Monday, August 02, 2021

In The Land Of Possibility

First, there's a lambda variant out there that may be resistant to our vaccines.

I have little hope that people will adapt to reality as fast as the virus is, apparently the virus is smarter than some of us, including, I will bet, the Supreme Court.  If we don't give up the spoiled toddler libertarianism that currently rules us, we're in for an even worse hell ride than we've been on.  

Yeah, that's the key issue, still:  why people think they have the autonomy of self to refuse vaccination when it is necessary to secure public health.  I've actually seen arguments that compare it to autonomy over abortion, which is a separate issue altogether (even though the same word can be used for each issue).  These things that pass for knowlede, and all that.  But the question is:  why are 18 year olds suddenly free to be as stupid as they want to be? 

We could analogize this to motorcycle helmets, because it become society's burden to care for the brain damaged who won't wear on and then find out why they should have.  Harris County runs one of the premier trauma centers in the world; it's the trauma center for the Texas Medical Center, and they do wonders for brain damage, especially.  But isn't that directly costing all of us when you (generic "you" of course) assert your "freedumb" to ride helmetless?  Or, more to the point since helmet laws have been relaxed over the years, to ride in a car without wearing a seatbelt?  I mean, we've all but expelled smoking from public spaces, almost solely on public health grounds (but who among us who remembers the smell of tobacco smoke lingering in the air, begrudges the expulsion of that practice from our public spaces just on aesthetic grounds?).  Why can we agree that's a societal prerogative, but now "my body myself!" means once I'm 18 you can't make me get a vaccine I don't want to get?

It's the issue of autonomy, and cruelly, it falls on children.  Schools require vaccines to prevent the spread of disease.  Conveniently, most of those vaccines are permanent:  you are required to get them as a child, when your autonomy is not recognized by law, and you are protected even when you grow up to be a boneheaded adult who thinks the Constitution protects you from vaccine mandates (it doesn't.  Sorry.  That's a police power (no, not police force; "police" in this case is a legal term of art) of the state, which the courts have long recognized as valid.  It's only invalid when it's complete without reasonable purpose.  But that's a convoluted analysis for another day that doesn't even rear its head here.).  The police power, as the law calls it, is, however, largely reserved to the states.

Congress would have trouble finding a basis for mandating vaccinations nationally.  It might fall under the commerce clause (Congress has authority to regulate interstate commerce) but I don't think that would work, ultimately (it is the reason the DOJ can enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but again, another discussion for another time).  The 50 states, however, would have no trouble requiring all their residents be vaccinated against covid, unless they could show good medical reason not to have it.  But, rather obviously, that's not going to happen.

I don't think, even if it did, it would.  Nobody I know objected to getting the polio vaccine.  It was considered a godsend.  But now?  I saw a clown on NextDoor arguing the CDC couldn't be trusted, and posting links to some website from somewhere as the "evidence" for why we (those reading his tripe) should not be vaccinated, either.  Hmmmm....the CDC, or somebody on NextDoor I don't know from Adam's off-aunt posting a link to some site full of nonsense (and probably viruses, to boot)?  What to do, what to do?  But if only it were that simple.  Trust in the government, trust in vaccine manufacturers (i.e., corporations), trust in doctors and institutions, is at such a low point 12000 people stormed the capitol on January 6, most of whom seem to think they were either invited there, or were saving the country from....whom, exactly?  The country?  The government?  We, the people who were not them?  Yeah, the problem is not stupidity about science; the problem is not even stupidity.  The problem is trust.  The problem is faith.

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."  For most of us, our treasure is not in ourselves.  But for a vocal minority, a minority that finds a voice on the internet and cable teevee and in one of the two major American political parties (and how's that working out now?), they have put their treasure in themselves, and that's where their hearts are.  Is it up to us to change them?  Maybe as religious believers, or as family or friends; but not as citizens.  As citizens our obligation is to the common good, the public health, the public need and benefit.  If we could, would it be best for our state to mandate vaccinations?  Probably.  Would it solve our problems?  Probably not; certainly not 100%.  But if could draw us much nearer to the holy grail of "herd immunity."  Which might even slow down the spread of lambda covid.

It would certainly be legal, and Constitutional.  But it sure doesn't look like it's possible.  Which means it's going to be more problematic as schools reopen and parents, some of them, probably a majority of them, demand the adults their children come in contact with, are vaccinated.  Seems a simple thing; the kids have to be vaccinated against a much wider range of diseases.  That fight may be another flashpoint, though, at least for those who insist their treasure is themselves, alone.

What you gonna do with folks like that?
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