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Comment by jmward01 | Hacker News Reader

I think what is missing from every debate about 'freedom to...' is that choices should have consequences. If your unsafe operation of your body (no vaccines when you could have gotten them) injures or kills another person then you should be held accountable. This basic principle, freedom requires responsibility and accountability, is rarely ever brought up. In the US 'freedom' just means freedom from consequences which is wrong. I am more than willing to let someone tote a gun or fail to be vaccinated, but if they do so in a way that actually harms someone then they should be held accountable and the more obvious the danger, and the more reckless the behavior, the more severe the penalty. You think not vaccinating is the right choice despite the mountains of evidence otherwise? When you get sick your insurance can deny all claims. If you infect someone else they can claim damages or criminally prosecute you for assault. That is actual freedom.

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We're all approaching this wrong.

Politicizing this was one of the greatest electoral innovations of all time.

Somebody realized that calling people ignorant and telling them they had to do something pissed people off and lionized them. So they took the vaccine issue and made it political. They knew the "nerdy folks" would just continue pushing and prodding, and that would continue to rile up the other side's voters.

The "institutions" (which are easy to throw shade at) telling folks they had to comply or lose work - that's a cause to fight. There's much more energy in this than in opposing it, and opposition just inflames the other side even further.

Genius political move.

The correct response to a vaccine critic isn't to call them stupid or tell them they must get a vaccine or lose their job. The correct response is, "you do you, but the supply runs out next week".

Hank Green had a nice video essay about this (I'll try to find the link).

I grew up in the South. These are reasonable folks, and they can be reached, but it's being approached the wrong way. The current methodology is only making it worse.

This is like a viral "meme" that actually causes harm. And the more you try to get rid of it, the deeper it digs. You have to try a new approach. The current one -- and it feels so righteous to call them out -- does the exact opposite of what you want.

That is a great approach, but there can be multiple right paths here. Fundamentally internalizing as a nation a definition of 'freedom' that isn't 'freedom of consequences' as well as giving incentives to act responsibly aren't mutually exclusive. I totally agree that telling someone they are stupid never works. It is like the silly idea that taunting the bully will make them back down. I think both your suggested approach and mine share something in common which is we need consequences, not words. You don't want to vaccinate? It is a week long drive and that is it so you loose your chance, a consequence. You act irresponsibly and harm someone because of a 'freedom', you are charged with assault. Neither path is going on a talk-show and calling people stupid for their actions which, I totally agree, is completely the wrong path.

I agree we should generally accommodate as many people as possible for the greater good of our communities, regardless of how we may feel at the time.

What is your view when they don't extend the same courtesy? We convince them to vaccinate to protect those who cannot be vaccinated, however they still dig their heels in the "got mine, forget you" mentality until it affects them personally? (Abortion rights, school lunches, walkable neighborhoods, food shelters and donation centers)

Every single one of these wasn't originally a problem until it became politicized.

Abortion was legal until it became a political issue in the 1800s.

Churches used to be food banks in the 80's, then "welfare" became political.

People got vaccinated until it became a political issue in the 2020s. Many of the elder anti-vaxxers remember getting vaccinated for Polio and how scary that was.

Abortion was legal, but wasn't it sort of extraordinarily dangerous? I mean, particularly a surgical abortion would have been, at that time.

For millennia there had been instructions and recipes for making abortifacient concoctions, to good or bad effect. Many of them are highly toxic to the mother herself. So many abortion-minded women faced the proposition of harming themselves to get at their unborn children.

And that is the premise of "legalizing" it: that it can be made "safe" and so they wouldn't need to use a coat-hanger in a back-alley "anymore" (although practically nobody did such things.)

There were hundreds of thousands of deaths of women who attempted abortion in Europe after the war. This was done via various artisanal mechanical methods.

If men were giving birth, abortion would be "obviously a choice". (I am a man and a father)

Abortion was less dangerous than giving birth, especially for young (16-) women with smaller hips. The proposition was often "harm yourself, and maybe painfully sterilize yourself" or "maybe die". Marriage as a sacrament (and age limitations) did not come from nowhere.

And abortion was probably still used by older women too: the risk decrease with each child, but increase with age.

Churches used to be the only source of welfare support for American citizens (and in other nations) until the New Deal.

One of the central tenets of the New Deal was that, in a pluralistic society, under disestablishmentarianism, it was unfair to expect families to rely on charity from religious groups where they didn't subscribe to their creeds and didn't share their faith or beliefs. If you accepted charity from, e.g. the Baptists, would you find yourself indebted to them, spiritually?

That is a large reason why secular welfare states became so important and popular with voters. Because if the State managed the welfare, the purse strings, the distribution, and the need-based awards, nobody needed to worry about whose church was doling out the food, clothing, or housing.

Interestingly, though, through a number of turns, the State is actually funding faith-based charities now to distribute all that food, clothing, and shelter. Or some/most of it. Obviously, secular housing authorities are handling Section 8 Vouchers, but a lot of shelters are religious facilities and they're run by church volunteers. Food banks, funded by the USDA, may be non-profits, or churches, synagogues, or community colleges. But they're all receiving USDA funding, and they all follow USDA policies to distribute that same food and assistance.

> Abortion was legal until it became a political issue in the 1800s.

Not according to Dobbs, which goes into this extensively.

"At common law, abortion was criminal in at least some stages of pregnancy and was regarded as unlawful and could have very serious consequences at all stages. American law followed the common law until a wave of statutory restrictions in the 1800s expanded criminal liability for abortions. By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, three-quarters of the States had made abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy, and the remaining States would soon follow."

Lol sounds like right way to do it by this point is to lean into the politicization, and spread the news that doctors are only giving the vaccine to democrats.

I think you’re pretty much spot on, but the societal incentives we’ve set up that make this profitable are really bad. Many things require some personal sacrifice to achieve a collective goal, and if people can’t be swayed by those arguments anymore, it’s hard to achieve anything as a group.

That idea seems like a pretty common one around this issue. While it's not entirely unreasonable on the surface, I'm skeptical of a political argument where only one side is expected to be fully paid up adult members of society with agency and responsibility not only for their behavior for the behavior of others.

For one thing, it feels just as temptingly righteous and insulting to treat your opponents as overgrown toddlers with oppositional defiant disorder as it does to call them stupid. Arguably it's worse, since the implication in calling them stupid is that you would like them to be less stupid and fully expect they are capable of doing so, but the implication in treating them like toddlers is that you expect them to continue to act like toddlers and will adjust your behavior accordingly to get them to eat their vegetables.

Maybe more importantly though, it feels like a huge trap. Far from defusing an effective political strategy, accepting that you are responsible for choices and behavior of others gives them endless license to do bad things free from any feeling of personal responsibility that should come with those actions in a civilized society. Even if you can win on vaccines, the precedent set with that approach is less than ideal.

Agree completely, just curious to understand better this

> "you do you, but the supply runs out next week".

What's the supply referring to here? Not able to follow what this is saying.

it means you are the master of your own domain but when it gets bad and you want vaccine now that there is none left, remember your choice, you were the architect of that portion of fate.

I really wish refusing a vaccine only impacted the person refusing. It would make everything easier.

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