Steve Politi’s Cold Collectivist Attack on Two NJ Gym Businessmen Points to Broader Danger to Our Liberty

Ion Smith and Frank Trumbetti are owners of one of New Jersey's “non-essential” businesses ordered closed in mid March by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. After waiting more than two months for permission to reopen, a period in which myriad “essential” businesses continued to operate, Smith decided to reopen his Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey, despite Murphy’s continuing shutdown order. 

As a result, the owners were ticketed multiple times by police enforcing the governor’s orders, and one customer was arrested for refusing to give his name to police. Ultimately, the gym was shut down by the state.

In a NJ Star-Ledger front page op-ed, Sorry, that defiant N.J. gym owner is not a hero -- he’s part of the problem, Steve Politi (NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) went on the attack against these two businessmen:

About a month into the pandemic, a friend of mine made the perfect observation about human nature during this crisis: We won’t all get infected by the coronavirus, but we’ve all been exposed.

That, luckily, includes thousands of people who have been exposed as kind, generous and community minded. People like the newspaper deliveryman bringing people their groceries for free, or the pizzeria owner who took out a line of credit to keep paying his employees, or the teenager who is delivering hot meals to overworked funeral home directors.

I hope we’ll remember that, for the most part, humanity came together during this awful time in our history. People are taking care of each other. People are good.

But there are some who have been exposed in a bad way. The guy in your town who refuses to wear a mask. The woman yelling at the poor restaurant employees in those viral videos. The “patriots” bringing their assault rifles into state capitol buildings.

And now, the South Jersey gym owner trying to pass himself off as a champion for small businesses -- the one who declared yesterday that he has “no doubt that we’re on the right side of this” -- goes onto that list.

Ian Smith is no hero. 

Politi goes on to pay lip service to the plights of “Small businesses and individuals in this state [who] are being absolutely strangled,” as Smith put it. “This doesn’t mean I don’t feel sorry for Smith and people like him,” Politi claims; this, after putting Smith “onto that list” of irresponsible jerks—and then belittling Smith’s efforts to maximize safety:  

Smith tried to assure everyone that he was taking precautions, that he rearranged the gym equipment to provide more social distancing and that his staff was “stepping up” cleaning efforts. That’s all well and good, and maybe there will be a time when those measures will be good enough for all fitness centers to open.

That isn’t Smith’s decision to make.

Actually, it is Smith’s decision to make. It’s his employees’ decisions to make. It’s his customers’ decisions to make. It is each of us, as free individuals, to decide, as long as we are not sick, whether or not to take the risk. It is not Politi’s decision. It is not Murphy’s decision--not after all this time, not when the risks and necessary safety procedures have become well known and established. Driving is risky, too. We don’t ban driving. We establish traffic laws to minimize the risks, ticket or remove drivers who violate those rules of the road, and then leave people free to go about their travel as long as they follow the rules, each according to his own rational assessment of the risks within the context of all of his other values. 

Government’s role in a pandemic is essentially no different. We all know the “social distancing” rules. Is it proper for the government to set voluntary standards in a pandemic? I believe yes. And the government should make available all relevant knowledge as it becomes known. Then it is up to people to be free to make their own choices. Yes, the government can and should hold people who are sick with COVID-19, and know it, accountable. People who are sick should be placed on mandatory quarantine. People should be required to get tested when possible. The proper purpose of government is to secure our individual rights. Just as it is a violation of rights to punch someone in the nose, so it is a violation to knowingly and deliberately infect another with a dangerous infectious disease. Such people should be prosecuted for assault.

But individual rights are not Politi’s concern, so he doesn’t even factor in individual rights. In reply to a Facebook comment by Frank Trumbetti, the other co-owner of Atilis Gym, “We truly believe that if we don’t do this, in the end, we will have zero rights and no say in what happens,” Politi lectured “He might want to read up on how a democracy works next time he’s on the treadmill.” [my emphasis]

Politi does seem to know “how a democracy works.” But he might want to read up on how the American concept of government works. The primacy of liberty rights, not voting, is the foundation of Americanism. We do not live in a majority rule--i.e., mob rule--nation. Democracy holds that there are no inalienable individual rights; that a political official can dictate anything, as long as he is elected. A constitutionally limited republic, the American concept, holds that individual rights supersede, and are protected from, any electoral outcome. Democracy is a manifestation of totalitarianism. Politi provides concrete proof of this truth. He says Murphy’s emergency actions are “how a democracy works.” He’s absolutely right: authoritarianism is precisely “how a democracy works.” But that is not how America’s government is supposed to work. 

And what is the root of totalitarianism? Politi is brutally clear:

Ian Smith is no hero. Don’t buy into that malarkey, and be thankful that the dozens of supporters gathered outside of his Bellmawr gym are in a minority that, frankly, is getting far too much attention. He isn’t just putting his customers at risk by defying a state order to keep non-essential business closed.

He is sending an awful message that personal needs -- his business, and therefore, your business -- are above the greater good.

There you have it. Rights, such as customers themselves making their own risk assessments, are “malarkey” and contrary to the “greater good.” What is “the greater good”? The good of the collective--of society, a majority? A collective is only a number of individuals. Which individuals get to determine the greater good? Steve Politi? Phil Murphy? If so, why is Politi’s, or Murphy’s, or their supporters’ “good” any greater than Smith’s or Trumbetti’s or, for that matter, their customer’s good? 

Collectivism is one of mankind’s darkest evils. Collectivism is the moral escape hatch to justify a blank check for the coercive power to run roughshod over others’ lives, liberties, or property. There’s no escaping the logic of the collectivist premise: If the “greater good” takes precedence over the individual, then that means that some people’s good--personal needs or business--takes precedence over other people’s good, which means that whoever happens to work themselves into a position as the collective’s political leader gets to define the “greater good” and thus gets to determine whose good (or interests) is to be forcibly sacrificed. Don’t buy the malarkey that Murphy is protecting the “greater good.” If he wanted to do that, he would be guided by the principle of inalienable individual rights, a principle that belongs to collectivism’s antipode, individualism. Murphy is dictating on behalf of some people’s good at the expense of other people’s good.

By what right? It is just this kind of power, the political power to enforce some people’s interests at the expense of other people’s interests, that the American individualist principles of inalienable individual rights and equal protection of the law is designed to prevent. The owners of Atilis Gym and their willing customers and willing employees (if any) are violating no one’s rights. 

But even for those who believe the gym should stay closed, it is still a fact and principle of justice that securing individual rights, not democracy, is the proper fundamental American standard of evaluation. Science must inform. But so must economics, ethics, and political philosophy--a nation’s fundamental values. It is not the executive order of any elected politician. It is not the opinion of any influential newspaper columnist. It is not the majority. But individual rights is the fundamental standard of evaluation in America. Whenever government officials act to restrict our freedom, it is up to them to justify the restrictions to the governed, not the other way around. Emergency powers are not open-ended grants to political leaders to do whatever they dictate to whomever they choose to dictate to. Emergency powers, even though liberty is restricted in the short term, must be just powers; that is, powers geared toward protecting individual rights, not violating rights. All political decisions and all law grows from that premise. That’s the American concept of government. 

By resorting to the collectivist justification, Politi is acknowledging that he doesn’t understand, or care, about America’s governing principles, and doesn’t respect individual rights--and that he is a media lapdog for the collectivist-in-chief, Governor Phil Murphy.

It is increasingly clear that Murphy’s agenda is much deeper than containing the pandemic. It is about advancing the reactionary premise of collectivism in the culture and commandeering greater power to the government. A broad rebellion involving Democrats and Republicans, labor and business is gathering steam against Murphy’s tactics. Murphy doesn’t care. 

When “asked if he’s gone too far and should be getting approval from lawmakers for his decisions," Murphy shot back “I would say emphatically: It takes a village.” 

When “Some counties and business associations have offered their own recommendations and timelines for reopening, Murphy, though, claiming it’s ultimately his administration’s call, replied “I’m very happy to see folks thinking this through at a tactical level, but we move as one state.”

My emphasis: The “one state” and the “village” turns out to be Phil Murphy, and only Phil Murphy. That’s the only way collectivism can work--through a central dictator.

My beef with Politi is not his opposition to the actions of Atilis Gym. My beef is with his basic premises; viz. His trivializing and demonizing of freedom and rights that motivates the owners. However mistaken one believes the actions of Smith and Trumbetti, standing up for one’s inalienable individual rights, including the right to earn a living, against political authority should strike a cord with anyone calling themselves American. That is quintessentially American, and Politi takes the opposite side. Collectivism precedes socialist tyranny. If you want to know why freedom is eroding in America, examine Politi’s premises closely. He points to the fundamental battle that will determine America’s future--collectivism vs. individualism. “Democracy”; “the greater good”; “one state”; it “takes a village”. Politi and Murphy speak the language of tyranny. Think of that the next time you hear that mindless mantra, “We’re all in this together.”

Politi asks, “What if every small business owner decided that he or she wanted to take the same stand as Smith?” “I know the answer,” Politi lectures, “Thousands of more people would get infected, and therefore, the already horrifying death toll would grow even higher."

But if avoiding death is the standard, then should we shut down driving, flying, boating, participatory sports, construction? If the “village” locked all of us down and attached tracking ankle bracelets to us all, the murder rate would probably drop. Lives would be saved. If death is the only concern, life can’t go on for billions of people. But, as two major European leaders bluntly acknowledged to their citizens, “the world needs to adapt to live with the coronavirus and cannot wait to be saved by the development of a vaccine.” This means leaving people free. People will get sick. A small percentage will die. But they will anyway. The virus has no cure and no vaccine. It’s going to run its course no matter what. Avoiding death should not be a rationalization for undermining freedom through collectivism.

A pandemic is a tough nut to crack, in terms of figuring out the proper extent of government involvement. But it is in situations like this that loyalty to the right philosophical principles is most needed. Kudos to Smith and Trumbetti and their supporters for standing up for their rights. Yes, they are heroes. Every time any American stands up for his moral right to attend to his own personal needs, his business, his interests, he stands up for the rights of all Americans.We may disagree on details, but as Americans there is no greater good than the individual, and especially the individual’s right to earn a living.

Related Reading:

The Rise of Collectivism and the Fall of the Constitution

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

New Jersey’s Political Attack on Takeout Food Delivery Service Providers

The Tyranny of Occupational Licensure is exposed by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Democratic Governors Threaten Business Owners Who Reopen Ahead of Schedule by Robby Soave for Reason.com

The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It by Timothy Sandefur

The Scary Ease with Which Some Americans Accept Authoritarianism

‘Reopening’ the Economy: It’s Not ‘Money vs. lives,’ or Even ‘Money or Lives’

Moral Rights and Political Freedom by Tara Smith 

As We Endure Through COVID-19 Lockdowns, Dems Gear Up for ‘Climate Crisis’ Authoritarianism

A New Textbook of Americanism: The Politics of Ayn Rand--edited by Jonathan Hoenig