You coerce a budding criminal into complying with a law against theft by punishing his crimes and misdemeanors. You don’t coerce someone into washing their hands or taking their medicine. Yet over the past two years, governments across the world have engaged in a massive experiment in public health authoritarianism. This experiment was doomed from the start, because a public health crisis can only be managed from the ground up, through prudent, free, and informed responses tailored to the special circumstances of each actor and community.
The need to tailor crisis management to the circumstances of each actor and community requires a wide latitude of personal and associational freedom. Both individuals and local institutions must be at liberty to make the best choices they can in light of their local circumstances, rather than being beaten into compliance with top-down government edicts blind to local conditions.
The essential role of freedom in pandemic response was cast aside by most…
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