Quote:
Originally Posted by AnalogMan
It's funny in a not at all 'funny' way when people conflate and confuse 'freedom' with choosing to not get vaccinated.
As I said before, this is not about someone's personal 'freedom'. Not getting vaccinated is not a ‘personal choice’. A personal choice is something that only affects you alone and no one else. Anyone can do whatever they want in a vacuum, but no one has the right to harm other people. Not getting vaccinated puts many people at risk of illness or death.
It’s like the difference between choosing to drive your car into a wall vs. driving the wrong way in the oncoming lane on the highway. The former might be your own personal choice to kill yourself. But the latter immorally puts many people at great risk against their will.
If you saw someone going the wrong way coming at you in your lane on the highway, you probably wouldn't cheer them on for exercising their personal 'freedom’. Not getting vaccinated forces a risk on anyone that a non-vaccinated person comes in contact with.
Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is why this country will never be rid of the coronavirus. Our future will be one of pandemic spikes and waves, variants coming and going, and fluctuating effectiveness of vaccines. Similar to what happens now with the flu, except that COVID carries a much higher risk of serious long-term health complications, and death.
As a society, we have accepted a high level of disease burden, and death, as being OK (see: Florida). Which I think says a lot about our morality, ethics, intelligence, and simply humanity. Or lack of it.
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I have to disagree with this to a point.
Whoever owns that wall isn't going to be happy somebody ran into it. Maybe the person driving their car into a wall has family and friends who are affected. The point here is that we affect the universe and society around us just by existing, so the scope of a "personal choice" is not a black and white boundary.
That being said, strong societies are built around a non-zero-sum outlook. In this case, we can all actually do something at a slight inconvenience for ourselves that overall has great benefit for the society instead of just complaining and fighting. So in that case, getting vaccinated builds a stronger society, while raging against it weakens society.
A strong society protects our freedom of self determination. So logically, it is in the best interest of maintaining our freedoms to consider what benefits society. I chose to get vaccinated in order to creat a stronger society such that I can continue to enjoy the freedom it affords me to continue to choose my path.