The hypocrisy of personal freedom and individual rights

23rd August 2021   ·   0 Comments

The coronavirus pandemic is spreading out of control because some Americans believe their freedom to choose not to be vaccinated is more important than the public’s health.

These are the same people who pressured local, state and federal governments to reopen society, end lockdowns and refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated.

State leaders are too scared of their constituents to pass a law mandating vaccines and mask wearing, while elected Republicans in red states propose legislation to protect anti-vaxxers.

This never-ending pandemic brought to light the hypocrisy of who gets to exercise individual freedom of choice. Which begs the question, how is it that only certain groups are guaranteed freedoms?

Anti-maskers say they have the freedom to choose to wear a mask even though they can transmit an illness that can kill themselves and others. Don’t those who mask up and don’t want to catch COVID have the freedom not to get the virus?

Given the logic of the anti-maskers and those who support them, is it not hypocritical then, that a woman does not have that same right to decide what happens to her body and to choose the right to have an abortion?

Christians believe that religious freedoms outweigh everything else. But only those religions they deem acceptable.

Our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan have been thrust into a humanitarian crisis that have all of us outraged. But not enough to take those who seek asylum into our country.

We invaded the Middle East. The reasons why have evolved over the two decades we occupied those lands. The latest, which makes us sound caring to the rest of the world, but especially to ourselves, is because their people were being inhumanely treated. But where is that same compassion for the immigrants seeking refuge on our southern borders or the Haitians seeking refuge in the U.S. after earthquakes and floods?

Anyone with a microphone these days can pontificate to others their thoughts about individual rights and patriotism. Or can they? Why are there some who are told to “shut up and just dribble” in this “Land of the Free?”

Why is the joy people get over owning a gun more important than protecting a mom from being killed during a Zoom meeting by her toddler, who found the loaded gun in a drawer and pulled the trigger? Or the toddler who found a loaded gun and killed another toddler?

Since when did the right to bear arms override an individual’s right to peacefully protest without being murdered by an automatic weapon-toting Kyle Rittenhouse?

In this country where “all men all created equal”, why are some entitled to keep more of their money than people who don’t earn as much? Billionaires pay fewer taxes than the working poor. Why do wealthy people have the right not to pay taxes on massive earnings?

Or why have we accepted that it’s no big deal that marginalized people are denied rights and liberties, as long as it is just the marginalized people being denied their rights and liberties?

If one’s personal choice is a priority, why are some Americans against defunding the police? Isn’t a police force’s job to protect the public against individuals’ negative personal choices?

Following the logic or belief of anti-vaxxers that their personal choice not to get vaccinated is a matter of individual freedom, let’s consider the following hypotheticals:

Speeding. It’s a personal choice. Why is that against the law? Why is that subject to a fine or incarceration?

Drinking and driving. Is that not a personal choice? Why are there laws on the books against drinking and driving?

Pyromania. Is it not a personal choice that a pyromaniac can play with fire? The fact that it may cause destruction and fatalities should not outweigh the individual’s personal choice.

Sounds ridiculous? It should!

According to those crying freedom, you can’t stop anti-vaxxers or anti-maskers from going anywhere they want because it violates their freedom, even though they can effectively transmit a killer virus onto others.

But transgender people aren’t free to choose to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. It’s okay to put a scarlet letter on them but not on anti-vaxxers who don’t care about infecting others or possibly causing their own deaths or the deaths of others.

When a person’s choice negatively affects society, how far is too far before controls are appropriate? Some Americans reject any restrictions on personal choices, but drunk-driving laws and seat belts mandates have saved lives.

There are limits to individual rights and personal freedom of choice when it comes to public health. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state and local officials can issue vaccine mandates unless people belong to an exempt group.

In 1905, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts that local health authorities could compel adults to receive the smallpox vaccine under state law.

While individual freedoms are fundamental, they are not absolute and are placed in the context of the common good. Supreme Court rulings have recognized the need to carefully balance the community’s right to be protected with the individual’s constitutionally protected freedoms, Dr. Richard Feldman wrote in the Indianapolis Business Journal.

Americans’ freedom of choice stops when others are negatively affected or harmed.

Last week, 3,000 students and staff at New Orleans public schools had to be quarantined because of exposure to COVID. Louisiana is right up there with several other southern states where coronavirus is spreading. A federal team of medically trained National Guardsmen is heading to Lafayette, Louisiana, to help with the coronavirus pandemic.

Why is it that southern states with Republican-majority legislatures have the worst outbreak in the U.S.? Forbes last week reported that the COVID-19 surges in states like Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi are so severe they rank among the very worst outbreaks in the world.

Louisiana has more cases of COVID-19 per capita than any country in the world, reporting 120 new cases per day, per 100,000 people, according to data compiled by The New York Times. So far, 11,706 Louisianans are dead because of coronavirus.

Hypocrisy aside, the question remains: Why are some people’s freedom of choice protected while others are not? Maybe the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in the Dred Scott case is the underlying reason. “They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order … and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…” the Court wrote about enslaved Africans.

That mentality is still with us today.

This article originally published in the August 23, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.