Those Who Fight Monsters Beware

There’s a well known quote from popular culture which goes: “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” which itself is a variation of a quote from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche:

He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Spare a thought for our mates over in Western Aussie, for the government there has now being any doubt gone from being the ‘hero’ to being the ‘villain‘ and all in the name of stopping Covid.

The Western Australian Labor government looks set to pass an impending law for the “ongoing management” of Covid-19 that grants law enforcement extensive powers, including the authority to “break into and enter any place or vehicle”.

[…] Under a Covid-19 declaration, the Bill (pdf) authorises “Covid-19 officers” to “break into and enter” any place or vehicle and exercise these powers without a warrant or consent from the owner.

Officers can also take control or make use of any place or vehicle to enforce a health order.

Section 77N also gives officers the power to force individuals to undergo quarantine and “submit to infection prevention and control procedures”. While Section 77O can be used to compel owners of businesses, places of worship and entertainment venues to close for a specified period.

[Opposition leader David Honey’s] colleague Shane Love, of the Nationals Party, said the Bill was introduced under a “flimsy pretext” while saying Western Australia was out of step with other Australian states which have been winding down their pandemic management powers.

“Those states have made dramatically different decisions from this government about these measures and the way they have gone about moving to the next phase,” he said. “I hope that the government does not jump up and make some cheap shot and say, ‘See how they manage everything else.’”

[…] “I am not confident that this measure will drop away in two years,” Love continued. “Other states have taken steps that will have measures that they can call on if required going forward, but they have been quite explicit about that.”

There’s a very simple formula used by those in power to justify draconian policies: namely, if both X and Y cause harm, but the harm caused by Y is greater than the harm caused by X, and doing X lessens the harm caused by Y, then do X. One obvious example is the War on Drugs, where those in charge see themselves as the only thing preventing a global health catastrophe. Another is “hate speech” laws, “justified” on the grounds that such laws will prevent or at least significantly lessen the chance of another Christchurch terrorist attack.

Powers to search and seize or enter property without a warrant are nothing new. But for the most part there must be reasonable cause to suspect a crime is taking place, evidence is being destroyed, etc. For example not many people would be opposed to cops breaking into someone’s property if he’s in the process of wiping his computer of kiddie porn.

But in fact the bill goes even beyond search and seizure and power to enter property. As quoted above, officers will have the power to take your car on the flimsy excuse of enforcing a Covid health order.

The big question is are such draconian powers justified using the formula above?

To me it must be clearly obvious to any reasonable person that the harm caused by Y is greater than the harm caused by X. It also must be clearly obvious, beyond any doubt, that doing X significantly reduces the harm caused by Y. In other words, very high thresholds must be met.

Is giving officers the ability to take away your car, using the excuse of stopping the spread of Covid, justified according the above? Hell no, especially when it’s obvious that the threat of Covid is winding down. And even if it weren’t winding down, would such powers still be justified? For those of us in Auckland who had to suffer lockdowns on the basis of a few cases, while the rest of country didn’t, the answer is a resounding no.

But as readers of The BFD already know, all this isn’t and has never been about saving lives; it’s those in charge giving themselves unprecedented powers over the rest of us.

And even if could have been once been argued that the global response to Covid, including draconian responses such as lockdowns, were aimed genuinely by those in power at saving lives, that’s no longer true. In other words those in power have gone from being the ‘hero’ to being the ‘villain’.