The whole concept of health being public has to go. There's no such thing as collective health any more than there's a collective brain. Health is one of the most personal, individual attributes of any human being. What does that even mean, to say "the public's" health? An aggregate? An average? A mean? Any way it's defined it's meaningless, one of those stupid terms people use as an approximation and assume they understand, but which, when examined, completely falls apart.
While the concept doesn't have a real meaning it does have a real function, which is to give the government a reason to interfere in people's decisions and to hook them on "aid," which gives the government even more reason to interfere, since it's holding the purse strings.
I believe I understand what you are saying, and agree that unfortunately public health - like many other things - has been politiziced and used for nefarious purposes. But, before the "covid pandemic", when "public health" was notoriously used by politicians, and unfortunately by so-called health-care professionals to control individual decisions, scare the world and interfere with people's rights, I don't remember anyone complaining nor questioning the concept of public health. The study of public health has resulted in a lot of useful knowledge that has helped understand the determinants of health. Some of these determinants of health require "community" actions (like sanitation, food handling, potable water distribution...); in fact, some people critizice that there may not be "enough" control of some apparently harmful environmental exposures. Some determinants of health should be left to individual decisions (like what you decide to eat, smoke, or put into your body). Never heard anyone complaining of regulations to control the way food should be handled in a restaurant. "Public health" becomes a problem when it is inappropriately used to control individual decisions.
That's the problem with the idea of "the public's" health: It is always eventually used to control individual decisions. It's the whole point of that camel's nose in the tent. It's presented as something benign and benevolent: You want clean water, don't you? You don't want the restaurant dishes washed in sewage, do you? I argue that any rational restauranteur who values his reputation and doesn't want to be charged with poisoning his customers would never endanger his clientele that way, even in the absence of a government cudgel hanging over its head.
It's possible by studying groups and populations to make some generalizations--about groups and populations. But statistics compiled in aggregate can't say anything about what's appropriate for a given individual's health. The problem with a concept like "the public's" health, interest, welfare, or anything else appended to "the public" is that "the public" doesn't actually exist. There are individuals, and each one of them has his own interests that can properly be determined only by himself. The only basic, common interest of all human beings is freedom: not *what* free people will do, but that they are free. Beyond that, any "requirement of community actions" means in practice that some people will be forced to pay for (or do, or be prevented from doing) what other people judge to be the good. It doesn't matter whether what's claimed to be for everyone's good is a shot for a fake cold virus, a cloth face rag, or clean water: It's the introduction of government force into human relations, whether a given individual judges those actions to be in his interest or inimical to it.
"All 'public interest' legislation (and any distribution of money taken by force from some men for the unearned benefit of others) comes down ultimately to the grant of an undefined, undefinable, non-objective, arbitrary power to some government officials. The worst aspect of it is not that such a power can be used dishonestly, but that it cannot be used honestly. The wisest man in the world, with the purest integrity, cannot find a criterion for the just, equitable, rational application of an unjust, inequitable, irrational principle."
The whole concept of health being public has to go. There's no such thing as collective health any more than there's a collective brain. Health is one of the most personal, individual attributes of any human being. What does that even mean, to say "the public's" health? An aggregate? An average? A mean? Any way it's defined it's meaningless, one of those stupid terms people use as an approximation and assume they understand, but which, when examined, completely falls apart.
While the concept doesn't have a real meaning it does have a real function, which is to give the government a reason to interfere in people's decisions and to hook them on "aid," which gives the government even more reason to interfere, since it's holding the purse strings.
I believe I understand what you are saying, and agree that unfortunately public health - like many other things - has been politiziced and used for nefarious purposes. But, before the "covid pandemic", when "public health" was notoriously used by politicians, and unfortunately by so-called health-care professionals to control individual decisions, scare the world and interfere with people's rights, I don't remember anyone complaining nor questioning the concept of public health. The study of public health has resulted in a lot of useful knowledge that has helped understand the determinants of health. Some of these determinants of health require "community" actions (like sanitation, food handling, potable water distribution...); in fact, some people critizice that there may not be "enough" control of some apparently harmful environmental exposures. Some determinants of health should be left to individual decisions (like what you decide to eat, smoke, or put into your body). Never heard anyone complaining of regulations to control the way food should be handled in a restaurant. "Public health" becomes a problem when it is inappropriately used to control individual decisions.
That's the problem with the idea of "the public's" health: It is always eventually used to control individual decisions. It's the whole point of that camel's nose in the tent. It's presented as something benign and benevolent: You want clean water, don't you? You don't want the restaurant dishes washed in sewage, do you? I argue that any rational restauranteur who values his reputation and doesn't want to be charged with poisoning his customers would never endanger his clientele that way, even in the absence of a government cudgel hanging over its head.
It's possible by studying groups and populations to make some generalizations--about groups and populations. But statistics compiled in aggregate can't say anything about what's appropriate for a given individual's health. The problem with a concept like "the public's" health, interest, welfare, or anything else appended to "the public" is that "the public" doesn't actually exist. There are individuals, and each one of them has his own interests that can properly be determined only by himself. The only basic, common interest of all human beings is freedom: not *what* free people will do, but that they are free. Beyond that, any "requirement of community actions" means in practice that some people will be forced to pay for (or do, or be prevented from doing) what other people judge to be the good. It doesn't matter whether what's claimed to be for everyone's good is a shot for a fake cold virus, a cloth face rag, or clean water: It's the introduction of government force into human relations, whether a given individual judges those actions to be in his interest or inimical to it.
"All 'public interest' legislation (and any distribution of money taken by force from some men for the unearned benefit of others) comes down ultimately to the grant of an undefined, undefinable, non-objective, arbitrary power to some government officials. The worst aspect of it is not that such a power can be used dishonestly, but that it cannot be used honestly. The wisest man in the world, with the purest integrity, cannot find a criterion for the just, equitable, rational application of an unjust, inequitable, irrational principle."
Also a good read: “Shepherds for Sale” about leftist infiltration into churches.
Public health might have a legitimate role if it wasn’t so corrupted. As it stands, I agree with you completely get rid of it.
Amen
The surgeon general role should be filled, if at all, by a buncha fanatical toxicologists. Not Elizabeth Holmes snake oil types.