One very simple and important thing that those who have taken the vaccine do not realize is that if you are in a situation in which a vaccine mandate is in force then you did not freely choose to be vaccinated. In this situation no-one freely chose.

You cannot freely choose to do something over which you have no choice. It isn’t a choice if you only have one option. Someone who is sentenced to death by firing squad may claim that they freely choose to be executed, but if they do we would consider them to be delusional.

The members of a herd of cattle do not freely choose to be drenched, regardless of how they might individually feel about it.

So I wonder how many people who have been vaccinated have thought about this – and if they did realise this fact, how many would be happy to realise that it was not their choice after all – that they are simply cattle being drenched?

Of course, there are a great many people who “chose” to take the vaccine but did so unwillingly and oppose the use of mandates. And for those who did so willingly, there is a great potential for them to feel differently if in a year or six months time they are forced to take a booster shot, or forced to undergo some other medical procedure.

Some people might say that they did have a choice since they could choose to leave their job, to no longer have a source of income, to no longer go to cafes and restaurants, to no longer participate in recreation and sports, to no longer mix with their friends, to remain locked in their houses and to be spat upon as outcasts from society. But these are not choices any more than a person sentenced to death has a choice not to die because they are offered hanging or firing squad.

How do you want to be executed?

Of course sometimes in life, we have no choice, but the kind and number of these situations are what determines whether you live in a free society or an oppressive regime. In a free society, any denial of choice must be very strongly justified, and the case for this denial of choice has not been made. This is one important reason why we must all push back strongly against this denial of choice by our governments. Life without choices is not life.

After a career immersed in data, systems, logic, and with an academic interest in philosophy, I find myself increasingly concerned about the state of public discourse and policy, about the erosion of reason...