Wait…what? You think forcing a person to accept a substance into their body under force isn’t inconsistent with libertarian values? As a classical liberal, I can’t think of something more offensive to my values and I am a fully vaccinated person and wished everyone else was too. This is absolutely f’ing horrifying and will ultimately be used against everyone at some point in the future.

The body is the absolute individual. Having maximum control over the individual is probably the most basal libertarian value there is. This is not some external restraint to prevent the commission of a crime. It’s not even punishment for a commission of a crime. It’s the mandated forcing of a substance internally into an individual’s body against their will with a sketchy societal benefit behind its justification. Sketchy because now with Delta there is apparently no scientific basis to believe that the vaccines eliminate the risk of spread of the virus but at this point it only seems to prevent serious illness.

BTW, watch as the GOP uses this mandate to justify the individual state prohibition of abortion. They will be able to too, because this is going to pretty much kill the DNC’s ability to win anything for at least 8-10 years.

We are not talking about forced vaccination. I'm referring to the workplace mandates where people are still free to not vaccinate if they wish, just as their employer is free under at-will employment to kick them out.

But even if we consider literal forced vaccinations, I still don't see that as necessarily inconsistent with libertarianism, due to the reasons I outlined, specifically the non aggression principle.

Suppose that a new disease emerged that had a mortality rate of Ebola and a transmissibility of COVID. Suppose we had a vaccine that was capable of stopping transmission. In such a rare and extreme set of circumstances, forced vaccination (not even mere mandates in workplaces) would be a must under the NAP. The right to choose not to vaccinate is effectively the same as the right to kill people with a disease that you may carry.

Luckily COVID isn't as deadly as that, and the vaccines aren't as effective at preventing transmission, so we don't need to consider such measures. But in the right context, I very much see forced vaccinations as following from libertarian axioms. Just like you would see jailing a serial murderer and depriving them of their liberty to be justified under those same axioms.

For the record, I'm one of the most anti-collectivist people you'll meet. I just pay significant credence to the reality of negative externalities. You can swing your fist all you want, but you can't punch my nose with that fist. In the same vein, you can't cough your deadly virus into my face and not expect to justly have force applied to you.

I think your NAP argument doesn’t really work for a very specific reason. Every punch in the face results in a punch to the face. Every homicide results in a death. Those actions always have an aggressive consequence, so most libertarians can justify prevention and incarceration and removal of liberties as a consequence of the aggression. However, every cough, even from a Covid-19 positive person, does not result in a death…or even an illness. Further, even a vaccinated person could cough and infect someone if they had COVID-19, including another vaccinated person. So is it truly aggression if there is a possibility of no negative consequence and a possibility of a negative consequence no matter which direction was chosen? I think you could maybe make a NAP case if the vaccines were a 100% effective and the unvaccinated ALWAYS caught and passed on Covid-19 causing severe illness. We aren’t at that stage, so this fails the NAP test in my opinion.

No, because I am also rightly not allowed to throw a brick out of my apartment window without looking below, because that might plausibly hit someone in the head. Most bricks that I could throw out my window won't hit someone in the head, but that doesn't mean that it should be legal for me to do it, because it is recklessly endangering people.

Same situation if I put a single bullet into a revolver, spun it, and pulled the trigger while aiming at someone's head. There's only a one in six chance that I'd murder that person, but that action should definitely be illegal and force should be applied to anyone who would pull that trigger.

This is why we have drunk driving laws. Some non-drunk drivers do kill people, and most drunk drivers don't kill people, but the probability is highly elevated for drunk drivers, and it is therefore illegal to do it. Drunk driving laws aren't authoritarian, they aren't a result of a nanny state. This is the state fulfilling its duty of protecting person B from aggression by person A, whether that aggression happens with absolute certainty (punching me in the face) or with an elevated probability (drunk driving)

Now, I don't think vaccines should be forced on people for COVID. I just think that it's a valid thing to do in the right circumstances (e.g Ebola with an R0 of 3).

Drunk driving laws are punitive. They allow the individual freedom of choice. The equivalent in this scenario is locking someone up because they own a car and a liquor cabinet and could drive drunk and kill someone. Then also giving them the keys to the prison bus to drive around the prison yard while providing an unlimited supply of pruno.

You are right that there's a big distinction there. But at the same time, I was attempting to point out that it's not only certainty of outcome where the NAP applies. We all accept that the NAP can validly apply in some situations where an aggression is probabilistic rather than guaranteed.

Let me outline an alternative situation where an individual would have no freedom of choice, but where you might agree with the measures imposed. Suppose we identify the first case of Ebola in the US next year. Do you support forcibly quarantining that person? Such an action is eminently necessary in my opinion. But at the same time, such an action violates the two things you've laid out: (1) it doesn't allow the individual any freedom of choice, (2) it is not guaranteed that they'll spread it and is therefore restricting their freedoms merely on the probability of aggression.

But—they have Ebola. The problem with a mandate of an imperfect vaccine on a person presently without Covid is they don’t have Covid. Frankly, I’d be ok quarantines imposed on Covid patients just like your Ebola scenario.

My problem is the whole “Minority Report pre-crimesque” aspect of it all. It’s an unnecessary aggression imposed on an individual to maybe or maybe not prevent a something that maybe or maybe not would have happened anyway.

A vaccine that was 100% effective and was 100% safe is probably the only way you can make an argument work. But if it was a 100% effective and a 100% it’s likely you wouldn’t need to mandate it anyway.

That appears to be a distinction without a difference. Even though they already have Ebola, they may not infect someone else.

P(infect another) = P(get the disease)*P(transmit after getting it)

With the Ebola example, that's P_Ebola = 1.0*P(transmit after getting it).

With the COVID example, that's P_COVID = 0.3*P(transmit after getting it).

Both of these are sub-1 and not guaranteed to happen. In fact, P_COVID may actually be larger than P_Ebola depending on the relative R0 and assumptions we plug into the above calculations. So I don't see why the distinction you raised has relevance.

Detaining someone with Ebola, which we both agree is a good idea, is also a pre-crime measure, because they haven't infected anyone yet and they may never have infected anyone even without detention.

And I will also point out once more (due to your second sentence) that I do not support forced vaccinations for COVID. The COVID disease just isn't deadly enough and the vaccines aren't effective enough at preventing transmission for me to support that. I am merely saying I do support it in the abstract if a sufficiently deadly contagious disease comes about in the future.

One is a known effective reaction to a danger. The other is an ineffective proaction to a possible danger. If you are going to violate someone’s liberty, you better have a damn good reason to do it.

They're both possible dangers, even though you're trying to frame the Ebola example as a certain danger, which it just isn't, since there's a very decent chance that they won't infect anyone even without detention. It's not valid to label one as "reaction" and another as "proaction". They're both pre-crime measures for possible dangers. Neither of them is a certain danger.

It is also not "ineffective" in the hypothetical I was discussing. You seem to insist on the point that I wish to hoist forced vaccinations for COVID, which I don't. I'm strictly speaking in the abstract given a hypothetical where there's a vaccine capable of preventing transmission of a disease that is much more deadly than COVID.

But I agree with your main point that the circumstances should be very extreme before such measures are considered. If there's a contagious disease that is killing 10-50 percent of infected people and early quarantine measures have failed and we have a vaccine that seems effective at preventing transmission, then I'm probably in support of forced vaccinations, although I suspect it might not be necessary since everyone will be desperate to get it.

Actually, I really don’t think we are really that far off from each other, as we are both making the distinction that an effective measure coupled with an extreme situation would be needed.

I’m more concerned with the existing proposed mandate, because it is not hypothetical and I don’t think it satisfies either test (an extreme situation with an effective prevention).

A hypothetical Ebola situation would be different animal just because of the mortality rate being around 20+ times the average Covid rate. The other factor being who it kills. Ebola is pretty indiscriminate. Covid danger is significantly higher among elderly and folks with pre-existing conditions and it looks like many of those folks heeded the vaccination call (85%+ have at least a single dose in the US).

agreed

People are libertarian for different reasons. Some of them just hate government and look for an ideological framework to justify it. I would say that driving licenses are a similar case.

Except that you don't need a driving license to drive, only to do so on public roads. These mandates are similar, you can be as un-vaccinated as you like as long as you stay at home.

The similarity I’m drawing is that being out and about unvaccinated and driving without proper training both put others at risk, which violates NAP. Therefore both can (arguably) be mandated inside of a libertarian framework.

I think it is less about the concern that others will be infected with severe disease and more about the potential cost and stress that the unvaccinated place on the healthcare system.

The vaccine costs $20 per dose while COVID treatment in the hospital is $23K (in Canada - likely similar in the US).

Perhaps a less draconian approach would be to allow the unvaccinated to purchase additional insurance to cover these costs in the scenario where hospitalization is required.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cihi-covid19-canada-hospital-...

Exactly! Not getting a vaccine violates the all-important "NAP". Of course most self-professed libertarians likely would think of a short rest and not aggression when they hear NAP, as its become a generic anti-government term rather than the nuanced political ideology it once was.