Malibuflyer wrote:
One of the more recent events to compare this to is 9/11. 3.000 people died. That is roughly 1 percent of the difference between US and Europe casualty levels.
What did we (first and foremost driven by the “land of the free”) do to react to these 3.000 casualties in terms of restricting individual freedom rights? What kinds of limits to human rights did we implement to avoid that such events that caused these 3.000 deaths will happen again?
But it was not, of course, the number of deaths that was the important factor behind the USA reaction to 9/11. It was a matter of national pride.
Airborne_Again wrote:
But it was not, of course, the number of deaths that was the important factor behind the USA reaction to 9/11. It was a matter of national pride.
Very good point – that leads me to two questions (the first one more rhetoric, the second one more substantial):
- Does (and should) national pride have a higher value than human lives?
- Why did the vast majority of countries (with perhaps Israel, NZ and AUS and China in its very special way being exceptions) not manage to create such a “national pride” around being at the forefront of fighting that virus? If we regard ourselves as educated, tech savvy, scientific driven, etc. wouldn’t it be an even bigger achievement to be proud of to demonstrate the world that a virus can not hurt us?
Sorry Malibu, you can’t compare deaths of different causes like these.
If you just take blunt deaths numbers, all roads should be limited to 10km/h. You would say it is be a proportionate freedom of movement restriction towards the aim of public health. And our Conseil d’Etat would agree if Macron proposed it.
But it doesn’t work that way.
People die everyday in house accidents, in traffic accidents, in airplanes acidents (GA would be forbidden given its death rate), of various diseases. Obesity, diabete, and so many “partly avoidable” (no offense to anyone) conditions kill millions every year.
It is strange to see people accepting euthanasia asking for mandatory vaccination. Is one’s body his own or not ? Are you worried for their health or for yours ?
Mooney, you begin to scare me. In your logic, stripping a minority of their rights is the best way to endure a difficult situation. That’s how democracy leads to despotism then tyranny. And once it has come for the best possible reason, it’s too late to turn back.
I hoped 20th century had vaccinated us against those thoughts.
Sometimes, you must not just follow the crowd, or even the law, but your conscience.
Just food for thought :
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—[…….] But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident [….] collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.”
On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father could not have imagined
Should really be moved to the political thread 
It is strange to see people accepting euthanasia asking for mandatory vaccination. Is one’s body his own or not ? Are you worried for their health or for yours ?
When is the last time you caught euthanasia?
Euthanasia is not as much about “the freedom to dispose of one’s own body” but the possibility to avoid unnecessary suffering imposed both to oneself and to the family.
So I can see how someone who has signed up with Exit to avoid unnecessary suffering sees death by prolonged drowning (which is what a Covid death feels like) as unnecessary suffering that can be avoided less drastically with a vaccine rather than a lethal injection…
Jujupilote wrote:
you can’t compare deaths of different causes like these.
If you can’t compare, what else could be the yard stick we use to discuss which level of restriction of individual freedom is acceptable in a specific situation and which is not? How do we have a reasonable debate within society what we really want and do not want (and which is not captured by the two extremes “I’d rather have millions of people dying before I accept that I am forced to wear a mask” and “Everybody should be locked up in isolation until this virus died out”)?
I actually belief we need to compare: Only if we have a clear perspective on why we think a speed limit of 65mph is an acceptable restriction of freedom to reduce road kills while a speed limit of 10mph might not be and only if we understand why detainment of suspects w/o proper legal proceeding, travel bans w/o any legal right to object is acceptable to fight terrorism we can debate if the very same measures would also be acceptable to fight a virus or not.
Jujupilote wrote:
It is strange to see people accepting euthanasia asking for mandatory vaccination.
At least in Germany, it is broad and undisputed consensus that any form of euthanasia that puts other lives at risk is not acceptable. Euthanasia by bombing your house is not only forbidden but also not socially accepted as is euthanasia by infecting yourself with a deadly disease.
To that respect, most of the “mandatory vaccination supporters” have a very similar mindset: As long as you lock yourself up in private and do not risk that your personal decision puts harm on others you should be free if you take the vaccination or not.
In the common sense, “Mandatory vaccination” refers not to being “mandatory” in the strict literal sense but rather “Required for participating in public life”. That might not be a huge difference in practice – but for the comparison with euthanasia you made it is extremely relevant…
Mooney, you begin to scare me. In your logic, stripping a minority of their rights is the best way to endure a difficult situation. That’s how democracy leads to despotism then tyranny. And once it has come for the best possible reason, it’s too late to turn back.
So any regulation is tyranny and the answer is anarchy?
@Malibuflyer has already said it more precisely than I could, so I leave it at that.
Covid is a crisis situation and measures in relation to it need to be taken with reference to the relevant legislation. In Switzerland this is the pandemic laws passed via democratic vote a few years ago. Revisions to it such as the Covid certificate are subject to a vote this September. Should they be turned down, Switzerland will loose the capability to issue the EU widely reckognized certificates, which for most people would mean they will be isolated inside the country.
But that whole discussion misses the point. The overwhelming majority here according to polls are quite happy to use the certificate to get back to a fairly normal life as opposed to accept it, that a minority of about 20-30% of either anti-vaxxers or people who just can´t be bothered wish to force the government to continue shutdowns and restrictions which can be lifted if the 3G (vaccinated, healed, tested) certificate conditions are widely accepted. In this case who is the tyrant? The majority or the vocal conspiracy theorists?
We have to be careful now, where this is going, this I agree with you. The problem I can see is that the general trust which is necessary for any society to function that its organs, organisations and conventions are trustworthy is being atacked by anarchists and conspiracy theorists who see in every measure an attempt to suppress them. The very fact that people are allowed to spread the fake news and other FUD they are spreading shows the opposite: Where minorities are suppressed, cutting of their communication channels is the first thing which happens. Here, lots of this is even protected by freedom of speech….
IMHO, fake news and constant spread of distrust is a much bigger challenge to democracy. Minorities who are trying to exercise power over majorities provoke unrest, discontent and in the end do provoke agression against themselfs rather than if they keep to themselfs. Like @Mailbuflyer said: nobody forces you to take the vaccine or to use covid passports, but the choice, as any choice has consequences.
nobody forces you to take the vaccine or to use covid passports, but the choice, as any choice has consequences.
That’s simply too easy. No one has the right to enforce choices and corresponding consequences onto others. In Norway, none of these consequences exist. Not within the realm. And truth be told. It doesn’t really exist elsewhere either from what I can see, other than “wishful thinking” among some politicians. In practice, people don’t care anymore.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
So any regulation is tyranny and the answer is anarchy?
Like the relationship independent nations have to each other?
LeSving wrote:
No one has the right to enforce choices and corresponding consequences onto others. In Norway, none of these consequences exist. Not within the realm. And truth be told. It doesn’t really exist elsewhere either from what I can see, other than “wishful thinking” among some politicians. In practice, people don’t care anymore.
I find the vaccine passport concept completely abhorrent. I do hope that the population in the places where it applies finds the courage to reject the concept before it’s too late.
The government removal of the basic right to choose In order to “protect” people from themselves is equally odd (unless you have an appreciation for e.g. the DDR) as is the unprecedented concept of quarantining the healthy and locking them up in close proximity to each other. All symptoms of self impressed, overgrown, overly empowered governments stretching their muscles within their little geographic areas… and not much else.
I think long term uncoordinated chaos and tyranny within each of the little fiefdoms may well be result, restrained only by the local populations unwillingness to play along. Just as they say, all politics is local.
Silvaire wrote:
I find the vaccine passport concept completely abhorrent.
But what about that? Vaccine passports are standard practice both in Europe as well as many other countries worldwide. You can not enter certain countries and/or from certain countries if you do not have a vaccination passport for yellow fever. Nobody complains. Yes, that is a restriction of freedom.
Silvaire wrote:
The government removal of the basic right to choose In order to “protect” people from themselves is equally odd
One could argue, that this is the very – perhaps the only – purpose of a government! All a government does is establishing and enforcing rules that restrict some freedoms of individuals to protect others/the society. Road speed limits, anti drug laws, criminal laws against fraud, theft, etc. Not to mention tax laws limiting my freedom to spend my money for what I want, etc.
All of these are limiting my own freedom to do what I want to enable living together as a society.
If we would claim that government must not at all interfere with individual freedom, there is nothing left for the government to do
