#covid19 #auspol two definitions of freedom doing battle in this pandemic. It IS the pandemic, the virus is…

#covid19 #auspol two definitions of freedom doing battle in this pandemic. It IS the pandemic, the virus is just opportunistically hitching along. Developed nations, infected with an extreme libertarian virus about 50 years ago, generated and prolong the pandemic. /1 https://t.co/oKcJd2u9KD

To most of them, freedom is the freedom from attachments. From State interference. Living off the grid, the ultimate libertarian destination. The problem with this viral set of ideas is, to live off the grid, you need a grid. It's in the name /2

Attachments - mutual social obligations in all aspects of life and business - is what gives us our freedom. That collective effort is what frees up space and time for individuals to flourish. Try doing a Walden and living in your log cabin in the woods. Exhaustion. /3

The pandemic has been defined by the competition between these two definitions of freedom. Masks and movement and gathering restrictions give us freedom to continue to live, uninfected. To the libertarians, they represent tyranny. /4

Ironically it's those most concerned about social life who support restricting it, to protect it. The political libertarians freeload off this same social life, pretending they're economic free agents unfairly harnessed by society. /5

Libertarian freedom is the freedom of the virus to infect at will. Libertarians only ever believe in society (remembering Maggie T said it doesn't exist) when there's a pandemic. Then they clamour to have social life back, realising it's the same thing they call the 'Economy'. /6

Without social life, there is no economic life. The only aspect of this social life political libertarians promote is work. Jobs. They're desperate to get people back to work, selling it as people getting their freedoms back. Really just the freedom to return their earnings. /7

The virus will spread under libertarian social ideas. And it won't under the freedom-as-attachment ideas. Different countries demonstrating this right now. The virus remains a bit-player to this ultimately political event. /end