We're All Libertarians Now
The libertarians over at Reason are doing victory laps around the trope of "There are no libertarians in a pandemic". A sample:
Speaking of hand sanitizer, here's some good news from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau: Distilleries around the country can now make hand sanitizer without jumping through a metric fuckton of red tape, including permits, bonds, authorization, formula approval, and taxes. These waivers are only approved through June 30, however—after which that same hand sanitizer might once again be very dangerous.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been easing a bunch of restrictions, including relaxing rules on ventilator manufacturing, allowing pharmacists to make hand sanitizer, declaring previously unapproved respirators totally safe now, allowing outside groups to make diagnostic tests, easing access to antiviral drugs, allowing the use of medical devices that remotely measure vital signs, and allowing veterinarians to utilize telemedicine—which was prohibited why?
Numerous states are freeing nonviolent offenders who were put behind bars for technical violations or because they simply couldn't afford bail. Cite-and-release policies are also being enacted across the country, keeping low-level offenders out of jail if there is no risk to the community—and it's a pretty damning admission by authorities that for a long time they've been just fine with locking people up who pose no risk to the community.
And so on. There are some other examples not on that list (including a whole separate list), like how the law requires Puerto Rico (and the federal government and other territories) to buy American-made masks for public use even if cheaper or more convenient alternatives are available. And in an infuriating example of tone deafness, health inspectors in LA were shutting down restaurants for selling groceries without a permit.
Sure, the counter-argument is fairly straight-forward. Regulations always strike a balance between protecting the public even if they do potentially add annoying hurdles to overcome. It would make sense that in a pandemic, the priorities would shift. Yet, not every regulation has been abandoned, and the speed by which some have been abandoned bear into question why they were implemented to begin with. Yes, I have libertarian tendencies, but things like the prohibition on telemedicine are just fucking absurd to me. The requirement that professions need approval from every single state they want to practice in is also absurd. Same with banning alcohol delivery (it's better that people drive to buy alcohol?) or the default stance of jailing the majority of non-convicted accused.
I know plenty of libertarians that accept the premise that a robust government response is warranted during a pandemic within certain areas, given the serious and widespread negative externalities at play. But the regulations mentioned above are caught with their pants down trying to justify their existence.