The idea that lab mishaps are rare is piffle. According to this report from 2014:

More than 1,100 laboratory incidents involving bacteria, viruses and toxins that pose significant or bioterror risks to people and agriculture were reported to federal regulators during 2008 through 2012, government reports obtained by USA TODAY show.

More than half these incidents were serious enough that lab workers received medical evaluations or treatment, according to the reports. In five incidents, investigations confirmed that laboratory workers had been infected or sickened; all recovered.

Earlier this summer, other researchers at CDC potentially exposed dozens of agency staff to live anthrax because of mistakes; nobody was sickened. Meanwhile, at the National Institutes of Health, long-forgotten vials of deadly smallpox virus were discovered in a cold-storage room where they weren't supposed to be.

The reports, released by CDC in response to a request from USA TODAY, contain few details beyond a count of incidents by categories, such as incidents involving bites or scratches from infected animals, needle sticks, failures of personal protection equipment, spills or specimen packages that temporarily went missing after they were shipped. No thefts were reported.

Data for incidents reported in 2013 is not yet finalized, CDC said. In 2012, lab regulators received 247 reports of potential releases of dangerous pathogens. They also received 247 reports in 2011. There were 275 reports in 2010; 243 in 2009; and 116 in 2008. The reports come from regulated select agent research labs as well as clinical or diagnostic labs that are exempted from registration with federal officials but still must report incidents if they identify a select agent.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/17/reports-of-incidents-at-bioterror-select-agent-labs/14140483/

There were hundreds of reports of potential releases of dangerous pathogens per year, in one country alone.

I suppose this is why, in 2012, the bulletin of atomic scientists released this warning:

Awful as a pandemic brought on by the escape of a variant H5N1 virus might be, it is SARS that now presents the greatest risk. The worry is less about recurrence of a natural SARS outbreak than of yet another escape from a laboratory researching it to help protect against a natural outbreak. SARS already has escaped from laboratories three times since 2003, and one escape resulted in several secondary infections and one death.

https://thebulletin.org/2012/08/the-unacceptable-risks-of-a-man-made-pandemic/

I assume by “a say in government policy” you mean I get to tick a box next to someone’s name once every few years, the effect of which is slim to nothing. I do get a say in the private arena, however, by accepting or refusing the terms of their contracts. I, too, am a part of this arena after all. If I don’t like the offer I can find one elsewhere and they can do the same in a reciprocal fashion.

In any case, private actors are not taking my wealth without my consent. Only the state has that sort of unmitigated power.

It is unacceptable wherever faulty generalizations are of any concern. But that concern rarely exists.

Provided you live in a democracy, you do have a say. Merely that you do not get what you want is not the same as not having a say.

The transfer of my wealth to the state occurs at the point of every single purchase I make. In which of these transactions do I get a say?

If I do not pay my taxes I am subject to many penalties, up to and including jail time. If I do not pay a the federal or provincial sales tax on food I do not eat. If I do not pay property taxes I lose my home. Do you suppose I have a say in this?

That’s true. Taxes and the spoils of taxes are ubiquitous. Those in power have confiscated the wealth from the citizenry since time immemorial and have spent it on things such as infrastructure and the like. But for me the benefits received from stolen money do not outweigh the moral costs.

Maybe you should just skip to your argument be done with it. It’s unbecoming wen you start begging me to answer your questions.

Only servile soyboys are glad to pay taxes. You don’t know whether your money goes to blowing up children or Joe Biden’s pencils.

What it is is obvious word-salad.

Not much of an argument, I’m afraid, though I did put a comma where a period should have been.

This is exactly backwards. It's the private wealth that is completely unaccountable and gives you no say in how it is used. If every service was privatised tomorrow, you'd be less able - not more, to refuse any terms. You can refuse any terms as much as you can refuse to have over your money to a robber with a gun - the freedom is there, just the consequence is obvious.

I never wrote about having a say in how private health is used or accountability. I said I had no say in the transfer of my wealth to the government. So you not only have it backwards, you’re trying to mislead.

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll take a look.

Maybe I do underestimate the harm of private money. That’s why I’m wondering why I should believe I am deprived wherever wealth or capital is concentrated. I see opportunity in private concentrations of wealth and capital. It’s approachable, reasonable, and ultimately, through varying degrees of effort, accessible, I can provide services, seek employment, investment or opportunity. This is an obvious oversimplification, but the basics hold, I think. If the terms are not to my liking I can refuse them. Nothing leaves my pocket that I have not willingly given them. So I have trouble seeing what it is that deprives me of anything.

On the other hand there is an all-powerful institution dedicated to taking my wealth every day and skimming from every purchase I make. This transfer of wealth is what concerns me because I have no say in it. I am unable to bargain or engage in common enterprise with it, or refuse its terms. It sets the rules and enforces them. And it is for this reason private wealth tries to curry favor with them, at everyone’s peril.

Anyways I’m just trying to understand the fear.

How is it exactly that concentrated wealth deprives a few million individuals from fielding and developing new ideas? I ask because if I see concentrated wealth or capital I see an opportunity, so long as it isn’t in state hands.

Racism is a form of prejudice. And no, it’s not ok to be racist against a person or people because someone who has similar racial characteristics happens to be in power.

I like your way of considering things. Thanks for the insights.

What system would that be? I ask because when I look for these things I only ever see individual people, separated by the fact of their position in time and space. A relation, no matter what size, is no system. We live in parallel, not in series. The responsibility lies upon these beings themselves and not to any grand abstraction such as a “system” or “the general good”. That’s my view, anyways.

Shortly after birth one is excised from his mother, thereby severing any connection to anyone else. There's nothing arbitrary about this very real uncoupling. Indivisibility beyond this point means death. What is arbitrary is any notion of responsibility toward others, towards some collective, even towards one's newborn. The history of infanticide attests to this.

I always understood coercion to be persuading someone with the use of force or threat of ruin, like extortion, torture, blackmail. It's like "duress". Perhaps the word is open to interpretation. At any rate, I wouldn't put the scenario you outlined on the same scale.

I cringe every time someone evokes the "social contract" because it is always in the service of power. But there is no such contract between you or I or anyone else, and at any rate, uttering it doesn't justify any use of force over any individual.

We need to somehow define coercion, force and aggression with respect to all kinds of freedoms though. Most of these terms, if they are used in a legal context, refer to specific violations of specific rights. There are usually specific characteristics that the coercion or aggression needs to have in order to be considered a legal problem. For example, you can demand that someone who works in your company change some behaviours, possibly including how they dress, what they say in a professional capacity etc, but you cannot demand they have sex with you.

That’s true, and you’re right. If someone works for me I expect and demand a modicum of professionalism. But these terms are based upon mutual agreement between free men. I don’t think any coercion is required to uphold such an agreement. He is free to walk away should he disagree, as I am I free of any obligation towards employing him.

The problem I have is with imagining how the interface between individuals functions based on individualism. Ok so noone interferes in "your affairs" so long you don't violate the freedoms of others. But how is this violation established? It seems in principle possible to conceive a notion of individual freedoms and their actions to account for every possible result.

If I understand your problem correctly, I would argue the interface functions as it always would, except that each would refrain from coercing or otherwise using force and aggression against the other. One could look wherever coercion and force and aggression is being applied and establish where that violation occurs.

What does freedom entail to the individualist? How does the state of realized individualist freedom look in practice?

In my mind individual freedom entails the polar-opposite of slavery, allowing the right of an individual to control his own person and property.

In practice it is refusing to interfere in the affairs of one so long as he doesn't violate the freedoms of others.

Caitlyn Jenner hits from the woman's tee in women's golf tournaments. Maybe she's not the best person to ask after all.

https://golf.com/news/caitlyn-jenner-holes-out-for-eagle-at-ana-inspiration-pro-am/

You're missing out. They were right, brave, and decent. Perhaps give them a read and it might dispel your assumptions. Back in those times they were fighting for the right to vote, against slavery, against arbitrary power, against sexist laws—you know, against the state and other forms of mob rule. Who knows? Without their voices you might be a little more reserved in your support for government.

Each rocket Hamas fires is a war crime. If they commit these war crimes using civilian shields, it's a double war crime. Though it appears Israel does more to protect civilians (evacuation notices before hitting targets, for example) the disproportionate use of force is itself a war crime. Israel also needs to weigh the civilian costs, which, given the civilian deaths, I doubt it is doing. So it's war crimes all around. It makes no sense to pick a side in this affair.

I think the first to second wave of feminism was inherently individualist. It's hard to roll your eyes reading the abolitionist and woman's rights champions like Sojourner Truth, Angelina Grimke, or the anarchism of Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre.

People are too busy enjoying their rights to want to fight for them. This habit will be the deathknell of social democracy. Despite this, one must afford them their right to do this. Let justice reign though the heavens fall, and all that.

A governments role should be to secure the rights and freedoms of its citizens, but more often it secures its own interests and monopoly on power.

One can’t deny thrust of anti-individualist arguments, for instance against avarice, but they fit better as arguments against human nature rather than any individualist belief. Collectivists too are guilty of the same sins.

If it stands alone why didn’t you just leave it as is? Instead, much of the sentence is missing.

I clearly said it was fallacious. I’m not sure why you’d raise that question.

We will never forget that time millions were easily duped into believing gossip and lies.

Secret Sharers: The Hidden Ties Between Private Spies and Journalists

That’s easy to do when you can remove much of my sentence. Contextomy is also a fallacy.

Of course I agree.

In my mind the collectivist rhetoric only serves to disguise the authoritarian impulse. What’s feigned to be done for the whole is always done for one portion of it at the expense of another. That the anti-individualist creed is a veritable rogue’s gallery of tinpot dictators and authoritarians from all brands of ideologies makes this evident. Even though it is fallacious of me to dismiss the anti-individualist argument because of the company they keep, I no less pity them for having to stand on the sunken shoulders of these types of giants.

I think the superstition is to treat words as if they were not physical phenomena like any other.

That’s one aspect. Another is to treat words as poison, drugs, or pollution, capable of manipulating matter in fantastic ways.

This kind of meddling is little more than a racket at this point. It’s a hard no, for me, when that which is the cause of the problem presents itself as the solution.

And then there's that striking similarity between a zombie and an individualist ...

Zombies are not real, friend.

There was a case a few years back where a woman was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for texting her suicidal boyfriend that he should just get on with it. After her seemingly loving encouragement he killed himself with carbon monoxide in a Kmart parking lot. Though he died by his own hand, by his own volition, the court deemed her guilty of homicide as if a person could kill another by text message.

This is an age-old, superstitious problem that few have spoken about: an overestimation of the power of words. One can see it everywhere once one notices it.

Israel needs to end its military occupation and return the land it has annexed. Only then can it begin to claim victimhood. No one has to excuse Islamist terrorism and anti-semitism to concede this simple point.

But this raises the question; what rights exists without the State? Only moral rights. But moral rights will be ignored by most people if they can get away with it. It's quite obvious from history that rights are best preserved and protected in a civilised society. Human rights, unfortunately, really are a luxury not available to most and a recent invention.

I would therefore argue that rights are only meaningful, if they are legal and therefore protected by the legal order and organisation of a State. Morality still informs us about the content of what those legal rights should be. The "I can grant rights" doesn't exist - it's merely a sentiment. You're not capable of protecting me from Russian or Chinese interference, or indeed Facebook's abuses, or enforce a contract for me against an unwilling counterparty. Your "granted rights" are in that sense worthless and in any case a contradiction in terms if your position is that I have intrinsic rights (who are you to grant me my rights?).

It’s true. Rights are best secured by those in power. But those rights, whatever form they may take, are subject to their whim and can disappear with the scribble of the pen. History also shows that the state routinely denies human rights, even after they’ve been secured.

I don't believe in intrinsic rights because rights are man made, but I believe everyone is deserving of rights. Anyone can grant rights, king or commoner, because a right is little more than the promise of an obligation. When I grant you free speech I take it as an obligation to refuse censoring you; when I grant you the freedom of religion I take it as an obligation to refuse interfering in your religious customs; and I take it as my duty to defend your rights because I believe in your rights and freedoms as I do mine. This occurs with or without your consent or knowledge. Perhaps that’s worthless to you, and you would have no legal recourse if I violate the obligation, but to me it means a great deal.

It’s not confiscation if you don't have a claim to the income.

The reason why it matters whether it's fair or equitable is that if your morality is merely procedural, then obviously the legal procedure creates the moral basis for taxes. If you want to have a moral claim to income, you need to prove your claim to specific income is fair and equitable. But this isn't "priced" into markets, so the income paid is not a reflection of moral worth but happenstance.

I don’t understand the fair and equitable part or how it relates to the state’s claim to my money. If I want to prove a moral claim to the fruits of my own labor I need only refer to the consensual agreement between myself and whomever I’m doing business with. The state cannot refer to any such agreement.
The state doesn’t have a claim to my income as far as I’m concerned, nor does it have any claim to any other kind of tax: capital gains tax, property tax, federal and provincial sales tax, inheritance or estate tax, and on and on. I consider it confiscation because it takes it without my permission, without asking, without my input. I consider it forced labor because a portion of my labor is spent providing for the state.

You cited writers and philosophers before that I have read a long time ago but I'm not familiar with this. What is this "outdated term" based on?

I believe it is a term of sociology, but I do not quite know what it is based on.

I don't know about that. Private people, organizations, charities etc. are quite capable. You yourself are as well, but you'd rather beg the state to do it for you. So much for concern.

But not by you and not with the tax dollars you are required to pay. You just want to be left alone.

I can, will and have helped people in need both with my money and my efforts. My efforts and concern extend beyond begging the state to take care of people in need.

I do not think of it in terms of rights. This is a fundamental problem with modern liberalism, everything is seen through the lens of individual rights. I do not "afford" people rights.

Then what is the problem?

So, you are "concerned" but don't think they have a right to health care or help when needed. Do you recognize the rights to life, liberty, happiness, and property? Do you think they are rights only as long as people are lucky enough to have them?

I think they should be helped, of course. Do you afford them these rights?