I know it’s a provocative title - and probably not something to make tasteless puns about - but surely, surely, the following principle must hold in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Thanks Bandit - the moral dimensions to all of the covid panto are worrisome - but it's certainly something we've seen increasing in other areas too. Don't support BLM? You must be a horrible, nasty, racist person - and couldn't possibly have any legitimate concerns about that saintly, perfect, organisation. You don't think that person over there with more facial hair than a woolly mammoth and what looks like a boa constrictor in the jocks is a woman? You damned bigot!
Coercion to the degree of get something injected into your body that one does not want or loss of job constitutes a form of rape. It is not different than an employer demanding sex and threatening loss of job if one does not comply. The fact that it is the government issuing the ultimatum does not in any way lessen or justify the immorality and lack of ethics involved. If anything it makes it worse.
The hypocrisy of those who for decades have claimed, "our bodies, our lives, our right to decide" when it comes to abortion but think it is okay for the govt to force injections, is astounding. It shows a lack of consistent ethic and a moral compass and replacement by party loyalty which exists in a moral and ethical vacumn.
History itself is a testament to the atrocities that can rise from party loyalty. When will they learn?
Good essay. Coercion destroys consent; that's what makes this so insidious. Our human rights are being sliced away, bit by bit. On Twitter, I read someone refer to coerced injections as "needle rape." That's about right.
Here's a video you might find interesting. This Dr. Yuval Noah Harari character seems nice.
I am *amazed* that there are judges producing judgments that are actually comprehensible to me layperson. And I guess that even for a judge with many years of experience (and nothing else to do) it would take something like a full working week to finish such a document. Kudos to the man, and thanks for reporting on the case.
Double standards are applied by the vast majority of human beings. Primarily because human being are irrational herd animals who too often prefer to be led by emotion rather than logic and rational thought.
Many of the same people who seek to compel injection of the Glorious Goo (I will not refer to it as a vaccine) are the same people who also yell "my body my choice" and want the decriminalization of recreational drugs. If you ask these people why they advocate and demand any of these policies why they do so, they cannot tell you. They have no knowledge about the issue and cannot formulate a valid, coherent, or sound argument in support of their position.
As is often written, "if some people didn't have double standards - they wouldn't have any standards at all"
I think it's been a problem throughout all of human history. There was some chap once, who was reputed to be wise, who said something about treating your neighbour as you, yourself, would like to be treated. Obviously, double standards were an issue back then, too.
When it comes to the Goo I don't know how it is possible to think you are 'right' to coerce someone to be injected with a potentially dangerous substance, that might afford only partial protection. Even were it to be entirely risk-free I still could not see coerced injection as morally right.
Tell them that they should be involuntarily sterilized if their IQ is below a certain number - for the good of society, of course. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough:..” - Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Buck vs Bell (1927)...
Thank you. Of course coercion undermines consent. Loss of income; being targeted, losing basic rights are all tools used to 'force' someone's hand. Thank God we have some judges who still can think clearly and weigh positions - many have collapsed under the now-collapsing narrative of Covid.
Many things have happened to erode human rights, but there is also an extraordinary opportunity in all this. Under the glaring lights of a coordinated attempt to silence thought and reason (not to mention bodily sovereignty) the immorality of this attempt at world control has been made obvious. The sleepers are the ones who will become increasingly uncomfortable as those in the middle join those who are awake to the underlying agenda. Humans win in the end.
Yes indeed - I can't fathom all of the ins and outs, but it seems very clear to me there has been a kind of shift. I am very worried by what I can only see as a concerted effort to control the flow of, and access to, information. That conversation is only allowed within a very restrictive window, a window effectively controlled by others, is something that should concern us all. Look how the idea of "misinformation" has been sold - too many people now think it is right and proper for governments to "do something about it".
There are many who are comfortable in the narrowing lanes 'they've' carved for humans to tread. Still I see signs that more and more people are feeling something is wrong, and even the sleepers will have to come face to face with it. Very much like waking from a deep dream; foggy at first and then slow clarity. (Thought the alarm bell is getting louder by the day!)
Great post. Thanks for posting the link to the court case. I shall read it carefully. Moral philosophy is the toughest of all branches of philosophy, I would argue the most difficult subject known to mankind that the greatest minds have wrestled with for millennia. But it is worth pursuing even if it does break your brain at first. Bernard Williams and Elizabeth Anscombe were fine English philosophers of the mid-20th C. Both hated Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. You’ll find good arguments against this evil vaccine coercion in their writings because the evil-doers use both ethical systems to make and justify their decisions. Let us all not lose sight of the evil committed while this war in Ukraine is taking place. I threw the TV out last year and don’t listen to radio or read newspapers anymore but I hear the propaganda is worse than covid, if that is even possible. No doubt they hope people will forget. But I will never forget.
Lol - thanks - I shall not show it to mum, if that's OK with you :-)
I do worry about going a bit too far. At those times when my dander is up, so to speak, I can make ill-advised and over-the-top comments as a result of frustration and in an attempt to release the pressure. When I have calmed down I often find myself thinking "did I really say that?"
In all seriousness, I plan to pen a response (by no means an attack) of sorts to this article today or tomorrow. This is a topic my brain spends a lot of time on.
There's nothing at all wrong with your tone as a writer. But you also have my permission to loosen up if you like. :)
I am looking forward to how courts will rule in Germany, if its vaxx mandate is introduced, when an unvaxxed provides the authorities with proof that he has visited a doctor to get the injection but then refused consent there with the doctor then refusing to give the injection, as they already indicated.
The gentleman's point is simply one of "Trust me. I'm an expert." Well, thanks and all that but an appeal to authority has been understood as a fallacious argument for a couple of thousand years or more. And even if this wasn't so, science has always moved on by the overthrowing of consensus. Science relies on it. It was the maverick Einstein, as you say, who overthrew the authority of Newton. Although poor Isaac's wonderful theory of gravitation is good enough for anything not hugely massive or travelling ridiculously fast. Good enough then for the world as Newton could have understood it, and good enough for the world most of us live in .
But he does have a point that I am not a good enough physicist to establish the truth of the physics of covid better than he can. (I hope this is true because I am not even a physicist at all.) Nor am I good enough virologist or epidemiologist or biologist because I am not any of those things either. (I am a humble engineer BTW, just a digger of ditches and a hewer of wood.) But here is the hole in his logical boat. I am a clever enough human being to have discovered that there has never been an effective vaccine against an mRNA coronavirus. Ever. In the whole history of the universe, it has not been managed - until the current pandemic, and I am sufficiently skeptical to wonder at half a dozen of those vaccines turning up just when we needed them. And then I decided to find out why there had never been an effective vaccine. And I did find out.
And then I discovered that we have recently been changing the definitions of "vaccine" and "effective" so that my previous objection could be circumvented by weasel words. And then I wondered why we were giving them to young people at no risk of serious disease. And then I found out that the previous ethical standards of voluntary medical treatment, of informed consent, and "first, do no harm" had been laid aside in favour of nudge tactics aimed at psychological control and conformance. with a target of some pseudo-scientific utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham stalks the land with his half-baked nonsense once again.
Well, I am sorry but I am an intelligent human being and I have been told untruths by people whose best motive can only be that they say that they know some clever people, and are advised by them, and that those third parties "know better". It doesn't wash and hey, guess what? All the fact-checkers and free speech gags in the world cannot stop the truth now. They silenced Galileo and the year he dies, I think, Newton was born, and twenty-five years later, he'd even done the maths that stood as gospel for two hundred years. The Covid narrative won't get 200; it won't get 2.
Excellent points - I do want to write more about Newton/Einstein, and other physics things - but it's not that easy to make it all relevant to things today.
Pre-covid, I would have said that 'experts' should be carefully listened to - not always right, by any means, but they are not usually wrong on the foundations of their specialist subject. Usually, I would have said, an expert will get something wrong for an interesting, not a trivial, reason.
I've definitely had to re-evaluate that stance in the light of covid and the pronouncements of "experts" I've witnessed over the last couple of years.
One of your best posts thus far. I do not believe, for one second, that being threatened leads to consent/free choice.
Thanks Bandit - the moral dimensions to all of the covid panto are worrisome - but it's certainly something we've seen increasing in other areas too. Don't support BLM? You must be a horrible, nasty, racist person - and couldn't possibly have any legitimate concerns about that saintly, perfect, organisation. You don't think that person over there with more facial hair than a woolly mammoth and what looks like a boa constrictor in the jocks is a woman? You damned bigot!
Amen and Amen!
Very wise judge.
Coercion to the degree of get something injected into your body that one does not want or loss of job constitutes a form of rape. It is not different than an employer demanding sex and threatening loss of job if one does not comply. The fact that it is the government issuing the ultimatum does not in any way lessen or justify the immorality and lack of ethics involved. If anything it makes it worse.
The hypocrisy of those who for decades have claimed, "our bodies, our lives, our right to decide" when it comes to abortion but think it is okay for the govt to force injections, is astounding. It shows a lack of consistent ethic and a moral compass and replacement by party loyalty which exists in a moral and ethical vacumn.
History itself is a testament to the atrocities that can rise from party loyalty. When will they learn?
Good essay. Coercion destroys consent; that's what makes this so insidious. Our human rights are being sliced away, bit by bit. On Twitter, I read someone refer to coerced injections as "needle rape." That's about right.
Here's a video you might find interesting. This Dr. Yuval Noah Harari character seems nice.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3nWyoQ5CQ&t=805s
I am *amazed* that there are judges producing judgments that are actually comprehensible to me layperson. And I guess that even for a judge with many years of experience (and nothing else to do) it would take something like a full working week to finish such a document. Kudos to the man, and thanks for reporting on the case.
Double standards are applied by the vast majority of human beings. Primarily because human being are irrational herd animals who too often prefer to be led by emotion rather than logic and rational thought.
Many of the same people who seek to compel injection of the Glorious Goo (I will not refer to it as a vaccine) are the same people who also yell "my body my choice" and want the decriminalization of recreational drugs. If you ask these people why they advocate and demand any of these policies why they do so, they cannot tell you. They have no knowledge about the issue and cannot formulate a valid, coherent, or sound argument in support of their position.
As is often written, "if some people didn't have double standards - they wouldn't have any standards at all"
I think it's been a problem throughout all of human history. There was some chap once, who was reputed to be wise, who said something about treating your neighbour as you, yourself, would like to be treated. Obviously, double standards were an issue back then, too.
When it comes to the Goo I don't know how it is possible to think you are 'right' to coerce someone to be injected with a potentially dangerous substance, that might afford only partial protection. Even were it to be entirely risk-free I still could not see coerced injection as morally right.
Tell them that they should be involuntarily sterilized if their IQ is below a certain number - for the good of society, of course. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough:..” - Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Buck vs Bell (1927)...
Thank you. Of course coercion undermines consent. Loss of income; being targeted, losing basic rights are all tools used to 'force' someone's hand. Thank God we have some judges who still can think clearly and weigh positions - many have collapsed under the now-collapsing narrative of Covid.
Many things have happened to erode human rights, but there is also an extraordinary opportunity in all this. Under the glaring lights of a coordinated attempt to silence thought and reason (not to mention bodily sovereignty) the immorality of this attempt at world control has been made obvious. The sleepers are the ones who will become increasingly uncomfortable as those in the middle join those who are awake to the underlying agenda. Humans win in the end.
Yes indeed - I can't fathom all of the ins and outs, but it seems very clear to me there has been a kind of shift. I am very worried by what I can only see as a concerted effort to control the flow of, and access to, information. That conversation is only allowed within a very restrictive window, a window effectively controlled by others, is something that should concern us all. Look how the idea of "misinformation" has been sold - too many people now think it is right and proper for governments to "do something about it".
There are many who are comfortable in the narrowing lanes 'they've' carved for humans to tread. Still I see signs that more and more people are feeling something is wrong, and even the sleepers will have to come face to face with it. Very much like waking from a deep dream; foggy at first and then slow clarity. (Thought the alarm bell is getting louder by the day!)
Great post. Thanks for posting the link to the court case. I shall read it carefully. Moral philosophy is the toughest of all branches of philosophy, I would argue the most difficult subject known to mankind that the greatest minds have wrestled with for millennia. But it is worth pursuing even if it does break your brain at first. Bernard Williams and Elizabeth Anscombe were fine English philosophers of the mid-20th C. Both hated Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. You’ll find good arguments against this evil vaccine coercion in their writings because the evil-doers use both ethical systems to make and justify their decisions. Let us all not lose sight of the evil committed while this war in Ukraine is taking place. I threw the TV out last year and don’t listen to radio or read newspapers anymore but I hear the propaganda is worse than covid, if that is even possible. No doubt they hope people will forget. But I will never forget.
Bingo, emotion based arguments have been promoted in the last few decades as "truer than true".
>> I know it’s a provocative title - and probably not something to make tasteless puns about
For someone who actually produces quality content you worry too much about tastelessness.
I will absolutely make a penetration joke on my stack in honor of your mom.
I now see my purpose.
guttermouth.substack.com
Lol - thanks - I shall not show it to mum, if that's OK with you :-)
I do worry about going a bit too far. At those times when my dander is up, so to speak, I can make ill-advised and over-the-top comments as a result of frustration and in an attempt to release the pressure. When I have calmed down I often find myself thinking "did I really say that?"
In all seriousness, I plan to pen a response (by no means an attack) of sorts to this article today or tomorrow. This is a topic my brain spends a lot of time on.
There's nothing at all wrong with your tone as a writer. But you also have my permission to loosen up if you like. :)
Excellent writeup and ruling.
I am looking forward to how courts will rule in Germany, if its vaxx mandate is introduced, when an unvaxxed provides the authorities with proof that he has visited a doctor to get the injection but then refused consent there with the doctor then refusing to give the injection, as they already indicated.
Look up the concept of duress in contract law - that should give a good idea as to the relationship between free and coerced consent.
https://robdubya.substack.com/p/promiscuous?s=w
Thank god some judges in this world have retained a little sanity and integrity. Great article, thank you.
Where were you while we were getting high,
Well just a twinkle in your parents eye.
Those carefree summers of freedom we knew,
Are now just a myth to those of you
Born too late to avoid this harm,
Of trial gene therapy stabbed in your arm.
So you could enjoy what we took for free,
By paying with your bodily autonomy.
I'll apologise for your parents lack of balls,
It seems they would rather see you in the stalls,
Than protect you from the final destination,
Of potentially destructive experimentation.
It's as though they have handed over to the state,
Their responsibility to protect you, but now it's too late.
You will never know our freedoms and probably don't care,
And the thought of protesting, well you just wouldn't dare,
As they know where you are every second of the day,
And your parents disapprove of protests anyway.
Just wear your mask, don't have sex, get jabbed and shut up,
I'm sorry that it seems like a half empty cup.
Your Champagne Supernova is a flute that's bone dry,
And that's the rest of your life now until the day you die.
-
And then this as well. Enjoy.
https://robdubya.substack.com/p/gillick-incompetence?s=w
The gentleman's point is simply one of "Trust me. I'm an expert." Well, thanks and all that but an appeal to authority has been understood as a fallacious argument for a couple of thousand years or more. And even if this wasn't so, science has always moved on by the overthrowing of consensus. Science relies on it. It was the maverick Einstein, as you say, who overthrew the authority of Newton. Although poor Isaac's wonderful theory of gravitation is good enough for anything not hugely massive or travelling ridiculously fast. Good enough then for the world as Newton could have understood it, and good enough for the world most of us live in .
But he does have a point that I am not a good enough physicist to establish the truth of the physics of covid better than he can. (I hope this is true because I am not even a physicist at all.) Nor am I good enough virologist or epidemiologist or biologist because I am not any of those things either. (I am a humble engineer BTW, just a digger of ditches and a hewer of wood.) But here is the hole in his logical boat. I am a clever enough human being to have discovered that there has never been an effective vaccine against an mRNA coronavirus. Ever. In the whole history of the universe, it has not been managed - until the current pandemic, and I am sufficiently skeptical to wonder at half a dozen of those vaccines turning up just when we needed them. And then I decided to find out why there had never been an effective vaccine. And I did find out.
And then I discovered that we have recently been changing the definitions of "vaccine" and "effective" so that my previous objection could be circumvented by weasel words. And then I wondered why we were giving them to young people at no risk of serious disease. And then I found out that the previous ethical standards of voluntary medical treatment, of informed consent, and "first, do no harm" had been laid aside in favour of nudge tactics aimed at psychological control and conformance. with a target of some pseudo-scientific utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham stalks the land with his half-baked nonsense once again.
Well, I am sorry but I am an intelligent human being and I have been told untruths by people whose best motive can only be that they say that they know some clever people, and are advised by them, and that those third parties "know better". It doesn't wash and hey, guess what? All the fact-checkers and free speech gags in the world cannot stop the truth now. They silenced Galileo and the year he dies, I think, Newton was born, and twenty-five years later, he'd even done the maths that stood as gospel for two hundred years. The Covid narrative won't get 200; it won't get 2.
Excellent points - I do want to write more about Newton/Einstein, and other physics things - but it's not that easy to make it all relevant to things today.
Pre-covid, I would have said that 'experts' should be carefully listened to - not always right, by any means, but they are not usually wrong on the foundations of their specialist subject. Usually, I would have said, an expert will get something wrong for an interesting, not a trivial, reason.
I've definitely had to re-evaluate that stance in the light of covid and the pronouncements of "experts" I've witnessed over the last couple of years.
Definitely worth reading the Judge's full ruling. Thank you for writing this post!
Judges like this one are Gold💞