Tag: Coronavirus

Mandates & Freedom

ProfJerryLeave a comment

On freedom and the vaccine mandates.

Aaron Blake writing in the Washinton Post discusses the debate over vaccine mandates in the context of “positive freedoms” and “negative freedoms.” In this he draws upon the writings of Isaiah Berlin.

Political theorist Isaiah Berlin reflected upon the difference in 1958 in “The Two Concepts of Liberty.” He described the difference as being between “the freedom which consists in being one’s own master, and the freedom which consists in not being prevented from choosing as I do by other men.”

Here’s my overly simplified version:

I recognize that everyone has the “freedom” to choose not to be vaccinated.

In a similar fashion, I recognize that they each have the “freedom” to choose not to stop at a red light.

But the latter quite obviously conflicts with the “freedom of others” not to be broadsided at an intersection when they have the green light.

In the same way, the “freedom” to choose not to be vaccinated conflicts with the “freedom of others” not to be infected.

I believe in the face of the pandemic we should be willing to set aside our “personal freedom” so that we may honor the “freedom of others.”

Ohio Deserves Better

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From the Washington Post yesterday:

At a time when the delta variant’s summer surge has renewed the nation’s divisions over coronavirus vaccines, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday said mandates enforcing vaccination do not reflect what it means to be American.

“Vaccine mandates are un-American,” Jordan tweeted.

But critics panned Jordan’s Labor Day message as being off — way off — by nearly 2½ centuries. George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, made the bold decision in 1777 to require that his troops be immunized after a smallpox outbreak devastated the nation.

The act would be repeated by presidents and military leaders throughout U.S. history — including last month by the Defense Department — and a 1905 decision by the Supreme Court upheld mandatory vaccinations as American.

Something is seriously wrong with this guy.

POTUS needs a plan

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Thomas Friedman pens an open letter to the President.

The gist of his message:

You need a plan.

And here is what is also obvious: There is a high degree of agreement among leading public health experts on the contours of what could become a three-step “Trump plan.”

By embracing their strategic approach as your own and sticking by it — not going off on tangents every day in your White House briefings — you would deliver what the public craves most in the short run: the confidence that we actually have a plan to fight this virus, save everyone we can and rapidly reopen the economy based on science and data.

Let’s hope the President heeds this advice.

Maybe he’ll listen to Wall Street

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From the Washington Post

President Trump is considering whether to bring the economy out of its government-induced coma in the next week or two, insisting the pain of the restrictions should not outweigh that from the coronavirus itself. 

But investors, portfolio managers and economists with a front-row seat to the ongoing carnage on Wall Street and beyond aren’t so sure that scaling back social distancing is the right move. Many say the economy — and still-sliding stock market along with it — won’t begin to recover until the United States definitively turns the tide against the disease. 

Perhaps the President — who doesn’t seem disposed to listen to the medical experts — will at least listen to the financial folks.