There’s been a lot of confused talk lately about individual vs collective rights. Here are just a few of my thoughts.
Firstly, it would seem to me rights have no ethical or moral boundaries, only legal ones. That which is proscribed by the law (in functioning democratic societies, of course) cannot be a right. It can never be my right to steal food - even if I’m dying of hunger. It is not my right to stab someone because they are insulting my mother. However, it IS my right to walk to the store and buy bread even if I have the sniffles. Having a cold is not illegal. It may not be very nice of me to be sneezing in a store full of people but it’s not illegal - and therefore it is my right. It is NOT my right to walk up to someone and sneeze directly into his/her face - that is potentially an assault.
Secondly, there is no such thing as “collective rights”. The collective has no rights, only individuals do. Doing something for the greater good is lovely and fine, but it’s not a collective’s right to demand you do something for it. Conversely, it is your right to refuse any such demand, even though you will likely be made to feel guilty about it. Communists love to talk about collective rights but it’s a made-up concept. They feel it is the right of the collective to be shielded from “right wing propaganda” so they’ll shoved you in a re-education camp to shut you up before you “infect” others. I call it reverse ethics, and we have seen lots of it. While it IS your right to say anything you please as long as you’re not breaking the law, it is NOT a collective right (obviously!) to punish you for words they don’t like.
We have seen this type of reverse ethics a lot recently, which brings me to my third point. It is not another individual’s right to be shielded from you unless, again, you are behaving criminally or threatening to behave in such a way. It is NOT your neighbor’s right to be shielded from any potential disease you may carry. They may not insist YOU stay home so that they can go shopping. Your rights do not end where other people’s fears begin. It is THEIR right to stay at home, obviously. But they don’t qualify for some automatic right to be “kept safe” from you because you “might” be infected. Of course, there is a clear legal distinction here. If you knowingly infect someone with, say, the HIV virus, you have committed an offense. But it is not an offense to be HIV positive and go on a date. It is also not an offense to have sex if your status is openly declared and there’s consent. I am NOT a lawyer and happy to be corrected. I’m just trying to define what actual rights are and aren’t since we hear nonsensical statements all the time. Tony Fauci saying “others have the right not to be exposed to your viruses” is hogwash. He has invented a collective right and put you on the defensive about your actual individual right.
Finally, government coercion is a complete abnegation of personal freedoms and individual rights. The idea that somehow the government can legislate me out of my rights and wedge itself between me and my doctor in making a health decision is crazy. It’s how rogue criminal governments behave. There may be a grey area when it comes to extremely dangerous and highly contagious diseases such as measles. No such grey area exists with a virus with a 0.23 IFR
Don’t be bamboozled into believing the notion of “collective rights”. Zealously guard the rights that are truly yours: to be a free human in a free society, behaving lawfully at all times but not letting those masters of reverse ethics get the better of you