomes divided by touchable and untouchable, clean and unclean.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker
