Discussion Questions for Your New Year’s Zoom Party

Do you believe that the state has the authority — legal or moral — to shut down any or every sector of society as it sees fit, when it sees fit, for any reason that the state has decided warrants suspending all property rights, all private economic activity, and all freedom of movement and association indefinitely? If so, explain? (Note: “This pandemic is so serious!” is not an appropriate answer, since that is not the question.)

Do you personally know of any private business entity that had to close its doors indefinitely this year, or at least for some extended period of time, due to its workforce having been incapacitated by the health effects of COVID-19? If so, did the business in question have more than two workers?

Do you have any idea how many people died in your country in 2019, the pre-COVID year? Follow-up: Do you have any idea what the leading causes of death are in your country, or approximately how many people die from those causes every year?

Do you know approximately how many people died during the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic, both as a raw number and as a proportion of the world population of that time? Follow-up: Do you believe the current pandemic will end up causing even twenty percent of the death total of the 1918 virus, or one percent of the 1918 death total among adults under forty years of age?

Great discussion! Let’s drink to that! (Non-alcoholic for me, thanks. I’m drunk on life.)