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Have any prominent Objectivists addressed this point II?

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18 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

But we must refrain from unnecessarily endangering others.

Not entirely true.  The spread can be limited.

Part of the problem was that there was politically motivated resistance to even reasonable control measures.  People misguidedly thought they were fighting for freedom by refusing to take any control measures at all, a very destructive confusion.

Maybe the misguided could see further ahead than most, that the loss of freedom to choose for themselves - then - would inevitably lead to more loss - now? Turned out correct. Losing freedom is more a slide than an instance.

What's basic, everyone who thinks they individually know best for their lives, despite what the government decrees is "good for us all", has to be positively and unequivocally defended on that right by, even, their detractors.

That's why blanket "control measures" are unworkable. Even those who may accede to some controls, by practical necessity and security, could reason well enough to support the rights of those who don't. Else they know it's goodbye to individual rights.

Edited by whYNOT
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31 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

Someone who recklessly fires a gun without knowing whether it is loaded with blanks or live rounds is endangering people in way that constitutes physical force. 

I see.  So you can't know if you're contagious.  Testing doesn't exist.  Masking and distancing isn't an option.  It's vaccinate or risk killing others.  Binary option fallacy.   

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6 hours ago, Craig24 said:

I see.  So you can't know if you're contagious.  Testing doesn't exist.  Masking and distancing isn't an option.  It's vaccinate or risk killing others.  Binary option fallacy.   

Testing is not infallible and does not tell you what happened since the test.  Masking and distancing help, but still leave some danger of infection.  Some people refuse to mask.

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13 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Testing is not infallible and does not tell you what happened since the test.  Masking and distancing help, but still leave some danger of infection.  Some people refuse to mask.

Ok.  Vaccinating doesn't help either.  The CDC recommends masking even if vaccinated because you can still be contagious.  If you are going to throw it out there that these measures are not full proof then the only way not to initiate force by your standard is to permanently isolate from others.  Not reasonable.  

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9 minutes ago, Craig24 said:

If you are going to throw it out there that these measures are not full proof then the only way not to initiate force by your standard is to permanently isolate from others. 

No, I am saying that it is initiation of force to unnecessarily increase the risk of spread of disease.

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2 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

No, I am saying that it is initiation of force to unnecessarily increase the risk of spread of disease.

Then we must disagree on what is necessary.  You draw the line at vaccines?  Do you favor mandating vaccines for everyone?  What should the penalty be for not vaccinating?  A simple fine?  Denial of services?  No entry to stadiums, parks, buildings?  Termination of employment?  Armed soldiers going door to door giving the jab?  The firing squad?   

...

Excuse my sense humor.  

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3 hours ago, Craig24 said:

Then we must disagree on what is necessary.  You draw the line at vaccines?  Do you favor mandating vaccines for everyone?  What should the penalty be for not vaccinating?  A simple fine?  Denial of services?  No entry to stadiums, parks, buildings?  Termination of employment?  Armed soldiers going door to door giving the jab?  The firing squad?   

I'm not 100% certain that COVID-19 is serious enough to warrant a legal penalty for not vaccinating.  Your last two examples are ridiculously excessive.  Some of the others are, or should be, matters for the private owners of organizations and facilities, not for the government.

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5 hours ago, Craig24 said:

Then we must disagree on what is necessary.  You draw the line at vaccines?  Do you favor mandating vaccines for everyone?  What should the penalty be for not vaccinating?  A simple fine?  Denial of services?  No entry to stadiums, parks, buildings?  Termination of employment?  Armed soldiers going door to door giving the jab?  The firing squad?   

...

 

The very least, for our safety those unvaxxed should be marked with a compulsory symbol so they can be shunned on sight. Something indicating the corona... a star, that's it. A yellow star to separate the present day untermensch from the vaxx-obsessed fascists.

(DM How's that ridiculously excessive? I think it's quite logical)

Edited by whYNOT
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On 10/1/2021 at 6:07 PM, Doug Morris said:

Someone who recklessly fires a gun without knowing whether it is loaded with blanks or live rounds is endangering people in way that constitutes physical force. 

There is no one to scapegoat and punish any more. Those equipped with bullet-proof suits needn't be scared. They have been vaccinated against "live rounds", right? The pro-personal choice, unvaxxed, pose harm only to each other. They, for the great majority, will easily recover from infection and achieve natural immunity and herd immunity, of a higher durability than vaxxes, or some high risk ones who should definitely have got the vaccine will themselves pay the price.

But still, even now with these -mostly-  effective and pretty safe, if not perfectly safe vaccines, let's have the authorities detain and arrest those potential shooters who haven't been bullet-proofed - under suspicion of intent and reckless endangerment to cause "physical force". 

DM, You have to realize what it's really about - for some of the noisiest anti-choice vaxxers. Vaccination isn't the issue. They hate and fear the signs of independence in other people. 

 

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3 hours ago, whYNOT said:

(DM How's that ridiculously excessive? I think it's quite logical)

At least it's not as excessive as some of Craig24's suggestions.

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Those equipped with bullet-proof suits needn't be scared. They have been vaccinated against "live rounds", right?

What if a few of the bullets are armor-piercing?  What if some of them hit people in the brain?

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

DM, You have to realize what it's really about - for some of the noisiest anti-choice vaxxers. Vaccination isn't the issue. They hate and fear the signs of independence in other people. 

We need to distinguish between evaluating measures or policies and evaluating some of the people who are for or against them.

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14 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

At least it's not as excessive as some of Craig24's suggestions.

 

I'm disturbed you could seriously consider my suggestion. Next step, confinement, next, the camps.

One only has to accept the 'common good' and that there is a class/group/race of people who are "not like us" standing in the way, for what follows in action to be consistent. Naturally, it's for their best interests too. Why and how a systematic doctrine like apartheid could gain legal and populist traction - it was apparently both good for 'them' as for 'us' that 'we' be separated.

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The inessential difference with apartheid being that presenting a compulsory pass, the obscene "dompas", to move around and enter places was exclusively for blacks.

 

Edited by whYNOT
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"The claim is that without governmental restraints, “people” would fall for hucksters selling them worthless and unsafe treatments. But protecting the irrational from themselves requires putting in place prohibitions for everyone. So the reasonable people have to lose their medical freedom in order that the unreasonable people can’t harm themselves.

This is the sacrifice of the rational to the irrational—an evil so vicious that the mind recoils from it. But this is the ultimate, lethal consequence of putting the government in charge of public health". (From Binswanger's essay).

---

What is missing I think is ¬the rights¬ of the "irrational" - on whatever basis they can be judged - must be as energetically defended by the "rational" as those of the rational. Anyone has to be left alone to pursue one's ends by whatever means - with the consequences in reality, as the rational understand, one's only arbiter. When you commit errors and evasions it's you who pays and conversely you who collects from rational deeds. Most times do people eventually learn from their mistakes - certainly, at concrete levels. "Learning the hard way". An irrational person might become more rational tomorrow, and the reverse.

A supposedly anti-science, irrational treatment for disease, can sometimes be found to have substance (drugs are quite often re-purposed), given later studies. A formal, designed, "scientific" vaccine might not quite be as efficacious as first hailed.

The fundamental thing is that freedom is freedom of action from govt. - and any others. The single state which enables one to make mistakes (exclusively) at one's cost or to collect earned material-spiritual dividends. There's no dichotomy, one may deplore others' acts, beliefs, ethics and philosophies while equally upholding their individual rights to follow those. This fundamental implication of Rand's rights is treated ambiguously I seem to notice.

HB's dead right, as far as it goes - the paternalist gvt. sacrifices rational actions by actors to the irrational behavior of others, by imposing blanket prohibitions on everyone. The greater sacrifice, imo, is of universal freedoms: to remove their - and one's own - right to be wrong and so all lose rights.

Therefore, must forced 'good behavior' onto the unvaccinated be resisted strongly, irrespective of how "irrational" one deems them to be. And they are not always or majorly.

Edited by whYNOT
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2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

I'm disturbed you could seriously consider my suggestion.

I do not seriously consider your suggestion.  Nor do I consider your suggestion to be serious.  All I said was 

16 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

At least it's not as excessive as some of Craig24's suggestions.

Note not as.  In other words, it is still excessive.  Although that is a true point, I was satirizing you when I made it.

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

One only has to accept the 'common good' and that there is a class/group/race of people who are "not like us" standing in the way

Both those ideas are evil, and I do not accept or condone either one, nor do I encourage or condone anyone else doing so.

 

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

apartheid

Apartheid imposed by government is utterly vile.  Apartheid achieved by any means is an example of collectivism, which is evil.

1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

The inessential difference with apartheid being that presenting a compulsory pass, the obscene "dompas", to move around and enter places was exclusively for blacks.

Being black, or being of any particular race, color, ancestry. ethnicity, or physiology, is utterly different from a voluntarily chosen action or inaction.  Before anyone smears me, there are also great differences among voluntary choices.

14 hours ago, whYNOT said:

The right people to stand with: Choices without rancor

image.png

I don't want anyone to feel rancor or to hate anyone.

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14 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

"The claim is that without governmental restraints, “people” would fall for hucksters selling them worthless and unsafe treatments. But protecting the irrational from themselves requires putting in place prohibitions for everyone. So the reasonable people have to lose their medical freedom in order that the unreasonable people can’t harm themselves.

This is the sacrifice of the rational to the irrational—an evil so vicious that the mind recoils from it. But this is the ultimate, lethal consequence of putting the government in charge of public health". (From Binswanger's essay).

Anyone who chooses to deliberately infect themselves with COVID-19, ebola, typhoid, or any other disease should be permitted to do so, but should be required to quarantine themselves.

Anyone who messes themselves up with heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD, or any other drug should be permitted to do so, but should be held responsible for any crimes they commit under the influence or to finance their drug use.

Anyone who spends their money recklessly should be permitted to do so, but the government should not bail them out.

23 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

What is missing I think is ¬the rights¬ of the "irrational" - on whatever basis they can be judged - must be as energetically defended by the "rational" as those of the rational. Anyone has to be left alone to pursue one's ends by whatever means - with the consequences in reality, as the rational understand, one's only arbiter. When you commit errors and evasions it's you who pays and conversely you who collects from rational deeds. Most times do people eventually learn from their mistakes - certainly, at concrete levels. "Learning the hard way". An irrational person might become more rational tomorrow, and the reverse.

A supposedly anti-science, irrational treatment for disease, can sometimes be found to have substance (drugs are quite often re-purposed), given later information. A "scientific" vaccine might not quite be as efficacious as first hailed.

The fundamental thing is that freedom is freedom of action from govt. - and others. The single state which enables one to make mistakes (exclusively) at one's cost or to collect earned material-spiritual dividends. There's no dichotomy, one may deplore others' acts, beliefs, ethics and philosophies while equally upholding their individual rights to follow those. This fundamental of Rand's rights is treated ambivalently I seem to notice.

HB's dead right, as far as it goes - the paternalist gvt. sacrifices rational actions by actors to the irrational behavior of others, by imposing blanket prohibitions on everyone. The greater sacrifice, imo, is of universal freedoms: to remove their - and one's own - right to be wrong and so all lose rights.

Therefore, must forced 'good behavior' onto the unvaccinated be attacked strongly.

You completely ignore my key point, that unnecessarily increasing the risk of spreading disease can rise to physical force. 

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54 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

You completely ignore my key point, that unnecessarily increasing the risk of spreading disease can rise to physical force. 

We've been around this, never let it be said you're not consistent...

At first glance your argument is trivial and infinitesimal. The disease HAS spread, immensely. If by the actions  1. maybe of a few - purposefully 2. by many - inadvertently and accidentally- you won't find those actions causing, explaining and adding up to the large figures of the spread. And people after all are human, committing forgetful and other errors every second.

Obvious - the transmission barriers officially prescribed and used by most everyone have been pretty useless.

How else do you judge what "unnecessarily increasing the risk..." etc. amounts to? Who did what to whom, and what results?

I haven't ignored your key point, while you ignore mine. The consequences. The 'cure' that's worse than the disease. Your insistence on placing the blame with - a tiny few - 'somebodies' for physical force on others - gives intellectual weight to further tyrannical Gvt. interventions and more social divisions. First with mandated lockdowns and now with mandated vaxxes.

See, you provide the justification for such policies.

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2 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

Obvious - the transmission barriers prescribed and put up by most everyone have been pretty useless.

They have almost certainly greatly reduced the number of hospitalizations, deaths, and long term effects.  They would have been even more effective if it were really true that they had been "put up by most everyone".

6 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

How else do you judge what "unnecessarily increasing the risk..." etc. amounts to? Who did what to whom, and what results?

Identifying increases in risk does not require identifying particular instances of transmission.  

8 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

You ignore my key point. The consequences. The 'cure' that's worse than the disease. Your insistence on placing the blame with - a very few - 'somebodies' for physical force on others - gives intellectual weight to further tyrannical Gvt. actions and more social divisions. First with mandated lockdowns and now with mandated vaxxes.

We need to be rational about where to draw the line.

 

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12 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

 

Apartheid imposed by government is utterly vile.  Apartheid achieved by any means is an example of collectivism, which is evil.

Being black, or being of any particular race, color, ancestry. ethnicity, or physiology, is utterly different from a voluntarily chosen action or inaction.  Before anyone smears me, there are also great differences among voluntary choices.

 

Thanks for that, I wouldn't have known about apartheid otherwise. btw, you sound like a certain other poster here...

You mean, that being repressed for what you have no control over, race, color, ancestry, ethnicity... is utterly worse a form of collectivism than being repressed for the volitional choices of you and others, considered your "group"?

Does it make any better, the victimization, because you and your 'group' could surrender your convictions, your mind, anytime (coercively) to avoid that treatment?

I think any collectivism (i.e., identifying/treating someone as a member of a 'group') - by their birth - or by their convictions  - is irrational and immoral. 

When you think in individualist principles you'll find little distinction: the consequences of what's being forcibly created at this moment is going to be a sub-class of citizens globally, those selfish "anti-vaxxers" who will be harshly restricted and discriminated against as another collectivist 'group', because they don't need or want what the majority and their Govt's order them to comply with. A vaccination touted for the collective 'good of all', that they think or believe runs against their individual well-being, self-interest, rights - and convictions, e.g. of self sovereignty, freedom of choice.

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11 hours ago, whYNOT said:

You mean, that being repressed for what you have no control over, race, color, ancestry, ethnicity... is utterly worse a form of collectivism than being repressed for the volitional choices of you and others, considered your "group"?

Does it make any better, the victimization, because you and your 'group' could surrender your convictions, your mind, anytime (coercively) to avoid that treatment?

I think any collectivism (i.e., identifying/treating someone as a member of a 'group') - by their birth - or by their convictions  - is irrational and immoral. 

When you think in individualist principles you'll find little distinction: the consequences of what's being forcibly created at this moment is going to be a sub-class of citizens globally, those selfish "anti-vaxxers" who will be harshly restricted and discriminated against as another collectivist 'group', because they don't need or want what the majority and their Govt's order them to comply with. A vaccination touted for the collective 'good of all', that they think or believe runs against their individual well-being, self-interest, rights - and convictions, e.g. of self sovereignty, freedom of choice

Again, you completely ignore my key point, that unnecessarily increasing the risk of spreading disease can rise to physical force.  

Punishing a person for murder, rape, arson, or robbery is not in any way collectivism.  It is recognizing that person as an individual who has committed a crime.

Likewise, punishing a person for reckless driving or reckless use of a gun is not in any way collectivism.  It is recognizing that person as an individual who has recklessly placed others in physical danger.

I am saying that refusal to mask or to vaccinate may, at least in some cases, be analogous to reckless driving or reckless use of a gun.  You are saying that it is always more analogous to refusal to take vitamins, which of course would be within a person's rights.  This is what we are disagreeing about.  When you write as though we were disagreeing about something else, and when you make wildly false accusations about what I am saying, you are throwing up a smokescreen that makes rational discussion more difficult.

 

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8 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Again, you completely ignore my key point, that unnecessarily increasing the risk of spreading disease can rise to physical force.  

Punishing a person for murder, rape, arson, or robbery is not in any way collectivism.  It is recognizing that person as an individual who has committed a crime.

 

 

You are right. Okay? Again, such a minor occurrence in the over all scheme of a mass-transmitted disease, your point is remarkably trivial. What next? The govt. must retaliate against the person, right?

That is self-evidently how they increase their powers during the pandemic, is my point.

"The only people who can say give up your rights if you want your rights back is the government". Touching base with reality and real lives, a [vaccinated] Canadian lawyer insightfully vents frustration at the cult of govt. force/obedience which messed up his simple night out. An everyday occurrence soon coming to all of us, vaxxed or non. No one is free when any man or group is unfree. This man knows it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by whYNOT
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36 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

"The only people who can say give up your rights if you want your rights back is the government". Touching base with reality and real lives, a [vaccinated] Canadian lawyer insightfully vents frustration at the cult of govt. force/obedience which messed up his simple night out. An everyday occurrence soon coming to all of us, vaxxed or non. No one is free when any man or group is unfree. This man knows it.

This man is greatly exaggerating.

We need to be rational about exactly what restrictions to impose.  It doesn't help any that there is a lot of irrationality on both sides.

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