Not anti-vaccine but anti-mandate

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for September 1, 2021)

I am not anti-vaccine. I've been vaccinated for a few things in my adult life because I think the risk of those vaccines is less than the risk or inconvenience of the diseases they are supposed to prevent.

I wouldn't bother getting a quasi-vaccine which neither prevents the vaccinated from getting nor spreading a disease I'm not particularly worried about; a sort-of-vaccine which doesn't even last a few years, to moderate a new, slightly more dangerous, cold virus. A cold virus, which like all other cold viruses, will never go away.

It would be dishonest to call me an "anti-vaxxer". I'm not one. I think some vaccines are very useful and are a great benefit. Just not this one.

If you want the vaccine because your opinion of the relative risks differs from mine. I want you to get it. If you get the vaccine, I hope it works or at least makes you feel safer-- whatever you want it to do.

New data might change my mind and make me decide I want one of these vaccines, too-- if the new data comes from a source I trust. A source more credible and trustworthy than those currently counting the numbers of cases and deaths. Government is not such a source.

Why would anyone assume the numbers reported by government agencies and other politicized entities are even close to true? It is an unsupported assumption. I don't trust anyone connected to politics.

I oppose using government power and threats of violence to force others to get vaccinated or to wear masks. I also oppose using government power to forbid vaccinations and masks for those who voluntarily choose them and bear the full costs themselves.

I'm not anti-vaccine. I am anti-mandate.

In this case, I see no difference between bullies, governments, or corporations. No government or corporation has any right to do anything, since rights are individual, not collective. A collective can't have the right to violate individuals' rights.

Yes, private business owners have the right to require masks in their business. I also have the right to refuse to trade with those business owners.

I oppose anyone who helps government create vaccine passports of any sort. I oppose those who advocate for social division based on vaccination status. Even if I later decide to take the vaccination, I will always oppose "Papers, please" and other authoritarian interference in life.

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Justifying mandatory Covid "vaccines" for young kids in government school with the observation that other vaccines are mandatory for admission into kinderprison illustrates that mandating any vaccine is wrong rather than making the argument that a mandatory Covid "vaccine" is OK. Also: Death to kinderprison.

Heed the warnings you are lucky enough to get

It's a constant frustration for me to warn someone about an issue I can see on the horizon only to be scoffed at or told I am lecturing. Then-- at least when it's my personal life-- to be expected to fix the problem once it happens. After my warning was completely ignored.

It happens so often as to be a theme.

It's the same whether I'm warning people in public about looming inflation, warning people to prep, or warning someone in private that they are ignoring something that's going to cause a problem in the near future.

Do you experience this, too?

I am often a good "fixer", but I'd rather avoid issues I see approaching, heading them off before they become problems that need to be fixed. But when I warn others, and it's up to them to do something to avoid this future problem, they usually don't. Then they expect me to fix what their inaction caused. I guess they think it's easier to let the problem happen and then have me fix it. I should just refuse to do so, but I won't.

To be honest, I've been guilty of ignoring the warnings of others, too. More when I was younger, but it still happens sometimes. So I guess I can't be too hard on others.

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