Re: CV and mad panic behaviour
Reply #5511 –
Perhaps you could direct that comment to anti-vaxxers who, not content with having their views, seek to harm the general community with their actions.
I suggest that people holding " freedom marches" without wearing masks, deliberately making vaccination appointments with no intention of attending, and, on a personal note, a group forcing the closure of a local eye surgery last Thursday by refusing to wear masks, are the ones contributing to the social divide.
I'm directing my comment to everyone.
This transcends a rather temporary moment in time to do with a pandemic response.
https://www.abc.net.au/religion/human-rights-and-mandatory-covid-19-vaccinations/13577278
This article is incredibly well written, and there are quite a lot of people that need to take a good hard look at themselves with the sorts of vitriol that comes out of their mouths, both pro and anti.
Possible implications of mandatory vaccination
Mandatory vaccination has significant implications for human rights and the nature of government power which need to be clearly understood. For a start, it has implications for the nature of consent, which is the centrepiece of our society’s public sexual morality. This norm dictates that sexual activity must only be engaged in with each party’s free and willing consent. Section 10(c) of the Charter Act mirrors this by stating that a person must not be subjected to medical treatment without his or her full, free, and informed consent.
Despite this clear requirement for free consent, the foreshadowed vaccine mandate means any person working in Victoria will need to be vaccinated, regardless of their personal views, subject to the threat of losing one’s livelihood if a person fails to comply. This arguably poses an alarming precedent. Does this mean that reluctant compliance given under sufferance is now sufficient to constitute consent? Does consent now include compliance under the threat of harm?
Bodily autonomy is another highly important value in the modern West. The concept of autonomy dictates that all people are free to deal with their bodies as they wish, free from control or coercion by another, and underlies such things as abortion and transgender rights. However, if a person can be forced against his or her will to be vaccinated for the common good, does this signal an erosion of bodily autonomy?
Mandatory vaccination signals that there is no area of life exempt from political and governmental control. Even fundamental questions of human autonomy and bodily integrity are now subject to regulation by the state — in this case, by executive order.
Finally, compulsory vaccination treats the decision as to whether to be vaccinated or not as a decision that needs to be made on our behalf by others. Every problem in society is a technocratic problem for governments and experts to solve. This effectively infantilises the population, treating people as if they cannot be trusted to make responsible decisions. And yet democracy is predicated on the principle of popular sovereignty, the idea that parliamentarians and the government are elected by and accountable to the people. We can be trusted to determine who will govern us but not fundamental questions of our own bodily integrity.
Many will agree with compulsory vaccination, but this sets a precedent of government control which is unlikely to stop with vaccination.
Benjamin Saunders is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin Law School.
This is on many levels, not the right way to do this.
Where is the education on this subject for those who wish to remain unvaccinated?
Why are they being hit at their comply or else?
Is this the world you want to live in, where people force you to do things, or else you are out of a job, out of medicare, out of education for your children and yet this is where you have lived your life paying taxes and electing people to protect these very fundamental aspects of modern society?
I know people who are otherwise upstanding citizens, who have a family, and are now looking at the prospect of taking a vaccine under duress, because they dont know how they are going to put food on the table, and both parents are going to be out of work.
Rather than poke fun at these people, accuse them of causing the pandemic that we find ourselves in, education, and empathy are the better path to this, because very soon we are going to have a family of 5 on the streets, because they are renting, and not able to earn an income, not able to work even though both are gainfully employed, and the only way out is to take a needle that they dont see the value in taking because our government has failed to simply educate people on the benefits of doing so.
The amount of misinformation that proliferates out there is mindboggling, and we can see the divide on this very forum. I took a brief hiatus because of one vitriolic poster who seems very disconnected from the real world. Irrespective, I decided that taking a stop from the forum was a break I needed, but you dont make an impact sitting on the sidelines.
We have a very polarising thing going on, but I've stated this on numerous occasions, the quickest way to lose a lot of people who are truly unsure of whether or not this is the right thing to do, is mandate a response, at the threat of loss of lives and livelihood. The biggest issue that it creates? Next time, where this is actually the right thing to do, you are going to have a lot of people that just dont see the merit in it, particularly when you hear stories of 16 year old girls going to hospital with heart problems within 48 hours of being vaccinated.