Now that covid is waning, we're back to 'the kids' in order to allow governments absurd amounts of power over individuals. None of these excuses are put forth in order to further the argument, it's to create a trap for detractors and be able to label them as evil people, killing grandma, hating kids, supporting terror, etc etc.
One can believe in covid restrictions, but they would be naive if they think there wasn't a huge cost imposed on individuals and it's not immediately obvious that more restrictions meant less disease. Dismissing governments ability to utilize fear in order to enact powers they previously didn't hold, just because one fear is something held more dearly is how all of these things pass. Child abuse and covid are both real and both are and were used to give government power that most free societies would reject outright and without further question if neither existed.
COVID was unknown. It's perfectly reasonable to shut things down when there's an unknown disease going around, even if it turns out not quite apocalyptic.
One of the special power it grants him are no-bid contracts; among which are hundred of millions of dollars media organizations and public opinion polling of the population. He also reported the obligatory investigation that comes with invoking the emergency measures after the elections in October.
I can see where you're coming from with plumbing and literacy. Government monopolized water utilities and education.
But the greatest increases in life expectancy were from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. The improvements have slowed since then, appearing to plateau in the last decade or so.
And it just so happens that in that time period, the government had way less control over the healthcare system in the US.
Literacy is actually decreasing in recent years, as education spending by the government increases. Higher education has never been more expensive, thanks to guaranteed student loans provided by the federal government.
If you're more talking about developing countries, then the correlation is far stronger with level of economic development than with government involvement. In fact government involvement is often inversely correlated, slowing development.
Economic growth caused these things to go up; the governments (which also existed in past periods of human existence) caused growth to be much slower than it could have been.
Don’t confuse government causing a increase in government spending on something with causing an increase in the actual supply of that thing. When governments restrict the supply of healthcare and housing (which they do, through professional licensing and zoning regulations), they can spend more on them without increasing supply.
What about in the case where many of these issues are almost always nails regardless of how convoluted or complicated they may look others?
Andrew Cuomo falsified and hid information regarding his mismanagement of elder care facilities. Hong Kong has been placed under de facto martial law by the CCP with the goal of crushing dissent. Various governments and government organizations have spied on their citizens through COVID tracking apps or secret purchases from databrokers. Barrack Obama recently delivered a speech at Stanford calling for an end to free speech on the net under the guise of "regulating social media" and "stopping the spread of disinformation".
Why is sacrificing rights to governments still considered a necessary solution to problems that governments create themselves? Have you learned nothing from history or those who lived through it long enough to write on the subject like Orwell and Arendt?
Hong Kong fighting against cccp takeover has nothing to do with covid. You can't spell Barack. And you misinterpret what he said. I've likely read Orwell and Huxley more than most. Again, you only seem to see bad faith.
Wait, When did Orwell live in Nazi Germany or the USSR? And if you're going to compare current day to Arendt's experience in the Holocaust, then well, we just disagree strongly.
The irony is that "the kids" is always the primary argument put forward to pass legislations that have little to do with "the kids", while the one time we had to worry about "the kids" and their mental well being, adults just decided to sacrifice them to avoid getting a bad flu.
