It would be! And if banning cheeseburgers had remotely the same material consequences as vaccination (i.e. virtually none), and would be remotely as effective for preserving public health, we could seriously consider the notion that we should go ahead and do it. But since it would, in fact, not be nearly as effective (because if I stopped eating cheeseburgers alone I wouldn’t be 16x less likely to die of an obesity related condition), and because it would make everyone besides vegans very sad and do terrible harm to lots of industries, whereas vaccination mostly just harms the funeral business and only makes people very very bad at statistics unhappy, it is, in fact - like all comparisons between obesity and vaccination status I’ve seen people who think they’re clever whip out - a completely ridiculous comparison.
Both types of action aren't stupid. One is, because it would have deleterious consequences with little benefit; one isn't, because it has very positive consequences with little cost. I already said that, but maybe if I say it again it'll register?
Frankly, I'd be more than happy forcing everyone to inject saline once if it saved everyone $10...but I do well, I'm not especially concerned about "a few tax dollars" and I'm happy to pay my taxes. But inflation from printing money hurts everyone, as do cuts from other government programs meant to help those in need, and both are likely. Maybe over-taxing the rich would too, but that'll never happen, so I'm not sweating that. Still, I think it's disgusting that you'd rather let people be homeless, starve to death, or die from lack of access to medical care than that we just demand that the members of society stop being anti-social. Alternatively, I think it's disgusting that you think you're entitled to everyone's money for treatment that a simple 15 minute trip to the pharmacy could have prevented, which you avoided just to spite all of those people who now have to pay the tab. If we could exclude the voluntarily unvaccinated from COVID-related medical treatment, that'd be a good and fair compromise, but for some reason anti-vaxxers throw a tantrum when that's suggested too.
> Frankly, I'd be more than happy forcing everyone to inject saline once if it saved everyone $10
Twice right? And then a saline booster every 6 months too right?
> I'm not especially concerned about "a few tax dollars" and I'm happy to pay my taxes.
Your lead argument for mandating vaccination was the potential cost of care.
> But inflation from printing money hurts everyone, as do cuts from other government programs meant to help those in need, and both are likely. Maybe over-taxing the rich would too, but that'll never happen, so I'm not sweating that.
I have no clue what you’re talking about here.
> Still, I think it's disgusting that you'd rather let people be homeless, starve to death, or die from lack of access to medical care than that we just demand that the members of society stop being anti-social.
I said no such thing.
There’s a world of difference between opposing a mandate that everybody take a vaccine and opposing vaccines.
Everybody who wants one should get one. They’re free, available on just about every corner, and I’m not aware of anyone right now who wants one who can’t get one.
I’m also not aware of anyone except the most paranoid triple vaxed that still wear a mask outdoors. Now thats anti-social. Not “following the science” either.
> Alternatively, I think it's disgusting that you think you're entitled to everyone's money for treatment that a simple 15 minute trip to the pharmacy could have prevented, which you avoided just to spite all of those people who now have to pay the tab. If we could exclude the voluntarily unvaccinated from COVID-related medical treatment, that'd be a good and fair compromise, but for some reason anti-vaxxers throw a tantrum when that's suggested too.
We do it for smoking. For obesity. For just about every other choice a person can make. There’s nothing special about covid that you should give up dominion over your own body. Hell, for the vast majority of non-obese under 50, it’s barely a flu.
> We do it for smoking. For obesity. For just about every other choice a person can make. There’s nothing special about covid that you should give up dominion over your own body. Hell, for the vast majority of non-obese under 50, it’s barely a flu.
For posterity, for the third time: obesity is not comparable to COVID, because obesity is not a problem which is instantly resolvable for almost no cost and no effort.
Smoking is also not comparable to COVID, because nicotine addiction is also not a problem that is instantly resolvable, for almost no cost. We also tax the hell out of nicotine, which helps offset the burden smokers place on society. If you're content with how we treat smokers, is there some way we could analogously tax the voluntarily unvaccinated to help offset the burden they're placing on the rest of us that you'd be happy with?
Anyway, that's what's special about COVID and vaccination: it is a problem that is almost instantly resolvable for almost no cost.
I understand you're arguing from a principle: you think that, no matter how costly it is for society for someone to be unvaccinated, no matter how ridiculous their reasons are for being unvaccinated, we still cannot punish anyone for it any way. There's literally no practical fact that could change your mind on that - it could be the case that unless everyone got vaccinated the Earth would explode and all our souls would be subject to infinite torment, and you'd still insist Trucker Joe has the right not to get vaccinated and cast all of humanity into eternal damnation. You can argue from that, if you want; but if you're going to try arguing from specifics, by analogy to specific things, you need to actually think those specifics out.
For posterity, I'll also try to clarify what I meant about taxes, and why what you're advocating for precisely leads to the consequences you claim not to support:
A COVID hospitalization costs the government something like 1000x more than a round of COVID vaccinations. There's no real economic benefit to spending that extra money, and that money needs to come from somewhere. It could come from debt or printing money, but that leads to inflation. Inflation makes everyone poorer; it makes it harder to afford basic necessities like housing and food, almost inevitably leading to some degree of starvation and homelessness. It could come from reallocating money that the government spends on programs elsewhere - but those programs generally exist for a reason, usually to help the people in the most dire of straits, and cutting funding to those programs is going to hurt those people - often leading to, you guessed it, consequences like starvation and homelessness. Or it could come from raising taxes - on the poor and middle class, which is awful, because generally speaking those people need that money (and guess what happens when people don't have money they need); or on the rich, which is probably the least awful option, Laffer curve be damned, but is also the least likely to happen, and is still wholly unnecessary. And of course: this ignores what was mentioned above, which is that there's no amount of money the government could throw at hospitals to let them instantaneously increase their capacity 50x over, because the staff literally doesn't exist. So it's an inevitability that the unvaccinated are clogging our hospitals, leading people to die due to treatable conditions.
> Anyway, that's what's special about COVID and vaccination: it is a problem that is almost instantly resolvable for almost no cost.
That you consider giving up body autonomy "almost no cost" is what's simply insane.
It's not a sliding scale where $X of savings for Y% of personal choice. It's a black and white line that involves someone else, whether elected or appointed, deciding that you must inject this into your body for the good of society.
> I understand you're arguing from a principle: you think that, no matter how costly it is for society for someone to be unvaccinated, no matter how ridiculous their reasons are for being unvaccinated, we still cannot punish anyone for it any way.
Damn right.
> There's literally no practical fact that could change your mind on that - it could be the case that unless everyone got vaccinated the Earth would explode and all our souls would be subject to infinite torment, and you'd still insist Trucker Joe has the right not to get vaccinated and cast all of humanity into eternal damnation.
The only people that think the world is going to end if Trucker Joe does not get vaccinated are the same triple vaxed ones that are still wearing masks outdoors.
> A COVID hospitalization costs the government something like 1000x more than a round of COVID vaccinations...
That doesn't matter and claiming that you could use the same money for $PULL_HEARTSTRINGS does not make the argument any more valid.
People who give up individual freedoms to save a buck will end both enslaved and penniless.
