Thanks for the comment, Ed. I thought this might get more attention being, it seems to me, timely. I appreciate the comment.

We are seeing more of an oppressive bent out here in Kalifornia. We are watching that closely.

Thanks, Ed. I posted this in an exchange today with a friend: My latest on the virus in "Savvy Street" seems to be doing moderately well. I posted in Galt's Gulch. Reposted a few times on Facebook. By the way, when I reposted my earlier essay on the history of epidemics, someone marked it spam and Facebook removed it. Facebook informed me about violating community standards and asked if I disagreed. I said yes. Facebook investigated and put the post up, again, and apologized.

Objectivism does not allow for government-enforced quarantine. Ayn Rand opined at some point that it was allowable. As TAS keeps insisting , one narrow meaning of "Objectivism" is what Ayn Rand said. A more useful meaning is its fundamental, integrated framework of philosophical principles, not all the thousands of applications and statements about those principles Ayn Rand made over the years.

Enforced quarantine is helpful during an epidemic and saves lives. But that is not our standard for government-enforced action. It is necessary to define exactly what standard for government-enforced action supposedly makes enforced quarantine a legitimate function--and then see what else that standard would allow. The big problem isn't the single emergency measure of enforced quarantine; it is that once everyone accepts that this government enforcement is legitimate a principle has been established implicitly and you get...what you see all around you...i.e., unlimited enforced government action justified essentially as extension of and by analogy to the quarantine power.

Well said!