this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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I mean, it's quite a departure for a party that whinges about the First Amendment to straight up move to the government controlling what can be published, i.e. actual literal censorship. But hey, conservatives aren't very logical.
Always remember that if the conservatives who claim to love the US, had been born in 1750, they would have been Loyalist Redcoats.
I mean...if the loyalist redcoats had won, you'd have health care, gun control and there wouldn't have been a civil war, slavery would just have ended like it did in the rest of the empire.
Big jump in logic here. The decay of the British empire wouldn't even be a thing if the crown held the states. As long as we're playing pretend I'd say it would have ended up worse for everyone.
Lol. Why not pretend the Byzantine Empire would still exist if they had North America? I was talking about a much tighter period of time, roughly 50 years. Canada was essentially self governing by the late 1800s.
It is right up there with the same people arguing for abortion because one should be able to decide what medical procedures (including drugs) should be done to them also arguing for COVID vaccine mandates, i.e. arguing that people should be forced to take a drug.
But then that's one of my biggest grumps about pro-choice arguments (and I am pro-choice) - there's a tendency to argue that supporting abortion is just an application of some broader principle but also to have abortion be the only controversial case where that principle actually applies.
Except nobody was physically forced down and vaccinated against their will. You can still choose not to be vaccinated, but choices have consequences. I'm not saying the government should arrest people for not being vaccinated, but people, institutions, companies and hospitals should definitely have the choice to not want to let those people inside.
"Choices have consequences" is not something that should be said in regards to a government coercing you about a matter of your rights.
Nobody is coercing you to do anything when your employer doesn't want people spreading disease in their company. Nobody is coercing anyone if e.g. hospitals refuse to hire someone who hasn't had certain vaccinations. It has nothing to do with coercion. It has to do with the fact that actions and choices have consequences. You don't get to willingly disregard (the safety of) everyone else and expect to be welcome everywhere.
If I choose not to shower, and stink to high heaven, some employers won't hire me. If I choose not to wear shoes, or walk around in my underwear, I will be denied access to many places. Does this mean I am being coerced to shower and wear clothes?
Actions have consequences. It's just that simple. You can always choose to not do x, but when it's a requirement for y, you won't get to do y unless you do x. And speaking of rights, what about everyone else's rights to not have to sit/work/eat/wait next to Typhoid Mary? Or is it really your opinion that whatever someone does, their right to do whatever is more important than the rest of society? Do you think businesses should be forced to allow anyone inside no matter what? Employers are not allowed to set requirements for their employees?
Long answer to a different point, don't care, try responding to what I actually said.
It's the exact same point. You disingenuously calling it "government coercion" doesn't change anything.
But thank you for pointing out you don't actually care. Means I don't have to waste more time on this. I wish you a pleasant day.
Oh ok (fucking retard) you're right
Dude that's so rude and doesn't net you any points in your argument. Gotta respect people.
No....no I don't.
I think he was saying not that it happened, but that people wanted it to happen really really bad, and that many of those same people who wanted it (or supported it, not achieved it), also support pro choice when it comes to what amounts to an ideologically similar issue (my body my choice, bodily autonomy.)
Tbf, if he is indeed saying that, he's right, pro-choice people did want forced vaccinations by law, though you're also right that they did not get forced vaccinations by law.
Before any reactionaries jump down my throat, I'm pro-choice myself and am simply trying to clarify what looks to be a misunderstanding in these couple comments here.
I've never known anyone who wanted to physically force people to get vaccinated. I did know many people, myself included, who absolutely wanted mandates. Don't want to get vaccinated? Sure, that's your choice. But other people get to choose not to be around you, and this includes your employer or any store owner or transport company, etc.
Choosing not to be around someone is you leaving, not them.
No, it's also choosing not to let them into your building.
That is an entirely different point
Holy shit you're stupid. If someone has a highly infectious disease that will kill people, why the fuck should you be allowed to just go to people in buildings and spread that shit? Fuck me you people are dumb as shit. Either dumb or an evil narcissist.
Oh look. Intentionally misunderstanding a basic point. You're so clever. No one noticed.
I have, so we're at an anecdotal Mexican standoff it would seem.
"Mandates" doesn't mean "optional," in fact it's quite the opposite of that.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mandate
Idk whether the misunderstanding comes from not knowing what a mandate is, but above you say:
But then go on to say that you didn't mean "the definition of mandate" by your use of the word "mandate," instead you meant a new definition created by you that boils down to voluntary association, not "mandates."
So, which is it? Do/did you support the government forcing people by law to get vaccinated (mandates), or do you simply support people's right not to employ or hang with people on the other side of their vaccination opinions (voluntary association)?
Please stop, you're so transparent. Vaccine mandates already existed in places, which has never meant that people are physically forced to get vaccinated. Like in schools, or when you want to work in a hospital. There are mandates. Don't want to get vaccinated? Then you don't get to work there. You'll never be physically forced to vaccinate.
When my employer wanted everyone to get vaccinated, that was also called a mandate. People could still not get vaccinated, it's their choice, but then they weren't allowed in the building. No government violence required.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_mandates_in_the_United_States#Private_mandates
There, plenty of mandates that have nothing whatsoever to do with physically being forced to get vaccinated. Just that when you choose not to, there are consequences. Actions have consequences, who knew?
If you still insist on pretending not to understand this, think of it this way: If you choose to not shower and never wear clean clothes (this is the choice you make), nobody will physically force you into a shower. But when you're walking around smelling like weeks old sweat and garbage, your employer will definitely not let you come back to work (and this would be the consequence). Same goes for walking around like a virus dispenser.
Honestly I'm more confused as to why you pretend there weren't people calling for prison for the unvaccinated. We agree that voluntary association is good, why deny there were also people who wanted a government mandate?
Sure though, I suppose you're right, "employer mandates" is a thing, I concede that point (well, at least that it still doesn't mean optional, but it doesn't necessarily mean governmental). That doesn't change the fact however that people were calling for more than that, people were calling for arrests, maybe not you but those people did exist. It is that which the above poster was comparing to abortion, not the much lighter version you're talking about.
I never said these people don't exist at all. I said I've never met one. So I guess I'm saying they're definitely a tiny minority.
And again: employer mandates still mean it's optional. Absolutely optional. It's optional because it's not forced.
You know what baffles me the most about this, though? That you're so hell bent on defending another random poster, who still hasn't even taken the time to clarify his own post or even respond to me. How can you be so sure that's what he meant?
Sorry Im taking so long to reply (had a rough couple of days including getting to play veterinary ambulance twice and getting my car fixed but whoops-not-really). Only now getting to look over the responses.
He's got the right general idea though - there were lots of folks calling for government COVID vaccine mandates (but were not successful in actually getting them) and most of those calling for it were also decidedly pro-choice because of bodily autonomy.
There aren't a whole lot of controversial cases for bodily autonomy outside abortion, but we did have one big obvious one that's not that old...
Maybe a loud minority, sure, but it still seems to me that he'd be talking about those people, not the people it seems he clearly wasn't talking about (at least to me).
Idk, we had a mandated meeting at work on thursday that was very much not optional, in direct opposition to the occasional meeting that we have that is optional (those are still mandatory for management, but that means they do not have the option to "not go," while those for whom it is optional, not mandatory, can "not go.") Anyway I've already conceded that mandatory, while not meaning optional by any stretch of the imagination, does also apply to situations as you've described, this is a moot point. Mandatory doesn't mean "hold you the fuck down and stab you," it literally means "required by a law or rule."
The point I've conceded is that technically you're right, "rule" can mean work rules not government rules, the point I have not conceded is "he meant those using it to refer to 'law' not 'rule.'"
And no, I'm just saying what I think he meant due to clear context clues, frankly I was just going to leave the one comment but then you misunderstood that and now we're here. I'm hoping this will be the last time I have to comment about it quite frankly.
Don't worry, I'm tired of these discussions too. I've had them too many times over the past years. We obviously use different definitions of the word 'optional' and that's fine. Let's just leave it at that.
Sounds good to me!
No you haven't, you fucking liar
Yes I have, scouts honor. I mean, they were stupid people, but they were people who wanted to imprison people for not being vaccinated nonetheless. One may say that opinion would automatically qualify one as a stupid person btw, but I mean they were independently stupid.
In any case we've found the crux of the issue, you don't believe those people existed. Well, they did.
There's 7 billion people in the world, there's someone who believes anything. Statistically they're irrelevant.
I guess I should say, you haven't met any number of these people beyond what can be rounded to 0% of the population.
Tbf I haven't ever met a holocaust denier myself, nor a flat earther, but I'm not going to say "those are just small numbers" or "those people don't exist" if someone is talking about them.
I would. It's statistically true, although holocaust deniers are ticking up due to increased fascism globally.
Well I guess that is where we differ.
And yeah, that shit is lame, but they're still statistically negligible though if that is your metric. I guess though that's good, rather that than they be statistically dominant.
Fair enough. I guess you're not a liar per se, but don't present it as an equivalence. "Some people believe the holocaust happened, some people don't" when actually it's 99.999% the former and 0.001% the latter.
Sure, maybe there's a few whackos who wanted to forcibly inject people but they're a statistical irrelevance so don't bring them up to support your point.
Well, my point was that "(I think) those are the people he was talking about," so they're kinda the point lol.
Equating abortion and vaccine mandates is stupid. Pregnancy can't be transmitted.
Mandates for people already recovered from Covid was anti-scientific though.