
In just a few short weeks we have cast aside freedoms it took centuries to win - mrfusion
https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/may-june-2020/so-happy-to-be-serfs/
======
WheelsAtLarge
"I have been trying to point out that quite prominent figures in science and
medicine do not agree with the policy of several major governments—that
stifling personal liberty and crashing their economies will protect us from
the Covid-19 virus. And almost nobody has seriously disagreed with me."

Ok, who are these people? And if their point of view is so strong why aren't
they front-page news?

One of the cornerstones of freedom is that individual freedom stops once it
impedes on someone else's. We live in a shared society that has limits on
everyone's freedom and keeps us from doing anything we want. We have the
responsibility for not doing things that will hurt others. In a pandemic, it
just so happens that what we do impacts other members of society.

It's true, freedom is important but freedom comes with responsibilities to
others too.

And yes, the freedoms are still there, we just have to understand that freedom
does not mean doing anything we want all the time.

~~~
qubex
I herald from Italy, basically Ground Zero of the Western impact with the
COVID-19 pandemic, so maybe my view is somewhat biased (though I saw it from
afar, as I am currently in nearby Malta).

I honestly think it’s way too early to fret about lost freedom. There are very
valid reasons why certain behaviours must at the present time be enforced or
curtailed.

The loss of freedom will only become visible if, once the emergency subsides,
the prior ways are prevented from being reinstated. Certainly, some concern
is... _understandable_ , at this moment in time, but it’s far from a done
deal.

I think the right way of framing it is in terms of what (for example) the
British endured during World War II: blackouts meant you were not allowed to
illuminate anything outdoors during night-time, so as to avoid giving bombers
any aid to navigation, and rationing meant that simply having money to spend
didn’t necessarily suffice to buy what you wanted — both notions that would
make latter-day people bristle. And yet that phase came and went, because it
was mandated by circumstances, and ultimately the governments of the day had
no nefarious reason to deprive their citizens (subjects, actually, in the
cause of Britain, but I digress) from the freedoms that they had enjoyed
previously once the reason for suspending those freedoms had passed. Not to
mention freedom of the press...

So, yes, I can see why people are worked-up about this. But I think the “jury
is still out”on these issues. After all, we’re in a totally extraordinary
circumstance.

------
mrfusion
Key quote:

The freedom to leave your house when you wish to and go where you will is not
a civil liberty or a political liberty. It is part of being a free man or
woman. Those who do not have it, who fear being scolded like a child, fined
and disgraced for being out on the street without government approval, are
like serfs tied to the land they work.

~~~
qubex
It’s a key quote, but it’s not necessarily true, to be perfectly honest.
There’s a lot of bluster, false equivalences, and hyperbole going around at
the moment, and this seems to be a prime example of that.

From where does the analogy flow? We’ve always had behaviours that are
forbidden and places that we cannot trespass upon. This could equally be seen
as a (hitherto unprecedented, in recent times) extension thereof. I’m not
saying it _necessarily_ is, mind you, just offering it as an equally plausible
alternative to show how truly arbitrary the statement is.

As for the notion of a “free man”, it seems to be a platonic idealisation on
par with that of the spherical cow in a vacuum: a convenient theoretical
construct suitable for facile speculation, but not one that encompasses the
full gamut of the real world’s complexities. There’s many things “free men”
are not free from and have never been free from even in jurisdictions that
nominally subscribe to the notion (in the US, for example: taxes, the draft
when it’s used, _& cetera_) and these emergency measures are simply a draft of
that.

The last one is particularly telling: during WWII the American public were
told they were fighting for freedom, and were drafted in droves into the ranks
of the military — an act that (obviously) was not voluntary. And yet freedom
as a platonic ideal endured.

