When mortality is on the line, when knowledge is a riddled crutch, who has the courage of their Classical Liberal convictions?

A useful piece with an interesting insight. From Pence and Coronavirus: Science, Faith & History Come to the Fore by Philip Wegmann.

As much as the left hates Trump as a threat to their sinecures, they despise Pence for his religiosity and morality. Their hatred manifests in raw bigotry and strained stereotyping simply unsupported by his actions. The article is a pretty informative account of Pence's history as a governor of Indiana dealing with an AIDS outbreak. It gives what appears to me to be a pretty even-handed airing of both the criticisms and the defenses. It seems to pretty clearly come down to a view that the critics are simply wielding a hackish cudgel - their criticisms do not take into account reality.

These are the passages which I found quite interesting because they highlight a core issue not particularly broadly discussed. Currently there is plenty of politicization of a possible tragedy (the potential threat of the COVID-19 virus). "Never let a crisis go to waste" and all that. The politicization is unseemly and counter-productive. Actually, it is more than counter-productive, it is destructive.

But this whole event is somewhat crystalizing. This goes beyond partisan brawling. It gets to fundamental differences in philosophy and we can see where "leaders" actually come down. There are a lot more coercive authoritarians out there than we wish to acknowledge.

A potential pandemic highlights the contrast between the alternative world views of authoritarian, coercive statists and those of classical liberals grounded in consent of the governed, rule of law, human universalism, etc.

The article starts with a widely trafficked but misleading criticism.

A 2018 study Yale University study he [Gregg Gonsalves] helped author concluded that the epidemic could have been prevented or significantly mitigated if Pence and other state officials had acted sooner. His co-author, Forrest Crawford, argued that “with earlier action the actual number of infections recorded in Scott County — 215 — might have been brought down to fewer than 56, if the state had acted in 2013, or to fewer than 10 infections if they had responded to the [hepatitis C] outbreak in 2010-2011.”

Which sounds pretty devastating until you learn:

The study identifies two critical dates for action to be taken: April 2011 and January 2013. Pence was still a congressman in 2011. Pence wasn’t sworn in as governor until Jan. 14, 2013.

Here is the real contrast. The statist who wishes as an expert to force people to do things the state wishes versus the leader who wishes to work with free people to come to a constructive outcome.

All the same, Gonsalves said, final response from the Indiana governor was “too little, too late.” The bill that Pence eventually signed into law in May 2015 did not make needle exchange programs more permanent, he noted. It only allowed counties to apply for permission with the state to set up exchanges, and even then, didn’t provide state funding.

Pence also signed legislation the same week making it a felony to possess a syringe without a prescription. “With one hand he offers needles,” Gonsalves concluded, “with the others he offers handcuffs.”

Brandt Hershman knows about both of those pieces of legislation, the one that set up a framework for needle exchange programs and the other one that made syringe possession without a prescription criminal. He was majority leader of the Indiana state Senate at the time. And he says anyone who questions Pence’s motivations in developing that legislation “is nothing more than a political hack.”

Pence bought the state legislature time with his executive orders, he told RCP, while lawmakers went to work to find a more permanent solution. What gets lost in retrospectives on how Pence responded, according to the former Senate majority leader, is that Indiana was trying to respond to a health crisis, not “drug abuse in and of itself.”

Yes, Hershman says, the governor signed a bill into law criminalizing the possession of a syringe: “The state did not want to become a supplier of the tools necessary to become a drug user.”

No, Hershman adds, the state was not withholding needed resources. Counties were, instead, allowed to apply for permission to set up their own exchanges; many didn’t because “many counties didn't have a problem that needed to be solved.”

Throughout the entire process, Hershman remembers Pence as an executive who sought the advice of medical authorities and law enforcement at every level. What about the criticism that the administration didn’t move fast enough? Those critics, Hershman replied, seem to forget that “the governor is not an emperor.”

Gonsalves is an expert wishing to assume the role of autocrat, forcing fellow citizens to do his bidding and angry when they either ignore him or come to a different conclusion than he did. He wants compliance to address his singular objective and does not regard his fellow citizens as having a worthwhile, much less equal, say.

Pence's approach was to deal with his citizens as equal participants in the tragic emergency in order to arrive at an optimum answer that addresses many agendas and objectives.

That Pence's approach of working with and through communities in order to arrive at consent may have cost lives. But it might not have. Free peoples can often resist imposed solutions, making the matter even worse.

What is apparent though is that the one-size-fits-all, coercively imposed solution can be both inefficient and ineffective.

To date only nine of Indiana’s 92 counties have applied to open needle exchange programs, evidence of the fact that local leaders don’t want such an operation “on Main Street.” That is the assessment of Joey Fox, who was the legislative director for the Indiana Department of Health during the outbreak.

Enabling others to solve problems that take into account a multiplicity of views and objectives is not done easily or quickly but it is the moral and strategic approach. Forcing others to simply do what a distant "expert" or "authority" wants usually ends up being both counterproductive and deeply wasteful.

One set of conversations in an emergency is all about what are the facts on the ground, what are the risks and uncertainties, what are the actions most likely to yield the best results. All of those are hard issues, particularly in high velocity and unfamiliar circumstances.

But the second set of conversations are those which the classical liberal views as coequal - who has authority to do what, who is and should be involved in decision-making, how do we ensure consent, how do we enable those most affected to be most involved.

There are those who are singularly confident that they know the answers to all relevant questions and wish to force everyone to shut up and obey. The classical authoritarian.

Then there are those who want the first conversation where you get the empirical answers. Then everyone needs to shut up and obey. The technocratic authoritarian.

Then there are those who want both conversations to occur. Figure out the reality, figure out how everyone participates in what fashion and then reach collective consent on a course of action. The classical liberal.

In a crisis such as COVID-19, it becomes easier to see how many people default to the expediency of coercion and just how few true classical liberals there really are.

If the article is close to being correct, you have a story of a religious, morally structured Pence playing the role of a Classical Liberal David facing an array of authoritarian Goliaths. When mortality is on the line, when knowledge is a riddled crutch, who has the courage of their Classical Liberal convictions?