‘Freedom’ and freedumb
By John Marshall
A retired firefighter was arrested on Oct. 17 for threatening to kidnap and kill Wichita mayor Brandon Whipple. The man was upset about the city’s covid-19 precautions, including a directive that people wear masks while interacting in public or risk a citation. Earlier this month, state and federal authorities thwarted a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, try her for “treason” and execute her. That plan was the work of an anti-government paramilitary group. Six men have been charged in federal court in Michigan; eight others face charges in state court.
These cases and others seem to revolve about the government’s role in public health, its efforts to keep people safe. In some quarters there is a lot of line-drawing about personal freedom and public safety, and when one infringes on the other. In the process, human desires are put at odds with human rights.
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Kansas once was at the center of national campaigns for safer, more hygienic living. In 1905, Samuel .J. Crumbine, a Dodge City physician, converted a device known as the fly bat into a fly-swatter and launched a “swat the fly” campaign to prevent the insect’s spread of disease. Crumbine, who soon would lead the state board of health, became an early 20th century Anthony Fauci. To fight the spread of tuberculosis, Crumbine insisted that “common” public drinking cups be replaced with disposable paper ones. He persuaded brick manufacturers to imprint the slogan, “Don’t spit on the sidewalk” on their product, and the message popped out along America’s avenues and walkways.
Crumbine would become dean of the medical school at Kansas University and acquire international respect. He campaigned to replace the reusable roller towel – often found on trains and in other public areas – with the paper towel. And he was one of the first to warn against misleading labels on food and drugs.
The Menningers’ research and advanced treatment for mental illness, and the state’s campaign for self-immunization against polio are among other notable Kansas achievements.
The fly swatter became a household implement. We adapted readily to the paper cup and were weaned from the grimy roller towel. Shame became the universal chastening for spitting on the sidewalk (if not the ball field). Polio, in the end, would be eradicated. Mandatory seat belts (with mandatory fastening) provoked complaints and pleas that air bags were enough without the belts; we’ve settled for both, without violence.
Mask-wearing in an era of covid should not be a problem. A small crowd, often violent and loud, complains that mandates to wear them in public violate their “freedoms.” It has been explained repeatedtly that masks are to suppress projecting the corona virus onto others. Masks hamper exhaling the germs far more than inhaling them.
The idea is to protect others, and if everyone is masked, all are safer. Despite contrary suspicions, masks are not intended to suppress freedom of wardrobe, or to force on citizens the look of a bank robber. Nor are they intended to mute freedom of speech or its volume. No, something else is at work here. A core group of protesters with a rabid dislike of government seem to insist that free speech or assembly outrank the pursuit of public health and safety.
These are strange bedfellows. A right is a responsibility in reverse. Thus, a constitutional government of free people should not award any “rights” that it is not in a position to accept full responsibility for. The social conscience of this nation has begun to show some vigor, and it’s good that the “right to spread disease” hasn’t made it into the bill of rights.
Dr. Samuel Crumbine would remind us that “freedom” does not include the right to make others sick. Spitting on the sidewalk, or going bare-faced in a grocery store or maskless in a crowd is not a “right.” In this case, one person’s “freedom” is apt to prompt another’s fear – of potential illness, of lingering disability, even death.
The freedom to infect others is nowhere in the constitution, and it remains a mystery why a lot of people somehow think that it is. It is a mistake to equate human desires with human rights because in guaranteeing the goal, the principle is abandoned. It is only good public policy to remind citizens of the difference. And to wear a mask.
