The COVID-19 response has raised questions regarding freedom in Western societies that we thought a few years ago were settled. Is freedom something we are allowed, or granted? Or is it something we are born with, which can therefore only be removed? What is the status, now or in the future, of a child born into slavery, or a child born into a camp in Xinjiang or North Korea, or a child born into a digitized, centrally managed society of some future Western dystopia?
The temptation through COVID-19 has been to use science or evidence to oppose the removal of our rights. Why should a college student be subject to a vaccine mandate if they already have post-infection immunity, or an unvaccinated person have travel restricted when the vaccinated have higher infection rates? Such approaches are tempting to embrace, as they’re based on logic and thus hard to refute. But they serve those who would remove freedom by reinforcing the fundamental requirements they need to justify their tyranny. They reinforce the tyrant’s requirement that freedom is granted based on actions or status, not the simple reality of one’s birth.
