24 December 2022
correspondent Gommil Jelug points out that while “many people argue for freedom [and decry] safety as a value, any person of reason has those they wish to protect,” and that to ignore “the value of safety is foolish,” and perhaps “hypocritical.”
Of course, every rational person values both safety and liberty. However, we will pit those values against each other with every thought and act. “If it saves just one life” is a contemptible lie, and any thinking person sees right through it. Very few parents build cinder block walls around their front yards to insure against automobiles running into their yards. They have placed the costs of construction and subsequent devaluation of their property against the lives of their children. They regularly put their own (and others’) lives at risk every time they drive down to the QuikkStopp for a six-pack of Coors Slight or a fist full of lottery tickets.
Ridiculing people who pretend that liberty and safety are not in conflict, or who pretend that their hyper-vigilance isn’t dangerously counter-productive, is both logical and coherent. Just not very generous to the mentally deficient.
Jelug adds that one of the (often prohibitive) costs to protecting their children from errant traffic and other dangers are institutionalized zoning and housing authority ordinances, once again revealing an opportunity for libertarian solutions.