The national government is mandating vaccination with the justification, paraphrased: “you have to take this to protect someone else”. This is an argument that governments have used time and time again, and it’s worth seeing how it has been abused in the past. Just the US over the last century or so has had many instances of this abuse of power.
Eugenics: The same Supreme Court case that allowed for mandated vaccinations also allowed for forcibly sterilizing people who were criminals or simply not smart enough. The famous quote from it is “three generations of idiots is enough”, and the justification was that stupid or criminal people would have children that damaged others or cost them money to take care of. I don’t think that I need to explain just how morally horrific this is, especially since this was still happening recently (for example: 148 female inmates were sterilized in California between 2006 and 2010).
WW1: The phrase “shouting fire in a crowded theater” originated from a different terrifying Supreme Court case against anti-war protestors. The idea was if you spoke out against the war, you were putting others “in danger”, and the government would arrest you. You have to shut up to protect someone else.
Prohibition: Alcohol was banned in large part because people drinking put others in danger. The result of this was the creation of organized crime in the US, the highest murder rate in US history, and a large number of overdose deaths from black market, unsafe alcohol.
War on drugs: The main argument that created the war on drugs was using marijuana or other drugs made someone a danger to others. The movie Reefer Madness is a good time capsule of the arguments made at the time, but overall the war on drugs was not started to protect people from drugs. It was to stop you from taking drugs to protect everyone else. This has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions being locked up, the overdose epidemic, and an ever-growing international system of dangerous cartels.
9/11: The Patriot Act was pre-written before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Act was voted on and signed into law before the end of the following month. It authorized indefinite detention of immigrants without trial. It permitted law enforcement to search property and records without a warrant, consent, or knowledge. It contained numerous provisions that cancelled previously respected freedom and privacy of financial transactions. It opened the door for mass surveillance of U.S. Citizens. The travel restrictions imposed and enforced by the TSA were forerunners to the government travel restrictions we’re facing today. We even saw the phenomenon culturally. The US considered kidnapping and assassinating Julian Assange. Both Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for Edward Snowden’s return and trial, with execution for treason on the table. “If you are not with us, you are with the terrorists!” If you argued against the deadly regime change wars the US has been in for the last 20 years, you are putting everyone else in danger.
Gay marriage: One of the big arguments against gay marriage was that it would hurt “society” or “the children”. People were not allowed to marry who they liked because even just viewing it or knowing about it would “harm” others. Similar arguments are still being made about other groups in the LGBTQ+ community.
2020 lockdowns: We now know, based on many studies on the subject (that we would be happy to send to you if asked), that the lockdowns did little to nothing to prevent the spread and
danger of Covid. Countries like Sweden, with no lockdown, did about the same as the rest. Even worse, lockdowns caused tens or hundreds of thousands of children starving to death in the third world, over 100,000,000 people forced into absolute poverty, not even to mention the mental harm, restriction of freedom, and delay of medical procedures in richer countries.
But this time, in 2021, we should trust them unconditionally? That is not to say that vaccines in general, or the Covid vaccines are not safe and effective. What I’m saying is we should be allowed to have the discussion, learn, and decide for ourselves. Everyone is in a different situation medically and you own your own body. No one should be able to force you to put something in your body that you don’t want to put in it. Make no mistake: if the government takes someone poor and makes it illegal for them to buy food anywhere within an hour of their house, they are forcing them.
This argument has had a pretty terrible track record and that is worth knowing.
Drake Lundstrrom, Vice-Chair, FCLPO