FredS wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 5:10 pmWe're largely in agreement here but for two things:tuttle wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 11:30 amAll that is to be seen. I haven't heard of any agencies forcing anyone to take the vaccine but I have heard a lot of people signal such a thing should happen, or at the very least make arguments that it'll never happen and when it does I guess you'll go live in a cave...FredS wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 11:06 amBecause you're going to live in your own cave the rest of your life?AnungUnRama wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 10:41 am^^^^^^^This. Emphatically, absolutely, without question THIS.
We (your fellow citizens) have mandated and forced hundreds of impositions on your freedom for our good rather than yours. Your employers have done the same in the name of protecting their company as well as your coworkers and customers. I have not heard of any governmental agency forcing these new vaccines on anyone but if covid and other novel virus' continue to be a problem over the coming years, and if a vaccine is proven safe and effective over the next couple years, we may very well decide it's in our interest to require you and your children to be vaccinated if you wish to move about outside your home.
If a town contracts the bubonic plague and half of them die and the other half are looking all swelly in the pits then it behooves the government to step in, lock it down, vax the lot of them, even against their will. That's a proper use of emergency powers. When there is an actual, you know, emergency. The problem with COVID is that it isn't the bubonic plague but it's being treated as such.
I have no reason to believe the flu vaccine is either ineffective (for whatever particular strain it's combating) or unsafe. But I don't take it because it's not the bubonic plague and I'm not likely going to drop dead in the street from the flu. Maybe I'll change my tune when I'm up in years and the likelihood of me keeling over from the flu is higher. I have nothing against it.
Same with Covid. For right now I see no reason for me or mine to take it. If contracted, the likelihood of death is less than 1%. More people would know that information if our overlords wouldn't censor it at every turn. More people might take those real scientific numbers seriously if every political and cultural influencer didn't mock and deride people who discuss it as Anti-science and Covid-deniers.
All that aside, when I'm an old man and my likelihood of death from Covid (as opposed to death, ahem, with Covid) increases a few percentage points, I'll be happy to consider such a safe and healthy vaccine, especially after it's been out there for 20-30 years instead of 2 weeks. All the more reason to feel good about it.
But removing people's freedom to move, assemble, travel, buy/sell, or any other thing because they don't have their COVID ID Card stamped APPROVED? Well, percentages of people dying COVID associated deaths might go up.
- Are you calling me a geezer? You mentioned old people and how the vaccine may be more appropriate for them twice in your reply.
I suppose I should be glad you didn't mention overweight, outta shape smokers.
- You mentioned that if "half the town" died it'd be appropriate for Uncle Joe to step in and mandate the vaccination. Would it also be proper if 49% died? How about 40%? 10%? 5%? Who gets to decide? This is where the whole thing get's muddy. Nobody trusts "the numbers" put out by the government or the media. Many - like you, Affers, Del, AnungUnRama, Slowtoke, and others - think they're inflated to present more of an urgency for the government to force lockdowns, face coverings, or mandatory vaccination. To scare us into giving up a little liberty for safety. I don't trust the numbers simply because I know how the healthcare bureaucracy runs. I don't trust them provide accurate information - especially if padding "the number" earns them more compensation, or less blame, or financial burden. I do think the nurses, docs, and even politicians individually, have our best interests at heart though.
I swear I was thinking only of myself, fatty.I think the numbers are skewey, but not inflated to the point of outright falsehood. The bigger issue isn't inflated numbers so much as hyper-focused on numbers as a way to scare people rather to inform them. There is a reason they continue to pound the drum of cases. The number of virus cases is going viral!...shocker. It's why it's important to look at the death numbers too. I don't think this is a hoax or fake or a virus created by an evil supervillain in order to overthrow the governments of the world.
And the half the town example was trying to show a real emergency rather than focusing on the numbers of people. I've used other examples to distinguish. Like someone screaming fire in a movie theater when they saw the popcorn machine spark. Maybe a few concession stand workers got a burn or hit with some funky fumes, but there was no actual fire. Just a spark and a machine on the fritz. No one in the theater was in any real danger. To make it closer to our situation, there are many people who are running and shoving other people to motivate them to run all the while yelling at them "Can't you see that the popcorn machine sparked! You not running and screaming is not a comforting sight to others!" But sometimes I run away with analogies until I can't remember what we're talking about anymore.
I'll just boil our situation down on 'who decides' to The People. At least that's what our country does even if it currently looks at people who give that answer as if they have two heads. The people decide. Meaning if the people believe the government has abused their emergency powers, then they must not allow them to either keep those powers or abuse them again in the future. Outside of all that, what we need is a healthy scoop of Wisdom and Discernment. It's obvious we've left those two at the station which is another layer on this crapcake.
Anyhoo, I doubt I'll add much more this year. I'll be out of commission for a bit over the holidays.
