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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

Liberty ends when it substantially endangers non consenting people.

Even hard core libertarians accept government force to contain epidemics.

In Germany there are States that are basically virus free. Still the Federal Government after asked by the States to OK lifting of the Mask duty, insist openly that lifting the duty to wear a Mask would let people loose the fear for the virus!

Is it still OK to restrict freedom to just keep people in fear?

Why do you think you can speak for “hard-core” libertarians? I am a thoroughly moderate one and don’t believe this at all

There are of course also libertarians who oppose it.

As David Friedman put it:

> "There may be two libertarians somewhere who agree with each other about everything, but I am not one of them."

AFAIK, the classic "minarchist" position is that the reason to even have a government is to provide certain important Public Goods that can't be provided otherwise.

Those are (1) National defense, (2) A legal system with courts, jail, police etc, (3) Fighting epidemics. (3) is far less discussed (until 2020), but it's agreed on when mentioned.

Though in reality many such libertarians consider #3 as a sub-element of #1. For good or for bad, this has led to the debate on why if public health is to be funded, isn't it a part of the military.

Government force in what way? There's a big difference between telling typhoid mary that she can't work as a cook any more and telling everyone he must risk his job and livelihood for a small number of at-risk people.

The concrete policies can and will be argued forever.

I'm saying the principle is clear.

How small is the number of at-risk people?

A quick Googling suggests about 60 million people over 65 in the US. Then we should add some millions for problems like diabetes. So, 1 in 5? 1 in 4?

Further, some young people seem to have permanent lung damage from the disease.

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