Amen!
https://www.aier.org/article/personal-liberty-sacrificed-at-the-altar-of-covid-public-safety/Personal Liberty Sacrificed at the Altar of Covid Public SafetyAn uptick in deaths from or with COVID-19 in the Scandinavian nation late last month, in common with the rest of Europe, has prompted a deluge of condemnation: Sweden’s strategy to control the coronavirus has “failed”.
Yet Sweden does not stand out in terms of coronavirus deaths.
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In short, the so-called ravaging would be news to Swedes, who have been able to go about their lives relatively normally this year.
Without the relentless drumbeat about cases in the media — often induced by mass testing rather than actual illness — few would even know there was a pandemic in Sweden or anywhere else.
A more reasonable conclusion from the data would be that Sweden has had much the same level of death as other countries, without resorting to mask orders and authoritarian lockdowns, whose costs are yet to be assessed.
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Let’s be frank. This isn’t really a debate about saving lives. Cost-benefit analyses will show the expenditure on saving people from COVID-19 was magnitudes greater than we spend to avoid other deaths.
Communicable diseases kill about five million people, of a far younger age than COVID-19 victims, every year. And there’s barely a peep of concern about that from those who are suddenly dripping with compassion for nursing-home residents, urging action from their salubrious homes with tenured incomes.
This is a debate about the rights of the individual in relation to the state. It’s a debate about whether the ends always justify the means, and whether the risk of a tiny increase in mortality among the over-80s justifies interventions unseen in modern history.
On these deep questions, coronavirus case and death numbers are unlikely to change the minds of many.
Jane Fonda was right when she said COVID-19 was God’s gift for the left. The pandemic has bolstered the public sector as the private sector shrivels. It has fuelled panic that has pushed people to seek safety from government. It has made millions dependent on government for their income. It has seen the rights of assembly, of association, to work, to conduct business, to have a private life all suspended indefinitely in the service of public health. Meanwhile, Facebook and Google brazenly have censored dissent, perhaps to curry favour with governments they fear will regulate them.
In short, 2020 has been a chilling display of how quickly rights fought for across centuries can be snuffed out temporarily. It will be interesting to see how quickly they come back. Maybe we should keep the QR code infrastructure in place just in case. Why shouldn’t governments know your whereabouts if it can help save lives?
As for Sweden, it will be difficult for its leaders, who have started introducing more stringent regulations, to resist the siren call of lockdown. The political economy is simple: there are no political costs from locking down. Only COVID-19 deaths matter politically, so it’s safer to be seen to be doing something than not.
American journalist HL Mencken once said the average man wants to be safe, not free. We should be aware, though, that as technology improves, governments will be able to provide even more safety — but at a much heavier cost to our freedom.