Freedom Over One's Way of Life vs State Command

Power has an inherent instinct to curb the choices people make over their way of life and thus to curtail human dignity.

Freedom of choice regarding one's personal way of life is crucial to human existence, an integral part of human dignity and one's freedom of self-realization. Privacy is key to such freedom. Protection of privacy is thus based directly on the protection of human dignity. Human dignity is harmed by breaches to one's personal privacy, either by other persons or entities. He who takes the right to intrude upon another at his arbitrary will makes himself the master of that other. Intrusion is, in fact, the primary weapon of a tyrant. Intrusion is demeaning for the individuality of a person and is an affront to personal dignity. Individuality includes the right to live free from intrusions into one's private life.

In a society based on the rule of law, state restrictions of fundamental freedoms can only be derived from utmost necessity and must not distort the nature of the rights and freedoms being restricted. This means that any of such restrictions must carry a clearly defined legitimate aim and need to be proportionate and appropriate.

Any negative influence of the state over one’s freedom for his chosen way of life is a violation. Power has always had an inherent instinct to curb human dignity and the choices people make over their lives. Human history is a sad record of such examples and the same authoritarian tendencies can be witnessed nowadays, especially in the communist and socialist orders of the world. The 21^st century sees such drives led by vast states like China and Russia that follow an idiological urge to curb people's individual freedoms and leave little space for personal decisions over their own way of life. But the same can also be detected by some inter-governmental players and global organisations that are inclined to impose restrictions on the autonomy of sovereign national states and their citizens in the West.

The zero-Covid policy was a particular manifestation of such authoritarian convictions during the health crisis of 2020-2022. The illusionist policy aiming at "eradicating the virus" has been upheld particularly by the Communist China who has used it to terrorize its people and society ever more. China’s Communist Party runs the world’s most extensive surveillance and police state and the brutality and absurdity of its zero-Covid policy has been visible during the entire heath crisis.

Unfortunately, a spillover, praise and implementation of such authoritarian interventions was witnessed also in the democratic West. State intrusion unto people's lives is more-and-more turned into accepted behaviour in certain fields in the Occident. For instance, the measures employed during the health crisis of 2020-2022, like lockdowns, school closures, halting of businesses, breaches of individual freedoms and vaccine mandates, stemmed from China’s zero-Covid policy. Zero-Covid was hailed by many in the West and advocated by particular scientists and government advisors as a real solution. This approach was opposed by several leading scientists, physicians and academics, which eventually led to the Great Barrington Declaration, a global manifesto led by Dr Martin Kulldorff, Dr Sunetra Gupta and Dr Jay Bhattacharya.

Another gradually increasing manifestation of authoritarian control and command over people's way of life is revealing itself in the so-called "Net Zero" agenda, allegedly targeted at saving the planet. Such utopian doctrine that views men as being capable of significantly affecting planetary climate is similar to the strategy of "Zero-Covid", which aimed at capturing and eradicating a virus amongst mankind. Not to mention the disregard for cost-benefit calculation and collateral damage which have not been considered nor taken into account in enforcing such approaches. Net Zero doctrine is accompanied by repeated panic statements like "the speed is crucial", "immediate and urgent action is needed" and "the science leaves no alternatives if global temperature is to be stabilised".

However, it seems that science is not settled on the issue of climate emergency and the need for targeting human efforts primarily on reducing CO2 emissions for the benefit of planet Earth. Moreover, it has been shown that the science on climate change include a wide range of uncertainties, many of which are acknowledged by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but are being downplayed or dismissed by a number of different parties (scientific community, media, politics etc), mostly due to ulterior motives.

Steven E. Koonin's book Unsettled (2021) highlights the scientific uncertainties behind the theory of anthropogenic climate change (source: United States Department of Energy, via Wikimedia Commons)

Net Zero is already advocated by a number of global organisations and employed to introduce restrictions on people's choices and their way of life. For instance by increasing the tax burden on businesses and households, as well as banning certain means of transport (petrol and diesel vehicles) and heating (gas boilers). As was the case with Zero-Covid, so does the Net Zero agenda call not only for more restrictions on people at state and communal levels, but for a certain kind of individual behaviour as well. Submission is demanded on an increasing number of private fronts, with changes required on:

• personal transport,

• freedom of movement,

• heating and cooling,

• people's diet,

• vacationing abroad, preferences of leisure and hobbies etc.

Deemed voluntary in the beginning, such interventions "for the greater good" possess a distinct character of becoming mandatory when urgency is emotionally heated up on more and more levels and not enough "progress" is seen.

As International Energy Agency has stated:

"The pathway to net zero 2050 is narrow, and voluntary actions, nudges or financial incentives will not be enough. Ultimately, consumers’ options will all need to be aligned with achieving a low-carbon pathway."

The entire subject of climate change has been turned into an out-of-proportion and exaggerated issue with more than a simplistic solution - the perceived need to diminish CO2 emissions. The topic has dominated the green debate to the extenuation of many other problems, like:

• toxicity from heavy metals and "forever chemicals",

• synthetic (incl plastic) waste,

• ocean pollution,

• soil erosion,

• electromagnetic smog etc.

Environmental activist Michael Shellenberger has highlighted the harms arising from apocalyptic claims about climate change (source: CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

The reason might lie in a notion that climate change is presented as a black-and-white issue, to be thus more easily embraced by the public's emotional majority. It is for that end that it has been transfered to a problem amenable to numerical questions and technocratic answers, possibly solved only by the elites who will direct the mass of humanity into the sustainable, zero-carbon pen. Environmentalism has been hijacked by the technocrats and "The Fourth Industrial Revolution" plays a key role.

However, the price to pay for enforcing such an authoritarian agenda will be high. Rational discourse and common sense have been lost in the process, especially in regards to related costs and benefits and individual freedoms at stake. The more we open the door to restricting individual freedoms and choices, the more it will be used by groups with ulterior and harmful motives.