Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

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And yet that very liberty that you take for granted today is the result of a continuous slippery slope from hereditary monarchies to a world where you're even allowed to choose who leads you or have a right to be free at all. Incrementalism is what gave us the liberty we have. It wasn't that long ago that women were incrementally given the right to vote. What's next? Allowing dogs and cats to vote too?

> I think a better idea is to allow people to live their lives the way they chose.

I'm not allowed to recklessly speed down any road I please. I'm not allowed to fire guns wherever I please. I'm not allowed to build my house in any way I please. I'm not allowed live in any house I please. I'm not allowed to build bombs in my garage. I'm not allowed to dump waste in the local water system. If I walk around downtown without any clothes I'll almost certainly be arrested. There are countless things we're all forbidden from doing by society. We are not free to live as we please with no regard for anyone else. That is the price of participating in a society.

Liberty is an artificial construct that we, as a society, have agreed upon and set the boundaries for. There is no natural state of liberty that exists, it must be explicitly defined and agreed upon. It's OK to disagree on the boundaries of liberty. We can arbitrarily choose where to draw the line as we please. So we can choose to mandate masks and yet allow fast food to exist.

These "I'm not allowed" assertions are all over the map.

You can't "recklessly speed" down a road, but are you not generally allowed to drive along any public road for any reason - or no reason - so long as you're not "reckless"? Should you be made to justify your need to be on the road, or your choice to drive rather than ride a bus? After all, these things impact public safety and the climate.

You're not allowed to fire guns wherever you please, but you're also not allowed to even HAVE a lawfully obtained gun in many settings simply because those in power have deemed it so. Try getting a concealed carry permit in NYC. Should it be that way everywhere?

You can't live in "any house you please" perhaps, but you're certainly allowed to live in any house that you can afford. Are you trying to justify bringing back things like redlining or neighborhood exclusionary rules?

I won't go over every single "I'm not allowed" item. But I'll finish by saying that "recklessly speed" and "drive where I please when I please" are different things. Almost every rule in existence finds SOME degree of justification in necessity, which is why "necessity" has always been the go-to justification for any authoritarian regime or ruler throughout history. And it never stops until people push back.

> These "I'm not allowed" assertions are all over the map.

So what? Is that a bad thing or something? Opinions on what is an acceptable amount of laws and regulations is all over the map. Some think we should have no laws. Some think everything should be regulated. Many are somewhere in between. Mask mandates are not a slippery slope towards authoritarianism, it's a step on the spectrum toward some equilibrium on the spectrum of anarchy and total authoritarianism that society, on average, finds acceptable.

Some reductions in liberty are beneficial: speed limits, private property rights, bans on exclusionary lending practices. The question is always, "is it worth it?" Many people believe that mandating the wearing of a mask in public is part of an acceptable definition of "liberty." There is no natural state of liberty (other than complete anarchy) that is violated by a mask mandate, there is only the degree of liberty we choose to grant ourselves. Even the right to life is a man-made right, granted only by mutual assent.

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