Evan Low's Scientific Censorship law reversed
The SJ Mercury reports that local State Assembly Rep. Evan Low's controversial bill to police what doctors say about COVID-19 vaccines and public health mandates has been quietly repealed by Gov. Newsom. Prof. Daniel Klein of George Mason University provides needed context in the Wall Street Journal's Letters section, and explores how scientific research has often been the target of illiberal regimes intent on enforcing Thought Uniformity across the populace.
In one chapter of the Road to Serfdom, 1944, Friederich Hayek writes of the urge toward censorship in illiberal regimes. "Public criticism or even expression of doubt must be suppressed," he writes. Propaganda from the government is not sufficient: "The plan itself in every detail…must become sacrosanct and exempt from criticism." [Editors' note: See Housing First, Public Transit, et al.]
Consider the following sentence of Hayek's in light of the COVID experience, along with the asides I insert: "The basis of unfavorable comparison [the savaging of Sweden's minimal lockdown policy], the
knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken [e.g., focused protection], information which might suggest failure on the part of the government [the lockdown study by Prof. Hanke and
co-authors, information about vaccine safety and efficacy, etc.]—all will be suppressed.
Down the road to serfdom, in the sciences themselves, Hayek says, the "search for truth cannot be allowed" and "vindication of the official views becomes the sole object." In scholarly disciplines, he
continues,"the pretense that they search for truth is abandoned and…the authorities decide what doctrines out to be taught and published."
Hayek sounded the alarm because he saw how things unfolded on the European continent. The further we go down the anti liberal road, the more fragile and vulnerable are official narratives to criticism. As a result, Hayek says, "intolerance…is openly extrolled" by the mind guards and minions of official narratives.
Hayek's point was not what Yogi Berra had in mind when he said "if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else." But the point fits.
This article originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Read the whole thing here (subscriber paywall).
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