356 Comments

We all lined up for the polio vaccine…I agree with getting the vaccine for a common good. I also think a neg test before travel a good idea… a passport would also be a convenient tool…this has become a political argument

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“But subjecting patients to a course of serious interventions that cannot be scrutinized — even by experts — without one risking being tarred as anti-trans seems unlikely to be in anyone’s best interest.”

From your latest article. Now replace “anti -trans” with “anti vaxx”

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If I have not taken the vaccine , how can I spread C O V I D , if i don't go out or visit people that have been fully vaccinated , is this virus that good ? Can it track un-vaccinated people and infect them out of the blue ? If all around me are vaccinated and I test negative , how do I spread C O V I D ? Riddle me that Bidenman . Never mind that. M.y daughter just got the shot and has been in bed for 3 days with a high fever and now has stomach cramps WTH ? And she was held at the hospital for 3 hours a she passed out 15 minutes after getting the shot . That is my story not that it means anything in the big picture .

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The "libertarians" supporting government or corporate coercive medical experimentation are the reason why the libertarian movement - even among libertarians like me - is a joke.

And, without derailing myself, everyone who has done basic reading knows that the COVID vaccines are experimental - with zero long-term safety data. This is undisputed fact. And, until 2020, everyone in the Western world agreed that the final legacy of Dr. Josef Mengele should be a universal ban on medical experimentation without informed consent.

Justifying coercive invasions of bodily autonomy by pointing to a practical increase in "overall liberty" is the slipperiest of slopes. By that logic, you could justify incinerating every retiree or disabled person on the planet - saying that the survivors would experience more "overall liberty".

The mandates aren't going to drive faith or compliance in the system. They'll lead more political division and, inevitably, contribute to political violence.

If the outcome of losing a presidential election means the difference between whether or not you lose your job... or get injected against your will with an experimental therapeutic... or get grabbed by law enforcement... Why would you trust democracy to work? At what point do people become so afraid of being ruled by the other side that using bullets becomes more attractive than ballots?

Western liberal democracy worked a lot better when people had confidence that, regardless of the outcome of an individual election, 51% of the country wouldn't get to violate the human rights of the other 49%.

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Neither. The beginning of civil war.

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In reading this article there are two arguments that I think need to be separated. The concept of "vaccine mandate" where the the government or private business or schools mandates you do not have agency over your own body or you risk not working and not engaging in society, and the issue of "vaccine passports" and if it violates the right of privacy. I do not live in an area that has instituted a vaccine passport, and we have a decent vaccination rate and the same spread as everyone else. We wear masks if we want to unless it is in a specific type of building. In all honesty, due to the substantial spread, many of us are voluntarily wearing masks in close spaces. I'm not sure if we instituted the "passport" that businesses, bars, restaurants would really extensively look at a passport ( I can't see Jimmy the bouncer exhausting a lot of effort to look at a passport since he is probably more concerned about troublemakers in the bar). I am not sure this is the hill to die on from the private business side. The federal government mandate is problematic and I am sure it will come back to bite the administration in the butt. I foresee the AFGE going bananas, I suspect services will be disrupted. The military should have the option to separate honorably if they don't want to take it if a federal worker can simply "quit".

The forced mandate makes me nervous. Would healthcare providers then be forced to give the vaccine too? If it's mandated, there needs to be a mandatory auto injector then. Forcing an invasive treatment like an injection goes against normal/ethical medical practices that took a generation to fix/improve following such awful tragedies as the Tuskegee experiments and the atrocities during the Holocaust for which Nuremberg trials addressed on the medical side. If ou disagree with me, you can go inject it yourself. It's a road that once we go down, we cannot return from. It's best to approach from a more professional angle about addressing hesitancy. There has been anti-vaccination and hesitancy about many vaccines, this is not new.

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According to our lords and masters, we must get the vaccine because it is effective and will stop the pandemic. If it is effective, why do the vaccinated give a rip what the unvaccinated do? The vaccinated are protected, right? Otherwise, what's the point of the jab? Now, if the vaccine is not effective, what is the point of getting vaccinated at all?

There it is: the illogic behind vaccine mandates.

Furthermore, it is known that natural immunity is more powerful and lasting than any of the vaccines. Millions have natural immunity. Why doesn't natural immunity substitute for the vaccine?

Also, whenever a therapeutic shows some promise, our betters malign or ban it. Malarial Africa, where hydroxychloroquine is commonly taken has very low rates of Covid, even if you allow for an order of magnitude understatement of cases and deaths due to poor collection of public health statistics. Bangladesh, where Ivermectin has been widely used, also has low Covid infection rates. Most recently, Biden moved to cut off supplies of monoclonal antibodies to Florida, and now there is also discussion of banning NAC, which has also showed promise as a therapeutic.

Finally, as the cherry on top of the growing government dishonesty sundae, those in power betray that they don't fear the virus when they flagrantly disregard the restrictions they place on us.

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Thanks for this interesting and varied sample of opinions. Some relief from the monotone that is Common Sense's weak point.

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Ms. Satel's offerings of coercion, is one example of, "a mind controlled by fear gives a good person the rational to do bad things". While, it is very alarming that Ms. Weiss would include her following Greenwald is revealing. The contrast is what illuminates the darkness and Satel is the abyss that the people will rise up against.

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Let's not also forget the "collective freedom" phrase. There is no collective freedom. We are individuals who make our own risk-benefit analyses and have a right to do so when it comes to our personal healthcare. Coercion is never excusable. It never wins hearts and minds, it only furthers mistrust.

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Josh Szeps’ comment about what society is under libertarianism is quite inane. While coercive measures are barred by libertarianism, it by no means restrict people’s ability to influence each other through non-coercive means (e.g. a private entity basing entry into property, jobs etc on vaccinated status).

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I want to ask Adrian Vermuele something (scary that he's a con law professor; surely he must know of the case law surrounding government-forced unwanted medical care and constitutional principles in general). What next? Where does he draw the line on what can and should be coerced "for the common good"? Sterilization? Abortion? Surely it's for the common good if "certain" people don't reproduce. Or get life-prolonging medical care. His worldview puts on a scary road to China (one-child-only) and other ugly places. Who gets to decide what's for all of our common good? And as for that Australian guy who wants to force vaccine passports so he can take MDMA and make out with a stranger; maybe there would be less communicable diseases if you didn't make out with strangers. Just a suggestion.

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"Many of the unvaccinated seem to have forgotten the all-important moral axiom that no one has a right to infect others."

Preposterous.... if you exhale, you are immoral.

We all infect each other all the time, so I recommend that the ethicists catch up with the scientists and see what's going on. Ethicists should consider a moral obligation to understand the facts before getting all preachy.

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"paramount necessity"

I have a VERY HARD time seeing something with a mortality rate of somewhere around 0.1% to 0.2% to be defined as "paramount".

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"collective freedom"

This one is a confounding concept. How in the hell do you increase collective freedom by decreasing the freedom of every single individual in that collective?

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"...a duty that adds to our overall liberty by greatly reducing our fears of illness while increasing the odds that we’ll travel more freely, return to the workplace and, more generally, live fuller lives. "

Yeah, right. Kind of like "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

Liberty is not defined by any measure of fear. This is an incredibly stupid argument to make and, I'm willing to bet, not supported by any evidence.

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"Duty of easy rescue"...

If it were easy to determine that something is "easy rescue", then perhaps, perhaps, I would agree. But this is an unproven type of vaccine (mRNA) with proven lethal side effects for some individuals.

I am vaccinated, but not for the common good. But let's say that I did get vaccinated "for the common good". And let's say that a few years down the road I die from side effects of the vaccine that are currently unknown. Will "the common good" compensate my family?

Think of how the definition of eminent domain has changed from "public use" to "public benefit". That now allows legislators to seize property from an individual and sell it to someone else who just may use it "better". Of course, "better" can easily be a subjective measure. And, strangely enough, the beneficiaries of such "public benefit" decisions are going to be legislators themselves who take an ownership interest in the "someone else" prior to making the "public benefit" decision.

"Common Good" is a weapon used by politicians to get what they want. "Common Good" is the foundation of tyranny.

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