kid aphex wrote:
In other words, I believe in the efficacy of vaccines on a case-by-case basis that should be decided by the reason of the individual.
The thing is, as has been said numerous times before, your rights end where someone else's begin, and vice-versa; you might not have an issue with getting vaccinated for smallpox, but others do, and in refusing to do so put not only themselves but those around them at risk. This goes double for Covid-19; as you say, the mortality rate isn't what makes it a threat, it's the fact that it can proliferate so easily and frequently do so without symptoms, thus making it far more likely to eventually find the victims that it
can kill if enough isn't done to slow or stop its spread.
The underlying question, which of course goes beyond just our response to disease, is at what point the actions of an individual or group go beyond simply exercising their rights and cross over into reckless disregard for the well-being of others, to the point that the authorities would be justified in getting involved. It's not a question there's a single hard-and-fast answer to, but I find that a lot of "I know better than those eggheads" arguments have put little or no effort into taking their effect on other people with the same rights as them into consideration.
Quote:
I believe the power of the government, it’s laws and authority, are being used by the ruling class as a tool against the lower classes.
I could go into a diatribe here about how governments are simply tools whose actions and their effects reflect the aims and values of those operating them, but that would frankly go beyond the scope of this topic; what I'll note instead is that when you talk about institutions being "compromised", in the case of the pandemic you're not only talking about a single government, or even
all the governments, but pretty much the entire global scientific community as well, which has been informing the actions said governments have been taking.
In doing so you wander into, among other things, an even farther-reaching variation of the "moon landing was faked" (or, more recently, "the election was stolen") quandary, namely the notion that a hoax was successfully pulled off which would require literally
millions of people, in
every country, including nearly
every credentialed expert on the subject, to be "in on the con" to take away our rights
and unwilling to spill the beans. And if that's possible, you can propose nearly any scenario you can dream up and the "rot" can go as deep as you like, since the
lack of hard evidence now becomes "proof" of your proposed scenario.
There's plenty to criticize about how this pandemic has been handled, but I'd be wary of attempting to tie it too closely to a larger-scale preconceived worldview, especially when doing so forces you to either grapple with (or, more troublingly, ignore) not only the government's responsibility towards you but your responsibility towards your fellow citizens.