Proper Government Action?

[Schtank]

So I have two questions.

First, would it be proper if a small town voted to quarentine itself from all outsiders inorder to keep oustiders from bringing in a deadly contagion?

Second, is it proper for a government to embargo a country, thus preventing its citizens from trading with that country? Is an embargo a violation of indiviidual rights?

Thanks.

[Myself]

Yes.

Yes.

No.

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[bluecherry]

Still working on that story? :3 Quarantine doesn't necessarily prevent all trade with outsiders, so these may not be necessarily based on the same issue. More info on the particular situation is probably important for the quarantine question. How bad is the contagion and how likely will it be spread to people in the town without the quarentine? (I know the story you mentioned earlier had it being pretty darn easy to catch and that it could be quite deadly.) The government is there to protect your rights from violations through force or fraud and if you have reason to believe you may be carrying a contagious disease you don't have the right to go around exposing other non-consenting people to that, it would be a form of force, so quarantining sick individuals from others has been fine before. Now about doing it sort of in reverse, I suppose that if it has gotten so bad that you've got to be suspicious of most other people in general as a real possible risk because there is that severe of an outbreak going around, then it could be ok as a way to protect people's rights to keep other people out. The one thing is though that it is only ok so long as the healthy people in the quarantine consent to being kept in quarantine. If people don't consent to it, they should be allowed to leave.

Some more particulars about non-consenting parties in that healthy zone, if they own property on the border of the quarantined area, take their property area out of quarantine I'd say because that way they can go on doing with it as they will in regard to sick or healthy people and themselves, who they do and do not want to let be in the area they own, without forcing any non-consensual risks on the other people. If they have property that is not on the edge and can't be gotten to without going through other people's property who ARE quarantined still and thus posing a non-consensual risk on others, then I think that person who doesn't want to be quarantined is out of luck, they'll have to either leave their property until the quarentine is over once they expose themselves to non-quarantined people or just suck it up and stay in quarentine. (Maybe they could build a tunnel or have a helicopter or hot air balloon landing area far enough into their property that they and others can come and go without putting the others who are in quarentine at risk without their consent though?)

[DavidOdden]

Voting or town size is irrelevant; if indeed there is some automatic-death disease then any government has the right to protects its citizens from that disease. That's rather different from quarantining a town to prevent the spread of AIDS, so we'd have to see the details of the disease.

An embargo which prohibits free trade is a violation of your rights. The question is who is responsible for the embargo. If the embargo is actually necessary in order to protect the rights of the citizens of a country (because some foreign force is engaging in aggressive acts against your country), the responsibility rests with the aggressor nation. If OTOH the purpose of the embargo is to enforce a particular political view, e.g. the embargo against South Africa during the apartheid era or embargoes against Israel, then the responsibility lies with the government restricting trade.

The underlying question is (or should be), should a government prohibit any dealings (business or otherwise) with non-free countries? Although on moral grounds you should not do anything to undermine the message that life under a dictatorship is not possible, that is on the other side of the line in terms of what government should do. A government should not become a dictatorship in response to the existence of a dictatorship. But when an unfree nation threatens your country, then the government should do whatever is necessary, including declaring war, to defend your country.

[Schtank]

Ah, OK thanks guys.

[TuringAI]

Voting or town size is irrelevant; if indeed there is some automatic-death disease then any government has the right to protects its citizens from that disease. That's rather different from quarantining a town to prevent the spread of AIDS, so we'd have to see the details of the disease.

Does anybody other than me see the inconsistency here?

Government isn't supposed to protect your ability to live. Government is supposed to protect your right to life from other people who would do you harm.

[DavidOdden]

Government is supposed to protect your right to life from other people who would do you harm.

When a person knowingly inflicts a deadly disease on you, that is about as harmful as it gets.