Where your freedom ends.

The first of a hopefully regular thing I'll do

Pictured here: Dog #3 illustrating where your freedom ends.

This is (hopefully) the first in a particular format that I’ll do as often as possible- hopefully part of a regular weekly rotation if I can stay supplied with topics.

Like a lot of the people I respect and admire on substack- both writers and reader-commenters whose particular voices I’ve come to know- I care a lot that my opinions, positions, and principles are based on carefully examined rigorous consideration of the issues including the acceptance of hard truths and understanding the arguments against them.

I don’t have any respect for ideologues who decide they have achieved some kind of moral, ethical, or knowledge apotheosis that allows them to hand-wave a rigorous self-examination of their ideas.

Likewise, when I encounter things the opposition (whoever that may happen to be) say that frustrate and anger me, I try to ask myself, “am I unreasonably infuriated by this because it’s unreasonable and hurts me or because I don’t want to see that they have a point?”

So, I have a little exercise with myself where I roleplay a didactic conversation between the points of view, like playing chess with yourself, and do my best for both sides.

In the past few years, the arguments that have inspired the most spontaneous rage and subsequent aforementioned reflection have been from the Branch Covidians. We’ve all been at turns infuriated, despondent, disappointed, and just plain beaten up by the mantra-like, unfalsifiable chants of the Covidians, especially when they take the form of short, clever-sounding quips sizes for Twitter like “it’s a global pandemic.”

Today I’d like to offer up a dialogue about one of the most infuriating little tart one-liners meant to be a rhetorical killshot:

“your freedom ends where my nose begins,” usually accompanied by

“you don’t have the freedom to infect me with a deadly virus.”

This is a repurposing of the apocryphal “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins,” widely attributed but (in my opinion) most likely originated by Prohibitionist John B. Finch: ““Have not I a right to swing my arm? / Yes, but your right to swing your arm leaves off where my right not to have my nose struck begins.”

Attributing this to Finch is useful in this discussion about the phrase as a Covidian quip because it was about a somewhat similar issue: the notion that YOUR consumption of alcohol leads you to hurt ME; even if not directly by your specific drunken behavior but by your harm of my society, economy, public morals, etc. This origin story, whether or not it is correct (it has also been misattributed to Abraham Lincoln et. al) is relevant here because this notion of harm is exactly what has led the Covidians to fall in love with it as justification for the deprivation of one’s personal freedoms.

Here we go:

Pro-mandates: Your freedom ends where my nose begins. You don’t have the freedom to infect me with a deadly virus.

Anti: But I don’t have COVID, so I am no practical danger to you of infecting you with it- even assuming you have the right to be safe from infection while in public.

Pro: But you can’t be completely certain you don’t have COVID because of asymptomatic spread and false negatives so you’re obliged to act as though you are and not potentially infect me, so put your fucking mask on.

Anti: Asymptomatic spread is bullshit, and PCR testing makes false positives more likely than false negatives, but those are entirely separate debates about the reality of “accepted science” that are likely even more pointless than this one, so without debating those, I can’t be certain I don’t have an asymptomatic or presymptomatic case of ebola or anything else far more dangerous than COVID. If your argument is based on what risk I MAY pose to you, literally every unknown stranger MAY pose a risk of infectious disease to EVERYONE at ALL times. Are you seriously suggesting that we must be in a constant state of alert against all known health risks strangers may pose to others in public? We would literally have to wear biohazard suits at all times everywhere.

Pro: Hyperbolic bullshit. We’re in a global pandemic of COVID and not any of those other things you describe. The spread of COVID is a relevant and reasonable concern even if selfish assholes like you deliberately downplay its severity. We aren’t in an ebola outbreak or a measles epidemic. If the protective measures for a relevant threat are known, it’s reasonable to demand that you not present a threat to others.

Anti: But it’s always POSSIBLE to present one of an infinity of other health threats, like the ones I mentioned, and you stated that merely the possibility of threat to you justifies forcing my behavior. Is there a specific threshold of risk that inherently justifies curtailment of rights? Even by your most generous definitions of COVID as a deadly plague, that risk is incredibly low for most people. Did you worry about giving the elderly or your precious “immunocompromised” the flu before 2020, you hypocrite?

Pro: Leave aside your psychopathic disregard for the most vulnerable members of society for a moment and focus strictly on MY right not to be endangered by YOU. You have no idea what my risk profile is and, again, you cannot prove at any given moment that you certainly don’t have COVID. Masks, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates are to protect everyone, even selfish pieces of shit like you.

Anti: So, you might, at any moment, fly into a psychotic rage and attack me with your little girly fists while probably shitting yourself in absolute terror. You absolutely cannot prove to me that it is outside the realm of possibility that you, a stranger to me in public, will not have a psychotic episode due to some undiagnosed psychiatric condition that you yourself aren’t even aware of. Do I therefore have the right to demand that you go in public straightjacketed or handcuffed for my potential protection?

Pro: I’ll ignore your internalized misogyny and probable homophobia. The straw man circumstance you describe isn’t comparable because I could call the police, run away, or defend myself. I can’t do any of those things to stop your disgusting coffee breath from infecting me with COVID, because my mask protects you, your mask protects me.

Anti: Let’s address another point you made in the same statement. Masks, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates cause harm- harm to me and to broader society. Don’t I have a right not to be harmed in that way, just as you seem to believe you have this right to never be ill?

Pro: Masks don’t harm anyone. It’s just a piece of cloth. Your faction of science-denying Trumpers have yet to prove that vaccine mandates harm anyone except for the racist misogynists that refuse to take them. It’s true that lockdowns cause economic and societal harm- even I can stipulate to that- but the benefits in protecting people from contracting and dying of COVID far outweigh those harms. In the real world, mature adults, not psychotic woman-children like you, recognize that compromise and personal sacrifice are part of living in a society. Everyone ultimately enjoys those benefits.

Anti: Everyone ultimately enjoys your mom once they get past the taste.

Pro: Mature.

Anti: OK, so if this is a cost benefits analysis, and you’re Mr. Starship Troopers Greater Good, let’s look at the most conservative estimates of COVID infection and fatality risks in the United States. Since not everyone is equally affected by COVID, the vast majority of people harmed by population-wide measures like lockdown were never at serious risk of dangerous outcomes with COVID. It’s almost mathematically certain that far more people were harmed by lockdowns than were saved, even if we take the ridiculous catastrophizing position you cultists take and assume that 100% of the population would eventually get COVID and die neatly on an IFR curve.

And all of this is leaving aside the debate that masks and vaccines DO cause harm because it’s another side issue and the good people here don’t need their time wasted.

Pro: It’s nice to know that you care about some other human beings somewhere even if they’re selfish psychopaths like yourself. Just as you claim that we cannot prove everyone is at similar risk of COVID, the harms of lockdowns are basically impossible to prove on an individual level of harm. I would also argue that any economic harm is lesser than the value of protecting human life.

Anti: What about when economic harm, and the mental health harm of the other NPIs you regard as sacred, DO lead to death?

Pro: I feel pretty confident that on any measurable scale far less people will literally DIE of lockdowns than of COVID.

Anti: I don’t think that’s safe to say at all, but that’s clearly a dead end. Let’s get back to this tomorrow and get into whether intent impacts the argument on either side, especially as it relates to whether or not a person is actually a risk of infection.

In the meantime, have fun masturbating to your Justin Trudeau poster, playing with your Mao dolls, and say hi to your mom for me.

Pro: Have fun polishing your morally indefensible firearms, murdering animals, and licking your Trump shrine and say hello to your friends at the Museum of Creationism.

Anti: I get the last word because this is my stack. And that word is “dong.”