At Peak Risk: Coronavirus as Justification for Dictatorial Powers

New York City, March 16—We can be thankful, in the present Coronavirus crisis, that we have a president who is sensible, restrained, and not afflicted with power lust. And thankful that almost four years in the presidency has inured him to personal attacks unrestrained by logic, perspective, or even mere decency. Just today, he reassured Americans he was not going to declare a national quarantine.

The president reassured Americans he was not going to declare a national quarantine.

President Trump told reporters at a news conference today: “We may look at certain areas, certain hotspots, as they call them. We’ll be looking at that. At this moment, no, we’re not.”

He praised Americans for socially isolating voluntarily. And he said: “People are self-containing to a large extent. We look forward to the day when we can get back to normal.”

In instantaneous commentary, the New York Times said the President’s recommendations were for voluntary action by citizens “and do not go as far as health officials urged.”

Contrast that with the misfortune of living in my state, New York, with Andrew Cuomo as governor. Mr. Cuomo long ago lost his soul to power lust.

Contrast that with the misfortune of living in my state, New York, with Andrew Cuomo as governor. Mr. Cuomo long ago lost his soul to power lust. He yearns to be president and he politics relentlessly against Mr. Trump. When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio hesitated to close the city’s public schools, Mr. Cuomo summoned the teachers’ unions and other “power players” and forced it.

Today, with other governors, he has declared that all restaurants in the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) are closed till further notice, except for take-outs and deliveries. Notice the detailed social engineering, here. The governor and a few of his henchmen sat around a table and decided what was required by “genuine leadership”—deliveries are okay.

To quote the Times, again: “The city’s world-famous restaurant and bar scene is reeling from the decision to cut off the livelihoods of the industry’s employees.”

We live in a constitutional republic. The defining characteristic of our government is the limitation on constitutional power by virtue of individual rights.

We live in a constitutional republic. The defining characteristic of our government is the limitation on constitutional power by virtue of individual rights (the Bill of Rights), by states’ rights, and by the balance of power (among the executive, legislative, and judicial (the Supreme Court) branches of government.

For at least a century, roughly since the Progressive Era of the 1890s, socialist and statist ideology has steadily eroded the limitations on government power, enormously expanding the scope of government action. Today, a Democrat who is a leftist economic interventionist and welfare statist, Joseph Biden, is competing for the Democratic presidential nomination with an outright socialist, Sen. Bernard Sanders. In their nationally-televised debate last night they had a vigorous competition in outdoing each other in promising expansions of government power to deal with the coronavirus epidemic.

Are there any principles, any remnant of respect for human rights, to restrain the so-called “emergency powers” alleged to be justified by the coronavirus pandemic?  By the public health crisis?

It is impossible to discuss this from the point of view of today’s politicians. Exactly what definition of human rights, and what principles for limitation of power, are guiding Mr. Biden and Sen. Sanders? To be direct and, I hope fair, their view would be defined by what could or could not survive Supreme Court review. Their own views of rights would be limited to so-called “intellectual rights” such as free speech, assembly, publication. And by their reverence for “civil rights.”

At this time, government authorities in my town have closed the library, the recreation center, and all other meeting places until further notice. In New York City, Gov. Cuomo, as mentioned, has closed or strictly limited hundreds of thousands of small businesses. Individuals who have tested positive with the illness are legally quarantined, risking jail time for violations.

In several counties of California, citizens have been ordered to stay at home except for certain approved “necessary” trips. The same thing has been ordered by the government in Italy. Only one member of the family may leave the home at a given time; destination and papers will be checked. That highlights the significance of President’s Trump statement that no “national quarantine” is contemplated.

All measures taken in New York State are a response to deaths from the coronavirus. There have been six deaths. Across the entire United States, to date, there have been 68 deaths attributed to the new virus.

Let us look at Ayn Rand’s definition of human rights: “Rights are moral principles defining and sanctioning man’s freedom of action in a social content.”

The fundamental justification of this moral principle is the most basic requirement of human life. The defining characteristic of our species is reason and our ability to use reason to guide our decisions, goals, and actions. Our exercise of reason, acting upon our judgment, is the one absolute that nature requires of each individual and the sole essential requirement of survival and achievement of our values.

When government upon any justification undertakes to violate individual rights, it undercuts the individual’s incentive to live in society. Because to make it worthwhile for the individual to live in society, his fundamental demand is to be guaranteed the freedom to exercise his reason and act on it. No benefit gained at the price of compromising that right is worth the price.

There can be no justification for limiting individual rights in emergencies because at such a time, above all, the individual must rely on his own judgment, his own values. There is no moment at which the individual is more likely to be sacrificed to the collective, to the “public interest,” to the “public welfare.”

President Trump struck exactly the right note when he said: “People are self-containing to a large extent.”

In my immediate experience, everyone is educating themselves about the virus, everyone is learning about symptoms and prevention, and everyone is taking steps to limit their risks. Each is acting upon his own judgment.

Well, what if you are afflicted with the virus, know that you are, and decide you must go out shopping? Or to pick up your laundry? Or to go to a movie—if all the theaters were not already closed? Should you be prohibited by law? Arrested and tried? Fined or jailed?

The regulation on the movement of individuals diagnosed with the virus not only violates human rights, it has the weakness of all regulations:
 

We have been told our individual judgment is not needed. But it is.

First, it reassures the public of a safety that is illusory. We are told the individuals with the coronavirus are kept from the public. Then, mere days later, we are told that testing suggests that 10 times as many individuals are now thought to be infected. We have been misled into believing we don’t have to worry because government is protecting us. We have been told our individual judgment is not needed. But it is.

Second, and related, the regulations imply that the greatest possible security has been achieved by government dictate. As a result, any additional precautions put in place by a business have no economic value. The law says that regulations have made all public places equally safe. No additional level of safety is relevant or a way to appeal to customers.

Often the argument for unlimited emergency powers makes the comparison to wartime government powers. Today, that comparison is made more and more often as officials promulgate new dictates. In fact, this precisely illustrates the role of government in protecting our rights. Initiating a war is a massive violation of human rights by force—the only way legitimate rights to life, liberty, and property can be violated. It is precisely the role of government to defend citizens against such initiation of force by a foreign power. An act of nature, such as an epidemic or hurricane, cannot violate human rights. Reality, apart from the actions of other people, cannot violate our rights. Note the recent calls to put government on a “wartime footing” to combat climate change.

When gaining government office means power not just to protect human rights through law enforcement, the courts, and military defense, but power to dictate to business, restructure the health care system, and command industries such as the pharmaceutical industry—to take just a few examples—then politicians like New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo become the greatest threat to freedom. Meanwhile, as this article goes to publication, President Trump illustrated a legitimate government response to the epidemic. He said that taxpayers will be allowed to defer payments to the IRS.

Whatever benefits government might confer short term in an emergency are negated by the precedent of government setting aside individual rights “for the public good” and “in the public interest.”

Whatever benefits government might confer short term in an emergency are negated by the precedent of government setting aside individual rights “for the public good” and “in the public interest.” Even after war, governments rarely return entirely to their strictly limited domain and former size. As ‘emergencies” proliferate, what should be inviolable—human rights—increasingly is perceived as flexible.

In the case of the current coronavirus scare, the peak risk comes at the period of greatest uncertainty. That is the time when the public is vulnerable to being panicked by projections of disaster. And the media and politicians for their different reasons have much to gain from such panic.

Yet, it has been known—for more than a century—that epidemics follow a predictable trajectory or curve. They start slowly, with the curve almost flat; gain momentum that briefly appears to threaten exponential growth; and then inevitably level off. It is a curve that applies to almost all biological processes from population growth to the growth of tumors. As applied to epidemics, the curve reflects how epidemics race through the most vulnerable segment of a population, evoke strong individual and public responses aimed at containment, begin to confer immunity on a segment of the population, encounter more informed health care responses—and rapidly level off. In China, South Korea, and Italy, the progress of the coronavirus appears for now to fit that curve well, enabling us to predict that the already evident leveling will continue. It appears to have occurred already in China from recent reports.

Our most severe risk at this time of peak uncertainty about the virus is that our government will react with the usual short-sighted view—projecting a straight-line, never-ending upward curve of the virus—and thereby justify action that will cripple the economy for years to come. If that is the result of their action, be assured they will take no responsibility; they will blame the virus.

And Mr. Cuomo will blame President Trump for his “inexcusable” failure to exercise dictatorial powers soon enough.

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About the Author: Walter Donway

Walter Donway has written and edited for Savvy Street since its inception in 2014. His essays and interpretative commentaries on breakthrough books have dealt with philosophy, politics, literature, science, history, psychology, and personalities. His new novel, "Retaking College Hill,” became Amazon’s #1 bestseller in political fiction. This year, the Atlas Society published his Pocket Guide to The Fountainhead and Romanticism Reborn--essays on the Romantic movement in literature and its 20th Century revival in Ayn Rand's novels. His collections of essays and short stories and his "Collected Poems" are available on Amazon. He lives in East Hampton with his wife, Robin.