"Public safety" is a good one, you're free to protest but there has to be adequate access for emergency services to get to people in need.
"No significant destruction" is a good one, not just making a mess in the streets but when your movement starts actively destroying property, looting, etc.
If you keep doing economic harm, your movement will tend to get pretty unpopular pretty quickly and the social pressure instead of government force will likely get to you in the end.
Lots of people walking of the job will do significant amounts of economic harm, I don't want people in certain jobs to become effective slaves because their job is important to the economy. And also a general strike is a very powerful action which should be done from time to time, explicitly very economically powerful and definitely should be protected.
This one is also ripe for abuse - outside forces have been using agents provocateurs for centuries, often undercover cops.
Almost unexceptionally yes?
Arab Spring in Egypt, civil rights lunch counter sit-ins, the protests in East Germany in 89...
I'm actually having a hard time thinking of historic protests which didn't inflict economic harm.
Hyperbolic example: If there was a 0.01% minority in your country/region which was violently opposed to some existing minor local law or regulation, would it be ok for them to shut down half the economy over it? Think of all the secondary damage that's doing every time someone gets upset over something relatively-small in the big picture. I think most would think that's unreasonable. It's this question that gets at the heart of when and/or if it's ok for a heavy-handed government to come in and put a stop to things. When is it reasonable for the powers that be to intervene and "stop a protest" because the toll is too high for the weight and/or popularity of the matter at hand?
* "From January 17, 2022 to January 23, 2022, unvaccinated people were 5.9 times more likely to get COVID-19 than people who received their booster dose."
* "From January 17, 2022 to January 23, 2022, unvaccinated people were 11.4 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than people who received their booster dose."
* "From January 10, 2022 to January 16, 2022, unvaccinated people were 21.8 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than people who received their booster dose."
For the first point, I have some doubt as many covid infections go entirely undetected. If you don't have symptoms you don't get tested and don't end up a statistic. Even the CDC says it expects there have been 4x as many infections as reported.
For the next two, those aren't things which need government compelled vaccinations. You're taking a risk with your own health, I don't care if you take a risk and it kills you.
If hospitals aren't able to handle the wave of patients, put government weight behind staffing hospitals better and creating temporary hospitals for overflow.
The only metric that should require vaccination should be to prevent public spread, and then only if the risk to other people is beyond a threshold. It is pretty clear that omicron burned through populations regardless of vaccination status or previous infection. Forcing vaccinations could have lowered this rate a bit, but doubtfully enough to prevent everyone who was going to be exposed from being exposed anyway at a slightly later date.
If you're forcing vaccinations so somebody is more likely to get infected in March rather than January, it is not worth it or a justifiable action. That seems to be the situation with the current vaccine and current dominant variant. Infection is inevitable, short term delay is the only achievable goal, therefore mandates are no longer an acceptable use of government power. Omicron isn't in decline because people were smart or safe or did what they were told, it declined because it ran out of people to infect, vaccination rate didn't seem to significantly alter this pattern around the world except for when the peak happened and perhaps how wide and tall it was.
> If hospitals aren't able to handle the wave of patients, put government weight behind staffing hospitals better and creating temporary hospitals for overflow.
You just immediately contradicted yourself. "It's only a risk to you", but also the government needs to find more hospital staff to take care of you. The fact is, nurses and doctors are burnt out and they're leaving the field because of this bullshit. They don't have enough people to train new health care workers, and even if they did it takes years before they're qualified. You can't just throw money at a staffing issue like this.
Forcing someone to inject something into their body against their will in order to save you a few tax dollars is simply disgusting.
Frankly, I'd be more than happy forcing everyone to inject saline once if it saved everyone $10...but I do well, I'm not especially concerned about "a few tax dollars" and I'm happy to pay my taxes. But inflation from printing money hurts everyone, as do cuts from other government programs meant to help those in need, and both are likely. Maybe over-taxing the rich would too, but that'll never happen, so I'm not sweating that. Still, I think it's disgusting that you'd rather let people be homeless, starve to death, or die from lack of access to medical care than that we just demand that the members of society stop being anti-social. Alternatively, I think it's disgusting that you think you're entitled to everyone's money for treatment that a simple 15 minute trip to the pharmacy could have prevented, which you avoided just to spite all of those people who now have to pay the tab. If we could exclude the voluntarily unvaccinated from COVID-related medical treatment, that'd be a good and fair compromise, but for some reason anti-vaxxers throw a tantrum when that's suggested too.
Twice right? And then a saline booster every 6 months too right?
> I'm not especially concerned about "a few tax dollars" and I'm happy to pay my taxes.
Your lead argument for mandating vaccination was the potential cost of care.
> But inflation from printing money hurts everyone, as do cuts from other government programs meant to help those in need, and both are likely. Maybe over-taxing the rich would too, but that'll never happen, so I'm not sweating that.
I have no clue what you’re talking about here.
> Still, I think it's disgusting that you'd rather let people be homeless, starve to death, or die from lack of access to medical care than that we just demand that the members of society stop being anti-social.
I said no such thing.
There’s a world of difference between opposing a mandate that everybody take a vaccine and opposing vaccines.
Everybody who wants one should get one. They’re free, available on just about every corner, and I’m not aware of anyone right now who wants one who can’t get one.
I’m also not aware of anyone except the most paranoid triple vaxed that still wear a mask outdoors. Now thats anti-social. Not “following the science” either.
> Alternatively, I think it's disgusting that you think you're entitled to everyone's money for treatment that a simple 15 minute trip to the pharmacy could have prevented, which you avoided just to spite all of those people who now have to pay the tab. If we could exclude the voluntarily unvaccinated from COVID-related medical treatment, that'd be a good and fair compromise, but for some reason anti-vaxxers throw a tantrum when that's suggested too.
We do it for smoking. For obesity. For just about every other choice a person can make. There’s nothing special about covid that you should give up dominion over your own body. Hell, for the vast majority of non-obese under 50, it’s barely a flu.
For posterity, for the third time: obesity is not comparable to COVID, because obesity is not a problem which is instantly resolvable for almost no cost and no effort.
Smoking is also not comparable to COVID, because nicotine addiction is also not a problem that is instantly resolvable, for almost no cost. We also tax the hell out of nicotine, which helps offset the burden smokers place on society. If you're content with how we treat smokers, is there some way we could analogously tax the voluntarily unvaccinated to help offset the burden they're placing on the rest of us that you'd be happy with?
Anyway, that's what's special about COVID and vaccination: it is a problem that is almost instantly resolvable for almost no cost.
I understand you're arguing from a principle: you think that, no matter how costly it is for society for someone to be unvaccinated, no matter how ridiculous their reasons are for being unvaccinated, we still cannot punish anyone for it any way. There's literally no practical fact that could change your mind on that - it could be the case that unless everyone got vaccinated the Earth would explode and all our souls would be subject to infinite torment, and you'd still insist Trucker Joe has the right not to get vaccinated and cast all of humanity into eternal damnation. You can argue from that, if you want; but if you're going to try arguing from specifics, by analogy to specific things, you need to actually think those specifics out.
For posterity, I'll also try to clarify what I meant about taxes, and why what you're advocating for precisely leads to the consequences you claim not to support:
A COVID hospitalization costs the government something like 1000x more than a round of COVID vaccinations. There's no real economic benefit to spending that extra money, and that money needs to come from somewhere. It could come from debt or printing money, but that leads to inflation. Inflation makes everyone poorer; it makes it harder to afford basic necessities like housing and food, almost inevitably leading to some degree of starvation and homelessness. It could come from reallocating money that the government spends on programs elsewhere - but those programs generally exist for a reason, usually to help the people in the most dire of straits, and cutting funding to those programs is going to hurt those people - often leading to, you guessed it, consequences like starvation and homelessness. Or it could come from raising taxes - on the poor and middle class, which is awful, because generally speaking those people need that money (and guess what happens when people don't have money they need); or on the rich, which is probably the least awful option, Laffer curve be damned, but is also the least likely to happen, and is still wholly unnecessary. And of course: this ignores what was mentioned above, which is that there's no amount of money the government could throw at hospitals to let them instantaneously increase their capacity 50x over, because the staff literally doesn't exist. So it's an inevitability that the unvaccinated are clogging our hospitals, leading people to die due to treatable conditions.
That you consider giving up body autonomy "almost no cost" is what's simply insane.
It's not a sliding scale where $X of savings for Y% of personal choice. It's a black and white line that involves someone else, whether elected or appointed, deciding that you must inject this into your body for the good of society.
> I understand you're arguing from a principle: you think that, no matter how costly it is for society for someone to be unvaccinated, no matter how ridiculous their reasons are for being unvaccinated, we still cannot punish anyone for it any way.
Damn right.
> There's literally no practical fact that could change your mind on that - it could be the case that unless everyone got vaccinated the Earth would explode and all our souls would be subject to infinite torment, and you'd still insist Trucker Joe has the right not to get vaccinated and cast all of humanity into eternal damnation.
The only people that think the world is going to end if Trucker Joe does not get vaccinated are the same triple vaxed ones that are still wearing masks outdoors.
> A COVID hospitalization costs the government something like 1000x more than a round of COVID vaccinations...
That doesn't matter and claiming that you could use the same money for $PULL_HEARTSTRINGS does not make the argument any more valid.
People who give up individual freedoms to save a buck will end both enslaved and penniless.
None whatsoever.
I’m ok with hospitals having to do work, if they’re overwhelmed I’m ok with the government having to support them in various ways.
Now with these protests, causing even more incredibly severe economic harms they've demurred from criticizing the protestors.
What is the correct amount of economic harm in your view? What are the terms under which a protest should be allowed by a government?
Regardless, I agree that the emergencies act is overkill. I think the Canadian government should sit down with the protestors and come up with a plan that alleviates the situation. I don't think a police vs protestor clash in the streets is going to end well for anyone.
“You need to get vaccinated, or you can’t work in cross border trucking or go to restaurants for a year or two” is an infinitely smaller ask than “give up control of your land to us, also your drinking water is poison”
Comparing privileged truckers to Canadian indigenous people is chalk and cheese.
As for pay, I’m seeing wages of $85K + bennies advertised around here. That’s not a bad wage.
Very privileged.
This isn't the war measures act. It is a response specifically targeted to situations like this.
"I hope the response is a protest escalation"
That's neat. I hope that every protester that misused a privilege of their CDL lose their truck license, lose insurance, have their bank accounts locked, and face enormous fines. I guess we have differing hopes.
Sign petitions. Make a new political party. Lobby. Do a campaign. But if you try to force your political will through force -- which parking large trucks throughout cities and on border crossings is -- you have crossed a line and need to be reigned in.
"Not my country"
Oh gosh, what a surprise...
And then, of course, a comparison with completely irrelevant other events that most of us also found reprehensible.
I hate when the protests appear on HN because it makes me realize how terrible "right wing" so many on here are (not conservative -- I'm conservative -- but rather a particularly...stupid and angry version that now parades as right wing in the US), and how absolutely reprehensible opinions are. A sort of "look someone previously in a different country and a completely different event tore stuff down so let them go wild in another country to own the libs". Just garbage takes that should be embarrassing to the speaker.
Like forcing people out of their job for refusing a vaccine?
Disclaimer: I'm vaccinated and I encourage everyone to do it. But no one should have to under threat to their livelihood, especially given the absurd logical inconsistencies of the mandate rules.
Before vaccination was politicized in the US (bizarrely, I must say, through mechanisms that I find absolutely baffling), many jobs had mandatory vaccinations. Most healthcare setting have mandatory yearly flu vaccinations, for instance. The military has a whole plethora of mandatory vaccinations, including some pretty crazy ones. And of course schools, daycare, etc have forced vaccinations.
Suddenly it's a big issue. Ask yourself why.
And for what it's worth, I've been against mandates since omicron made it evident that they were no longer useful. I have zero tolerance for these protests, though, and would like to see them absolutely stomped.
I'm curious what your answer is. To me its obvious: people don't trust these vaccines (or these authorities) the way that they have trusted other vaccines with much longer histories of use.
The next why is a hairier question that a lot of people will have different answers for, but it all stems from that lack of trust.
Politicization and tribalism, obviously.
> people don't trust these vaccines
There are traditional anti-vaxxers of the "my body is my temple" ilk: Organic food, often vegan or vegetarian, against all vaccines and with an often bizarre notion of what is a "chemical" or not. Usually super fit. No one is surprised when these people are against COVID vaccines as it's consistent with everything else they stand for.
But there is a whole new army of anti-vaxxers who don't care what they eat, vape, smoke, or whether they or their children are standing in a plume of diesel exhaust 24/7. Often very unhealthy. They've never had the slightest concern or attention for any vaccine or medication, including novel, experimental medications (including those which they'll eagerly accept when they get COVID). New vaccines like the HPV vaccine, or yearly flu vaccine changes that have whatever random assortment of other ingredients, have never been of any concern or earned even a moment of their concern.
But suddenly they have very specific thoughts about this vaccine? Come on. And if it's the scary "changes your DNA" (but actually doesn't) bit, there are alternative, less effective more traditional vaccines which they also refuse.
It's tribalism. Early on their group ("conservatives") took some positions about responding to COVID -- anti-masking, anti-lockdowns, etc -- and that cemented into positions that somehow morphed into being anti-vaccine (basically anti anything seen as controlling or responding to COVID), despite there being literally nothing from a values or political perspective that would explain it (indeed, there are loads of classic conservative tenets that would directly oppose this anti-vax position). Then loads of people realized they could grift off of exploiting this divide, politicians -- most of whom are vaccinated -- saw an opening to pander, etc.
It is baffling and needs to be studied in depth. Tens to hundreds of millions of people could self-destructively be turned against something simply because they saw it as outside their tribe and messaging.
You're making some pretty specific assertions here that your whole rant seems to hinge on. Source?
As to your demand for a "source" -- as if there's a scientific paper I can cite -- there are zero rational people who can read what I wrote and seriously question it, beyond weak HN trolls who have nothing.
It's uncomfortable for sure, though: Knowing that one's entire position about complex topics (vaccines, AGW, etc) is dictated by tribalism is pretty embarrassing when one really thinks about it. Particularly if one has blanketed it in lots of ridiculous rationalizations and explanations -- a legacy of nonsense -- carefully curating their YouTube channels of disinformation.
[Gestures broadly at everything]
> You wrote a lot of text attacking a certain type of person
I "attacked" no one. If you feel an attack in it, you really need to reflect on why that makes you feel persecuted. Why a political demographic with zero historic interest in vaccines suddenly feels very opinionated about it is fascinating and disturbing.
I made a broad societal observation -- a plainly evident observation -- about tribalism overriding rational thought. And it's important to note that tribalism cuts all ways, and there are many cases of the "left" polarizing around something that is in no way a liberal or leftist value specifically because it's the tribal position.
> But there is a whole new army of anti-vaxxers who don't care what they eat, vape, smoke, or whether they or their children are standing in a plume of diesel exhaust 24/7.
So not to speak for the other poster, but I think another way to phrase their comment would be: what makes you believe this army exists? How many of them have you personally interacted with vs saw in some form of infotainment?
I ask because your description sounds like the kind of political cartoon you'd see in a news rag, and might be bolstered by that guy you remember from highschool or that crazy uncle that you can't stand. But I don't think its plainly evident that these people actually exist in great numbers.
I strongly believe what you're saying about tribalism. I just think your comment is another example of it.
I remember seeing the roots of this in the early 2000s after the discredited Wakefield study. It was so bizarre.
5x more likely to die while unvaccinated than vaccinated.
Side effects of getting covid are significantly worse than any real reported side effects as well. Which at this point you will get covid if you haven't had it already.
All the sick people piling up in the hospital ruins care for others who are in ER for other reasons, this isn't about control, it's about doing whats best for everyone.
We've had vaccine mandates for decades at this point, if it wasn't for the Fox News & the Murdoch Cinematic Universe this would really be a non-issue.
Yeah. Ruining people's lives is a weird desire that somehow became very popular in recent years among the same people who usually criticized punitive justice.
> Sign petitions. Make a new political party. Lobby. Do a campaign. But if you try to force your political will through force -- which parking large trucks throughout cities and on border crossings is -- you have crossed a line and need to be reigned in.
Signing petitions and lobbying is a privilege of people with power. Neither the US nor France became a republic by signing petitions. Those are, of course, extremes, but those events are the basis of the liberal democracy, so it is quite ridiculous to dismiss everything beyond petitions and parties as crossing a line. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 wasn't enacted because someone signed a petition either. In fact, the protests were widely unpopular among people (https://imgur.com/4GYbaDt). Gene Sharp, a political scientists that studied nonviolent struggle, described in his book (http://www.aeinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/TARA.pdf ) 198 methods of nonviolent actions, and they include far more possibilities than meek petitions.
>A sort of "look someone previously in a different country and a completely different event tore stuff down so let them go wild in another country to own the libs". Just garbage takes that should be embarrassing to the speaker.
And there is a vicious cycle where people are trying to one-up garbage takes by coming up with more and more ridiculous responses to each other.
Singular.
At no point were fire and police “afraid” to go places in the city either, though I can imagine you may have been watching certain “news” coverage that may have claimed that.
>At no point were fire and police “afraid” to go places in the city either
The police abandoned the 3rd precinct station which was burned down later that night. How's that for being afraid to be in a place?
There were plenty of stories of fire trucks not going places for security reasons, and eventually firemen had national guard escorts. I don't know what that is besides "being afraid" to go places in the city.
>>“We were faced with these fail fail fail options,” Mr. Frey (Minneapolis mayor) said. “We were literally having to choose between preventing additional looting, protecting a precinct and providing escorts to firefighters to put out fires. There was no way we could do all three.”
>Damage in Minneapolis was mostly confined to a singular street.
A main street which crossed the cities, miles long. And damage wasn't at all confined there. There were several hot spots around the cities.
>I can imagine you may have been watching certain “news” coverage that may have claimed that.
Well, here's the New York Times backing up my claims.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/minneapolis-government...
They completely abandoned a police precinct which was promptly burned down [0]. Pretty safe to say they were afraid to stay at their own building!
0: https://www.twincities.com/2020/05/28/minneapolis-police-aba...
Using government power intended for things like war to suppress a protest is ridiculous, if this is what being "liberal" is about, I'm out.
I hope the response is a protest escalation. Not my country, not my protest, but I know who I'm rooting for.
Contrast this to what was happening in Minneapolis a couple of summers ago... people burning down buildings, shops, and police stations and the fire and police literally afraid to go places in the city until we had armed forces marching through the streets. Those are the kind of popular uprisings that need to be dealt with, not streets being blocked by unhappy people.