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Exactly. I couldn’t have said it better myself. And the same goes for forcing people to undergo medical procedures, forcing people to purchase health insurance, and tearing down statues.
Tag: individual rights
bookmark_borderMarriage is not “the very definition of freedom and liberty”
Rep. Nancy Mace recently wrote an opinion piece for Fox News in which she argued in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act. “The right to marry the person you love is the very definition of freedom and liberty,” Mace wrote.
I strongly disagree with this claim. There are numerous rights that are far more basic and fundamental than the ability to marry. To give a few examples:
- The right to purchase, carry, own, and possess firearms and other weapons
- The right to decide whether or not to get a medical procedure
- The right to consume whatever substances one wishes, in whatever amounts one wishes
- The right to spend one’s time the way one wishes
- The right to move about freely
- The right to keep one’s own money
- The right to be free from searches of one’s person, possessions, and property
- The right to privacy of one’s medical information
- The right to privacy of one’s internet browsing activity
- The right to privacy, period.
The very definition of freedom and liberty is the ability to live your life as you please. The activities most central to freedom and liberty are individual activities, not social ones or communal ones. In other words, the activities most central to freedom and liberty are activities that people do alone, or at least activities that do not require the involvement of other people in order to be meaningful or to make sense. And that is what the activities listed above have in common. The definition of freedom and liberty is the ability to do what one wishes to do, without interference from others.
There is definitely an argument to be made that people have a right to enter into whatever types of relationships they wish with other people. Items in this category include marriage, as well as freedom of association and freedom of assembly. But these types of freedoms are not as fundamental as the right to be free from interference, aggression, pressure, or coercion. Individual rights are the very definition of freedom and liberty.
It is angering that many on the left-hand side of the political spectrum (I place Rep. Mace into this category even though she is technically a Republican) place such a large degree of importance on freedoms that are related to sex, without seeming to place any importance whatsoever on other types of freedoms. People who subscribe to this way of thinking go on and on about abortion, contraception, marriage, and the ability to express oneself sexually and have one’s sexual identity respected. Ad nauseam, they insult and vilify Republicans for allegedly threatening to take away “our rights and freedoms.” Yet with regard to non-sex-related freedoms, the left is either apathetic or actively hostile (gun rights, the right to decline medical intervention, the right to move about freely, the right to keep one’s own money, and the right to medical privacy, to name just a few freedoms that the left has recently been crusading passionately against). To many politicians, it is apparently perfectly fine for people to be able to do whatever they want sex-wise, while at the same time having absolutely no freedom in any other areas of their lives. This obsession with sex is illogical and hypocritical. Sex is not the only aspect of life that matters – and for some people sex is not part of their lives at all! – so it is important that all freedoms and liberties be protected, and not only sex-related ones.
It is shameful that Congress is spending time and energy protecting the “right” to marry the person you love, while actual rights are under assault. The heart and soul of liberty – its very definition – consists of freedom from interference by other people. Until that most fundamental form of freedom is universally respected, unanimously agreed upon, and secured for everyone beyond the shadow of a doubt, it is hurtful and wrong to focus on the freedom to marry.
bookmark_borderThe war on “ghost guns” is a war on privacy
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix, and New York Attorney General Letitia James recently announced federal lawsuits against companies that sell gun component parts. Their beef is that these retailers distributed parts that people can use to assemble untraceable firearms, also known as “ghost guns.” The fact that New York public officials decided to ban (via a law that took effect in February 2020) something that does not hurt anyone, and subsequently to file a lawsuit against companies that did not hurt anyone, is immoral. And in their public comments, these officials made numerous false and illogical statements that demonstrate their incorrect understanding of morality, justice, and rights.
In his public statement announcing the unjust lawsuit, Adams said: “Whether they are hidden in the trunks of cars or packed in a plain brown box, ghost guns are illegal in our city, and we will take every lawful action possible to stop gun retailers from profiting at the expense of the safety of our city… We will not stand by while illegal operators flout the law, endanger our communities, and kill our young people.”
But companies that make ghost gun parts do not “kill our young people.” The people who fatally shoot people are the ones who kill those people, not the companies that make the guns (or the parts used to make the guns). I’m also not sure why Adams chose to mention the age of the people that he falsely accuses companies of killing. Age is not a morally relevant characteristic. Would Adams consider it less problematic if the people being killed were old?
Hinds-Radix said: “Sadly, people in our city, including children, have been shot or killed with ghost guns… The companies should be forced to assist the city in recovering illegal, untraceable ghost guns they delivered here.”
The same point about age not being a morally relevant characteristic also applies here. Why mention that some of the people killed were children? But more importantly, there is no reason why companies should be forced to assist the city in recovering ghost guns. Ghost guns do not hurt anyone; it is the people who shoot other people who hurt people. Companies who sell the parts used to make ghost guns are not doing anything wrong. Therefore, they shouldn’t be forced to do anything. It is the people who choose to shoot other people, not the companies that sell component parts, that should be punished.
New York Sheriff Anthony Miranda announced his intention to “hold these retailers accountable for willfully endangering the health and well-being of New Yorkers.”
But the retailers did not do anything wrong. People who shoot other people, not the retailers that sell component parts, are the ones who have done something wrong and therefore should be held accountable. It is unjust for companies to be held accountable for something that they did not do.
Attorney General James stated: “While families mourned loved ones lost to senseless gun violence, gun sellers avoided accountability for the illegal and dangerous weapons they sold. There should be no more immunity for gun distributors bringing harm and havoc to New York. My office’s lawsuit holds 10 gun sellers accountable for fueling the gun violence crisis and endangering New Yorkers. Illegal guns do not belong on our streets or in our communities and we will use every tool necessary to root them out.”
I’m not sure why James considers it a bad thing for gun sellers to avoid accountability, given that they have not done anything wrong. For the same reason, I’m not sure why she thinks that there should be “no more immunity for gun distributors.” If a party or entity hasn’t done anything wrong, then immunity is exactly what they should have, and avoiding accountability is exactly what should happen.
In addition to the mistaken idea that gun distributors should be held accountable for other people’s actions, another thing that strikes me about these statements is their emphasis on safety and communalism, and their complete disregard for the rights of individuals. There is no mention of individual rights, liberty, or freedom in any of these statements. Instead, the politicians go on and on about “the safety of our city” and “the health and well-being of New Yorkers.” They bemoan the fact that gun distributors “endanger our communities” and the “harm and havoc” that they bring. Again and again, they mention the impact on “communities,” “families,” and “loved ones,” as opposed to considering people as individuals.
If our leaders actually thought of people as individuals, as opposed to mere members of families and communities, they would realize that ghost guns are actually beneficial, rather than harmful. Because they are untraceable, ghost guns enable people to maintain privacy with regards to gun ownership. This is unequivocally a benefit to individuals. But, as is all too often the case, individual rights such as the right to privacy go completely unrecognized and disregarded by people who care only about safety, health, and the common good.
By criminalizing ghost guns, our society is taking away people’s right to maintain privacy with regards to gun ownership. Perhaps coincidentally and perhaps not, shortly after filing the ghost gun lawsuit, Adams announced a similar crackdown on “ghost cars” – cars that can’t be traced. These actions illustrate a trend towards treating privacy not as a fundamental right that should be protected, but instead as something that should be made illegal. And unlike ghost guns and ghost cars, disregard for privacy rights is truly harmful.
bookmark_borderGun control punishes innocent people
“White supremacy,” the headlines screamed in the days after the Buffalo shooting. Again and again, newspapers went out of their way to mention, as many times as possible, the race of the killer and of the victims. Articles featured quote after quote by so-called experts who pontificated about the growing threat of “right-wing domestic terrorism” and the “toxic beliefs” that allegedly motivated the shooting. Politicians solemnly droned on and on about the “poison” of white nationalism and how it must be eradicated from our society. The common thread among all these sentiments is that they demonstrate a greater interest in condemning and blaming groups of people based on their skin color and/or ideology than in condemning and blaming the shooter himself.
Then came the shooting in Texas. Unable (for the most part) to use this incident to attack white people for their skin color, the political and media establishment opted instead to attack everyone who believes that individual rights should be respected. Just as they have been countless times, the mindless, authoritarian platitudes are repeated ad nauseam. Pro-rights activists are viciously ridiculed for being irrationally “obsessed” with guns. The Republican Party is labeled a “death cult.” Newspaper headlines bemoan the “toll” of gun ownership and the “inaction” of Congress. Laws that actually respect fundamental rights are criticized as “lax” and “weak.” People smugly lecture anyone who will listen that Second Amendment rights apply only if someone is a member of a militia. “Since when is gun ownership a human right?” they derisively ask. (The correct answer: since the beginning of time.) “What clause in the Constitution gives you the right to mow down 10-year-olds with assault weapons?” they scream with a nastiness that is matched only by their idiocy. (The correct answer: none, and no one is arguing that any clause does. Only a moron would equate using a gun to mow down 10-year-olds with merely owning one.) “Enough is enough,” people mindlessly repeat. (My question is: enough of what? Enough of people’s fundamental rights being respected?) Even among Republicans, anti-rights sentiments abound, frequently prefaced by such dishonest statements as “I’m as pro-Second Amendment as they come, but…” Again and again, politicians and activists bemoan the fact that government has “done nothing,” as if it is somehow self-evident that punishing innocent people is the correct response to a tragedy.
Let me tell you unequivocally: punishing innocent people is never the correct response to anything. As I’ve stated before and will continue to repeat as long as there are those who disagree, people have a fundamental right to do anything that they want as long as it does not violate the rights of anyone else. Rights are absolute. You don’t get to take rights away simply because doing so would prevent tragedies from happening. And rights are not contingent upon their exercise being safe or healthy. Rights cannot be violated under any circumstances. Far too often, our society responds to tragedies by violating everyone’s rights in an attempt to prevent similar tragedies from happening again. This punishes everyone for the actions of a few. And punishing innocent people is never OK.
Many people seem to have the idea that if they can just be emphatic enough, or angry enough, or graphic enough in describing a tragedy that has happened, then it will somehow make it clear that innocent people should be punished. I am tired of hearing politicians and activists pompously moralizing, again and again, about parents grieving the deaths of their children, about communities in mourning, about the gory details of the violence that was committed. No one denies that the deaths of innocent people are tragic. What we deny is that punishing innocent people is an acceptable response. It simply does not follow from the fact that a bad thing happened to someone, that innocent people ought to be punished. And this is true no matter how bad the thing is. No amount of dramatic storytelling, graphic detail, or pompous moralizing will cause this to follow. No amount of grief, no amount of rage, no amount of self-righteousness gives someone the right to punish innocent people.
I am an autistic person who loves statues and history, who believes in individual rights, and who is just trying to get through each day the best that I can. I am angry, and I am exhausted. I am tired of public officials, celebrities, and people on the internet falling all over themselves to proclaim their solidarity with whatever group happens to be popular at the moment, while ignoring the feelings and needs of people like me. I am tired of having my fundamental rights taken away when I haven’t done anything wrong. I am tired of being stigmatized and shamed for actions that I had nothing to do with, solely because I happen to have the same skin color as the perpetrator. I am tired of being attacked and insulted for having the audacity to believe that rights should not be violated. I am tired of being punished by having my liberty restricted for actions that I did not do and situations that I did not create.
Instead of focusing on punishing the actual shooters, far too many politicians and members of the media focus on punishing entire groups, whether that be white people, young men, gun owners, victims of bullying, pro-rights activists, or legislators who opt to respect rights instead of violating them. I am tired of the sneering faces, filled with self-righteous intolerance, condemning and blaming me for another person’s actions. I am tired of the scorn, vitriol, and insults being heaped relentlessly upon me – and upon all people who believe in individual liberty – as if I am the mass murderer. I am tired of being called immoral, when failing to distinguish between murderers and innocent people is the epitome of moral bankruptcy.
I haven’t survived a mass shooting, or lost a family member or friend to one, but I am a person, and my well-being matters also. I have experienced, and continue to experience, unbearable loss, anguish, and pain, yet society has not only neglected to punish everyone for what happened to me, it has neglected to punish even the perpetrators themselves. What makes these pompous and self-righteous people so superior to me that society has decided that when I am harmed, no one should be punished, but when they are harmed, everyone should be?
Headlines about people being killed in mass shootings understandably capture the public’s attention, and the photos and stories of the victims understandably tug on people’s heartstrings. As the faces of shooting victims are splashed across newspaper front pages and the TV news, and their family members tearfully and angrily testify before Congress, it seems sacrilegious to argue against the idea that such tragedies should be prevented by any possible means. However, attempts to prevent tragedies at the expense of individual rights must be opposed, because freedom is crucial to having a life that is worth living. The gradual chipping away of liberty – whether by mandating medical procedures, banning the ingestion of substances, or imposing hurdles to gun ownership – is not as dramatic as a mass shooting. But it is just as destructive, if not more so. Of course, these victims didn’t deserve to die. But neither do I deserve to have my life destroyed by being robbed, one by one, of the things that make it worth living. The face below is not the face of a shooting victim. It is not the face of someone who has been harmed by gun violence. It is the face of someone who has been harmed, and will continue to be harmed, by authoritarian policies that attempt to prevent crimes by punishing those who do not commit them.
This, as you may have guessed, is my face. If you support gun control, you support harming me. Just as mass shootings end innocent lives, immoral laws destroy innocent lives, one violation of individual liberty at a time, by making them no longer worth living.
That is not as attention-grabbing as children being shot to death. But it is equally important.
It is wrong for mass shooters to punish innocent people. And it is equally wrong for the government to do the same in response.
bookmark_borderCommunalism and individualism
Something that is said over and over again in our society is that there is too much emphasis on individualism, and not enough emphasis on community. In other words, there is too much emphasis on “me” and not enough emphasis on “we.”
Take, for example, a recent Instagram post by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in which she wrote: “Community and collective good is our best shot through our greatest challenges – way more than discorded acts of ‘rugged individualism’ and the bootstrap propaganda that we’ve been spoon-fed since birth.” Ocasio-Cortez also claimed that “much of the emphasis of media conversations on COVID are individualistic.”
I could not disagree more strongly with these sentiments.
When I look at the world around me, the vast majority of the propaganda being spoon-fed to people emphasizes communalism, togetherness, selflessness, giving, and caring about others. The concepts of individualism and individual rights are underappreciated in today’s society. Contrary to AOC’s claim, almost every institution in our society – from schools to churches to governments to charitable organizations – places an enormous amount of emphasis on community and collective good, at the expense of the individual.
This is particularly true with regards to the Covid pandemic. “We’re all in this together,” goes the familiar slogan. Ad nauseam, people are urged to sacrifice for the greater good and to “do your part” in ending the pandemic. Anyone who dares to disobey or even question the rules made by public health experts is condemned as selfish. With all the emphasis on public health, individual rights have been lost. Individualism has been almost completely abandoned in favor of community and collective good.
And that is unfortunate, because individualism, not community or collective good, is the key to a good world. Individualism is the key to happiness, fulfillment, and a life worth living.
Individualism does not need to be “rugged,” as AOC describes it. Individualism means that each person is different, and what is right for one person may not be right for another. Individualism means that that each person has the fundamental right to live according to his/her values, tastes, desires, needs, and preferences. This might mean living off the land, or driving a pickup truck, or owning lots of guns, as seems to be the popular stereotype. Alternatively, it might mean living in a big city, riding the train, working at a grocery store, and doing art in one’s free time, to give a random example. Individualism might mean holding unpopular opinions and expressing them on social media. It might mean dressing in a unique way, being interested in things that are considered weird or uncool, or simply being quirky or eccentric. Whatever form it takes, individualism means that people get to make their own decisions about their own lives. People get to live where they want, use their money to buy the things that they want, wear what they want, eat and drink what they want, do the activities that they want, get the medical procedures that they want, et cetera.
A world in which people are told to sacrifice their own goals for the public good is a world in which no one gets what they want. A world in which people are told to sacrifice their happiness and well-being for that of others is a world in which no one is happy. Without the freedom to make one’s own decisions, and to live as one pleases, there is no purpose in being alive at all.
There is quite enough emphasis on community and collective good. In our public-health-obsessed society, individualism gets a bad rap, and its proponents are all too frequently dismissed as selfish, entitled, ignorant, and stupid. A world that puts individual rights first may be a more dangerous place, but it is the only type of world in which true happiness is possible and in which life is worth living. The answer to what ails our country and our world is more individualism, not less.
bookmark_borderHospital capacity is not a reason to take away freedom
Over the course of the Covid pandemic, one of the main arguments for violating people’s rights is the desire to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. In my opinion, however, concerns about hospital capacity are not a valid reason for taking people’s freedoms away. By their very nature, rights must always come first.
This might sound hard-hearted or insensitive, but sometimes the demand for things exceeds the supply, and this is simply a part of life that people need to deal with. When an institution, organization, or business is experiencing more demand for its services than it can supply, it is up to that institution, organization, or business to either increase capacity or come up with a system for managing demand. One way to increase capacity is by building field hospitals or deploying hospital ships, as many cities and states did during the beginning of the pandemic. Another way is by asking staff to work more hours, or intensifying efforts to recruit more staff. Some examples of managing demand include using a first come first served system, prioritizing people based on how severe their condition is, drawing names from a hat, or using another randomized method to determine who will receive services. Whichever methods are used, one thing remains constant: any of these methods of managing capacity is a better solution than violating people’s rights in an attempt to reduce demand.
For some reason, many people have the attitude that for hospitals to be over capacity is something that must be avoided at all costs. It follows that controlling people’s behavior in order to reduce the amount of people who become sick is permissible (or even necessary, in some people’s opinions). But this way of thinking is backwards. People’s rights must come first. People have fundamental rights, which include the rights to make our own medical decisions and to move about freely. People must be allowed to freely decide whether to get the Covid vaccine or not, whether to do Covid testing or not, which activities to engage in, which people to get together with, which businesses to patronize, and which locations to visit. Whatever demand for hospitals’ services results from people’s collective decisions, is the demand that results, and hospitals need to come up with a system for dealing with that. Just like any other business or institution, it is the job of hospitals to manage capacity issues if and when they arise. Doing so might require making difficult decisions. Preventing difficult decisions from needing to be made is great if possible, but it does not supersede people’s rights.
It is also worth mentioning that making non-vaccinated people go to the back of the line for medical services is, in my opinion, a permissible option if hospitals are at or over capacity. This solution would address the concerns about non-vaccinated people becoming severely sick and needlessly taking hospital capacity away from people who “deserve” it more. And it would address these concerns in a way that does not violate the rights of non-vaccinated people. Why not have a policy that people who opt against vaccination are doing so at their own risk? Under such a policy, people would be perfectly free to either get the vaccine or not. If someone becomes severely sick from Covid, they would have the option of either showing proof of vaccination to move to the front of the queue, or remaining at the back of the queue if they have not gotten the vaccine or do not wish to disclose their status. Given that this would solve the hospital capacity problem without violating anyone’s rights, there really is no justification for forcing people to get the vaccine (or banning them from occupations, places, or activities unless they get it, which is essentially the same as forcing them). The thought process seems to be that it is somehow more cruel to move non-vaccinated people who become severely sick to the back of the line than it is to force all non-vaccinated people to do something they do not want to do. But this is false, and this way of thinking is paternalistic and illogical.
For things to exceed their capacity is part of life, and there is no reason for hospitals to be treated differently than any other institution, organization, or business. It is morally backwards to argue that hospital capacity should determine which activities people are allowed to do. Although preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed is a worthy goal, it cannot be allowed to dictate how much freedom people are granted. Respecting individual liberty is more important than anything else. Rights come first, and everything else, including concerns about hospital capacity, come second.
bookmark_borderOn safety versus the right to do whatever you want
“Those people think that rights mean they can just do whatever they want.”
“You are saying that people’s freedom to do whatever they want trumps people’s freedom not to catch a deadly disease.”
“You value the right to do whatever you want more than other people’s safety.”
Statements like these have been repeated ad nauseam since the beginning of the covid pandemic. Those who express these views apparently consider the ability to do whatever one wants unimportant. In other words, people have essentially been “pooh-poohing” the concept of being able to do what one wants. Anyone who does value this freedom is attacked as selfish, entitled, and/or irresponsible.
In my opinion, this way of thinking is incorrect. The ability to do whatever one wants is extraordinarily important. Without it, in fact, life would not be worth living at all.
In order to appreciate the importance of being able to do what one wants, it is necessary to distinguish between two different concepts.
First, I agree that there is a sense in which it is not realistic or reasonable to simply do whatever the heck one wants. For example, if you have 10 dollars, and an item that you want costs 15 dollars, then you cannot buy it. You will need to either save up more money, buy a cheaper item, or go without. Similarly, you cannot steal from people, and you cannot go up to someone and punch them in the face. These are things that pretty much anyone would agree with. Additionally, there are numerous situations in which people have to do things that they don’t exactly want to do, but which they choose to do because they are necessary in order to achieve the person’s goals. For example, if you have a job, you need to show up for your shift, do the duties that you are assigned, and wear the uniform or follow the dress code. If you want to become, say, a pilot, you will need to learn how to fly a plane. You can’t just decide that it would be fun to be a pilot and start serving as a pilot without actually learning how to do so. If you want to lose weight, you will likely need to exercise. Everyone should accept that they cannot violate the rights of others, and that they might have to do things that are unpleasant in the pursuit of their goals.
But there is a second sense of not being able to do what one wants, or having to do things that one doesn’t want, that quite frankly no one should accept. This concept includes things that you don’t want to do, and in your judgment don’t make sense for you to do, but you are being made to do them by someone else. For example, say you bought a house in which the previous owner had set up an illegal apartment, with a second kitchen. You have no intention of allowing anyone other than yourself to live in the house, and have no intention of using the second kitchen, but it’s not hurting anyone by existing, and you’d rather not spend the money to have it taken out. But the city tells you that you must have the second kitchen ripped out, because its existence violates the local building codes. That is an example of being forced to do something which you don’t want to do and which doesn’t make sense for you to do. In my opinion, this is something that you shouldn’t have to do. The city is violating your rights.
By requiring people to undergo medical procedures – namely covid vaccination and/or covid testing – as a condition of being allowed to work, go to school, or enter public spaces, governments and institutions are similarly violating people’s rights.
When you are a child, you generally have no say in what medical procedures you do or do not get. When you go to a doctor’s appointment, the doctor might say that you need to get three shots today, or they might say you don’t have to get any. You don’t think of the shots as something that you are choosing, or as something that is beneficial to you; you just view them as an unwelcome intrusion into your life that you have no control over. When the shots are done, you leave the appointment knowing that at least that is behind you for now, and you don’t have to worry about it for another year.
The whole point of becoming an adult is that you never have to think of medical procedures – or any other activity, for that matter – in that way again. You might choose to get medical procedures that are unpleasant or even painful, because you determine that the benefits are worth it. But you should never get a medical procedure because someone else told you that you have to. That defeats the purpose of being an adult. The only time that you should get a medical procedure, or do any other activity, is when you think that it makes sense for you.
Unfortunately, many people who hold political power in today’s society believe that it is completely fine for people to be deprived of their freedom to do whatever they want. These people think that it is right to place safety above people’s rights to make their own decisions, and they think that anyone who disagrees with them is selfish. But this is false. People who deny others the ability to do what they want are treating adults like children. They are taking us all back to the days when, as little kids, we were subjected to whatever medical procedures the doctor decided were appropriate. That was a way of existing which, upon turning 18, I assumed I would never again need to experience, and which no adult should ever need to experience.
Today’s politicians may be creating a society with less risk of catching deadly diseases, but in doing so they are creating a society in which the very thing that makes life worth living is gone. Without the ability to set one’s own goals, to choose one’s own priorities, to weigh risks and benefits, to make tradeoffs, to determine what makes sense for oneself, and yes, to do whatever one wants, then life is not worth living at all.
bookmark_borderBiden’s totalitarianism reaches new lows (again)
I have been so heartbroken, furious, and disgusted by Joe Biden’s September 9 announcement that I have not been able to write coherently about this subject. Reading about and watching his speech was horrifying, and I am ashamed to be from a country that elected him president. I can confidently say that I have never in my life been a fan of Biden, but the degree of authoritarianism and disregard for individual liberty that he has demonstrated is far beyond what I ever imagined possible. For the better part of five days, I have felt completely exhausted, beaten down, and sick to my stomach. I have felt as if my chest is being crushed in a vice and a noose slowly being tightened around my neck.
With that said, here are a few semi-coherent thoughts on Biden’s reprehensible speech:
- Biden’s comments that “it’s not about freedom or personal choice” are preposterous. The issue of whether people should be required to get Covid vaccines or testing is fundamentally a matter of freedom and personal choice; that is self-evident. Clearly, Biden does not think freedom or personal choice are important. His executive order takes these basic rights away from millions of people. But the fact that Biden is taking the anti-freedom position on an issue does not make the issue not about freedom.
- Biden says that his “patience is wearing thin” with people who opt not to get the Covid vaccine. This makes no sense. People who opt not to get the vaccine are doing nothing wrong; therefore there is no reason for their existence to make anyone upset, angry, or frustrated in any way. I don’t know about you, but my patience has completely run out with this fascist government and its attempts to take away people’s power over their own bodies and lives.
- The purpose of OSHA is to protect workers. Under Biden’s executive order, OSHA would require employers to require workers to do medical procedures that they do not want to do. This is the exact opposite of protecting workers, and therefore the exact opposite of what OSHA is supposed to be doing.
- For those who argue that Biden’s executive order protects workers by lowering everyone’s Covid risk, it is true that the executive order benefits those workers whose sole concern is having the lowest Covid risk possible, and who care nothing about freedom, individual rights, or the well-being of those with different preferences than themselves. But people who have this attitude are wrong. Their desire for safety does not override the rights of others to make decisions about their own bodies. Biden’s executive order gives paranoid, anti-freedom people a benefit that they do not deserve by invading the bodies of their co-workers. This is unjust and wrong.
- One person on Twitter equated requiring vaccination with banning people from waving a chainsaw around at work. This analogy is ridiculous. Employers have the right to make rules about what employees are and are not allowed to do while at work, and waving a chainsaw is definitely something that employers have a right to ban. Vaccine and testing requirements are different in two ways. First, they compel people to actively take an action as opposed to banning an action. Second, requiring people to undergo a medical procedure does not merely affect them during their work hours; it physically invades their body. By working for a company, people agree to give up specified amounts of time and energy in exchange for money. But bodily integrity is far more intimate and is beyond the scope of what people should have to give up in order to secure employment.
- The fact that the vaccination/testing requirement will likely apply even to people who work from home defeats any attempt to justify it by invoking workplace safety. Clearly, the vaccination status of those who work 100% remotely has no impact on the safety of their co-workers. This demonstrates that the executive order is not primarily about protecting workers; it is about pressuring as many people as possible into getting the vaccine.
- As for Biden’s comments that if governors will not help to beat the pandemic, he will get them out of the way, this is not only disturbingly totalitarian, but philosophically unsound. Believe it or not, there are more important things than beating the pandemic, such as individual liberty. Of course, beating the pandemic is a worthy goal, but it is never acceptable to violate people’s rights in order to do so. Individual rights must always come first, no exceptions. Governors who recognize this, and who are courageously standing up for the rights of their people, should be praised, not criticized and threatened.
A real leader would have banned businesses from requiring Covid vaccination or testing. A real leader would have instructed OSHA to draft a rule fining businesses for requiring Covid vaccination or testing, not for failing to do so. A real leader would have stood up for individual rights, not trampled on them. A real leader would have threatened to “get out of the way” those businesses and states which are trampling on the rights of their people, not those that are failing to trample.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that we now live in a totalitarian society. Biden’s executive order is the most severe violation of individual rights that has ever been enacted in the United States. Your body is the most fundamental piece of property that you own, and the right to make decisions about it is the most fundamental right there is. If people can be deprived of this right, then people are no longer free in any meaningful sense. The fact that such a thing has happened in the United States is heartbreaking, infuriating, and sickening.
bookmark_borderBishop gets it wrong on vaccine mandate
The diocese of Lexington, Kentucky recently mandated Covid vaccines for all of its employees. In a statement announcing and justifying the decision, Bishop John Stowe demonstrated a disturbing view of morality, which completely disregards the idea of individual rights and is, in my opinion, completely immoral.
“This is an urgent matter of public health and safety. There is no religious exemption for Catholics to being vaccinated, and Pope Francis has repeatedly called this a moral obligation. The health care system is now overwhelmed by a crisis caused primarily by those who refuse to protect themselves and others by getting vaccinated. This is unacceptable, and our diocese now joins those employers who have already made this basic commitment to the common good a requirement.”
(H/T Jack Jenkins on Twitter)
First of all, contrary to what Bishop Stowe and Pope Francis believe, it is simply false to say that getting a medical procedure is a moral obligation. The only moral obligation that a person has is to abstain from violating the rights of other people. No one is ever morally obligated to actively do anything, and that includes getting a vaccine.
Second, it’s wrong to say that any overwhelm of the health care system is caused by those who opt against the vaccine. It’s true that the situation could potentially have been prevented if more people had gotten the vaccine, but failing to prevent something is not the same as causing it. The virus itself is what is causing people to get sick and the medical system to get overwhelmed. The distinction between actively causing something and merely failing to prevent it is a crucial moral distinction that Bishop Stowe completely fails to make.
This leads to my next point, which is that declining to protect oneself and others (decline is a better word than refuse, because it is neutral as opposed to presuming that the person is acting wrongly by opting not to do the thing in question) is actually a perfectly morally acceptable decision. People are morally obligated not to violate the rights of others, and that’s it. No one is morally obligated to actively protect others. No one is morally obligated to protect him/herself, either. People have the right to take any health risks that they want to. One could argue that deciding not to get the vaccine is unwise, but it does not violate the rights of others; therefore it is a perfectly moral choice that people have the right to make.
Contrary to Bishop Stowe’s claim, there is nothing unacceptable about the situation. People have a right to decide which, if any, preventative measures to take with regards to Covid, and the number of people who get sick will correspond to those decisions. Of course, it is sad whenever someone becomes seriously ill, but people have a right to risk this if they choose to. There is nothing unacceptable about people making their own decisions about what level of risk they are willing to take.
As for the comments about the common good, these are completely misguided and, frankly, immoral. A commitment to the common good is not a requirement for being a moral person, and it certainly should not be a requirement for employment. You know what is a requirement for being a moral person? Respect for individual rights. Sadly, that is something that Bishop Stowe, along with numerous other employers, is sorely lacking. The contempt that Stowe demonstrates towards people who have done absolutely nothing wrong is cruel, disrespectful, philosophically unsound, unjustified, and wrong. Joining those employers who have completely failed in their moral duty to treat others with basic respect is not something that he should be bragging about.
bookmark_border“Irresponsible idiots”
Again and again, people who opt against the Covid vaccine are called morons, idiots, selfish, irresponsible, and a whole host of personally insulting nouns and adjectives. Those who spew forth these insults are essentially claiming that people are morally obligated to undergo a medical procedure for the benefit of others. This raises the question: are people who choose not to undergo a medical procedure truly selfish and irresponsible?
In my opinion, no. If anything, it is selfish and irresponsible to demand that others make the same medical decisions that you would make. The freedom to make decisions about one’s body is a fundamental right. My body, my choice, as those on the left-hand side of the political spectrum so often say with regards to abortion (although they seem to believe this principle is confined only to that particular issue). Unfortunately, the fact that the coronavirus spreads from person to person has caused a lot of people to throw the concept of individual liberty out the window. There is a tendency to believe that in situations where a person’s actions affect other people, individuals should no longer have the right to make their own choices.
But that way of looking at things is wrong and misguided. It is true that when it comes to communicable diseases, one person’s actions have an indirect impact on others and on society as a whole by affecting the risk levels in the community. Opting not to get a vaccine does mean that a person has a higher risk of catching an illness, and therefore a higher risk of passing the illness on to other people. But there are numerous situations in which a person’s actions can affect other people. In fact, this is true in almost every situation to some degree. Riding a motorcycle creates noise which nearby people might find unpleasant; unhealthy eating can cause health problems which, if a person has insurance, can drive up insurance prices for everyone; and gun ownership carries a risk that one’s gun could be stolen and used to commit a crime, to list just a few examples.
But these are all actions that people have a right to do. To understand why, one needs to understand the difference between direct effects and indirect effects. If someone were to crash their motorcycle into your house, that would have a direct effect on you. It would destroy your property (and possibly physically injure you) and therefore violate your rights. Shooting someone would fall into the same category, as would stealing someone’s money, or giving someone Covid on purpose by deliberately coughing or sneezing on them. These actions all directly harm another person. Opting not to get a vaccine, on the other hand, does not directly harm anyone. It affects others only indirectly, by affecting the risk levels in the community. Declining the vaccine increases your risk of catching the virus, but it does not directly cause you to get it, because it is possible to decline the vaccine without catching the virus. Therefore, declining the vaccine certainly doesn’t cause anyone else to get the virus, because even if you get the virus yourself, you may or may not give it to another person.
Your habits affect my risk level, those on the left argue, so they are my business. Your personal decisions make me less safe, so you don’t have a right to make them. But these arguments disregard the direct negative impact that is inherent in taking people’s freedom away. Being subjected to an unwanted medical procedure, or being pressured into doing something one does not want to do, violates rights and is inherently harmful. Effects on risk level and safety are not adequate justification for taking away the right to bodily autonomy and thereby inflicting direct harm. The fact that actions have indirect effects on other people does not override the concept of individual rights. If it did, then individual rights would essentially cease to exist.
If you consider me selfish because I am unwilling to give up my right to control my own body, then so be it. I would rather be a selfish, irresponsible idiot than a mean, stuck-up, contemptuous, intolerant bully.