Discussion: UK anti-vaxx 'freedom' morons, protests and QAnon idiots

[xenon]

The two vaccine hesitant people I know aren’t of the loon variety. Or at least they don’t express wild theories. Neither are known to each other but I think there might be a Xtian element behind both.

The few vaccine dodgers I know, family members, arent loon's either. Aged from mid 20s to 50.

A mate mid 40s, also said he won't be getting the booster. Enough is enough kinda thing, he's had covid as well.

White WC mostly, MC I guess couple of them.

Just anicdata but FWIW.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Ok, fine well if the state now how authority over what you do with your body, would you support limits on the number of children a person can have? Climate change is after all an existential threat, so we should probably ensure people need a licence to have children. Would you be be opposed to that?

You are getting even more bonkers now.

With a human population set to top 10 billion in my lifetime, just as our long-earned climate crisis starts to really bite, I think "individual freedom" looks more and more like an anachronism. I suspect we (and our descendents) are going to have to give up a lot of previously valued individual freedoms over the next few generations, if human life is to continue on this planet at all.

See how my post isn't so bonkers after all, cupid_stunt ? Can you see how the direction of travel in technological development, when combined with other social and ecological pressures, could result in some very concerning tendencies? Throw in a precedent-setting change in the relationship between state and individual in regards to bodily autonomy, and you get something quite terrifying.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

See how my post isn't so bonkers after all, cupid_stunt ? Can you see how the direction of travel in technological development, when combined with other social and ecological pressures, could result in some very concerning tendencies?

It sort of is. Like the US Rifle Association fighting tooth and nail to keep their ‘rights’ regardless of kids turning up to schools and slaughtering each other. It’s a similar position.
Neither the UK or US are turning into China any time soon.

 

[mojo pixy]

Tyranny (I hate that word but whatever) or not, by this point much shit hitting the fan environmentally is basically inevitable isnt it. That's going to have consequences for most people's individual freedom, even if we suddenly lived in a socialist utopia tomorrow.

Actually now I think of it, most Socialist Utopias I can imagine would rely on a lot of individuals sacrificing a fair amount of freedom. The question is, for what purposes is it OK for the state or even just the community, to make individuals give up those freedoms?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

It sort of is. Like the US Rifle Association fighting tooth and nail to keep their ‘rights’ regardless of kids turning up to schools and slaughtering each other. It’s a similar position.

In what way is it similar?

Neither the UK or US are turning into China any time soon.

Soon? Maybe not. But it depends what your time horizon is. I think it is possible that in 100 years we will all be some form of China.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

In what way is it similar?

The loss of an individual ‘right’ as a public health measure to protect the bigger picture.
Eg- kids being able to go to school without being shot or immu-compromised people being allowed some kind of life.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

The loss of an individual ‘right’ as a public health measure to protect the bigger picture.
Eg- kids being able to go to school without being shot or immu-compromised people being allowed some kind of life.

Ok, I understand what you are saying now, thank you.

So my question here would be where is the red line? Or is there one? What would be going too far in regards to giving up individual freedoms for the greater good?

Is it population control in the face of climate change? Or is that perfectly acceptable? If it is acceptable then what would be considered by yourself as going too far?

What rights are non-negotiable if not bodily autonomy?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Tyranny (I hate that word but whatever) or not, by this point much shit hitting the fan environmentally is basically inevitable isnt it. That's going to have consequences for most people's individual freedom, even if we suddenly lived in a socialist utopia tomorrow.

Actually now I think of it, most Socialist Utopias I can imagine would rely on a lot of individuals sacrificing a fair amount of freedom. The question is, for what purposes is it OK for the state or even just the community, to make individuals give up those freedoms?

I have the same question for you as I asked Magnus above. What would be considered going too far in this regard? Are all rights now off the table?

 

[mojo pixy]

I have the same question for you as I asked Magnus above. What would be considered going too far in this regard? Are all rights now off the table?

Too much about this is challenging too many of my long-held notions, and I'm a bit lost tbh.
I don't want people to die unneccessarily, and I don't want a society where vulnerable people can't just go out and do things freely.
I honestly don't know.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Ok, I understand what you are saying now, thank you.

So my question here would be where is the red line? Or is there one? What would be going too far in regards to giving up individual freedoms for the greater good?

Is it population control in the face of climate change? Or is that perfectly acceptable? If it is acceptable then what would be considered by yourself as going too far?

What rights are non-negotiable if not bodily autonomy?

Funnily enough it tends to be the individual freedom types who (not saying you) are pro life until it comes to vaccines.

As for me, I’m not wildly panicking as I have said (and others have put more succinctly) the Conservatives aren’t committed to becoming autocratic. They’re cunts in their own way but the last thing they would want to curtail would be the ability to spend money. They are acting in the interests of pro business rather than curtailing freedom. IMHO.They’re not ideologically committed to what you fear. And it wouldn’t reflect the desires of their constituency.

 

[8ball]

I don't inject a seatbelt into my body. Seatbelts are a temporary inconvenience. Vaccines are a whole different thing, and it is completely unethical to force people to repeatedly put something in their body that we still do not have the long-term data on. So let people decide individually what to do. If you are worried about the virus more than you are the vaccine then take the vaccine. I have.

Cool, booked in for Saturday.

 

[prunus]

Ok, I understand what you are saying now, thank you.

So my question here would be where is the red line? Or is there one? What would be going too far in regards to giving up individual freedoms for the greater good?

Is it population control in the face of climate change? Or is that perfectly acceptable? If it is acceptable then what would be considered by yourself as going too far?

What rights are non-negotiable if not bodily autonomy?

No rights are non-negotiable, societies can make whatever compacts they want.

In any case, I don’t think your bodily autonomy stance here is truly non-negotiable. It’s just that you consider the loss of it to be too high a price for the personal and societal benefits it confers - ie you don’t think Covid and its effects are serious enough for you to breach some specious idea of ‘bodily autonomy’.

If it had a 100% mortality rate like eg rabies, or even just 30% like MERS, I think you’d be right behind any measures designed to reduce infection and or transmission.

 

[8ball]

Selfish, childish, wilfully blind, hiding behind ‘principles’. You’ll protest, but it is so.

Well, that got sinister quickly.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

Sorry am I missing something here or are folk here implying IWNW is a loon because he doesn't think forcing vaccines on people is ethical?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Sorry am I missing something here or are folk here implying IWNW is a loon because he doesn't think forcing vaccines on people is ethical?

I think some of my rhetoric when I first started posting on the thread was a bit hyperbolic, and so leading people to think I was onboard with the full-on loonquakery that is out there. Hopefully I've clarified what my views are.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Sorry am I missing something here or are folk here implying IWNW is a loon because he doesn't think forcing vaccines on people is ethical?

I don’t think he’s a loon. But he thinks vaccine passports will lead to us becoming China.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

I don’t think he’s a loon. But he thinks vaccine passports will lead to us becoming China.

I think China entered the chat at around post #5802. Metaphorically speaking, that is.

 

[8ball]

I don’t think he’s a loon. But he thinks vaccine passports will lead to us becoming China.

Clearly missed the memo that the u75 "anti-power" stance was a LARPer pose.
Read the FAQs, dammit!

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I don’t think he’s a loon. But he thinks vaccine passports will lead to us becoming China.

As he says it was hyperbole. I'm 100 per cent not in favour of forcing folk to be vaccinated and I think vaccine passport could be a thin end of a shite wedge potentially. Notice I haven't mentioned China, though.

 

[prunus]

Well, that got sinister quickly.

View attachment 298736

Apologies, I may have got somewhat overwrought there, but I’m travelling across the country on public transport for the first time in ages (train, tube, bus) and the number of people not making the smallest of effort (ie wearing a sodding mask) just causes bile to rise up at my fellow humans. I may have somewhat splattered that here.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

As he says it was hyperbole. I'm 100 per cent not in favour of forcing folk to be vaccinated and I think vaccine passport could be a thin end of a shite wedge potentially. Notice I haven't mentioned China, though.

I sort of agree with them. Both the vaccines and the passports. It protects the most vulnerable so to me it’s about community. For the Conservatives it’s about limiting business closures but sometimes the two sides concur yet for differing reasons.

 

[8ball]

Apologies, I may have got somewhat overwrought there, but I’m travelling across the country on public transport for the first time in ages (train, tube, bus) and the number of people not making the smallest of effort (ie wearing a sodding mask) just causes bile to rise up at my fellow humans. I may have somewhat splattered that here.

Nae bother. I find myself doing it too.
It still chills me that we are moving towards a "papers carrying" society, though, and how little it took when things like ID cards were considered weird an un-British even in Blair's day.

The underlying lack of trust that fuels anti-vaxxers is unfortunately the same one that tips people towards authoritarianism.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

I think some of my rhetoric when I first started posting on the thread was a bit hyperbolic, and so leading people to think I was onboard with the full-on loonquakery that is out there. Hopefully I've clarified what my views are.

I think if you had posted in the vaccine passport or austria lockdown thread the reaction would have been different.

Could we now have more loons to laugh at pretty please?

 

[8ball]

Why? The rationale is the same. An existential threat that could be ameliorated if we cede some of our freedoms. Give me one good reason to not put on place population control that could not also be used to argue against forced vaccines.

Only works if you actually consider it an existential threat.

 

[mojo pixy]

In all honesty what really bothers me is how many people here (in the UK) seem willing to put their own comfort and convenience before other people's actual health and wellbeing. Not a majority, but a very sizable minority, and that's shit. It should be a tiny, ostracized minority, but even though it's not everyone, it is everywhere.

That's not even about vaccines as much as it is about masks and distancing, general self-limiting behaviour for other people's benefit. The problem is that we have a society teeming with uncaring, selfish fuckers who won't make small sacrifices for others because Why should I? That's why we need some kind of .. thing .. that those fuckers can't fuck up - just so that another minority of people aren't restricted to their homes for the forseeable future. And that is going to mean some kind of compulsion for everyone, at some point - whether lockdowns, masks or vaccines. Because it will have to - not because of State Power, but because of uncaring, selfish fuckers who need to be made to do the right thing

That's not aimed at anyone posting here. But it is the soup we're all swimming in.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I sort of agree with them. Both the vaccines and the passports. It protects the most vulnerable so to me it’s about community. For the Conservatives it’s about limiting business closures but sometimes the two sides concur yet for differing reasons.

The most vulnerable in terms of physical health though, I don't think it wise to throw every other definition of vulnerable out the window as temp restrictions and measures etc often become permanent ones.

Think about why there is sometimes higher levels of vaccine hesitancy among ethnic minorities for example- for very valid reasons like medical racism, mistrust of the state and it's institutions generally, and stuff like that drug trial Pfizer ran on some african children that killed a number of them still being in living memory. Now to add to that- you must carry your vaccine paper at all times? Nah fuck that.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

The most vulnerable in terms of physical health though, I don't think it wise to throw every other definition of vulnerable out the window as temp restrictions and measures etc often become permanent ones.

Think about why there is sometimes higher levels of vaccine hesitancy among ethnic minorities for example- for very valid reasons like medical racism, mistrust of the state and it's institutions generally, and stuff like that drug trial Pfizer ran on some african children that killed a number of them still being in living memory. Now to add to that- you must carry your vaccine paper at all times? Nah fuck that.

I didn’t know a Pfizer trial killed African children.
And of course I’d agree it’s everyone’s right to refuse the vaccine if they don’t want it in their bodies. But that is an individual choice which affects the wider community.

 

[editor]

I didn’t know a Pfizer trial killed African children.

It happened 25 years ago and makes for grim reading - Pfizer: Nigeria drug trial victims get compensation

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I didn’t know a Pfizer trial killed African children.
And of course I’d agree it’s everyone’s right to refuse the vaccine if they don’t want it in their bodies. But that is an individual choice which affects the wider community.

I think this is the one people often mention, I'd read a much more indepth article about the reasons for vaccine hesitancy amongst black folk, but I can't find it right now Pfizer: Nigeria drug trial victims get compensation

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Fair enough. Never knew that.