[image_credit]REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson[/image_credit][image_caption]The government is not forcing anyone to get the vaccine, and thanks to idiots like Fox’s Brian Kilmeade, your right to decline the vaccine, which greatly improves your chances of getting sick and even dying from Covid, is well-established.[/image_caption]
She starts with an exchange on Fox in which Steve Doocey urged viewers to get vaccinated because it would improve their chances of not dying, to which Brian Kilmeade retorted that that’s a personal choice and “it’s not their [the government’s] job to protect anybody.”
Of course, it’s a little complicated. But not much. The government is not forcing anyone to get the vaccine, and thanks to idiots like Kilmeade, your right to decline the vaccine, which greatly improves your chances of getting sick and even dying from Covid, is well-established.
According to me, who happily got vaccinated as soon as I could, the vaccine resistance movement is incredibly dumb but, yes, perhaps, I guess, constitutionally protected. In any event, no one has proposed fining or locking up vaccine resisters. You also have a constitutional right to eat mud and drink urine.
The Constitution does, right in the preamble, authorize the federal government to “promote the general welfare,” which is a vague enough phrase to allow substantial inquiry into exactly what measures such general welfare promotion might entail. And I suspect a clever lawyer could make a case that requiring vaccination falls under that rubric, but, so far at least, coercing vaccinations has not been suggested very seriously.
[image_credit]Creative commons photo via Wikimedia/Peter Stevens[/image_credit][image_caption]Heather Cox Richardson[/image_caption]
Richardson quotes Abe Lincoln, who once said that “the legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.’’ Lincoln, you may recall, was a Republican, which was a big surprise to Donald Trump when it came to his attention not that long ago.
Richardson introduces the most current application of Lincoln’s principle to the current challenges facing the country. And she plays a few notes of historical context. She certainly doesn’t exhaust the inexhaustible question of how much and how far the government can do in general-welfare-promotion. Nor, perhaps, will that question ever really be exhausted. But it’s a smart, not-so-long comment on the topic that ends with a pessimistic suggestion that, especially in a country closely divided along partisan lines and in a system that requires a rather large amount of agreement to get anything done, the odds favor those who fight against such efforts. Her piece ends:
“In today’s struggle over the nature of government, the Democrats are at a disadvantage. They want to use the government to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, just as Lincoln and FDR and Eisenhower advocated. To drive their individualist vision, though, all the Republicans have to do is stop the Democrats.”
Why people won’t get vaccinated is beyond me. Seems like a pretty obvious choice. But using a bunch a silly straw man arguments doesn’t seem like the way to explain it. And just because she’s a historian doesn’t she can’t be a deeply partisan hack.
That last quote of hers Black presented is about as partisan hack as it gets.
Well, that should surely convince her. Nothing like name calling and condescension to get people to say what you want them to say.
Touche’. That said, she doesn’t care what I think, and I’m not trying to get her to change.
Why is it any of your business if someone chooses not to be vaccinated?
1) I care about the well-being of other people, even those with ideologies different from mine. I find the vaccine-refusers recanting on their deathbeds and imploring people to get vaccinated to be absolutely heartbreaking.
2) The more people refuse vaccinations, the more businesses will be limited or closed, the more schools will be limited or closed and the further we will be from returning to normal lives. I would prefer not to wear a mask on a 3 hour airline flight, but that won’t happen as long as people refuse vaccines.
3) The virus has and will continue to mutate. If everyone gets vaccinated, the virus will be killed off and that threat ends. If not, who knows what the next mutation looks like.
“the fairly idiotic right-wing obsession with the idea that the government can’t force anyone to get vaccinated against COVID-19.”
If it is idiotic to not get the vaccine because you don’t trust big Pharmaceutical companies or the Federal Government, I’d say the idea that the government can force people to get vaccinated, or even the idea that that is a desirable thing, is at least as idiotic, and moaybe even more s0.
Try and force Americans on threat of violence to be vaccinated and watch the number of people who refuse expand, well beyond those who refuse now.
BTW, it is not just the right wing. The least vaccinated populations are in fact Native Americans and Black folk. Now try telling them the federal government has the right to force them to get vaccinated.
Actually, the government – at least at the state level – does have the constitutional authority to order vaccinations. See, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905); Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174 (1922). No state has chosen to exercise that authority for this pandemic, however.
There is an argument that the federal government has the statutory authority under the Public Health Service Act to mandate vaccinations, but that has never been tested in court.
Well, I imagine the reason it has not been tested in court is because the uproar would be palpable. Now I imagine if Covid or some other was a good deal more lethal or disfiguring, particularly to the young, then that authority could be tested. But to claim it is idiotic to question the current vaccine drive, particularly after the performance of the CDC during Trump’s Admin and under Walensky, particularly after a long history of Pharma malfeasance and regulatory capture, is condescending at best and deeply authoritarian at worst.
Yes, it would cause an uproar. Free dumb is not something certain types will surrender lightly.
Employers have the right to, as well. Most have not taken this step yet, save for a few healthcare providers. But that could change as Covid continues to impact the world and economies. Those not in healthcare don’t want to come across as heavy-handed, plus they might very well have to re-do employment contracts and conditions of hire, which would overload HR. Increasing numbers of employers are however requiring all NEW employees be vaccinated. The wheels move slowly. In the case of Covid–a new, novel, emerging virus and pandemic–millions upon millions worldwide have died. Initially no vaccines existed. that was frustrating. Now effective and safe mRNA vaccines do exist and are protecting those vaccinated. Yet still too many people are resisting and offering up generally
nonsensical reasons for doing so…while the world roils and cannot recover and the deaths continue…. This is ever so much more frustrating and incomprehensible. The games people play… The lies they tell themselves and each other….
Anyone who does not get vaccinated, no matter what their ideology is, is an idiot.
Well, that should surely convince them. Nothing like name calling and condescension to get people to do what you want them to do.
I wasn’t name calling. I was answering your question. Not getting vaccinated is pure idiocy. There is no rational excuse for it whatsoever.
And yes, I understand that isn’t a great way to convince people. I don’t know how to reach people. But pretending that idiotic things are not actually idiotic isn’t it. Nonsense should not be validated.
There is no convincing. A few days ago, I read an article that quoted an ER physician in Arkansas who was asking people why they wouldn’t be vaccinated.
“Of course zero vaccinations, and when I asked why, I don’t get the ’cause the internet, cause screw the libs, I think it’s dangerous’ excuses. I don’t get any excuses at all. They just shrug their shoulders and say they didn’t need it. It’s just part of their psyche now. Sun rises in the east, Jesus will return to judge the quick and the dead, you just don’t get vaccinated.”
How can you convince someone like that?
Here is a fine article that explains in part why some people lump together all those who are unvaccinated as idiots, and why that attitude also contributes to some people not getting vaccinated.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/unvaccinated-different-anti-vax/619523/
Boyd: The truth is we don’t know. If you’re not getting vaccinated, we have even less data on you than if you are vaccinated. But we know that these barriers exist for even basic care. How do we make sense of the fact that some people won’t get critical medications, like their diabetes medications? Or that some people forgo necessary medical care even as they experience complications from chronic illness? It’s not that those individuals don’t want basic medical care! It’s that groups face structural barriers to accessing that care, including rural folks, underinsured folks, and Black folks in particular. Those structural barriers are likely at play for vaccinations too. This is a problem for health care more generally. We’ve been willing to move on without people, while leaving them without resources to fend for themselves….
Boyd: Anti-vaxxers are incredibly vocal, and because of that, they’ve been a disproportionate focus of our vaccine outreach. But I think that they represent a small part of people in this country, and especially in our communities of color, an irrelevant part. In our work, we haven’t given much credence to their bluster. But the rampant disinformation that’s put out by this minority has shaped our public discourse, and has led to this collective vitriol toward the “unvaccinated” as if they are predominantly a group of anti-vaxxers. The people we’re really trying to move are not.
Yong: I’ve never thought of it that way. We’re used to thinking of anti-vaxxers as sowing distrust about vaccines. But you’re arguing that they’ve also successfully sown distrust about unvaccinated people, many of whom are now harder to reach because they’ve been broadly demonized.
Boyd: Yes. The language we use around unvaccinated people comes with a judgment—a condescension that “you’re unvaccinated and it’s your choice at this point.” That attitude is papering Twitter. It’s repeated by our top public-health officials. They’re railing on the unvaccinated as if they’re holding the rest of us back from normalcy. But unvaccinated people aren’t a random group of defectors who are trying to be deviant. They’re not all anti-vaxxers. They’re our kids! Any child under 12 is in that group.
According to the CDC, Native people are the most fully vaccinated racial/ethnic group in the US, coming in at 40% as of today. Facts are easy to check here: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/index.html#vaccination-demographics-trends
Good news, glad to hear it. Apparently I was working off the stats in MN, where Indigenous and black folk are the least vaccinated, though higher than the national average.
https://mn.gov/covid19/vaccine/data/
Partisan Hack? Your cynicism is showing, and nothing to be proud of.
Where is it written, “…establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty…”?
Partisan hack, because it presumes that such language is the purview of Dems only, with everyone outside the party against every facet of the preamble.
If you would stop attacking the DEMs, who are NOT the ones causing all of the problems, you would free up a great deal of time and energy.
You would also free up your mind to consider and even accept fresh new ideas and approaches. I fail to see what you hope to accomplish on this site daily.
It certainly isn’t to keep the dialogue open or to offer up solutions…. Nor do I see you changing anyone’s minds.
Indeed, the topic generally gets lost in the ether as many commenters write out their disagreements to your offerings in great and thoughtful length.
“Nor do I see you changing anyone’s minds.”
If I am why would any one of them say so, when the commentariat here would pounce and call them Putin stooges, Darwin Award aspirants, nonsense spewing Trumpists etc pejoratives?
Don’t claim to be a patriot and reject the words of the Constitution.
Your message has no hope, no future, no principled way forward at all. You seem to want to steep yourself in nihilism.
Eventually one who is so cynical about democracy will find himself without purpose if you can label our nation’s statement of purpose with cheap vulgarity. Someday it will be you who pleads for higher purpose for us all.
All I said really was, Dems contrary to their presumptions, are not the only people in America who believe in the Constitution.
WHD: Remember just after Biden’s inauguration you tempered negativity with just a little bit of a wait and see attitude.
It now appears that we will shortly have dedicated 5.4 trillion dollars towards rectifying many of the societal ills you have long complained about. An unprecedented amount. Maybe a little recognition of accomplishment? Bernie and AOC are acknowledging progress.
Your R vs D, I don’t see the difference contrarianism does not fit with the facts as they have evolved.
We will see. And in case you haven’t noticed, I have not said anything since critical about Biden specifically, except maybe that he bombed Syria twice and Iraq once and Dems yawned. Otherwise I have actually been somewhat impressed with the anti-monopolist people he has put in positions of power.
Which is why I say the Democratic Party is now the party of eternal war and American Empire.
Ah, but by propping up a murderous dictatorship (by indifference, if nothing else), YOU support peace. Got it.
By your logic we should go to war with half the world then.
My inner-cynic wants to know how many of those who claim the government’s varying levels of action in response to COVID overstepped its authority also favored internment camps for those infected by HIV 30 years ago or would have had they been around to do so.
Locking up carriers of infectious disease has precedent to support it. My own father was involuntarily removed from his home and locked in a hospital ward after being diagnosed with TB in 1950. That process existed for decades.
Earlier in the 20th Century, Typhoid Mary (Mary Mallon) was forced into quarantine on two separate occasions for a total of 26 years and died alone without friends.
Until relatively recently, we routinely compelled vaccination for various diseases, protecting public health and even effectively eliminating some diseases.
I confess to rage every time I read or hear some fool claim he or she is not afraid of the disease. Your lack of fear (aka your ignorance) is no defense to your utter disregard for reality and for the health and well-being of your own friends, family, and community. You are now the primary reservoir of a mutated virus that is far more effective in infecting and killing you and them. Wake the Hell up.
It helped back then that public health authorities were highly trusted, in part because they understood that to talk down to people would automatically make them refuse what you are offering.
Today, public health officials as often as not appeal to their expertise and authority, and act as though you are an idiot if you are skeptical, despite that public health authorities have been deeply wrong about a great many things since this pandemic began, which many still refuse to acknowledge. It hasn’t helped that public health authorities have ceded so much power to corporate Pharma, which has a long sordid history of harming people while actively denying it.
It helped back then that there was no You Tube around to tell people what they wanted to hear, and to convince them that spending a few minutes online was “research.”
Maybe they would be less inclined to research online if the experts were not so quick to treat people like they are silly children who need to take their medicine?
“Research” should be in quotes. “Research” is not taking a few minutes online to find someone who tells you what you want to hear. Medical research, or epidemiological research, is not something you can do with your phone while you’re on the toilet. It’s a little more complicated than that.
There is also an industry that has built itself on reflexive contrarianism. Vaccine denials from Fox, OAN, WorldNet Daily et al. come from an objection to the people talking about real science, not from any considered opposition to the science itself.
I’m with Kilmeade on this one.
99% Of all new deaths are within the unvaccinated and 75% + of the unvaccinated are Republicans. If the 4th and 5th waves add 200,000 to the death toll, 150,000 Republicans have made the free will choice to not vote in the next election due to their unfortunate deaths that they have made the free will risk to accept.
Care must be taken to insure that none of their potential absentee ballots are counted if they pre-decease the election.
OK, I’m not seriously wishing death upon these people. In point of fact they are wishing death upon themselves more than anyone else is. Vaccines are readily available, the data argument why to get one is overwhelming. Let’s stop the endless hand wringing and arguing about the free will choices of the unvaccinated. See “most” of you on election day.
Those are grim statistics. But worth pointing out.
Similarly, I see that “red” states also have higher rates of loan defaults tied to healthcare expenses. They’ve protected themselves from the federal overreach of Medicare expansion – at the expense of their own financial well-being.
Conservatives want full rights for themselves, but are unwilling to extend that to others. A business owner who does not want his employees or customers to get sick from an illness contracted because you chose not to get vaccinated or take precautions. They should be able to ban you from their property as a health risk.
Well if we follow some commenters thinking, “I’d say the idea that the government can force people to get vaccinated, or even the idea that that is a desirable thing, is at least as idiotic, and moaybe even more s0.” time to get rid of drinking water regulations, food, drug , clean air standards etc. etc. be so kind as to explain the difference between those general health stds. and getting a vaccination? All are intended to slow down and or prevent disease and death.
I am trying to imagine what Dems would say if it was Trump saying the government has the right to force you to get a vaccine? Probably just because Trump would say it Dems would call it fascism, LOL.
I’m trying to imagine what all this twisted thinking is about! Just because the left proposes it the right is against it! I’ don’t recall an uproar when T**** proposed a warp speed vaccine! Nor did you address the heart of the point, get rid of all the water quality rules etc. etc. etc.! Same idiotic line of thinking! You can try as hard as you want but the world has more than just left or right brained political thinking, seems like a whole bunch of folks have tried to explain, so the lack of comprehension is because you are cemented to the left or the right line of political thinking? Liberal thinkers are open minded conservatives are closed minded, feel free to chose! No I am not LOL, don’t see anything funny about this political cluster-F!
“Just because the left proposes it the right is against it!”
You have summed up, in one sentence, the results of the “research” done by the anti-vaccination crowd.
As RB notes, state governments do have the legal authority to mandate vaccination, and of course they should do so (with appropriate exemptions). It’s not a question of personal “choice”; those who aren’t vaccinated cause harm to others by serving as a breeding ground for variants and ensuring the virus continues to circulate. Conceptually, mandating vaccination is no different from prohibiting drunk driving. It feels different because it involves putting something into your body, but that’s the result of the Republican forces that have spent decades trying to corrupt every facet of serving the public welfare, and to press that corruption narrative on the base, in order to destroy the notion of community and shared purpose.
We gave to have licenses to drive vehicles. We should have to demonstrate competency and be licensed to own & use guns, as well, because they can kill. Our children have to have a core of vaccines to attend school. College students must be up-to-date as well, plus be vaccinated against meningitis. And on and on. Vaccinations have stopped smallpox, measles, polio and more in their tracks. They enable people to travel worldwide without getting malaria and denguevfever, to name a few. Historically the ‘public welfare’ has always been the top priority and it is government’s job to protect us all and keep us safe. Why else are the military branches under top command? As well as the Dept of Health & Human Services? Today’s society is a very self-absorbed and self-focused one. There’s a strong trend to put individual wants above the common good. The current highly politicized vaccine debacle is a prime example. It is all disingenuous, selfish and immature. It is harming and killing many!!! All completely unnecessarily. How dumbfounding:(
Republicanism seems to have regressed to the point that “if the government proposes it, I don’t want it.” Now they’re even protesting when government conducts door-knocking campaigns to ensure public awareness of vaccine availability. In their words, the next step is gun confiscation. Huh?
The larger problem seems to me to be the lack of Republican concern for the general welfare. There’s a zero-sum attitude that if you’re asking me to do something that benefits the greater good, it must be at my expense – so I don’t want to do it.
If a woman has the exclusive right to do with her own body what she pleases regarding terminating a pregnancy then everyone certainly has the right to decline vaccination knowing that they may suffer the consequences. Everyone has a choice in this matter. The left is talking out of both sides when they want to go door-to-door to check on the vaccination status of private citizens. This is the USA, not Cuba.
The decision not to get a vaccine doesn’t affect only the dope who made the choice. If he gets the virus, he can pass it on to someone else – perhaps someone who is not supposed to be vaccinated.
That virus the dope chose to get also now has an opportunity to mutate into a new form. Viruses do that, and the more they are allowed to spread, the greater the opportunities to mutate. Could one mutate into a vaccine-resistant form?
When the dope gets sick, he is probably going to need to go to the hospital, thus tying up space and resources, including the efforts of health care providers. That space and resources could have been put to other uses, such as helping people who weren’t dopes but who have some other kind of medical problem.
When abortion becomes contagious, you might have a point.
Might want to cut back on the hyperbole a bit. Nobody is going to go door to door to check if people are vaccinated. All the uproar about being “forced” to get a vaccination, but no mention of idiots like Ron Johnson, Marge Greene, the ghouls at Fox, etc. encouraging people not to get vaccinated; not out of some sincere belief or reliance on science; but simply because it’s about depriving Biden of having some sort of victory.
As for the silly equating a woman getting an abortion to having a right to refuse a vaccine: the woman getting an abortion isn’t helping a pandemic continue to spread through much of society. I’d think you’d have some grasp of how different those two actions are.
Utter nonsense. A woman’s right to choose does not affect anyone else. The decision not to vaccinate absolutely does.
At least Mr Black is not hammering Trump …for once. Still, he is showing that he is merely letting his emotional disdain to guide him as facts don’t matter. Some minority groups have the largest numbers of not being vaccinated. Millions of conservatives are vaccinated. But that doesn’t matter.
The stupidity of all this is that a year ago, everyone that Mr Black wholeheartedly supported all said the vaccines were going to fail and not to trust them. The soapboxes were long lasting. All the hard part for Biden was already done only for him to fall short of what he desired once he came into office.
I am vaccinated and was able to pretty early on. But for the government to MANDATE behaviors is exactly why this country came into being. We have administrations that have severely limited freedom. Yes, there is a price to freedom and things happen. But the Dems are proving this has nothing to do with the ‘welfare’ as Mr Black states. It’s about control. The Dem party has always been about control. They have run our major cities for decades on end and filibustered civil rights laws for a long time. They are the ones who say the Constitution no longer fits our country and want to change every facet of government. Why not mandate our lives in perpetuity because the Dems need victims and someone to blame.
“The stupidity of all this is that a year ago, everyone that Mr Black wholeheartedly supported all said the vaccines were going to fail and not to trust them.”
Source, please?
“Why not mandate our lives in perpetuity because the Dems need victims and someone to blame.”
There is no bigger “victim” in this world than the American conservative. If they suddenly got their way about everything, they would have no further reason to exist and wouldn’t have the first idea what to do with themselves (Queri, ergo sum).
Mr. Duncan’s comments display many of the attributes of those who find themselves, year after year, in a competition for the annual Darwin Awards. I’m tempted to at least partially side with Edward Blaise, simply because of the electoral consequences of Republicans specifically, and “conservatives” generally, putting their own individual skepticism and/or reflexive distrust of anything connected to government above the common good of their friends, families and neighbors.
In that context, by the way, if Mr. Duncan’s reading list were a bit more broad, he’d understand – without having to be told – that there are… ahem… perfectly good historical reasons for Black and Indian Americans to be at least a little bit skeptical of government proposals. That’s why more-than-usual effort has been put into publicizing COVID vaccines on reservations and in communities of color. To assert that “It’s not the job of government to protect us” is nihilistic claptrap. Providing for the common good is, in fact, the central task of any and every government, regardless of the political system under which it operates. Without that guiding principle, we’re back to the Neolithic.
“Mr. Duncan’s comments display many of the attributes of those who find themselves, year after year, in a competition for the annual Darwin Awards”
Well, at least my comments aren’t meant to be insulting personally. This is what I get for merely critiquing Dem party ideology.
And speaking of Darwin, the right wing anti-vaxxers are voluntarily selectively thinning their herd. Let’s put all our vaccination resources into a booster program for all of us willing to roll up our sleeve and do what is best for the good old USA.
And, as I mentioned, we really need to be careful and on the lookout for dead Republican voters sneaking in to the 2022 vote. Election security is key…
I remember when it was Conservatives who were derided for being social-darwinists.
I remember a time when those concerned with income inequality would ally themselves with a President and a party who just completed a 1.9 trillion dollar infusion to attack those problems and then add another 3.5 trillion on top of that for jobs, healthcare and education, all the while being stopped by the other party at every opportunity.
Maybe time to put contrarianism aside to support and accept the things you have long wished for. The “Big Bang” theory of societal change where it all happens overnight in one fell swoop is not going to happen.
If you really do care about these things it is pretty easy to take a side.
“I remember when it was Conservatives who were derided for being social-darwinists.”
There’s obviously a difference between advocating for a society based on ‘survival of the fittest’ and a bemused observation of those who are embracing that ethos in such a self-destructive way.
Meritocracy is just a nicer word for survival of the fittest.
Good thing meritocracy is a fictional concept in real world application, then. Those advocating it, (hint: not the people you rail against daily), desire aristocracy in truth.
Meritocracy
mer·i·toc·ra·cy
/ˌmerəˈtäkrəsē/
noun
Political ideology
Meritocracy is a political system in which economic goods and/or political power are vested in individual people on the basis of talent, effort, and achievement, rather than wealth or social class. Advancement in such a system is based on performance, as measured through examination or demonstrated achievement. Wikipedia
And your preferred alternative is?
Except in declining empires like ours, the Meritocracy becomes less about talent, effort, and achievement and more about wealth and social class. That definition you offer sounds like what the meritocracy wants to believe about itself. Such a Meritocracy over time becomes ever more insular, ever less representative of society. As example, most of Biden’s key people come from ten elite schools, the kind of schools few poor kids can go to no matter their talent, effort and achievement. And of course our Meritocracy believes they are leading American empire to the stars…eternal progress ever and always…much like every empire before.
That’s not meritocracy, it’s aristocracy, the “landed gentry” by another moniker. The problem with the Wikipedia definition Mr. Blaise provided is that it only addresses the end result, no mention is given to the beginning. How can merit be proscribed when opportunity is inequal. The only way a “true” meritocracy can exist would be for literally every child, from every parent, to be taken away and raised in isolation, with the exact same conditions and education, THEN rewarded on “merit” on their efforts. Which is why no liberal, certainly no Democrat as you suggest, will ever be an advocate for “meritocracy”, instead we posit that since opportunity is and will continue to be unequal, societal mitigation must take place to ensure the fortunate do not dominate all others.
Common welfare has nothing to do with individual freedoms. Individual rights are probably less Constitutionally expansive than some believe. The Constitution explicitly lays out that it grants the Federal government the power to “… insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare…” Those are not unrelated from each other. And none of them refer to individuals. They refer to the Nation. Your individual health is no concern to the Nation. But the cost to the whole is. A Nation that loses more than half a million people to a single new illness, regardless of whether they were “asking for it” is at greater risk of peril than one in which the normal death rate is in effect. Furthermore, individual rights, to the extent they are granted, do not allow anyone the right to impede on those same rights of others. Your individual right to choose to be vaccinated may be legally, morally, and Constitutionally overridden if it impedes on the Nation’s imperatives (domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare) at the very least. And even more so if it also impedes on the rights of other individuals. That is, even if 99.99999% of vaccinated people don’t die, it may be that the 0.00001% who do nullify the individual’s right to refuse vaccination. And that’s ignoring the fact that some percentage more than that will get ill and have a cost burden, if not loss of life burden, placed upon them. And even THAT ignores the cost, if not loss of life, burden placed upon the public coffers for those who refuse vaccination and rack up a bill at a hospital or a funeral home. If you still believe it’s your right to place the Nation’s welfare subservient to your own rights, you are endangering the very basis of the foundation of this Nation, which is WE, THE PEOPLE, not us, the individuals.
Just excellent. Thank you.
It’s more a zone of privacy issue. I would cite Roe v. Wade here. In my opinion, and for whatever it’s worth, I think the constitution creates a legal barrier around our physical bodies. Without a very good reason, the government shouldn’t be able to inflict or deny medical treatment. The government shouldn’t be able to force a woman to have a child or force a woman to remain pregnant against her will. If a minor wants to be vaccinated, the government shouldn’t be able to stop that even if the minor’s parent object.
These are aspirational issues of course, with varying degrees of support in legal precedent. But they make sense to me, and of course, lots of people disagree.
You are not required to get a vaccine. But you are also not inherently given any right to impose the consequences of that decision on other individuals, or risk the overall welfare of the country. That’s why you wear a seatbelt in the car. The government doesn’t necessarily care whether you fly out the windshield and get scattered all over the highway. But the government does care that other people are morally obligated not to leave you scattered all over the highway. After all, a society cannot exist without basic mutual care. So, you wear a seatbelt to reduce the risk of making other people have to rescue you. In addition, the government cares whether commerce and/or transportation is disrupted by you being scattered over the highway. So, you wear a seatbelt to reduce the time that traffic is disrupted by your accident. The government also cares whether you being scattered across the highway will cost society money or resources. So, you wear a seatbelt to reduce the cost of rescue services, medical care, and insurance to the rest of the public. The government doesn’t make it illegal to travel in a car without a seatbelt because it wants to prevent you from horrible disfigurement. It makes it illegal for the cost to society if you don’t. It’s not about your body, it’s about the welfare of other individuals and the city/state/nation. You can sit in your car in your driveway without a seatbelt, but the moment that vehicle is on public streets, you are required to wear a seatbelt. The same can be said of a vaccine. You may stay home unvaccinated, but the moment you risk the welfare of other individuals and the city/state/nation, the government has a lot more say about what you do.
Oh, and by the way, depending on the state (most states, actually), the minor may not be able to get vaccinated without parental permission. But, in some cases, lack of parental consent can be overriden. That’s because, generally, we don’t recognize that a person under 18 can legally consent to anything. Interestingly, Nebraska can prevent an adult that is 18 years old from getting a vaccination without parental consent. I’m not sure how that works… https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccination-and-parental-consent/
I know that state law varies on the requirement of parental consent on the treatment of minors. I am very much of the opinion that such laws are unconstituional. Even a minor should be able to control his own medical treatment. No one, not even a parent should be allowed to deny a minor a vaccination if that’s what the minor wants.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the premise that children should have a say in their medical treatment (with limitations). However, you still ignore the fact that the Constitution does not bar the government from legislating what we do to our own bodies if there is a significant burden on the Nation and/or the rights of others without such legislation. The government may even do so by apparently violating your Constitutionally protected rights, such as the freedom of speech or the “right” to bear arms, if your free exercise thereof significantly impedes the ability of the government to perform its duties or it impedes the rights of others. That’s why you can get arrested for yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, and you can’t just shoot someone because you have the right to own a gun. The government may, indeed, require you to have a vaccine if you intend to enjoy the freedoms that the Nation provides you outside your immediate property. Interestingly, it seems that some people are all about controlling everyone else’s body (abortion? homosexual relationships? gender reassignment?) until it seems like they might reasonably be required to do something themselves (vaccination). Funny enough, they also don’t seem to care about whether there’s a National or societal burden, since the things they want to control have no apparent burden to the Nation or society, while there’s a very clear burden to both the Nation and society if a significant number of people remain unvaccinated.
I think there is a 4th kind who pee on the fence and still don’t figure it out.
Just a note about partisan “hacks”, and this goes to one of the ongoing arguments around here regarding bias or lack thereof: Being a partisan of any kind in and of itself doesn’t disqualify a person or their observation. Even if you decide that Ms. Richardson is a partisan hack… you still have to consider the validity of her observation. Merely detecting “bias” is child’s play, not intellectual prowess. And we can’t help but notice that so frequently people who denounce one bias cling to another as if glued to the truth.
If someone has no credibility it should because they’ve proven to have no credibility… not simply because they have a bias of some kind. Intellectual integrity is about caring about the truth… not purging oneself of bias.
Credibility isn’t something I think very highly of. One chraracteristic of truth is it’s intractibility. Something is true whether you like it or not. Truth is objective, a thing unto itself. This can make truth very unpopular. Since truth itself cannot be changed, those who wish to attack it move to that unrelated thing, credibility. Credibility lacks those qualities that make truth so aggravating. It’s the opposite of intractible, instead it’s malleable, complaetely susceptible to manipulation. Truth isn’t objective, it’s subjective. It”s always about what we believe, never about what is true. And in political terms, credibility is constantly changing, No amount of money can make a true thing false, but campaigners and their donors can have a tremendous impact on credibitility knowing that people are much more likely to act on what they believe to be true as opposed to what might actually be true.
What we have seen in recent decades is relentless and well financed campaigns intended to substitute credibility for truth. Instead of asking whether someone is speaking the truth, instead we ask whether someone is biased as if bias had anything at all to do with truthfulness. If we persuade ourselves that someone biased, which generally translates into having a different opinion from our own, we can dismiss that person, we are relieved from dealing with that unpleasant possibility that a person we disagree with is speaking a truth which is contrary to our interests.
I like it! From Philosophy 101, it is the search for truth, “The Socratic method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape beliefs and scrutinizes them to determine their consistency with other beliefs” as Colonel Jessup would say “you can’t handle the truth” Something we should all be evaluating on everything that comes across the bow, I may not like what I see or hear, but truth and reality are truth and reality. Which means some of us folks don’t take it kindly when folks try to BS us!
Hiram, when I speak of credibility I’m speaking of legitimate credibility, not mere “branding”. Legitimate credibility is a real thing. What we’ve seen over the decades is a variety of actors branding or marketing themselves as credible without any coherent models or qualities of integrity. Thus, everyone from Clinton to Trump has a credibility problem… but that doesn’t mean they COULDN’T have had more credibility or integrity.
You’re concept of “truth” is not very sophisticated, it’s not necessarily the unmoved mover you claim it to be, and while the truth can be inconvenient, falsehoods are typically destructive and toxic. You appear to dancing with a convenient version of relativism rather than a coherent notion of “Truth”.
We live in a world where credibility, both legitimate and illegitimate, has replaced truth. And unlike truth, credibility is for sale, and belongs to those who have the money to buy it. No political commercial has ever in the history of mankind appeared on tv during election because it was truthful.
Hiram, I’m afraid you’re not using a using a coherent concept of “truth”. You’re essentially claiming a self proclaimed truth teller is telling the truth even when they’re lying, simply because they con YOU into believing they’re credible or have integrity. YOU may have lost the capacity to recognize the truth when you see it… but that doesn’t mean everyone else has lost that capacity. You may lose the capacity to recognize integrity or credibility when you see it, but that doesn’t mean “truth” no longer exists.
If you want to argue there is and never has been such a thing as: “truth”, you can certainly do so, and you wouldn’t be the first. But the claim that truth has ceased to exist behind a barrage of competing marketing and branding campaigns is a facile expression of cynicism.
When there are many unknowns, as there are with this vaccine, how can anyone be so certain on absolute truth? To say there haven’t been some negative reactions to folks who took the vaccine is a flat out lie, there has been. To use “general welfare” as a device to impose one individual’s beliefs on another individual is a complete stretch. There is no “group” in the constitution, there are just individuals, with rights. No ones “truth” supersedes another’s “truth”, just like no individual’s rights over rides another person’s rights. The great thing about America is you can believe what you want and your rights as an individual cannot be taken away unless you commit a crime….. Period!!
How morally relative of you Joe, I haven’t laughed this much in years…
I know Matt!!!! It’s always so funny when these erstwhile conservative/Republicans devolve into the biggest relativists in the room whenever the facts don’t line-up in their favor! They go from 80 to 0 in three seconds, from guardians of “Truth” to the skeptics of “truth” in no time flat. From debate game fact checkers to: “Well… what IS a “fact” anyways?”.
Whatever.
No one is making absolute truth claims regarding the vaccines. On the contrary, scientists are very clear about what they know and don’t know about these vaccines.
“There is no ‘group’ in the constitution, there are just individuals, with rights.”
So you agree with me that the Constitution does not protect or even acknowledge “States’ rights?”
RB, what we see here is the logical conclusion of decades of misanthropic and toxic individualism pretending to be a language of “freedom”. Of course it’s historically ignorant and incoherent to claim that a document declaring it’s mission to form a more perfect “union” is simply a celebration of individuals devoid of social or political responsibilities. That whole mentality is simply sociopathic.
The influence of Libertarian hostility to the very notion of civilization has warped conservative mentalities in the US. Folks who used to promote the value of tradition and social conformity now tell us that individual “freedom” recognizes no constraints or community relationships beyond exploitation for personal gain. And of course the fact that these same people will claim to be the champions of personal responsibility is ironic comedy.
Hey there Joe, did you have polio as a kid? yeah, me neither. You know why right? A neighbor kid wasn’t vaccinated and contracted the disease; his childhood wasn’t as much fun, you know, without being able to run around and be kid like the rest of us who were vaccinated.
Polio has almost been eliminated save for those who think, “well I just don’t trust the vaccine” Billions of doses have been given over the past 60 years, and still there are those that just aren’t quite sure. And, remember, most of those doses were given before Bill Gates and probably George Soros started inserting microchips into vaccines so they should have been safe don’t ya think.
That you or others are aggrieved has no relevance, nobody cares if you didn’t like wearing a mask, or whatever, and especially the constitution, the law is clear, state governments have broad authority to require things like vaccines, and again, the law doesn’t care if you don’t like it.
“The Biden administration, stung by missing its vaccine targets and the rising COVID-19 cases, has decided to blame Republicans. That’s not surprising. But it’s traditionally Democratic groups – minorities and the young – who aren’t getting vaccinated, and it’s leftists who are the most influential anti-vaxxers on the planet.” (issues and Insights)
Yep, noted “leftists” like Tucker Carlson? I think even you smirk when posting such blatant nonsense as this. But hey, maybe you ARE a true believer, but I doubt it.
It’s funny how you hyper partisan Republicans are trapped within your own brackets of partisan myopia. Sure, to the extent Republicans like Rand Paul and Trump have politicized and weaponized the pandemic (in addition to simply lying about basic information and realities) they are responsible for the failing vaccination program. But I haven’t seen anyone blame Republican’s exclusively. Even here on MinnPost it’s not a partisan divide, it’s a intellectual divide between the properly informed and misinformed, regardless of party affiliation. Your problem is that you think finding a liberal who refuses to get vaccinated exonerates Republicans. Your partisanship is simply illogical.
Speaking of partisan hacks, have you been reading Issues and Insights long?
Why are most of the unvaccinated people found in red states? Why are the states with the lowest vaccination rates the ones that voted for Trump?
It would appear that we’re both very happy with the way that things have developed.
I am sure you won’t shed a tear for “Democratic groups – minorities and the young – who aren’t getting vaccinated”. And I won’t miss any right wingers in Southern red states.
Put the vaccine outreach campaign resources into booster shot research and deployment. The rest can get their antibodies the hard way: get sick.
From what I’ve heard, the last word rasped before being intubated is often “please give me the vaccine.”
Mr. Kristofferson’s first draft, I take it.
Joining the spirited discussion of this interesting topic rather late, alas.. But to the fairly inflammatory slur against historian Heather Cox Richardson that she is a “partisan hack”, I must protest. I’m not aware of any living historian who approaches the description of “partisan hack” besides historian Victor Davis Hanson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson#Neoconservative_views
Heather Cox Richardson actually adheres to scholarly standards and attempts to present historical facts in support of real truths rather than utter the cant on the “truths” of accepted conventions.
I agree with historian John Hope Franklin,who in 1944 wrote that “Democracy is an act of faith.” He is quoted by Nancy MacLean, another historian and truth seeker, who’s been accused of partisanship and bias for merely pointing out in her book “Democracy in Chains” that “when that faith is willfully exterminated, we should not be surprised that we reap the whirlwind.” Don’t try to tell me that the so-called “conservative” opposition to everything from wearing a mask and getting a vaccination to enacting laws that discourage voting or preventing votes from being honestly counted to lecturing me about this country being a “republic not a democracy” is not “willfully exterminating” Democracy.
Republicans like to complain that Democrats don’t do enough of what Republicans would never do at all. They thwart Democrats from keeping their promises, and then campaign on broken Democratic promises. As a party committed to doing nothing and now standing for nothing, they take full advantage of the fact that nothing is the easiest thing to do.