Who would have thought that Sweden would end up being the last place in Europe where you could go for a beer?
writes an understandably surprised Swede (No lockdown please, we’re Swedish). In Sweden, the state tells people
how many slices of bread to eat per day … We still close liquor stores at 3 p.m. on a Saturday. The general idea is that if people were given the freedom and responsibility to figure out these things on their own, anarchy might follow.
And I can’t work out whether to call it ‘hardly less surprising’ or ‘barely more surprising’ that, at the other end of Europe, Portugal is (for now) following the same path. Instapunditer Sarah Hoyt was born and raised in Portugal but left because it lacked things like the first amendment, the second amendment and a lively SF culture.
The cynic in me is happy to suggest some less-than-libertarian explanations.
– Sarah Hoyt quotes the Portuguese Prime Minister explaining they avoided lockdown because the Portuguese are “more organized than other Europeans” – then adds
I have no idea what he’s smoking, or where he found it, but that’s potent stuff.
– Sweden has an unusually docile native population, an unusually different immigrant population and a political class that calls it bigotry for visible police actions to betray statistical differences between the two. Trying to enforce a lockdown is sure to offend many politically-correct regulations. Further, a society whose police seem already unable to control immigrant predilection for grenades and automatic weapons lacks the reserve of unused power needed to enforce a lockdown.
However the same attitudes that give me those thoughts also tell me that Swedish politicians will not only not speak them, even behind closed doors, they will have a hard time thinking them – which challenges my cynical explanation. Ordering the police and media not to mention the colour of suspects they seek lest the public see trends, yet thinking that
in a liberal democracy you have to convince and not command people
not to go to the pub, may seem absurd to logical libertarian and logical statist alike – but freedom owes much to the fact that humans are not logical. That Portugal may be too ill-organised to enforce statist solutions is another common way in which liberty survives its enemies, but at the moment it is not that they are trying and failing – they are actually not trying.
Thus we have our experimental controls – our null-hypothesis case studies. We’re doing a huge experiment to see how well locking down a nation can address a pandemic – an experiment whose costs’ ability to rise exponentially over time matches that of any disease graph. I don’t know how good or bad it will be for the Swedes and Portuguese, but it will be very good for the after-action report on this if a couple of moderately comparable nations stick with seeing what happens when you don’t lock everyone up.
Portugal is a country I know fairly well and I speak the language. I have been following some of their media. They have far fewer deaths recorded than Spain, (246 I see today) and seem to be managing better than their Commie-governed neighbour, or perhaps they are more specific about what they count as an epidemic-related death. Here is an interactive map purporting to show where cases are found. But I have read of some savage state action in the North East (Tras-os-Montes) with fines and jail for breaking regulations. Portugal has a history of a lot of bureaucracy which seems to have survived the end of the New State in 1974 and found new vigour with the EU.
I certainly would not call the Portuguese ‘more organised’ than other Europeans. There has been a streak of bureaucratic bloody-mindedness I have seen in my occasional interactions with their bureaucracy, but not the sort you may find in the UK. Overall, it is a charming country, and when this is over I shall post another travelogue, but about the Alentejo. Quite why Portugal is getting along so mildly compared to Spain and Italy with the virus may be due to factors such as:
1. Vicious Lefty governments like Spain’s and Italy’s (the Italian one far less nasty) won’t let a crisis go to waste and want as much of a power grab as possible, Italy may be using the opportunity to attack the black economy (rather than reducing taxes, regulation, spending and bureaucracy). The Podemos Deputy PM in Spain, Iglesias has been salivating at the prospect of mass nationalisations (which the insane Spanish Constitution of 1978 seemingly permits in one article).
All the wealth of the country in its distinct forms and whatever may be its ownership is subordinated to the general interest. (Article 128 of the Constitution).
He’s not wrong to say that is a blank cheque, there are mutterings that the Constitution appears to equivocate about that in other articles, but the insanity is welded in place and just waiting for the right people to come along to use it.
2. The political history of Portugal and the coup of 1974 may have created a general dislike of blatant State power and bully-boy tactics from government, whilst ignoring the strangulation of the bureaucracy which is easier to ignore.
As for Sweden, perhaps the government do fear that they cannot enforce a quarantine, and in any case, if the epidemic kills mainly the elderly, that’s likely fewer Swedes left as a proportion of the population so perhaps they aren’t bothered. They would only ban referring to criminal’s ethnicity if they knew it could cause a reaction, so that’s an implicit acceptance of there being an issue. Perhaps they fear the police losing out altogether against the criminal gangs and the State losing its fragile monopoly of violence.
There is at least one other country where you can not only go for a beer, but go pub-crawling, and with a companion for good measure. (As long as you stay at least 2 meters away from any other person, in and out of the pubs.) That is Estonia.
Some commenters here have accused me of advocating lockdowns. I don’t mind when, in an otherwise delusional comment, i get accused of something of which i am innocent. But for the record, i have not advocated lockdowns for the simple reason that i knew that the lockdowns would be imposed, no matter whether i advocate for or against them.
Would i impose lockdowns if i could? that is a different issue. It depends. Here in Estonia there does not seem to be any need for lockdowns: 4-day growth average of active confirmed cases* is 5.73%. That translates, if my math is correct, into a doubling time of 12 days. If these policies are not working, there is time to act before the number of cases double. (That assumes that the real number of active cases is not increasing faster than the number of confirmed cases, of course.)
I would not impose a lockdown HERE, but i might, if the situation changes.
* total confirmed minus (recovered+dead).
I did not know you were based in Estonia Snorri – if you have mentioned it in the past I have forgotten (I am old).
Interesting posts and comments.
As for the United Kingdom – I have heard the current situation compared to the rule of the Major Generals under Oliver Cromwell, and I have seen it compared to the controls imposed during World War II.
This appears to be wrong as the controls now are actually more severe than they were under Cromwell or during World War II – even most PRODUCTION is shut down.
There is talk of reopening the Whiskey Distilleries – but as-far-as-I-know most general factories remain closed.
That can not continue – as it would lead to total economic collapse.
The attitude of the British people (compared to other people – such as the Swedish) – it is, it SEEMS, fairly special.
Unlike the Germans the British rarely,it SEEMS, ask for reasons behind regulations – “the rules are the rules” is the closest thing we get to religion in the United Kingdom.
There are even mass celebrations of government agencies – not the people who work in them, the agency itself. It is the agency, the government institution, that, it SEEMS, is held to be sacred – regardless of how it performs in practice.
I hope I am mistaken – I hope I am WRONG. I hope that the population of the United Kingdom are not as they seem to be.
Recently a Republican member of the State Legislature of South Dakota died of COVID 19. The media tried to get the family to condemn the Governor of South Dakota (who has refused to impose a “lock down”). But, I believe, they have refused – pointing out that their family member died as he had lived.
A free man.
Unlike some I do not believe that the controls on consumption will sink us economically – but the controls on production certainly will.
The factories and so on must reopen – and they must reopen soon.
Or there will be a vast number of deaths – from economic collapse.
Seems appropriate to repeat my comment from earlier today at
https://www.samizdata.net/2020/04/samizdata-quote-of-the-day-1275/#comment-797078 :
Julie near Chicago
April 4, 2020 at 4:45 pm
For those of you who are feeling obsessed, distressed, and suicidal over either C-19 or the jabber about it, you might find somehing a little less depressing in Richard’s (Epstein’s) take from, admittedly, two weeks ago: “The Libertarian: Law, Economics, And Coronavirus,” in which he discusses the friction between libertarianism and the (apparent) facts on the ground at that time.
~ 22 min, with Troy Senik.
https://www.hoover.org/research/libertarian-law-economics-and-coronavirus
Hi Paul! I mentioned a couple of times that i live in Estonia, but i certainly did not expect you to read all my comments!
I should clarify that Estonia is also suffering economically, because gyms, swimming pools, cinemas, shops in shopping malls that do not sell food or medicines (but not shops outside shopping malls), and other places where people congregate unnecessarily, have been closed. In addition, bars & restaurants, though still open afaik* must have suffered a huge decline in income.
* I have not gone to areas with bars or restaurants for over a week.
Schools and universities are also closed, but teachers and professors need not worry about their income 🙂
A few days ago i found an interesting article (probably via Instapundit) that made me think about the Pareto principle. The article focuses on human super-spreaders: people who infect lots of other people (most of the infected will infect at most one other person). But i think that governments should instead focus on super-spreading locations: places where people congregate.
Hospitals and supermarkets are obvious candidates, but we cannot realistically close them, so we must take precautions. In Austria, it is now forbidden to enter a supermarket w/o a face mask.
Most other places where people congregate should probably be closed, unless people can be kept at least 6 feet apart. Businesses that suffer economically can be offered government support.
All other places of business can remain open, as long as distancing rules can be maintained.
I must stress, however, that these precautions must be taken very early, like a month ago in the UK, even earlier in Italy. This is necessary because they might not work. When Boris imposed a lockdown, he no longer had the luxury of closing only the places where people intermingle: he could not take the risk. Maybe Boris went too far: history will tell; but that the British police are so stupid as to focus on people taking walks in Derbyshire instead of policing the Tube (if it’s still open), is not entirely Boris’ fault.
PS:
Reopening whisky distilleries should definitely be a priority.
Nursing homes linked to 15% of New York COVID-19 deaths.
So there is a good chance that we’ve shut down the economy to cover up the fact that old people in nursing homes are going to die because the State can’t be bothered to look after them properly.
Secondly, if these people are in ‘sheltered accomodation’, what is the problem with putting them into isolation rather than destroying the economy?
A few days ago I read a couple stories about Sweden’s laissez faire approach to the Chinese virus (no lockdown) versus other countries such as Norway (lockdown ordered March 12). Current numbers: Norway, 5,550 cases, 62 deaths; Sweden, 6,443 cases, 373 deaths. The curves seem to be bending downward in both countries. FWIW. (Yes, I posted this on another blog, in case anybody is keeping tabs.)
As for Portugal (and other places) people seems to think that what has happened so far (rates, trends, whatnot) are just going to continue on the same path. This is a highly infectious virus and who knows waht the future will bring. Every place in the world started with 0 cases and 0 deaths. M,y how quickly things change.
Both of these statements are good news – and even I will concede that the second is even better news than the first. 🙂
One way to kill freedom is the temporary measure that becomes permanent. (Hitler’s four-year enabling act – faithfully renewed every four years by the now-appointed reichstag – was the legal basis for his rule until the end of the third reich.) Illiberal measures that literally cannot become permanent are less dangerous than illiberal measures that can.
(That said, a time of intense economic distress can also be dangerous to liberty in and of itself.)
Bit annoying if you need to go to the supermarket to buy facemasks because you’ve run out…
A slight problem with the ruminations over Portugal. The place is closed down as I can see out my window. Bars and restaurants have been closed for 2 weeks now. Beaches even. Only food shops still open (OK, pharmacies, dentists and, bizarrely, opticians).
As to Portugal not being organised again something I find odd. Sure, of course, Roman/Latin bureaucracy run amok with added the place was a fascist dictatorship until 1974.
But it’s one of the few places I’ve been (obviously, Britain being another one) where there’s a natural sense of queueing and a social enforcement against queue jumping. Fiddling the state is not just justified but enjoyed. Screwing your fellow citizen is very much frowned upon.
You know, there is such a thing as society it’s just not the state.
Snorri – I have never been to Estonia (and never will now), but I admire the country.
Tim Worstall.
Niall ….
As you know more than four thousand people have now died in the United Kingdom from the virus – but rather than admit the possibility that there is anything wrong with its approach (for example that there might possibly be something wrong with MEDICAL TREATMENT in the United Kingdom), the government is “Doubling Down”.
We, the British public, are now told by the Secretary of State for Health that he may end our one period of outside exercise per day.
It would be an interesting experiment – we would then see if there is anything, anything at all, that will lead to the British people actively dissenting.
My own view, which is just a guess, is that the government will (in a couple of weeks) start to “back off” – rather than drive the British people over the cliff.
The economic, and other, harm done will still be great – but perhaps recovery will be possible.
In defence of the government…..
I doubt the elected politicians have made any of these decisions (such as keeping the borders of the nation open to the virus for months) themselves – they have just done what they have been TOLD to do, by the officials and “experts” (the “experts” who, as recently as late January, were saying there was no great danger).
Democracy formally exists in the United Kingdom, in the sense that there are elections and the people can change the party in power – but in many cases policy is NOT really made by the politicians that the people elect.
I think the libertarian fretting about totalitarian closures is somewhat exaggerated.
The Kung-flu is a natural disaster – not a man imposed one. Given the circumstances it makes sense to keep social isolation, to stay at home most of the time (as much as feasible), to wear masks, to wash hands, to avoid big gatherings.
I think the whole tourism industry (airlines, hotels, restaurants etc.) closed down naturally. Same for sport events, concerts, museums, etc.
So, in a hypothetical case where we had a libertarian State who just recommended logical measures to slow down the epidemic without enforcing lockdowns, and without “draconian” measures – the closing down of economic activity (or grand portions of it) would have happened just the same, out of free choice of the people and their will to survive.
So the alarm over totalitarian measures is somewhat exaggerated.
We can also see a mass hysteria and a herd mentality in action.
People are dying, in increasing numbers. So people scream: “DO SOMETHING” to stop it. They address whom they always address – the substitute for the Father in Heaven – that is – the Government.
“China has imposed a lockdown, why don’t we do the same??? We must, but absolutely MUST do anything possible, like the others have done. There is no time for logic or reason or seeking proof that it works. You want piles of bodies?? Do it right NOW!”
This hysteria or herd madness is hard to resist. The “leaders” (politicians) play it safe and do what others have done, and that’s it. I can’t blame them. An angry mob demands it.
Not annoying at all since you don’t need to buy face masks: they are handed out at the entrance.
Meanwhile in that part of the UK called Scotland, the Chief Medical Officer has broken her own rules by visiting her holiday home (to check that it’s secure: according to one of her colleagues) with the entire family in tow, went for a walk on the beach with the family dogs, and spent the night (though it’s only about 90mins drive from Edinburgh).
But she’s apologised to Nicola Peron/Evita Sturgeon, so all’s good!
All animals are equal……….
Here is a case from Israel: people who get infected are ordered to stay home (to recover) so as not to infect others in public space.
An infected man (tested positive, and knew it) was caught riding on a bus of the public transport.
Surely he needs to be punished by the State for breaking rules and endangering others. Surely some safety measures are required which libertarians dislike – like monitoring his smartphone or even forcing him to wear a bracelet which monitors his movements.
Some quasi-totalitarian measures are required.
Jacob, I see nothing anti-libertarian about restricting the movement of someone who has tested positive for the virus.
Atlas Shrugged isn’t a suicide pact . . .
Atlas Shrugged isn’t a suicide pact . . .
This.
I found this, by Hayek no less, on the emergency powers of government quite good. I’ve read it several times over and am still thinking about it (via Instapundit).
Well, it’s good to know that if you or I ever decide this lockdown stuff is getting excessive and start to ease up on how strictly we adhere to it then all we have to do if caught is apologise.
Oh, wait ….. 😡
Chance’d be a fine thing! 🙂
“I found this, by Hayek no less, on the emergency powers of government quite good.”
Good find! Thank you!
“Well, it’s good to know that if you or I ever decide this lockdown stuff is getting excessive and start to ease up on how strictly we adhere to it then all we have to do if caught is apologise.”
It’s what they said from the beginning. The police said they would start by explaining the situation and asking you to comply. If you do, that would be the end of it. Only if you continued breaking the rules would they bring enforcement actions. So you can probably get away with it once.
Looks like we may have another vector that completely undermines the social distancing and ‘lock-down’ Marlarky.
Domestic cats can contract covid-19. Guess what fraction of the population loves to cuddle tiddles?
What next, a government cull of all cats?
Stand by as the rat and mouse population explodes.
The architect of our current tyranny, and of Huawei running our 5G network is reportedly now in hospital. Sic semper tyrannis springs to mind.
Bobby:
Agreed, but that raises some difficult issues.
Suppose someone has a 99% probability of being infected, by virtue of close association with an infected person. Should (s)he be allowed to go out until the test results come up?
Suppose someone has an 80% probability of being infected.
Suppose someone has a 50% probability of being infected.
Suppose someone has a 20% probability of being infected.
At what point do you restrict the movement of a potentially infected person?
SG,
I do not ‘suppose’ anything, I work from principles. If you suppose, you concede everything.
But the media storm grew too great so, after Sturgeon tried to ride it out just long enough that everyone knows that was her intent, she has now accepted her chief medical officer’s resignation – leaving Sturgeon (it would seem to me) with the worst possible result PR-wise.
I am unsurprised this is Sturgeon’s level of play, but at a time like this one could have wished for leadership that did better through being more farsighted even in its own self-regarding terms.
Correction to Philip’s link to PowerLine above at
Philip Scott Thomas
April 5, 2020 at 3:27 pm :
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/hayek-on-emergency-powers-of-government.php
“Agreed, but that raises some difficult issues.
Suppose someone has a 99% probability of being infected, by virtue of close association with an infected person. Should (s)he be allowed to go out until the test results come up?”
Indeed. Suppose somebody has a 0.1% chance of being an Islamic terrorist, should they be allowed to immigrate? Can we restrict their movement that way? Well, it depends.
It’s not just the probability that matters, but also the impact. A 99% chance that it will kill one person is one thing, a 1% chance that it will kill 99 people is another. One person infects four people who infect sixteen who infect sixty four who infect two hundred and fifty six who infect 1024 and before long you’re talking real statistical serial killing. And what about the example it sets?
You can do a sort of calculus of death, but it runs into emotional/moral factors too. Do all lives count the same? Do lives lost in the service of saving others, or for some other good reason, weigh as heavily as lives lost because somebody was selfish, and only interested in their own pleasure? Does it make a difference why they had to die? Does it matter whose side they are on, politically?
“The architect of our current tyranny”
What, for the whole world?
“Sic semper tyrannis springs to mind.”
Or ‘De mortuis nihil nisi bonum’.
“But the media storm grew too great so, after Sturgeon tried to ride it out just long enough that everyone knows that was her intent, she has now accepted her chief medical officer’s resignation – leaving Sturgeon (it would seem to me) with the worst possible result PR-wise.”
I wouldn’t have thought so. An honourable resignation sends a completely different message to a sacking. Forgiveness, tolerance, and leniency a different message to vindictiveness, strict punishment, and lack of compassion. It’s important not to let this public mood turn into ‘mob justice’. Anyone can make a thoughtless mistake, and lots of people will, and if we start turning on one another and destroying peoples’ lives over misjudgements, well, we can expect to be judged ourselves in the same terms. No, this is standard. The CMO should be given the opportunity to take responsibility for her own actions.
We should judge her, as we would wish to be judged if we were caught going out for two walks a day, or buying easter eggs, or trying to buy three of anything at the supermarket, or sneaking round to a mate’s for a couple of tins of beer while sat six foot apart. Do you want to be publicly shamed before the entire nation, and your entire life and career destroyed? Or would you hope for your friends and colleagues to stand by you? Is this not a time to show humanity?
I agree with you that enforcement of the principle can be problematic.
But the principle is still Step One. If we chose our principles based on how hard or rewarding they would be to enforce, we’d be . . . well . . . progressives.
(IOW, what Mr. Ed said.)
I’m pretty happy for these tinpot fascists to be hoisted by their own petard. If the Scottish Governments own officials can’t abide by these diktats why should the plebs like myself?
I do, but that is because I have a care for myself and those (especially the elderly and unwell) around me.
She’s a member of the Euro power-clique that has imposed and eagerly enforced arbitrary rules on the masses, and she violated those rules in a way that leaves a “let them eat cake” taste in the mouth.
I think “honourable” is a stretch.
“If we chose our principles based on how hard or rewarding they would be to enforce, we’d be . . . well . . . progressives.”
Progressives have principles too. It’s just that they only apply them to their opponents.
“She’s a member of the Euro power-clique that has imposed and eagerly enforced arbitrary rules on the masses, and she violated those rules in a way that leaves a “let them eat cake” taste in the mouth.”
Being part of a Euro power-clique has got nothing to do with it. That just tells me it’s political, not about principle.
And it’s been very noticeable how people at the top have been very careful to emphasise that any enforcement is supposed to be tolerant and understanding of first offences, and to use common sense. They rely on people’s willing cooperation for this, there is no way they could ‘enforce’ it under these circumstances without that. It was certainly thoroughly stupid to risk the public goodwill by breaking the rules, and there can be no argument that she didn’t know any better. It’s a political disaster, but not because of the “let them eat cake” politics of envy and resentment, but because it puts the health protection programme at risk.
Our principles, on the other hand, say that this sort of thing should be done voluntarily, we do it because it’s sensible, not because “it’s the rules”, and that misjudgements should initially be dealt with by education and persuasion, and getting people to voluntarily stop doing it, not force or punishment. We need to stick to our principles, too, even when it is politically expedient not to. Otherwise, as you say, we’d be no better than progressives.
Had she been defiant and denied it, or said she was going to carry on doing it regardless, then that merits enforcement under her own rules. If she shows contrition and promises not to do it again, then that gets just a warning. If you’re going to make her live by her own rules, then do so. If you’re going to make up your own, even harsher rules, then expect them soon to be applied to everyone, including you. As you judge, so should you be judged.
NiV, this harkens back to an older discussion about whether we ought to hold people to the rules about free speech that they wish to impose on others.
I’ll just say that you’re more charitable than I.
Julie near Chicago
April 5, 2020 at 10:53 pm
My bad. Thank you!
Nullius in Verba
April 5, 2020 at 11:02 pm
Whilst I agree with the jist of what you say, in this particular case I disagree.
This wasn’t a one-off, thoughtless, “mistake”: this was a pattern of behaviour as she admitted that she had travelled to her holiday home the weekend earlier.
And as she is/was Chief Medical Officer her actions should have been beyond reproach.
She was the public face of public information broadcasts in Scotland, telling the plebs to stay at home. To find out that she was, meanwhile, swanning off to her holiday home with her family (possibly dragging Covid-19 with her to infect the residents of Earlsferry) is beyond parody.
No NiV, this isn’t political, it’s F*CKING ANGER.
Nullius is (unintentionally, I assume) quoting Sturgeon today, save that Sturgeon said ‘she’, meaning the official she tried hard to retain, where Nullius wrote the more inclusive ‘anyone’, and where Nullius’ wrote the excusing ‘thoughtless’, Sturgeon expressed the same excusing idea by the tone in which she uttered ‘mistake’.
I am with Duncan S (April 6, 2020 at 8:31 am). It does not need politics – it only needs rational thought – to recognise when an excuse is an insult (so justly angering) because it is so transparently untrue. This behaviour cannot be sensibly assessed as a mistake. (It could not be even if it was a one-off, not part of a repeated pattern.) Scotland’s chief medical officer knew the rules – who could know them better than she who wrote them – and was beyond-reasonable-doubt in no doubt that she was violating them. When Sturgeon and she announced these rules two weeks ago today, they made it plain that Duncan and I and all such commoners, such mere voters, would be fined if caught violating them after the swiftly-prepared legislation was in place. It may well be that some spirit of forgiveness has had a mention in England but in Scotland I heard that broadcast and do not recall any assurances of no fuss for a first time offence – or a first-time-caught second offence.
There is of course also a rational political aspect, one peculiarly appropriate to this blog.
– It was well in the power of Scotland’s chief medical officer to carve out an exemption for dog-walkers that included herself, e.g.
or suchlike. That she had two weeks to think of such a thing but did not do it is very diagnostic of just what kind of a non-mistake this was. I’ve commented before now on the predictable tedium of one-size-fits-all government controls. If the only refinements of these rules that us yokels are given are thought of because some self-regarding official noticed that they too needed them, that would still be better than nothing. If we let them get away with refining the rules just for themselves, we will get no such relief.
-Yet more fundamental is the political rule that forcing the powerful to live by their own lockdown rules is by far the best way to ensure they are called off as soon as may be. (As was remarked above, there are parallels with an earlier discussion about the equal oppression of the laws.)
So I suggest Nullius is misreading the situation. One way to resist anyone in a place of power deciding that this crisis would be a terrible thing to waste is to demand that however the laws are enforced on us must be how they are enforced on them.
“Suppose someone has an 80% probability of being infected.”
So, when you walk on the street a cop asks “papers please”, and checks the blacklist of infected people, and if you’re on it you are arrested. “Me? Why me? I’m perfectly healthy, there must be some mistake!”, “Sorry sir, get into that black van, please”.
People who are not infected (haven’t been tested) but have some symptoms or have been near an infected person must do self-quarantine.
So, next scene:
“Sir, our data-base (based on phone tracking) shows you have been near an infected person. Into the black van!”
“And as she is/was Chief Medical Officer her actions should have been beyond reproach.”
Yes, so should everyone’s. So should ours. As libertarians, for example, we should be adhering to libertarian principles perfectly, which requires applying our principles to friends and enemies equally. But we’re all human.
“No NiV, this isn’t political, it’s F*CKING ANGER.”
It can be both.
That anger is why every revolution overthowing the tyrants throughout history has failed – the downtrodden are always *ANGRY* with the tyrants, and the first moment they get the chance their immediate inclination is to put the boot in. And then they find that they like the power, and letting their anger have its way without restraint, and keep on using it, and before long they’re the new tyrants. Whether it’s the poor overthrowing the rich, or the Protestants overthrowing the Catholics, or the Catholics overthrowing the Protestants, or atheists overthrowing the religious, or natives overthrowing the colonists, or feminists overthrowing the patriarchy, or blacks overthrowing the racists, or gays overthrowing the homophobes, or any of the bullied overthrowing the bullies – the downtrodden are always incredibly *angry* at their former rulers, and figure that when those rulers face the same sort of oppression they *deserve* it, there’s no punishment too harsh for what they did, there are no limits, and they the former-oppressed are totally justified and in the right. It’s called ‘Social Justice’.
It’s a trap. That anger, which all humans feel, is why we keep on going round the same cycle, one ruling class being replaced by another just like it. Different rules, same methods. An endless spiral of revenge. “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” We just take turns wearing the boot.
The ideal of libertarianism is that we stop using the boot. We adopt a set of principles and then we apply them to *all* sides, our friends and enemies alike. We grant free speech not just to our friends and allies, but to our opponents too. We grant a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty, Blackstone’s principle, not just to our friends and allies, but to our enemies too. We allow free trade not just for our friends and allies in the same guild, the same union, the nation as us, but we allow outsiders to compete on an equal footing. We might be angry at the outsiders, we might find ourselves paying a price for letting them in, but we do it anyway because we know that things look the same to every side, from every point of view. They’re angry at *us*. *We* are the outsider they want to keep out, to lock up, to silence. So the rules have to be applied to all sides equally. Our enemies have the same freedoms, our allies are subject to the same constraints. And only with this condition can everyone understand why the constraints should be the absolute minimum we can get away with and still operate as a society. Because everything you can do to them in your anger, they can do to you in theirs.
There’s nothing wrong with being angry about it. That’s natural. But we shouldn’t demand anything of her that we wouldn’t demand of any of our own number who got caught breaking the same rules. And considering how many people around here seem to have been edging in that direction, judging by their comments, it’s pretty rich for us to suddenly turn around and demand harsher penalties – Social Justice because of her Privilege. Yes, she was wrong – but so are a lot of people. Yes, she’s a hypocrite, not practising what she preaches – but so are lots of people. We are, as I say, all human.
NiV
Whilst I understand, and, actually agree, with what you are saying in your last comment, in this instance you really don’t get it: I am presuming you don’t live in Scotland and are therefore protected from Scottish politics, TV news or newspapers (if you live in Scotland, then you really, really don’t get it ).
This isn’t demanding harsher penalties because some one broke the rules: The police spoke to Catherine Calderwood (possibly under caution) about her actions, same as they would anybody else.
And this isn’t about your neighbour, work colleague, random in the street, breaking the lock down regulations.
This isn’t your GP telling you to stop smoking, whilst you know he’s a 60 a day man.
This is the official face of Covid-19 in Scotland: the public face of the regulations enforcing the lockdown. The woman who appears(ed) on public information films every night on the TV telling everyone to “stay home, stay safe, protect the NHS”.
This is the woman who appears(ed) every night on the TV beside Nicola Sturgeon to give an update on the Covid-19 epidemic.
This is the woman whose colleagues originally said “well, she’s been working 24/7 for the last few weeks and hasn’t been able to check on the security of her holiday home”, only for it to come out that she had been there the weekend before with her husband.
This is the woman who issued photographs of her family outside the family home in Edinburgh clapping for the NHS in the week between her two visits to her holiday home in Fife.
Even if this was a “mistake” on her part, how about her husband’s actions: he went with her twice to their holiday home, breaking the lockdown regulations. Now if people were calling for HIS resignation, over and above a police caution, that would fall under your comments on inappropriate “social justice”.
There was no way she could continue in her public role after all that, and Nicola Sturgeon was a fool to imagine that she (Nicola) could keep Calderwood in place, even in the background. If Calderwood had any particular background in virology or epidemiology, perhaps, but Calderwood’s medical experience is in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
So, yes, I agree with your comments on the downtrodden and tyranny.
But that doesn’t apply in this situation.
Catherine Calderwood is not a hill worth dying for.
Stay sane everybody.
“This is the official face of Covid-19 in Scotland: the public face of the regulations enforcing the lockdown. The woman who appears(ed) on public information films every night on the TV telling everyone to “stay home, stay safe, protect the NHS”.”
Yes, and almost certainly didn’t ask for or expect that job under these circumstances, didn’t design the rules, and didn’t want that particular spotlight. She’s a figurehead. She’s the administrative head of the organisation, so she winds up on TV representing the corporate position, but it’s like the CEO of a company taking the rap for what the engineers and middle managers did, or a Minister taking the rap for what a handful out of the thousands of civil servants she leads did. Her field is obstetrics and gynaecology; what the hell does she know about epidemiology?! She’s doing the job of a newsreader, a spokesperson, an actor, but doing it with the authority of the nominal ‘leader’ of the organisation.
And employees of an organisation, even their leaders, can have different views privately to the corporate positions they’re paid to present in public.
“There was no way she could continue in her public role after all that”
No, probably not. The public are angry about the whole thing, and the press scented blood, and a scalp they could collect. Resignation was the only feasible move, once they saw that. But I’d still argue that it’s better to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. If you want forgiveness, then you have to forgive.
Bobby and Mr Ed: it is difficult to understand why you are talking about principles, when i explicitly said that i agree with your principle.
You and Jacob seem to think that my comment was advocating some specific policies, while there is nothing of the sort in my comment. I was only raising some questions, and they are far from hypothetical questions.
Item: not all test results will be accurate. There will be some false positives, maybe 1%. So, if you compel all people who test positive to stay home, you are compelling people to stay home because the probability of their being infected is 99%.
Another item: when there is a case in a school, most cities will close the school, even though much less than 50% of the students and staff will be found to be infected. Not NY City, though; that is, not until they had to close all schools. Who took the right decision, DeBlasio or other mayors? to judge from the tone of your answers, it seems that you think that DeBlasio was correct.
“Item: not all test results will be accurate. There will be some false positives, maybe 1%.”
Here’s one I saw earlier.
Great! Something more to worry about!
As I have said before on other threads, the government has not concentrated its attention on curing the disease.
This is not because they are evil – they are NOT.
It is mistaken policy of hoping the disease will just go away (if we hide) – mistaken, NOT evil.
The intentions are not bad.
says Guido. It is highly relevant to my post – and to more than that – so I link it here for convenience.
An interesting interview. He seems to be saying that there’s ‘no science’ behind the idea of a general quarantine. He said that he thought more than 50% in the UK had already had it, which would imply we’ve already reached herd immunity level and can therefore release everything immediately, but at the same time is saying we can’t release the lockdown without more waves of infections and deaths, and is saying we’ve got a long way to go. That makes no sense to me. Much of his reasoning seems to be based on the mortality rate being about twenty times lower than everyone else thinks it is, but doesn’t say what his evidence for that is. I don’t think he understood what point the Imperial paper was trying to make, he didn’t explain in detail what he thought was wrong with it but of the few things he did say say about it I think several were not quite right, or were missing the point. Like, he said they hadn’t accounted for the increase in health service capacity, but the reason for not doing so is that we have no way of predicting that, and in any case it’s obvious (and the health service would have told them so separately) that we can’t increase it ten-fold in a month. He didn’t seem to know where the current death totals in the UK were, or what our population is, which suggests he’s not been following it closely, or doing a lot of modelling on it himself. And at one point he described the proper policy as being to slow the infection rate down to keep it within health service capacity, and to shield the elderly, but otherwise let it proceed, and didn’t seem to understand that this was exactly our plan.
Still, we’ll find out soon enough if he’s right. One good thing about the current crisis is that things are moving so fast, we can often test scientific predictions within a few months, sometimes even before they’re published.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20062133v1
Also interesting – the hospitalisations levelled off in Sweden around 23rd March, and the deaths started dropping around 8th April. So it would appear that the measures they’re currently taking (which have been gradually ramped up) are sufficient.
OTOH deaths per million inhabitants in Sweden are ten times the level in Finland. It is possible that Finland’s final count will reach Swedish levels, but i doubt it: confirmed cases and deaths are not increasing any faster in Finland than in Sweden.
It is also quite possible than the Finns are under-counting deaths from the CCP virus, but a ten-fold under-count seems unlikely.