The pandemic has exposed how widely misunderstood concepts like freedom and rights are. Many claim that rights conflict, and policy must balance there rights. For example, in a piece titled “COVID brings front and center the tug between individual rights and the public good,” the author writes:
Why should anyone be allowed to spread a health-threatening, life-altering, and deadly virus simply because it is their right not to take a vaccine or wear a mask? While each of us has the right to make that decision as we function in our own private space, we do not have the right to practice that behavior in a public place, putting others in harm’s way.
The author contends that rights conflict, that the right to refuse to get vaccinated conflicts with the right to not be infected. This distorts the meaning of rights and sanctions the violation of rights.
A right pertains to freedom of action—the freedom to act by choice rather than by permission, so long as we respect the freedom of others to do the same. Individuals should be free to abstain from the vaccine and go into public without a mask. However, if they become infected, they pose a threat to others and should be quarantined. An uninfected person poses no risk to others, whether he has been vaccinated or not, whether he wears a mask or not. Other individuals have the freedom to choose to stay away from places that do not require masks or proof of vaccination.
Issues such as this are easily resolved when property rights are properly applied. The right to property includes the freedom to set the terms and conditions by which others can use one’s property. A business owner has the right to require anything he chooses for those entering his premises, including proof of vaccination and the wearing of masks. And everyone remains free to accept his terms and conditions or go elsewhere.
Freedom means the absence of coercion. Freedom protects the right of a business to require masks and it protects the right of customers to shop at another store.
However, if, as the author of the piece cited above claims, individuals should be required to get vaccinated and wear a mask or stay home, then we are no longer free to choose for ourselves. The same is true of prohibitions on “vaccine passports.” Such prohibitions violate the rights of businesses to establish requirements that they think will best serve their employees and customers. Both mask mandates and prohibitions on “vaccine passports” use government coercion to prevent individuals and businesses from acting on their own judgment.
If rights do conflict, then every issue comes down to: whose rights will be protected and whose rights will be violated? But rights do not conflict, and we can resolve social disagreements without violating anyone’s rights.