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Is being anti mandate an accurate description of Objectivists?

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Easy Truth

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On 2/26/2022 at 2:26 PM, Easy Truth said:

I would argue that it is immoral to agree to an order ultimately backed by force, that is based on a utilitarian value. Meaning it is good for most people, not all people or even that it is good most of the time.

Then (and I mean this only as an observation; not a condemnation) you don't have a solid conceptual grasp on what "rights" are.

 

It is not possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.  Your reasons for doing something matter.  "Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons" is a contradiction in terms.

That being said, I absolutely agree with the OP.  I am also pro-vaccine but anti-mandate.

 

I was actually excited to get the vaccine, when it first became available.  Not because I was ever worried about COVID (I'm 32 and do not have AIDS) but because I was excited to end the lockdowns and get back to normal life.  When it became clear that "normal life" would have nothing to do with whatever COVID was doing, and specifically when Joe Biden declared that he had lost his patience with me, I decided I'll never get it.

Not because I'm in any way worried about it.  I'm sure it's entirely safe and probably good for my health.  I decided that I'll never get it because I am not a six-year-old child who isn't responsible for his own life choices, thank you very much!

 

If being a soulless, rightless, brainless robot in a plastic bubble is what it takes to save my life then no thank you; I'd rather just die as a man.

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15 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

Can you elaborate on that? Like why?

Definitely; sorry for not doing so last night.

 

It's not possible to forcibly give someone a value because values are chosen; not forced.  Whatever is forced cannot be of any value.

Peikoff has a really great lecture about this somewhere on YouTube (I tried finding it last night but can't remember what it was called) and he gives the example of forcing a young man to be a doctor, instead of an artist.  Suppose this young man wishes to be an artist but isn't cut out for it and has no good reason to desire it; he doesn't even like to paint, but saw a really cool artist character in a TV show once and hasn't thought it through any further than that.  Suppose that he even has real talent for doctoring and would in fact love it, with a passion, if he would only give it a chance.  Suppose that some all-knowing benevolent dictator then forced him to be a doctor, at gunpoint, because this would actually be the correct choice for him to make if he made it freely.

Would he find any joy in it?  Obviously not; even the lowest sort of wretch, with no concept of self-respect, would still find himself hating his work and longing for his artistic fantasy.  Would he develop his talents and become a great doctor?  That would require his own effort, which he sees no good reason to exert.  Given such a start, his career would consist of many years of resentful drudgery and many butchered patients.

So although this course of action would be the best for him if he could only realize it, he cannot find any value in it until or unless he does realize it, firsthand, for himself.  Trying to bypass his own judgement in the matter can only ever harm both parties.

 

And attempting to force such values on people is harmful to the forcer, as well.

 

@Doug Morris brought up the drug war.  Drugs are obviously bad for your health; some of them (like weed) are probably only a little bad for you, while others (like heroin) are basically a death sentence.  But every adult has the right to do whatever they like with their own lives; if they do not wish to go on living then nobody else has the right to force them to do so.

Now look at what we accomplish by attempting to force everyone into health and sobriety.

Firstly, we do not deter addicts from their addictions; they only become better at hiding them, less likely to voluntarily seek out help (even on the brink of death) and probably reinforce their self-destructive tendencies (see the Streisand Effect).

Secondly, how much taxpayer money is being spent each year on the war on drugs?  How much police time and attention, how many prison cells and how many human lives?

That's not hyperbole.  George Floyd had three times the lethal limit of fentanyl in his bloodstream when he died because, when the police caught him immediately after a drug deal, he swallowed his entire supply in order to avoid a possession charge.  Where would we be today if he'd instead greeted the cops with a "hey, officers!  I've already consumed a rather large amount of methamphetamines and I'm not feeling well; could you please direct me to the nearest hospital?"  Breonna Taylor died in a no-knock drug raid - which is a nifty new thing our police officers have started doing, because none of our current measures are stopping the spread and use of drugs.

Bad laws necessitate the creation of even worse laws, in order to enforce them - and with every new law our taxes must rise, new prisons must be built, genuine rapists and murders are given less attention by our already-overwhelmed police officers and innocent people die.

 

Every party - both the ones initiating the force and the ones who are being forced are harmed.  You can look at it from any perspective or angle you like and they are all universally bad.

 

---

 

That's what a "right" is.  If you'd prefer to look at it in utilitarian terms (which I'm alright with) then a "right" is a choice which must be left up to a certain individual to make, in whatever way they like - even if they choose wrongly.  It must be left up to them because the alternative would not only be harmful to them (even if you're forcing them to make the right choice, it can't be right if it's forced) but also to yourself.

 

If you thought my description of the drug war was bad, just imagine if Biden's mandate had actually been implemented.  Hell, being a Christian fundamentalist is probably even worse for you than being unvaccinated, but could you imagine what we'd have to do in order to forbid people from holding such beliefs, inside of their own heads (or what that would do to them)?  Bad laws necessitate the creation of even worse laws...

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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On 2/26/2022 at 5:35 PM, 2046 said:

This seems to confuse opinion with what is. They change the definition of "cow" do you think "oh no, now cows really are such and such"?

I've also found, since that particular change, that whenever someone expresses an opinion about "anti-vaxxers" I now have to ask them to clarify what they mean.  There's a world of difference between the belief that vaccines cause autism and every scientist on Earth is part of some grand conspiracy to cover it up because "just wake up, sheeple" and the belief that every individual has the right to decide what they do or do not inject into their own bodies.  One of these beliefs deserves all the scorn and ridicule we can spare for it while the other should be defended to the hilt.

 

It's wonderful that brand-new anticoncepts can be manufactured and officially incorporated into our own dictionaries in a matter of days, now.  Isn't that just dandy?

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On 2/27/2022 at 7:05 AM, necrovore said:

In some circumstances it might be possible to sue someone for negligence if their failure to do something causes a natural phenomenon to be worse for someone else. Generally, however, I think you have to willingly assume a responsibility before you can be held liable for shirking it.

Until recently I understand you could be sued in California for knowingly exposing someone to the HIV virus.

 

This makes perfect sense to me.  If you give someone AIDS without telling them about it, you should pay their medical bills and any other bills which are necessitated by your own gross negligence.

In principle this should also apply to COVID: if you know that you have COVID and you expose someone else to it, you should have to pay whatever damages arise from it.  In the case of the Omicron Variant (which is an even milder sort of sniffle than its predecessors) we're now talking -what?  $5 or $10 for some cough syrup, if even that?

On 2/27/2022 at 9:07 AM, necrovore said:

Very true. It seems like Newspeak is on the rise.

Oh, just wait.  The government wants to crack down on "misinformation" now (which literally means "wrongthink").  If they get away with it we'll look back on the summer of 2020 with nostalgia, as the last time we were still free to think.

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14 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

  In the case of the Omicron Variant (which is an even milder sort of sniffle than its predecessors) we're now talking -what?  $5 or $10 for some cough syrup, if even that?

This varies greatly with the individual case.  

From WebMD:

A CDC study released on Tuesday showed nine deaths per 1,000 cases during the Omicron surge, compared to 13 deaths per 1,000 cases during the Delta surge and 16 deaths per 1,000 cases during last winter’s deadly surge.

(Total deaths are higher with Omicron because it spreads so easily.)

 

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1 hour ago, Doug Morris said:

This varies greatly with the individual case.  

Granted, the basic point is that the liability should be actionable rather than be non existent. In other words, it is a case of aggression.

16 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

if you know that you have COVID and you expose someone else to it, you should have to pay whatever damages arise from it. 

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/4/2022 at 9:32 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Then (and I mean this only as an observation; not a condemnation) you don't have a solid conceptual grasp on what "rights" are.

 

It is not possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.  Your reasons for doing something matter.  "Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons" is a contradiction in terms.

That being said, I absolutely agree with the OP.  I am also pro-vaccine but anti-mandate.

 

I was actually excited to get the vaccine, when it first became available.  Not because I was ever worried about COVID (I'm 32 and do not have AIDS) but because I was excited to end the lockdowns and get back to normal life.  When it became clear that "normal life" would have nothing to do with whatever COVID was doing, and specifically when Joe Biden declared that he had lost his patience with me, I decided I'll never get it.

Not because I'm in any way worried about it.  I'm sure it's entirely safe and probably good for my health.  I decided that I'll never get it because I am not a six-year-old child who isn't responsible for his own life choices, thank you very much!

 

If being a soulless, rightless, brainless robot in a plastic bubble is what it takes to save my life then no thank you; I'd rather just die as a man.

>I'm 32 and do not have AIDS

What does AIDS have to do with any of this? The risk factors for getting severe COVID are well known and have long been posted on the CDCs website: they are primarily obesity, diabetes, age, hypertension, pre-existing pulmonary condition (COPD, emphysema), any other immunosuppressive condition. AIDS is so rare compared to runaway obesity, type-2 diabetes, and hypertension that it wasn't taken into consideration at the time. However . . .

It's now well known by many doctors and researchers, that the mRNA genetic shots (Pfizer and Moderna) weaken immunity after about 90 days, especially after people get their boosters: the more boosters, the weaker the immunity becomes. According to a peer-reviewed Danish study from just a few months ago, by the end of 30 days, vax efficacy against Omicron falls below 50% (the threshold percentage according to the FDA for a vaccine to be called "effective"). By 3 months, the efficacy against COVID falls to zero; and (interestingly) after 3 months, the efficacy becomes negative. A negative efficacy means that the vaxed person is MORE likely to get sick from COVID than if he or she had simply remained unvaxed.

Even more interestingly, the more one is boosted, the more likely it becomes for that person to have a permanently weakened immunity -- even IF the immediate response to a booster might be a high-titer of antibodies. Antibodies, per se, are meaningless. All antibodies wane after a period time, but their reappearance is "memorized" by T-cells and Memory-B cells. If you damage, or "quench", the ability to mount a T-cell response or a Memory-B Cell response, you essentially cannot recreate antibodies against a pathogen. This "quenching" of deeper immune responses (T-Cells and Memory B-Cells) is known as "High-Zone Tolerance" and is a well known concept in immunology. According to many doctors and researchers today, they are seeing such cases in increasing numbers of patients, and they have given it a very interesting name: VAIDS, or "Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome."

Note also:

According to Edward Dowd -- a former portfolio managing director at BlackRock -- many insurance companies are now publishing data from their actuarial tables showing an "unexplained" 40% increase in All-Cause-Mortality (meaning heart attacks, cancers, strokes, kidney failure, myocarditis, etc.) in the 18-64 age group, i.e., working-age adults starting in 2021. There's no indication on their death certs or healthcare reports that these people are dying from COVID. Could the lockdowns have contributed to these deaths? Probably. Lots of people postponed medical treatments and screenings at hospitals because of the lockdowns; but a 40% rise in a young demographic is equivalent to about a 10-sigma (10 standard deviations on a normal distribution) so the lockdowns, per se, can't explain it. Also, the same increase has been noticed in a young demographic -- military personnel -- who were on active duty, and not restrained in their homes. Many are concluding (justifiably) that at least part of this 10-sigma increase correlates almost exactly with the mass rollout of the experimental gene-therapy shots (as well as the adenovirus-vector shots of J&J and AstraZeneca). European insurance companies have noticed the same thing, by the way.

I have many links for those who are interested. Or you can do your own research by looking up online interviews with some of the following:

Robert Malone, MD (pioneer of mRNA tech in the 1980s);
Peter McCullough, MD (cardiologist);
Pierre Kory, MD;
Byram Bridle, MD;
Paul Alexander, MD;
Paul Marik, MD;
Michael Yeadon, PhD (former VP of Research at Pfizer);
Meryl Nass, MD;
Simone Gold, MD;
Joseph Mercola, MD;
Sherry Tenpenny, DO;
Zev Zelenko, MD;
Judy Mikovitz, PhD;
Ryan Cole, MD;
Roger Hodgkinson, MD;
Samuel Dube, MD;
Samantha Bailey, MD;
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., JD
Edward Dowd (formerly at BlackRock)
Steve Kirsch, PhD
Jessica Rose, PhD
Norman Fenton, PhD
Didier Raoult, MD
Kary Mullis, PhD (Nobel Prize winner, chemistry, 1993), inventor of the PCR process;
Luc Montagnier, PhD (Nobel Prize winner, medicine, 2008), discoverer of HIV.

Don't forget to read Klaus Schwab's revealing blueprint for your future, "The Great Reset", as well as the depopulation statements by Bill Gates during some of his TED Talks.

Read RFK, Jr.'s latest book, "The Real Anthony Fauci."

A sobering place to start for those who are naïfs might be this recent interview with Zev Zelenko, MD on the "Dr. Drew" YouTube channel. I'm actually surprised YouTube (owned by Google) didn't censor this and remove it entirely, the way it has done to so many other videos since March 2020. With any luck some of you might swallow the Red Pill and wake up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JBjO-0jTDs

 

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