Fear Not Enough To Make Violence Appealing

You can deal with a problem by force or you can deal with it via voluntary measures. In response to the Coronavirus, we have seen increasingly what I would describe as tyrannical measures being adopted for our safety, of course.

You can seek to introduce many infringements under the flag of safety.

This is not to discount the notion that the Coronavirus has been a real threat to those who have come into contact with it or lost their life because of it; the situation has only proven to be the perfect opportunity for the government to flex its authority in a myriad of ways and it's debatable as to how reasonable or effective those actions may be.

I see the government engage in actions which contribute to a loss of life in the thousands with their activities overseas and elsewhere. Governments around the world routinely lie to their people on a regular basis, but now in the face of a scare event like Coronavirus they come to be our savior and protect us from ourselves and others.

Regardless of the fear associated with this virus, I still prefer freedom and believe that freedom is the best course of action.

Crises of all kinds, whether economic, political, military, or health, send ideologues scrambling to explain how such events fit neatly into their worldview. In fact, political partisans often attempt to paint any crisis as having occurred in the first place precisely because their policies and preferences have not been adopted.... The Wuhan coronavirus seems tailor-made for this. Alarmists who argue for (i) much more robust and comprehensive "public health" measures by national governments and (ii) greater supranational coordination inevitably point to infectious diseases as justification for increased state power over personal medical decisions. Scary and fast-spreading viruses are perfect fodder for their busybody argument that people cannot simply be left to their own devices. - J. Deist

If we are going to adopt these sorts of strict limitations on freedom in the face of hundreds or thousands of deaths, then we must also consider the same limitations on freedom for a wide range of other regular activities and products.

If they too contribute to just as much death or probability for injury, should we not, for the sake of our 'safety'?

Yet, we do not see this from the government or from the public to a large extent either. The same concern for general 'safety' isn't exercised across the board with all activities and products.

When the media has been pumping fear porn on that issue of safety for weeks however, that is when you see more people start to care and governments promise new restrictions.

The media fuels this fear and then stands back, questioning why everyone is panic buying around the world.

From the UK to Australia, Ireland, the United States, many shelves are seen empty, rations have been implemented in certain areas, more security guards hired to help police products being sold, and business curfews put into place too now.

"These are the sorts of things that authoritarian politicians want all the time. Crises simply provide an opportunity to ratchet up their power and also to accustom the public to being ordered around and taking cues from centralized government sources." - J. Deist

Unfortunately we see governments around the world, and millions of people supporting them, all too eager to use a health crisis as a means to trample upon individual rights.

When trying to deal with a public health crisis or a multitude of other issues in society and the economy today, we are all too quick to resort to violent means as the only way of dealing with the problem. There are other alternatives though.

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