In a free society, the body politic sometimes has to temper liberty for a greater good, but should this be a function of government or of common sense?
Here is a question to ponder: Do rights have limits? And if so; who (or what) is the arbiter of those limits?
The concept of a "right" is currently undergoing some revision in our society. It seems like almost every day, another populists is dishing out a new right from the buffet of social entitlement onto our already heaping plate of personal liberties. But are these truly "rights" in any classical sense, and can they be defined in any way as true"liberty?"
Perhaps one of the best places to start thinking about rights and liberty is Thomas Jefferson's delineation of "inalienable rights:" (Those being; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) in the Declaration of Independence. As a libertarian, I personally believe in the concept (often attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes) that my inalienable rights end where my fist meets your nose. To put it another way: I have a right to life. If you are imminently threatening my life (i.e. you are an arm's length away with a weapon and perceived malintent) I have every ethical (and legal ) right to defend myself. This "right to life" however, does not extend to my preemptively killing you, because I think you might have a weapon, and may harbor malintent.
The same goes with the pursuit of happiness: My pursuit of happiness may mean listening to misogynistic rap music describing rape and prostitution; but that right does not extend to me blasting the same out of my car at 600 decibels.
In a free society, we all have an obligation to protect everyone's personal liberties; but at the same time we should try to remember that in doing so we can run the risk of taking too big a slice of the personal-freedom-pie from one group to give to another.
A good example of this is health as a right. If we use the same logic as we did with the inalienable right to life above, one could argue that if my health is immanently jeopardized, and you come at me with an undetectable virus, I have every ethical (and legal) right to dissuade you from infecting me. But should this right to health extend to preemptively banning all people I come in contact with because I think they may have an undetectable virus? In my opinion (from a personal freedom position) the answer is "yes," because your rights end where my nose begins (or if current epidemiology is correct-- three feet from my nose).
If however you try to exchange healthcare for health as a right, the civil liberty argument breaks down considerably. If I have a right to healthcare and I feel my healthcare is immanently threatened by an epidemic, do I have a right to demand treatment? And if so; from whom and by whom? The answer in this case is "no" in my opinion, because my perceived right to healthcare ends at my nose, and I have no ethical (or legal) right to compel a doctor to treat me, or for you to pay for it.
Many civil libertarians I know are chaffing this week over governmental closures of businesses as an intrusion on free enterprise; of curfews as an infringement on the right to assemble, and the right to freedom of association; and of transportation restrictions as an infringement on the right of free movement of goods and services. I however disagree with this assessment. The rights described above all end at the tip of my nose . If we truly believe that our rights end where our fists meets a nose, we should all willing surrender this temporary freedom voluntarily without government intervention.
However, the recent rhetoric of healthcare as a right is a different matter altogether, and one that might cause grave social disorder if we truly have the degree of illness some epidemiologists expect. Just like during the Black Death, we will have an unenforceable social contract that will rupture a frightened and confused populace who has come to believe a right exists where none is present or even possible.
Civil libertarians everywhere need to be mindful of this, because the statists are taking notes. If we do not temper our own liberty voluntarily (with discretion) from time to time with private isolation and good-sense regarding the purchase of food and supplies, we will only invite more stringent curtailments the next time around. Perhaps when "equitable climate" is defined as a right by the buffet loving populists.
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