The Coronavirus Crisis and the Loss of Personal Freedom

Spiritual nourishment is as vital as physical in the current crisis, as people deal with the trauma possible infection or (much more likely) economic disaster the response to the crisis has caused. An earlier article reviewed threats to religious liberty resulting from the draconian restrictions imposed by some governors to the coronavirus crisis. While it noted that there is an argument for keeping worship services legal, the more common position of advocates of religious liberty is that bans must be temporary and part of a larger ban on public gatherings.

A closely related matter is that of personal liberty, which has been drastically curtailed. People in much of the country cannot leave their homes, except for outdoor strolls or “essential business” (with the state determining what that is), are required to remain six feet away from one another, have been harassed by law enforcement for violating lockdown orders (which prohibit activities of dubious danger), and reminiscent of a police state, are encouraged to inform on suspected violators. New Jersey’s governor went a step further, even proposing social distancing between family members at home, even though presidential medical advisor Dr. Deborah Birx specifically excluded this from lockdown advice.

The “social distancing” which is held to be necessary to stop the epidemic achieves exactly what conservative social commentators in the recent years of the culture war have said the Left is intent on, namely, a society of isolated individuals naked before the state, with no independent intermediate groups in between. Our only contact with one another, except within the same household, is virtual contact, disembodied – and vulnerable in a sufficiently powerful state to shut down.

What we’ve come to know as the “progressive” Left has left us in no doubt that they intend to control all of life, starting with the family, to which it is fundamentally opposed. Every problem that results from confining people to their homes is liable to be seized upon to intervene in family situations with the authority of the state. As the linked article notes, some of those problems may be child abuse, sexual assault, or other family violence. But as the article also points out, abuse and violence are features of our fallen world generally. How much more can they be expected in state designed situations where there are no family ties – indeed where the state may well be influenced by people like the radical feminist Sophie Lewis the article cites, who is intent on destroying the family. But for the great mass of mankind, the family is “is a refuge, a source of strength and support, of identity and history, of love and forgiveness.” It is a source of strength in crises such as the present one.

This will surely be sensed by many in the present lockdown, and detracts from the objective of social isolates under an all sufficient state. In particular, the Left has become quite concerned that a much wider public than in the past will have the experience of homeschooling. And it has now, as Albert Mohler reviews in an article earlier this week, mounted an attack on homeschooling, essentially proposing the state as a substitute parent for education and moral instruction.

The coronavirus pandemic gives those who want much greater control of personal life in the interest of “justice” or “quality of life” an excellent excuse to move in to control spread of the disease now, and justify continued or expanded control for other reasons later. The World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme director, Dr. Michael Ryan, proposed inspecting families and removing members who may be spreading the coronavirus. Entering families with the coercive power of the state is also a feature of China’s effort against the Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province. There Chinese authorities reside in homes from two to five days a month, and remove members thought to be a bad influence to re-education camps.

But outside their now domiciled existence, it appears that Americans in many states are subject to unprecedented surveillance, with restrictions and enforcement against personal freedom which are highly dubious even by the standards of the recommended “social distancing.” Arrest of church goers in separate cars was noted in the previous article on religious freedom. Another such case was the citation of a woman driving in York, Pennsylvania, for not remaining home. Somewhat similarly, fishing has been outlawed in the state of Washington. Even if congregations of fishermen were prohibited, one has to wonder how an isolated fisherman is a threat to anyone.

The ability of the state to monitor the movement and activities of individuals has, of course, been greatly expanded by rapidly developing electronic technology. One possibility, is digital certificates of vaccination, implanted in the skin which could then be used by technology to verify compliance with health standards. Attorney General Barr has worried that this might represent a threat to civil liberties. Along this line, smartphones are to be used to monitor compliance with quarantine measures in Alberta, with the evidence gathered used to enforce quarantine regulation against offenders. This is very modest surveillance compared to China’s social credit system, which was to be implemented this year. That sweeping project, as reviewed by this writer at the end of 2018, essentially makes it possible to monitor all of an individual’s life electronically, and score him or her according to their compliance with state regulations, modifying one’s individual score with the electronically recorded behavior of relatives. In the current coronavirus epidemic in China, smartphones have been used to rate the danger a person poses to the general public, and thus their freedom to move about in society.

One of the most disturbing news items so far is the attempt in St. Louis to have citizens inform on businesses that are violating the shutdown regulations. This, or course, is characteristic of a police state. Over 50 businesses were notified that they must close, having been informed on by their fellow citizens. Unhappily for the informants, their names and addresses were published. This is the way in which pervasive state power over country of isolated individuals breeds social distrust and animosity.

The question of how far the government can legally go in restraining citizens’ lives during the coronavirus was addressed by John Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation, Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. In a recent interview, he agreed that the nation’s governors are within their constitutionally given “police power” to issue shutdown orders of differing severity, while leaving aside the wisdom of such orders. He also agreed that the President has no authority to countermand these orders, except to re-open the federal government. But he conceded that “our freedom of movement, our freedom of association [literally freedom of assembly in the text of the First Amendment], our freedom of religion” are all being drastically restricted by the governors. “A lot of our civil liberties are being curtailed on a very broad basis to deal with this very real problem,” Malcolm said.

There is, indeed, a real problem, but this writer would contend that it is not being dealt with rationally. The coronavirus cases counted and deaths registered (45,000 as of the evening of April 22) out of a nation of more than 326 million is a real problem, but by far not the worst. It must be balanced against other problems that the solution of national shutdown is causing. Not even in the 1918 pandemic was most of the nation shutdown. The worst problem is the economic depression the governors are causing, killing small businesses, endangering the lives of corporations, and throwing millions out of work. Then there are the trillions of dollars that the federal government must spend to limit the catastrophe. Beyond this is the precedent of limiting personal liberty on the advice of experts in the interest of “health” and “science.” Economic catastrophe will be used by the Left in its crusade against majority rule and common sense to favor a command society that enforces its ideologies, all certified as rational by experts. But that must be dealt with in another article.