An Open Letter to America

Concerning This Lockdown

My fellow Americans,

Underlying our current lockdown, along with the mask, sanitization, and “social distancing” requirements, is an unspoken assumption, and one which I wish to call into question for the examination of its validity through the use of the powers of rationality which universities have historically championed. I do not wish to exalt myself as a symbol of visceral opposition to the authorities which have judged it proper to institute these chafing regulations; I am merely a citizen concerned with the wellbeing of my neighbors and desirous to use reason to convince them that in one area they have erred, so that I might civilly affect a change beneficial for all. I wish to persuade them of the truth and subsequently arm them with the knowledge and confidence to fight back against the lies which have often pervaded during this pandemic, and in doing so forge a better world. I hope that you will take this letter in the goodwill with which it was intended.

The assumption I wish to challenge is this: physical harm and death are the prime evils facing humanity and are therefore to be avoided at any cost. Or, put another way, safety is our number one priority. I understand that many of you may now feel quite hostile to what I have to say, and may even think that I, being young and healthy, am being rather selfish and uncompassionate. I assure you, that is not true by any measure, and I implore you to give me a fair hearing. I will now push your patience with me even further by asserting that none of you believes this assumption either, not really. In fact, I do not think that any human in history has truly believed this oft-repeated declaration of supreme value, and those who came closest to doing so are not well-respected by any of us.

Consider this fact: we could cut down traffic deaths to almost nothing by reducing the speed limit on every street, freeway, and avenue to 10mph, yet we have not. Consciously or not, we have each decided that the ability to drive 50 miles in 45 minutes rather than 5 hours is worth the small risk of launching through our windshield and having our brains painted on the asphalt. Not only that, we have judged it worth the risk of unintentionally inflicting the same fate on someone else; every car on the road increases the risk of a collision for other drivers. We have judged this a worthy risk because we all fundamentally believe that efficiency of travel is more important than maximum safety. Naturally, there is a balance between the two priorities. If there were not, we would not have speed limits at all. This risk to which we have given our tacit consent as a society translates to thousands of preventable deaths, thousands of widows and widowers, and thousands of orphans every year. Yet the bereaved of the tragic victims of automobile crashes do not cry out for the universal 10mph speed limit. They all understand intrinsically that prioritizing absolute physical safety above all else is irrational, impractical, and untenable as a belief.

You will remember that earlier I claimed that you and I do not have much respect for those who come closest to believing that safety is of paramount importance. I will now attempt to justify that claim with a thought experiment. Imagine a person, I will call him Clarence, who has chosen to orient his entire life towards avoiding death or injury via car accident. He drives only when absolutely necessary, works from home, buys everything online, calls his family but never visits them, and homeschools his kids. When he does drive, he wears a helmet and body armor, drives on back roads to avoid other cars, and never exceeds a speed of 10mph. He volunteers for a lobby group that advocates a 10mph speed limit and the restriction of driving privileges to essential drivers only, who of course must be rigorously trained driving professionals. Would you respect Clarence? Keep in mind that the precautions he takes would really save lives (at least concerning traffic deaths) if everyone took them. Would you look up to him as a role model? I suspect not. I think that most people would consider such a person an abject coward and feel sorry for him. By his relentless quest to stay alive, Clarence has enslaved himself to fear, thus forfeiting the freedom that is life’s worthwhile gift. For it profits a man none to be alive if he does not use his condition to live.

Now, allow me to apply this car wreck example to the issue at hand: the COVID-19 shutdown. Consider this proposal: from now on and forevermore all schools should go online, team sports should be banned, theaters should be closed, restaurants should be abolished, N-95 masks should be mandated during any human interaction in which it is possible to wear them, hand sanitization should be obligatory after touching any potentially infected surface and all nonessential gatherings public or private should be prohibited. There is no question that the implementation of this proposal would drastically reduce the rate of death from even the infectious diseases that plagued us before COVID-19, and yet, anyone with a lick of common sense would immediately dismiss this proposal as unworthy of consideration, absurd, and degrading to the human race. Accepting such a death blow to the structure of human society would be tantamount to prostrating oneself to influenza as a god who commands his worshippers to observe cleansing rituals, wear ceremonial clothing, and strictly avoid taboos to appease his wrath. I hope that by taking the current measures to their logical, though ludicrous, extreme, I have made it blindingly obvious that we are all on the same team. Not one among us comes close to believing that the avoidance of physical pain, injury, and death is the highest priority of mankind.

With that necessary excursion into the realm of the radical and the absurd behind us, let us now consider matters at a moderate and reasonable level. From the understanding that the simple joys, pleasures, and conveniences of daily life are worth accepting some level of risk of excruciating pain and premature death proceeds the question of balance: how much should we sacrifice to reduce risks? Put another way, where should we set the speed limit? Now, for any particular, just as with speed limits, the answer to this question will be somewhat arbitrary. One person may suggest 60mph, another 65, but there does not seem, at least to me, to be any definitive way of knowing who is closer to the “correct” answer. Consequently, we must rely on intuition to answer this question of balance. Given that no two people are likely to intuit the same answer, it seems proper that as far as the particular concerns only the individual, the answer should be decided individually, and where it concerns the group, the answer should be decided by whatever political process the group has instituted for addressing such questions. Therefore, the current pandemic, being of universal concern, ought to be decided by national, state, and local governments; business owners; and other group leaders wherever they have jurisdiction.

I would not have written this open letter if I did not believe that the current counter-virus measures indicate that those entrusted with answering this question with the force of law have made a serious, though I believe in most cases, an honest mistake with their answer. Our leaders still often operate under the tragic assumption, though they do not really believe it, that no cost is too great to reduce the risk, or as they often put it, “slow the spread.” I desire to put an end to such notions and the destructive policies they produce by changing the conversation. It seems to me that most Americans understand intrinsically that many of the restrictions to which we have acquiesced are not worth the sacrifice they entail for whatever minimal and invisible good they do to reduce risk. However, not possessing consciously the ideological justification for what they know to be true subconsciously, and being decent people not wishing to cause harm to others through their defiance, they have submitted themselves to the new rules without significant protest. I hope that by this letter, I can free them from the ideological fetters which have thus far obstructed them from pushing back against the premise and arm them with the ideas to call for a new, radically sensible response to this pandemic, one grounded in the explicit understanding that the risk of death is worth accepting for many of the common liberties which are the birthright of all Americans.

So let us fight with our words, my brothers and sisters, for if we do not give volume and power to the voice of truth, we can never hope to see the change we all desire. Let us dare to ask one another what we are and are not willing to sacrifice for the sake of safety, and when we have decided, let us petition our leaders to carry out the sacrifices on our behalf, and return to us that which we have decided not to surrender any longer. Live with courage my countrymen, and consider the brighter future ahead of us, for our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!

With all sincerity, Publius