Quote:
Originally Posted by DoubleF
Philosophically about this, I'm basically a hypocrite like Voltaire. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
I'm double vaxxed. It's their right to be unvaxxed. But I'm so freaking angry to the point that I basically have this crazy anger fantasy where I hope someone drags them out of their beds at night, lines them up in front of their home and shoots them... with the vaccine. I think this, and then I feel kinda embarrassed for thinking this.
Now, I am of the stance that in a state of emergency, citizens may have to suspend their rights to ensure decisive action. So to answer the question in OP: Yes. Individual rights should be allowed to be suspended to improve successful responses during an emergency.
But I'll also say that once citizens have accepted their responsibility to have their rights suspended to improve the emergency response, a citizen should not perceive they need not contribute further responsibility to further improve successful outcomes of an emergency situation.
Not the most historically accurate source, but in the Dark Knight, Harvey Dent (at dinner) mentions that when the enemies were at the gates, the Romans would suspend democracy and appoint one man to protect the city. It wasn't honor, it was a public service. In our case, the enemy is Covid. However, I feel that many have mistaken the enemy for each other with a dissenting opinions on whether Covid meets the definition of "an enemy" worth suspending our rights for.
Covid hasn't opened up a new view of a debate relating to rights. It has merely helped many to focus the magnifying glass on the topic of rights that has existed for quite a while now. A few years ago, there was an open debate about the responsibilities that comes with the rights we enjoy. There was lots of lamenting regarding the tepid interest in voting. There was lamenting about the complaints people had regarding the emergency broadcasts/amber alerts that "woke them up" and demands from some individuals for the ability to disable it (ie: Elect out of their responsibility to share awareness) which was denied.
There are times where the government is required to overrule the freedoms of individuals for the common good. The vast majority has perceived that Covid meets the requirements for a reason to invoke that power. A vocal minority has perceived that Covid does not meet that requirement to invoke that power. To simplify it, the reasoning for or against doesn't really matter as it doesn't change the end result.
But a choice must be made. There really isn't an effective choice that is a combination of both. Those that define Covid as an appropriate reason to invoke a state of emergency will likely agree to giving the government the power to be decisive by suspending their freedoms as part of their responsibility.
It seems the minority who do not define Covid as an appropriate reason may not be able to sustain such an opinion without facing repercussions from a mostly majority supported government decision, or via confrontation from the majority who have the dissenting opinion.
|
I wanted to add on that the key point of the story wasn't the appointing of a defender and the honor of public service. But that the and I'm going off of memory, the last one appointed himself as Cesar and didn't give up his powers.
That's a large part of this debate, is it ok to suspend rights in the face of a crisis if there's no solid mechanism to remove those power when the crisis abides. We've seen it in the fictional world (ie Star Wars, you knew I would go there, with Palpatine gaining emergency powers and not giving them up when Dooku and Grievous were dead).
The other part of the debate with the current climate. We know the path to reducing the waves, especially with the possibility of varients is vaccines. So would the government be wrong in either rounding up and isolating people that refuse to get the vaccines and leaving them there til they agree to get a vaccines? Does this suspend the my body my choice right, and what happens if after the government does this, vaccinates everything possible and there's no mechanism for removal, can that law be simply twisted with no recourse.
I mean the argument of doing something like this is that you would hope that the courts would protect our guaranteed rights, but if the government gains the ability through government decree, does it realistically abolish the courts ability to strike it down, if the government can prove an ongoing continuous emergency.
We'll Covid is gone, but now there's the threat of whatever which is kind of the same thing, so we have direct control over the fates of a certain group of people.
I'm not writing this as a conspiracy theory, I'm writing this from a standpoint of diving deeper into the idea of how far can the government go.