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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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A pure hypothetical thought experiment: imagine it occurs that the Pfizer mRNA vaccination + all booster follow-ups (4+ shots) regimen is disastrous to health, and has a high 10-year mortality rate. In other words, those who strictly adhered to the recommended CDC/Pfizer vaccination schedule have a 25% of dying by the decade’s end, or some such risk. What would be the public’s response and what would be the just punishment for those involved?

I think in such a hypothetical, the whole political climate of 21st century neo-neoliberalism will be fundamentally altered. There would be a huge rightward shift on distrust to authorities, especially but not limited to scientists and public health authorities. I don’t think the public would be satisfied with Fauci and other heads being tried, and will demand sentences for the thousands of individuals involved in the decision similar to what we would see in the Nuremberg trials. This would also fundamentally change the political climate, as the “vax-maxxed” lean left.

Not only do i agree with @whiningcoil that nothing will happen, bit i also dont expect that the unvaxxed will lauded for their foresight. I imagine there will be even more animosity and perhaps even violence direct at unvaxxed people since they did not take on the risk that the rest of society did. I think that sentiment was always driving the cruel policies for the unvaxxed. We chose not to accept the risks for the good of society and are in their mind, freeriding on everyone else.

Thats why I still keep my vax status to myself to nearly everyone except family.

This is pretty amazing, considering that the data has become so overwhelming that it has necessitated a change in narrative that has even shown through in legal arguments. When the gov't argued for their employee mandate in front of the en banc fifth circuit a few months ago, it was no longer, "This is necessary to prevent transmission in the workplace," because it's now undeniable that vaccination prevents neither infection nor transmission. It was a stark contrast to the arguments over the OSHA vaccine in SCOTUS. Then, the justices were entertaining ideas like, "It's similar to if you have a dangerous machine that is spurting dangerous chemicals all over the place that could end up on other employees." Now, there no talk of that at all. Instead, the gov't had to basically leave the point stand and retreat back to, "...but we still think vaccination is the best way to prevent serious cases/death to individuals."

Of course, now that that's the new battleground, the court had some wicked hypos like, "Could the gov't mandate that all employees get below a particular BMI by a specified date or be fired? Obesity is a huge crisis in society, causing all sorts of disease/death, and surely that causes inefficiency in gov't operations [which is the "federal nexus" they're trying to use]?" We can only hope that these facts take root in the public consciousness as well (and that the fifth circuit nixes another authoritarian mandate).