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Comment by beaconstudios | Hacker News Reader

Not supporting them here (I am vaccinated and wear a mask in public), but their freedom is quite clearly the freedom of bodily autonomy - which I think is a more important freedom than your freedom to go on holiday abroad. I totally disagree with their conclusions, but if we're ranking freedoms then bodily autonomy comes first.

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Does "bodily autonomy" also include the right not to wear pants and underwear in public? If not, please explain the difference.

Separately, society made a decision a very long time ago that protecting the public health and welfare prevails over any individual's absolute sense of "bodily autonomy." It's fine to disagree with that choice, but that disagreement ought to be grounded in firm reasoning.

Yeah I agree with you. I'm not defending the choice to go unvaccinated or unmasked; I think it's a poor choice at both the individual and societal level. But the parent claimed that the antivax movement was claiming some kind of ambiguous "muh freedoms" violation, which irked me as it's pretty clear what kind of freedom they think is being violated.

I hear what you are saying, I think the part that is stuck in my craw is how it doesn't appear to be consistent with any other beliefs. Seatbelt and consumption laws are probably the most obvious comparisons, of due to how politicized the issues is we can add abortion. Invoking bodily autonomy for one issue, but ignoring it or actively suppressing it for other issues makes it seem like the real fundamental belief has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.

Yeah I agree; I do think bodily autonomy is pretty fundamental but so is the interest of protection from harm. Ultimately, you can't claim that any specific freedoms are absolute because there are always moral exceptions, and I think that's one of the better counterarguments to the claim of vaccine mandates violating individual rights. Freedoms are ideals to be considered and optimised/traded for collectively, not inviolable absolutes.

>Seatbelt

Highly controversial in the day.

>consumption laws

Pretty universally hated by the non-moralizing types on both sides of the isle.

Drunk driving?

Who said anything about holidays?

Even your freedom to travel for business - bodily autonomy is probably the most important individual freedom there is.

Explain to me even one downside of wearing a protective mask in public situations.

> (I am vaccinated and wear a mask in public)

I've already said this.

Even Objectivists recognize that the freedom to throw a punch ends at someone else's face.

of course that's where the conflict comes in with a disease; by exercising bodily autonomy and therefore increasing the risk of covid, you also risk others' health by spreading it. But that's the benefit of the vaccine right? If you do catch it, you are extremely unlikely to have a severe case, and hopefully at some point a vaccine that prevents catching specific strains will be developed, leading to only antivaxxers getting covid.

I don't know what the right answer is when such conflicts arise, but I don't see the point of pretending that the antivaxxers' claims of freedoms being violated is somehow ambiguous - and to not counter that argument would be intellectually dishonest. I do know that the right answer for me and my family is to take the vaccine and wear a mask.

(Reposting here where it's more relevant.) While the saying is true that "your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins," that argument falls apart when you try to apply it beyond one-on-one interactions with direct consequences into group generalities and indirect/indeterminable consequences, such as "creating a more dangerous environment."

Prohibit things or compelling them, out of a feared or perceived potential for harm, leads down the slippery slope to 1984's "freedom is slavery."

Frankly I think the argument is idiotic even in one-on-one interactions. There’s a reason assault is illegal.

Maybe you misunderstood me? "your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins" is the "reason assault is illegal."

I should have been more explicit. Legally, “assault” does not have to involve contact, hence “assault and battery”.

Assault sans battery is still a crime. Repeatedly threatening to punch someone, e.g., or throwing punches without landing them.

Fair enough. My point was that declining to wear a mask or get a vaccine is very different than punching someone or even threatening to.

In the context of COVID I've seen appeals to an imaginary right to feel safe, and using that to imply obligations onto others.

You don't have right to travel abroad. If you doubt it, show up without a passport.

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