“Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.” – Samuel Gompers With Doomberg, I’ve mostly stayed clear of the Covid-19 political fault lines. I’m not an epidemiologist, nor have I put in the time to study the science in detail. Objectively, the issue around vaccines and associated mandates has become a high-voltage arena reserved for those with strong opinions.
It's fascinating to watch just how quickly vowing to keep an open mind on how two events may or may not be related gets conflated into a belief that the events were definitely cause and effect, and the economy is doomed unless anti-vaxxers get their way. But setting aside that for a moment, let's consider the following scenario.
A highly infectious disease causes a significant number of people who contract it to spontaneously explode, causing considerable damage to everything nearby. Such explosions have sufficient force to destroy businesses, workplaces, hospitals, and even the properties of those who are merely neighbors to the infected. If there were simple preventative measures that could drastically reduce, but not entirely eliminate such destructive outcomes, does the government then have a duty to impose such measures upon the populace with every avenue of state power short of outright violent force? I believe if you are a libertarian, then the answer is clearly yes. The non-aggression principle is violated the moment an individual refuses to voluntarily adopt these simple and effective preventative measures, and willfully make themselves into a source of persistent risk against the integrity of your private property. On the other hand, individual citizens should not be expected to have on hand all the resources needed to prevent exploding neighbors from destroying their property. Conducting disease screening, quarantining, and vaccine deployment are unfair financial burdens to impose upon citizens who simply wish to continue to enjoy their private property.
So obviously catching a bad case of COVID doesn't make you literally explode, but it does impose a burden upon the overall well being of the economy, which we all depend upon to make money and have a decent quality of life. The longer COVID persists, the longer productivity, healthcare, business activity, and discretionary spending are all negatively impacted. And for hard working Americans, employees and business owners alike, whose personal financial well being depends on overall well being of the economy, every anti-vaxxer who willingly and stubbornly refuses to do the bare minimum of reducing their own odds of becoming an infection vector is, at this point, acting as an economic saboteur against your own self interest.
The Biden administration understands this. They understand that to let the pandemic persist is to let such saboteurs destroy the economy, but to use state power to try and bring it to an end may cause these stubborn reactionaries to destroy the economy anyway. Nonetheless, they have no choice but to roll the dice, because a laissez-faire approach of letting individuals choose whether or not they wish to continue to pose a financial risk to others is not a viable outcome. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have "exploded" already, and we are all still paying for the awful aftermath.
So to all the anti-vaxxer libertarians out there, I say this. Imagine for a moment if the mainstream message about the dangers of the virus and the efficacy of the vaccines were broadly correct. Who then has the most to gain from misleading a significant number of the public into believing otherwise? The answer should be straightforwards. The people who have the most to gain are, in escalating levels of malice, the frightened and misguided fellow citizens searching for a sense of belonging and agency in terrifying times, hucksters seeking to profit off disinformation and gain personal wealth and fame, and foreign state actors who seek to cause their traditional geopolitical rivals to suffer the maximum degree of social and economic instability. The very possibility that you are being influenced by foreign state power to act against both your own self interest, and the interests of your fellow citizens, should be enough to make you at least reflect upon your own stance.
"The longer COVID persists, the longer productivity, healthcare, business activity, and discretionary spending are all negatively impacted."
No. COVID is already endemic. Within months, the developed world will have at its disposal an array of effective, targeted anti-viral therapeutics, rendering COVID about as disruptive and destructive as seasonal influenza.
I find it interesting that the point of the article is how the vax response has given labor an even greater lever over capital in our modern times, and instead of responding to it most comments are about covid or the disease.
Which is EXACTLY why capital has been winning over labor the last 70 years; because the people in charge of capital are better at thinking about these issues without getting distracted by pet peeves and rhetoric.
Sadly, it's also why when labor gets fed up, it will all burn down. Because the lower levels of labor don't understand these things as easily. I hope, HOPE they see it and start to do things before it's too late. I just don't think they will.
In the first 2 paragraphs this writer identifies himself an idiot. It was compliance and vaccination that gave (THEM) the upper hand, and spawned 100 million retarded VAX groupies , who in my opinion are partially responsible through omission of resistance, for the death count and chronic illness of the other following VAX groupies. Anyone who examined the "exosome" scam in the first few months of this great big lie, knew it was a total fabrication, leading into a permanent epidemic of stupidity.... those not yet sickened, await activation of the peer approved bio chemical cocktail they foolishly ingested.
In response to G7Doug, the most compelling correlation I've discovered thus far is actually what I've been studying since before 9/11. Read the following (you'll need a Patreon account). But the nexus between Peak Oil, the population bomb, and the monstrous financial/economic distortions is the trigger for the global population reduction campaign underway. To readers in general, don't be so naive to believe that a conspiracy is not at work here. Otherwise you are the sheeple you so often deride.
Zoe, I believe the plan was to create a mild bio-weapon (Covid-19) which would initially kill a nominal number of people. Stage two was to hype the severity of the virus to justify the vaccine. Stage three was to mandate the vaccines (the real killer) which will wind up either killing people outright beginning within the first six to nine months or at least make them sterile. The MSM will not report the numbers but the death rates from those vaccinated is already on the rise. Watch what happens this winter. Brace for impact.
What I find most infuriating is that the gubmint gives Southwest, and many other corporations, direct taxpayer money or money recently printed which robs us of purchasing power (the hidden tax of inflation).
"Southwest Airlines received more than $5 billion on Covid-19 related relief from the government and owes its very survival to such support."
So the American taxpayers involuntarily are paying for their own demise and corporate America continues to act like the gubmint's gatekeeper. But, alas, there is such a thing as a social contract and the Deep State has overplayed its hand. The revolt has begun and there will eventually be a changing of the guard and despite all the dystopian prognostications "A new day will dawn for those who stand long."
It's the maniacal push / bribe to make everyone get the BUG19 Juice that is unnerving. It's downright strange. And now I'm supposed to get an untested trial vax (normally it's 10 years of trials) so that I can: still get cv19, still transmit, still have to take cv19 tests to travel, still wear a mask, still social distance.... at this stage it looks like the whole vax thing is an intelligence test, or a 'do you trust your gov't' test.
Once I saw the crowded BLM protests, and the Power Elite suddenly discard the lockdown / mask narrative in summer 2020 - I knew the fix was in. The smartest virus in the world seems to know when you're protesting 'racism', and backs off. Please.
I hear you brother. Never seen or heard of anything like this, even for much more deadly diseases. The vaccine nazis like to cite the 1905 smallpox vaccine decision in Minnesota, I think it was. Okay so I guess they’re okay with forced sterilization of and experimenting on undesirables like blacks and mental defectives and eugenics which also occurred in the same period.
If Biden makes a vax mandate to fly and the parasitic airlines don’t fight it, I hope to frequently make a fully refundable airline reservation and then cancel it as late as practical. Unpaid empty seats are a cancer to airlines.
First of all I'd like to say that I agree with the previous posters and their middle of the road, fair comments. May I also add that I am not a conspiracy theorist and I certainly don't deny that anybody who wants to wear a mask or get a vaccine - fine, good for you! What I find most concerning is that it is ALWAYS about the money. 55,000 fans in a football stadium is fine, but my teenagers must wear masks & not have lunch together at high school?? MRNA was 13 bucks 18 months ago & went to over $400 - they basically have 1 product? Whenever the government gets involved, politicians are getting PAID. They front run almost ALL of there own policy decisions and this alone gives me pause. Remember, the vaccines are not FDA approved ( thalidomide was FDA approved, for those old enough to remember THAT horror story) the vaccines are FDA approved for EMERGENCY USE - NOT the same thing at all.
I've asked the question elsewhere and have yet to find an answer but, from the beginning of the pandemic our global leaders have responded with lockdowns and shutdowns as a tool to fight spread. I haven't seen anyone do a correlation analysis of these specific policies and increased contagion and I don't have the expertise for it. I have seen the anecdotal examples of NY nursing homes, Italian cities, the entire continent of Australia and many others where cases continue to rise consistently with lockdowns - what came first, the Doomberg or the egg?
After all, that one policy is asking people to go indoors with other people in close proximity. What's the possibility that our #1 tool for fighting the pandemic is the exact opposite of what we should have been doing all along?..
""55,000 fans in a football stadium is fine, but my teenagers must wear masks & not have lunch together at high school??""
Right. And you and I have to quarantine inside our homes, while others can have "mostly peaceful protests" completely unmasked and definitely not socially distanced.
And this is why regular people lose. There's always someone who spergs and has to correct a fellow Prole. Meanwhile, those at the top feed you poison, destroy your country, and turn your money into worthless garbage. You're right about Thalidomide, it was only because an intrepid FDA official saw the carnage in Europe and put a stop to it. Then, 40 years later, it's approved. BTW, it was on track to get approval.
Put "Vioxx" in place of Thalidomide if it makes you feel better, and be sure to screenshot your letter to your local officials about the rank hypocrisy and double standards they've perpetrated. And try not to sperg out. Point your weapon toward the enemy for chrissakes.
Wow. NOT the same at all! The baker made a PERSONAL decision based on his beliefs, he didn't require his employees to adopt the same beliefs!! Chik-Fil-A doesn't ask whether it's employees support gay marriage, regardless of how the owners of the company feel about it.
It's fascinating to watch just how quickly vowing to keep an open mind on how two events may or may not be related gets conflated into a belief that the events were definitely cause and effect, and the economy is doomed unless anti-vaxxers get their way. But setting aside that for a moment, let's consider the following scenario.
A highly infectious disease causes a significant number of people who contract it to spontaneously explode, causing considerable damage to everything nearby. Such explosions have sufficient force to destroy businesses, workplaces, hospitals, and even the properties of those who are merely neighbors to the infected. If there were simple preventative measures that could drastically reduce, but not entirely eliminate such destructive outcomes, does the government then have a duty to impose such measures upon the populace with every avenue of state power short of outright violent force? I believe if you are a libertarian, then the answer is clearly yes. The non-aggression principle is violated the moment an individual refuses to voluntarily adopt these simple and effective preventative measures, and willfully make themselves into a source of persistent risk against the integrity of your private property. On the other hand, individual citizens should not be expected to have on hand all the resources needed to prevent exploding neighbors from destroying their property. Conducting disease screening, quarantining, and vaccine deployment are unfair financial burdens to impose upon citizens who simply wish to continue to enjoy their private property.
So obviously catching a bad case of COVID doesn't make you literally explode, but it does impose a burden upon the overall well being of the economy, which we all depend upon to make money and have a decent quality of life. The longer COVID persists, the longer productivity, healthcare, business activity, and discretionary spending are all negatively impacted. And for hard working Americans, employees and business owners alike, whose personal financial well being depends on overall well being of the economy, every anti-vaxxer who willingly and stubbornly refuses to do the bare minimum of reducing their own odds of becoming an infection vector is, at this point, acting as an economic saboteur against your own self interest.
The Biden administration understands this. They understand that to let the pandemic persist is to let such saboteurs destroy the economy, but to use state power to try and bring it to an end may cause these stubborn reactionaries to destroy the economy anyway. Nonetheless, they have no choice but to roll the dice, because a laissez-faire approach of letting individuals choose whether or not they wish to continue to pose a financial risk to others is not a viable outcome. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have "exploded" already, and we are all still paying for the awful aftermath.
So to all the anti-vaxxer libertarians out there, I say this. Imagine for a moment if the mainstream message about the dangers of the virus and the efficacy of the vaccines were broadly correct. Who then has the most to gain from misleading a significant number of the public into believing otherwise? The answer should be straightforwards. The people who have the most to gain are, in escalating levels of malice, the frightened and misguided fellow citizens searching for a sense of belonging and agency in terrifying times, hucksters seeking to profit off disinformation and gain personal wealth and fame, and foreign state actors who seek to cause their traditional geopolitical rivals to suffer the maximum degree of social and economic instability. The very possibility that you are being influenced by foreign state power to act against both your own self interest, and the interests of your fellow citizens, should be enough to make you at least reflect upon your own stance.
"The longer COVID persists, the longer productivity, healthcare, business activity, and discretionary spending are all negatively impacted."
No. COVID is already endemic. Within months, the developed world will have at its disposal an array of effective, targeted anti-viral therapeutics, rendering COVID about as disruptive and destructive as seasonal influenza.
Yippeee!
I find it interesting that the point of the article is how the vax response has given labor an even greater lever over capital in our modern times, and instead of responding to it most comments are about covid or the disease.
Which is EXACTLY why capital has been winning over labor the last 70 years; because the people in charge of capital are better at thinking about these issues without getting distracted by pet peeves and rhetoric.
Sadly, it's also why when labor gets fed up, it will all burn down. Because the lower levels of labor don't understand these things as easily. I hope, HOPE they see it and start to do things before it's too late. I just don't think they will.
In the first 2 paragraphs this writer identifies himself an idiot. It was compliance and vaccination that gave (THEM) the upper hand, and spawned 100 million retarded VAX groupies , who in my opinion are partially responsible through omission of resistance, for the death count and chronic illness of the other following VAX groupies. Anyone who examined the "exosome" scam in the first few months of this great big lie, knew it was a total fabrication, leading into a permanent epidemic of stupidity.... those not yet sickened, await activation of the peer approved bio chemical cocktail they foolishly ingested.
This is great news! I am cautiously optimistic about the prospects for freedom in the United States.
“The spirit of the vaccine mandate is to get people vaccinated. It wasn’t to try to force people.”
If threatening people with their job isn't force, I don't know what is.
WHY DO MSM HAVE EXPERTS ON SAYING VAX DOSENT WORK AND DANGEROUS????? NO OPPOSING VIEWS ALLOWED
In response to G7Doug, the most compelling correlation I've discovered thus far is actually what I've been studying since before 9/11. Read the following (you'll need a Patreon account). But the nexus between Peak Oil, the population bomb, and the monstrous financial/economic distortions is the trigger for the global population reduction campaign underway. To readers in general, don't be so naive to believe that a conspiracy is not at work here. Otherwise you are the sheeple you so often deride.
If they wanted to reduce the population, why did the warp-speed the vaccine?
Zoe, I believe the plan was to create a mild bio-weapon (Covid-19) which would initially kill a nominal number of people. Stage two was to hype the severity of the virus to justify the vaccine. Stage three was to mandate the vaccines (the real killer) which will wind up either killing people outright beginning within the first six to nine months or at least make them sterile. The MSM will not report the numbers but the death rates from those vaccinated is already on the rise. Watch what happens this winter. Brace for impact.
https://cluborlov.wordpress.com/2021/01/18/the-petrochemical-pandemic/
What I find most infuriating is that the gubmint gives Southwest, and many other corporations, direct taxpayer money or money recently printed which robs us of purchasing power (the hidden tax of inflation).
"Southwest Airlines received more than $5 billion on Covid-19 related relief from the government and owes its very survival to such support."
So the American taxpayers involuntarily are paying for their own demise and corporate America continues to act like the gubmint's gatekeeper. But, alas, there is such a thing as a social contract and the Deep State has overplayed its hand. The revolt has begun and there will eventually be a changing of the guard and despite all the dystopian prognostications "A new day will dawn for those who stand long."
I left Canada a week ago over not wanting to be forcefully jabbed. I will stay away until the either come to their senses, or learn a very hard lesson
Bravo Go!
It's the maniacal push / bribe to make everyone get the BUG19 Juice that is unnerving. It's downright strange. And now I'm supposed to get an untested trial vax (normally it's 10 years of trials) so that I can: still get cv19, still transmit, still have to take cv19 tests to travel, still wear a mask, still social distance.... at this stage it looks like the whole vax thing is an intelligence test, or a 'do you trust your gov't' test.
Once I saw the crowded BLM protests, and the Power Elite suddenly discard the lockdown / mask narrative in summer 2020 - I knew the fix was in. The smartest virus in the world seems to know when you're protesting 'racism', and backs off. Please.
I hear you brother. Never seen or heard of anything like this, even for much more deadly diseases. The vaccine nazis like to cite the 1905 smallpox vaccine decision in Minnesota, I think it was. Okay so I guess they’re okay with forced sterilization of and experimenting on undesirables like blacks and mental defectives and eugenics which also occurred in the same period.
If Biden makes a vax mandate to fly and the parasitic airlines don’t fight it, I hope to frequently make a fully refundable airline reservation and then cancel it as late as practical. Unpaid empty seats are a cancer to airlines.
“the airlines are signaling to Mr. Biden that this effort is not going to fly”
Love what you did there
As always, an enjoyable read, thanks chook.
First of all I'd like to say that I agree with the previous posters and their middle of the road, fair comments. May I also add that I am not a conspiracy theorist and I certainly don't deny that anybody who wants to wear a mask or get a vaccine - fine, good for you! What I find most concerning is that it is ALWAYS about the money. 55,000 fans in a football stadium is fine, but my teenagers must wear masks & not have lunch together at high school?? MRNA was 13 bucks 18 months ago & went to over $400 - they basically have 1 product? Whenever the government gets involved, politicians are getting PAID. They front run almost ALL of there own policy decisions and this alone gives me pause. Remember, the vaccines are not FDA approved ( thalidomide was FDA approved, for those old enough to remember THAT horror story) the vaccines are FDA approved for EMERGENCY USE - NOT the same thing at all.
I've asked the question elsewhere and have yet to find an answer but, from the beginning of the pandemic our global leaders have responded with lockdowns and shutdowns as a tool to fight spread. I haven't seen anyone do a correlation analysis of these specific policies and increased contagion and I don't have the expertise for it. I have seen the anecdotal examples of NY nursing homes, Italian cities, the entire continent of Australia and many others where cases continue to rise consistently with lockdowns - what came first, the Doomberg or the egg?
After all, that one policy is asking people to go indoors with other people in close proximity. What's the possibility that our #1 tool for fighting the pandemic is the exact opposite of what we should have been doing all along?..
Of note, it’s the only pandemic in which the healthy people have been quarantined!
""55,000 fans in a football stadium is fine, but my teenagers must wear masks & not have lunch together at high school??""
Right. And you and I have to quarantine inside our homes, while others can have "mostly peaceful protests" completely unmasked and definitely not socially distanced.
Thalidomide wasn't FDA approved until some 40 years after the horror story.
And this is why regular people lose. There's always someone who spergs and has to correct a fellow Prole. Meanwhile, those at the top feed you poison, destroy your country, and turn your money into worthless garbage. You're right about Thalidomide, it was only because an intrepid FDA official saw the carnage in Europe and put a stop to it. Then, 40 years later, it's approved. BTW, it was on track to get approval.
Put "Vioxx" in place of Thalidomide if it makes you feel better, and be sure to screenshot your letter to your local officials about the rank hypocrisy and double standards they've perpetrated. And try not to sperg out. Point your weapon toward the enemy for chrissakes.
The vaccine mandates work. UAL had 98.5% success.
Also as a Libertarian, you should be in favor of companies making decisions, and employees either following or leaving. Sounds perfect.
Or, to put it another way:
People can't support a baker that is sued for not baking a cake, and then get mad at a business that requires vaccinations of its employees.
Both are free business decisions.
Pick a side . . .
Bullpucky. The directions are from the government, nobody is doing it because they want to.
Oh look an authoritarian figure has entered the chat
Explain why Unions exist now.
Wow. NOT the same at all! The baker made a PERSONAL decision based on his beliefs, he didn't require his employees to adopt the same beliefs!! Chik-Fil-A doesn't ask whether it's employees support gay marriage, regardless of how the owners of the company feel about it.