"Another War for the Feds to Lose"
by Bill Bonner
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase
a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
– Benjamin Franklin
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – “This is not about freedom or personal choice,” said Joe Biden. But that is exactly what the vaccine mandate is about. There are choices to be made: to vax or not to vax. The real question is: Who gets to decide? In a free society, people decide for themselves. In a less free society, somebody else decides. In this case, it’s the Decider-in-Chief who wants to tell others what to do.
A New Battleground: And yes… There’s a new battleground in America. Republican against Democrat, conservative against liberal, vaxxed against unvaxxed. CNBC reports: As many return to the office, tensions flare between the “vaxxed and unvaxxed” Many U.S. companies have introduced vaccine mandates for their employees. “In some workplaces we have seen a significant spike in hostility,” corporate lawyer Philippe Weiss told CNBC.
It is tempting to argue with the “facts” and assumptions that the deciders depend on… Do unvaxxed people really pose a danger to the vaxxed? Or is it the other way around? (According to CNN analysis of CDC data, if you are vaccinated, you are 99.99% protected from a fatal “breakthrough” infection. If you do catch it, it’s more likely that you’ll get a low-grade infection. But you can still pass it on to a vulnerable, unvaxxed person.)
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the maladie has carried off 0.19% of the population – more than half of them over 75. Is that such a serious threat that the rest of us should give up our freedom of choice? Is vaccination really the best way for a group to protect itself? (Natural immunity is 13 times better, according to an Israeli study.) Does widespread vaccine use (rather than using it only for those who really need it) backfire? Like the overuse of antibiotics, does it encourage viral innovations and vaccine-resistant strains?
Consequences of Freedom: We don’t know the answers to those questions. But neither does the Decider himself. So, we stick to what we think we know… or at least have strong opinions about. We’ve seen that, based on the Korean experience, you’re about 50 times better off – economically – if you make the choices yourself, rather than letting the political elite make them for you.
We’ve seen, too, based on the American example, that religious freedom – deciding for yourself what god you will worship (rather than letting the Decider tell you) – not only eliminates a major cause of conflict, but seems to benefit religious groups. In the 19th century, America benefited from competition among religious brands. It also benefited from abolishing slave labor; free labor was much more productive.
And how about freedom of the Press? There, too, one of the cardinal values of a free and prosperous society is the ability to say what you think – even if it is idiotic. Here, one of our dear readers, Don M. gives his opinion: "I have no problem with you exercising your freedom of choice when the vaccination comes into play. My only concern is I don’t want to pay your medical bills. Freedom of choice comes with a deterrent. You play, you pay. This coming from a person that strongly believes in the First Amendment."
Reader John N. adds: "Bill, I love your writing and your style, but on your vaccine musings, you are totally wrong. The simple fact is that a reported 2.4 million people have died from this virus. Most of those would not have died had they been vaccinated. That remains a fact, no matter what lipstick you want to put on it. The morons you refer to are exemplified by people like Governor Abbott."
There you have it. It’s so simple. Vax and live. Don’t vax, and you might die. People who don’t see that are just morons. And the unvaxxed are a burden on the vaxxed population. Even strong supporters of the First Amendment do not think that freedom should be allowed to interfere with vaccinations.
The Real Truth: But you see the problem, don’t you, Dear Reader? Who’s the moron? We don’t know. And… excepting perhaps God’s Ultimate, Absolute, and Complete Truth (GUACT)… there is always more to the story.
Do the vaxxed really have to pay the medical bills of the unvaxxed? Maybe not. We are all on the hook for trillions of dollars’ worth of the feds’ unfunded medical and pension obligations. Wouldn’t “our” medical bills go down if more of the unvaxxed got COVID-19 and kicked the bucket? And isn’t that the great usefulness of freedom in all its forms? Like a truce, it allows the rest of the story to come out of hiding.
The elite may think they have the last word on vaccinations. But it was the elite who had the last word on Afghanistan. And being only human, the Truth they tend to see is the Truth they want to see… which happens to be the “Truth” that makes them feel richer, prouder, sexier, and more powerful. After all, they are the Deciders!
Same Outcome: In these pages, we’ve seen that almost all the Great Plans & Projects of the Deciders over the last half-century have been total failures: The War on Poverty. The War on Drugs. The Wars in the Gulf… Iraq… and Afghanistan. Two Wall Street bailouts. And the battle against freely set interest rates, too. As the truth comes out, it becomes clear that since 1980, the feds have run up $27 trillion in new debt, with nothing but bubbles, overcrowded prisons, dead bodies, and McMansions all along the Capital Beltway to show for it. Will the new War Against the Unvaxxed turn out any different? We doubt it."
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