freedom and covid

FREEDOM DAY UK:

Yesterday, the British PM announced we will be free on 19th July - and the Sun newspaper loved it:

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The Sun, which has its eye firmly on Wednesday's Euro 2020 semi-final, pictures Boris Johnson and England stars Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling against a backdrop of the St George's flag and the headline Free Lions. It says the PM has torn up social distancing laws and hailed July 19's Freedom Day as an end to "government diktats".

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Newspaper headlines: Now or never, says PM, after lockdown ending 'gamble' - BBC News

But these new-found freedoms might be taken away from us again:

Lockdown freedoms could last just weeks with stronger restrictions needed in autumn and winter, Sage doom-mongers fear

There has been a lot of comment on yesterday's announcement:

Boris Johnson ends Covid as a ‘me problem’ and makes it a ‘you problem’

The prime minister’s overriding imperative – you could tell by the very many times he said it – is to “move from universal government diktat to relying on people’s personal responsibility”. He’s basically had enough of making all the decisions, and wants someone else to have a go. Absent an obvious single candidate, he’s throwing it on to all of us.

Boris Johnson ends Covid as a ‘me problem’ and makes it a ‘you problem’ | Zoe Williams | The Guardian

THE PHILOSOPHY: PART ONE: LOVING FREEDOM:

So, it's a question of personal responsibility - and not the state taking away your freedom to do what ever you want.

The only problem is that in the middle of the second wave, the PM was saying that the Brits 'love freedom too much':

Boris Johnson has blamed coronavirus on the British people, for loving freedom too much

“There is an important difference between our country and many other countries around the world: our country is a freedom-loving country. If we look at the history of this country over the past 300 years, virtually every advance, from free speech to democracy, has come from this country. It is very difficult to ask the British population uniformly to obey guidelines in the way that is necessary.”

Jay Doubleyou: freedom-loving britons

At the same time, it was difficult for Americans too:

The Shift Americans Must Make to Fight the Coronavirus
We are stubbornly hung up on a damaging idea of self-reliance.
As COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, spreads in the United States, it is becoming clear that America’s individualistic framework is deeply unsuited to coping with an infectious pandemic. Right now, one of the most important things Americans can do is deploy measures like social distancing and self-quarantining, even if they do not feel sick and are not at risk of the worst effects of the disease, in order to “flatten the curve” (epidemiologists’ term for slowing down the natural progression of an outbreak). This requires a radical shift in Americans’ thinking from an individual-first to a communitarian ethos—and it is not a shift that is coming easily to most, especially in the absence of clear federal guidelines.
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Jay Doubleyou: the politics of covid

Meanwhile, there was the model from not-so social-democratic Sweden:

Jay Doubleyou: sweden and coronavirus

Here's the view from April this year:

The Swedish COVID-19 strategy revisited - The Lancet

Sweden’s Pandemic Experiment | The New Yorker

And from last month:

Sweden sees 'dark clouds' with outbreaks of COVID delta variant | Reuters

THE PHILOSOPHY: PART TWO: FREEDOM TO INFECT OTHERS:

What do we mean by 'freedom' in this context?

From the US media at the outbreak of the pandemic last April:

These People Aren’t Freedom Fighters—They’re Virus-Spreading Sociopaths
The “liberate America” protesters claim they just want to make their own choices about their health and safety, but they really want to force others to risk their lives.

By Elie MystalTwitter
APRIL 21, 2020

None of this right-wing lunacy can be considered surprising if you consider its source. After all, these are the same so-called freedom-loving individuals who want the government to have so much power it can outlaw a woman’s autonomy over her own body. In The New York Times, Charlie Warzel called the “liberate” protests “the logical conclusion of the modern far-right’s donor-funded, shock jock–led liberty movement.”
The freedom to die is the only form of liberty Republicans want their base thinking about. And Covid-19 is only the latest pathogen. These people also want the freedom to die in mass shootings; the freedom to die from not being able to afford medicine; the freedom to not take the vaccines they can afford; and the freedom to drive 90 mph on a highway with no seat belt, without “the government” telling them to slow their roll.

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These People Aren’t Freedom Fighters—They’re Virus-Spreading Sociopaths | The Nation

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From former polician Paul Krugman writing last October:

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“Liberty Doesn’t Mean Freedom to Infect Other People”
posted by Jason Kottke Oct 26, 2020
Paul Krugman writes about the harmful effects of “libertarianism gone bad, a misunderstanding of what freedom is all about” that have been made plain by the Covid-19 pandemic.
"But you also see a lot of libertarian rhetoric — a lot of talk about “freedom” and “personal responsibility.” Even politicians willing to say that people should cover their faces and avoid indoor gatherings refuse to use their power to impose rules to that effect, insisting that it should be a matter of individual choice.
Which is nonsense.
Many things should be matters of individual choice. The government has no business dictating your cultural tastes, your faith or what you decide to do with other consenting adults.
But refusing to wear a face covering during a pandemic, or insisting on mingling indoors with large groups, isn’t like following the church of your choice. It’s more like dumping raw sewage into a reservoir that supplies other people’s drinking water."

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"Liberty Doesn’t Mean Freedom to Infect Other People"

Opinion | When Libertarianism Goes Bad - The New York Times

With something from the guru of libertarianism:

"The next question in regard to quarantine is somewhat different, because in the state of, sense of a quarantine, if someone has a contagious disease, against which there is no inoculation, then the government will have the right to require quarantine. What is the principle here? It’s to protect those people who are not ill, to protect the people who, to prevent the people who are ill from passing on their illness to others. Here you are dealing with a demonstrable physical damage. Remember that in all issues of protecting someone from physical damage, before a government can properly act, there has to be a scientific, objective demonstration of an actual physical danger. If it is demonstrated, then the government can act to protect those who are not yet ill from contacting the disease, in other words to quarantine the people who are ill is not an interference with their rights, it is merely preventing them from doing physical damage to others.”

Ayn Rand Answers Paul Krugman: Liberty Doesn’t Mean Freedom to Infect Other People - YouTube

From the CEO of the New Hampshire Health Care Association writing this April:
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COUNTERPOINT: ‘Vaccine Freedom’ Is Really ‘Freedom To Infect’
Posted to Politics April 27, 2021 by Brendan Williams

In 1905, weighing in on a Cambridge, Massachusetts ordinance, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ability of governments to require vaccination. Were the ordinance to be defied, “the spectacle would be presented of the welfare and safety of an entire population being subordinated to the notions of a single individual who chooses to remain a part of that population.”
Smallpox vaccination was required of everyone until 1972, when the disease was largely eradicated. There is not a single state that does not require children to be vaccinated against polio before receiving child care or attending elementary school. The same is true of the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. To attend school, older children in any state need to receive their Tdap vaccine (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis), generally beginning as early as the 6th grade – or age 11 in New Hampshire.

COUNTERPOINT: 'Vaccine Freedom' Is Really 'Freedom To Infect' - NH Journal

THE PHILOSOPHY: PART THREE: WHAT IS FREEDOM?

Finally, from the primary philosopher of freedom:

The True Face of Freedom Wears a Mask
Rational measures to combat the pandemic don’t restrict our autonomy—they make it possible, just like the rules that let us enjoy the pleasures of the open road

By Kwame Anthony Appiah
Aug. 6, 2020 11:24 am ET

In the Cold War era, the Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously singled out “two concepts of liberty” among the many he found floating around. He wrote warily about the allure of “positive liberty,” which typically involved a political community that defined your “true interests” and encouraged or compelled you to pursue them—and which, he feared, could be used to support Soviet-style tyranny. (As a boy, born in Latvia, he had witnessed the Russian Revolution.) “Negative liberty,” on the other hand, was a simpler and more compact notion—it involved the mere absence of constraints imposed upon you by others. Here again was the basic contrast between “freedom to” and “freedom from.”

The True Face of Freedom Wears a Mask - WSJ

With a nice summary here:

Wearing a Mask Makes us More Free ~ European-American blog

In other words, if I wear a mask, I am much freer than if I don't:

"Just as the blissful freedom of the road requires measures to pave those roads, and well-drafted antifraud statutes only fortify the free market, sensible public-health policies—like mask-wearing rules, which protect both the individual and the commonweal—don’t compromise liberty; they advance it," writes NYU School of Law and philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah. "Bluntly put: There’s precious little freedom in the sick ward and less still in the graveyard."

(6) New York University – Posts | Facebook

In other words, you can't do just what you want, as there are other people about: 

The definition of democratic freedom is instead founded on the assumption that “a citizen’s freedom ends, where another citizen’s freedom begins”. In effect, this definition reflects a political and civic reality in which, given the limitations of negative liberty – we cannot steal, we cannot disrespect – citizens have at least the right of self-determination and self-realization. This is what Isaiah Berlin called “positive liberty” – which is the presence of “control and self-mastery”, the faculty of being in charge of your life.

Covid-19 and the perception of freedom | openDemocracy

And that includes the freedom to spread disease:

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Spitting on Other People | The New Yorker

This is from today's Telegraph:

The terrifying truth is that millions do not want lockdown ever to end
We’re entering the early stages of a new culture war pitting freedom-lovers against proponents of Zero Covid
SHERELLE JACOBS
DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST5 July 2021 • 9:30pm

In October 1958, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin gave a groundbreaking lecture at Oxford University on the subject of liberty. There were two kinds, he said. “Positive” liberty – in which freedom is usually only achieved through a collective, utopian quest – would always lead to tyranny, as epitomised by communism. The antidote, he contended, was for the West to champion “negative” liberty instead – the individual’s freedom to do what they want without interference.Some years later, however, Berlin wavered. By defining “negative” liberty as a person’s ability to do what they want (rather than what other people deemed by they...

The terrifying truth is that millions do not want lockdown ever to end

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