What price, your liberty to violate physical distancing?

'I believe in our freedoms'

Nobody defends it by saying, though it's true, that people who would recklessly refuse physical distancing, and self-isolation if the old and chronically ill, are too stupid for their own good.

Of course, the refusal isn't reckless if the costs of prevention are worse than the likely results of infection, discounted by how likely infection is.

But never mind.

The argument has always been that the stupidity of the stupid puts others at greater risk of infection, serious illness, and even death.

And you have no right to do that; government has the right and the duty to prevent you doing that.

That's the argument.

But really it's always about balancing, and whether the cure is worse, or at any rate more annoying, than the disease depends in large part on things that are still unknown.

Just like life, forcing us to choose in the dark in a life or death situation.

Don't we do that every day?

In the case of South Dakota, people are already living more isolated from each other than many New Yorkers who are doing their best to become isolated.

And the governor was right about that meat packing plant.

And danger inadvertently posed to others does not absolutely cancel your right to act, even if the increased risks are foreseeable and foreseen.

Think Double Effect, proportionality, and collateral damage.

Everybody who drives, rides a train, rides a bus, or rides a plane contributes toward increased risks for others, whether riding with them or not.

Think crashes, explosions, or air pollution, for a few examples.

But not too much increased risk, eh?

She could be right that it's not worth it in South Dakota, to South Dakotans.

Barr: Justice department may join lawsuits against lockdowns

Told you to expect this.

Update.

If the idea is to stop or slow the spread the idea is to protect the uninfected from becoming infected.

But they are the vast majority of those whose liberty is being so trampled on, clearly for their own good, whether they like it or not.

So, yes, mostly paternalism.