[dahart]

Is it tyranny if it’s what the majority wants and votes for? It seems like “tyranny” is being used to describe situations where democracy is working as expected, and some people just don’t want to accept the majority result. I feel like this word tyranny is being thrown around a lot lately without much rigorous thinking about the fact that we do need laws because we have no choice about having to share a lot of things including the air we breathe. Is the fact that it’s illegal to murder someone tyrannical and authoritarian?

[peteradio]

How much of your comfort in these drugs is based on who is holding power wherever you may reside?

I don't really know what you are talking about with the murder analogy. Obviously the uncomfortable issue at play here is the duality of:

Your right to swing your arms ends at my face or whatever.

Who's doing what to who here? Are you punching me with the mandate or am I punching you with my hypothetical infection and hypothetical ICU bed? Do we have to put numbers to how hypothetically infectious I am or we must fall in line and "Do whatever we can" which today happens to be getting injected with a drug that fails to prevent infection.

[dahart]

> How much of your comfort in these drugs is based on who is holding power wherever you may reside?

Literally zero. I know enough about science and economics to know that the US president has no bearing on the efficacy of the COVID vaccine whatsoever, just like politicians have exactly zero bearing on how well the flu vaccine works or how well Ibuprofen works.

> Your right to swing your arms ends at my face or whatever.

Right, so why in your mind doesn’t that extend to my right to not get infected by you in public?

P.S. you dodged the question: why is a mandate that the majority wants equivalent to tyranny? Do you think the mandate to buy car insurance in order to drive on public roads is tyranny?

[spurgu]

Oh you mean the Americans who think they have a 15-25% chance of dying from Covid if they get it? I wouldn't trust the majority to be well-informed.

https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/ (granted the numbers have been going down recently, but it still illustrates the hysteria quite well)

And I also wouldn't trust big pharma to have my best interest in mind.

[dahart]

> Oh you mean the Americans who think they have a 15-25% chance of dying from Covid if they get it?

Absolutely not. I meant the total number of people who have actually died from it compared to the near zero vaccine fatalities.

[spurgu]

Your question (not me though, but) was:

> why is a mandate that the majority wants equivalent to tyranny?

I doubt the dead people (the vast majority being 60+) are the ones mandating it.

It's the same people who think it's imperative that we vaccinate children when a) children are barely affected by the virus b) the vaccine doesn't do much for the transmission rate anyways.

And if that's a majority then the majority is simply misinformed (or stupid).

[dahart]

> I doubt the dead people (the vast majority being 60+) are the ones mandating it.

What’s with the silly straw man? Your last comment was a straw man too. I’m interested in a rational discussion if we can have one. Are you uninterested in that?

> if that’s a majority then the majority is simply misinformed (or stupid).

Then it seems like you’re saying the vaccine mandate is not tyranny, it’s just in your opinion stupid people, right?

[ifyoubuildit]

This may be relevant to your question: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

[dahart]

Do you believe this is what parent was referring to? I must assume not because they used the word “authoritarian”, which implies they’re complaining about minority groups imposing their will on the majority.

Do you believe that Tyranny of the Majority is a valid concern with the vaccine mandates? Which minority groups are being oppressed?

[ifyoubuildit]

I can't speak for parent, I'll leave that to them. I just meant to show evidence that because something is approved by the majority doesn't disqualify it from being tyrannical.

Personally, I don't see why it wouldn't be a concern with the mandates, but I think this conversation has already been repeated by others ad nauseum:

I say bodily autonomy, you might say we mandate all sorts of vaccines, I say these aren't those vaccines, you might say well they're safe and effective, and I say talk to me in 5 or 10 years when we have long term data, and you might say well we've never linked adverse effects to previous vaccines after n days, to which I'd say good luck actually finding those impacts if they do exist and again these aren't those vaccines, and we eventually arrive at a difference in beliefs/biases and an impasse.

[dahart]

> I say bodily autonomy, you might say we mandate all sorts of vaccines […] talk to me in 5 or 10 years when we have long term data

It’s strange to me that the arguments against vaccines are all self-centered, about personal risk, and the arguments in favor are all addressing net social benefit. I kinda want the bodily autonomy to not get infected by someone refusing to take any social precautions over political beliefs.

We have more than enough data already, enough people have died from COVID, to prove the vaccine is a net benefit to society, and enough data and solid evidence to know that the personal risk is much lower than the risks that come from getting COVID.

> because something is approved by the majority doesn’t disqualify it from being tyrannical

We’re talking about something specific, not vague platitudes. Tyranny is defined as being oppressive, arbitrary or cruel assertions of power. None of that is true for the COVID vaccine.

[ifyoubuildit]

We're going to have to agree to disagree on your usage of autonomy there, but your point is taken. We should be looking out for each other, and I think you'd find that a lot of people probably are, even if they disagree with you about various covid/vaccine issues.

Regular testing, distancing, masking, foregoing normal activities are examples of other ways to look out for each other. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think we'll eventually find that folks who just got vaccinated and went about life like normal probably caused more spread than folks who didn't but kept up all the other precautions. I think if you assume everyone thats going about it differently from you is selfish, you're going to be missing chunks of the picture.

> We have more than enough data already...

And this is where we find our difference in beliefs/biases. Same for your opinions on what is and isn't tyranny, which you're welcome to.

[dahart]

> I think we’ll eventually find that folks who just got vaccinated and went about life like normal probably caused more spread than folks who didn’t

Why do you believe this? What evidence do you have to ignore the overwhelming conclusions of all the experts actually studying the disease and the vaccine? The idea that vaccinations cause more spread has in fact been studied on the COVID vaccine and on others. It’s generally not true for most vaccines, why do you think it’s true for this one?

Why are you talking about spread and not also hospitalizations and fatalities? The vaccine considerably lessens the risk of dying. Even if the spread rate were to increase a little (which I don’t really buy), but the risk decreases by an order of magnitude, isn’t a lower total death rate a social net benefit?

How many people have died of COVID to date? How many people have died of COVID vaccines so far? Seriously, please find and compare those two numbers.

Tyranny is defined in many dictionaries. It’s not my opinion, the word has a specific meaning. You haven’t answered the question of why a vaccine mandate should be considered tyranny, or how it compares to any other case of action mandated by law, or personal freedoms limited by law, of which we have many.

It would be lovely if anti-vaxxers were distancing and wearing masks, but that seems like a fantasy to me. How many anti-vaxxers really are wearing masks and taking all other precautions? There seems to be a lot of data that there’s a large correlation and significant overlap between people who are anti-vax and anti-mask and anti-lockdown. We had the chance to stop COVID spread, and we bungled it by politicizing the solutions, people are screaming tyranny over mask mandates and social distancing mandates too.