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Speaking as someone who (I think) feels similarly as OP, it's purely about principle. Family should be beyond reproach, as he wrote. In a hypothetical universe where I didn't get vaccinated, it should still be beyond reproach. I hope I'd have the courage to spew this kind of bile in real life if the old, tired topic of covid ever comes up in meatspace. I'd know my success when my friends reply to my rant: "wait, aren't you vaccinated though?"
Yes, and?
How would you feel in a hypothetical universe where COVID has a 10% death rate the vaccines actually were perfect at stopping transmission? Because in that universe I would 100% support all of the hate directed towards the unvaccinated and more. That's why I think it's tricky to say things should be beyond reproach.
Most vaccine mandate supporters believed, approximately, that covid is that dangerous, and that vaccines are that good. Which is why setting any conditions on when a vaccine mandate becomes acceptable is a waste of time - if there's a condition, governments will just lie to meet it.
That's honestly the impression I was under during the period, and which still seems correct. Now my jimmies are very rustled so I won't pretend to be able to judge it fairly, and especially not that I have any proof or deeper insight than a gut reaction and hazy memories of the time period, but the way the science seemingly turned on a dime and seemingly contradictory messages were true on different weeks and every checked fact and expert truth under the sun conspired to make it so that vaccines and only vaccines would save us but only if everyone took them but then with certainty sounded less than credible. I wouldn't go as far as to say the government lied; that seems to imply agency and malevolence that I don't think our government was actually capable of. But they certainly didn't give a shit about telling the truth, and it sounded an awful lot like instead saying whatever would shift the blame onto the outgroup and damn your lying eyes.
So yes, I agree in practice. Governments will make policy whatever they like, and if there should be any hurdle to that then I think we can be sure they'll use every dirty trick in the book to clear it if only because that's the kind of behavior that representative democracy has always selected for.
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Well I suppose I'd say you're lucky in this day and age to have a family that you actually spend time with. Many aren't so lucky.
I took the vaccine simply to keep my friendships, the social network I'd built up was far more valuable than any principles I held being violated. Which principle is it about for you?
Thankfully I didn't face this choice (both because I got the vaccine, and because my social circle isn't crazy). But if I had, I would have chosen to lose my social circle. For me, this comes down to the age old principle of "if they treat you like that, they were never actually your friend". Painful though the separation would be, I wouldn't want to continue being friends with someone who considers political disputes like this to be more important than me and our friendship.
That's a fair point. I will admit that my social circle got pruned quite a bit during and after covid. Part of that was people no longer wanting to come out, and part of it was me consciously not associated with the more insane covid folks.
I'd rather have more control over the process I suppose, than have my reputation nuked and have relationships taken away from me without my say so.
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One of our extended FM is antivax, but like, full qanon "threaten violence against family members if they get vaccinated" tier. "Beyond reproach" is one thing, but at some point it becomes too painful to interact with them.
Yes, in this case the analogy is backwards, the family member is being the aggressor, not you.
Right, I'm just highlighting that people will have different reference classes in mind depending on their experiences. I think it's less "the vax memeplex makes people crazy" or "anti-vax makes people crazy" so much that many people are just latently crazy and you only really notice it when you and them diverge.
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