They are just “doing their own thing.”
1. From a historical point of view, there is something fascinating, in a macabre way, about the TX governor lifting his state’s mask mandate. There is at least an economic justification for opening businesses, but none whatsoever for not requiring masks.
2. It is an absolute privileging of personal choice over the public good. Now, half a century ago, the GOP was very much the party of responsibility, conformity, duty. Its president excoriated progressives for their experiments with drugs, sexual freedom, “alternate” lifestyles.
3. “Freedom” was a collective, national freedom, associated with the “free world”–not the freedom to do whatever the hell you wanted. But today the GOP has increasingly adopted put that libertarian impulse at the heart of its program.
4. “Freedom” now means the freedom to own whatever guns you want, whatever the danger to others; the freedom to pay minimal taxes; the freedom to run your business how you want without regulation; the freedom to pollute regardless of the ecological damage…
5. Plus the freedom to act how you want with subordinates without worrying about sexual harassment charges, the freedom to eat what you want without the nanny state telling you otherwise…
6. And now, of course, the freedom to do whatever the hell you want during a deadly pandemic even if doing so puts the lives of others at risk.
7. Donald Trump, of course, is the perfect expression of this tendency since he lacks impulse control entirely and is the walking embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins. “When you’re a star, they let you do it.”
8. Personally, I’d like to see the GOP of 1971 reassert itself and start talking about duty, responsibility and the common good.
9. There is also something of a reversal with progressives who formerly chanted “turn on, tune in, drop out” and now boast of how little fun they are having, but that is a subject for another thread. /end
Originally tweeted by David A. Bell (@DavidAvromBell) on March 3, 2021.
It’s not libertarianism. It’s just nihilism. The1960s counter-culture was risky in many different ways. But it wasn’t determined to put innocent people’s lives at risk as they go about their daily lives just to make a point.
I was tempted to say that it’s sad they didn’t have fun when they were young but then I realized that these people dress up in costumes and wear their hats and dance to disco music (without having a clue what they are singing about) and are obviously having the time of their lives. This is their high point.