This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Even if I believe you (I don't), you're describing something that was floated as a proposal, not something that actually happened.
I could reword almost any law to sound ridiculous and dystopian. "Some people are treated as so subhuman they aren't even allowed to get behind the wheel of a car!"
There are many situations in which the government can restrict your freedom to travel. While you may not agree with all (or any) of them, they are not "treating you as subhuman." Unless you're an anarchist and you believe all laws are treating you as subhuman, in which case, okay, that would at least be consistent if still irrational.
All countries have restrictions on who can enter, and the US is not the only one that includes vaccinations as a requirement, and not all vaccination requirements are COVID-related. So every country in the world regards some people as "lesser" in this fashion.
Your rhetoric is unhinged and counterfactual.
They did pass a law (here is the text of the law itself) that was scheduled to impose fines of up to 3600 EUR on the unvaccinated (with police empowered to inspect vaccination papers without cause) from 2022-03-15 onwards, but suspended it a few days before, arguably because the Ukraine war had just started and they figured that between this and the hardships that participating in anti-Russia sanctions would entail, anti-globalists (already quite powerful in Austria) might get empowered too much. Not a "crime", though, but an "administrative violation", in the same class as parking violations, speeding and public nuisance.
More options
Context Copy link
It was not floated as a proposal. It was passed as a law. The law came into effect. The law was suspended moments before anyone actually fell afoul of the requirements.
And I can reword almost any objection to a law the same. Who cares if the Khmer Rouge is carrying out omnicide, they're entitled to do whatever they want with their subjects bodies because of a precedent set by driving licenses. This doesn't make lockdowns sound acceptable. It just makes driving licenses sound worse. Driving licenses are driving licenses. They are not driving and everything the government does is now automatically okay licenses.
Do you believe that being allowed to leave your place of residence is something humans are not owed by default? If so, we have no values on which we agree, so this whole conversation is pointless.
Turns out there's a wide gap in political opinion between opposing all laws and supporting all laws. Or do you think all laws passed by governments are inherently okay?
Seriously, what's your argument here? That because I don't object to all laws I'm not allowed to object to any specific one?
Then we are in agreement. Maybe you think unvaccinated people are lesser. Maybe you don't. I certainly don't, and I object to anyone who does think they're lesser. Hence why I object to the US regime's vaccine mandates for international travel.
As I pointed out in the parallel post, though, the law was not criminalizing it, in the usual sense of the word. Rather, it declared it to be a Verwaltungsübertretung ("administrative transgression"), which is the category that parking violations, speeding, littering and being a public nuisance are in. It also includes failure for male citizens of a certain age to be mustered for mandatory service, and failure to correctly report your place of residence, so whatever this category is, there was already precedent for the state to put you into it and impose punishment for "just existing"/"not having something done to you that you do not want".
Does it fall under criminal or civil law? In other countries, that category falls under criminal law. It seems that in Austria, these administrative offences can lead to imprisonment if you repeat them (inherent to being unvaccinated) or refuse to pay them.
This doesn't make Austria's vaccine mandates sound any better. Unsurprisingly, I also strongly object to military slavery.
Administrative law is considered its own branch in Austria, with a separate court system. The relevant Wikipedia entry also says that certain previously criminal offenses being reassigned to the administrative system has been referred to as "decriminalisation".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes. I also believe most freedoms are something humans are owed by default. That doesn't mean the government cannot restrict those freedoms under certain circumstances.
In some countries, the process of deciding what those circumstances are is called democracy. In other countries, it's called authoritarianism. But there are no countries that don't impose restrictions. And screaming that one particular restriction in one particular situation with a practical rationale (even if you disagree with it), constantly (and inaccurately) catastrophizing about the level of that restriction with hyperbolic language detached from reality, using rhetoric you'd use to describe being herded off to a concentration camp, is unhinged.
You're allowed to object to anything you want. I'm saying your specific objections, and how you frame them, are irrational and not ingenuous.
Note that I have not stated that I am actually in favor of mandatory vaccinations or lockdowns myself. Because I can talk about laws I don't necessarily agree with without trying to hype them as Literally Gulags.
What principles do you hold that would lead you to reject concentration camps?
My principle is that arbitrary imprisonment, the imprisonment of someone who has not committed a crime or is not suspected of having committed a crime, is a violation of human rights. This is not some rare stance. It's contained within the UDHR. It's implied by Habeas Corpus. As a legal concept, it goes back centuries if not millennia. It is the very bedrock upon which rule of law lay. And it interlocks with all other human rights. For example, a right to religion cannot be protected if the state can arbitrarily imprison people of the wrong religion anyway.
I do not believe lockdowns are in any way compatible with this idea. Certainly not as they were carried out in the UK. It was made illegal to leave your house without one of a specific list of reasons to do so. This meets the conditions of home imprisonment, as defined in Jalloh v. Home Secretary. The reason the bounds of imprisonment need to be broad is to protect people from being placed into imprisonment-like conditions and not have any legal recourse against them. I do not believe there's any "negotiation" or "democracy" than validates arbitrary imprisonment, and believe that any polity that endeavours to imprison the entire population immediately illegitimizes itself.
Because of this, it is unclear to me on what grounds supporters of lockdowns can claim to meaningfully oppose concentration camps beyond specifically rejecting concentration camps for aesthetic reasons. How can you okay the repeated arbitrary imprisonment of billions of people on the flimsiest of pretexts yet draw a sharp line only at that specific form of arbitrary imprisonment? To me, that they were imprisoned at all is the crime, not the specific details of where you then place your prisoners. Imprisoning people for no reason does not become good because you give them nice, cushy prisons. It does not help that Australia actually did set up camps, either.
Similar applies to vaccine mandates. Medical treatment without informed consent is somewhere between assault, battery and grievous bodily harm. Injections specifically are likely to be the latter because they pierce the skin. Even leaving the vaccine mandates aside, informed consent under duress due to lockdowns is a serious problem that was entirely ignored. How many people got the vaccines because they were suffering under the indignity and abuses of lockdowns, and falsely believed that submitting to vaccination would end those abuses? They would not believe it for no reason, because governments claimed that people being vaccinated would end lockdowns. Did those carrying out vaccinations early on, even before any of the mandates, ever take pause to consider whether the people they were injecting had actually given informed consent, or were instead doing so under duress?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link