Those of us who don’t believe in getting vaccinated and wearing masks are a stubborn lot. Despite everything the Labour Government says and does, we refuse to believe we should have to get the jab and wear masks.
I’ll admit it. I don’t have much of an opinion on the Covid vaccine except I believe that at best it doesn’t work and at worst it causes lethal side effects. As for masks I believe both that they don’t work and that they dehumanise.
But if someone who believed that everyone should have to be vaccinated and masks worked were to come at me with undeniable proof, my response would be, “And?”
Under the Bill of Rights Act, everyone has the right to refuse medical treatment. The only exception is section 5, which says:
Subject to section 4, the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights may be subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
Is constructively forcing people to get the jab justified in a free and democratic society?
But even libertarians believe that we shouldn’t do anything that causes harm to others, right? Therefore by refusing the jab and masks, we’re causing harm to others. The problem here is we’re talking about harm through inaction and libertarians also believe that individuals should not be subject to compulsion.
The Government believes that in order to stop the spread of Covid we all need to be vaccinated and masked up. But if the law isn’t on their side, and people have a justified right to refuse the jab or wear masks, what does the Government have left to convince the rest of us to get the jab and start wearing masks?
The only thing they have left is a sense of morality, of doing ‘the right thing’, and peer pressure. Expect this Government to ramp up the messages, saying things like ‘if not for yourself, then for others’ and ‘getting vaccinated and masking up is the right thing to do’. Expect this Government to try to make people believe that people who are against the vaccine and mask wearing are immoral, even more so than what the Government is doing now.
And expect them to use their ‘army of five million’ to do it.