To Address The Loneliness Epidemic, The Feds Want To Control Your Town And FriendsThe project is potentially so massive in scope, it’s not an overstatement to say it threatens to regulate our freedom of association in shocking ways.BY: STELLA MORABITO
MAY 30, 2023
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently released an advisory titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” It warns that social isolation is a major public health problem. The 81-page document presents six government-directed “pillars” of action to address the health hazards of social isolation.
On the surface, these six directives may look innocuous, but they present a clear and present danger to the autonomy of our private lives and relationships. The project is potentially so massive in scope that it’s not an overstatement to say it threatens to regulate our freedom of association in ways we never could have imagined.
Let’s look in greater depth at those pillars and the risks they pose.
‘Building a Social Infrastructure’The first stated goal is to “strengthen social infrastructure in local communities.” It defines “social infrastructure” as the regular events and institutions that make up community life, and says the federal government should both fund local organizations and direct how they’re structured, including their locations. This can only mean that all local communities must answer to the federal bureaucracy in the quest to strengthen social connections among people.
Social infrastructure, the report says, includes physical parts of a community, such as housing, libraries, parks and recreation spaces, transport systems, and so forth. The report expresses concern that some people have better access to such locations than other people, and recommends federal interventions.
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‘Enact Pro-Connection Public Policies Everywhere’According to the second pillar, “Government has a responsibility to use its authority to monitor and mitigate the public health harm caused by policies, products, and services that drive social disconnection.” How will these be tracked and mitigated? It “requires establishing cross-departmental leadership to develop and oversee an overarching social connection strategy. Diversity, equity, inclusion, [DEI] and accessibility are critical components of any such strategy.”
In other words, some people are more socially connected than others, and that’s not fair. They enjoy benefits — as in “unearned privileges” — that put others at a disadvantage. So the government needs to intervene for the sake of equity to “spread the wealth” of social connections.
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‘Mobilize the Health Sector’Another threat to the private sphere of life comes under the directive to “mobilize the health sector” by expanding “public health surveillance and interventions.” This sounds very much like tracking your social connections and intervening when the bureaucracy deems it necessary. Big Brother sitting in on your doctor visits and therapy sessions?
The report indicates that health care workers will be trained to track cases of what the government views as social connection and disconnection. As they obediently report to the federal bureaucracy, most individual and local control will be lost. Medicine is bound to become more federalized and less private than ever when answering to these mandates.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/30/to-address-the-loneliness-epidemic-the-feds-want-to-control-your-town-and-friends/