Infectious disease which can kill sets up a problem that defeats a full libertarian philosophy.

in covid •  3 years ago 

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Here's what I think of the President's set of executive actions:

The libertarian approach to vaccination was tried in the United States, and what we got was a wave of death and human suffering inflicted on us by a crazed movement of anti-vaxxers. The Libertarian approach failed, and it failed spectacularly.

There are a variety of ways you could calculate the death toll associated with the United States failed libertarian policy. Any credible assessment of that death toll will be six figures.

As recently as a couple of months ago, I publicly advocated for the idea that vaccination should be voluntary. I was wrong. Voluntary vaccination is desirable when the number of people who choose not to get vaccinated is low. With the current number of vaccine refusers in the USA, it is intolerable.

I made a variety of arguments in favor of keeping vaccination voluntary, including that those who were forced to get vaccinated would lie about side effects (they did anyway), and that people have a right to bodily autonomy (a principle that is violated when someone is infected with a deadly pathogen far more than when someone is obliged to get vaccinated.)

I believed in this idea because I did exactly what I have urged others not to do: I started with a conclusion, and then proceeded to search for arguments in support of it. That is an intellectual error I will do my best to avoid in the future.

The USA can no longer tolerate those who insist on making their bodies available as vectors of disease. Biden's executive actions are a good first step, and I hope he goes further--as far as he needs to go in order to end the pandemic.

If you're looking for someone to blame for the growth of state power that is occuring, I suggest that you blame the anti-vaccine movement. They are responsible for the devastating carnage of the Delta Wave, and for creating a situation where decent people are left with no alternative but to look to the federal government to protect ourselves from a pandemic.

Don't talk to me about "personal choice". There is no such thing as a personal choice in a respiratory pandemic.

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