Personal freedom ends where another’s safety begins
By Letter to the Editor on September 17, 2020.
There are some anti-maskers in every community. There may be a variety of reasons why they are against wearing masks but I believe the one which I hear most often is that it limits their personal freedom. And I can’t disagree with that. It is a restriction on one’s freedom. So is being regulated to wear seatbelts in vehicles. So is the law requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets. In both cases, both fatalities and injuries decreased after the respective laws came into effect and persons started using the restraints and helmets.
Health care in Canada is not free. Taxes pay for it. If you pay taxes then you’re paying for health care. And you’re not required to pull out a chequebook if you are booked into a hospital. Health-care costs decreased from road and highway mishaps after these laws came into effect. The government was helping to protect the public purse by instituting these laws even though it was a restriction on personal freedom.
Wearing face masks is not meant to save the wearer from the coronavirus. The wearing of a mask is meant to protect others from the germs or the virus of the mask wearer. Persons in the vicinity of a mask wearer are not protected from all the germs and/or viruses which the mask wearer possesses but they are protected from the vast majority exhaled by the wearer.
There are persons in our society who are carriers of the Covid-19 virus and don’t realize it. They are called asymptomatic carriers: they have the virus but they show no signs or minimal symptoms of having the virus. However, when they are in close proximity to others, they spread the virus (usually unknowingly) when not wearing a face mask. Therefore, for the good of society and to help reduce health-care costs these minimal restrictions on personal freedom are not only a smart step in the prevention of the spread of the virus but also warranted municipal legislation.
There’s an old saying that your freedom to throw your fists about ends where my nose begins. And your freedom to not wear a mask ends when I am in your presence. I and the rest of society don’t want our health and our health-care dollars to be impaired just because you think your personal freedom is being somewhat restricted.
Ken Moore
Stirling
9-8
Well said, Ken Moore!
Indeed. well stated.
supreme court rules nlfd ban on travel is an acceptable violation of charter rights: recognises charter rights are violated, but overlooks, as it has on seatbelts, check stops etc….so, charter rights are valid unless court decides that govts violating them is ok. hardly much of a charter, then, is it, when rights can be violated whenever we are told they need to be. checkstops: violating a person’s right to move without being harassed by the state, you know, just in case. seatbelts and helmets: i use them, and expect they will protect me, but that is a choice that should be a mandatory option. to use public health as a way to undermine freedom is dirty. best no one plays sports – injuries cost us; best no one hikes, climbs, cycles, eats sugar, drinks alcohol, eats fast food, eats processed foods, drives cars (most die in cars now because of had trauma – time for helmet laws)…we should all be wearing masks forever more because there is flu that leads to deaths and other similarly communicable diseases that can lead to complications that kill and cost public health.
one may be bought into covid as a pandemic – i feel we are missing way too much info: the numbers in canada show a tiny fraction of the op dies from covid; but, what we do not know is what % have a serious experience short of death and with what ongoing/rest of life adverse effects. the death numbers alone do not suggest pandemic; but a knowledge of the % experiencing serious effects may support the hype. however, to consider using public health as a means to subvert one’s choices is insidious.
wear a mask – despite there being an anything goes approach to what is a mask. i noted in another entry that if we were to allow condom use as such, there would be a lot of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases afoot. better still, wear a helmet at all times with full visor – that should should protect one best at all times for all types of risks. but whatever you do, do not wear a mask for me, and do not use public health care as means of public control.
have a look at “the social dilemma” on netflix. interviews with intelligent and former key players in the digital/social media realm wrapped around a tongue in cheek rather amusing storyline that opens up the viewer to how we are manipulated, and how easily and subliminally we are affected and subject to mass control.
i further feel these references are not too far off the mark; certainly worthy of consideration.
Marshall Mcluhan, from wikipedia: Global villageIn the early 1960s, McLuhan wrote that the visual, individualistic print culture would soon be brought to an end by what he called “electronic interdependence:” when electronic media replaces visual culture with aural/oral culture. In this new age, humankind will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a “tribal base.” McLuhan’s coinage for this new social organization is the global village.[i]
The term is sometimes described as having negative connotations in The Gutenberg Galaxy, but McLuhan was interested in exploring effects, not making value judgments:[45]
Timothy Leary: from wikipedia, Leary explains in his 1983 autobiography Flashbacks:
“Turn on” meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers engaging them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. “Tune in” meant interact harmoniously with the world around you—externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. “Drop out” suggested an active, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. “Drop Out” meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily, my explanations of this sequence of personal development are often misinterpreted to mean “Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity”.
and, lesser known to be sure, https://mises.org/wire/lockdowns-great-reset
this is an article copied from the link. it may not be completely off the mark
The lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the implementation of long-held plans to establish a so-called new world order. Under the auspices of the World Economic Forum (WEF), global policymakers are advocating for a “Great Reset” with the intent of creating a global technocracy. It is not by coincidence that on October 18, 2019, in New York City the WEF participated in “Event 201” at the “high-level” pandemic exercise organized by the John Hopkins Center for Health Security.
This coming technocracy involves close cooperation between the heads of the digital industry and of governments. With programs such as guaranteed minimum income and healthcare for all, the new kind of governance combines strict societal control with the promise of comprehensive social justice.
The truth, however, is that this new world order of digital tyranny comes with a comprehensive social credit system. The People’s Republic of China is the pioneer of this method of surveillance and control of individuals, corporations, and sociopolitical entities.
For the individual, one’s identity is reduced to an app or chip that registers almost any personal activity. In order to gain a few individual rights, and be it only to travel to a certain place, a person must balance such apparent privileges with his submission to a web of regulations that define in detail what is “good behavior” and deemed as beneficial to humankind and the environment. For example, during a pandemic, this sort of control would extend from the obligation of wearing a mask and practicing social distancing to having specific vaccinations in order to apply for a job or to travel.
It is, in short, a type of social engineering which is the opposite of a spontaneous order or of development. Like the mechanical engineer with a machine, the social engineer—or technocrat—treats society as an object. Different from the brutal suppressions by the totalitarianism of earlier times, the modern social engineer will try to make the social machine work on its own according to the design. For this purpose, the social engineer must apply the laws of society the way the mechanical engineer follows the laws of nature. Behavioral theory has reached a stage of knowledge that makes the dreams of social engineering possible. The machinations of social engineering operate not through brute force, but subtly by nudge.
Under the order envisioned by the Great Reset, the advancement of technology is not meant to serve the improvement of the conditions of the people but to submit the individual to the tyranny of a technocratic state. “The experts know better” is the justification.
The Agenda
The plan for an overhaul of the world is the brainchild of an elite group of businessmen, politicians, and their intellectual entourage that used to meet in Davos, Switzerland, in January each year. Brought into existence in 1971, the World Economic Forum has become a megaglobal event since then. More than three thousand leaders from all over the world attended the meeting in 2020.
Under the guidance of the WEF, the agenda of the Great Reset says that the completion of the current industrial transformation requires a thorough overhaul of the economy, politics, and society. Such a comprehensive transformation requires the alteration of human behavior, and thus “transhumanism” is part of the program.
The Great Reset will be the theme of the fifty-first meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2021. Its agenda is the commitment to move the world economy toward “a more fair, sustainable and resilient future.” The program calls for “a new social contract” that is centered on racial equality, social justice, and the protection of nature. Climate change requires us “to decarbonize the economy” and to bring human thinking and behavior “into harmony with nature.” The aim is to build “more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies.” This new world order must be “urgently” implemented, the promotors of the WEF claim, and they point out that the pandemic “has laid bare the unsustainability of our system,” which lacks “social cohesion.”
The WEF’s great reset project is social engineering at the highest level. Advocates of the reset contend that the UN failed to establish order in the world and could not advance forcefully its agenda of sustainable development—known as Agenda 2030—because of its bureaucratic, slow, and contradictory way of working. In contrast, the actions of the organizational committee of the World Economic Forum are swift and smart. When a consensus has been formed, it can be implemented by the global elite all over the world.
Social Engineering
The ideology of the World Economic Forum is neither left nor right, nor progressive or conservative, it is also not fascist or communist, but outright technocratic. As such, it includes many elements of earlier collectivist ideologies.
In recent decades, the consensus has emerged at the annual Davos meetings that the world needs a revolution, and that reforms have taken too long. The members of the WEF envision a profound upheaval at short notice. The time span should be so brief that most people will hardly realize that a revolution is going on. The change must be so swift and dramatic that those who recognize that a revolution is happening do not have the time to mobilize against it.
The basic idea of the Great Reset is the same principle that guided the radical transformations from the French to the Russian and Chinese Revolutions. It is the idea of constructivist rationalism incorporated in the state. But projects like the Great Reset leave unanswered the question of who rules the state. The state itself does not rule. It is an instrument of power. It is not the abstract state that decides, but the leaders of specific political parties and of certain social groups.
Earlier totalitarian regimes needed mass executions and concentration camps to maintain their power. Now, with the help of new technologies, it is believed, dissenters can easily be identified and marginalized. The nonconformists will be silenced by disqualifying divergent opinions as morally despicable.
The 2020 lockdowns possibly offer a preview of how this system works. The lockdown worked as if it had been orchestrated—and perhaps it was. As if following a single command, the leaders of big and small nations—and of different stages of economic development—implemented almost identical measures. Not only did many governments act in unison, they also applied these measures with little regard for the horrific consequences of a global lockdown.
Months of economic stillstand have destroyed the economic basis of millions of families. Together with social distancing, the lockdown has produced a mass of people unable to care for themselves. First, governments destroyed the livelihood, then the politicians showed up as the savior. The demand for social assistance is no longer limited to specific groups, but has become a need of the masses.
Once, war was the health of the state. Now it is fear of disease. What lies ahead is not the apparent coziness of a benevolent comprehensive welfare state with a guaranteed minimum income and healthcare and education for all. The lockdown and its consequences have brought a foretaste of what is to come: a permanent state of fear, strict behavioral control, massive loss of jobs, and growing dependence on the state.
With the measures taken in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, a big step to reset the global economy has been made. Without popular resistance, the end of the pandemic will not mean the end of the lockdown and social distancing. At the moment, however, the opponents of the new world order of digital tyranny still have access to the media and platforms to dissent. Yet the time is running out. The perpetrators of the new world order have smelled blood. Declaring the coronavirus a pandemic has come in handy to promote the agenda of their Great Reset. Only massive opposition can slow down and finally stop the extension of the power grip of the tyrannical technocracy that is on the rise.
Author:
Antony P. Mueller
Dr. Antony P. Mueller is a German professor of economics
Ken Moore offers a well-argued pro-mask position. I agree that personal freedom ends where another person’s safety begins.
However, if readers are unaware that there is an unsubstantiated premise in his argument, they are likely to conclude that anti-maskers are either stupid, or stubborn, morally irresponsible, or perhaps all three. That premise is that masks stop the majority of Covid-19 virus particles from getting through. The premise is plausible, but not supported by the scientific evidence.
The question is whether the virus is transmitted by droplets of water too big to get through the mask. Many people know that there is an alternative possibility – that the virus is transmitted in the air we breathe, unhindered by the masks. These particles may remain in the air for long periods of time and be carried for long distances. Seasonal data suggest that humidity reduces the rate of transmission, and this may be due to the fact that higher humidity causes the particles to collect in water droplets and fall out of the air.
For those who would like to look further into this, you might start here: https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/masks-dont-work-covid-a-review-of-science-relevant-to-covide-19-social-policy. This article was originally on ResearchGate.net, but was taken down. Why?
Those who are aware of this alternative are not simply irresponsible morons. They are pro-social skeptics. They know that funding skews what the public gets to find out. When they protest mask-wearing they are trying to stop us all from jumping too quickly to conclusions.
Let us be patient and respectful with others on all sides of this issue. Let no one be silenced, either by social pressure, or from being denied access to a way of expressing their view. We are all fallible.
“That premise is that masks stop the majority of Covid-19 virus particles from getting through. The premise is plausible, but not supported by the scientific evidence.”
Maybe not the majority, but obviously something over the nose & mouth is better than nothing at all. Please don’t try to blur the line between skepticism and ignorance.
Sometimes what seems obvious just isn’t true. To be honest I haven’t done enough research to be sure of anything with regard to the effectiveness of masks. I find the literature to be complicated and confusing. There are different kinds of masks, different kinds of studies on different kinds of people with different kinds of infections, and so on. But I have looked at the literature, and I don’t get the sense that it is at all clear that masks are effective. For example, this study, https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article#tnF2, says “None of the household studies reported a significant reduction in secondary laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the face mask group.” So maybe I don’t know how to interpret this evidence for SARS-COV-2, I don’t know, but how would you reconcile that statement with the claim that masks are somewhat effective. Do you have evidence that masks work, apart from a gut-feeling that it’s obvious?
Gut feeling? lol! Here.. https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf
Take your time to absorb it. This part is in there…””moderate certainty evidence shows that the use of handwashing plus masks probably reduces the spread of respiratory viruses.”
..and many more examples.
Thank you for this. I’m a fence sitter, but this article does shift my opinion toward the pro-mask position. One point of agreement in common between this article and Rancourt’s anti-mask position is this: “Although no randomized controlled trials (RCT) on the use of masks as source control for SARS-CoV-2 has been published, a number of studies have attempted to indirectly estimate the efficacy of masks.” (I quote from the article.) The difference between the writers of this article and Rancourt is over the importance of randomized controlled trials (RCT). Rancourt thinks they are essential in order to formulate a science-based policy. I do not know whether he is right about that, so I remain on the fence. Before my mind gets made up I need to think more about the necessity of RCT. If you discover some analysis about their importance in this context please let me know.