Does that justify how countries like Cuba dealt with HIV? The problem is that public health can reach fairly extreme levels unless it is checked by a strong conception of individual rights. Otherwise you literally get situations like what happened with HIV in Cuba (for those who don't know, HIV positive people were rounded up and sent to institutions as a public health measure to prevent HIV spread). That's why I find it incredibly concerning that people seem to just be happy to suspend individual rights so rapidly. The state of Victoria in Australia recently passed legislation that lets it ignore certain human rights - such as the right to employment - in the face of the pandemic.

> Does that justify how countries like Cuba dealt with HIV?

The declaration says “in a democratic society”. Are we counting Cuba as one?

> That's why I find it incredibly concerning that people seem to just be happy to suspend individual rights so rapidly. The state of Victoria in Australia recently passed legislation that lets it ignore certain human rights - such as the right to employment - in the face of the pandemic.

One might argue they prioritized the Article 3 right to life over that of employment; loss of life being permanent, and employment not, this seems like a justifiable use of Article 29, especially given Australian per capita deaths being massively lower than here in the States. We’ve killed two Tasmanias worth of people over here.

(I have relatives in Ballarat, Melbourne, Sydney, and Hobart, incidentally. I’d trade my pandemic experience here in upstate NY with them in a heartbeat.)

Are you going to try and argue that such a policy would have been on the right side of history as long as it was bought in by a democratic society?

No. Did any democratic society take the concentration camp approach for HIV? Or COVID, for that matter?

Again, the UDHR asserts a variety of rights. You're correct that Article 23 asserts a right to employment, but the apparent desire to read that as the only provision in the document appears to be a motivated one. The document lays out other rights, which naturally may be in conflict with each other at times, a fact that is explicitly acknowledged in Article 29.

I don't object to disagreeing with Victoria's balancing of the various rights, but I do object to the assertion that it's somehow a clear violation of human rights for them to prioritize the rights to life and health over the right to employment.

> The document lays out other rights, which naturally may be in conflict with each other at times

Ok, so we've taken away all these rights from unvaxxed people. What rights do you believe this has that allowed others to exercise?

Because from where I sit:

1. It doesn't reduce the odds of people getting COVID. We just had ... probably between 2-3 million COVID cases between NSW and Victoria, both with highly vaccinated populations. That is only possible if vaccinated people are infecting each other (as most reporting I've read suggests is happening).

2. Doesn't otherwise affect anyone's rights.

Note that there isn't even a right not to get sick from time to time. Although it even if such a right did somehow exist it isn't obvious how an unvaxxed person would be affecting your right to excercise ti since the problem is how much you come into contact with other humans vs anything any other individual is doing. There has been no threat to our hospital systems at any point that justifies what has been done to the unvaxxed. The pressure the hospital system has come under appears to be from the COVID restrictions (and, ironically, probably things like laying off workers for resisting the unreasonable vaccination policies - although if they've got the capacity to start sacking people then they clearly don't see a problem).

So it seems to me that we're doing this just for fun / for the joy of being authoritarian.

And your damn right the reasoning is motivated. Motivated by a desire to let people earn money and make their lives better at will. To be able to go places and visit friens and family without being arrested. To make their own medical decisions. These are reasonable motivations. These rights are the easy ones with practical justifications.

> Ok, so we've taken away all these rights from unvaxxed people. What rights do you believe this has that allowed others to exercise?

The Article 25 right to medical care, which unvaccinated people can put at risk by overwhelming hospitals with ICU cases.

I also consider getting vaccinated to be one of the Article 29 "duties to the community".

There is no risk to the hospital system. There have been 2 years to prepare and we just had 1,000,000 covid cases is NSW and there was barely a blip. There were around 3,000 hospitalisations at peak and it seemed to mostly be vaccinated people although the table over at covidlive.com.au might be misleading me.

This isn't an emergency any more, this is routine.

> I also consider getting vaccinated to be one of the Article 29 "duties to the community".

That is an extreme hand wave. It appears the argument is "We can violate your human rights because you have a duty to do what I tell you". These are serious concerns, you may just handwave things like free travel or ability to see family with "you have a duty, but I don't feel a need to justify it" - but that isn't a respectable position.

What is the real risk to the community of these unvaccinated people? We've pretty much seen the worst case COVID scenario play out in the last 2 months and it doesn't seem like the unvaxxed have been a problem in the slightest. The campaign of bullying should end.