> But of course Covid is killing people, so we should abandon centuries of liberal democratic tradition and hard fought freedoms to continue the great work we've done stopping it.

I'm entirely confused by this sentiment. What's been abandoned? Serious question, I have no clue what people mean when they post stuff like this.

Even Biden admitted the moratorium is unconstitutional. Nobody seems to care.

As an aside, you can see the way the parent (comment you replied to) wanted to shift the conversation to some kind of definition of terms argument instead of actually discussing any salient points. And how they jumped on your example and used it as a kind of strawman to dismiss and explain why your point is baseless.

Actually, I wouldn't have guessed at the eviction moratorium, so it was interesting that that was the chosen example. If that's the kind of thing in question then clearly this is a fundamental difference in perspective on where things started and have been, so differences in opinion on where they're going will probably be impossible to bridge without addressing that, in much the same way that if someone's sailing South from the US and tells me they're going to keep on going that way in order to visit the Arctic, we're going to need to sort some things out before understand what's going on—did they mean Antarctic? Do they know something I don't? Are they just very confused? Hard to say.

And yes, of course I suspected that was the case. But now I know. And this wasn't some kind of ploy—given my understanding of American history I genuinely do not know what someone (you) might have meant by "abandon centuries of liberal democratic tradition and hard fought freedoms". The pandemic response measures seems basically normal to me, in the context of how the US usually operates, in practice. Mild and tame, even. Progress we gain in fits and starts, regressions here and there, often pretty terrible for long stretches of time. Liberty-limiting measures during emergencies, including other pandemics, are typical. We evidently didn't abandon the project of liberal democracy any of those dozens of other, often worse, times when liberty's been more restricted and even heading toward, in the moment, being further restricted, if that project remains as something that can yet be abandoned, so what should I think is meant by that claim? It's either that the writer has a different understanding of the lay of the land, so believes all the above context is incorrect (why? Perhaps we've read entirely different history books? Who knows), or knows something about what's going on, that I don't. It looks like it's the former—unless the eviction moratorium was a bad example of the kind of thing you meant.

Ok, so the eviction moratorium? Maybe we just have very different historical perspectives, and that's why I don't get it. "Abandon centuries of liberal democratic tradition and hard fought freedoms" seems like wild hyperbole, given how the country usually operates, and has basically forever. We're still way on the "more free" side of things, as far as the spectrum in which the US has historically operated, by a long shot, and I don't see a strong trend the other way.

Half the population had no problem trying to actually overthrow a constitutional election earlier this year and the previous President still claims it was all rigged. I'm not at all surprised that Biden's actions are not inspiring much outrage.

Need to look up Typhoid Mary if you want to understand our liberal democratic values when it comes to disease.

Just because Eric Raymond (who is more famous for his mouth than for his technical achievements) is a libertarian, and billionaires are libertarian, doesn't mean techies are in general.

I don't know who Eric Raymond is. What I was referring to, and just my opinion mind, is the impression from e.g. reading slashdot 15 years ago and other similar discussions. There are still elements today, when we get into age-related tracking, what apple is up to, censorship and privacy, etc, but I feel like there has been a swing in the mainstream viewpoint towards conformity away from individual rights.

It's frowned upon but the term "Long March Through the Institutions" may be applicable here.

There's libertarian as a religion, and practical libertarian. I'm the latter type: free markets are generally good, and people should generally be left alone to live their lives. But public health is a real thing that matters, and governments should step in to make sure externalities are charged to the people who caused them. I still think I'm a libertarian, but the religious type might disagree.

So only fanatics can disagree with you, is that how we should understand your setup?

Regardless, call me a fanatic, but a big part of individual rights, and I believe liberal democracy, not just libertarianism, is not to be subject to other people's panic. Whether that is a border wall or its enforced mobility and gathering restrictions, there are things the government should just not be allowed to do, because they allow for a tyranny of the majority.

There have been discussions, long before covid and largely precipitated by Trump, about how our system only works if we all generally follow some norms and don't abandon them in some kind of populist panic. I would argue this is what's happened here.

It's not acceptable that there are magic words (science says, "public health is a real thing that matters" as you say) that anyone can say that allows government to bypass civil liberties and impose stuff on people. Freedoms only actually exist if there is weight behind them and they can't just be discarded when someone shouts that lives are at stake.

For me it's not a question of disagreeing with any science about how covid is transmitted or vaccines or severity. People should behave sensibly about it and do what they can to limit the impact. Giving power to government just creates populist measures designed to cater to the masses and make them feel good (exactly like a border wall). This is not a power government should have. Call me a fanatic (religious type as you say)

All governments already have this power, and always have. You can argue that public health measures should not be the province of government, but that would be a pretty fringe position. You are essentially arguing that there is never a good reason for governments to infringe individual liberties. This is the religious libertarian I am talking about. I recognize it. I used to be one.

If you say instead that it is a legit function of government, but shouldn't be used in this case because on balance the risk is too small to sacrifice liberty for, that's certainly a discussion that could be had.

There is nothing libertarian about mass media convincing a herd of people to reject common sense mitigations for a respiratory pandemic. The FUD on this topic is as top-down as you can get, starting with an authoritarian conman whose most intelligent moment was brainstorming about injecting bleach.

As a libertarian I wholeheartedly reject this fig leaf of "freedom" touted by anti-maskers. Freedom is an ability to choose the right thing, not simply being a contrarian for contrarianism's sake. I think hard drugs should be legal, but I similarly wouldn't support people becoming junkies to spite society.