#auspol #covid19 the perverse calculus of 'freedom' in this pandemic. The loudest voices for removal of…
#auspol #covid19 the perverse calculus of 'freedom' in this pandemic. The loudest voices for removal of public health measures have been libertarian political voices. This is dangerous, disingenuous, deliberate strategy. /1 https://t.co/AsMYkC3vlv
To a political libertarian, the pandemic SHOULD be all of their dreams come true. 'Locking down' removes social life, generated and managed by the State, not individual life. Each individual in their own home with negligible State contact is the libertarian idyll. /2
The 'freedom' so liberally bandied about in this pandemic is the freedom to engage in social life, not individual life. The freedom to shop, travel, to do business etc. All things the State makes possible. So what's with the libertarian 'freedom' push? /3
It's framing. Strategy. Aimed at everyday folk, who genuinely love these social, collective lives, and want them back. The libertarians though aren't thinking about holidays returning, or peoples' freedom to socialise. /4
To them 'opening up', getting the borders down, is about restoring the free flow of capital and labour. About commerce. About people able to work, and goods able to flow. There's no mention at all of people having greater freedom to balance work and life,.../5
...to allow the flexibilities actually favourable to ordinary folk, like working from home, to continue in any widespread way. Workplaces have been exempt from public health orders in NSW for the entire pandemic, which indicates the real agenda here. /6
Businesses have been able to pack staff into workplaces with no requirement to calculate social distancing for them. No obligation to do anything about ventilation. Some employers even require staff to purchase their own masks. /7
Political libertarians are our most sophisticated political strategists. They learned many of their skills from churches, with whom they're often closely aligned, and who have thousands of years' experience in mass mobilisation and persuasion. /8
The task of thinking people, daily, is to continuously unravel every new PR-variant these libertarians produce to obstruct public health action. Just as they have to obstruct climate change action. /end