Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kyrie Irving isn't a firefighter.
No, he a chimney since he gets swept
In Cleveland we still call him the bus driver
NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
221–230 of 443 posts
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you read the ruling? It’s not actually very long (terrible pdf though): “Finally, states of emergency are meant to be _temporary_. The question presented is whether the Health Commissioner has the authority to enact a permanent condition of employment during a state of emergency. This Court finds that the Commissioner does not have that authority and has acted beyond the scope of his authority under the Public He…
Yeah but the ruling is bogus. The health commissioner's order didn't say fire the employees [1]. It said that you can't have unvaccinated people on the premise which is clearly within their powers to "control of communicable and chronic diseases ... " [2]. The commissioner never said you needed to fire anybody. It we start taking this to the extreme, I think we can agree if somebody has Ebola its ok for the commissio…
The Health Commissioner can _quarantine_ someone, for a specified period of time, yes. But that’s not what happened. Instead the Commissioner apparently decided that these people, who were not sick, couldn’t be allowed to work and earn their living. But they could still go to grocery stores and baseball games, because those places aren’t important.
Besides, you cannot go by the overall mission of some government agency to decide what they are allowed or not allowed to do. The legislature has delegated specific authority to each agency to take specific actions. An agency, no matter how well–meaning they are, is not allowed to take any action not on their list.
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
A growing number of doctors have threatened to withhold treatment from the unvaccinated, sparking backlash from doctors and bioethicists who say such sentiments violate the Hippocratic Oath. Those critics are even more troubled by the silence from professional organizations tasked with upholding medical ethics. The mandate should have never existed.
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Nice rant, but as per the ruling [1], I believe it is now scientific and popular concensus that the vaccine barely moves the needle on transmission if at all. At that point, any logic behind mandates vaccinations collapses.
[1] “ Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19”
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#224No post body was provided.
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels wrote a whole book showing that voters do not keep track of what elected officials do, and so politicians are not punished for bad behavior, see excerpt here: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/longer-elected-terms-lead-t...
This is also shown in polling data, where congress on the whole has an approval rating of less than 10%, yet most years the incumbent is reelected That statistic alone has me questioning if democracy is a good system
Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. For those decisions that need to be made collectively, democracy is just the worst bad method we've come up with.
But one huge benefit of freedom is that if we embrace freedom, the vast majority of decisions can be made individually, or by mutual agreement of consenting individuals, and not collectively. So the negative consequences of democracy aren't as impactful.
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#226This is a confusing headline. The judgement here is in NY state court, and pertains to employees of and in the City of New York, which enacted a vaccine requirement for employees of the city and later private employers in the city. Months later, Eric Adams was elected mayor of NYC, and he issued an executive order exempting athletes, performers, and artists from the mandate. Petitioners sued, saying that the mandate…
Can you explain what's confusing about it? Seems perfectly crystal clear to me.
It's confusing because it makes it's technically correct [1], but doesn't really get at the heart of the matter. If 'tptacek hadn't pointed out the subtlety that it was the arbitrary nature of exceptions added later that was the reason for this judgement, I would not have understood or noticed it.
It's like saying "On-call developer fixes problem caused by program written in Java" – correct, but doesn't point out, for example, that it was caused due to a commit pushed to production on Friday evening after overriding the failing CI tests.
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[1] Which, as they say, is the worst kind.
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dunno how it is in NY, but in my city, the fire department spends way more time on paramedic duties than on actually fighting fires (around 40 EMS calls for every fire call). IMO if you're getting a ride to the hospital from someone it matters if they have COVID. And even though the vaccines don't guarantee that you won't get infected, the government does have an interest in preventing severe infections. COVID was th…
I am perfectly happy to have a COVID spewing firefighter get me to the hospital after a car accident and let me take my chances there, than to be left without a first responder. 100% of the time.
>I am perfectly happy to have a COVID spewing firefighter get me to the hospital after a car accident and let me take my chances there, than to be left without a first responder. 100% of the time.
Except that doesn't apply to this situation. IIRC, ~95-97% of cops, EMTs and firefighters in NYC were already vaccinated and those that weren't were given ample time (extended several times) to get vaccinated.
As such, that was never an issue.
That said, there certainly was an arbitrary and capricious standard applied in this case.
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you read the ruling? It’s not actually very long (terrible pdf though): “Finally, states of emergency are meant to be _temporary_. The question presented is whether the Health Commissioner has the authority to enact a permanent condition of employment during a state of emergency. This Court finds that the Commissioner does not have that authority and has acted beyond the scope of his authority under the Public He…
>Did you read the ruling? That's a lot of ask of an internet commenter. In all seriousness, I did see that part while skimming through it, but I don't find it very convincing in regards to public employees. The order came from the Mayor, not the health commissioner. Requiring city employees be vaccinated is an administrative decision. It's within the best interests of the city that city employees not get sick, that t…
> It's within the best interests of the city that…
Yes, but that’s not the sole requirement. In addition to serving a legitimate government purpose, a government order must also avoid being arbitrary or capricious. Every order has to meet both requirements, and this one only meets one of them. From the ruling:
“This Court finds that based on the analysis above, the Commissioner’s Order of October 20, 2021, violated the Petitioners’ equal protection rights as the mandate is arbitrary and capricious. The City employees were treated entirely differently from private sector employees, and both City employees and private sector employees were treated entirely differently from athletes, artists, and performers. All unvaccinated people, living or working in the City of New York are similarly situated. Granting exemptions for certain classes and selectively lifting of vaccination orders, while maintaining others, is simply the definition of disparate treatment. Furthermore, selected enforcement of these orders is also disparate treatment.”
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Three strikes. Politician voted three times for laws that later were deemed unconstitutional by the SC, so the politician can only be a politian again after 30 years and some mandatory training and test. What is not fair about this?
What's the punishment for that SC when a later SC overrules it , three new justices later? And while we're at it, are we also creating a three strikes law for lower courts that get overruled by the SC three times? And what about the courts below them ? What if they get overruled by a higher court... which in turn gets overruled by the SC? I can't wait to keep track of all this ;)
The biggest risk would be that a politician will be wrongfully denied participation when they actually were fit for the job. That's a smaller price to pay than living with a politician who works against the constitution.
Re: NY Supreme Court reinstates NYC's fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yikes. This reads like a gish-gallop of anti-vax talking points. I don’t even necessarily disagree with the decision to reinstate the employees, but this legal reasoning is embarrassing. Edit: I’m happy to learn that the New York Supreme Court is not the highest court in New York, this entire thread is misleading (I think people are assuming New York’s highest court slapped down vaccine mandates). I don’t know why Ne…
I think it is important to understand that not all people who against vax mandates are anti-vaxers.
I thought about this for several moments, and I disagree.
Vaccines offer some personal protection but predominantly become effective by achieving herd immunity. Vaccine hesitancy undermines this goal and weakens the system. Being pro-vaccine is senseless without being in favor of enough people being vaccinated to provide strong immunity, including for those who cannot be vaccinated due to medical complications.
Even if you were to argue on behalf of one who is indifferent to vaccines but is against mandates, so long as those mandates encourage vaccination, they effectively are discouraging vaccination and are thus anti-vax.
It can be hard to recognize all of this without the right perspective. In isolation, it is easy to claim that one is not anti-vax; however actions speak infinitely louder than words.