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Comment by boplicity | Hacker News Reader

For example, requiring almost everyone to get a vaccine? That's not new. That's been happening for decades.

The only difference is there's a new vaccine that needs to be rolled out to everyone, as quickly as possible.

Most people get their mandatory vaccines as children, in a staggered way.

Because of the current situation, it's happening all at once, and the restrictions that enforce the vaccine are also being changed, based on the age of the people required to get the vaccine. What am I missing here?

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When was it common to prevent people from entering a restaurant unless they were vaccinated with a vaccine that itself had only been developed 15 months prior?

You're comparing denying education to children to denying non-essential services, such as restaurants, to adults. One is an essential right, the other is not.

If anything the restrictions people are putting in place to enforce the vaccine mandate have been less extreme. As workplace mandates get rolled out, this will become more even, as the right to work is comparable to the right to an education.

As I tried to communicate before, curtailing basic rights in order to enforce vaccinations for everyone is not new. The only difference is that these usually happen based on age, instead of happening to everyone, all at once.

Apparently, in the past, the Supreme Court even allowed knocking down people's doors in order to force vaccinations.

"That was a relatively easy no for the court. In a 7-2 ruling in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, it decided that jurisdictions do have the right to require people to get vaccinated. Back then, the government was much more forceful about it, knocking down people’s doors to get them vaccinated, the New York Times says."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/10/republica...

Denying access to restaurants seems....timid? At least, in comparison.

This meme about “Jacobson vs. Massachusetts” doesn’t seem as strong an argument as the useful idiots believe. It’s an example of the court affirming the right of a State Legislature. It says nothing about the right of the executive branch of the federal government to forbid private transactions between employers and employees, unless the employee submits to a medical procedure mandated by executive order.

I’m sure the argument falls apart in many other ways. You can probably find the counter arguments in the same Twitter thread where you found your talking points – just make sure to unhide the tweets containing them.

The poster above was replying to a comment about mandates to enter restaurants. Those mandates have been entirely state directed. So it does not fall apart at all.

In terms of Biden's recent mandate announcements, that would be two questions:

1. Is OSHA legal?

2. Is the mandate within OSHA's scope?

In terms of state level mandates, the Jacobson vs. Massachusetts ruling clearly applies.

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