Protesters of state public safety measures readily locate in the Bill of Rights the varied and assorted freedom to not be masked, the freedom to have your toenails soaked and buffed, the freedom to open-carry weapons into the state capitol, the freedom to take your children to the polar bear cage, the freedom to worship even if it imperils public safety, and above all, the freedom to shoot the people who attempt to stop you from exercising such unenumerated but essential rights. Beyond a profound misunderstanding of the relationship between broad state police powers and federal constitutional rights in the midst of a deadly pandemic, this definition of freedom is perplexing, chiefly because it seems to assume not simply that other people should die for your individual liberties, but also that you have an affirmative right to harm, threaten, and even kill anyone who stands in the way of your exercising of the freedoms you demand.Sure, that's an awful lot of words, but they're all going into the same strawman around which Lithwick builds her argument. That is, the falsehood that everyone dissatisfied with permanent lockdown wants to harm anyone else. Favorably quoting critical-race Manichaeanist Ibram X. Kendi (who, it is not an ad hominem to point out, is famous for arguing that anyone who isn't an "anti-racist*" is a racist), Lithwick states that not only do such people want to harm others, but they also seek to enslave them by endangering the freedom "of the community." Exactly what freedoms "of the community," she doesn't get around to identifying, let alone explaining why they would necessarily subsume the personal freedoms enumerated in the Constitution. Perhaps she may be referring to the duty of the government to protect the general welfare, but as anyone who's taken Civics 101 knows, that duty is balanced in the Constitution by guarantees of certain personal liberties, and that these two things can and do co-exist. She doesn't seem to know or care. She just knows that if you don't agree with her, you're a racist. Or a gun-toting mass-murderer. Or something.
We now find ourselves on the precipice of a moment in which Americans must decide whether the price they are willing to pay for the “freedom” of armed protesters, those determined to block hospitals, and pundits who want to visit the zoo, is their own health and safety.Here (as everywhere), Lithwick's argument is muddled in vagueness and hyperbole. Are these armed protesters, hospital blockers, and zoophile pundits arguing for freedoms that apply only to them? Or are there freedoms at issue that apply to everyone?
In the end, Lithwick obviates the urgency of her earlier warning with something much more theoretical.
A good rule of thumb for COVID-based discussions about “opening up” is that if someone is demanding it while threatening to hurt or kill you, you are probably not as “free” as they are, and that their project does nothing to increase freedom in America and everything to hoard a twisted idea of freedom for themselves.Good advice, but I don't think anyone talking about relaxing the total shutdown of everyday life actually is threatening to kill me. In fairness to Lithwick, I'd go one further and say that in the unlikely event that someone threatens to kill you, not only should you not be having "COVID-based" discussions with them -- or indeed, discussions of any kind -- you should (a) call 911 and retreat to a secure building or, failing that, (b) exercise your right to self-defense pursuant to the Second Amendment.
*Meaning, you support, among other things, reparations for African-Americans, universal basic income, and "access and control of food, housing and land."
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