Streetwise Professor

The United States is currently in the midst of a colossal game of chicken. The administration, state and local governments, and their CEO pilot fish at major corporations and hospitals are insisting on vaccinating all employees. Large numbers of nurses, pilots, flight attendants, ground crew, police, firemen, and other working stiffs are resisting. Notably, many in the military are resisting–including most notably special operators.

Who will blink? If neither side blinks, the crack up will be epic. There will be a severe loss of public protection services, and crime will spike. Ironically, given that the supposed justification for all of the various anti-COVID measures has been to protect the health care system, the loss of nurses will lead to a substantial overload on these systems: some hospitals are already cutting down on care, including emergency care. The already strained transportation will crack. Perhaps most ominously, the United States military will be seriously degraded, as the personnel loss is likely to be concentrated among the most highly trained, and disproportionately impact combat units.

Southwest Airlines was red pilled by what transpired over the Columbus Day weekend, and has relented on mandates. Alas, it is the exception, not the rule. (Delta is another exception. American and United are adamantly not.) Virtually all other mandate maniacs have their foot pushed to the floor.

It is beyond doubting that those resisting mandates are in the right, and those insisting are them are in the wrong.

I repeat: beyond doubt.

Even the administration’s politicized scientists at the CDC have acknowledged that vaccines do nothing–nothing–to prevent transmission. There is therefore no externality that can rationalize coercion. (And as I’ve noted before, even if such an externality existed, it does not necessarily support mandates: it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for them.)

Further, the efficacy of the vaccines is becoming more dubious by the day. The clinical trial results represent an extreme upper bound on efficacy, and real world experience is proving them far less robust than promised.

Moreover, although there is much controversy about this issue, the vaccines may have severe negative externalities: that is, they may supercharge the mutation process and lead to the the accelerated evolution of more virulent strains resistant to the existing vaccines. (Cynics will say that from the perspective of the vaccine makers, this is a feature, not a bug.) Here the science is not settled, but that in itself is reason not to proceed full speed with mandates.

Therefore, like virtually all government policy (and not just in the US), coercive vaccination is all pain, no gain.

Yet governments and their CEO collaborators proceed apace, undeterred by reality.

The administration blames everything–everything–currently ailing the country on the unvaccinated. They are the epitome of evil and the scapegoats for everything currently ailing America (the economy especially).

Example: Supply chain problems? THE UNVACCINATED!!! BLAME THEM!!!

And vaccinating everyone will fix everything, according to the “authorities.”

This is pure, 100 percent, unadulturated horseshit. Patent medicine barkers in the 19th century would be embarrassed at the abject dishonesty here.

So why are we here? Why are we in a situation in which government at all levels–with a mendacious administration in the lead–persisting hell bent on such a destructive and apparently irrational course?

Because from their perspective it is not irrational. Yes, it is irrational from a perspective of public health, economic health, and personal liberty. It is not irrational if your true objective is oppression for oppression’s sake. Then it makes perfect sense.

All of the non-pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical interventions make perfect sense if the objective is to compel submission to government authority. All of the unremitting attacks on therapeutic mitigation of COVID make sense if the objective is compulsion.

It’s about control, not health. Then the question arises what is the purpose of exerting such control?, but that’s the subject of future posts.

And governments are so obsessed with control that they appear dead set on steamrolling anyone who resists or objects, even though by doing so they will wreak great havoc on lives, and on the economy (which, of course, also impacts lives).

Many of those resisting mandates appear to be quite strong in their convictions. (When a football coach chooses to forego a $3 million payday rather than submit, he is definitely putting money where his mouth is. So are all the others who are jeopardizing careers and pensions with their refusal.) Governments and companies appear similarly committed. Given that neither appears to be likely to swerve or jump, the outcome is therefore likely to be ugly indeed.