The problem with personal freedom

[Vanellus]

The Covid19 pandemic has exposed the weakness of the priority of individual freedom. I read somewhere that some people want shops to devote part of their opening hours for people who don't want to wear masks while shopping.

Now while it is true that for any one individual the probability of having the virus and passing it on while shopping is very low, multiply that by a large number of shoppers and it becomes a virtual certainty. Even if you have no symptoms and a recent negative test result that doesn't guarantee not being infectious. And think about the shop workers who have to wear a mask much longer than shoppers.

Now this isn't necessarily big government vs individual freedom since a government may try to force people to return to the workplace against their will rather than allow working at home.

I've been reading some of the minor prophets recently and it is striking that it is so much about the fortunes of the collective nation of Israel. God blesses or afflicts the nation for sins like idolatry. In fact the idolatry is also judged on the collective rather than individual level.

Now even if you are a climate change denier it is hard to deny that tackling climate change is primarily a collective global problem although individuals can help to some extent. Maybe this is the case for other challenges such as poverty, inequality, health, lack of sanitation and access to drinking water etc.

 

[Sparagmos]

The Covid19 pandemic has exposed the weakness of the priority of individual freedom. I read somewhere that some people want shops to devote part of their opening hours for people who don't want to wear masks while shopping.

Now while it is true that for any one individual the probability of having the virus and passing it on while shopping is very low, multiply that by a large number of shoppers and it becomes a virtual certainty. Even if you have no symptoms and a recent negative test result that doesn't guarantee not being infectious. And think about the shop workers who have to wear a mask much longer than shoppers.

Now this isn't necessarily big government vs individual freedom since a government may try to force people to return to the workplace against their will rather than allow working at home.

I've been reading some of the minor prophets recently and it is striking that it is so much about the fortunes of the collective nation of Israel. God blesses or afflicts the nation for sins like idolatry. In fact the idolatry is also judged on the collective rather than individual level.

Now even if you are a climate change denier it is hard to deny that tackling climate change is primarily a collective global problem although individuals can help to some extent. Maybe this is the case for other challenges such as poverty, inequality, health, lack of sanitation and access to drinking water etc.

Years ago I met a guy from S. Korea, we dated a few times. When I asked him what was different about American culture, he spoke of extreme “individuality,” selfishness that in the end seems to hurt us all. He talked of how, in his culture, people are taught to always think of how your actions will affect others, and that only by taking care of each other can we survive and thrive. This extended beyond family and friends to strangers. He spoke of the deep respect and care that all older people were treated with, not just one’s own family or acquaintances. He talked about the precautions people took not to get others sick when the6 had the flu.

The most interesting example he gave was about car accidents. He said that he did not understand why Americans were so hostile to each other when there was a fender bender. In his country, if there was a car accident both people would be most concerned to make sure the people in the other car weren’t hurt, and had the attitude of “stuff happens,” rather than direct blame and anger at the other driver. He said that if they got into a car accident, they would treat the people in the other car the same as they would treat their own family, with kindness and mutual aid.

I’ve never forgotten that convo, it really helped me see that it is possible to have a society where we take care of each other and see that we are truly all “in this together.”

 

[mama2one]

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[Richard T]

Glad you are reading the minor prophets and can get a feel for how God dealt with Israel as a nation. Ralph Drollinger has a teaching called I God Judging America Today? In it he talks about how nations are not judged in the new testament only the church or non-believers. I get where you are coming from though and once heard a Catholic Priest talk about how individuality can get in the way of how the gospel should be lived out. I agree we have to think of the collective good to an extent, though I see no benefit to trying it on a global scale.

 

[Redwingfan9]

The Covid19 pandemic has exposed the weakness of the priority of individual freedom. I read somewhere that some people want shops to devote part of their opening hours for people who don't want to wear masks while shopping.

Now while it is true that for any one individual the probability of having the virus and passing it on while shopping is very low, multiply that by a large number of shoppers and it becomes a virtual certainty. Even if you have no symptoms and a recent negative test result that doesn't guarantee not being infectious. And think about the shop workers who have to wear a mask much longer than shoppers.

Now this isn't necessarily big government vs individual freedom since a government may try to force people to return to the workplace against their will rather than allow working at home.

I've been reading some of the minor prophets recently and it is striking that it is so much about the fortunes of the collective nation of Israel. God blesses or afflicts the nation for sins like idolatry. In fact the idolatry is also judged on the collective rather than individual level.

Now even if you are a climate change denier it is hard to deny that tackling climate change is primarily a collective global problem although individuals can help to some extent. Maybe this is the case for other challenges such as poverty, inequality, health, lack of sanitation and access to drinking water etc.

If anything the pandemic has shown us the weakness of totalitarian government. Despite their dictatorial commands, government is incapable of actually controlling the virus.

The argument for liberty remains. Adults should be free to choose for themselves what risks they are willing to take. For younger people, they may not care about the risks and that really isn't any of our concern. If you are unwilling to take risks then wear a mask but don't demand the state force other people to do exactly as you want done. It isn't the job of the state to cater to your fear, irrational or otherwise. Individual liberty should not be set aside over a hysterical overreaction to a virus. I am absolutely convinced that but for social media most wouldn't even notice this virus exists. The excess deaths would have been chalked up to a bad flu season and nothing more.

 

[Vanellus]

Glad you are reading the minor prophets and can get a feel for how God dealt with Israel as a nation. Ralph Drollinger has a teaching called I God Judging America Today? In it he talks about how nations are not judged in the new testament only the church or non-believers. I get where you are coming from though and once heard a Catholic Priest talk about how individuality can get in the way of how the gospel should be lived out. I agree we have to think of the collective good to an extent, though I see no benefit to trying it on a global scale.

I believe some phrases in the Bible resonate because of their wider significance beyond the immediate context and "my kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18:36) is one of those.
So I think questions like "is God judging X" where X is a country with government, borders etc does not map across to God's judgment of OT Israel, but could map across to other OT nations like Assyria or Babylon. I think the NT equivalent of Israel is the Church (capital C i.e. not any one church or denomination but the body of all believers).

 

[Vanellus]

If anything the pandemic has shown us the weakness of totalitarian government. Despite their dictatorial commands, government is incapable of actually controlling the virus.

The argument for liberty remains. Adults should be free to choose for themselves what risks they are willing to take. For younger people, they may not care about the risks and that really isn't any of our concern. If you are unwilling to take risks then wear a mask but don't demand the state force other people to do exactly as you want done. It isn't the job of the state to cater to your fear, irrational or otherwise. Individual liberty should not be set aside over a hysterical overreaction to a virus. I am absolutely convinced that but for social media most wouldn't even notice this virus exists. The excess deaths would have been chalked up to a bad flu season and nothing more.

Wearing a mask is intended to protect other people rather than the wearer. Of course, if everyone wears a mask then everyone enjoys the protection from mask wearing. So if you choose not to wear a mask then you are putting other people's health at risk.

I don't know who you are labelling as "totalitarian". Major countries with the highest death rate are: Belgium, Spain, UK, Brazil, Italy, USA, Sweden, Mexico, France, Holland
see Coronavirus Update (Live): 27,556,021 Cases and 897,920 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Over 27 million covid19 cases worldwide and nearly 900,000 deaths isn't hysteria is it!

And influenza is a serious disease especially for more vulnerable people. 336,000 deaths this year. Maybe its seriousness can be downplayed because some people describe the common cold as "a bit of flu"!

 

[Redwingfan9]

Wearing a mask is intended to protect other people rather than the wearer. Of course, if everyone wears a mask then everyone enjoys the protection from mask wearing. So if you choose not to wear a mask then you are putting other people's health at risk.

I don't know who you are labelling as "totalitarian". Major countries with the highest death rate are: Belgium, Spain, UK, Brazil, Italy, USA, Sweden, Mexico, France, Holland
see Coronavirus Update (Live): 27,556,021 Cases and 897,920 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Over 27 million covid19 cases worldwide and nearly 900,000 deaths isn't hysteria is it!

And influenza is a serious disease especially for more vulnerable people. 336,000 deaths this year. Maybe its seriousness can be downplayed because some people describe the common cold as "a bit of flu"!

The problem is that there is zero evidence that the masks worn by the general public do anything to protect anyone. There's a lot of propaganda being peddled but precious little evidence. Nearly all of the evidence is from rushed, small studies. Meanwhile there are a dozen scholarly pre-covid articles which say cloth masks worn in non-sterile environments are garbage.

Beyond that, assuming that everyone around us and laws which force us to believe this is so is nothing short of totalitarian and outrageous. Your friends and family members are not sick. Stop assuming that they are.

 

[The Barbarian]

The problem is that there is zero evidence that the masks worn by the general public do anything to protect anyone.

That's what all the sheeple are bleating. But they are just repeating what they were told.

Can face masks help slow the spread of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19? Yes, face masks combined with other preventive measures, such as frequent hand-washing and social distancing, help slow the spread of the virus.

So why weren't face masks recommended at the start of the pandemic? At that time, experts didn't know the extent to which people with COVID-19 could spread the virus before symptoms appeared. Nor was it known that some people have COVID-19 but don't have any symptoms. Both groups can unknowingly spread the virus to others.
...
A cloth mask is intended to trap droplets that are released when the wearer talks, coughs or sneezes. Asking everyone to wear cloth masks can help reduce the spread of the virus by people who have COVID-19 but don't realize it.

Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus when they are widely used by people in public settings. And countries that required face masks, testing, isolation and social distancing early in the pandemic have successfully slowed the spread of the virus.
Can face masks protect against the coronavirus?

Of course, that's just the Mayo Clinic's findings, and your neighbor who flunked science in high school,says masks don't work. Tough to know who to believe, um?

 

[Redwingfan9]

That's what all the sheeple are bleating. But they are just repeating what they were told.

Can face masks help slow the spread of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19? Yes, face masks combined with other preventive measures, such as frequent hand-washing and social distancing, help slow the spread of the virus.

So why weren't face masks recommended at the start of the pandemic? At that time, experts didn't know the extent to which people with COVID-19 could spread the virus before symptoms appeared. Nor was it known that some people have COVID-19 but don't have any symptoms. Both groups can unknowingly spread the virus to others.
...
A cloth mask is intended to trap droplets that are released when the wearer talks, coughs or sneezes. Asking everyone to wear cloth masks can help reduce the spread of the virus by people who have COVID-19 but don't realize it.

Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus when they are widely used by people in public settings. And countries that required face masks, testing, isolation and social distancing early in the pandemic have successfully slowed the spread of the virus.
Can face masks protect against the coronavirus?

Of course, that's just the Mayo Clinic's findings, and your neighbor who flunked science in high school,says masks don't work. Tough to know who to believe, um?

Like I said, I have a dozen scholarly articles from the British Journal of Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine etc. I've posted them before. There's a reason why several countries, including The Netherlands, have tossed their mask mandates. There simply isn't any evidence they work. The numbers out there indicate they don't work.

 

[The Barbarian]

Like I said, I have a dozen scholarly articles from the British Journal of Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine etc. I've posted them before. There's a reason why several countries, including The Netherlands, have tossed their mask mandates. There simply isn't any evidence they work. The numbers out there indicate they don't work.

Fact check: New England journal article taken out of context, didn't bash face masks
Article's authors say they intended to 'push for more masking'

In a follow-up letter to the New England Journal of Medicine published online June 3 and in print July 9, three of the article's authors, Drs. Michael Klompas, Charles Morris and Erica Shenoy, wrote some people were using their article "as support for discrediting widespread masking."

"We understand that some people are citing our perspective article as support for discrediting widespread masking. In truth, the intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less. It is apparent that many people with SARS-CoV-2 infection are asymptomatic or presymptomatic yet highly contagious and that these people account for a substantial fraction of all transmissions. Universal masking helps to prevent such people from spreading virus-laden secretions, whether they recognize that they are infected or not," the three authors wrote in the letter.
Fact check: New England journal article taken out of context, didn't bash face masks

I really encourage you to read the original articles. Above is just one reason why.

 

[Redwingfan9]

Fact check: NEJM said just that amd now are trying to spin it as though they didn't publish the article. Their slavish devotion to mass government power and corruption is solidified in their lying explanation.

 

[The Barbarian]

Fact check: NEJM said just that amd now are trying to spin it as though they didn't publish the article.

You still don't get it. The authors of the article pointed out that they found that masks were effective, and that they were calling for more use of masks. They pointed out that some people misrepresented what they wrote. This is why I suggested that you read the original papers before you cite them; as in this case, dishonest people completely misrepresented the paper.

Their slavish devotion to mass government power and corruption is solidified in their lying explanation.

It wasn't the NEJM; it was the authors of the paper. And if you read the paper yourself, you'll find that they are exactly right about what they wrote.

You just trusted the wrong people.

Read the literature before you cite it.

 

[Vanellus]

You could try standing close to a mirror wearing a mask and sneeze and note what is on the mirror, then repeat the exercise without a mask and see the difference. This is not rocket science!

NB: Don't forget to clean up afterwards.

 

[Vanellus]

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