- If we want to make good public policy, we must identify our standard of value, consider the full context, and identify alternatives (as well as their pros and cons). The standard of value provides the purpose for which public policy is formulated. The full context includes all of the relevant facts about an issue, as well as what we don’t know. On any issue, there are alternative policies. Identifying those alternatives, as well as their pros and cons, will enable us to select the policy that best serves our standard of value.
- The proper standard of value for public policy is individual liberty—the freedom of each individual to choose what he wants to attain in life and the means for attaining it (so long as he respects the freedom of others to do the same). Any other standard of value means imposing the goals and desires of some onto others.
- In evaluating public policy, the full context includes both ends and means. And it includes measuring a policy against the standard of value. Noble ends cannot be achieved by ignoble means. No matter how desirable a goal may be, a policy that requires the sacrifice of individual liberty is improper.
- In any situation, alternatives exist. Ignoring alternatives, and the pros and cons of each, will ultimately lead to bad decisions. Again, each alternative must be measured against the standard of value.
- In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, the alternatives were not a lockdown or 2.2 million dead Americans. We were given the alternative of the sacrifice of our liberty or an unprecedented death toll. As is often the case, these are false alternatives.
- The lockdown treats the uninfected—who pose no risk to anyone—the same as those who are infected. The “innocent” are treated the same as the “guilty.”
- The proper alternative should have focused on testing, isolating those who were infected, and tracing their contacts. This would have dramatically contained the spread of the virus without sacrificing individual liberty.
- Taiwan, a nation of 24 million people, implemented a policy of testing, isolating, and tracing on January 1. The nation has had only 7 deaths from COVID-19.
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