>and yet kids have been forced to take vaccines for 50+ years to go to school. This is at the state level and each state decides their vaccination requirements

>and yet kids have been forced to take vaccines for 50+ years to go to school. This is at the state level and each state decides their vaccination requirements. Many states have religious and medical exemptions. You can always move to another state or file for religious exemption or send your kids to private school or even home school if you really don't want to vaccinate them. From what I understand the current vaccine mandate doesn't even allow exemption for people who have already caught covid, have natural immunity, and are at higher risk of negative outcomes due to the vaccine. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3865&context=wmlr https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3... >then what about the smoking laws? The second hand smoke theory was based on bad science to achieve a political end. It's funny you mention that because this was probably one of the first major catalysts in recent memory that really pushed the distrust of "government science." https://slate.com/technology/2017/02/secondhand-smoke-isnt-as-bad-as-we-thought.html https://slate.com/technology/2017/02/secondhand-smoke-isnt-a... >problem is "you" don't live on an island. Your actions impact others. Right, but that same thing applies to the citizenry accepting dubious mandates that are unconstitutional. The problem is the government (and media) is using the heavy handed / force approach, which is pretty stupid and obviously counter-effective as evidenced by our current vaccination rate. Federal employees can opt to have weekly tests in lieu of the vaccine though, which is good. Companies haven't been given much guidance though and they collectively bear a larger burden because of numbers and liability. There are other issues like the government absolved all liability from the vaccine manufacturers as well, which isn't great optics, yet they didn't absolve the companies that are now tasked to force employees to take the vaccine from the same liability. Let's say I'm an employer and I force my employees to get the vaccine. One employee requires hospitalization due to the vaccine. I am now liable for his medical bills. It's completely ham fisted. This is a pretty interesting, well thought out point of view of employer mandates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apF6bft5kFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apF6bft5kFA >Am I arguing that vaccine mandates are a good thing, not always. Just the highly binary arguments don't really do justice to the complexity of the issue. >And yes I'm on a war against absolutes because only a sith thinks in absolutes. You mean the entire discussion from this point has been "vaccines are good, you are a detriment to society if you don't accept this absolute?" Ya I agree with that. At one point the government and media used to respect the citizenry's ability to reason; now not so much.