The Misplaced "Save lives at all costs"

There may be a danger of fearful emotion-based actions claiming to be motivated by fact and science infringing upon the rights of the individuals who may disagree or choose not to act justified by the sentiment that lives must be saved at all costs which is an alien and destructive imperative to apply within the community.

The two fields or spheres of interest are the medical and the political.  When circumstances require a widespread joint cooperation between the medical field and the political field, there is a possible threat to the enduring freedoms and liberties of the individuals within the community.  Each sphere has a proper injunction or imperative that is proper and good within that sphere.  When an imperative of the medical infiltrates that of the political it can result in more harm than good to the political sphere and thus to the society and community.

Ideally in the medical sphere there should exist an injunction to save each individual life at all costs within that sphere since the costs of saving that life do not readily or significantly infringe upon the rights of others.  The costs tend to be resources both human and material, time, skill, etc.  These are costs that the medical sphere rightly justifies in saving a life.

Ideally in the political sphere there should exist an injunction to serve the interests of the community in the betterment of its prosperity and security while faithfully protecting and preserving all of the rights of the individual.  The balance between the two must be an endless struggle, but that is the burden of the politic.  In the political sphere an 'at all costs' concept cannot be easily realized because there are two dominant interests at play.  Any 'at all cost' must inevitably deny one of the parties even when they are in agreement.  In any such analysis, the individual must demand a priority consideration.

The medical sphere must not concern itself with the value, importance or preciousness of a life.  It must only preserve a life at all costs at its disposal and leave the judgment of such subjective concepts to the community, the collection of individuals.  Likewise, the political sphere must not concern itself with such concepts as it must be blind to such judgments and treat each individual impartially and justly.

When the medical sphere overlaps the political sphere, there must be a complete overlap.  The most obvious occurrence of such an overlap would be a pandemic.  Under a pandemic, the medical sphere now engulfs the whole populace which is the sphere of the political.  Normally the medical sphere is contained within the walls of hospitals, clinics and any place where doctors have jurisdiction.  The political must accept advisement from the medical field and its experts in assisting with its governance to help mitigate the severity of the pandemic.   Where a danger lies is that the medical injunction will begin to permeate the political sphere in that the medical imperative to save each life 'at all costs' will begin to manifest itself in the collective minds of the populace because most of the individuals believe that each life is valuable, important, precious, etc.  When such a translocation occurs there must be an inevitable struggle since there is now a foreign imperative fueled by sentiment invading a sphere where it does not belong and can only do harm.

The spread of sentiments through the communication channels of the community will result in a common acceptance of government mandates that are too much in harmony with the 'at all costs' imperative of the medical sphere.  Such mandates must deny the individual their rights and powers and this will result in a power struggle within the community.  The political would be in great danger of overstepping its authority and jurisdiction and broaching closer to tyranny.  At the risk of oversimplification, tyranny plainly stated would be, "just do what you are told."  When tyranny fails, the community will be indulged to exercise its own form of mob governance and individuals will begin to deny other individuals their rights if they don't go along with the recommendations, suggestions, or even the mandates.  The disgraceful practice of social shaming must also find a voice in such a scenario since some individuals are ill-equipped mentally with reasoning powers to convince their fellows, through sound arguments, to accept the mandates and actions of the others.  All this will occur under the well-intentioned guise of 'caring' or 'saving lives'.  There need not be any sound reasoning involved or even any true science to back up the actions of the individuals denying others, only a strong emotion-based belief, which if left unchecked will begin to take on an almost religious zeal.

Any pandemic 'crisis' will be plagued with unknowns, just as has plagued and does plague the practice of medicine and these unknowns are fertile soil for fear to thrive.  There will be variables that may appear significant and warrant actions and other variables that seem insignificant.  Trial and error will be the tool used to deal with the crisis.  And thus fear must spring forth from uncertainties and the 'what ifs and could bes' beginning to direct actions in the individuals and the politic.  And amidst this fear, the politic must assure the populace that everything is under control to mitigate panic and rash actions taken by ill-informed individuals.  And thus an opportunity for pseudo-science to pose as and mix with true science in order to arm the 'narrative' of the crisis that spreads through the community's communication channels and to arm the mob governance and shaming mechanisms with so-called legitimate reasons for why the individual is being coerced into surrendering rights and powers.  It is simple after all to justify denying an individual their rights when that individual is judged to be mentally imbalanced and irrational since they are not accepting the obvious 'facts' and 'science' behind the narrative of the crisis.  The infringement of the individual's rights will be solely fear based, masquerading as being justified and any who object must face the ire of impassioned individuals within the community.

Properly, the populace should be kept well informed of the situation and the possible dangers and the individual should then exercise or set aside their rights as they see fit.  The government agencies should compile all relevant data and provide sound recommendations to the populace.  The individual then must decide whether the information, verified, fact-checked, sanity checked, etc. warrants setting aside their rights temporarily until the crisis is under control.  If the individual chooses not to act or acts contrary to the recommendations, any attempts by other members of the community to coerce or force action must be swiftly and decisively put down by the authorities as it is their imperative to protect the rights of the individual.

Dangers unforeseen and with unknown results are inherent when the medical imperative of 'save lives at all costs' enters the political sphere and is adopted by the populace in their beliefs and actions motivated mostly by fear and uncertainty, and is justified by sentimental reasonings.  The infringing and denying of the rights of the individual is of greatest concern as any such transgression is an attack on the fundamental principles upon which a secure and prosperous society is built.

To liberate the individual is to prosper society.