{"id":2486,"date":"2021-08-06T23:44:41","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T23:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=2486"},"modified":"2021-08-06T23:44:41","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T23:44:41","slug":"the-unvaccinated-the-new-covid-scapegoats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=2486","title":{"rendered":"The Unvaccinated: the new COVID Scapegoats"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Techno Fog<\/a><\/p>\n

\"unvaccinated_scapegoats.jpg\"<\/p>\n

They have found a COVID scapegoat. It is you.<\/p>\n

Persuasion to get the COVID vaccines failed with some Americans, as those who seek to persuade \u2013 namely government officials and the media \u2013 have no credibility. Onto the next step: a collective effort by the press, corporations, and the government to blame and vilify and target the unvaccinated. This is no coincidence, as such efforts help deflect responsibility from those who caused and created this problem in the first place.<\/p>\n

In New York City, you will need proof<\/a> of a COVID vaccine for indoor dining, gyms, and concerts.<\/p>\n

Writing for The Atlantic, Juliette Kayyem (a former Homeland Security official with the Obama Administration) calls for<\/a> the federal government to institute a \u201cno-fly list for unvaccinated adults.\u201d She desires there to be the establishment of \u201cnorms that restrict certain privileges to vaccinated people,\u201d apparently so other \u201cprivileges\u201d can be removed if the no-fly list doesn\u2019t encourage enough vaccinations.<\/p>\n

Her use of the word \u201cprivilege\u201d is intentional. This is because she believes \u201cFlying is not a right.\u201d We disagree. Travel (and thus the manner of travel) is a fundamental right<\/a> to all Americans, \u201cone of the implied and unremunerated rights reserved to the People.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, the unvaccinated \u201cno-fly list\u201d isn\u2019t solely for the purposes of airplane safety. She concedes that the transmission of COVID is \u201cunlikely\u201d during a passenger flight. This is, instead, a proposed punishment to change the minds of the unvaccinated.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are millions of Americans who don\u2019t fly. Banning them from flying won\u2019t have the desired effect. From there it follows that they will have to remove additional \u201csocietal benefits\u201d until compliance with a vaccine that still doesn\u2019t have FDA approval is 100% (or at least until they get herd immunity).<\/p>\n

And on that point, the New York Times<\/a> states, \u201cthe elusive path to herd immunity necessarily runs through vaccinating unpersuadable adults.\u201d If they cannot be persuaded, what are the options? The Times answers that question: Without vaccine mandates, it\u2019s hard to imagine making much progress with this population.\u201d<\/p>\n

You know where they\u2019re going with this. The Times\u2019 Ezra Klein proposes<\/a> policymakers start \u201craising the costs of remaining unvaccinated.\u201d As if the people haven\u2019t been through enough.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, morbidly obese writer Matthew Yglesias is offended by your health decisions and fantasizing about forced vaccinations (a position he holds but since deleted).<\/p>\n

No penalty.<\/p>\n

Absent politics my policy would be you either get jabbed voluntarily within the next X weeks and get $50 or else youget jabbed later while someone holds you down and you get $0.<\/p>\n

Matthew Yglesias<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While they say this is about health, it is clear that it is also political.<\/p>\n

The press revels in condemning<\/a> conservatives for not getting the vaccine. Self-loathing conservatives like David French say Evangelical vaccine hesitancy is a \u201cspiritual problem<\/a>.\u201d Conservative governors \u2013 those with low COVID death rates in their states \u2013 are attacked for not doing enough to encourage vaccination.<\/p>\n

Paul Krugman takes these arguments to the next level, arguing<\/a> that conservatives seeking personal autonomy are really trying to preserve their while male Christian \u201cprivilege\u201d while making minorities pay the price.<\/p>\n

The government \u2013 including officials like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins \u2013 must be happy with the blame-shifting. Just imagine their delight, after having potentially contributed to the creation of COVID-19<\/a>, that the unvaccinated are now the accused.<\/p>\n

Never one to miss a media appearance, Dr. Fauci is out there<\/a> saying the unvaccinated are \u201cpropagating\u201d the latest outbreak, that we need to \u201cdo something to get them to be vaccinated.\u201d This duty that Dr. Fauci advances is the purported obligation to do something to protect others. (One has to ask whether millions of lives would have been saved had they followed this same duty with taxpayer dollars at Wuhan.)<\/p>\n

We believe this is just the start. If persuasion has reached its limit (and there is evidence it has), then please, trust them at their word when they advocate restricting your rights and inflicting punishment<\/i> if you remain unvaccinated.<\/p>\n

And in considering the institutions of power setting their sights on the unvaccinated – those whose purported crime is of inaction – I leave you with the words of Ren\u00e9 Girard:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crowd tends toward persecution since the natural causes of what troubles it and transforms it into a turba cannot interest it. The crowd by definition seeks action but cannot affect natural causes. It therefore looks for an accessible cause that will appease its appetite for violence. Those who make up the crowd are always potential persecutors, for they dream of purging the community of the impure elements that corrupt it, the traitors who undermine it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Techno Fog They have found a COVID scapegoat. It is you. Persuasion to get the COVID vaccines failed with some Americans, as those who seek to persuade \u2013 namely government officials and the media \u2013 have no credibility. Onto the next step: a collective effort by the press, corporations, and the government to blame […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2487,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486\/revisions\/2487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}