Freedom kills

I never thought that I would come to question the place of freedom among the civic virtues at the foundation of our society. My conviction is shaken by almost two years marked by a pandemic which cyclically forced us to deal with a series of sometimes severe restrictions in our movements, our choices of activities, our way of doing our job, our opportunities and our modes of socialization as well as consumption, etc. The fight waged against an abstract and invisible enemy with effects that are nevertheless clearly objectivable and real has challenged and still challenges the cohesion of our society, already somewhat eroded by a deficit conception of freedom. Always subject to delicate trade-offs between what is politically acceptable and socially desirable, the decisions taken in previous months in Quebec allow us to experience a relative and still fragile appeasement of measures against the spread of COVID. -19 and find a semblance of normality. We have to admit that the same is not true across the country.

The brutal deterioration of the health situation in Alberta led by the conservative government of Jason Kenney resembles that which prevails in several American states, such as Florida, Mississippi, Georgia or Louisiana, all ruled by reactionary Republican administrations. It is due to the lifting of health measures during the summer, a decision as difficult to explain as to justify in view of the available knowledge. Alberta’s health care system is creaking everywhere. Faced with the lack of ambulance, nursing and respiratory therapy resources, all surgeries were canceled, thus depriving a significant number of citizens of the care and quality of life to which they are entitled in principle. The spread is such that it generates new hospitalizations. It is the downward spiral. Urgent help is needed: will it come? Will it be enough? The other provinces are not spared either by the shortage of personnel or by the exhaustion of those who remain. Alberta is living the logical consequences of flawed and ill-advised decision-making inspired by a libertarian ideology that contributes more to the aggravation of the crisis than to its resolution. […].

Freedom of thought, speech and action is without a shadow of a doubt very high in the list of values ​​for which it is worth fighting for, but should this freedom not find a limit where start that of others? Is freedom absolute? When the accepted meaning of the word freedom makes it a deadly ideology, there is reason to question ourselves. Is there freedom without responsibility? And if the exercise of responsible freedom gave rise to a little more solidarity, perhaps we would come to the end of this pandemic.

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