And please don't tell us it is not forced. You mean like: "I'm not forcing you to work as a wage slave. I'm just creating the conditions in which it's impossible for you to live normally if you don't"? Or, better: "I'm not forcing you to sign this loyalty oath, I just won't let you work here if you don't." Isn't that the kind of Ayn-Randian/libertarian disingenuousness that leftists so shrewdly identify and denounce?
So, don't deny or obfuscate: It is authoritarian, and it is radical. If you want to argue it's necessary (because sometimes it is necessary to be authoritarian), do so; but don't deny it is. None of us newly-degraded Untermenschen are going to let you deny what is happening to us, and to the polity as a whole.
And it will not stop with Covid. It will be extended to the infinite series of Covid boosters. Per Fauci, every eight--no, breaking news, now every five months. Follow that scientist--who, "quite frankly" is "science"--as he moves that "fully-vaccinated" goalpost down the field. Obviously has this entirely under control.
Boosters Forever!
Anyone who thinks--Pharma having tasted the profits--this won't be enforced every year, for every virus and variant, and--the state having tasted this level of social control--it won't be extended into every corner of socio-political life, is exceptionally... well, naà ¯ve, to use the kindest word I can think of. Especially leftists.
It is a big deal, socially and politically.
Burden of Proof
I would hope that anyone--and certainly leftists--professedly concerned with things like civil rights and bodily integrity would understand where the burden of proof lies. It is not the responsibility of those opposing it to prove that such a policy is not necessary; it's the responsibility of the state and its supporters to prove that it is. I hope people who proclaim My Body, My Choice! would not agree to support or accept such a social regime unless they were absolutely convinced there was a rock-solid justification for abolishing bodily autonomy along with a swath of primary social rights, and consigning millions of their friends and neighbors to joblessness, social exile, and effective house arrest.
What are the grounds of their conviction? It seems to me that justification must meet at least three conditions: 1) that Covid is an overwhelming, apocalyptic greater danger, 2) that these vaccines are a necessary, effective, and the only or least oppressive solution to that danger, and 3) that there are no serious risks to be considered from the vaccines themselves, no possibility that they might cause other harms equal to or greater than the specific danger of Covid. We'll discuss some of these below.
But there is one necessary condition of their conviction that dominates the discourse of those advocating mandates and passports, which is captured in the repeated declaration: The unvaccinated are a danger to society. As Biden says, we have to "protect vaccinated workers from the unvaccinated." They are "plague carriers" who are responsible for spreading the virus and killing people because of their stupid and/or selfish choice, which we therefore cannot allow them to make.
Wow. If that conviction were true, who could argue with the conclusion? Not I, a socialist and marxist who understands the imperatives of social responsibility. I contend, however, that it is not true. It rests on a set of assumptions--framed as "scientific" certainties--that are false and misleading.
Nothing is more destructive to science and the pursuit of knowledge than the epistemological stance on display every day from establishment experts: false certainty: I stand with these guys: "I would rather have questions that can't be answered, than answers that can't be questioned" (Richard Feynman); "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth" (Einstein).
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