Texas governor bans all vaccine mandates, including from private businesses | Hacker News Reader

Texas governor bans all vaccine mandates, including from private businesses

arstechnica.com

22 pointsthrowawaysea22 comments

Regulating private businesses like this feels anti-Texas. Governing by executive fiat also feels anti-Texas. I'm not sure what's going on in Texas, but I miss the small government, freedom-loving Texas.

Assuming Texas was a small government, freedom loving state, one would think they would be one of the first to roll out legal marijuana. Or allow purchasing liquor at grocery stores. Or not require students to recite the pledge of allegiance. Or the Texas pledge of allegiance.

> Or not require students to recite the pledge of allegiance. Or the Texas pledge of allegiance.

Note that they can't require the pledge. But Texas is unique in requiring an explicit parent opt out rather than letting students decide for themselves, which I doubt this will pass constitutional muster when finally tested (well, with a future court that isn't overwhelmingly conservative).

I have to agree with most of those, with two exceptions:

- Marijuana isn't really on the same axis. It only becomes the same axis once you allow _all_ drugs -- cocaine, opium, etc. Once you ban one drug, government has control over which drugs are legal or illegal.

- You don't need to align 100% to be an outlier in a given direction. Zoning, gun ownership, freedom-of-speech, and a hundred other issues collectively make up this particular ideological axis. No one will align 100%.

The point, though, is that small-government freedom-loving is a core part of the Texas identity. It's what Texas is about. It's strange to see it this far distorted.

Mandating masks or vaccines by state control? That's not Texas culture.

Preventing businesses from making such mandates for their employees? That's also not Texas culture.

>- Marijuana isn't really on the same axis. It only becomes the same axis once you allow _all_ drugs -- cocaine, opium, etc. Once you ban one drug, government has control over which drugs are legal or illegal.

It is on the same axis that alcohol is on. Actually, marijuana is far safer and less problematic for society. There is no logical reason to allow all drugs if you allow marijuana. It is pretty evident that different drugs pose different risks to society, and marijuana is pretty far down the list. I would even rank sugar and saturated fats as more dangerous to society.

>- You don't need to align 100% to be an outlier in a given direction. Zoning, gun ownership, freedom-of-speech, and a hundred other issues collectively make up this particular ideological axis. No one will align 100%.

That was my point. Some people like to think of Texas (and Republican states in general) as having more freedoms and having a "small" government, yet reality shows they lack many freedoms for things that have no effect on others, such as marijuana and abortion. In reality, they are no more free than any other place, and I would argue less free for many people in their day to day lives.

Another one that just came to mind is Texas bans gambling.

You're arguing for the merits of marijuana being legal. That's different than arguing over the bounds of what government should and should not regulate.

A statement like "There is no logical reason to allow all drugs if you allow marijuana" is both correct and irrelevant here. The question is whether government had a right to regulate drugs. Once you agree it does, it has a right to regulate marijuana. If you don't think it does, it can't regulate any of them. Once you agree it can regulate drugs, which ones it regulates is purely a question of policy. Regulating marijuana might be a bad idea, but saying it's outside of the scope of government regulation is a view extreme for virtually any state, including Texas.

I'll also mention: There are a lot of breeds of Republican states. Many are not small government Republicans, for example, but Christian values Republicans. The Republican party is, in many ways, a weak confederacy on values. Texas is at an extreme end of believing it's about small government and freedom.

And yes, freedom is more complex than the Texas ideal. If I have $200k in college debt, two minimum wage jobs, I'm under NDA, a child support agreement, and without access to health care, I don't have much freedom. But that lack of freedom doesn't come from the government restricting me.

Banning mandates that restrict freedom is ultimately consistent with valuing freedom. Calling that in itself anti-freedom is the same logic as "you aren't truly tolerant unless you accept my intolerance".

That's a New England liberal perspective on freedom. It's not a Texas small government conservative perspective on freedom.

I'm not arguing for the validity of that (or either) perspective. I'm simply describing classical Texas values.

This whole clusterfuck of states vs. the federal government on vaccination requirements is a big clog in the pipes and a bunch of unnecessary headache.

Realistically, at what point is the US at "terminal velocity" on vaccination?

I'm starting to think pushing more decisions to the state level is the only way to cool things off in the U.S. Rather than having these life or death battles for control of the federal government, letting people eventually self-sort into states that align with their values may be a more workable path forward. It's not perfect, but it's better than what's going on now and what the current situation could eventually escalate to.

I don't know. Panhandle Idahoans clogging Eastern Washington hospitals because they tended against vaccination still makes it our problem. As long as people can move freely across state borders, a national policy would be more effective than a state by state one.

A national vaccine mandate requires enabling legislation, not executive orders.

Yes, congressional law trumps state law but executive orders do not. This view that Biden can issue an executive order and break lease agreements or union contracts, or local state regulations all across the country is really dangerous. We do not have a king, but it seems a lot of people really want the president to legislate via decree as long as they agree with the decree. That is a very dangerous belief.

Blame Article Two of the Constitution for giving presidents such power. Also most rules on work place safety have been done via executive agency, not via congressional legislation.

Both of these statements are false, but since you provided no rationale or examples, you'll have to wait until this executive order is thrown out like the one banning evictions. Trying to tie vaccine mandates to workplace safety is a howler (https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/572149-bidens-wildly-u...) but we will need to wait for the courts to toss this.

> Both of these statements are false, but since you provided no rationale or examples

So you claim without rationale or examples.

> you'll have to wait until this executive order is thrown out like the one banning evictions.

The eviction ban had nothing to do with workplace safety. It doesn't come under the executive's power to manage federal contracts and workplace safety via OSHA. In fact, it is much more grounded as an executive order than most of the other executive orders dealt out in the past 8 years.

The executive order is for all employers that employ more than 100 workers, not federal contracts. But even federal contracts can't be amended by executive decree once they are signed.

But if you are so certain that the EO is constutional all you will need to do is wait.

Just send them back. Or bill them an extra out-of-state premium.

Hospitals are not run or funded by the state, so that wouldn't make sense. Northern Idaho and Western Montana have long relied on hospitals in more urban Spokane. But times like these show a huge disconnect between public health policy (to keep space in ICUs open), and states that rely on ICU capacity in other states and so aren't worried about conserving it.

That's really how the US is intended to work.

Does it work though? It's crazy to see a president elected and still be utterly powerless to implement their agenda since they're blocked at senate and state level

It's supposed to be hard for stuff to get passed. It's designed that way. As much as people look down on the founding fathers now, they were actually pretty smart.

Lol. I mean that was the whole point of the states. Then the federal government gained too much power. Why the federal government has policies that affect Florida the same as North Dakota is asinine

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