As I’ve noted before, one of the main justifications for lockdowns has been the “externality argument”. This is the argument that government is justified in restricting our freedom in order to prevent us from harming others – which we might do by transmitting a deadly virus. As Richard Dawkins put it:
You can argue over whether masks, handwashing, banning groups etc are effective. What you can NOT argue is that you are personally entitled to take the risk as a matter of individual liberty. You risk other lives as well as your own. It’s just elementary epidemiology.
However, it seems the same exact argument could be made about the use of private cars (or seasonal flu, for that matter). In 2016, there were 181,384 casualties on Britain’s roads, including 1,792 deaths. Many of these victims will have been entirely blameless road users – cyclists, pedestrians and others – who just happened to get hit by a careless driver.
What’s more, according to a 2012 paper published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, emissions from road transport cause 4,900 early deaths in Britain every year, and that’s not even counting the impact on conditions like asthma. How would Richard Dawkins put it?
You can argue over whether buses, trains and bicycles etc are convenient. What you can NOT argue is that you are personally entitled to drive a car as a matter of individual liberty. You risk other lives as well as your own. It’s just elementary transportology.
Of course, someone might say that 7,000 deaths from car accidents and emissions is a lot less than the number who would have died from COVID-19 in the absence of lockdowns – so the analogy doesn’t really work. There are several responses to this.
First, the average age of those who die in car accidents is much younger than the average age of those who die of COVID-19, meaning that each fatal car accident takes away more total life-years. And in any case, there’s not much evidence that lockdown did prevent a large number of deaths.
Second, even if lockdowns could have prevented a lot of deaths in the early months of the pandemic, the situation now is completely different. In fact, the age-standardised mortality rate in the first five months of 2021 was actually lower than in 2018.
Third, by rejecting the analogy on the grounds that 7,000 deaths is “too few” to matter, one is implicitly conceding that the externality argument isn’t an absolute. In other words, there is some level of externalities that society should tolerate, so long as the benefits to other parties are large enough.
The question then becomes: are the externalities of COVID transmission sufficiently large relative to the benefits of personal freedom (including the freedom to attend school or operate a small business) to justify lockdown? And it’s by no means clear the answer to that question is in the affirmative.
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Let’s wait for the “reporting restrictions” on a certain couple of trials starting (or at least planned to) in the next few weeks… Will we even find out details after the case?
In the event of (in my opinion very possible) run on the pound will that be “misinformation” and prohibited?
If we ever manage to get rid of this wholly anti British so-called government vengeance must be wrecked. For all members of the Cabinet, serving and ex the sentence must be life. For Kneel and his clique something worse as befits traitors.
Leftism is like a cancer and we all know the best way of dealing with that.
But… it’s not just Starmer. There are plenty of sanctimonious pecksniffs that would jump on the opportunity to demonstrate their self-righteousness with allegations of harassment.
Starmer should take care… there will be plenty of people willing to take on even Labour luminaries for a careless remark.
Finally, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said she wants to lower the threshold for the recording of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHIs)
Tories are the same. Have the same policies.
Thinking will be a crime.
Oh wait, it already is, if you think, or say a silent prayer outside the baby-murder clinic. One of the icons of ‘health care’ and beloved by all.
PC Fascism. All part of the plan.
It can and will.
There are more of us than them and they’re terrified we might understand that fact.
The wokusts have to abolish free-speech because reality refuses to conform to their deranged fantasies. But our problem is not only the formal abolition of free-speech which our anti-white government is carrying out – just as dangerous is the anti-white government’s imposition of Orwellian lies. For example:
Anti-whitism is called “anti-racism”
Conformity to the anti-white agenda is called “diversity”
Exclusion of truth-tellers is called “inclusion”
These lies are framed within the wokusts’ over-arching lie of “equality” – which is a thing that simply doesn’t exist.
For a moment I thought you were reading the Kings Speech!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2KyAUSqqmZY
Nigel Farage’s New Year message filmed at Blenheim Palace. Calm, considered, thoughtful.
Nice place that, went there as a youth.
I wonder if the current Duke of Marlborough was aware that Nigel would be recording his NY message there?
Depends if he was in the public part of the building i suppose.
Thinking about the banter police business in pubs.
Yes some places may become dystopia but only the places you wouldn’t normally go anyway, like airports and chain hotels.
In most decent pubs I suspect the reaction would simply be not to employ the kind of woke twats that could be offended.
“Pubs will have to employ ‘banter bouncers’ to police the conversations of customers to make sure no one is saying anything risqué that could be overheard by a member of staff.”
They really are tying to create a Stasi 2.0 but I would like to see how that works in reality, not that I go to pubs much these days but this can include any public place.
I doubt they can afford them after the Rachel from Accounts budget.
The way to get around this is to defy all of the above. Keep saying are you blind etc and see if they can control our speech.
“ The answer is that Labour wants to criminalise parents and health professionals who deviate in any way from the ‘gender-affirming care’ approach,”
You mean deviate to the Cass Report, that long awaited report, a bit like that Danish study on masks in 2020 that the media didn’t shut up about, until that is the report came out that went against their narrative. After that, radio silence as if they just all forgot to report on its findings. Very convenient.
‘all reasonable steps’
Define reasonable. Defining things is not the forte of the Student Union government. Women? Pass. Working People? Pass.
Never mind, we’ll loath him and his party even more.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/nigel-farage-addresses-the-nation-from-blenheim-palace/
A short precis of Nigel Farage’s New Year speech from Blenheim Palance. The full film of the speech is embedded.
Strong, polite, thoughtful and considered.
“Let’s make Britain Great Again.”
“Pubs will have to employ ‘banter bouncers’ to police the conversations of customers to make sure no one is saying anything risqué that could be overheard by a member of staff….”
The problem here is that the bouncers will also be employees of someone so should also be protected by bouncers who should also be ………..!