As the rolling three-year ordeal of the pandemic and its illiberal restrictions has drawn to a close, one can observe that one particular and very platitudinous phrase seems to have vanished entirely from our lexicon. It was a phrase that long predated the pandemic, and first became common about 40 years ago, which was used to cover any number of illiberal policies, most notably the 21 drinking age. So what is it?
"If it saves even ONE life, it's worth it"
Those nine words have clearly been a very, very slippery slope towards totalitarianism, which really came to a head during the pandemic. And both sides of the lockdown and mandates debate have since given that idea up for the time being recently. Thus, we may actually have a chance temporarily to finally end other illiberal policies like the 21 drinking age and similar abominations. Pendulum Theory can therefore be used to our advantage.
What are we waiting for?
The primary purposes of government should to protect people's civil rights, civil liberties and personal property. Government should not be there to micromanage the lives of people in the name of public health. Doing so would be medical fascism. Medical fascism should not be practiced in a constitutional republic. Some people are irresponsible, regardless but most people are responsible. Therefore, saying that a law can be justified by saying that it saves one life is irrational. By that definition, everyone can be put under house arrest for saving just one life.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that!
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