at what point in time do we stop trusting our government/media? — Isaac

The moment you turn paranoid.

No it hasn't. At least not in a way any of us here can dispute. Let's say for the sake of argument that the vaccine is 100% effective. Does that now mean I ought to take it? You've left out any argument that we ought to take things that are 100% effective at doing what they claim to do. Fact's don't simply result in moral oughts (though see Srap Tasmaner's rather clever way of achieving this in the other coronavirus thread). — Isaac

I know this argument. It's the "I have a right to make bad decisions" argument. People are literally willing to lay down their lives for this right. I'm not real sure why it's so important for people and sort of wish they'd find another cause to fight for, like maybe feeding the hungry or helping sick kids or something.

But to your question as to how your bad decisions affect me, they cause a waste of hospital space, a shutting down of the economy, and they result in greater spread of the disease.

I see no evidence of that. I've provided more citations from properly qualified experts than any other poster and most contrary responses have been half-arsed clichés of reactionary defensiveness or outright spittle-flecked invective. How is that representative of a community in search of truth? — Isaac

Yeah, I don't agree with this. The overwhelming evidence is that the vaccine greatly reduced infections prior to the delta variant and it greatly reduces hospitalizations and serious illness with the delta. The great fears of vaccine complications has never been realized. Your arguments, at least when I was momentarily engaged, were general statistical objections that could be asserted against any medication. You've also argued that I am stuck in a bubble that I cannot get out of because I choose to heroically defend my peer group because loyalty to group is apparently my chief psychological driver.

Have you read the articles of association for the pharmaceutical companies? — Isaac

This is the hallmark of conspiratorial thinking. We look around and find those we distrust and we concoct a crime they committed without any evidence a crime was actually committed and we stand in wonder how anyone would be so gullible as to believe those scoundrels wouldn't do exactly as we suspect they did even though we have no evidence.

I'd suggest that we start looking for motives for why a crime was committed after we actually have evidence a crime was committed. Otherwise, we end up accusing people of doing things that never happened.. That I don't trust politicians doesn't mean I get to accuse them of stealing from the coffers without evidence they have stolen, and I'm not naive to argue they haven't stolen when there is no evidence of theft. Of course, if I notice money is stolen, I should probably look to those with motivations and inclinations to steal if I want to find out who has stolen.

So, as I sit here, I have zero evidence that vaccines are useless and have been imposed upon the public to extract money from a fearful population. In fact, all the evidence is otherwise. For that reason, I don't need to identify all the bad people nearby and accuse them of falsifying vaccine data, largely because I have no such data.

On the other hand, I do in fact have significant evidence that people are spreading unfounded fears and mistruths about the vaccines. I therefore should at this point try to determine who might have motivation and inclination to engage in such conduct and figure out who they are.

But anyway, you don't have to convince me that there are bad people doing bad things. The prisons are filled with them and I trust we haven't rounded them all up. I do need to know a bad thing has actually happened before I accuse someone of something though.

Let's say for the sake of argument that the vaccine is 100% effective. Does that now mean I ought to take it? — Isaac

Yes.

Did anyone see the piffle from the self-proclaimed “American Civil Liberties Union” on vaccine mandates?

In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated and communities of color hit hard by the disease.

https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/civil-liberties-and-vaccine-mandates-heres-our-take/

What may have been a decent argument, an opportunity to further the reasoning behind taking a vaccine, quickly becomes a justification for the government to assert its power and mandate people taking them.

That may sound ominous, because we all have the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health care decisions. But these rights are not absolute. They do not include the right to inflict harm on others.

https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/civil-liberties-and-vaccine-mandates-heres-our-take/

Novelist Salmon Rushdie would demote the ACLU to what he calls the “But Brigade”. Out of one side of the mouth they champion your rights while out of the other they nullify them. We either have “the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health decisions”, or we do not. To the ACLU, we do not.

In this authoritarian fantasy each of us are a risk, a latent vector of danger, a potential Typhoid Mary in some fear-ridden, hypothetical future. Whether we come into contact with the disease or not, whether we are infected or not, it is possible we will be. And because such a scenario is possible, it is further possible we will spread it to granny and [insert at-risk group here].

This is a sort of mealy-mouhed, authoritarian racket, of course. Even if you never come near to becoming infected with the disease, and thus never come near to infecting anyone, let alone the at-risk group, sophists have long since absolved themselves from the evil involved in trading the ACLU’s and the government’s will for your own. When so-called civil liberties groups bend the knee to state power, it’s basically over.

We either have “the fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make our own health decisions”, or we do not. — NOS4A2

That is the "reasoning" of a child. Either we have a right to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater, or we do not. When you develop the ability to understand nuance and think analytically, you will understand.

And I'm no fan of the ACLU and their failure to champion power to the people via the 2nd Amendment (They think it's a "collective" right instead of an individual right. I've explained to them, legally, the error in their analysis, but, deaf ears. Nevertheless, I digress.). But they are protecting the rights of the infirm to not be infected by some filthy disease that you *will* spread if people like you have you way (read up on Delta and other variants that would not exist if not for people like you). It's not like you or anyone like you has the power to avoid infection or spread, unless you crawl in a hole (see below).

Even if you never come near to becoming infected with the disease, and thus never come near to infecting anyone, let alone the at-risk group, — NOS4A2

It does not take a sophist to place the burden of proof upon you in that regard. Further, if you are sure that will never happen then you don't have to fear gubmn't making you vax. You will be isolated and no one will be the wiser. Just make sure you don't come out into society with the rest of us. Simple, really.

When so-called civil liberties groups bend the knee to state power, it’s basically over — NOS4A2

... mostly for the virus? :)

I'm not following your argument at all here. None of us are experts sufficiently to judge the various facts of the case, yes? I'm with you so far. You then jump to saying that in such cases we're morally obliged to follow government policy? I don't see the link. — Isaac

I'm not saying we are morally obliged to follow government policy in view of our ignorance; I'm saying we are epistemically obliged to follow it since as far as we know it follows the expert consensus, which is the only guide we, in view of our lack of expert knowledge, have to rely upon.The moral argument is that in an emergency everyone should do their bit to implement the chosen strategy designed to combat the threat. In the present situation getting vaccinated would be playing your part, and you should do it unless you have a good reason not to, as far as I can tell. Do you have a good reason not to be vaccinated?

If the pharmaceutical companies are predominately motivated by profit, that would nonetheless be irrelevant to the question as to whether the vaccines are safe and effective and whether mass vaccination is the only or at least the best strategy available to us. — Janus


Really, how so? Surely it speaks quite strongly to the question at (a). Does the fact that a profit-making enterprise are making an enormous profit out of a strategy not factor into that question at all? — Isaac

The vaccines are either safe and effective or they are not. The expert advice is that they are safe and effective, and that is the only information we non-experts have to judge by. So until and unless evidence to the contrary arises we should assume, out of epistemic modesty, that the vaccines are safe and effective. I can't see how the fact that the pharmaceutical companies might be making an obscene profit out of their safe and effective product has any bearing on the question of the safety and effectiveness of their product.

This is not the hypothesis I was raising, though. The idea was rather that reason could be fully determined by reason herself, by prior thoughts, goals and collected data, not by non-rational physical events. — Olivier5

OK, perhaps I have misunderstood you: I had thought you were claiming that the belief in the freely determining capacity of reason is compatible with the "hard determinist" dictum that all events, including thoughts and decisions, are wholly and inexorably determined by antecedent physical events.

It’s no surprise you’d bring up the fatuous “fire in a crowded theater” cliché, used as it was to justify jailing a man for speaking out against the draft. Anyone with “the ability to understand nuance and think analytically” knows the phrase is meaningless, not legally binding, and the underlying case was overturned back in ‘69.

If you don’t believe in the fundamental right to bodily autonomy just say it. Tell everyone, “I want to trade your will with my own”. Let them know that you and the government should decide what to put in their body. You’ll feel better when you let it out: “I want to exclude you from society because you refuse to do what I want you to”. Honesty would at least dissolve the cloud of pretence that follows you.

It’s no surprise you’d bring up the fatuous “fire in a crowded theater” cliché, used as it was to justify jailing a man for speaking out against the draft. Anyone with “the ability to understand nuance and think analytically” knows the phrase is meaningless, not legally binding, and the underlying case was overturned back in ‘69. — NOS4A2

Anyone with a modicum of analytic and critical thinking skills, and an understanding of nuance, knows that an analogy, by definition, is not the thing itself. It is no argument to attack it as such. Rather, it is incumbent upon those who would attack it (you, in this case) to draw a distinction with a *relevant* difference. You have entirely failed in this regard.

If you don’t believe in the fundamental right to bodily autonomy just say it. — NOS4A2

I do, but like all rights, it is not absolute. Only a child (or a conservative) who sees the world in black and white, either-or, two-valued and illogically dualistic, would think that there is no nuance.

Tell everyone, “I want to trade your will with my own”. — NOS4A2

I want to trade your will to spread your nasty, filthy germs with my will to not let you. How's that?

Let them know that you and the government should decide what to put in their body. — NOS4A2

I hereby let them know that me and my government should decide what you get to exhale into my body whilst out in public. How's that?

“I want to exclude you from society because you refuse to do what I want you to”. — NOS4A2

I want to exclude you from society because you refuse to respect the bodily integrity of others by spreading your filth, your pollution, your poison all over everyone else.

You are right! I feel much better! Distance, mask, wash, vax, or stay at home and hide under your bed until this is over. Those are your choices. Otherwise, I'm all for rounding you up, putting you on trains, and hauling you off to the camps where work will set you free. Maybe we'll get a branding iron and put a big "T" on your forehead, like the scarlet letter! Belay my last: I'm sure you've already branded your forehead with a big MAGA.

What may have been a decent argument, an opportunity to further the reasoning behind taking a vaccine, quickly becomes a justification for the government to assert its power and mandate people taking them. — NOS4A2

Vaccination mandates are not new. What's the problem with adding another disease to the list of mandated vaccines? Do you think it's OK that vaccinations be mandated for children, because they need to be told what to do, but once they grow up to legal age they should be allowed to decide for themselves? Or do you think that parents ought to decide whether their children will get vaccinated? Do you think it's not right to keep unvaccinated children out of private or public schools, as a pressure tactic on the parents to encourage vaccination?

Since you're all making exactly the same argument, I'll reply to you all here and save time.

1. People take risks with their lives all the time for all sorts of trivial reasons (hence my list of preferences, and example of skydiving). My risk of dying from Covid even if unvaccinated is extremely small (1 in several thousand), there's no dispute about this, experts all agree here. As such it is completely unremarkable, on a personal level, that I might choose to remain unvaccinated and take that risk for entirely trivial reasons (preferring not to take prophylactic medicine, preferring not to support the pharmaceutical industry are just two examples). I don't need to justify those preferences any more than a skydiver needs to justify his enjoyment of free-fall. To argue against this position you'd need to show either;
a) the risk of me dying from covid is not as small as all the experts say it is, or b) people do not normally take such small risks for trivial preferences. Otherwise my taking this small risk for my own trivial preferences is perfectly unremarkable.

2. People also take small risks with other people's health for their own trivial preferences or to ensure long-term goals which may be non-trivial such a political preferences. That the evidence for reduction in transmission is thin and that there are serious problems with vaccine distribution are not fringe ideas, they are positions taken by institutions like the WHO and the JCVI. That my risk of infecting another despite taking the advised non-pharmaceutical measures is small is again not even in dispute, it is standard opinion among experts. My taking this small risk out of a personal preference for a longer term societal goal, is again, unremarkable and within the range of normal behaviour.

3. People knowingly acting in a way that puts their health services under strain is a problem for which lack of vaccination among the otherwise healthy is dwarfed by other lifestyle choices. As with the other issues above, it is normal only for a person to limit their imposition to below an acceptable threshold, it is not normal to require a person to limit their imposition until it cannot be any further limited. It is often repeated that vaccines reduce my risk of getting ill, but this alone is insufficient argument. Many actions reduce the risk of harm to others and of needing hospital treatment. We are not normally required to continue taking these action until the risk has been reduced to zero, only that it has been reduced to below an acceptable threshold. Again, the evidence that my chances (even unvaccinated) of needing a hospital bed, or infecting another person (with proper hygiene precautions) are very small is not even in question, it is the consensus among experts.

Your arguments all suffer from a common theme of error. You assume a single purpose (minimise chances of getting covid) and so any course of action which has a lower probability of achieving that end is considered irrational. But that is simply not how decision-making works. We have multiple goals, only one of which is not getting covid (only one of which is even staying alive). It's completely normal to take a higher risk option in one of our goals in order to reduce risk in another (and no, I'm not talking about 'risk of death', that would just be one of our goals - risk here refers to 'risk of failure').

It's normal, rational behaviour to balance the risks from a range of strategies toward one goal with the risks from a range of strategies toward another. It's perfectly normal (and indeed healthy) for a society to have within it it a range of people whose risk balancing strategies are different because it hedges overall risk better than having a single risk balancing strategy. Societies, like people, have multiple goals and will balance the risks by adopting perhaps a slightly more risky strategy toward one goal in order to reduce the risk of another. Again, the fact that a range of risk balancing strategies is better than a single one is not even in question, it's the standard opinion of risk management experts. Public policy is, however, required to be simple and decisive. The existence of a public policy on favour of one risk balancing strategy is not indicative of a consensus that it is either the only, nor even the best, risk balancing strategy, it is reflective of the fact that public policy is blunt and has to be interpretable by the lowest common denominator.

Since I've said all this before and it's just circled back to the same misconceptions (plus another dose of the usual jeering from the crowd and aspersions on my character), I'm going to stop there.

OK, perhaps I have misunderstood you: I had thought you were claiming that the belief in the freely determining capacity of reason is compatible with the "hard determinist" dictum that all events, including thoughts and decisions, are wholly and inexorably determined by antecedent physical events — Janus

Fixed. There is no reason to confine causality to certain "physical" events and not others. This is the essence of compatibilism. Reason is a type of cause.

As such it is completely unremarkable, on a personal level, that I might choose to remain unvaccinated and take that risk for entirely trivial reasons (preferring not to take prophylactic medicine, preferring not to support the pharmaceutical industry are just two examples). I don't need to justify those preferences any more than a skydiver needs to justify his enjoyment of free-fall. — Isaac

That you don't have to justify your decision is obvious. There are no mandates. Humor me though and provide your justification. Do you obtain the thrill of the skydiver by not taking the vaccine? Do you not take part in prophylactic medicine in all instances and do you avoid the pharmaceutical industry in all other contexts? I understand you're not required to be logically consistent, and you can do whatever you want whenever you want, but I'll assume you wish to be rational and consistent.

If your position is though that you have the right to be irrational and today is the day you wish to stand on that ground and be irrational and inconsistent, then have it, but, like I said, I think there are better things to fight for than the right to piss into the wind.

example of skydiving — Isaac

Do you obtain the thrill of the skydiver by not taking the vaccine? — Hanover

Skydiving is a popular sport in the U.S., and in 2020, participants made approximately 2.8 million jumps at more than 200 USPA-affiliated skydiving centers across the country. In 2020, USPA recorded 11 fatal skydiving accidents, a rate of 0.39 fatalities per 100,000 jumps. This is comparable to 2019, where participants made more jumps—3.3 million—and USPA recorded 15 fatalities, a rate of 0.45 per 100,000.

Each fatality is a heartbreak for the skydiving community, which has collectively taken steps each year to learn from these events and improve the sport. Consequently, better technology, improvements to equipment and advancements in skydiver-training programs have made the sport safer than ever before.

USPA (then called the Parachute Club of America) began keeping records on annual fatalities in 1961, and that first year, PCA recorded 14 skydiving deaths. The numbers increased significantly over the next two decades, peaking in the late 1970s, when fatalities were in the 50-plus range for several years. The annual number of deaths stayed in the 30s through the 1980s and 1990s before beginning a slow, general decline after 2000. In 2018, the annual fatality count hit a record low of 13, followed by 15 in 2019. Now we’re at another record low of 11 in 2020.

Tandem skydiving—where you’re attached to an experienced skydiving instructor for your jump—has an even better safety rate, with one student fatality per 500,000 jumps on average over the past 10 years. — Untied States Parachute Association

My risk of dying from Covid even if unvaccinated is extremely small (1 in several thousand) — Isaac

So about two orders of magnitude greater than the risk associated with skydiving, an example I assume will not be brought up again.

:up:

If you don’t believe in the fundamental right to bodily autonomy just say it. Tell everyone, “I want to trade your will with my own”. Let them know that you and the government should decide what to put in their body. You’ll feel better when you let it out: “I want to exclude you from society because you refuse to do what I want you to”. — NOS4A2

Well said.

Assuming that people should be able to make their own health decisions, should be able to decide what they don’t want to inject into their body, the problem with vaccine mandates is that it forces or coerces people into putting biological agents into their body that they otherwise might not want to. I think parents ought to decide how to protect their children when it comes to vaccination. I don’t think the government should.

3. People knowingly acting in a way that puts their health services under strain is a problem for which lack of vaccination among the otherwise healthy is dwarfed by other lifestyle choices. — Isaac

None of which can be addressed by an intervention that takes a total of about half an hour of your life, none of your money, and with no other changes to your lifestyle. This whole section (3) leaves out cost. Quitting smoking, quitting drinking, eating healthier and exercising are all lifelong pursuits; the first two, definitely, and the third probably, are monetarily cheaper than not doing so, but they are also notoriously difficult and involve broader changes in lifestyle, not the least of which is changes in how you socialize.

But the risks associated with these behaviors are high, so determined individuals bear high costs to change their behavior. Your risk of serious illness if unvaccinated is low-ish. It can be reduced a certain amount by an intervention that is very close to zero-cost. That suggests that the ratio of reduced risk to cost is going to be awfully high. Compare to someone who changes their diet: reduced risk of cardiovascular or metabolic disease at a cost of never again eating food you enjoy, that you grew up with, and that socializing is often organized around. People do make that change. Is their benefit-to-cost ratio about the same as yours would be? Orders of magnitude greater? Or smaller?

Most people here see getting the shot as doing almost nothing, practically zero-cost. Even small marginal benefit is a good bet for close to zero cost.

You see getting vaccinated as somewhat high cost: it goes against several of your principles. You could just stand on that, and say, "I will not under any circumstances consent to getting vaccinated, no matter the benefit to me or anyone else." But instead you say

I might choose to remain unvaccinated and take that risk for entirely trivial reasons (preferring not to take prophylactic medicine, preferring not to support the pharmaceutical industry are just two examples) — Isaac

Are these reasons trivial to you? Evidently they raise your cost of getting vaccinated substantially.

I think parents ought to decide how to protect their children when it comes to vaccination. I don’t think the government should. — NOS4A2

Why do you create this exception when it comes to vaccines? Must the parents put their children in car seats, allow them transfusions when needed, or let them play with firearms? Why is there a line drawn at vaccines, but you allow the oppressive hand of government to intervene in other instances?

Assuming that people should be able to make their own health decisions, should be able to decide what they don’t want to inject into their body, the problem with vaccine mandates is that it forces or coerces people into putting biological agents into their body that they otherwise might not want to. — NOS4A2

This argument again. Sure, you have the right to bang your head against the wall until you pass out, and in a perfectly constructed libertarian world you could do that sunrise to sunset, but why do you want to do that?

Let us suppose the government one day grows tired of people banging their heads into walls and they illegalize it, other than the sacred right to being able to make really bad decisions being violated, how is society now worse off? I'm just trying to understand why a policy maker who doesn't buy into your view that the right to make stupid decisions is an inalienable right would have a problem stopping head banging if he could. Are we so committed to logical consistency in policy regardless of outcome that we will preserve that consistency damn the torpedoes, even when we are all in agreement that we're only protecting stupid behavior?

Assuming that people should be able to make their own health decisions, should be able to decide what they don’t want to inject into their body, the problem with vaccine mandates is that it forces or coerces people into putting biological agents into their body that they otherwise might not want to. I think parents ought to decide how to protect their children when it comes to vaccination. I don’t think the government should. — NOS4A2

Is there any case where you would change your position?

For instance, I read some time ago that Covid is, quite literally, nothing compared to what could happen with other unrelated viruses should they: 1. make the leap from the animal to man; 2. be airborne; and 3. be easily transmissible. The worst case scenario being a pandemic that wipes out 70 or 80% of the world's human population in a matter of months.

If there was a biological agent, free and easily injectable into the human body that would stop this in it's tracks if everyone took it, thus preventing variants and pass-throughs, and if the physical down-sides were no worse than the Covid vaccine, would you stick to your guns?

(If I recall correctly, the hypothetical is actually probable if human population continues to increase and if there were no countervailing medical rescues. Apparently it happens in nature all the time when a species gets beyond carrying capacity.)

If you would stick to your guns, fine. But if not, can you articulate where and when the line should be drawn? Or are you just saying "This isn't it. We aren't there yet"?

I still say your whole approach to this conversation is screwy.

The expectation on our side is that you provide your reasons and explain how you justify your decision; you don't have to do that if you don't want to, there's no gun to your head.

But you keep offering a substitute: comparing what one of us says about your decision to what the faceless public doesn't say about other decisions made by other people.

Suppose my roommate and I go to the grocery store. I grab a half-gallon of milk, and he says, "Why don't you get a gallon, it's cheaper that way?" Then I say, "Well, everybody seems to think getting cable-tv is just fine, when there are cheaper alternatives." "Dude, you talked me into cord-cutting like two years go, what ... ?" "But lots of people still get cable." "What does that have to do with the milk in your hand?"

Can you really not see how weird this is, @Isaac?

Is this a matter of degree? Or is it categorical?

If a matter of degree, and you supposing it's not that bad, the evidence of the world is that you're wrong, it is that bad.

If categorical, that you maintain for yourself some spurious right notwithstanding circumstance, then you're an enemy of people and community, and again still wrong.

Without vaccine and the other safeguards, you're a walking hazard. If you insist on being a danger, I hope the danger is resolved and eliminated ASAP. You think Covid is a non-issue? Go help yourself and have some. No one cares about your money, so go put your life where your mouth is.

:100:

My risk of dying from Covid even if unvaccinated is extremely small (1 in several thousand), there's no dispute about this, experts all agree here. As such it is completely unremarkable, on a personal level, that I might choose to remain unvaccinated and take that risk for entirely trivial reasons — Isaac

Maybe it's impossible for you to understand, but this isn't simply an individual issue.

Also, the fatality rate of COVID isn't the whole picture. Plenty of people get extremely ill, take up hospital beds and ventilators, and have lasting symptoms for weeks or months later, even if they don't ultimately die. It's also more likely to spread in unvaccinated populations, as we're seeing all over the world, and hence mutate into different variants -- which effects everyone. These are factors you, and other anti-vaxxers, want to continually ignore.

We're living in a pandemic. The vaccines have been shown to be effective and safe against COVID and help prevent the spread. Don't like these facts? Take it up with the CDC and WHO -- I'm sure they'll be interested in your assessment.

But given these facts, the choice is clear as day: everyone should get vaccinated. Same with the polio vaccine. The difference? No anti-vaxxer movement back then, of which you're an unfortunate member. There was also much more trust in science and medicine, which doesn't exist for anything that is engineered to be politicized.

Lastly, your examples of skydiving is embarrassing.

I think parents ought to decide how to protect their children when it comes to vaccination. I don’t think the government should. — NOS4A2

As soon as you (or your children) enter society, where individual decisions effects others, things change. It's not longer simply about you and your kids. We live in a society.

Things change with traffic lights too. It's no longer an individual decision about whether you've decided you want to follow these rules or not. Maybe your "belief system" tells you that traffic laws are unjust -- doesn't matter.

Vaccines, incidentally, have been mandatory in schools for years, and rightly so.

The question you perpetually struggle with is legitimacy of authority. You struggle with it because you fundamentally distrust governments, as you're a follower of anti-socialist, libertarian bullshit from the Cold War era. But the real issue is legitimacy, not source. In this case, the government (which you want to assume is always wrong and over-reaching) is employing its power legitimately -- if they were to impose mandates on vaccines, which hasn't even happened yet on a national level.

So what you're questioning is the legitimacy. The legitimacy is based on the facts of science and medicine, and on expert consensus. You're in no position to dispute that. If you go with a minority view or a conspiracy theory, that's your business. But for those of us living in the real world, where the spread of the virus effects all of us, mandates are legitimate -- and those who choose not to take them should simply remove themselves from civil society, the same way those who don't agree with traffic laws should as well. If you don't want to abide by the rules we've all created to ensure public health and safety, then find a place where you don't have to deal with others.

You have a right to your beliefs, but no right to harm others.

We don’t need to pretend that mandating vaccination is somehow equivalent to stopping people from banging their heads against a brick wall to maintain that you should not force others to inject or ingest biological agents they do not want to. Perhaps you can argue why a government official should be given the power to make your medical decisions for you.

The fact that the policy maker doesn’t buy into my view doesn’t afford him any right to inject things into my body against my wishes, anymore than a policy maker who doesn’t buy into your view can deny you the right to inject all the vaccines you want. We can’t just surrender that power because, for the time being, it only affects people we disagree with.

We can’t just surrender that power because, for the time being, it only affects people we disagree with. — NOS4A2

Sure we can. In our version of "free-market capitalism" we make calculations of acceptable losses all the time. Since there will be losses, acceptable or not, the smart thing to do would be to distribute those losses only among those who disagree, like you, Isaac and whatever that new kid's name is. Unfortunately, we can't parse the losses in that fashion because we don't know who the vax will kill or harm. So the next best option is to deprive you of your right to bodily integrity and make you take the vax along with everyone else; simply hoping that you draw the unlucky card. Hell, we do it with women all the time. We ask them to surrender their power because, for the time being, it only affects them. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Pay up. Why should you guys be any different?

Yes, the government doesn’t own anyone’s body. The legitimacy of government authority over someone’s body has never been justified. It’s as simple as that.