As the US Centers for Disease Control moves to extend a federal eviction moratorium that (including its original CARES Act version) has now been in place for most of 18 months and that President Joe Biden himself concedes is “not likely to pass constitutional muster,” most of the public rhetoric and advocacy boils down to “what about the tenants?”

That’s understandable. Nobody — at least nobody who’s ever faced the prospect of homelessness and has any heart at all — wants to see tenants kicked to the curb with nowhere to go, especially tenants who, through no fault of their own, have been pushed into a financial corner by nearly a year-and-a-half of lockdowns, business closures, and other fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Much less often asked, though, is the question “what about the landlords?” When that question does come up (and it’s coming up in the courts again as the National Apartment Association and other landlord groups sue for compensation pursuant to the Fifth Amendment’s “takings” clause) one can almost literally hear the world’s smallest violin tuning up in the background.

I’m aware of, and reasonably well versed in, the centuries-long arguments over the ethics of rent and of property in land. I don’t aim to settle those arguments here.

Given the long history of land ownership and home/apartment rental in the United States, though, it seems to me that the plaintiffs have a good case, and that the American “landlord class” deserves a far more sympathetic ear than it’s had lately.

I’ve been a renter for most of my adult life, including times when I could have swung a down payment and qualified for a mortgage to own instead of rent. Renting made more sense for various reasons, including my somewhat itinerant lifestyle — following jobs, following love, etc.

Most of my landlords haven’t been giant corporations with deep pockets. They’ve been regular people who worked hard, put their money into real estate down payments, and tried to keep that real estate occupied by paying tenants until the property was paid off and might perhaps turn a profit or be sold. And even the giant corporations with deep pockets are providing a service to willing customers. They’re not charities and shouldn’t be expected to act like charities.

During the eviction moratoria, landlords haven’t shed themselves of responsibility for keeping the water running, keeping the heat and air conditioning in working order, and making mortgage payments. They’re still paying, or trying to pay, those costs. But they’re not getting the rent that tenants freely agreed to pay before moving in.

If you’re looking for a solution that pleases and protects everyone, I’m sorry to say you’re reading the wrong column. I have no such solution to offer.

However, given that the government’s solution to every COVID-19 problem so far has been to kick the printing presses into high gear and mail out checks,  it seems to me that America’s landlords have a better case than most in suing for checks of their own.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

“I Stand By My Tweet,” Erick Erickson thunders, trying to seize some moral high ground from the bully pulpit of his SubStack presence, “Confessions of a Political Junkie.” “While leftwing progressives accuse Trump, Trump supporters, Tucker Carlson, and anyone they dislike of authoritarianism, fascism, totalitarianism, and a host of other -isms, it is quintessential totalitarianism to silence and disappear the views of those unacceptable to the rulers.”

The anti-Trump-before-he-was-pro-Trump “evangelical conservative” blogger and talking head finds himself suspended from Twitter for violating the platform’s “rules against hateful conduct.” Namely, insisting that transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard “is a man even if Twitter doesn’t like it.”

Unfortunately, for Erickson, the moral high ground he’s trying to hold is too small to stand on, let alone build a sturdy fighting position on. If it exists at all, it’s the size of a postage stamp.

The problem isn’t that his imperious ruling on the matter of Laurel Hubbard’s gender — and, in the Substack post, Caitlyn Jenner’s and Elliot Page’s — is kind of dumb, especially when he resorts to appointing himself God’s spokesperson on the matter. He’s not really in charge of anything or empowered to impose his will on anyone, and he’s entitled to his opinion.

The problem is that he thinks he’s entitled to someone else’s microphone to announce his rulings on such issues (he isn’t), and that denying him that microphone somehow “silences” and “disappears” him (it doesn’t).

In this day and age, in America, there’s simply no way to “silence” or “disappear” speech. If Twitter doesn’t want to host Erickson’s opinions, he’s still got a raft of social media platforms available to him, not to mention his blog, his radio and podcast presences, and “conservative” media aching to breathlessly cover situations like his.

The postage stamp of moral high ground Erickson enjoys is this:

Twitter, and most other social media platforms, are built in such a way that “rules against hateful conduct” are not only unnecessary but constitute exceedingly poor user service.

Anyone who doesn’t want to hear what Erick Erickson has to say on social media has easy access to some form of “block” or “ignore” button.

Social media platforms which emphasized offering users a broad array of engagement choices instead of wrestling their (or the political class’s) opinion straitjackets onto everyone would respond to content complaints with tutorials on how to use those buttons instead of with suspensions and bans.

Ignorance, not regulation, makes a ceasefire in the social media wars possible. Don’t want to read it? Ignore it!

We’ll always have would-be dictators demanding that this or that bad actor be banned. The platforms which ignore such demands will send the more compliant ones the way of MySpace.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

“We can dance if we want to,” sang Ivan Doroschuk of Men Without Hats in 1982. “We can leave your friends behind / ‘Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance / Well they’re, no friends of mine.”

The song seems to be enjoying renewed popularity on classic hit radio lately, and its lyrics perfectly describe both the mass hysteria of the last 18 months and the polarization among Americans over the meaning and importance of “safety” in the age of COVID-19.

That trend has a tail dragging back into the past. How far? I’m not quite sure. But as early as 2016, students at Emory University broke into protest over being made to “feel unsafe” (one of the protesters’ exact words) by, of all things, sidewalk chalk. Specifically, sidewalk chalk slogans supporting one of that year’s  presidential candidates (I’m sure you can guess who).

Recently a friend told me that, because the COVID-19 vaccine he received (Johnson & Johnson) might not be highly effective against the Delta variant, anyone not wearing a mask represents a threat to his life.

I believe he believes that. Not because it’s true, but because “feeling safe” has become an all-consuming obsession that trumps science, common sense, and often even pre-existing and seemingly strong ties of friendship or family.

I’ve watched long-time  acquaintances break with each other on social media over such issues as mask and vaccination mandates, sometimes even over disagreements as to what this or that particular disease statistic portends (“if they don’t dance / Well they’re, no friends of mine”).

The COVID-19 Safety Dance seems to have less to do with actually “being safe” than with “feeling safe.” In fact, it arguably has less to do with “feeling safe” than with obsessively finding reasons to continue “feeling unsafe” whether the feeling is justified or not.

In that respect, the COVID-19 Safety Dance has a lot in common with St. John’s Dance and St. Vitus’s Dance. For nearly 300 years, between the 14th and 17th centuries, groups of people in Europe would occasionally  break out in mass hysterical dances and just boogied day and night (sometimes in the direction of shrines to the aforementioned saints) until they collapsed from exhaustion or injured themselves too badly to continue. Sound familiar?

Early in the pandemic, both US Surgeon General Jerome Adams and Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease informed the public that “the science” doesn’t support masking as a way to reduce the spread of viral disease.

Within weeks, though, both turned tail and ran headlong away from “the science,” acquiescing to the political imperative of mandating something, anything, that might make people “feel safe.”

Many, perhaps most, Americans, spent the better part of a year wearing masks as visible symbols of their piety and devotion to the Cult of Feeling Safe, in between ritual baths in hand sanitizer.

After more than six months of widely available and seemingly pretty effective vaccines, many Americans are still looking for excuses to keep dancing.

It’s unhealthy.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY