Vaccination For Fun And Profit?

So this is a hot issue these days. And an interesting one. And it poses questions that are largely out of our field – immunology, epidemiology – so we’re careful about making grand or definitive pronouncements. Our traditional position has been something along the lines of “live and let live”. If you feel the need to vaccinate, why, go right ahead. If you object to vaccination, well, by all means refrain.

But our traditional position appears to be no longer feasible. We are being forced to take a position for ourselves and everyone else. So we have to think it through in our usual thorough, systematic way, emphasizing The Reason as governing The Science, because as we’ve noted we have a background in epistemology and that is the actual subject that is being implicated by these surprisingly prevalent meta-arguments, something we have pointed out before.

We start from the bedrock principle of “informed consent”. Any trespass against this principle requires compelling justification. This is not arguable. At least, it’s not arguable unless you’re willing to concede that the tribunals at Nuremberg got it wrong.*

We don’t concede that around here. We’re pretty surprised that anyone in modern times would be willing to concede that. Justice Holmes might have, back in his day. But then his willingness to do so was not his finest moment, was it?

But we digress.

We’ve been suffering collectively from a worldwide pandemic for more than a year, beginning around March of 2020. We’ve placed our faith in “public health authorities” to prescribe a collective solution to the dire and deadly threat posed by the responsible virus, known popularly as COVID-19.

Well, some of us have. Others of us object quite strongly, resenting the forced bureaucratic imposition of nationwide or statewide “lock-downs”, and historically peculiar – not to say bizarre – behaviors such as wearing masks and “social distancing”. The objection is that this is a largely manufactured crisis, that the seriousness of COVID-19 is greatly exaggerated, and that the whole episode is an irrational panic, like witch burning; or a power grab by power hungry swamp dwellers; or a money grab by money hungry pharmaceutical companies; or, finally, a worldwide conspiracy to set the stage for a “Great Reset” that will result in universal human enslavement under a new and sinister technological oligarchy (That last is a “baseless conspiracy theory”! The BBC says so!!).

There is significant disagreement about the very facts and circumstances that are cited as justification for disregarding that bedrock Nuremberg principle, in other words, and the motives, honesty and integrity of those attempting that justification.

Then, of course, there is the meta-argument: there is no significant or legitimate disagreement. The Science provides the only acceptable interpretation of the situation, and The Science prescribes mass – nay universal – worldwide vaccination as the only acceptable solution.

That is quite an extraordinary claim. And of course it is an epistemological claim, not a scientific one.

For our part we follow the newsletter of an osteopathic doctor named Mercola, who is “all in”, as they say, on the side of the objectors, occasionally teaming up with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. We also engage regularly in our Facebook activities with other doctors who have the opposite point of view.

The – for want of a better term – “established” medical authorities do not generally engage the objectors like Mercola or RFK Jr. on the merits of their claims; rather, they seek to discredit them, sometimes quite unfairly, and censor their contentions. On those rare occasions when they do engage on the merits, they lose the argument, at least to the extent that they do not succeed in “debunking” the objections in any meaningful way, although we hasten to point out that even though they might not be “debunked” it is quite possible to disagree on the merits, and we do not purport to resolve that disagreement here.

For their part, the mainstream media (“MSM”) shill for the established medical authorities, much as they shill for the police and other authorities. We won’t go down the rabbit hole of why that is, at least not this morning, but we note that it’s too obvious to really debate the point.

The media approach is a “tell” as they say – what we used to call a “contrary indicator”. One faction engaging in character assassination and censorship is another tell. And when that same faction, in their few forays into genuine engagement, lose the debate on the merits, at least in the sense that they do not succeed in “debunking” the position of their interlocutors – we come readily to the conclusion that they are the faction in the wrong. It is not difficult, intellectually, to reach this conclusion and it is the only fair and objective conclusion under the circumstances.

Want another tell? Efforts to make vaccination more compulsory have become a Thing in recent years, some of it pre-dating the current pandemic. This supports a conclusion – doesn’t mandate the conclusion, but certainly supports it beyond any rational debate – that the pandemic is a manufactured excuse – by whomever – to further push vaccination. Even if this is true, of course, it may be that those pushing vaccination further do not have evil motives. But let’s just say that it’s not a good sign.

That does not, by the way, mean that it is not legitimate to disagree on the narrower, more modest point. That is, it is perfectly reasonable, even if it is likely wrong under our analysis, to disregard all the tells, decide that “The Science” is settled, and get yourself vaccinated.**

But that is not the issue on the table. The issue is not whether people are free to get vaccinated or not but rather whether those who do not want to be vaccinated can be compelled to do so in violation of the Nuremberg principle.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is not a close call. Remember we said at the beginning that a justification for overriding the Nuremberg principle would have to be compelling, and that this is likewise not a debatable point. But not only is the profferred justification not compelling, it is not a winning argument at all, objectively speaking.

And that’s that! We know that many of you find it much more difficult than we do to think things through systematically. So this is our little public service this morning.

You’re welcome!

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*We understand that Nuremberg dealt most specifically with experimentation and not clinical treatment, but the standard has been a fixture in the time since for both.

**We ourselves, owing to our tour of duty as a key component of the national defense in the US Navy, are among the most heavily vaccinated persons you could ever encounter. We never felt the vaccines we received, by the dozens over a few days, did us any harm. But that is not the point here, obviously.