... a message from county chair Joe Dehn ...

The COVID-19 pandemic is dominating the news, and changing our lives. The effects are being felt world-wide, across the United States, all around California, and especially here in Santa Clara County -- an area within the state where the problem surfaced early.

The dangers to our health are obvious, and being explored in great depth in the media. Projections are uncertain, but it seems clear that a large fraction of the population will, sooner or later, be infected. While not everybody will get seriously ill, a significant number will. And for some segments of the population, the chance of the illness being life-threatening will be significant. To have a chance of survival, these people will need medical care. And the example of how this has played out elsewhere shows that if the numbers become large enough, the medical establishment will not be able to cope.

To head off this catastrophic outcome, all manner of steps are being taken to slow down the spread. If the spread can be sufficiently slowed, the medical establishment may be in a better position to cope with the numbers. Which means fewer people may die. Unfortunately, all of the measures taken so far or under consideration also interfere with normal economic activity -- which can also have adverse effects on health. It is entirely possible that, as horrifying as some of the projected mortality rates are, the economic disruption from government mismanagement of the situation could destroy even more lives. And more fundamentally, they are interference with individual rights, to a degree that few of us could have imagined possible in this country just a few weeks ago.

What are we as Libertarians to make of this? Some things to think about:

1) There is a difference between something being a good idea and making it mandatory.
2) There is a difference between something being risky and prohibiting it.
3) Many Americans already see risk to an indvididual as a risk to society as a whole, because they see society as a whole as responsible for what happens to every individual.
4) People are more willing to give up their rights in an emergency, not only because they are more likely to see it as necessary but also because they see it as temporary.
5) Unfortunately, it is usually harder to regain rights once their loss has been accepted.

Meanwhile, the advocates of more government control over everything are not hesitating to use this crisis as an argument for why people cannot be allowed to make their own choices. Everything from "Medicare for All" (even though a single-payer system didn't save Italy), to subsidies for (or even nationalization of) entire industries, to massive shifts in monetary policy, to new surveillance powers will be cited as necessary to address this crisis.

We, as Libertarians, don't want to see people sick or dying. We don't advocate people taking on unnecessary risk, or unnecessarily causing risk to others. Many of the measures being imposed by government may in fact be good steps for people to take. But we cannot allow our fellow citizens to forget that important difference, between something being a good idea and being required by law. We cannot let them forget the role that individual choice makes both in allowing our economy to function efficiently and making our lives worth living. We have no way of knowing at this point how long this crisis will last, but however long it lasts we must be there to remind our fellow citizens of what they have lost, and help guide them back on the path toward freedom.