Wartime draft vs vaccine mandate

[zorq]

Metaphor, I haven't seen you acknowledge the fact that vaccinated people pose a lower risk of transmission and strain on the health system than the unvaccinated.

That's why the drunk driving analogy was brought up. Driving drunk poses a greater risk to the driver and other people in society just like breathing on strangers while unvaccinated.

Getting covid and spreading it to others is the car crash. You don't have to drive drunk to get in a car crash, but you are much more likely to get in a car crash while drunk.

We make driving drunk illegal because driving drunk is a voluntary choice that endangers others without any redeeming qualities. Just like the choice to remain unvaxed in public.

You think it is important for drunk drivers to have the opportunity to crash their cars just like sober drivers, but that's just stupid. Blind drivers aren't allowed on public roads and they didn't even get to make that choice. Why? Because it is too fucking dangerous.

If you don't like the consequences of your choice, you should consider choosing differently.

 

[Metaphor]

Metaphor, I haven't seen you acknowledge the fact that vaccinated people pose a lower risk of transmission and strain on the health system than the unvaccinated.

So...what? Obese people are a higher strain on the health system compared to normal BMI people. People who engage in high-risk 'extreme' sports are a higher strain on the health system compared to people who don't.

That's why the drunk driving analogy was brought up. Driving drunk poses a greater risk to the driver and other people in society just like breathing on strangers while unvaccinated.

"Breathing on strangers" poses no COVID risk if you don't have COVID. And it poses a high risk to the stranger if you do have COVID, whether you are vaccinated or not.

Getting covid and spreading it to others is the car crash. You don't have to drive drunk to get in a car crash, but you are much more likely to get in a car crash while drunk.

Getting COVID is getting drunk. Not being unvaccinated. And I agree, people with COVID should quarantine until they don't have it.

We make driving drunk illegal because driving drunk is a voluntary choice that endangers others without any redeeming qualities. Just like the choice to remain unvaxed in public.

You are equating being unvaccinated as being permanently drunk. No. Having COVID is being drunk.

You think it is important for drunk drivers to have the opportunity to crash their cars just like sober drivers, but that's just stupid.

No, I don't think that. I think drunk drivers should not get on the road. Having COVID is being drunk. Vaccinated and unvaccinated people can 'get drunk', though it is rarer for vaccinated people to 'get drunk' (get COVID). And when you are drunk, you should not drive. When you are not drunk (don't have COVID) you ought be allowed to drive.

Blind drivers aren't allowed on public roads and they didn't even get to make that choice. Why? Because it is too fucking dangerous.

If you don't like the consequences of your choice, you should consider choosing differently.

My choice? This isn't about me. I am vaccinated and I am pro-vaccine.

 

[zorq]

So...what? Obese people are a higher strain on the health system compared to normal BMI people. People who engage in high-risk 'extreme' sports are a higher strain on the health system compared to people who don't.

"Breathing on strangers" poses no COVID risk if you don't have COVID.

Yeah, just like driving drunk doesn't hurt anyone... until there is a crash. How can you not understand this analogy? The risky behavior leads to the damage. Covid is the damage, crashes are the damage. The risky behavior is driving drunk. The risky behavior is not vaxing and exposing yourself to others. THIS IS SIMPLE!

And it poses a high risk to the stranger if you do have COVID, whether you are vaccinated or not.

Getting covid and spreading it to others is the car crash. You don't have to drive drunk to get in a car crash, but you are much more likely to get in a car crash while drunk.

Getting COVID is getting drunk. Not being unvaccinated. And I agree, people with COVID should quarantine until they don't have it.

WRONG! Getting covid is the car crash!

We make driving drunk illegal because driving drunk is a voluntary choice that endangers others without any redeeming qualities. Just like the choice to remain unvaxed in public.

You are equating being unvaccinated as being permanently drunk. No. Having COVID is being drunk.

I am equating the choice to drive drunk as a choice that elevates risk and danger in society with the choice to remain unvaxed and in public as a choice that elevates risk and danger in society. The frequency a person needs to make this choice is immaterial to the existence and danger of the choice. This is a nonsensical and meaningless distinction.

AGAIN it is clear that you are refusing to acknowledge the elevated risks to others that are associated with remaining unvaxed. This is why you refuse to even understand the analogy as it was originally presented and as I am making it abundantly clear to you again here.

My choice? This isn't about me. I am vaccinated and I am pro-vaccine.

No, not YOU personally. I was using 'you' as an impersonal pronoun. If a person doesn't want to get arrested and imprisoned for drunk driving they should make a choice that prevents that outcome.
If a vaccine mandate makes life unbearable for whatever reason for people who refuse to vaccinate... They should consider choosing a different path.

 

[Metaphor]

Yeah, just like driving drunk doesn't hurt anyone... until there is a crash. How can you not understand this analogy?

I understand my analogy, of course. That doesn't mean I agree to the terms of your analogy.

The risky behavior leads to the damage. Covid is the damage, crashes are the damage. The risky behavior is driving drunk. The risky behavior is not vaxing and exposing yourself to others. THIS IS SIMPLE!

The risky behaviour is going out (driving) while you have COVID (are drunk). Vaxxed people and unvaxxed people can both get COVID (get drunk). It's just that vaxxed people are less likely to "get drunk."


What you are proposing is that anybody who is more likely to get drunk (who have not taken the 'Pfizer-Undrunk formula) is simply banned from driving, whether they are drunk or not.

WRONG! Getting covid is the car crash!

CAPITALS! I KNOW HOW AN ANALOGY WORKS!

I am equating the choice to drive drunk as a choice that elevates risk and danger in society with the choice to remain unvaxed and in public as a choice that elevates risk and danger in society. The frequency a person needs to make this choice is immaterial to the existence and danger of the choice. This is a nonsensical and meaningless distinction.

Yes, I can see what you are trying to equate. I disagree with your take on the analogy. We want to minimise drunk people getting behind the wheel. (We can't get rid of alcohol).

AGAIN it is clear that you are refusing to acknowledge the elevated risks to others that are associated with remaining unvaxed.

There's an elevated risk to other people when anybody chooses to do anything in public. Every time I drive my car, I elevate the risk of causing an accident.

This is why you refuse to even understand the analogy as it was originally presented and as I am making it abundantly clear to you again here.

Your matching of the elements in the analogy is clear to me. I disagree with it.

No, not YOU personally. I was using 'you' as an impersonal pronoun. If a person doesn't want to get arrested and imprisoned for drunk driving they should make a choice that prevents that outcome.

And we don't prevent people from getting drunk, do we? You want the analogy to assume that being unvaccinated is a state of permanent drunkenness.

If a vaccine mandate makes life unbearable for whatever reason for people who refuse to vaccinate... They should consider choosing a different path.

Hell, if we have the right to make their life unbearable, why don't we simply kidnap them and inject them? Or simply kill them for not making the favoured choice? Why would making life unbearable be permissible, but the other options not permissible?

Of course, I notice that none of the pro-mandate crowd has explained why having had COVID (which provides at least the same or better resistance to COVID than the vaccine) ought be discounted as irrelevant.

 

[laughing dog]

That is your position - that the unvaccinated should not be under house arrest. Which means that they can go about infecting others with a deadly variant.

Yes. The unvaccinated should be free to infect others with a deadly variant, just as the vaccinated are free to do so.

The unvaccinated are much more likely to do so. Keeping those who are most likely to spread deadly diseases from doing so is logical and rational for a society eishing to avoid a worse pandemic.

I asked Toni what her stop scenario was. She said 'until the pandemic is over'. But she hasn't told me what she thinks the pandemic being over means. Without naming the conditions, her stop scenario is "people will be confined until I say so".

So what? Any standard Toni gives is “her say so”.

 

[zorq]

I understand my analogy, of course. That doesn't mean I agree to the terms of your analogy.

The risky behaviour is going out (driving) while you have COVID (are drunk). Vaxxed people and unvaxxed people can both get COVID (get drunk). It's just that vaxxed people are less likely to "get drunk."

What you are proposing is that anybody who is more likely to get drunk (who have not taken the 'Pfizer-Undrunk formula) is simply banned from driving, whether they are drunk or not.

I'm proposing that anybody who makes choices that endanger society face negative consequences enforced by that society. Just like people who make the choice to drive drunk. You want to get drunk? Don't do it behind the wheel, or face some negative consequences. You want to stay unvaxed? Don't do it in public. Or face some negative consequences.

WRONG! Getting covid is the car crash!

CAPITALS! I KNOW HOW AN ANALOGY WORKS!

I am equating the choice to drive drunk as a choice that elevates risk and danger in society with the choice to remain unvaxed and in public as a choice that elevates risk and danger in society. The frequency a person needs to make this choice is immaterial to the existence and danger of the choice. This is a nonsensical and meaningless distinction.

Yes, I can see what you are trying to equate. I disagree with your take on the analogy. We want to minimise drunk people getting behind the wheel. (We can't get rid of alcohol).

We don't have to "get rid" of alcohol. We only need to punish the risky behavior that leads to damage.

AGAIN it is clear that you are refusing to acknowledge the elevated risks to others that are associated with remaining unvaxed.

There's an elevated risk to other people when anybody chooses to do anything in public. Every time I drive my car, I elevate the risk of causing an accident.

Yep, there's risk and there is unnecessary risk. Most modern societies have decided to prohibit unnecessary risk by outlawing it.

This is why you refuse to even understand the analogy as it was originally presented and as I am making it abundantly clear to you again here.

Your matching of the elements in the analogy is clear to me. I disagree with it.

Do all the elements line up too perfectly for you?

No, not YOU personally. I was using 'you' as an impersonal pronoun. If a person doesn't want to get arrested and imprisoned for drunk driving they should make a choice that prevents that outcome.

And we don't prevent people from getting drunk, do we? You want the analogy to assume that being unvaccinated is a state of permanent drunkenness.

Being unvaccinated in public is a state of being drunk and driving. You can be as unvaccinated as you want if you stay private.

If a vaccine mandate makes life unbearable for whatever reason for people who refuse to vaccinate... They should consider choosing a different path.

Hell, if we have the right to make their life unbearable, why don't we simply kidnap them and inject them? Or simply kill them for not making the favoured choice? Why would making life unbearable be permissible, but the other options not permissible?

Sending people to jail is unbearable for them and permissible for society. This is how society has worked for millenia. You sound like you are hearing this for the first time. YES. We discourage bad behavior by making the choice to engage in it result in unbearable circumstances for the person who choses poorly. Kidnapping is essentially what jail is. Capital punishment is a thing too. Some societies kill the people who don't make the "favored choice" as you call it. How do you not understand this?

Of course, I notice that none of the pro-mandate crowd has explained why having had COVID (which provides at least the same or better resistance to COVID than the vaccine) ought be discounted as irrelevant.

It isn't entirely clear at this point that COVID recovery is better or worse than the vaccine, but it is also mostly un-documentable and therefore prone to adding corruption to this hypothetical mandate system. The vaccine is easily available in many places and comes with documentation that can be verified by an authority. Also offering Covid recovery as an alternative to vaccines makes getting covid into an beneficial outcome for some people. That's bad. We don't want people trying to get the disease just so that they can get their covid passport.

 

[Toni]

I understand my analogy, of course. That doesn't mean I agree to the terms of your analogy.



The risky behaviour is going out (driving) while you have COVID (are drunk). Vaxxed people and unvaxxed people can both get COVID (get drunk). It's just that vaxxed people are less likely to "get drunk."


What you are proposing is that anybody who is more likely to get drunk (who have not taken the 'Pfizer-Undrunk formula) is simply banned from driving, whether they are drunk or not.

WRONG! Getting covid is the car crash!

CAPITALS! I KNOW HOW AN ANALOGY WORKS!

I am equating the choice to drive drunk as a choice that elevates risk and danger in society with the choice to remain unvaxed and in public as a choice that elevates risk and danger in society. The frequency a person needs to make this choice is immaterial to the existence and danger of the choice. This is a nonsensical and meaningless distinction.

Yes, I can see what you are trying to equate. I disagree with your take on the analogy. We want to minimise drunk people getting behind the wheel. (We can't get rid of alcohol).

AGAIN it is clear that you are refusing to acknowledge the elevated risks to others that are associated with remaining unvaxed.

There's an elevated risk to other people when anybody chooses to do anything in public. Every time I drive my car, I elevate the risk of causing an accident.

This is why you refuse to even understand the analogy as it was originally presented and as I am making it abundantly clear to you again here.

Your matching of the elements in the analogy is clear to me. I disagree with it.

No, not YOU personally. I was using 'you' as an impersonal pronoun. If a person doesn't want to get arrested and imprisoned for drunk driving they should make a choice that prevents that outcome.

And we don't prevent people from getting drunk, do we? You want the analogy to assume that being unvaccinated is a state of permanent drunkenness.

If a vaccine mandate makes life unbearable for whatever reason for people who refuse to vaccinate... They should consider choosing a different path.

Hell, if we have the right to make their life unbearable, why don't we simply kidnap them and inject them? Or simply kill them for not making the favoured choice? Why would making life unbearable be permissible, but the other options not permissible?

Of course, I notice that none of the pro-mandate crowd has explained why having had COVID (which provides at least the same or better resistance to COVID than the vaccine) ought be discounted as irrelevant.

Surviving a COVID infection does NOT provide equal or better protection than the vaccine. Having COVID presents far greater risks than the vaccine. Even if you've had COVID, you should get vaccinated.

 

[Rhea]

This is not new information. It has been available for quite a long time.

No, Vaccinated People Are Not ‘Just as Likely’ to Spread the Coronavirus as Unvaccinated People (link)

This has become a common refrain among the cautious—and it’s wrong.

About the author: Craig Spencer is an emergency-medicine physician and director of global health in emergency medicine at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.

Among this last group, a common refrain I’ve heard to justify their renewed vigilance is that “vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the coronavirus.”

This misunderstanding, born out of confusing statements from public-health authorities and misleading media headlines, is a shame. It is resulting in unnecessary fear among vaccinated people, all the while undermining the public’s understanding of the importance—and effectiveness—of getting vaccinated.

So let me make one thing clear: Vaccinated people are not as likely to spread the coronavirus as the unvaccinated. Even in the United States, where more than half of the population is fully vaccinated, the unvaccinated are responsible for the overwhelming majority of transmission.

[…]

Additionally, for those instances of a vaccinated person getting a breakthrough case, yes, they can be as infectious as an unvaccinated person. But they are likely contagious for a shorter period of time when compared with the unvaccinated, and they may harbor less infectious virus overall.

Moreover, Metaphor’s attempt to form an equivalence and insist that unvaccinated people are only a danger “when they have COVID” completely ignores the fact that people can transmit the virus before they know they are sick. We’ve known this all along and that’s why being unvaccinated and running about town is still a very high risk, because you don’t know when you become infectious until after you have exposed others. And since the unvaccinated are more likely to get the virus, they are a higher risk to everyone as they walk around town.

The math is clear. The anti-mandate freedom crowd is either deliberately or ideologically blind to this. They are unable to understand or admit to the significantly and demonstrably higher risk of unvaccinated people in the public space.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Almost nobody (I think) is condoning the kidnapping of people to be strapped to a gurney and forcibly injected with a COVID-19 vaccine (thought Toni did imply her sympathy to such a scenario once, if I recall correctly). What the government is proposing is that it is going to make your life unlivable and impractical and wretched if you refuse the vaccine. You can't go to work and earn an income. You can't go out to buy groceries. You can't travel. You can't see vaccinated people. You can't go to a hospital for lifesaving treatment (at least one hospital has refused to perform transplant surgery on an unvaccinated patient).

Now, with the ratcheting of the vaccine mandate, the only thing left might really be 'you are not permitted to leave your residence for any reason'. The government could even forbid people delivering groceries to you, because of the risk you pose.

Note that in December 2020, Joe Biden said he was against vaccine mandates. How hearts and minds have changed since he got into power.



So is the draft. But more importantly, you're trying to protect people who are vaccinated (who already have greatly reduced chances of getting the virus, and greatly reduced chance of getting very sick and dying from it).

Nor is it science-based. Having had coronavirus and surviving it provides immunity at least as good as the vaccine, but that will not count as being vaccinated.

It's just like you can't work in a machine shop unless you wear safety glasses and ear protection. Your child can't attend grade school unless she's vaccinated for polio and others. When you drive, you have to obey the laws. You don't have the right to practice medicine unless you have a valid medical certification. I could go on and on. But COVID isn't any different from all the other rules that we live by in order to have a better community. If people don't want the vaccine, fine, just stay home and quit spreading your germs to others.

It is amazing that you appear to believe unvaccinated people automatically have coronavirus (and have it permanently, presumably?) Indeed, vaccination might change the odds on people who have coronavirus and do not know it. Since it greatly reduces the symptoms of having it.

Nor, I assume, would you be willing to give an inch. If a supermarket opened up that openly said 'we are agnostic to your vaccination status and our staff is aware of this' - would you allow that? That way the vaccinated can avoid it if it is so important to them.

If you don't mind, I'd love to see the link with evidence that states that having had coronavirus and surviving it provides immunity. Everything that I've read states "natural immunity" is less protection than a vaccination. And the vaccines will have to be boosted over time. And I can provide links to this. And this is the rub here, your side is incorrect on the facts regarding vaccines. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the science is improving in testing and tracing. Once tracing is perfected, and a person can track where they got their infection, the argument will be over. Insurance company's go by science. And they will require businesses to require sensible vaccine policies, or they won't be insurable. Businesses can't operate without insurance.

 

[Toni]

I cannot understand why you think the conclusion 'it should be illegal to drive while sober' is implied from 'don't place people under house arrest for refusing a particular medical procedure'. But, I will attempt to understand how you got to that reasoning.

It appears to me that you and Toni believe that 'being unvaccinated' is the same as being drunk, and we've decided as a society that drunk people should not drive. Okay. But, being unvaccinated is not the same as being drunk (here, being drunk would be equivalent to having COVID). Drunk people pose a threat to people on the road, and having COVID poses a threat to people around you.

Imagine Pfizer had formulated an injection (called Pfizer-Undrunk) that prevented you from being drunk (or, rather, it effectively removed 90% of the alcohol in anything you consumed, so that although you could get drunk with a great deal of effort, it was unlikely). Toni's house arrest proposal is equivalent to 'anybody not taking this Pfizer-Undrunk jab is forbidden from driving--whether they get drunk or not. They are not allowed to drive even when they are sober. Similarly, 'house arrest' for not getting a COVID vaccination is 'you're not allowed to go outside, even though you don't have COVID'.

The analogy breaks down here, but the people who take Pfizer-Undrunk (and so can't get drunk) also get really good cars (immune systems) that prevent serious injury and death from accidents. And yet they still insist that the Pfizer-Undrunk refusers are perpetual dangers to everyone, and deserve never to drive, even if they are sober (don't have COVID).

Toni exposed her muddled thinking on this by talking about houses being in medical quarantine if they had scarlet fever. Funnily enough, a household where somebody has COVID should be in medical quarantine.

But households where nobody has COVID but instead contains an unvaccinated person should not be in pre-emptive, perpetual lockdown.



MMR vaccines are given at 12 months of age. We make decisions for children because a one year old baby cannot make them for herself.

But I would object to an 18 year old being forced to get the MMR vaccine.



Here's a question: in what universe did I suggest or imply people should refuse vaccination? It isn't this universe. I am pro-vaccine and anti-mandate.



That you cannot take seriously the position 'the government should not place people who refuse vaccination under house arrest forever' says a lot about your own attitude and how seriously it should be taken.

No nation will ever get to 100% vaccination unless people are kidnapped and strapped to a gurney. Even if that were happening, presumably a network of corruption would form where people could get an 'officially already vaccinated' status without being vaccinated. Society does not need to punish people who do not want to get vaccinated. We just need to persuade as many people as possible.

And I tell you what: the prospect of somebody's life being made wretched and miserable and plunging them into poverty might get people to change their minds about getting the vaccine, but it won't have persuaded them. It would be like saying a bank robber had persuaded the teller to hand over the money in the register with the irrefutable logic of his gun.

Unvaccinated people comprise the bulk of those who become ill and who are currently filling hospitals, diverting resources that could otherwise be used to address the medical needs of non-COVID patients. In that way, they literally are putting the lives of everyone else at risk. Anyone can be in a car accident, fall off a ladder, have a heart attack, break a leg, get cancer—dozens of things.

Mutations of the COVID-19 virus are arising much more rapidly than they would otherwise because of people who are refusing to be vaccinated. This endangers people who have been vaccinated because eventually, a mutation will arise that cannot be controlled by vaccines currently in use.

Perhaps things are different in Australia, but here, health care workers have been working overtime for a year abd a half—long, difficult, heart breaking shifts where deaths are common, multiple times a day events. Health care workers are exhausted and traumatized by the needless death abd suffering they see. Despite the vaccinations and PPE, they are more at risk of break through infections because of their increased exposure. And they risk bringing home a mutated version of the virus to their families.

Meanwhile, people remain unvaccinated, go about their lives. Sometimes, they get sick—sick enough to beg for Facebook prayers—and if they recover, they unabashedly go right back to their lives, scoffing at vaccinations abd eschewing masks, believing in their own strength and superior immune system.

Abd the rest of us are being extra careful, curtailing our activities because the delta variant is breaking through and mu is lurking and who knows what is coming down the pike. I spent months essentially in house arrest, barely going out to get essentials during off hours in a small grocery with good protocols and compliance. I really don’t want to be pushed into that again but it’s getting close. I think I felt safe enough to be unmasked for…almost 2 months. Out of the last 19 months. Don’t talk to me if the unfairness of ‘house arrest.’ I know how unfair it is. I got to live it and am damn close to it now because of selfish asshokes a d the even more selfish arrogant ads hikes who cry free dumb

You don't get to put people under perpetual house arrest because they might get ill. Or rather, if you and enough of your smug, sadistic, authoritarian countrymen agree with you, you probably will get to do it.

Nope. No one is proposing confining willfully unvaccinated people to their homes because THEY might get it. It's because THEY might not know they have it (or downplay it or not care) and spread it to those who CANNOT be vaccinated or even occasionally to those who are vaccinated.

Plus, if/when they get it and end up in the hospital, they put an undue and unnecessary additional strain on health care systems and health care workers, of whom I know a few. They're tired. They're exhausted. They're quitting. For some, it's been like living in a war zone for months and months and months. Even deployed soldiers in war zones get leaves. Not health care workers in a pandemic.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Supreme Court settled this long ago--vaccine mandates are legal.

Where did I suggest that vaccine mandates were not legal in America?

The point is that the Supreme Court doesn't see it as an undo violation of personal rights.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

"Look at the numbers". Look at what numbers? What are you talking about? What arithmetic calculation have you made?

For fuck's sake being unvaccinated does not equal having and spreading COVID.

Consider a population. No vaccine, eventually everyone's going to get it. Thus being vaccinated is akin to spreading Covid, the timeframe is just uncertain.

And Covid is approaching a lifetime worth of DUI deaths--given the apparent undercounting it's probably already passed that point.

Also, people who have had COVID have immunity that is at least the equivalent of the vaccine. Why isn't having had COVID being treated as similar to being vaccinated for the vaccine mandate believers?

That's not what the data says. Having had Covid gives you good immunity towards that variant. However, as usual with coronaviruses it often isn't very good against variants. That's why we never had a coronavirus vaccine before--they don't work very well. Look at the real-world performance turned in by Sinovac--it's a killed-virus vaccine and confers the same type of immunity that infection would have. Quite effective in the trials where it was facing the same version, very disappointing in deployment where time had passed and it was facing variants.

I would object to the person who doesn't have the MMR shot being allowed in society. It's not just themselves they are risking.

You used to be a fake libertarian, Loren. Now you're not even faking it.

This is an area where the libertarian approach fails pretty badly--activities that pose a small risk to a large number of people.

 

[Metaphor]

The unvaccinated are much more likely to do so. Keeping those who are most likely to spread deadly diseases from doing so is logical and rational for a society eishing to avoid a worse pandemic.

I asked Toni what her stop scenario was. She said 'until the pandemic is over'. But she hasn't told me what she thinks the pandemic being over means. Without naming the conditions, her stop scenario is "people will be confined until I say so".

So what? Any standard Toni gives is “her say so”.

Toni is supremely confident her no-exceptions house arrest is the right and just and sensible thing to do. She's detailed all the conditions. But there is one thing she has not detailed. Her stop condition. She assured me it wasn't perpetual house arrest. Just until the pandemic is over. So, she must have some idea of what she means when she says that.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Supreme Court settled this long ago--vaccine mandates are legal. They didn't even used to be all that controversial until now we have a death cult trying to kill as many people as possible.

So long as you don't endanger anyone else you're free to not be vaccinated. Your right to a disease is like a fist--it stops at the other guy's nose. I have no problem at all with the government making you quit engaging in biological warfare.

I have had to show my vax papers at many a border crossing. When your country of departure is tropical expect to show both your passport and yellow card (although it's actually a booklet, not a card) in your country of arrival. So what?

At this point being required to show your vaccination card to do something is a plus in my book.

And note that he's a doomsayer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The same death cult that doesn't ban people from leaving their house if they don't have a flu shot. The same death cult that doesn't ban roads from the car because of the road toll. The same death cult that doesn't kidnap fat people and force them on a diet.

In other words, I do not belong to a death cult.

Note that we do ban people from the roads that pose an undo risk. Banning the unvaccinated from public space is just a version of that.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Fair enough. In California (and some other states?) it is illegal to drive, whether drunk or not, if you have an open container of alcoholic beverage in the car. Is that law over-reach? Driving with the open container (though not drunk) seems like an analog to being unvaccinated (though not infected with the virus).

(Actually the open-container law might be more offensive! It would seem to insult the driver as perhaps unable to resist a drink temptation. An unvaccinated person who mingles with others can contract Covid-19 regardless of his will-power.)

I do find the open-container law very offensive--it's the usual overreach we see with DUI laws.

The idea is to keep the driver from handing his beer to a passenger when pulled over--but what if it's the passenger's beer in the first place? I have once unknowingly violated the open container law--we were taking her parents to the Grand Canyon and a few other places, there was a cooler in the back. I had no idea her father had put a couple of beers in there. (They had no idea we have open container laws.) Fortunately I found it out by finding an empty beer can, not from being stopped.

Open container with no passengers is akin to being unvaccinated.

Here's a question: in what universe did I suggest or imply people should refuse vaccination? It isn't this universe. I am pro-vaccine and anti-mandate.

OK. I thought it might help us understand the concern if we were informed of some reason not to get vaccinated. I guess abstract freedom is reason enough.

There are many situations where a law is needed to address public interaction when there would be no reason for such a law in a sufficiently sparse population.

Vaccination is one such example.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm proposing that anybody who makes choices that endanger society face negative consequences enforced by that society. Just like people who make the choice to drive drunk. You want to get drunk? Don't do it behind the wheel, or face some negative consequences. You want to stay unvaxed? Don't do it in public. Or face some negative consequences.

Going out in public is a COVID-danger only if you have COVID, just as driving is a drunk-driving danger only if you are drunk.

We don't have to "get rid" of alcohol. We only need to punish the risky behavior that leads to damage.

People who are not drunk do not pose a drunk-driving risk.

Yep, there's risk and there is unnecessary risk. Most modern societies have decided to prohibit unnecessary risk by outlawing it.

People who are not drunk do not pose a drunk-driving risk.

Do all the elements line up too perfectly for you?

No, the opposite. Equating being unvaxxed with permanent drunkenness is the element that lines up rather badly.

Being unvaccinated in public is a state of being drunk and driving. You can be as unvaccinated as you want if you stay private.

No: having COVID in public is a state of being drunk and driving.

Sending people to jail is unbearable for them and permissible for society. This is how society has worked for millenia. You sound like you are hearing this for the first time. YES. We discourage bad behavior by making the choice to engage in it result in unbearable circumstances for the person who choses poorly. Kidnapping is essentially what jail is. Capital punishment is a thing too. Some societies kill the people who don't make the "favored choice" as you call it. How do you not understand this?

But that's what I'm asking you. Why don't you simply kill the people who refuse to vaccinate?

Then, their risk of drunk driving is zero. You don't like unnecessary risk.

It isn't entirely clear at this point that COVID recovery is better or worse than the vaccine, but it is also mostly un-documentable and therefore prone to adding corruption to this hypothetical mandate system.

We know how to detect if somebody has COVID-19. If they've had a positive result and there is evidence for it, why can you not point to your results and say 'I've had COVID'? Indeed, the documentation (of a positive result) should be acceptable to the authority that created it, should it not?

The vaccine is easily available in many places and comes with documentation that can be verified by an authority. Also offering Covid recovery as an alternative to vaccines makes getting covid into an beneficial outcome for some people. That's bad. We don't want people trying to get the disease just so that they can get their covid passport.

I do wonder how they can go out and get COVID if they are in perpetual house arrest? After all, the perpetual house arrest is supposed to prevent them getting it, isn't it?

 

[Metaphor]

Surviving a COVID infection does NOT provide equal or better protection than the vaccine.

I am envious of your self-confidence, even when you are blatantly wrong.

Having COVID presents far greater risks than the vaccine. Even if you've had COVID, you should get vaccinated.

In what universe did I say people should not get vaccinated? It isn't this universe.

 

[Metaphor]

The Supreme Court settled this long ago--vaccine mandates are legal.

Where did I suggest that vaccine mandates were not legal in America?

The point is that the Supreme Court doesn't see it as an undo violation of personal rights.

It may surprise you to learn that sometimes, I don't rely on the judges sitting on an American court to dictate to me what I think my rights should be.

 

[laughing dog]

The unvaccinated are much more likely to do so. Keeping those who are most likely to spread deadly diseases from doing so is logical and rational for a society eishing to avoid a worse pandemic.

I asked Toni what her stop scenario was. She said 'until the pandemic is over'. But she hasn't told me what she thinks the pandemic being over means. Without naming the conditions, her stop scenario is "people will be confined until I say so".

So what? Any standard Toni gives is “her say so”.

Toni is supremely confident her no-exceptions house arrest is the right and just and sensible thing to do. She's detailed all the conditions. But there is one thing she has not detailed. Her stop condition. She assured me it wasn't perpetual house arrest. Just until the pandemic is over. So, she must have some idea of what she means when she says that.

Do you have an actual point?