October, 2020
Lincoln and Berlin – In Nebraska and its neighboring states of Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Missouri, Covid-19 cases are on an alarming upswing.
So is a new description of "freedom," which heretofore has been well-defined by the memorable aphorism, "The freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." To many in these states, that definition of freedom no longer applies.
The two developments are linked, as significant numbers of residents refuse to follow public health measures like social distancing and mask-wearing to curb the spread of the disease. They say that to follow them is a violation of their freedom. Unfortunately, they are given support and encouragement by top elected officials, including the governors of these states, who decline to mandate and enforce public health measures that would curtail Covid-19, and who even threaten local officials who favor such measures.
Siding with those who metaphorically swing their fists into others' noses, the governors have imperiled many other freedoms that we once enjoyed. These include the freedom to travel safely, to associate in proximity with friends and family, to carry on businesses and business activities, to vote safely at polling places, to send our children safely to schools. I feel the loss of these freedoms acutely; so surely do most of us.
Is there any serious political theory behind defining the "freedom" of a few in such a way that so directly takes away the freedoms of the many? Such ideas were once dismissed as crackpot, and deservedly so.
But with so many governors embracing the notion that it is their governments' role to protect swinging one's fist with abandon in the name of freedom, leaving sickness and death as a consequence, it is time to take a new look at what reasoning is behind it. We deserve and should be demanding answers.
The governors' notion is closely aligned with an urge to give up and not fight the coronavirus, to see it as inevitable, to let it run its course. Nebraska Governor Ricketts from the outset has suggested the virus cannot be stopped; his actions have never been premised on limiting the number of cases, but on sending the sick to hospitals. This often aligns with the Trumpist view of the virus, which waxes and wanes irresolutely, depending on entertainment value and the need to distract from scandal.
There are shades of Social Darwinism in such thinking: survival of the fittest. Those with good genes will survive. This is not a new idea. We once went to war against it.
Which not coincidentally brings us to Berlin, a city bracing for another wave of the virus but with a different approach. Rather than twisting the meaning of freedom to rationalize giving up, as parts of America are on the verge of doing, German health minister Jens Spahn describes the upcoming struggle simply as a "test of character." German public health measures are in place. Along with good political leadership and reliance on leading-edge science, Germany beat back the first wave of the virus and saved thousands of lives, compared to the poorly led American effort. For the second wave, it will be up to the strength and will of the people to overcome the virus.
Outcomes everywhere are much in doubt. I'm pulling for those, wherever they are, who summon strength of character to fight the virus, rather than giving up in the name of a bizarre notion of freedom that is destroying the real freedoms we all want once again to enjoy.
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Post Script (five days later): Glad to see the same points now being made more widely by Michael Tomasky in the New York Times, 17 October 2020. He juxtaposes Austrian economists against John Stuart Mill.
