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My SIL owns an ice cream store. Last week, a customer entered w/o a mask on. She was told that face masks were required to enter the store, & if she didn’t have one, they could provide her w/one. She said, “How dare you! I will NEVER come back here!” and stormed out. /1
It’s hard for me to relate to that level of rage over collective action. I understand that in principle, someone deeply committed to individualism would find the inconvenience challenging, but she was pretty much saying, “I have the right to put others at risk if I choose to.” /2
What about the way her refusal to do something simple tramples on other people’s ability to protect themselves & their loved ones in a time of pandemic? She seems to have burned the half of the social contract pertaining to her duties & kept only the parts pertaining to others./3
My former attending recently wrote a piece that opens with this quote by Thomas Paine: /4
We Americans love our freedoms & our liberties, but there’s a growing contingency among us that simply don’t understand the foundations of either. They just want to do whatever the hell they want to, and they make a mortal enemy out of anyone who would regulate their behavior. /5
At best, that’s a regression to toddlerhood, at worst it’s anarchy, but anarchy that selectively benefits them. Because you can be sure that the moment someone else’s unfettered freedom impinges on their own, they will make demands of, or look to apply some law to, that person./6
Anyway, I recommend this essay on freedom and liberty by @DrRoySmythe. /7 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-begin-world-again-roy-smythe-m-d-
Oh, and here’s a page with excerpts from John Locke’s The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690), where he makes a distinction between liberty and license. /8
https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/locke-john_of-the-state-of-nature-liberty-versus-licence-1690.htm
https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/locke-john_of-the-state-of-nature-liberty-versus-licence-1690.htm
