Quote:
Originally Posted by Rococo
Luciom,
Are these views specific to what you view as the risks of the COVID vaccine or is this your view on all vaccines?
FWIW, I agree that, historically, some vaccine requirements have been de facto government mandates, even if they were not literal mandates.
Is it an outrage that governments at various times in world history either have mandated, or de facto mandated, smallpox and polio vaccines, for example?
Imagine that a disease came along that, absent vaccination, would kill 60% of the world population in an agonizing way. There is a highly effective and extremely safe vaccine that could be administered very quickly and cheaply to the entire world. Would it be an outrage for the U.S. government to effectively mandate that all U.S. citizens get the vaccine?
please read again, the fascism isn't in the mandate rather in the absolutely disproportionate punishment if you don't take it, that was implemented in various cases.
The mandate can make sense paternalistically ( i disagree with paternalism for adults in all cases, but that isn't fascism, just paternalism) when you vaccinate someone for a disease that's very problematic for him, or technocratic utilitaristic if you vaccinate to protect "other people" (not fascist as well, but much less morally defensible when it's about minors, more morally defensible if it's about healthcare workers).
Paternalism for minors can actually make sense (as you remember i am not in favour of absolute paternal rights, to prevent abuses).
So in case of minors, for diseases deadly for children, just vaccinate them. You don't mandate the parents to do that even, you give the shot for polio at school and are done with all the fuss. No need to punish parents in that cases, you just want the kids vaccinated for their own protection, the situation is very clear, you give them the shot.
In case of adults i would never mandate anything.
But if you have to mandate it has to be exceptionally clear that there is a big danger you are protecting them from (paternalistic reasons). So i would actually have accept (for covid) just mandated vaccination of all nursing home residents by law, in the actual sense of you pass the law and the day the doses are in the nursing home they get them, willingly or not, no need to tell legal tutors if they are mentally incapacitated (that left some elders in NH unvaccinated in italy, because the legal tutor was either an antivaxxer or unreachable). It's an emergency, you are doing it to the best of your collective knowledge for a massive health advantage of the person, it's like doing a blood transfusion to someone who might have objected religiously if conscious, you simply do it and it's not fascism.
For the technocratic utilitarian you can mandate to healthcare workers as well (Except here the science wasn't crystal clear) for "statistical reduction of risk" (which didn't happen, everyone got exposed to covid anyway) for patients. Very flimsy grounds, not at all recommended, kind fascist when you start inventing science that isn't there or when you mandate them even to people that don't front patients but are vaguely in healthcare, or when (like in italy) you suspend unvaccinated psychologists and they can't event have a zoom session with a patient if unvaccinated (that's literal burocratic fascism do you agree?).
But teachers? lol wtf. Students in college? lol wtf. Vaccinating not at risk people is absurd in general. The very close example we already had to covid was the flu. Vaccine doesn't last long, disease per se is not very dangerous for significant portions of society and so on.
Absurd to mandate it to others.
But the punishment for others was the most insane thing. No indoor entertainment venue allowed? completly out of whack.
Then there is the extremely fascist thing of having to show a paper id to live normally. That's exceptionally fascist and by itself, even if the healthcare reasons where crystal clear to do so (and they weren't at all), it shouldn't be done. Setting up a system where you can't live normally without showing papers multiple times per day is literally paving the way to actual totalitarian fascism.
Such a system shouldn't exist, any fascist worldwide is using those examples salivating over how to control a population. The chinese tried several things with the covid excuse and you know how it went. It's horrible beyond belief to have to show papers to enter a restaurant. Your right to a normal life can't be predicated upon your cellphone battery not dying, or the system never glitching, or hackers never being succesful.
Fortunately in Italy, we just didn't care with tourists. Their vaccination passes often weren't recognized , we just let them in anyway all the times. But that's because we have lived through fascism and we know the solution to keep a decent quality of life, when fascism exists, is a widespread disregard for fascist rules. Other countries aren't like that and i can only imagine how many people got their rights annihilated in germany and elsewhere because the cellphone was dead or the data connection didn't work.
If you mandate a vaccine, you can fine people who don't comply. The **** it is severing them off society lol, that's a punishment we don't give to actual sexual offenders.
Treating an unvaccinated 7y old worse than a vaccinated 48y old that spent 15 years in jail because he raped 3 kids is *absolutely insane*. The latter can go have ice cream among kids.
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As for the 60% lethal disease hypothesis, i don't understand. Taking aside the fact that even if lethality was say 15%, your problem would be how to secure vaccination center from actual invasion and assault by people clamoring to be vaccinated ASAP, not mandating them to come, let's imagine you have this disease at 20% lethality and a working vaccine and some people for whatever reasons don't want to take it.
**** them? let them die. At most you could very reasonably claim they forfeit medical care if they catch the extra-lethal new disease. For adults i really really really don't understand the problem. You have society collapsing because people needed out of home to keep the lights on, and food on the table of everyone, aren't there. You have riots in the streets to secure food when scarce and stuff.
The **** you care about the religious nuts or whatever the reason is that don't want the vaccine? vaccinate the rest asap and good riddance to the antivaxxers.
At most i could see a mandate for their kids as per above, sure, makes sense if you can logistically do it after other priorities to keep society alive are solved