Many arguments of segregation I have seen so far really imply to me how comfortable people are with ignoring or dismissing the reality that many underserved communities and professionals will effectively be blood sacrifices to a passive response.

The anti-vax movement is not operating with the objective of simply keeping to themselves... Right now they have demonstrated consistently that they will actively engage in lifestyle patterns and behaviors that deliberately promote the spread of the virus. Putting others, including vaccinated individuals at avoidable risk.

They are quite literally using their rights to weaponize their ability to destabilize civic institutions via the pandemic. And when you factor in the political cover and support they have received... It's hard to not look at it as a attempt at politically expedient mass murder.

@domos So maybe they are hoping to commit sort of a genocide against those who are to the left of them politically, even tho it will probably have an equal effect on those from their political side?

@TomMcGiverin I have become suspicious of this. Some of my peers who still associate with or have relationships with more extremist and racist individuals tell me that the concept and themes of genocide are the norm of mainstream... I say again: they are the norm of mainstream right-wing politics...

That it doesn't take more than a few beers to get someone on the right to start to expose some pretty terrifying concepts.

I do think the emails that the Trump administration were using to direct PPE to politically friendly states at the expense of others was something that people didn't want to touch with a 10,000-ft pole because of the terrifying implications.

Got a sitting presidential administration & political party was actively trying to use a virus to kill their politically opponents by hindering or blocking effective preventive resources.

You are also amongst those who have truly lost all patience.

Are you willing to endure the risks and consequences that come with a heavy-handed / fire and brimstone response?

Seeing that there is a national security alert warning of domestic terrorism from the seditionists and anti-vaccine movement... Is the risk to the safety of yourselves and your loved ones from such violence worth taking in order to mitigate the spread of the pandemic?

@domos You sound like you are in favor of letting the anti vaxers and right wingers hold us hostage against doing the best thing for the public health because they threaten violence against the government and those on the left don't? Man, that sounds a bit like maybe the left should have taken up violence and threats of violence against our corrupt government long ago, if that is what it takes to influence policy...It's interesting that the last times the left threatened or committed violence against the government to influence policy, the 60s thru the early 80s, the federal government quickly moved to crush and sometimes murder them, but if the groups on the right threaten or use violence, the government is either slower to respond, or goes lighter on them, since the 80s. And don't talk about Ruby Ridge or Waco as examples, as Ruby Ridge was one person killed, versus a mass murder of Black Panthers or of the MOVE organization in Philadelphia, and Waco was people being killed by their own leader's actions, not the FBI.

@TomMcGiverin I think there's some confusion. I by no means I'm interested in providing cover for this madness.

I think by all accounts, the handling of this pandemic is a form of domestic terrorism. It is literally impossible to come up with a conspiracy or means of trying to use a pandemic disaster as a lethal political weapon and get away with it that is dissimilar from what we have experienced doing the Trump regime.

However, many people who have lost all patients don't seem as willing to admit or accept the realities of taking a heavy-handed approach.

America is overly fond of sending underserved communities into harm's way for the sake of comfortable ambiguity.

I see you have also decided no quarter should be given...
Are you really willing to risk the consequences of a fire and brimstone approach?

@domos as a thought ... If we dont cull the herd , mother nature will

@Redneckliberal wow... Okay then, do you think that we should respect your rights as if they are legitimate citizens anymore?

@domos culling the herd doesnt mean that we eliminate the idiots in our society permanently ..... Just vaccinate their ignorant asses for the protection of everybody...

@Redneckliberal against their will? That does not sound viable to me.

Well... I was trying to give some representation to some of the arguments against mandating the vaccine for the general public.

To be honest, one of the prompts for this pole in the first place was the department of defense issuing a general warning of domestic violence/terrorism and response to lockdown measures.

It's a bit profound that there are people willing to employ the political violence of terrorism to protest the direct consequences of their refusal to be unvaccinated in a responsible way.

@domos From the first two I infer that unless we allow the unvaccinated to do whatever they want the country will change dramatically in some negative way. I'm not sure what would be more negative than 10's of thousands of more unvaccinated Americans dying from a virus that can be checked and people dying because of lies and misinformation.

Your concern over "political violence" over the "public health" seems to be a skewed priority IMO. 10s of thousands dying a slow miserable death while clogging up health care services around the country to violence in a country where mass shootings have become a norm seems kind of weird to me.

@redbai look, to be quite frank I agree with you. I think that the consequences of their refusal to accept responsibilities that come with their rights amount to the same damage as a enemy attack.

However, these are the risks that come with a democracy that does not adequately invest in its human/civic infrastructure.

Yes, I fully believe that history will look very negatively on the handling of this pandemic thus far. We have effectively been making literal blood sacrifices out of vulnerable and under served communities of citizens and professionals.

And those sacrifices have been made at the altar of white supremacy, feckless regulatory agencies, poorly / undereducated populaces.

But the painful truth it's the following: many individuals and institutions in this country do not equate the lives of certain citizens as being equal to those of others. They have effectively decided that the hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths are a acceptable cost so long as the narrative of privilege/dominance can be maintained.

The handling of this pandemic is the closest America has gotten to defining the norm of institutional bigotry as a national security risk and it is still a subpar response.

@domos "The handling of this pandemic is the closest America has gotten to defining the norm of institutional bigotry as a national security risk..."

I think you should look into what Hoover did during the middle of the last century to quash the black power movement before you make that remark. The threat of black people getting equal right was considered a national security threat by the FBI and they treated the black populations of America as such.

Should we continue to be a state in which we sacrifice so-called essential workers, often black and brown communities, so that the subjective comforts of a few can be served by their avoidable deaths?

@domos Why have they not been vaccinated themselves? I'm an essential worker. I contracted covid at work, before there was a vaccine. Now I'm vaccinated and have a much greater chance of either not catching it again, should I come in contact with it, or having much reduced symptoms. Meanwhile, I still wear a mask at work, to cover my bases.

You're taking a very paternal stance toward everyone who could and should be making choices for themselves.

@Paul4747 well the chances of vaccinated people not catching it is decreasing by the day.

The good thing is that the primary job of the vaccines is to keep the symptoms from being as severe or fatal. And fortunately, that efficacy has not been significantly reduced.

Pandemics are not a situation where the context or domain of individual choices can be separated from those of the community or larger group.

I think the American narrative of individuality has been unbalanced for a long time and this pandemic is going to exploit that weakness

@Paul4747 you also made the assumption that essential workers are at risk because they are not vaccinated. Not only is that at odds with the science of the vaccines themselves... It implies that you perceive it as the responsibility of those who service the anti-vaxxers to somehow be able to deal with all of the consequences being imposed upon them.

That kind of seems unfair.

@domos Your assumptions appear to be that those who choose to pass up vaccinations are somehow going to be more "comfortable". I don't know that that is correct. But your saying that not forcing mass vaccination is "sacrificing" essential workers (perhaps you might have said "putting them at risk of sacrifice" more accurately) is not supportable.

Those who don't get vaccinated are choosing to live with a greater risk, acknowledge it or not. Getting vaccinated is a risk managemnet strategy. I would hope that anyone in any category, but especially the essential worker position, is getting vaccinated.

And, yes, it is my responsibility to deal with the risk and take all the precautions I can, including vaccination and masking at work. Does it seem unfair to you that I am responsible for my own helath decisions, and not people I've never met? It doesn't to me. I can't control whether anyone else gets vaccinated or not. I can only control whether I do, and mitigate the risk as best I can.

This is not exclusive to covid. We're all at greater risk of catching the cold or flu, although the consequences are much less. I can't make anyone else get a flu shot, either. I can't control whether other drivers use turn signals or whether they drink and drive, putting me at risk. I can only control my own driving and be aware of dangers, compensating for them and keeping myself safe. None of this seems unfair to me.

Please don't take this as personal criticism, but, again, it seems to me that you are overreacting to the situation. As awful as covid potentially is, we are successfully dealing with it and we can go on dealing with it. The main penalty for not getting vaccinated is not getting vaccinated.

We can't criminalize health care choices. Substitute "vaccinated" with "carry a fetus to term" and you will see that we can't force choices on anyone en masse.

How many lives of "essential workers", effectively underserved communities are we willing to expend in the process of letting the unvaccinated weaponize their vulnerability to the pandemic?

This is not as simple as letting them infect each other. In the United States, the anti-vaccine movement is deliberately living lifestyles that promote the spread of the virus rather than trying to responsibly live in an unvaccinated way.

It is possible to be on vaccinated and still take actions to minimize the spread of the virus, however ineffective compared to getting vaccinated.

I think people underestimate the history of segregation in the South.

The majority reason for why segregation filled was because white supremacists wanted dominance and went out of their way to destabilize the already oppressive norms of segregation to enforce/advance their dominance.

In short, segregation was not enough for them and their agenda.

The anti-vaccine movement in the United States has shown no sign that it will except the consequences or sacrifices required by the choice of not getting vaccinated.

@domos I think you're making up history to justify your perspective. The reason segregation failed was because it was objectively wrong and couldn't be justified on an international scale when other countries were asking about the "freedom" of Americans given the obvious differences in how black people were being treated in the country. American corporations were having a difficult time doing business in any continent but Europe because America was a demonstrably racist country.

Segregation worked just fine for almost 60 years, then with civil rights protests being projected across the world showing dogs and firehoses were being used on women and children asking for civil rights, the United States could no longer lie on the international stage about how black Americans were being treated. Black Americans were going across the globe and telling the world the truth about the rampant racism in America and the fallacy of "separate but equal". If America was going to continue the facade of being the example of Democracy working they needed to remove all obvious images of racism.

There is absolutely nothing about the anti-vaccine movement that is comparable to segregation in America. It's as far from reality as MTG comparing wearing a mask on the floor of congress to Jews having to wear arm bands in Germany under Nazi rule.

I guess the question then becomes whether we view the radicalization of far-right and anti-vaxxer conspiracies a form of violence against the nation or not?

Are we willing to use violence to affect cultural change... Because it seems increasingly likely that anti-vaxxers are not simply refusing to get vaccinated... They are deliberately living their lives in the matter that promotes the spread of covid-19....

Do you think that mainstream society needs to interpret this as a form of biological warfare/sabotage / sedition?

@domos It's helping spread the virus and hindering the effort to eradicate the virus. You want to call that violence? It doesn't matter.

So I guess that's a yes to the heavy-handed approach...?

@domos That choice would segregate"d" them and I don't agree with doing that as the survivers will one day segregate Dem's from them. Tit-4-tat needs to stop. Many liberals will also die by leaving them to nature but that's war and more of them will go so we win. Let it happen without interference (again, that just gets a response). It is not handed, at all, to let nature take its course.

@rainmanjr doesn't this ignore the fact that we've effectively sent many of our "essential workers" and other minority groups to die so that these people could basically feel politically relevant despite the consequences of their actions...

Assuming that they will naturally succumb to the consequences of their actions is a lot like saying the baby boomers will naturally succumb to the consequences of their unhealthy choices / voting records.

It kind of ignores the amount of institutional inertia that they have going for them

@domos Paragraph 1 should have a question mark at the end instead of "...". Paragraph 2 assumes a truth; BB's will succumb to the consequences. Therefore, it addresses itself. Not giving energy to some aspect of society does not "ignore" it. Institutions are empowered by human devotion, not ideas, so their "power" will fade with our lack of energy toward it.

@rainmanjr I would like to point out that baby boomers have effectively extracted so much material wealth and an institutional inertia into their service that it's more or less hampered the ability for the nation to adapt to challenges and effectively prolonged their lives to a disproportional extent compared to other American generations.

Baby boomers have commanded so much institutional inertia that avoiding the consequences of their actions is effectively the narrative of American domestic policy.

Anti-vaxxers are very much tied into the white supremacist and far-right political movement which themselves overlap with a lot of the same institutional inertia baby boomers have enjoyed.

If we were to let things resolve themselves as you imply, it could take a very long time and consume a lot of the lives of many underrepresented communities who are disproportionately the essential workers servicing demographics likely to be part of the anti-vaxxer movement.

Do you think all of those lives lost is a reasonable exchange to avoid the negatives of mandating a vaccine.

@domos I think time is irrelevant. If we grant, by law, that all humans are equal to one another and act like it (exempting nobody from rights, financial burden, or justice) then societal affairs will work themselves out, likely with greater effect for equality, but life will always be a battle over stuff. We will never actually "get there." I do, however, think BB's have consumed too much of the available oxygen and screwed up most of what we have touched. That's a negative of the collective child-rearing wisdom which many of their parents practiced. It shaped us in ways we weren't seeing. Like most abusers we are rather innocent of the indoctrinations but, without self work (and even with it in most cases), tend to prolong the consequences (one of which is privileged mentality). Hopefully we are growing out of the BB error, into much more of a co-op mentality, and that likelihood rubs against their sensitive egos so they get mad. Kill and destroy is what military's do and we were basically trained to be soldiers so a certain callousness for lives was inevitable. Eventually so will the co-op mentality, I'd bet, but I hope it takes a long while to get there.