I am trying to formulate a coherent opinion about the covid passports (that prevent unvaccinated people from entering public spaces).
In an argument with a friend, he said that those passports are like sanctions against drunk drivers:
Drunk drivers did not yet cause harm to anyone, and not all drunk drivers cause harm, but statistically speaking they can cause more damage therefore society should prevent them from being on the road.
In the same manner, unvaccinated people are statistically more infectious, therefore society should prevent them from going in crowds.
I am sure that this is not the first time you have heard this argument, but usually people just brush it off. What do you think about this argument?
This argument implies the jabs are sterilizing vaccines.
If we are talking about Ebola and there were a sterilizing vaccine I doubt much ‘coersion’ would be necessary.
With these vaccines and this contagion , vax passports aren’t a health measure , that premise is just an excuse for centralizing data and any and all power that would accrue to the ‘authorities’ that collected it.
Why would individuals need the power of government to protect themselves , if vaccines ‘worked’ ? Getting vaccinated would confer protection.
If the vaccines don’t ‘work’ how does distinguishing ‘vax status’ among individuals provide any added protection above common sense and risk analysis?
This argument implies the jabs are sterilizing vaccines.
I don’t disagree with you but I was hoping you could make far stronger argument.
What is a sterilizing vaccine?
Why would coercion not be necessary if we accept a premise that they are increasing risk? Would it ever be necessary or justified?
Let’s say the vaccine worked and it worked one hundred percent. I would argue that a person has right live their life as stupidly as they want as long as it does not harm others. The counter is made that they are in fact harming others. But why? Let us say the utopia is a covid free world, like a small pox free world. Do we have a right to force a utopia on another? Is there such a right? I would argue there is no such right. In fact, I would argue that we each have right to be unmolested by another’s Utopian vision. Be it a green climate world, an Islamic republic, or a worker’s paradise.
In this case there is a risk to taking the vaccine. Especially long term effects on reproduction. There is no justification to force parents to inoculate their children with such an experiment. Ultimately there is a risk that something may be discovered later on and all us who took that vaccine may regret. It is not impossible.
There is a right to quarantine that others have. But that is a right to quarantine a person who has an infectious disease. Not a right to quarantine a person who MIGHT have it.
Let us say there was NO vaccine. Then everyone MIGHT have it. Then we throw a dice to incarcerate some people? Or we find a scapegoat. The unvaxxed are now the new version of the sewer rats of the Nazi’s. They’re not people anymore. When don’t we have a right to have concentration camps to quarantine them. All in the name of the common good.
Vaccine passports are the new Scarlet Letter.
To be clear, I am vaccinated. I am not making a case to serve me specifically. The principle is of liberty and one’s rights is at stake here.
This argument implies the jabs are sterilizing vaccines.
If we are talking about Ebola and there were a sterilizing vaccine I doubt much ‘coersion’ would be necessary.
With these vaccines and this contagion , vax passports aren’t a health measure , that premise is just an excuse for centralizing data and any and all power that would accrue to the ‘authorities’ that collected it.
Why would individuals need the power of government to protect themselves , if vaccines ‘worked’ ? Getting vaccinated would confer protection.
If the vaccines don’t ‘work’ how does distinguishing ‘vax status’ among individuals provide any added protection above common sense and risk analysis?
Vaccines work, but not 100%. Thus your argument breaks down.
1 hour ago, Easy Truth said:
Let us say the utopia is a covid free world, like a small pox free world. Do we have a right to force a utopia on another?
The point is not to force a utopia on people, but to prevent them from unnecessarily endangering people, the same as with drunk drivers. Laws against drunk driving are_ not_ aimed at establishing a utopia in which nobody ever gets drunk, nor a utopia in which nobody ever abuses alcohol, nor any utopia.
1 hour ago, Easy Truth said:
The unvaxxed are now the new version of the sewer rats of the Nazi’s. They’re not people anymore.
The unvaxxed are now the new version of the sewer rats of the Nazi’s. They’re not people anymore.
Serious exaggeration.
Not from what I have seen. I have seen father’s look at the son who is not vaxxed as an irresponsible scum. I have seen professors that want to wait and see. I have seen people get fired simply because they don’t want to get vaccinated for a disease that only is dangerous to people above 65 (statistically and reasonably speaking). No exaggeration.
Instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat, we have the dictatorships of the elderly.
But the discrimination and the dehumanization is serious and not taken seriously (because it’s an exaggeration)!
but to prevent them from unnecessarily endangering people
“unnecessarily endangering people”, now is this an exaggeration when you look at the percentage of people it kills, especially nowadays with the treatments that are available. I would rail against socialized medicine that does not allow for the treatments to be widely available and sooner.
Vaccines work, but not 100%. Thus your argument breaks down.
The point is not to force a utopia on people, but to prevent them from unnecessarily endangering people, the same as with drunk drivers. Laws against drunk driving are_ not_ aimed at establishing a utopia in which nobody ever gets drunk, nor a utopia in which nobody ever abuses alcohol, nor any utopia.
Serious exaggeration.
My argument is that covid vaccines do not work to meaningfully slow transmission, so what use is a vaccine verification system? It could or may be useful if they showed a high ‘enough’ efficacy against transmission.
Even if the jabs were highly associated with transmission reduction, covid isn’t a life threatening disease to the majority of society. It shouldn’t be a question if people living their day to day lives unnecessarily endangers others, it should be what level of necessary risks are those most endangered by the disease willing to take.
As to the OP , since we agree that the COVID vaccines aren’t “100 %”, how would a system that identifies vaccine status work to provide added protection against infection among the vaccinated?
I assume your argument would be that barring unvaccinated people from ‘polite society’ lessens the risk to those who responsibly vaccinated themselves.
But given that any individual regardless of vax status could be contagious at any given time , wouldn’t a real time test be a more reliable indication of ‘safety’?
Is a system that operates based solely on vaccine status reliable ‘enough’ for the privacy rights and freedom of association rights violations such a system would confer ?
I take the question in the OP assumes that vax passports in themselves are a proven medical safety measure , and proven to a degree that would necessitate relinquishing certain civil rights enjoyment , ie that violations of the policy would merit criminal and or civil repercussions.
This proves that vaccines do not completely stop transmission. It proves nothing about whether vaccines work to meaningfully slow transmission.
4 hours ago, tadmjones said:
As to the OP , since we agree that the COVID vaccines aren’t “100 %”, how would a system that identifies vaccine status work to provide added protection against infection among the vaccinated?
You seem to be assuming that COVID-19 vaccines are “0 %”, which is certainly not true.
4 hours ago, tadmjones said:
But given that any individual regardless of vax status could be contagious at any given time , wouldn’t a real time test be a more reliable indication of ‘safety’?
If real time tests are sufficiently available, it would make sense to use them in addition or instead.
Again, you are conflating prevention with meaningful slowing.
That whole statement seems meaningless because prevention is in fact “meaningful slowing”.
Again there still is no definition of what percent of lethality of the virus … lockdowns and authoritarian techniques become justified. Kind of like there is an objective delineation of when to give up one’s right’s.
What if someone said “you’re not being meaningfully reasonable”? The word “meaningful” seems to be a way to bring in an arbitrary and make it sound good.
That whole statement seems meaningless because prevention is in fact “meaningful slowing”.
Again there still is no definition of what percent of lethality of the virus … lockdowns and authoritarian techniques become justified. Kind of like there is an objective delineation of when to give up one’s right’s.
What if someone said “you’re not being meaningfully reasonable”? The word “meaningful” seems to be a way to bring in an arbitrary and make it sound good.
Yes and it seems like the reasoning one would use to rationalize the fact they were gaslit, check your premises.