10 ms·

Latvia bans unvaccinated lawmakers from voting, docks pay

53 points by charbonneau2 5y ago

_-david-_ 5y ago
What are the limitations on banning lawmakers from voting? Could politicians ban their opponents from voting for any reason?
Canada 5y ago
How can members of a legislative body simply vote that others they disagree with can no longer vote anymore? Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of having a legislative body in the first place?
- mikem170 5y ago
  Especially when the risk to vaccinated lawmakers is so low.
- throwawayfear 5y ago
  Because it is about power and control.
- smabie 5y ago
  power is never given only taken
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  They can't. It's simply a coup by one party.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  They can totally vote - soon as they get vaccinated. If hairdressers, teachers, doctors, nurses, etc. are required to be vaccinated to continue their trade, why shouldn't the same apply to politicians? This only applies to 9 out of 100 members of parliament, and was support by 62 out of 100, so it's not like this is some stealth power grab - assuming all nine of the dissenting MPs are from the Opposition, the Opposition has gone from 38 votes out of 100 to 29. That said, I don't know how the Latvian constitution works, but I'm wagering the Government can't push through anything with 62 votes for, 29 against that it couldn't already push through with 62 for, 38 against.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    Of course it's a power grab (albeit not healthy). The whole point of a democracy is that you can vote out the majority ruling party. Once they start banning minority oppositions from voting at all, it's dead, it's over. The voters who selected those MPs are disenfranchised, it's not a democracy anymore. Very simple.
throwawaysea 5y ago
This feels like a weirdly one way decision. As in, this policy is not one they can be undone by legislators who disagree because they’re excluded from voting by the same policy.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  Presumably they had already voted against it, there were 62 out of 100 votes for it, not 62 out of 91. (It only applies to 9 politicians).
isaacremuant 5y ago
Europe will be hell this winter. The inability to maintain the lie that restrictions were worth it because "we were waiting for vaccines" will mean that they have to scapegoat "the unvaccinated" even harder. No law, human right or ethical qualm is to be considered. Just hate and blame because authoritianism and segregation is what we've always wanted and needed. Personal choice is a sin.
- somewhereoutth 5y ago
  It's a sin when, in aggregate, it causes large scale sickness and death. Everyday the world gets smaller, it can't be stopped and there is nowhere to hide. This perculiarly American 'freedom fantasy'* will become more and more untenable as real reality bites. *Americans are very much less free than they think they are - they don't even have the first freedom - the freedom from fear!
  - ghoward 5y ago
    99+% recovery rate is not "large scale sickness and death". But authoritarian governments almost invariably cause large scale sickness and death. The reality is that lack of freedom is the default state of the world through history, and America was one of the few exemptions. Losing that is extremely sad, and to see political opposition locked out of the process for no good reason is chilling. It means that freedom will be lost, and with it, we will see a rise in large scale sickness and death caused by governments.
Ekaros 5y ago
How can anyone justify this sort of action? I'm starting to think that so called western democracies are a lie after all...
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  They've always been a lie... The west is simply better at propaganda.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please stop posting ideological flamebait to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  Nurses, teachers, doctors, hairdressers, etc. are subject to vaccine mandates - why should politicians be treated any differently?
  - ghoward 5y ago
    Nurses, teachers, doctors, hairdressers, etc., should not be subject to vaccine mandates. Doing that exacerbates the problems of understaffed ICU's, schools, and service industry, not to mention the fact that governments have been the biggest killers of people. Compared to a virus with a 99+% survival rate, they have killed orders of magnitude more. Giving governments more power at a time like this, and tanking the economy like this, as well as shutting so many people out of the economy, seems like stepping on a landmine to prevent getting shot.
    - EdwardDiego 5y ago
      Okay, sounds like you have a pamphlet you'd like me to read. I'd simply state that many public health measures are mandated. This is just another one. You can't drive drunk, you have to wear a seat belt, you can't build buildings out of straw or sticks (you silly pigs), you can't pour sewage into you can't have unprotected sex without disclosing it when you know you're HIV positive. You can't sell black tar heroin. You can't fly into various countries from a country with yellow fever without proof of vaccination against yellow fever. You can focus on that "99+%" survival rate if you like (which involves ignoring that the actual survival rate greatly differs between different cohorts), but if you don't take into consideration the considerable amount of resources and effort that healthcare systems put into achieving that, you're only deceiving yourself. Also - hospitals have limited capacity designed for non-pandemic times. Vaccination against Covid prevents excessive demand from a preventable severe illness overwhelming healthcare systems, causing even more excess deaths, even if they didn't die from Covid, they died due to Covid. Lastly, as members of society, we have obligations to other members of our society. Pay tax to contribute to shared infrastructure, follow the laws passed by representatives of your country's voters, etc. I'm quite happy for people to remain unvaccinated if they ensure that they can never pass it onto others, and if they waive their rights to medical treatment if they become ill.
walterbell 5y ago
What's the duress hand/eye signal for lawmakers?
Factorium 5y ago
I've often wondered what the lived experience would have been like in 30s Germany or 10s Russia. Now we know. Its not hard to totally transform society once the reigns of power are seized; and most will just go along with it.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Are you for real? Comparing vaccines with literal Nazis?
  - dham 5y ago
    * treatment. They're comparing a short term treatment to Nazi's. I mean it does seem like a slippery slope.
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Removing the opposition's right to vote is a NAZI tactic. Every totalitarian government started with tactics like this. Often campaigning on a popular platform. The vaccine is no different to the socialist utopia promised by the Soviets. The utopia is not the problem it's the means of getting there.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      It's a tactic of authoritarian regimes, it's not something unique to the nazi regime so calling it a nazi tactic is a bit of a stretch. Then again the GP never called it that anyway, he mentioned 2 authoritarian regimes.
    - EdwardDiego 5y ago
      32 people voted against this. It only applies to 9 people. If they really want to oppose the government, get vaccinated, like the rest of the country is going to have to do.
      - xupybd 5y ago
        First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.(Martin Niemöller)
analogdreams 5y ago
That seems problematic and quite the slippery slope...
nafix 5y ago
If you think this is fun, go read the story about Austria imposing lockdowns on unvaccinated people.
haspoken 5y ago
https://archive.md/wOcDM https://archive.md/wOcDM
TooSmugToFail 5y ago
The reality is that antivax lawmakers are by and large radical populists from the extreme ends of political spectrum, exploiting the weaknesses of the uneducated (and typically most vulnerable) portion of the electorate. Most of them are also political opportunists, knowingly lying and manipulating the weakest in our societies. Their political work mostly boils down to amplifying harmful misinformation and giving it legitimacy and credibility through their office — all for their selfish political ends. That being said, they are democratically elected representatives, and banning them from the democratic process rightfully raises questions about legitimacy of such measures, regardless of morality of their political ways. But in addressing those questions, we have to consider consequences of their political action, which are accounted in tens or even hundreds of human lives lost EACH DAY. What do we value more? Human lives, or the right of immoral political actors to exploit the drawbacks and imperfections of our fragile democratic processes?
- ghoward 5y ago
  > But in addressing those questions, we have to consider consequences of their political action, which are accounted in tens or even hundreds of human lives lost EACH DAY. Sure, if we do the same for the politicians like New York's governor who forced nursing homes to take COVID-positive patients and actually killed people. However, is there political action really killing people? The CDC had admitted that they have no data showing that naturally immune people spread the virus [1], but vaccinated people do. So perhaps those politicians are helping save lives by encouraging people to become naturally immune instead! In other words, you assume they are killing people. That assumption is disingenuous. > What do we value more? Human lives, or the right of immoral political actors to exploit the drawbacks and imperfections of our fragile democratic processes? The slowness of democratic processes, and allowing people to make their own decisions are features, not bugs. Also, the biggest killer of people throughout history has always been governments that are out of control. This is a case of a government going out of control, which has far more deadly potential than not getting vaccinated for a virus with a 99+% survival rate and where the vaccinated still spread the virus. [1]: https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/12/cdc-admits-it-has-no-evidence-of-recovered-covid-patients-spreading-the-virus/ https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/12/cdc-admits-it-has-no-ev...
IYasha 5y ago
Goodbye freedom? Since when someone's medical preference became mandatory public and a basis for segregation? Since today, apparently. Someone stop the planet, please.
t0bia_s 5y ago
Vaccination won't give immunity to virus. It's not like in video games. How much are people actually terrified by propaganda in media that are able to justify this decisions? Why we need to repeat history over and over?

53 points by charbonneau2 5y ago

What are the limitations on banning lawmakers from voting? Could politicians ban their opponents from voting for any reason?

Canada 5y ago

How can members of a legislative body simply vote that others they disagree with can no longer vote anymore? Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of having a legislative body in the first place?

mikem170 5y ago
Especially when the risk to vaccinated lawmakers is so low.
throwawayfear 5y ago
Because it is about power and control.
smabie 5y ago
power is never given only taken
Mikeb85 5y ago
They can't. It's simply a coup by one party.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
They can totally vote - soon as they get vaccinated. If hairdressers, teachers, doctors, nurses, etc. are required to be vaccinated to continue their trade, why shouldn't the same apply to politicians? This only applies to 9 out of 100 members of parliament, and was support by 62 out of 100, so it's not like this is some stealth power grab - assuming all nine of the dissenting MPs are from the Opposition, the Opposition has gone from 38 votes out of 100 to 29. That said, I don't know how the Latvian constitution works, but I'm wagering the Government can't push through anything with 62 votes for, 29 against that it couldn't already push through with 62 for, 38 against.
- native_samples 5y ago
  Of course it's a power grab (albeit not healthy). The whole point of a democracy is that you can vote out the majority ruling party. Once they start banning minority oppositions from voting at all, it's dead, it's over. The voters who selected those MPs are disenfranchised, it's not a democracy anymore. Very simple.

throwawaysea 5y ago

This feels like a weirdly one way decision. As in, this policy is not one they can be undone by legislators who disagree because they’re excluded from voting by the same policy.

EdwardDiego 5y ago
Presumably they had already voted against it, there were 62 out of 100 votes for it, not 62 out of 91. (It only applies to 9 politicians).

isaacremuant 5y ago

Europe will be hell this winter. The inability to maintain the lie that restrictions were worth it because "we were waiting for vaccines" will mean that they have to scapegoat "the unvaccinated" even harder. No law, human right or ethical qualm is to be considered. Just hate and blame because authoritianism and segregation is what we've always wanted and needed. Personal choice is a sin.

somewhereoutth 5y ago
It's a sin when, in aggregate, it causes large scale sickness and death. Everyday the world gets smaller, it can't be stopped and there is nowhere to hide. This perculiarly American 'freedom fantasy'* will become more and more untenable as real reality bites. *Americans are very much less free than they think they are - they don't even have the first freedom - the freedom from fear!
- ghoward 5y ago
  99+% recovery rate is not "large scale sickness and death". But authoritarian governments almost invariably cause large scale sickness and death. The reality is that lack of freedom is the default state of the world through history, and America was one of the few exemptions. Losing that is extremely sad, and to see political opposition locked out of the process for no good reason is chilling. It means that freedom will be lost, and with it, we will see a rise in large scale sickness and death caused by governments.

Ekaros 5y ago

How can anyone justify this sort of action? I'm starting to think that so called western democracies are a lie after all...

Mikeb85 5y ago
They've always been a lie... The west is simply better at propaganda.
- dang 5y ago
  Please stop posting ideological flamebait to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
EdwardDiego 5y ago
Nurses, teachers, doctors, hairdressers, etc. are subject to vaccine mandates - why should politicians be treated any differently?
- ghoward 5y ago
  Nurses, teachers, doctors, hairdressers, etc., should not be subject to vaccine mandates. Doing that exacerbates the problems of understaffed ICU's, schools, and service industry, not to mention the fact that governments have been the biggest killers of people. Compared to a virus with a 99+% survival rate, they have killed orders of magnitude more. Giving governments more power at a time like this, and tanking the economy like this, as well as shutting so many people out of the economy, seems like stepping on a landmine to prevent getting shot.
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    Okay, sounds like you have a pamphlet you'd like me to read. I'd simply state that many public health measures are mandated. This is just another one. You can't drive drunk, you have to wear a seat belt, you can't build buildings out of straw or sticks (you silly pigs), you can't pour sewage into you can't have unprotected sex without disclosing it when you know you're HIV positive. You can't sell black tar heroin. You can't fly into various countries from a country with yellow fever without proof of vaccination against yellow fever. You can focus on that "99+%" survival rate if you like (which involves ignoring that the actual survival rate greatly differs between different cohorts), but if you don't take into consideration the considerable amount of resources and effort that healthcare systems put into achieving that, you're only deceiving yourself. Also - hospitals have limited capacity designed for non-pandemic times. Vaccination against Covid prevents excessive demand from a preventable severe illness overwhelming healthcare systems, causing even more excess deaths, even if they didn't die from Covid, they died due to Covid. Lastly, as members of society, we have obligations to other members of our society. Pay tax to contribute to shared infrastructure, follow the laws passed by representatives of your country's voters, etc. I'm quite happy for people to remain unvaccinated if they ensure that they can never pass it onto others, and if they waive their rights to medical treatment if they become ill.

walterbell 5y ago

What's the duress hand/eye signal for lawmakers?

Factorium 5y ago

I've often wondered what the lived experience would have been like in 30s Germany or 10s Russia. Now we know. Its not hard to totally transform society once the reigns of power are seized; and most will just go along with it.

selfhoster11 5y ago
Are you for real? Comparing vaccines with literal Nazis?
- dham 5y ago
  * treatment. They're comparing a short term treatment to Nazi's. I mean it does seem like a slippery slope.
- xupybd 5y ago
  Removing the opposition's right to vote is a NAZI tactic. Every totalitarian government started with tactics like this. Often campaigning on a popular platform. The vaccine is no different to the socialist utopia promised by the Soviets. The utopia is not the problem it's the means of getting there.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    It's a tactic of authoritarian regimes, it's not something unique to the nazi regime so calling it a nazi tactic is a bit of a stretch. Then again the GP never called it that anyway, he mentioned 2 authoritarian regimes.
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    32 people voted against this. It only applies to 9 people. If they really want to oppose the government, get vaccinated, like the rest of the country is going to have to do.
    - xupybd 5y ago
      First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.(Martin Niemöller)

analogdreams 5y ago

That seems problematic and quite the slippery slope...

nafix 5y ago

If you think this is fun, go read the story about Austria imposing lockdowns on unvaccinated people.

haspoken 5y ago

https://archive.md/wOcDM https://archive.md/wOcDM

TooSmugToFail 5y ago

The reality is that antivax lawmakers are by and large radical populists from the extreme ends of political spectrum, exploiting the weaknesses of the uneducated (and typically most vulnerable) portion of the electorate. Most of them are also political opportunists, knowingly lying and manipulating the weakest in our societies. Their political work mostly boils down to amplifying harmful misinformation and giving it legitimacy and credibility through their office — all for their selfish political ends. That being said, they are democratically elected representatives, and banning them from the democratic process rightfully raises questions about legitimacy of such measures, regardless of morality of their political ways. But in addressing those questions, we have to consider consequences of their political action, which are accounted in tens or even hundreds of human lives lost EACH DAY. What do we value more? Human lives, or the right of immoral political actors to exploit the drawbacks and imperfections of our fragile democratic processes?

ghoward 5y ago
> But in addressing those questions, we have to consider consequences of their political action, which are accounted in tens or even hundreds of human lives lost EACH DAY. Sure, if we do the same for the politicians like New York's governor who forced nursing homes to take COVID-positive patients and actually killed people. However, is there political action really killing people? The CDC had admitted that they have no data showing that naturally immune people spread the virus [1], but vaccinated people do. So perhaps those politicians are helping save lives by encouraging people to become naturally immune instead! In other words, you assume they are killing people. That assumption is disingenuous. > What do we value more? Human lives, or the right of immoral political actors to exploit the drawbacks and imperfections of our fragile democratic processes? The slowness of democratic processes, and allowing people to make their own decisions are features, not bugs. Also, the biggest killer of people throughout history has always been governments that are out of control. This is a case of a government going out of control, which has far more deadly potential than not getting vaccinated for a virus with a 99+% survival rate and where the vaccinated still spread the virus. [1]: https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/12/cdc-admits-it-has-no-evidence-of-recovered-covid-patients-spreading-the-virus/ https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/12/cdc-admits-it-has-no-ev...

IYasha 5y ago

Goodbye freedom? Since when someone's medical preference became mandatory public and a basis for segregation? Since today, apparently. Someone stop the planet, please.

t0bia_s 5y ago

Vaccination won't give immunity to virus. It's not like in video games. How much are people actually terrified by propaganda in media that are able to justify this decisions? Why we need to repeat history over and over?