THE ABSURDITY OF LOCKDOWN 2.0“A man walks through an eerily quiet, once-busy street lined with closed-down stores and burnt-out vehicles. Some of the storefronts display boarded-up windows, others with spattered red paint on the glass-like blood on a wrecked car’s windshield. Some of the stores have been victims of looting, the shards of glass on the ground a diamond-like reminder of the recent mayhem. Our protagonist takes a deep breath; the sound audible in the vast silence. He releases the breath slowly and continues to walk. His nostrils flare. He detects a familiar smell in the air: something’s burning. His ears twitch as he hears the distant roar of a mob, the volume rising with each step he takes. He sees in the distance a fiery orange glow growing larger; the fire that has been raging for months, continuing to spread.”
The above scene may sound like the prologue of an apocalyptic novel by, say, Stephen King. But it could easily be a blend of scenes from 2020: moments pulled from a nightmarish year—the end of which most of us will be happy to see.
And as countries throughout Europe and some states in the US move into a second wave of covid-inspired lockdowns, it’s worth reflecting on what we’ve encountered thus far in this surreal year, and ruminating on the absurdity of a second lockdown.
“Stay at Home. Wear a Mask. Science Is Real.”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard or saw those three short statements bandied about on- and offline, I’d have quite a few, although admittedly I wouldn’t be rich. But I’d likely be in a better position than many small businesses that have been thrown into the unforgiving sea by their government only to be tossed a meager life vest by the same people who wrestled them overboard in the first place. It’s worth noting that the life vest hasn’t been enough to save some from sinking to the murky depths—with many more to follow suit.
Let us take a moment to consider those three regularly regurgitated phrases:
Stay at home. This was and still is the order given by many governments around the world, telling their citizens that they should venture outside only if it is “essential” or for a spell of light exercise. Limits on how far you can travel (in Ireland, for example, it’s within a five-kilometer radius of your home), and how many people from other households you can invite into your privately owned property (again, in Ireland this number is zero as of this writing, and that includes your front and backyard), have been declared by the powers that be. Fines, public shaming (do not dare question these measures or partake in anti-lockdown protests!), and a bad reputation await those who break these rules.
Wear a mask. While this writer personally has no problem wearing a face mask if a business owner requests it, it is interesting to note that years of scientific analyses on the effectiveness of face masks when it comes to hampering the spread of infectious respiratory illnesses like the flu, have shown it to be negligible. Go to the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) website right now and you’ll read that “no recommendation can be made at this time for mask use in the community by asymptomatic persons, including those at high risk for complications, to prevent exposure to influenza viruses.” While Covid-19 and flu are similar illnesses, they come from different viruses, and the former is more infectious than the latter. It is also worth noting that the science around face masks is indeed still disputed by experts, and it’s even been argued that wearing masks can enhance the spread of the virus because people can be less mindful of social distancing while touching their nose and mouth more than they would when not wearing one.
Science is real. To end so emphatically (and condescendingly), you would hope that the person speaking those patronizing words has science on their side. But as one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, Johan Giesecke, advisor to the Swedish government, said back in April: UK and European policies on lockdown are not evidence-based.
And then we can remind ourselves of the now infamous Neil Ferguson–led Imperial College London study which determined that up to five hundred thousand lives could be lost in the UK alone. It was later revealed that the modeling used for the study was outdated, and thus the calculations dramatically inflated. For what it’s worth, Ferguson also said back in 2005 that 150 to 200 million people could die from the bird flu. The number of worldwide fatalities from bird flu between 2003 and 2009 was…282. So, science is real. Stop being a bad person. Listen to the experts and do not question them. Ever.
The Immorality of Lockdowns
But, putting such life-altering power—over matters such as forced lockdowns—in the hands of people who pay a negligible price for being wrong (some political damage, maybe) is not only asinine, it is plain wrong. Coercion is wrong. Taking the freedom of choice away from people by force is wrong. Tell the old woman living with a terminal illness that she must spend the final months of her life in isolation; that she can’t take a trip to the lake she’s visited since she was a child; that she can’t be surrounded by her loved ones during the remaining time she has left. Tell a business owner that their business isn’t essential. Tell the man who’s prone to depression and lives alone in a tiny studio apartment that this lockdown is for his own good. Tell the woman whose cancer diagnosis will be delayed—and thus her chances of survival reduced—that this lockdown is for her own good.
This is no different from telling an individual driver that “speed kills,” so tough—you can’t drive a car anymore. Or that alcohol is one of the biggest yearly killers, so tough—you can’t enjoy a beer anymore. Or that more than two hundred thousand children alone are treated in hospital every year from accidents related to bike riding, so tough—you can’t enjoy cycling anymore. The role of government isn’t to keep people safe from themselves or the dangers that come with living freely; there’s no reason why this shouldn’t apply to covid-19.
For many of us, the latest covid calamity is just another disappointing chapter in the dreadful tome that is big government. When we consider that “one cannot violate moral and economic laws without having to pay a price, and that one violation will, according to the ‘logic’ of state action, lead to more violations until the price that must be paid becomes intolerable,” more scenes of social unrest are likely.
But there’s still time for people to see the major failures of bloated, bureaucratic government made up of people who pay little to no price for being wrong and wreaking economic havoc—covid or not—on its citizens (far from being punished, those in charge regularly reward themselves with hefty taxpayer-funded pensions). Gross mismanagement by distended governments that leads to further social unrest and far worse doesn’t have to be the future. As Ludwig von Mises said, “Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly.” Those wise words are applicable to peace within nations, too.
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