A close reading of two interrelated Executive Orders issued by the Governor of the U.S. State of Virginia exposes modern Law’s twofold paradoxes. While the first stems from perennial judicial-political disjunctive opposition between responsibility for self-preservation and collective wellbeing, the second paradox comes into view with the rise, in eighteenth-century North America, of homo oeconomicus who, newly endowed with rights has the (additional) right not to obey government orders. The entanglement of the two, enfolded in decisive contradiction accompanying the formation of Virginia together with the U.S., defines the fault line in all emergency regulation designed to protect populations in a pandemic that threaten lives and livelihoods. Framed by theoretical borrowings from late Foucault (on governmentality) that encompasses various strategic techniques for making society function equitable, and from Balibar’s discussions on “the individualist tradition,” I argue with Menke’s Critique of Rights that the Virginia Emergency Orders expose the historical precariousness of the (neo)liberal subject of interest, reiterating what Schmitt saw as Hobbes’ central political concern, namely that without “the mutual relation between Protection and Obedience” anarchy would threaten the order forged by contract.

仔细阅读美国弗吉尼亚州州长发布的两个相互关联的行政命令，揭露了现代法的双重悖论。尽管第一个悖论源于对自我保护责任和集体福祉之间长期以来的司法-政治脱节的反对，但第二个悖论随着18世纪北美的经济人的崛起而出现，新的权利赋予了他（另外）不服从政府命令的权利。弗吉尼亚州和美国共同组建时，两者的纠缠陷入了决定性的矛盾之中，这界定了所有旨在保护处于威胁生命和生计的大流行中的人口的紧急法规中的断层线。对权利的批评认为，弗吉尼亚紧急命令暴露了（新）自由主义主题的历史pre可危，重申了施密特所认为的霍布斯的核心政治关切，即没有“保护与服从之间的相互关系”无政府状态将威胁到命令。通过合同伪造的。