Guest Post by John Stossel
Politicians love force.
The idea of leaving us alone to make our own decisions goes against their nature.
To be sure, civilized society sometimes needs government force: police to punish killers, soldiers to protect us from foreign invaders, environmental police to stop my smoke from flowing to your lungs …
But the political class always goes too far.
Now some want medical police to force everyone to get vaccinated. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.
“It has!” you say. “I have to get vaccinated to keep my job, for my kids to attend school, to go to the movies, a restaurant, etc.”
That’s force, absolutely. But it’s not mandatory. There’s an out – we don’t have to work for the government, eat indoors or go to a movie theater. We can home-school our kids. We still have choice.
So far, politicians haven’t sent police into homes to force everyone to get vaccinated.
They did do that once.
In Philadelphia 30 years ago, a measles outbreak sickened 1,400 people, mostly children, and killed nine. The outbreak spread because leaders of two fundamentalist churches told congregants to refuse the vaccine; God would do the healing.
Philadelphia’s health department got a court order that compelled parents to allow their kids to be vaccinated.
Remarkably, “They complied with the law,” says vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit in my new video. “They were law-abiding.” The Philadelphia parents didn’t fight the order. That ended the epidemic.
But I doubt that vaccine-resistant Americans would be similarly compliant today. Now there’s an anti-vaccine movement. I’m surprised by the outpouring of hatred for Offit on my YouTube and Facebook channels that follows my video.
Some of it is nonsense from ignorant anti-vaxxers. But I respect commenters expressing versions of the chant, “My body, my choice!”
That slogan makes a good point.
We are not really free if we don’t own our own bodies. (It’s another reason to oppose the Drug War.) Individuals should get to decide what’s put in our own bodies.
But a deadly pandemic is a special case.
COVID-19 continues to kill, partly because some people refuse the vaccine. “This virus has a great many friends,” complains Offit. “Science denialists, conspiracy theorists, political pundits. It’s hard to watch.”
“People have reason to be suspicious!” I say. “The government has experimented on people and lied to people.”
(Officials once promised Black syphilis patients treatment but gave them empty pills. The CIA sneaked LSD into people’s drinks. More recently, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Americans don’t need to wear masks, and then he said we should wear masks.)
“I’m not saying that the government hasn’t done things that make one trust them less,” Offit responds. “Or that the CDC hasn’t made statements that were incorrect, (but) such is the nature of science. You do learn as you go.”
What we have learned now is that the vaccine does dramatically reduce hospitalization and death, and we’d all be better off if more people took it.
Vaccine skeptics point to media reports of “breakthrough” cases, vaccinated people who get COVID-19 anyway. Offit’s reply? “I’m on CNN and MSNBC a lot … I think they want to scare people.”
They do. It raises ratings, and it makes reporters feel important.
But Offit points out that even after delta, “99.5% of people killed by this virus are unvaccinated! Ninety-seven percent of those hospitalized are unvaccinated! No vaccine works 100%.”
Today’s COVID-19 vaccines have now been tested on millions of people. It’s clear that they are very safe and that they save lives.
It’s why Offit would mandate vaccinations.
That’s where we disagree.
I consider vaccine refusers foolish and selfish. I got vaccinated, and I wish you would.
But government should never force a treatment on people. That’s tyranny.
That said, I shouldn’t say “never.”
If you are proven a direct threat to others — if your behavior kills — then the safety police do have a right to step in to stop you from hurting others.
Short of that, politicians should never force us to put anything into our own bodies.
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“I consider vaccine refusers foolish and selfish. I got vaccinated, and I wish you would….If you are proven a direct threat to others — if your behavior kills — then the safety police do have a right to step in to stop you from hurting others.”
Stossel just lost all credibility in my book. He used to be the voice of libertarians, now he is just another talking head.
Guess that is why he waited to the end to say that bs, wanting someone to believe one thing but meaning the opposite. This country is filled with that sort of person.
Stossel is a tool of the establishment and has always been so…he only recently began to purposely moderate his views to gain traction with the real citizen patriots who love this country. He did it for just such a moment to screw us when it really counts.
And that fucking moustache. Doesn’t he know it’s no longer the 70s?
Disappointed that Stossel took the 30 pieces of silver from our overseers, he should have held out for that sweet FEMA camp guard gig.
what exactly is an anti-vaxxer? is all of europe anti-vaxxer because their vaccine protocol for children is much shorter than ours, or are they just more prudent about overloading chemicals into their kids?
It’s a sound-bite. Something to put on a bumper sticker and something that 20-IQ leftist statists can easily digest and regurgitate in self-righteous diatribes against people who just want to be left alone.
That’s what it is. It has no real meaning or substance. Just leftist vapor.
People who oppose the jab can’t be anti-vaxxer because it ain’t a vaccine.
Maybe walking dead…
This was THE big, once in a life time test. And he failed it. Jeez.
Lolbertardians were always pied pipers pitching nirvana fallacies.
The cognitive dissonance is starting to bother them. It will get worse over the next few months.
Ve did not ask for your permission. You vill take the vaccine…ja!
What a nice little piece of Covid fear porn. Prove the virus exists and prove that it’s killing people. Show me the study that this virus has ever been isolated in a lab. Then show me the study where you’ve taken a large number of sick people and have taken tissue samples from them and have found the very same virus that you’ve isolated in the lab. Of course those studies that I just mentioned don’t exist.
You want me to believe in the Sars-Cov-2 virus? Prove it exists. You want me to believe that 650,000 people in this country are dead from it? Prove it and don’t send me a link to a news site. The only reason people believe in this phantom virus is because of that fraudulent PCR test which used an extremely high cycle threshold to generate the tens of millions of false positives they knew they needed to instill fear and make people believe in the bullshit they were pushing.
You see they knew that the PCR test would pick up anything with that high cycle threshold. It would register positive for the flu, the common cold and many other viruses. Once they had an extremely high number of cases, they could then start labeling anyone who died with a positive test as a Covid death. It’s been a total scam from the beginning.
Even the CDC, Liars HQ, has admitted that the PCR test is useless and can’t distinguish between seasonal flu and Wuflu. That’s why seasonal flu dropped from 38m cases before China flu to….1’822 during it.
I noticed one question not asked in this discussion. If you are vaccinated how does my vaccine status affect you or anyone else that has been vaccinated? (I effing hate using the word vaccine. It’s not a vaccine.) How many studies do you need to see that vaccinated people carry the same viral load as unvaxxed people? And that little tidbit comes from the CDC as well as many other sources. As for the government, they weren’t just wrong about many things, they flat out lied and told us they lied “for our own good”. Like any good wife, I don’t trust anyone that lies to me, ever! And last I’ll say this: This genetic reprogramming shot wanes after just a couple of months requiring endless “boosters”. Israel says now you are not fully genetically reprogrammed unless you have 3 shots. When will that become 4 and 5 and 6 ad infinitum? No, die or not die, I will live a life fully lived! Full stop!
Actually, study showed that vaccinated carried a much higher viral load, approx 251x higher. I’ll look for the link.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3897733
Great paper. Any news on your exemption? Wishing you luck with that! (not that I think luck should even play into it, in an ideal world)
The outer terminus of our body is the first confine from which we emerge, and the last boundary to which we may retreat. Some would say “What about the mind?” I would say that for many of us it would be hard to achieve the pure mindfulness necessary to tune out what is happening to our body if we were being forced to endure unwanted treatment. For further study on that topic, see Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and the testimony of rape victims.
I contend that bodily integrity and autonomy are utmost in our God-given, or Natural, rights. #WeWillNotComply #resist #novaccinepassports
And once again John shows what a complete moron and freedom-hater he is.
Fuck you and this piece of shit essay
Only the selfish don’t get their monthly clot shot booster. /sarc
How stupid do you have to be to believe this?
As if you can substitute quantity for time in a situation like this? As if those are REMOTELY the same thing.
It’s like saying, we know that this new car that Ford manufactured will last 200,000 miles, because they made so many of them. And on top of it, there are a a number of cars that have broken down already, and a few that have exploded coming out of the factory.
Stossel has always been a tool of the MSM. His ‘contrarian’ views on subjects of absolutely no concern to anyone gave him a sort of reputation for being an outlier. He’s not nor has he ever been anything but an establishment mouthpiece. This piece is an attack on those who refuse the clotshot and a propaganda boost for the bastards pushing the vaccine. I hope he got ALL the vaccines and suffers from the side effect, all of them.
I second that.
Looking at the numbers lately I’ve finally comes to terms on how I would take the vaccine .
I would take the vaccine after all of the morbidly obese people are rounded up and placed into fat camps. They can’t get out until they’ve lost the appropriate amount of weight. This goes for folks who are pre-diabetic because of their weight. If you put the weight back on after you are released then it’s back to the camp.
Since obesity is the main factor in heart disease,diabetes, stroke and Covid deaths, we need to tackle this problem first and foremost . This will save more people than have died of Covid…the CDC confirms this.
Once this epidemic is solved then I’ll take the vaccine
Then there will be no truck drivers to deliver anything. How about if and when they shut down the southern border?
I go with the idea that if a person believes in any vaccine, then they shouldn’t be worried about any unvaxxed person.
Now you are picking a fight with the subsidized big suga lobby. All that overproduced HFCS and invert sugar has to be disposed of somewhere. Turns out the anglosphere food supply is an easy target.
Please invest in lipodiesel futures.
He’s been watching the three stooges (ABC,NBC,CBS) for too many decades, and trusts them by habit. Most ppl know better now. Most of their commercials during newshour are for pharma drugs for billions in advertising a year. Late-night, when Stossel is safe asleep the local TV stations make big money selling ads for the Lawyer commercials suing pharma for the drugs that destroyed ppl.
This guy is like almost everyone I talk to. Assertions without proof, fact or reference to either.
“What we have learned now is that the vaccine does dramatically reduce hospitalization and death, and we’d all be better off if more people took it.”
“Today’s COVID-19 vaccines have now been tested on millions of people. It’s clear that they are very safe and that they save lives.”
Though I will grant “tested on millions”….. of ignorant or uncaring lab rat fools. In other words, the widespread public roll out is the test.
Whole thing can be summed up as an apologist making excuses why the government owns you. Basically “you should have rights, unless some government official arbitrarily decides otherwise”. What a POS good slave.
JC has a really good discussion and launches into a great rant here.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1136331993?t=00h44m04s
That was confusing. I figured he would say something like it’s up to people to chose if they want to take the vaccine. that whole libertarian thing. I need my morning coffee!
To paraphrase AP, “It’s easier when you recognize that Stossel is full of shit.”
Maybe if TPTB made an actual, you know, VACCINE, that actually worked and wasn’t loaded with toxic ingredients, people would be more inclined to get it for a virus with a 99.8% survival rate.
The real question is WHO GETS TO DECIDE? That answer should be government as seldom as possible.
PS: If you believe the vaccine actually works and you get vaccinated it is moronic for you to be worried about anyone ELSE getting vaccinated.
If the flu has a 99.8 percent survival rate, why would you need a vaccine anyway ?
“What we have learned now is that the vaccine does dramatically reduce hospitalization and death”
If that is true, then why are we spiking to pre-vaxx levels ?
Because of the unvaccinated! Don’t try to make sense of it. It isn’t supposed to make sense.
pfizer ain’t missing a beat–now theyre testing an oral drug to actually treat covid–
who wants to bet that if this takes off ivermectin will start needing either a prescription or will have to be administered by a vet?
https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2021-09-01/pfizer-starts-dosing-patients-in-oral-covid-19-drug-trial
“now they’re testing an oral drug to actually treat covid”
Probably an Invermectin dose with a new name and a few obscuring ingredients.
the aclu is caca–
i tried to get them to intervene in a school search policy around here in the late 90 s and they would not do squat–
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
The ACLU would be a stronger, more influential, and effective organization if it ceased to exist.
“But a deadly pandemic is a special case.” Only in your weak F..ing mind Stossel. Power is known to be highly corrupting. Tremendous power corrupts tremendously. The power to forcibly inject a substance of the government’s choosing right past all our natural defenses is a tremendous power guaranteed to be used against those who submit to it. You’ve learned nothing. The founders of this nation believed that government is NEVER to be trusted. If the government was ruled by angels the founders wouldn’t trust them. Today we are not even sure if those running our government are human. They are certainly no angels, and certainly not worthy of being trusted with the health of every man, woman, and child in the world.
Covid is 1/100th as deadly as smallpox and polio. What if the next pandemic is 1/100th as deadly as Covid?