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Comment by atsaloli | Hacker News Reader

I was born in Soviet Russia, where the party line was: there is no God, there is no Soul, there is no Truth, and truth is what we tell the people. My family came to America to get away from that savage society and to live in a free country, based on voluntary cooperation (free market) not force and violence and coercion. In communism, the group is all and the individual is nothing.

I do not believe it is okay to violate my individual liberties (such as forcing me to undergo a medical procedure) for the common good.

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based on voluntary cooperation (free market) not force and violence and coercion

Yeah, that's also an untruth. Western capitalist societies are no more pure capitalism than the Soviet Union was pure communism.

Democracy is fundamentally coercive: the majority gets to rule, and everybody else lives with the result. Some of those rules force people to do things they don't want to do in the name of being able to live together: pay taxes, obey police, obtain permission to operate a motor vehicle. Those who don't obey are subject to force.

It's the worst system except for all of the others. It works best when there's voluntary cooperation, and there's a lot of it. But there are limits to it, and anybody coming to it thinking that they're absolutely free and without obligations and restrictions is going to fare very poorly. Such people force them to pass even more rules to codify what is and isn't allowed, and make the system worse for everybody.

I was also born in Soviet Russia.

It's hard to unlearn toxic ideas and relearn to trust in rational thinking, but it can be done. Don't let your upbringing fool you.

Where is the line (for the common good)? Prevent you from using indoor public spaces? Your right to not want the vaccine infringes my right to life and safety, does it not? I'm seriously curious where you draw the line.

Vaccine mandates are already ubiquitous across the Western world (and the non-Western world). In most cases, it is infants and children having a "medical procedure" forced on them. Your point still stands, but in reality an overwhelming consensus exists that vaccines are an acceptable exemption to bodily autonomy.

EDIT: I didn't make an argument, I only stated uncontroversial facts. Would love an explanation of downvotes.

You think there’s an overwhelming consensus that bodily autonomy ends when a vaccine is concerned?

In practice, yes. It is codified into law in countless nations and there are no major movements to change those laws. So in terms of the reality of being a living human being in any given society (free or not), yes, bodily autonomy is limited by many, many things by the state, one of those being vaccine mandates. You may not like it, but that is simply the reality.

How old were you when you left USSR?

I was twelve.

The legality of the government forcing a medical procedure for the common good been decided by the supreme Court nearly 100 years ago. There is no specific "liberty" that is being violated here.

That decision revolved around a one-time $150 fine (in today's money) and was used to justify forced sterilizations. And it was overturned later. And it was for the authority of a state, not the Federal Government.

Not the same thing at all.

The same decision (Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 1905) is what allowed the Eugenical Sterilization Act of 1924 and to force the sterilization of the undesirables.

If a law would be proposed today to disallow covid-unvaccinated people from having children, I bet you a good number of leftists would agree with it.

Not saying that I advocate for the following, but from reasoning logically, I've arrived at the following based on simplified assumptions. I would love to hear any possible counter-arguments against this hypothetical outcome:

Assuming that unvaccinated people are more likely to die from covid (and hence reproduce), then over time, they would naturally be written out of the gene pool. Or at least drastically dwindle in numbers compared to those vaccinated.

I have seen violations of human rights. Those are the freedoms I was referring to.

See the UN Declaration of Human Rights: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

Article 13 - right to freedom of movement (lockdowns, anyone?)

Article 20 - right to peaceful assembly (lockdowns again)

Article 24 - right to work (mandatory vaccination as a condition of employment)

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