Categories
general freedom national politics & policies

Zero Risk!

Stop trying to create a zero-​risk society.

That’s the sensible advice — indeed, the title — of a Reason think-​piece by Veronique de Rugy.

Every action has costs, at the very least in opportunities forgone, and all solutions to problems are better expressed as “trade-​offs,” as Thomas Sowell put it. But, specific to this historic moment, “we will suffer many tragic effects from the pandemic-​induced changes long after lockdowns are lifted,” Ms. de Rugy argues. First, the lockdowns themselves were a bust, “when all costs are considered, such as the short- and long-​term health, educational and psychological harms the lockdowns caused, their costs far exceed[ed] their benefits.”

One humungous tragic effect of the pandemic is what she dubs “the utterly insane expansion of federal spending.” Acknowledging that it is now “traditional for the federal government to expand during emergencies,” de Rugy contends that “the size of the response this time around is both unprecedented and unwarranted.”

Well, hardly unprecedented … but it was the biggest over-​reaction yet, and definitely unwarranted.

I wonder, though, if Veronique de Rugy may not have missed the biggest thing: the quickness with which we accepted a rushed-​to-​market-​and-​subsidized quasi-vaccine. 

I say “quasi,” because the Pfizer vaccine is not a normal vaccine … it is gene therapy. Experimental gene therapy. But hey: people should be able to try an experimental medicine.

But no one should be forced to take such a thing.

Why? The risk!

Oh, and our rights to medical freedom.

While people line up to take the “jabs” as they become available, surely de Rugy is right to caution that “Americans believing that governments can and must do anything to achieve a zero-​risk society” is the riskiest notion of all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
government transparency national politics & policies

Absolute Safety Never Assured

There’s this old joke. “How do you know when a politician is lying? He’s moving his lips.”

Regarding President Obama’s recent speech about the ongoing oil spill disaster, Byron York of the Washington Examiner noted “one particularly striking moment …

midway through his talk, Obama acknowledged that he had approved new offshore drilling a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 20. But Obama said he had done so only “under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe.”

York then quoted industry experts swearing on a stack of scientific reports that, regarding oil drilling, there is no such thing as “absolutely safe.” So, the intrepid reporter wanted to know, who told Obama that new deep sea oil drilling would be safe?

Long story short: He got a lot of administrative runaround from the Administration.

But who in their right mind believes anything is “absolutely safe”? Water isn’t. Chewing gum isn’t. As Thomas Sowell has explained in books like Applied Economics, we never choose between the risky and the absolutely safe. There’s risk all around. And trade-offs. 

Assuming that Obama is not a nitwit (a pretty safe assumption), when he spoke the “absolutely safe” line, he simply wasn’t being honest.

Why? Because he looks bad. But this could have been an opportunity for America (and its president) to confront reality.

Of course, for a sitting politician, that’s the furthest thing from safe.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.