This is why the “Liberals for the Green Pass” are wrong: their approach is authoritarian
The US virologist Antony Fauci: with the Delta variant, vaccinated positive and unvaccinated positive have the same viral load in the nose
With the introduction of the obligation of the Green Pass to access numerous public services and places, the liberals have mobilized. In favor of the obligation. It seems really strange that a liberal, therefore a theorist of the reduction of the power of the state in the economic and personal life of citizens, is in favor of one more obligation. Even those familiar with the numerous variations of a political philosophy with three and a half centuries of history might be baffled by this latest mutation.
To better understand the arguments cited by the pro-obligation liberals of Green Pass , let's just mention three particularly prominent ones. Carlo Cottarelli: “Those with the Green Pass have a much lower probability of infecting others. It is therefore right that he can go to crowded places since it is less dangerous. It is the same logic that those who have not drunk can drive the car and those who have drunk cannot. Clear?" (from his Twitter profile). Alessandro De Nicola: “Infecting others can theoretically fall within the behavior to be prohibited, as the damage possibly caused is very difficult to compensate also because it is problematic to understand who the 'greaser' is. The night watchman state (the state reduced to its fundamental functions of defense, public order and justice, ed. ) Could therefore be entitled to impose measures such as lockdowns or passes ”( La Repubblica , 27 July). Last but not least, Tito Boeri: “A lot of our actions involve negative externalities. The famous phrase 'my freedom ends where the rights of others begin' so it is not a constitutional or ethical question, but a pragmatic one ”, he wrote in La Repubblica on 20 July. Adding, after explaining that teachers who do not want to get vaccinated should be suspended from face-to-face teaching: “We cannot force people to get vaccinated. But, as we did with smoking, we can and must discourage the negative externalities of those who put themselves in a position to harm others ”.
The reasoning, in short, is only one: not getting vaccinated involves an increased risk for oneself and for others. Therefore the unvaccinated should be excluded from places where it can transmit the infection. Is this reasoning liberal? Not exactly.
The minimum state, or "night watchman," serves solely to protect an individual from an attacker. It is the fundamental function of protecting the right to life. A state, however, does not have the possibility, not even theoretically, of protecting the lives of its citizens from any risk. If a shepherd falls on a cliff, or a fisherman drowns in a sudden storm, the state can do nothing about it, except to send emergency vehicles in good time. Covid is also a fact of nature (regardless of doubts about its Chinese origin), anyone runs the risk of being infected by the disease, even by touching the wrong object at the wrong time and then scratching an eye, or in an infinity of other cases in which the infected person is unable to understand where and how he contracted the virus, even if he was protected by gloves and a mask, even if he was in an environment deemed "safe". The stories of this pandemic year and a half are full of these examples. A minimal state, like the one mentioned by De Nicola, has the task of protecting its citizens from other men, but it cannot reduce the risks they run to zero. Not even the risk of being infected.
Can the state treat a conscious "infector" as an aggressor? It may be that the healthy carrier knows (or has reasonable doubt) that they are contagious, perhaps because they tested positive in a Covid test. In that case, if he leaves the house and goes to crowded places, his imprudence is comparable to an attack. But (thank Heaven) we are no longer at the time of the plague of the seventeenth century and even the greaser, before being condemned, has the right to defend himself and will be innocent until proven guilty.
Can a person who does not get vaccinated, or is simply not yet vaccinated, be equated with an attacker? No, unless a couple of logical leaps are made: it is assumed that those who do not get vaccinated contract the disease and that those who test positive for Covid automatically become contagious (there are also asymptomatic non-contagious patients). But there is an overwhelming majority of people who are not vaccinated and yet also perfectly healthy. On the other hand, there are also vaccinated people who are contagious, with the same viral load. The US virologist Antony Fauci also said yesterday: "If we look at the level of the virus, in the mucous membranes of vaccinated people who are infected with a Delta (variant) infection despite the vaccine, it is exactly the same level of viral load present. in an unvaccinated person who is infected ”. In theory, the Green Pass is already obsolete. Shall we go back to the lockdown ?
Is it right that these people are locked up under house arrest without any provision of the judiciary ( lockdown ) or excluded from a series of public services and places ( Green Pass requirement )? Measures of this kind are justifiable only from a purely community perspective, where the subject to be protected is the community and the citizen must respond to a series of obligations for the good of the community. But liberalism was born precisely to counter this type of philosophy. Or not?
As Boeri believes, "a lot of our actions" can produce negative externalities, even worse than those of a Covid-19 infection. In the abstract, we can extend the concept: all our actions can produce negative externalities. And it is practically impossible to establish a risk hierarchy. It is not enough to prohibit driving to those in a state of intoxication (example brought by Cottarelli), the ban must also be extended to those who drink a single sip of beer, or to those who have a mobile phone (and could use it while driving, distracting themselves), or he is distracted. And why only cars? An Italian who emigrated to France was killed by two people on a scooter last month. Do we also ban those, after having incentivized them with public money? You can kill a pedestrian by riding a bicycle, or bump and kill a cyclist while walking.
Not only that, but by taking this principle to its extreme consequences, you risk legitimizing a next tyrant. Without wishing to be prophets, the emphasis placed on ecological policies and the fight against climate change could be the basis of a future regime. The ecological authoritarian logic is all based on the prohibition of the production of negative externalities. Those who consume meat, electricity, travel and have children, produce externalities that are considered increasingly unacceptable, because they “weigh” too much on the ecosystem. Any transport or industrial activity running on fossil fuels (and not only) produces greenhouse gases, another negative externality. According to this logic, we would be forced to be able to do only what is explicitly approved by the state, to prevent our individual action from negatively affecting the planet and the community. But this is not liberalism. It is a perfect totalitarianism.
The post Here's why the “Liberals for the Green Pass” are wrong: their approach is authoritarian appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/ecco-perche-i-liberali-per-il-green-pass-hanno-torto-il-loro-approccio-e-autoritario/ on Thu, 29 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000.