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There are a great, great number of people who believe _both_ that the vaccine works on some level but disagree with the way it's being used in medical apartheid

There are a great, great number of people who believe _both_ that the vaccine works on some level but disagree with the way it's being used in medical apartheid, the lack of exit plans, and changes to daily life, and so on. There are a great number of valid complaints. But mentioning them and commenting in a more measured way probably wouldn't get you so many upvotes.

nuerow 5y ago
> it's being used in medical apartheid Can you please offer a description of exactly what you feel warrants an association with racial discrimination and persecution?
- CapricornNoble 5y ago
  How are the unvaccinated supposed to put food on their table when they are being kicked out of the military, fired from their place of employment, or told that they must comply even if operating a self-owned-work-from-home business? These people are being forced out of regular society into an underclass that will have to operate in a grey economy to survive.
  - cletus 5y ago
    Again this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the origin, meaning and reality of "apartheid". Black South Africans didn't choose to be black. They couldn't choose to be white to escape the segregation, loss of rights and brutality. No one is being held down and forcibly vaccinated. Even in the military, which is pretty strict about this, your choices are to comply or to face disciplinary procedures, possibly including being discharged from the military. That's a choice. Side note: military service members already have to comply with all sorts of medical requirements including shots. Why Covid is being singled out now is the only interesting part to this.
    - CapricornNoble 5y ago
      >>>Again this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the origin, meaning and reality of "apartheid". The etymology of the world is separateness or "apart-hood". We can debate whether the concept requires immutable physical/racial characteristics, but in most Western minds the word "apartheid" is more common to communicate concepts of enforced second-class-citizen status than others, such as in India's caste system, or burakumin here in Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin >>>No one is being held down and forcibly vaccinated. They are simply being forced into unemployment, and whether they eventually starve due to their lack of income, well, that's not YOUR fault, right? It's the most cowardly, passive-aggressive way to eliminate undesirables. This is like Israel saying they aren't actively murdering Palestinians, so what's the problem? Meanwhile they maintain a blockade that prevents import of basic stuff that has at times included wheelchairs, tin cans, livestock, and construction materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#Limitation_of_basic_goods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#Lim... >>>Side note: military service members already have to comply with all sorts of medical requirements including shots. Why Covid is being singled out now is the only interesting part to this. Because the tons of other shots that we get (including that stupid, painful anthrax booster) don't have anywhere near the rate/risk of side effects that come with COVID vaccination! And when we're exposed to stuff that DOES negatively impact our health, it has often led to the government getting sued for compensation afterwards. Examples: Agent Orange, Iraq "burn pits", USS Ronald Reagan and Fukushima radiation, etc... Upon further research, you can get VA Benefits for side-effects linked to older, bad batches of anthrax shots: https://ptsdlawyers.com/anthrax-vaccine-presents-long-term-effects/ https://ptsdlawyers.com/anthrax-vaccine-presents-long-term-e... So the government recognizes that it screwed up giving us dangerous vaccinations in the 90s and is compensating veterans, and that's for something with a LOWER risk profile than COVID vaccination. But for COVID, the entire adult population of the country is being told to either comply or join the breadlines. >>>That's a choice. Yes, and sooner or later, as people feel increasingly suppressed by the government, they will simply stop debating and "make the choice" to resort to violence. En masse. And I don't think the bulk of the people who are oh-so-smug-and-confident about the need/importance for this current trend of government authoritarianism fully appreciate what that means.
  - glogla 5y ago
    > How are the unvaccinated supposed to put food on their table Get vaccinated? Unlike minorities, they can actually do that, you know.
    - CapricornNoble 5y ago
      Ah yes, the classic position of all authoritarians: "My Way or the Highway!" And what do you tell the minorities who view vaccination mandates as yet another example of government oppression, under which they've already suffered?
      - glogla 5y ago
        I think it's quite brilliant! Unvaccinated people hurt others by spreading the disease to the vulnerable and clogging the hospitals (at much higher rate than vaccinated). Turning this around and making it so that their unvaccinated status is hurting them too, seem like a great balancing act. And talk is cheap. I remember article about how police unions in whatever US city claimed that 10 000 police officers will quit if they have to get vaccinated. The mandate went through and the number who quit was 36 or so. If less than 1 % of antivaxxers really mean it, when push comes to shove, that means we can still save the world. But I also have no patience anymore, so I'm not the best role model of a delicate approach to those things.
        CapricornNoble 5y ago
        >>>And talk is cheap. I remember article about how police unions in whatever US city claimed that 10 000 police officers will quit if they have to get vaccinated. The mandate went through and the number who quit was 36 or so. I wonder what city this would be? Maybe LA? Chicago had to pause the mandate for law enforcement due to the union backlash.[1] New York lost ~9,000 public workers (not all police though) due to their mandate.[2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/02/police-vaccine-mandate-protest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/02/police-vacci... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/new-york-city-vaccine-mandate-protest-firefighters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/new-york-cit... >>>when push comes to shove, that means we can still save the world. Except that the vaccine efficacy falls off of a cliff over time, so unless all 7 billion of us are gonna get boosters every 3 months, what is the real plan to "save the world"? If COVID is here to stay, at some point we need to add "COVID patients" to our baseline stats that drive our understanding of ICU bed requirements, and then just return to normal. At the very least "Asia normal" where people just understand to wear masks most of the day in crowded places.
cletus 5y ago
> medical apartheid This is such a baseless and inflammatory mischaracterization. It's like the tamer version of those who have unironically compared mask and vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. No one is being forcibly vaccinated so arguments about "body autonomy" are completely irrelevant. It's just that not getting vaccinated has consequences and people don't like there being negative consequences to their (irrational) actions. You need to have a bunch of vaccines to attend public schools in most places. This is nothing new. Yet people lose their shit because they're told to wear a mask on a plane when that policy was known before they even bought the ticket. To characterize any of this "apartheid", just like the comparisons to Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany, belies an ignorance and diminishes the suffering of black South Africans in Apartheid.
- angelzen 5y ago
  The full on assault on the right to work is reminiscent of the worst abuses of the XX century. Technically Stalin didn't mass murder the kulaks, he just decided they had a bad influence on the general population and offered them jobs in Siberia. "Look how many survived, even their poster boy, Solzhenitsyn, came back and had a very successful career." Plenty in the West applauded and downplayed their plight for decades. Some still do.

nuerow 5y ago

> it's being used in medical apartheid Can you please offer a description of exactly what you feel warrants an association with racial discrimination and persecution?

CapricornNoble 5y ago
How are the unvaccinated supposed to put food on their table when they are being kicked out of the military, fired from their place of employment, or told that they must comply even if operating a self-owned-work-from-home business? These people are being forced out of regular society into an underclass that will have to operate in a grey economy to survive.
- cletus 5y ago
  Again this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the origin, meaning and reality of "apartheid". Black South Africans didn't choose to be black. They couldn't choose to be white to escape the segregation, loss of rights and brutality. No one is being held down and forcibly vaccinated. Even in the military, which is pretty strict about this, your choices are to comply or to face disciplinary procedures, possibly including being discharged from the military. That's a choice. Side note: military service members already have to comply with all sorts of medical requirements including shots. Why Covid is being singled out now is the only interesting part to this.
  - CapricornNoble 5y ago
    >>>Again this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the origin, meaning and reality of "apartheid". The etymology of the world is separateness or "apart-hood". We can debate whether the concept requires immutable physical/racial characteristics, but in most Western minds the word "apartheid" is more common to communicate concepts of enforced second-class-citizen status than others, such as in India's caste system, or burakumin here in Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin >>>No one is being held down and forcibly vaccinated. They are simply being forced into unemployment, and whether they eventually starve due to their lack of income, well, that's not YOUR fault, right? It's the most cowardly, passive-aggressive way to eliminate undesirables. This is like Israel saying they aren't actively murdering Palestinians, so what's the problem? Meanwhile they maintain a blockade that prevents import of basic stuff that has at times included wheelchairs, tin cans, livestock, and construction materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#Limitation_of_basic_goods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#Lim... >>>Side note: military service members already have to comply with all sorts of medical requirements including shots. Why Covid is being singled out now is the only interesting part to this. Because the tons of other shots that we get (including that stupid, painful anthrax booster) don't have anywhere near the rate/risk of side effects that come with COVID vaccination! And when we're exposed to stuff that DOES negatively impact our health, it has often led to the government getting sued for compensation afterwards. Examples: Agent Orange, Iraq "burn pits", USS Ronald Reagan and Fukushima radiation, etc... Upon further research, you can get VA Benefits for side-effects linked to older, bad batches of anthrax shots: https://ptsdlawyers.com/anthrax-vaccine-presents-long-term-effects/ https://ptsdlawyers.com/anthrax-vaccine-presents-long-term-e... So the government recognizes that it screwed up giving us dangerous vaccinations in the 90s and is compensating veterans, and that's for something with a LOWER risk profile than COVID vaccination. But for COVID, the entire adult population of the country is being told to either comply or join the breadlines. >>>That's a choice. Yes, and sooner or later, as people feel increasingly suppressed by the government, they will simply stop debating and "make the choice" to resort to violence. En masse. And I don't think the bulk of the people who are oh-so-smug-and-confident about the need/importance for this current trend of government authoritarianism fully appreciate what that means.
- glogla 5y ago
  > How are the unvaccinated supposed to put food on their table Get vaccinated? Unlike minorities, they can actually do that, you know.
  - CapricornNoble 5y ago
    Ah yes, the classic position of all authoritarians: "My Way or the Highway!" And what do you tell the minorities who view vaccination mandates as yet another example of government oppression, under which they've already suffered?
    - glogla 5y ago
      I think it's quite brilliant! Unvaccinated people hurt others by spreading the disease to the vulnerable and clogging the hospitals (at much higher rate than vaccinated). Turning this around and making it so that their unvaccinated status is hurting them too, seem like a great balancing act. And talk is cheap. I remember article about how police unions in whatever US city claimed that 10 000 police officers will quit if they have to get vaccinated. The mandate went through and the number who quit was 36 or so. If less than 1 % of antivaxxers really mean it, when push comes to shove, that means we can still save the world. But I also have no patience anymore, so I'm not the best role model of a delicate approach to those things.
      - CapricornNoble 5y ago
        >>>And talk is cheap. I remember article about how police unions in whatever US city claimed that 10 000 police officers will quit if they have to get vaccinated. The mandate went through and the number who quit was 36 or so. I wonder what city this would be? Maybe LA? Chicago had to pause the mandate for law enforcement due to the union backlash.[1] New York lost ~9,000 public workers (not all police though) due to their mandate.[2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/02/police-vaccine-mandate-protest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/02/police-vacci... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/new-york-city-vaccine-mandate-protest-firefighters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/new-york-cit... >>>when push comes to shove, that means we can still save the world. Except that the vaccine efficacy falls off of a cliff over time, so unless all 7 billion of us are gonna get boosters every 3 months, what is the real plan to "save the world"? If COVID is here to stay, at some point we need to add "COVID patients" to our baseline stats that drive our understanding of ICU bed requirements, and then just return to normal. At the very least "Asia normal" where people just understand to wear masks most of the day in crowded places.

cletus 5y ago

> medical apartheid This is such a baseless and inflammatory mischaracterization. It's like the tamer version of those who have unironically compared mask and vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. No one is being forcibly vaccinated so arguments about "body autonomy" are completely irrelevant. It's just that not getting vaccinated has consequences and people don't like there being negative consequences to their (irrational) actions. You need to have a bunch of vaccines to attend public schools in most places. This is nothing new. Yet people lose their shit because they're told to wear a mask on a plane when that policy was known before they even bought the ticket. To characterize any of this "apartheid", just like the comparisons to Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany, belies an ignorance and diminishes the suffering of black South Africans in Apartheid.

angelzen 5y ago
The full on assault on the right to work is reminiscent of the worst abuses of the XX century. Technically Stalin didn't mass murder the kulaks, he just decided they had a bad influence on the general population and offered them jobs in Siberia. "Look how many survived, even their poster boy, Solzhenitsyn, came back and had a very successful career." Plenty in the West applauded and downplayed their plight for decades. Some still do.