Biden Might Rescind Vaccine Mandate. It’s Still Bad.

 

President Joe Biden and his communist handlers have hinted that they would rescind their “mandate” for even federal employees to be vaccinated. Many people might be hollering “Yippee! Yahoo!” Not me.

They don’t really care if you get vaccinated, and that was never what this was about. It was about wielding power, and they did. They proved to everyone that they could force us to get vaccinated, and companies across this country would scrape and bow and enforce their distinctly un-American dictates.

This was an escalation of the “Dear Colleague letter” that former President Barack Obama’s administration sent out, requiring by unofficial correspondence that universities establish kangaroo courts to persecute men who are accused of assault by (mostly) politically inspired women. We are learning that our institutions, our employers, and our fellow countrymen no longer share our American values that laws should be enacted by due process, even if not by legislation.

The Republican Party needs to campaign on this. The GOP needs the people to understand it. We need to change this. We need to make it a cause of action to sue in court when someone issues such a threatening mandate, and when someone obeys such a threatening mandate.

I doubt the party will. The GOP is probably wondering how it can use that tactic.

Published in Law
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  1. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Richard Easton (View Comment):

    Where are the NTers who are denouncing this?????

    You know who has been quiet lately.

    • #31
  2. Doctor Robert Member
    Doctor Robert
    @DoctorRobert

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    My wife works for the third largest hospital system which is the 31st largest employer in Ohio. Despite the fact that they have supported the Black Lives Matter movement and put in diversity officers and LGTB promoters, and proudly boasted of transgender surgeries, etc…, -they have held off on vaccine mandates for their employees. On the other hand they have just instituted a vaccine mandate for flu shots!

    Just make sure it’s really a flu shot and they’re not secretly jabbing them with the WuFlu shot!

    My co-worker’s daughter will be fired from Mayo by the end of the year if she doesn’t comply. She already had COVID, and then had a very bad reaction to the first shot, and doesn’t want the second one. (She didn’t even want the first, and didn’t need it either.) Her doctor will not sign a waiver for her.

    Send her to me

    rh

    • #32
  3. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    My wife works for the third largest hospital system which is the 31st largest employer in Ohio. Despite the fact that they have supported the Black Lives Matter movement and put in diversity officers and LGTB promoters, and proudly boasted of transgender surgeries, etc…, -they have held off on vaccine mandates for their employees. On the other hand they have just instituted a vaccine mandate for flu shots!

    Just make sure it’s really a flu shot and they’re not secretly jabbing them with the WuFlu shot!

    My co-worker’s daughter will be fired from Mayo by the end of the year if she doesn’t comply. She already had COVID, and then had a very bad reaction to the first shot, and doesn’t want the second one. (She didn’t even want the first, and didn’t need it either.) Her doctor will not sign a waiver for her.

    Send her to me

    To work, or for a waiver?

    • #33
  4. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    MarciN (View Comment):

    I also wish someone would find the clips from the election debates in which both Harris and Biden complained about the vaccines developed under Operation Warp Speed and said they would not take them because they didn’t have confidence in them.

    I would love to run those clips 24 hours a day on CNN. Should the government have forced them to be vaccinated at that point in their understanding of and confidence in the vaccines? How about if their unvaccinated status disqualified them from running for office and serving if elected? How about if those statements got them barred and banned from Twitter and Facebook and every other public square where opinions are expressed?

    Here ya go- Kamalla on taking the vaccine:

    Now Biden with extended remarks on the vaccines:

    And here’s a bonus for you – Biden claiming that he would not institute a vaccine mandate, and that he thinks masks should not be made mandatory nationwide:

    And a second bonus clip – News media calling out Trump for contradicting his own CDC Director on how soon the vaccines will come out.  Guess who was right all along?

    • #34
  5. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Fake John/Jane Galt (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Fake John/Jane Galt (View Comment):
    Everybody I know have been forced to get vaccinated….

    And yet so many people resisted that the administration is backing down.

    I know quite a few people who are not vaccinated. Some are self-employed, others are just too valuable to fire, others are working for employers who keep threatening but haven’t taken action. Now that a federal judge has suspended mandatory vaccines in 19 10 [corrected] states and President* Brandon is caving in, I suspect quite a few of those employers will quietly relax their own mandates.

    This is a victory. But maybe it’s a glass-half-full thing.

    Backed down how? They got what they wanted. So what they stopped after achieving their goal. Most people do.

    You guys don’t recognize a victory when you see it.  Sure, the Biden administration caused a a lot of companies to go ahead with vaccine mandates based purely on a presumed national mandate, but it is now unraveling.  You can’t expect instant perfection , give it a little time.  Florida has successfully fought the upcoming vaccine mandate through legislation, causing  Disney to rescind it’s private vaccine mandate.

    https://floridapolitics.com/archives/475155-disney-rolls-back-employee-covid-19-vaccine-mandate/

    Texas’s Southwest Airlines also backed down due to employee pushback:

    https://patriotalerts.com/2021/11/winning-southwest-employees-get-wind-of-a-huge-victory-in-their-fight-against-vaccine-mandates/

    • #35
  6. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):
    What is happening to Biden’s mandatory vaccinations? People are electing conservatives who are challenging and winning against the mandates in court.

    Is that actually happening? I haven’t heard much about these mandates being taken to court.

    As of three weeks ago, Republican Governors or Attorneys General from these States, as well as companies and conservative groups, have filed lawsuits against the national vaccine mandate- Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and South Dakota.  I haven’t even looked for more recent plaintiffs.

    https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/GOP-pushback-on-employer-vaccine-mandate-underway-16592302.php

    • #36
  7. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Skyler, why do you think that the vaccination policies are about wielding power?

    The facts seem to be as follows.  We’re in the middle of a pandemic that has killed about 800,000 Americans.  We have a safe and effective vaccine, though not perfectly safe and not perfectly effective.  The vaccine appears to reduce the risk of transmission by a factor of about 5-10, and to reduce the risk of hospitalization or death by a factor of about 10.  Deployment of the vaccine was the plan of the Trump administration, and continues to be the plan of the Biden administration.

    There appears to be a lot of misinformation and flawed analyses claiming that the vaccines are dangerous.  There are some risks, but they appear minimal, especially compared with the manifest risk of the virus.

    So it’s not clear to me why one should attribute a bad motive to the political opposition.  There are good reasons that explain their actions.  Maybe they do have bad motives, but I’d want to see some evidence of that.

    For the record, I have consistently opposed vaccine mandates as unwise policy.  I’m just not convinced that everyone who disagrees with me on this point is solely interested in wielding power.

    • #37
  8. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    There appears to be a lot of misinformation and flawed analyses claiming that the vaccines are dangerous.  There are some risks, but they appear minimal, especially compared with the manifest risk of the virus.

    had the virus. It was a chest cold. Do you know what is more dangerous to me than getting the virus? Getting vaccinated. Because however minor the chances of having a bad (or possibly fatal) reaction to the vaccine is, for me as of today, the risks of the vaccine are infinitely greater than the risks posed by the disease. Because Covid provides zero risk for me (been there, done that) and the vaccine poses some. What do you get when you divide a small number by zero? Try it and see.

    • #38
  9. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):
    What is happening to Biden’s mandatory vaccinations? People are electing conservatives who are challenging and winning against the mandates in court.

    Is that actually happening? I haven’t heard much about these mandates being taken to court.

    As of three weeks ago, Republican Governors or Attorneys General from these States, as well as companies and conservative groups, have filed lawsuits against the national vaccine mandate- Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and South Dakota. I haven’t even looked for more recent plaintiffs.

    https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/GOP-pushback-on-employer-vaccine-mandate-underway-16592302.php

    The American news media seems to be hiding this information.

    • #39
  10. Terry Mott Member
    Terry Mott
    @TerryMott

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Wielding power? Eh. Maybe. I think they thought it would be popular, and would show they cared, and were decisive in that stirring “West Wing” TV show style. They’re shallow people of middling intelligence who live in a culture where optics are supreme and “doing a government thing” plays to the worldview of their media stenographers.

    Embrace the healing power of “And”.

    Seriously though, my take is similar to yours.  Most of the over-reactions to the WuFlu are simply expressions of our national neurosis and/or politicians attempting to placate the neurotics, especially the media who collectively seem especially prone to the affliction.  Since neurotics crave control of the uncontrollable, their demands naturally tend toward totalitarianism.

    • #40
  11. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    There appears to be a lot of misinformation and flawed analyses claiming that the vaccines are dangerous. There are some risks, but they appear minimal, especially compared with the manifest risk of the virus.

    I had the virus. It was a chest cold. Do you know what is more dangerous to me than getting the virus? Getting vaccinated. Because however minor the chances of having a bad (or possibly fatal) reaction to the vaccine is, for me as of today, the risks of the vaccine are infinitely greater than the risks posed by the disease. Because Covid provides zero risk for me (been there, done that) and the vaccine poses some. What do you get when you divide a small number by zero? Try it and see.

    Yeah, what he said. Plus, the vaccine doesn’t seem to be working at all. Jordan Peterson just shared a study that showed the difference in transmission between the vaxxed and the unvaxxed appears to be zero. Getting the vax neither prevents you from getting COVID or prevents you from spreading COVID. And I’m not even sure it prevents you from “more severe disease” as the Ruling Class claims, because that’s a non-falsifiable theorem, given how the disease manifests itself differently in different people. (For me it barely registered, except for losing sense of smell and taste. I have a friend in his 80s who didn’t even know he ever had it, but tested positive for the antibodies. I also have friends who lost family to it.)

    The Ruling Class wants you to think it’s a death sentence (and to be fair, for a small percentage of people, it is, but it’s very small) and they whip up fear to drive people to get vaccinated, then hide the harm the vaccines are doing, overstate the benefits of the vaccine (which looks increasingly like no benefit at all), and try their damnedest to give everyone the jab. I know more people who have experienced injury from the vaccine than have died from COVID. 

    I don’t know what this is about, but it’s not about public health.

    • #41
  12. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    It’s very simple: if the vaccines worked, they wouldn’t need to mandate them. People would want to get them.

    Why are people resistant? Because many hundreds of thousands have acquired immunity and every week we have new studies showing that it’s robust and long-lasting. The CDC director LIES when she says that vaxxed immunity is better.

    Why are people resistant? Because there are tens of thousands of reports of people experiencing life-altering injury from this vaccine. And in many cases DEATH.

    Why are people resistant? Because getting vaxxed hasn’t caused Fauci and his sub-demons to alter course. It’s masks and lockdowns and mandates forever.

    If the vaccines worked, they’d sell themselves.

    They don’t work. Neither do masks. Our Ruling Class knows this, which is why they so frequently break their own rules while insisting on compliance from the citizen class.

    • #42
  13. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):
    What is happening to Biden’s mandatory vaccinations? People are electing conservatives who are challenging and winning against the mandates in court.

    Is that actually happening? I haven’t heard much about these mandates being taken to court.

    As of three weeks ago, Republican Governors or Attorneys General from these States, as well as companies and conservative groups, have filed lawsuits against the national vaccine mandate- Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and South Dakota. I haven’t even looked for more recent plaintiffs.

    https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/GOP-pushback-on-employer-vaccine-mandate-underway-16592302.php

    The American news media seems to be hiding this information.

    True, but most news that is beneficial to the populace is not reported.  Only the sensational, the bizarre, the partisan, or the sexy stuff gets published.  News is just a form of entertainment.

    • #43
  14. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Sorry about my comment.  I should not have engaged.  The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    • #44
  15. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    Hey, I aggravate myself every time I open my mouth.

    • #45
  16. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    I will aggravate thee again!

    That’s another $5 billion in taxpayer money directly to Pfizer. That’s a lot of yachts for Pfizer execs and their friends at the FDA (in many cases the exact same people)! 

    That’s more inflation. That’s more economic destruction.

    Cui bono? Government and giant corporations.

    Who loses? Citizens.

     

    • #46
  17. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    $500 per pill?  Nice deal for Pfizer!

    • #47
  18. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    No, it was a fair comment, in the spirit of James Lileks’ comment earlier. When I quoted Skyler in my rebuttal at #1, I included his “wield power” comment. I regret doing so, though not because I disagree with him on that point: I do think that a lot of the response to COVID has been a flexing of government muscle by people who enjoy having emergency authority and being seen to be powerful and decisive.

    I regret including the comment only because it’s secondary to the larger point, which is that the courts and the people pushing back against the administration, and the administration subsequently revising its position, is a victory for the people. Speculating about the administration’s motives for imposing vaccine mandates distracts from the reality that the mandates were rejected by enough people, and were sufficiently tenuous in their constitutionality, that the administration is being forced to back down.

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    You guys don’t recognize a victory when you see it.

    I agree: I think we sometimes are guilty of precisely that.

    • #48
  19. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    No, it was a fair comment, in the spirit of James Lileks’ comment earlier. When I quoted Skyler in my rebuttal at #1, I included his “wield power” comment. I regret doing so, though not because I disagree with him on that point: I do think that a lot of the response to COVID has been a flexing of government muscle by people who enjoy having emergency authority and being seen to be powerful and decisive.

    I regret including the comment only because it’s secondary to the larger point, which is that the courts and the people pushing back against the administration, and the administration subsequently revising its position, is a victory for the people. Speculating about the administration’s motives for imposing vaccine mandates distracts from the reality that the mandates were rejected by enough people, and were sufficiently tenuous in their constitutionality, that the administration is being forced to back down.

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    You guys don’t recognize a victory when you see it.

    I agree: I think we sometimes are guilty of precisely that.

    I think some people argue that it’s not really a victory if they (largely) accomplish what they wanted, before “backing down.”

    • #49
  20. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    kedavis (View Comment):

    $500 per pill? Nice deal for Pfizer!

    . . . is what I’m sayin’.

    Skeptical yet?

    You should be.

    • #50
  21. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    No, it was a fair comment, in the spirit of James Lileks’ comment earlier. When I quoted Skyler in my rebuttal at #1, I included his “wield power” comment. I regret doing so, though not because I disagree with him on that point: I do think that a lot of the response to COVID has been a flexing of government muscle by people who enjoy having emergency authority and being seen to be powerful and decisive.

    I regret including the comment only because it’s secondary to the larger point, which is that the courts and the people pushing back against the administration, and the administration subsequently revising its position, is a victory for the people. Speculating about the administration’s motives for imposing vaccine mandates distracts from the reality that the mandates were rejected by enough people, and were sufficiently tenuous in their constitutionality, that the administration is being forced to back down.

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    You guys don’t recognize a victory when you see it.

    I agree: I think we sometimes are guilty of precisely that.

    I think some people argue that it’s not really a victory if they (largely) accomplish what they wanted, before “backing down.”

    Sure. But I would argue that they didn’t. They were forced to retreat. They were unable to achieve their objective, whether it was to demonstrate that they were in control or to force everyone to get vaccinated. Instead, the courts and the people put up a fuss, and the administration decided it was politically advantageous to back down. That’s a win for the people, not the administration.

    • #51
  22. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    I will aggravate thee again!

    That’s another $5 billion in taxpayer money directly to Pfizer. That’s a lot of yachts for Pfizer execs and their friends at the FDA (in many cases the exact same people)!

    That’s more inflation. That’s more economic destruction.

    Cui bono? Government and giant corporations.

    Who loses? Citizens.

    I  don’t think jumping on big pharma (I use that phrase because I can’t spell farmasooticals) for their profits is very helpful.  That is what the left does, the automatic demonization of anybody who makes a lot of money.  If anybody deserves to make a profit in this world it is the people who are saving your life or making life less painful for you.  I’m well aware that the vaccines have not lived up to the hype that they were sold with and that is a valid criticism, as is the government’s handling of the situation, but I think it has little to do with money.

     

    • #52
  23. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Sure. But I would argue that they didn’t. They were forced to retreat. They were unable to achieve their objective, whether it was to demonstrate that they were in control or to force everyone to get vaccinated. Instead, the courts and the people put up a fuss, and the administration decided it was politically advantageous to back down. That’s a win for the people, not the administration.

    Maybe it is a win.

    When do we mourn for the casualties? Because we had them. It was a costly win.

    • #53
  24. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Terry Mott (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Wielding power? Eh. Maybe. I think they thought it would be popular, and would show they cared, and were decisive in that stirring “West Wing” TV show style. They’re shallow people of middling intelligence who live in a culture where optics are supreme and “doing a government thing” plays to the worldview of their media stenographers.

    Embrace the healing power of “And”.

    Seriously though, my take is similar to yours. Most of the over-reactions to the WuFlu are simply expressions of our national neurosis and/or politicians attempting to placate the neurotics, especially the media who collectively seem especially prone to the affliction. Since neurotics crave control of the uncontrollable, their demands naturally tend toward totalitarianism.

    This neuroticism was created by government decisions and its media representations, though.  Two masks?  Mandatory vaccinations?  This is the government stoking fear, or something else, but it’s not placating people’s general fears.

    • #54
  25. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    There’s nothing wrong with your comment.  I don’t particularly agree, but it’s an appropriate comment.

    • #55
  26. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    I  don’t think jumping on big pharma (I use that phrase because I can’t spell farmasooticals) for their profits is very helpful.  That is what the left does, the automatic demonization of anybody who makes a lot of money.

    I think since it’s become more clear how corporations and government work together against the citizen class, I’m far more sympathetic to these traditional leftists. (Modern leftists are perfectly okay with government/corporate collusion.)

    If anybody deserves to make a profit in this world it is the people who are saving your life or making life less painful for you.  I’m well aware that the vaccines have not lived up to the hype that they were sold with and that is a valid criticism, as is the government’s handling of the situation, but I think it has little to do with money.

    I think it has everything to do with money. Money and power.

     

    • #56
  27. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    No, it was a fair comment, in the spirit of James Lileks’ comment earlier. When I quoted Skyler in my rebuttal at #1, I included his “wield power” comment. I regret doing so, though not because I disagree with him on that point: I do think that a lot of the response to COVID has been a flexing of government muscle by people who enjoy having emergency authority and being seen to be powerful and decisive.

    I regret including the comment only because it’s secondary to the larger point, which is that the courts and the people pushing back against the administration, and the administration subsequently revising its position, is a victory for the people. Speculating about the administration’s motives for imposing vaccine mandates distracts from the reality that the mandates were rejected by enough people, and were sufficiently tenuous in their constitutionality, that the administration is being forced to back down.

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    You guys don’t recognize a victory when you see it.

    I agree: I think we sometimes are guilty of precisely that.

    I think some people argue that it’s not really a victory if they (largely) accomplish what they wanted, before “backing down.”

    Sure. But I would argue that they didn’t. They were forced to retreat. They were unable to achieve their objective, whether it was to demonstrate that they were in control or to force everyone to get vaccinated. Instead, the courts and the people put up a fuss, and the administration decided it was politically advantageous to back down. That’s a win for the people, not the administration.

    I did put “backing down” in “air quotes,” for a reason:  “backing down” after the goal has been accomplished, is still a win for them.

    • #57
  28. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    No, it was a fair comment, in the spirit of James Lileks’ comment earlier. When I quoted Skyler in my rebuttal at #1, I included his “wield power” comment. I regret doing so, though not because I disagree with him on that point: I do think that a lot of the response to COVID has been a flexing of government muscle by people who enjoy having emergency authority and being seen to be powerful and decisive.

    I regret including the comment only because it’s secondary to the larger point, which is that the courts and the people pushing back against the administration, and the administration subsequently revising its position, is a victory for the people. Speculating about the administration’s motives for imposing vaccine mandates distracts from the reality that the mandates were rejected by enough people, and were sufficiently tenuous in their constitutionality, that the administration is being forced to back down.

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    You guys don’t recognize a victory when you see it.

    I agree: I think we sometimes are guilty of precisely that.

    I think some people argue that it’s not really a victory if they (largely) accomplish what they wanted, before “backing down.”

    Sure. But I would argue that they didn’t. They were forced to retreat. They were unable to achieve their objective, whether it was to demonstrate that they were in control or to force everyone to get vaccinated. Instead, the courts and the people put up a fuss, and the administration decided it was politically advantageous to back down. That’s a win for the people, not the administration.

    I did put “backing down” in “air quotes,” for a reason: “backing down” after the goal has been accomplished, is still a win for them.

    Oh, I agreed with that. What I don’t agree with is that the goal was accomplished. They failed to accomplish their goal, and were forced to back down.

    • #58
  29. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    No, it was a fair comment, in the spirit of James Lileks’ comment earlier. When I quoted Skyler in my rebuttal at #1, I included his “wield power” comment. I regret doing so, though not because I disagree with him on that point: I do think that a lot of the response to COVID has been a flexing of government muscle by people who enjoy having emergency authority and being seen to be powerful and decisive.

    I regret including the comment only because it’s secondary to the larger point, which is that the courts and the people pushing back against the administration, and the administration subsequently revising its position, is a victory for the people. Speculating about the administration’s motives for imposing vaccine mandates distracts from the reality that the mandates were rejected by enough people, and were sufficiently tenuous in their constitutionality, that the administration is being forced to back down.

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    You guys don’t recognize a victory when you see it.

    I agree: I think we sometimes are guilty of precisely that.

    I think some people argue that it’s not really a victory if they (largely) accomplish what they wanted, before “backing down.”

    Sure. But I would argue that they didn’t. They were forced to retreat. They were unable to achieve their objective, whether it was to demonstrate that they were in control or to force everyone to get vaccinated. Instead, the courts and the people put up a fuss, and the administration decided it was politically advantageous to back down. That’s a win for the people, not the administration.

    I did put “backing down” in “air quotes,” for a reason: “backing down” after the goal has been accomplished, is still a win for them.

    Oh, I agreed with that. What I don’t agree with is that the goal was accomplished. They failed to accomplish their goal, and were forced to back down.

    Do you think they actually believed they could get 100% vaccination including children?  I don’t.  Meanwhile they already got a pretty high level of “compliance,” plus a lot of people have already lost jobs, and many more still could, even if the mandate is technically “rescinded.”

    • #59
  30. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Sorry about my comment. I should not have engaged. The only thing that it seems to accomplish is to aggravate me, and perhaps others.

    No, it was a fair comment, in the spirit of James Lileks’ comment earlier. When I quoted Skyler in my rebuttal at #1, I included his “wield power” comment. I regret doing so, though not because I disagree with him on that point: I do think that a lot of the response to COVID has been a flexing of government muscle by people who enjoy having emergency authority and being seen to be powerful and decisive.

    I regret including the comment only because it’s secondary to the larger point, which is that the courts and the people pushing back against the administration, and the administration subsequently revising its position, is a victory for the people. Speculating about the administration’s motives for imposing vaccine mandates distracts from the reality that the mandates were rejected by enough people, and were sufficiently tenuous in their constitutionality, that the administration is being forced to back down.

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    You guys don’t recognize a victory when you see it.

    I agree: I think we sometimes are guilty of precisely that.

    I think some people argue that it’s not really a victory if they (largely) accomplish what they wanted, before “backing down.”

    Sure. But I would argue that they didn’t. They were forced to retreat. They were unable to achieve their objective, whether it was to demonstrate that they were in control or to force everyone to get vaccinated. Instead, the courts and the people put up a fuss, and the administration decided it was politically advantageous to back down. That’s a win for the people, not the administration.

    I did put “backing down” in “air quotes,” for a reason: “backing down” after the goal has been accomplished, is still a win for them.

    Oh, I agreed with that. What I don’t agree with is that the goal was accomplished. They failed to accomplish their goal, and were forced to back down.

    Do you think they actually believed they could get 100% vaccination including children? I don’t. Meanwhile they already got a pretty high level of “compliance,” plus a lot of people have already lost jobs, and many more still could, even if the mandate is technically “rescinded.”

    What I believe is that the administration is being forced to retract its mandates by pushback from the people. I think it will pay a political cost for that, and will be left in a weaker position than if it had either (1) never imposed mandates in the first place or (2) been able to keep them in effect.

    So I see it as a political loss. And a political victory for us.

     

    • #60
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