From: Richard Gold
Columbus
What juxtaposition in recent headlines. Our beleaguered health care workers, to whom we are all profoundly indebted, are again bulldozed by massive increases in COVID.
Simultaneously, our supermajority Republican state legislature scurries to prevent the governor from potentially imposing public health measures to reduce COVID spread, let alone the economic chaos/dislocations COVID eruptions trigger. Much of this is proposed in the name of religious freedom or is caterwauling about impingement of rights and personal liberties.
Indiana is near the bottom at 54% vaccinated. The overwhelming majority of the current COVID sick and dying are unvaccinated. This should inform both personal choice and public policy. Apparently not.
Back to rights. We live in a society – we call it civilization – governed by laws. The philosophical underpinning is that there is a common good all enjoy – public safety, national defense, justice, clean air – etc. To this common good, we subordinate certain behaviors and desires. This allows us to move from a barbarian state to a society where each of us hope to enjoy liberties and freedoms envisioned by the founders and enshrined in our Constitution.
Our Constitution, the legal bedrock of America, includes an addendum, the Bill of Rights.
IU public policy professor Sheila Seuss Kennedy explains the intent:
“The Bill of Rights is often referred to as a libertarian brake on majoritarian power. That’s because its central purpose is to answer an important question: Who decides? You get to decide what books you read, what prayers you say (or whether you pray), what political opinions you embrace, who you associate with, or marry, and how many children you have. You get to choose your own life goals, and determine your own morality. The Bill of Rights is a list of decisions that government is forbidden to make.
“Our government is limited in scope. The libertarian foundation of our Constitution and Bill of Rights is deceptively simple: We get to ‘do our own thing’ until and unless we harm the person or property of someone else, and so long as we are willing to accord an equal liberty to others.”
The litmus test: “we get to … until it harms the person or property of someone else.” I can’t drive 100 mph down Washington Street at noon as much as I believe it’s my right; nor argue that speed limits infringe on my religious beliefs. You can’t either.
If you are a carrier of COVID or another plague, you will do harm to others, intentional or not. Our tools to fight this are limited, but improving. We can vaccinate and boost, mask, social distance, and avoid super-spreaders. Vaccination/boosters are the most effective tool. When we don’t, the contagion mutates and metastasizes, and the pandemic furiously reignites. This means more die and the economic carnage multiplies — lost jobs, lost income, inflation, shortages, and more.
This is not holiday joy.
Maybe state legislators should assist in hospital admissions.
If only they thought that might get them re-elected.
