Vaccinations, like government, are not the opposite of freedom. They are a means toward achieving it

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.editorialboard.com/p/vaccinations-like-government-are

I’m still stuck on the idea that if we’re nicer to Americans refusing to get vaccinated, they’d be more likely to get vaccinated. That seems akin to hostage-takers being more likely to release hostages if we meet their demands. Anyone who thought about this morally for five minutes would realize anyone willing to take hostages in the first place is untrustworthy, much less committed to releasing hostages after their demands are met. Meeting their demands actually incentivizes them to take even more hostages.

Americans refusing to get vaccinated are similarly engaged in power politics, not an fair, honorable and equitable exchange. What’s good for them is not their own health and well-being. What’s good for them is not enlightened self-interest. What is good for them is maintaining a political advantage, real or imagined, that “us” has over “them.”

So the more we ask anti-vaxxers nicely to please get vaccinated pretty please with sugar on top, the more incentive they have to say no. The more they say no, the more we have to keep asking. Yes, we’re asking them to do what’s best for them and their loved ones, but they don’t see that. What happens after hostages are released? No more advantage! I’d say most people think politics is about problem-solving. Anti-vaxxers think politics is war by other means. To get vaccinated is to concede defeat. And that’s unthinkable.

That the real defeat would be their own deaths by the covid does not undermine my point here. It underscores it. A founding principle of the anti-vaxx movement, started long before the covid came, is individual freedom. In this story, they are the heroes. Laws, regulations and people who think politics is about problem-solving—they are the villains. Once people get it in their heads that giving in to laws, regulations and problem-solving is the death of their liberty, it’s not hard to imagine them accepting as good the real thing. In this sense, they’re less hostage takers than suicide bombers.

*snip*