The Last Covid-19 Megathread v. Hopefully...

[tryptakid]

No, it does not. What you are describing is tyranny. When a person does not have the right over their own bodily autonomy, that is textbook tyranny.

You're entitled to the rest of your views, but this one is genuinely offensive. The role of the state is to protect the rights of individuals, not to remove them. Believing the state has the right to supersede the bodily autonomy of the individual is conceding you believe in the master-slave relationship paradigm, because that's precisely what it is. Slavery/tyranny.

I don't care what the pretext is. If the sanctity of the individual and their own body is nullified, then we do not actually have freedom at all. I don't know what else to say other than if you genuinely think it's acceptable then you have failed as a human being.

The state has the right to enforce speed limits, enforce helmet use by motorcyclists, the right to requiring the drivers are not impaired while driving. These are examples of the types of precedents that permit the state to take a public interest in personal liberty. Prevention of harm to others is fundamental in how courts determine WHETHER the state has the right to override personal autonomy, or whether doing so would be tyrannical

I agree with you, a state lacking independent judicial review is one that is incredibly vulnerable to tyranny in these matters - this is why Trump's actions to influence and intimidate the courts are deeply concerning. You're neglecting to acknowledge that *at the time* independent judicial review explored these issues and found across many nations of the world - that the state had a vested overriding interest in vaccine mandates, social distancing mandates, mask mandates, and economic measures to ensure the widespread protection of the populace and to preserve human life.

 

[-=SS=-]

The state has the right to enforce speed limits, enforce helmet use by motorcyclists, the right to requiring the drivers are not impaired while driving. These are examples of the types of precedents that permit the state to take a public interest in personal liberty. Prevention of harm to others is fundamental in how courts determine WHETHER the state has the right to override personal autonomy, or whether doing so would be tyrannical.

Are you actually equating wearing a seat belt on your body that does not interfere with bodily function, to being forced by the state to take something onto/into your body that does?

We do not need the courts to determine whether the state has a right to override the sovereignty of a persons body like that. It is tyranny, period. You can butter it up whichever way you like, under whatever pretext you like, no matter how you attempt to square that circle it is tyranny. Seriously mate, what the fuck? You can not honestly believe the state has the right to override the individuals own determination of will over THEIR body. A persons body belongs to the person, not the state, and that is unequivocal and the fundamental basis on which all morality is built upon. Without that, you have absolutely nothing and the whole of 'society' is nothing more than a pretence of freedom.

I honestly can not believe any rational person in the 21st century would argue otherwise. The moment you cross that threshold, that line of fundamental morality, then you are green lighting and opening the door to tremendous evil. You do understand that, right? You do also understand that you are placing an abstraction, 'society', above the value of the people who actually make up said society? If the people can not have freedom of bodily autonomy then this 'society' isn't worth jack shit and to hell with it quite frankly, because at that point we are no longer human and in service of something anti-human by definition.

 

[sHR00m]

I wouldn't call 24 people a consensus of a field

It was more than that. Public figures like Christian Drosten signed it, who designed the PCR test and who kept informing the German public as well as politicians. It is exactly people like him that were widely believed.

Also this is bigger than just a few virologists (and biologists). The WHO never seriously investigated the lab theory. There were hundreds of pages written on the origin on the sea food market but only a few dozen on the lab theory. This is a big scandal that does span over wide areas of the field.

 

[tryptakid]

Are you actually equating wearing a seat belt on your body that does not interfere with bodily function, to being forced by the state to take something onto/into your body that does?

Have you studied how law works? I've taken a few graduate classes in Public Health Law and Mental Health Law as part of my MPH training. Whenever a case is brought before a court, arguments are made citing precedent (prior cases involving similar, but not always the same) types of rulings or laws that could apply to the matter at hand. While a seatbelt is not analagous to a vaccination - the state's interest in impingement on personal liberty in the case of requiring seat belts, is precedent for how the state also can have an interest in requiring vaccination in the context of a pandemic. Other laws or precedents must also be introduced as well - there are vaccination rulings from the TB era where people were allowed to be arrested and confined in a sanatorium under isolation if they refused vaccination - or where families were allowed to be quarantined (40 days) away from society (my grandmother had to do this during the depression due to a measles outbreak on her farm). These are all considered when a lawsuit aims to consider whether a current case has legal merit - whether the coercive arm of the state may override the right to liberty as enshrined in modern liberal democracies. While the constitution protects the right to liberty, it also allows the state exemptions under certain circumstances, and it further allows courts to decide on matters not listed in the constitution. This Is how common law works in the US, and if I'm not mistaken, in the UK. Civil law is more common elsewhere and involves a slightly different process that I'm less familiar with.

We do not need the courts to determine whether the state has a right to override the sovereignty of a persons body like that. It is tyranny, period.

So any government whatsoever is inherently tyrannical? I'm not sure I understand what form of social contract you'd propose in that case. Anarchy? Who protects the weak and the vulnerable from those who wish to exploit them? What system is in place to ensure that those with power cannot simply bend individuals to their will on a lark? That is precisely what courts serve to do, to balance the state against oppression in order to allow for SOME coercion when necessary, while preserving as much liberty as possible.

You can butter it up whichever way you like, under whatever pretext you like, no matter how you attempt to square that circle it is tyranny. Seriously mate, what the fuck? You can not honestly believe the state has the right to override the individuals own determination of will over THEIR body. A persons body belongs to the person, not the state, and that is unequivocal and the fundamental basis on which all morality is built upon. Without that, you have absolutely nothing and the whole of 'society' is nothing more than a pretence of freedom.

I honestly can not believe any rational person in the 21st century would argue otherwise. The moment you cross that threshold, that line of fundamental morality, then you are green lighting and opening the door to tremendous evil. You do understand that, right?

I've just studied law and this is how it works. I'm not trying to argue with you, I"m trying to help you see why things function as they currently do. If we have a new system created, then I'd need to learn how that works.

 

[tryptakid]

It was more than that. Public figures like Christian Drosten signed it, who designed the PCR test and who kept informing the German public as well as politicians. It is exactly people like him that were widely believed.

Also this is bigger than just a few virologists (and biologists). The WHO never seriously investigated the lab theory. There were hundreds of pages written on the origin on the sea food market but only a few dozen on the lab theory. This is a big scandal that does span over wide areas of the field.

Lab or no lab - the disease was spreading and needed intervention. Whether it came from a lab or a wet market is irrelevant in how things were managed once it hit population centers.

Accountability will likely never be satisfactory.

 

[sHR00m]

Lab or no lab - the disease was spreading and needed intervention. Whether it came from a lab or a wet market is irrelevant in how things were managed once it hit population centers.

Accountability will likely never be satisfactory.

It is not irrelevant because this Gain of Function Research is highly dubious if this is the possible outcome that cost us trillions of dollars and millions of dead people. I'm not for just blaming China (though their unhealthy influence on the WHO needs to be investigated) but we need to make sure that such a thing never repeats. And to my knowledge many Chinese labs with comparable security flaws just continue like before COVID.

Other than that, we were mislead by experts, health institutions and state leaders who chose not to inform the public about said secret agency reports. Id hardly call that irrelevant consider how deep the recommended anti COVID measures did cut into our civil rights and how many of them were deemed without an alternative. From wearing (makeshift) masks to experimental vaccines.

 

[tryptakid]

It is not irrelevant because this Gain of Function Research is highly dubious if this is the possible outcome that cost us trillions of dollars and millions of dead people. I'm not for just blaming China (though their unhealthy influence on the WHO needs to be investigated) but we need to make sure that such a thing never repeats. And to my knowledge many Chinese labs with comparable security flaws just continue like before COVID.

All well and good but these are seperate issues.

One issue is the response

The other issue is about accountability and responsibility. Whether or not these gain of function things caused the pandemic; the pandemic happened. A response had to take place regardless of where the initial infection originated. My problems is with the conflation of these two things because it's irrelevant and only confuses the matter. If you want to go after whomever for causing this mess - more power to you. That's not something I care as much about, though I do think that if someone(s) were responsible and it was done for selfish reasons, they should be brought to justice or at least held accountable.

Other than that, we were mislead by experts, health institutions and state leaders who chose not to inform the public about said secret agency reports. Id hardly call that irrelevant consider how deep the recommended anti COVID measures did cut into our civil rights and how many of them were deemed without an alternative. From wearing (makeshift) masks to experimental vaccines.

You're acting like there was some grand conspiracy. There wasn't - there was a ton of very quickly evolving information that was hidden within a web of private and public sector institutions, companies, behind confidentiality agreements and unmasked in retrospect.

No one knew this stuff at the time - you're trying to monday morning quarterback it as if you had all of the information at the outset - you didn't, and neither did the people in charge of responding to things.

Mistakes were made, for sure - I'm not saying that there weren't misjudgements: I'm only saying that you gotta give those who were doing their sincere best to prevent death, suffering, and disease a bit of a mulligan. I certainly have a nd I'm likely to have experienced far more of an imposition during CoVID than you did.

 

[sHR00m]

I'm merely pointing at the evidence. Conspiracy is maybe a hard word but there was no open ended investigation regarding the origin of the pandemic and several high ranking people factually buried the story. I agree that it doesn't change much about this pandemic but in order to avoid the next one these discussions are needed to be had.

 

[tryptakid]

I'm merely pointing at the evidence. Conspiracy is maybe a hard word but there was no open ended investigation regarding the origin of the pandemic and several high ranking people factually buried the story. I agree that it doesn't change much about this pandemic but in order to avoid the next one these discussions are need to be had about this insane period in recent history.

There was a federal investigation into this very thing and that was published immediately upon conclusion into the public record last year which indicated exactly what you're suggesting as a high probability

 

[sHR00m]

There was a federal investigation into this very thing and that was published immediately upon conclusion into the public record last year which indicated exactly what you're suggesting as a high probability

Ok I am seeing this from the German perspective where several chancellors sat on that report. Would you happen to have a link to said investigation?

 

[arrall]

No, it does not. What you are describing is tyranny. When a person does not have the right over their own bodily autonomy, that is textbook tyranny.

You're entitled to the rest of your views, but this one is genuinely offensive. The role of the state is to protect the rights of individuals, not to remove them. Believing the state has the right to supersede the bodily autonomy of the individual is conceding you believe in the master-slave relationship paradigm, because that's precisely what it is. Slavery/tyranny.

I don't care what the pretext is. If the sanctity of the individual and their own body is nullified, then we do not actually have freedom at all. I don't know what else to say other than if you genuinely think it's acceptable then you have failed as a human being.

Whilst I generally believe that the covid vaccine is beneficial for most people (data seems to suggest that everyone but men below 30 should get it), I agree with SS in that I was quite troubled by governmental overreach with the vaccine mandates and lockdowns.

 

[tryptakid]

Whilst I generally believe that the covid vaccine is beneficial for most people (data seems to suggest that everyone but men below 30 should get it), I agree with SS in that I was quite troubled by governmental overreach with the vaccine mandates and lockdowns.

In the end these were judgement calls that had to be made very quickly given an unknown and potentially catastrophic pathogen that could mutate into something even more virulent and deadly. Abundance of caution was the most humane way to approach things based on the science and experience of epidemiologists, virologists, physicians, and other public health experts. Were there missteps? Yes of course? Were there consequences to social distancing? Absolutely. A generation lost their innocence at the peak of adolescence - children were brought into a world that was paranoid and disjointed. People like Elon and Bezos exploited our suffering to pad their already fat wallets - what bothers me is why there isn't more outrage about their actions.

 

[brokedownpalace10]

FWIW. My cardiologist asked me about Covid boosters. Fearing an anti-vax stance, I asked him why. Did he think they were bad for your heart? He responded, "I wish there had been more studies on that. But, let me be clear, Covid itself can definitely cause heart damage. We needed the initial vaccines and everyone needed to get them. Now that the virus is less virulent and since you always retain some immunity if vaccinated, I feel the boosters are more something to be considered individually. Now, have you had Covid?"

 

[tryptakid]

FWIW. My cardiologist asked me about Covid boosters. Fearing an anti-vax stance, I asked him why. Did he think they were bad for your heart? He responded, "I wish there had been more studies on that. But, let me be clear, Covid itself can definitely cause heart damage. We needed the initial vaccines and everyone needed to get them. Now that the virus is less virulent and since you always retain some immunity if vaccinated, I feel the boosters are more something to be considered individually. Now, have you had Covid?"

Sound approach - science is skeptical and always re-evaluating the available data in the face of current threats, acute risks vs. chronic risks, emergent risks etc. It reminds me of how folks who started on HIV meds in the 90s started to run into health problems in the 2010s....they'd survived HIV because of medications that were ultimately hard on their bodies, so they started to run into kidney, liver, cardiovascular issues as they get older. When you've got a chance to live with the potential for later health impacts or risk dying horribly in the next few years, it makes sense to chose a path that has some down the road consequences.

 

[someguyontheinternet]

All backwards. You don't give medical products to people who are healthy, because there is nothing to gain and only potential to lose.. especially if the product is a rushed, genetic based one.

This is completely wrong. A core facet of modern medicine is prophylaxis, the prevention of disease. This includes providing procedures and medications, and yes vaccines, to healthy individuals.

 

[-=SS=-]

Have you studied how law works?

Jesus Christ mate, we're talking about human beings and humanity. Law is a fucking fiction, who the fuck cares! If you need some toff cunt in an Egyptian wig to determine your right to your own bodily autonomy then you are truly lost and I don't know what else to say really because there's some fundamental misstep in your philosophy that I don't think is possible to correct without you experiencing the consequences of it i.e. you get forced to take something against your will that you do not want.

I mean that is the whole point, why bodily autonomy is a line in the sand, why it represents the demarcation between freedom and tyranny. It's parallel to arguments around state surveillance and the "well, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" line of reasoning. Yeah, well, suppose the government of tomorrow decides that something you are transparent about is now deemed a criminal offense. You've just shot yourself in the foot.. or if the government is malicious enough they might literally shoot you.

You do not place that kind of power in the hands of others. Period. History is very clear on that, in the 20th century alone. It's why we have the Nuremberg Code for example, specifically relating to 'medical intervention'.

Other laws or precedents must also be introduced as well - there are vaccination rulings from the TB era where people were allowed to be arrested and confined in a sanatorium under isolation if they refused vaccination - or where families were allowed to be quarantined (40 days) away from society (my grandmother had to do this during the depression due to a measles outbreak on her farm).

Yeah, and this is morally wrong as well. Not just wrong, but evil. I do not care what the pretext is and how mesmerized you or anyone else is by the convincing medical theories of the day, you do not supersede the right of the individual like that.

More over, as soon as you create any pretext as acceptable to violate that basic human right, whether it be a medical pretext or something else, you have just created a doorway for evil to come through.. a future justification for bad actors, governments, despots, to exploit for their own gain. Do you not understand that? This is why you never place blind trust and faith in the state, governments, or institutions, and you always place value in humanity first by default always.

 

[-=SS=-]

This is completely wrong. A core facet of modern medicine is prophylaxis, the prevention of disease. This includes providing procedures and medications, and yes vaccines, to healthy individuals.

No, it's not. The modern medical paradigm might have defined it as acceptable but that doesn't mean it's correct. There's a magnitude of difference between say having an x-ray to check for growths, and pumping some pharmaceutical concoction into your body.

Healthy people don't need anything besides more good quality food, water, and oxygen. That's all there is to it. That's how human beings have lived since the dawn of time. It's only over the past century that Western medical theory has attempted to interject itself and complicate matters, for a price.

 

[tryptakid]

Jesus Christ mate, we're talking about human beings and humanity. Law is a fucking fiction, who the fuck cares! If you need some toff cunt in an Egyptian wig to determine your right to your own bodily autonomy then you are truly lost and I don't know what else to say really because there's some fundamental misstep in your philosophy that I don't think is possible to correct without you experiencing the consequences of it i.e. you get forced to take something against your will that you do not want.

I mean that is the whole point, why bodily autonomy is a line in the sand, why it represents the demarcation between freedom and tyranny. It's parallel to arguments around state surveillance and the "well, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" line of reasoning. Yeah, well, suppose the government of tomorrow decides that something you are transparent about is now deemed a criminal offense. You've just shot yourself in the foot.. or if the government is malicious enough they might literally shoot you.

You do not place that kind of power in the hands of others. Period. History is very clear on that, in the 20th century alone. It's why we have the Nuremberg Code for example, specifically relating to 'medical intervention'.

Yeah, and this is morally wrong as well. Not just wrong, but evil. I do not care what the pretext is and how mesmerized you or anyone else is by the convincing medical theories of the day, you do not supersede the right of the individual like that.

More over, as soon as you create any pretext as acceptable to violate that basic human right, whether it be a medical pretext or something else, you have just created a doorway for evil to come through.. a future justification for bad actors, governments, despots, to exploit for their own gain. Do you not understand that? This is why you never place blind trust and faith in the state, governments, or institutions, and you always place value in humanity first by default always.

I understand how you see it - and I see it differently. I accept the system as it is and chose to break the law when my values/morals conflict with it. I still think that the system as a whole is necessary.

Thing is - bodily autonomy with infectious disease is different. Your choice DOES effect me. If you can be given a treatment that prevents me from also getting sick and possibly dying, then I do support the public interest in enforcing such things. You see it differently and I can understand that. I may see it as selfish but I also believe that you feel this way out of an intense mistrust of those who would ask this of you in the first place.

That may be the difference - i don't mistrust government in the same way... yet. Things may change though, that's for sure.

 

[tryptakid]

No, it's not. The modern medical paradigm might have defined it as acceptable but that doesn't mean it's correct. There's a magnitude of difference between say having an x-ray to check for growths, and pumping some pharmaceutical concoction into your body.

Healthy people don't need anything besides more good quality food, water, and oxygen. That's all there is to it. That's how human beings have lived since the dawn of time. It's only over the past century that Western medical theory has attempted to interject itself and complicate matters, for a price.

So if the plague comes back we should just it run through us all - no antibiotics, no prevention measures?

 

[-=SS=-]

Thing is - bodily autonomy with infectious disease is different. Your choice DOES effect me. If you can be given a treatment that prevents me from also getting sick and possibly dying, then I do support the public interest in enforcing such things.

No, it's not different. Your health is your health, it has nothing to do with me. If you get sick and die that's on you for having a shit immune system and not taking care of yourself. This is precisely why the medical paradigm is so dangerous, because it has actually convinced you that your health is partially someone else's responsibility and therefore has opened the door for your selfish justification to force another person to bend to your will.

You've allowed perverse authorities to instil an irrational fear of death in you, to convince you of something you have not proven (contagion), and then use that as justification for interfering with the liberty of others. If I had known this about you I would never have bothered dialoguing with you from the beginning, because it's people like you with that mind state, that place abstract nonsense above the value of your fellow human beings that have been the driving force behind all the horrors in our collective history.