The COVID-19 related libertarian hate just doesn’t seem to stop.
It exists as much on the other side of the pond in this era of COVID-19 fear as it does in the US.
Financial Times columnist Henry Mance writes:
Britain has a problem with masks. Earlier this month, only one-third of the public said they wore one when going out — less than half the rate in Germany, France, Italy and the US. Americans, in particular, are baffled by our unwillingness to cover our dentistry.
But online libertarians urge us to fight this creeping authoritarianism — bemoaning “face mask hell”, “the problem with mandatory face masks” and “the misguided mission to mask us all”. Is there a strange overlap between those who brag about the second world war and those unwilling to make the sacrifices that victory required?
I give a full libertarian cry to this view: Bullsh*t to the state.
Putting aside as to whether it was a good thing for the US to enter World War 2 (I don’t think we should have), does Mance understand what sacrifice and victory look like?
It is not about cowering (forever?) behind a mask, and fearing walking into a room where there are other people, on the orders of the state.
It is to step up and face an enemy.
Sacrifice in the age of COVID-19 is to go out and live a normal life.
The only ones that should protect themselves, if they choose, are the men and women who are elderly or seriously ill, who are most susceptible to serious consequences if they catch the virus. And the wimps can hide if they choose. Yes, libertarianism does allow for wimps.
The rest of us, who are at very low risk from serious complications if we are infected with COVID-19, should be out on the damn frontlines–creating that wall of herd immunity so that the elderly can come out and enjoy their last years in the full beauty of civilization.
Let the virus choose among the non-mask wearing, non-social distancing, whom amongst us it wants to infect. We will win in the end.
Yes, there may be a tiny few who will suffer severe consequences, perhaps even die, but not many more than those who die from a normal flu, and as a bonus, most of us will just end up living a fully normal life.
Non-mask wearing, non-social distancing is heroic. It is building a wall so that the elderly can once again truly live in their last years, instead of stagnating as we all hide from the virus on the orders of the state.
Screw the state, let’s start building the COVID-19 wall.
Reprinted with permission from Target Liberty.
