Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates • Hacker News Board

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

#311

Post by claytongulick » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #231

claytongulick wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Greater good" has been the justification for the worst atrocities committed in history. Be careful about so willingly giving up your right to self-ownership. You may not ever get it back.

Greater good is what it makes it possible to have individual rights. Imagine if you had an absolute right to free speech. You could write or speak anything without legal recourse. Trademark law and copyright law wouldn’t work. Fraud wouldn’t be prosecutable. Apply that to other rights like the right to bear arms. If government couldn’t set standards and people could procure any weapon, how does society function? How…

I see the "living document" argument made a lot, and I don't think it means what some people think it means.

The founders were purposefully vague in several areas of the constitution because they absolutely did want circumstances to determine interpretation, however they were not vague at all about delegated and reserved powers. These things are not "living" in a sense of judicial review.

By "living" document, it was intended that the constitution could be modified by an amendment process. There was never a provision for judicial review.

In fact, then entire concept of judicial review arose from Marbury vs Madison [1] where the court claimed this power.

The purpose of the U.S. Constitution, and one of the things that makes it unique in history, is to limit the powers of the government. The founders believed that individual rights were innate (granted by God), not granted by government and certainly not granted by the federal government.

All powers other than those specifically Delegated to the federal government are reserved for the States - the 10th Amendment makes this clear.

It is not the role of the federal government to decide on "greater good" mandates, those powers are very specifically reserved for the states, who are constrained on what they may do by the Constitution and its amendments.

We, as a country, have allowed the federal government to overstep this in many areas. The DEA, for example, only exists because of a very bad interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause, which arose from a bad Supreme Court decision (Wikard vs Filburn)[2] about whether or not you were allowed to grow your own wheat.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by beerandt » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

SkyPuncher wrote: post #138

bko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to what types of medical orders are allowed to be given to patients Suppose an anti-abortion president gets elected and he elects someone as head and tells them that health care providers that accept medicare or medicaid cannot provide abortions. Not making it illegal per-se, but just for the providers that accept medicare or medicaid for any of their services. You okay with this as well?

The person you're replying to has a slightly incorrect statement. At least to my knowledge. CMS only controls this for patients covered by Medicaid/Medicare. It can set the tone for the entire industry, but does not solely control the industry. Typically, they create influence by setting/rejecting Medicaid/Medicare reimbursement standards. Since enough patients are covered by CMS, it tends to be easier for hospitals…

No- they say play by our rules for everyone or the majority of your revenue disappears.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by olliej » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #257

lpcvoid wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccines should not be a personal freedom choice. They are a life saving invention, where did we go as a society that this is suddenly up for debate? Antivaxxers on HN of all places, what the hell.

I’m fully vaccinated but I won’t force anyone else.

People aren’t being forced to get vaccinated.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by dang » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #258

dang wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep nationalistic flamebait off HN. It leads to nationalistic flamewar, which is a form of internet hell (fortunately a relatively avoidable one). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It was a joke but I edited my comment. Apologies.

Appreciated!

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by sjwalter » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

beerandt wrote: post #289

sjwalter wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit under half of Americans have already caught covid. Even without vaccines, that means nearly half of Americans already have natural immunity which is vastly superior to vaccine immunity. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

>A bit under half of Americans have already caught covid No- that many have had a positive test or other diagnosis confirming covid. There were plenty of non-hospitalized, non-diagnosed cases before the tests existed. And plenty of people have had it and never saw a reason to get a test to confirm it. I'd say we're far above that estimated number.

So that's not quite true. The CDC provides the estimate you're talking about which is what my post originally cites (~146mm Americans infected). That's their estimate based on the much smaller number of positive tests and hospitalizations, using their models about how many cases are missed by surveillance.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by dham » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #202

dham wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got one for you, we can prevent 80% of covid deaths and hospitalizations and reduce other diseases and get universal healthcare because the cost would be much less...Just ban fast foods. Make everyone exercise and that would be mandated by government. It would much less intrusive than requiring someone to inject something into their body.

If I recall, the White House worked with various companies to give out incentives for getting vaccinated like beer and donuts.

That sounds about right for the US. I don't know why we didn't just give everyone $2,000 to take the vaccine. Would have been more ethical.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by landemva » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #84

bko wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Requiring employees to be vaccinated as a condition to accepting Medicare seems pretty reasonable to me. That's just a backdoor for giving more power to the federal branch. Its like 'interstate commerce' where anything that has interstate implications (pretty much everything) can be influenced by the federal government. What if an anti-abortion president elected someone to this board and told them that no health ca…

Commerce clause is a valid reason for federal government to make rules. Imagine each state having their own EPA with their own rules and regulations. Or each state had their own FAA. Or OSHA. It would kill interstate commerce because it would be too costly for businesses to operate at the national level.

Regarding the EPA, I can imagine it not existing. In fact, EPA did not exist when some here were children. https://www.epa.gov/history

The pollution solution is defending property rights. In the short term, the USA pollution solution is to offshore manufacturing pollution to other countries.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by cmh89 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

tastyfreeze wrote: post #302

cmh89 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is being told to wear clothes or get fired coercion? Do you find that acceptable?

Being told to wear clothes or get fired does not require that I get an injection that can cause harm to me. These two things are not equal.

I was just establishing that you don't have a philosophical problem with an Authority using coercion to achieve a goal.

Vaccines are safe and effective so I wont get into what conspiracy theories you believe about the COVID-19 vaccine. Most importantly, vaccines have been mandated by the government in different settings for years. I'm sure if you went to college at a public school, you had to certain vaccines. I know I did.

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

everyoneloves84 wrote: post #236

Isthatablackgsd wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forcing care workers to take a medicine against their will is constitutional you say? They are not forced to take the medicine. They are given an choice to take the vaccine or find another job. If they refused to take the vaccine, that is their choice, period. They cannot claimed they are being forced because they are given an choice in the first place. They are given a free will with their decision. Thousands of T…

> They are given an choice to take the vaccine or find another job. Interesting line of argument. So, if my boss says: "have sex with me or lose your job", is that freedom of choice or blackmail?

[deleted]

Re: Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates

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Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #268

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about if it's the 1960s, and you're a flight attendant, and "being sexy" is semi-officially part of your job. And your job is requiring you to get an abortion (which is still illegal in the US, and so you're going to have to go to Sweden to get it). And if you won't, well, nobody's making you - you can get a different job. This is, as far as I can see, the most directly analogous situation. Those who support vacc…

If you truly believe that these situations are comparable, I don't think I could expect you to engage in good-faith discussion.

That's a handy way for you to dismiss the point, while completely refusing to engage with it. But that's OK. You can expect whatever you expect.

I think the two situations are comparable in some ways, and not in others. The "have to do something medical in order to keep your job" part is one of the ways it's comparable. The "bodily autonomy" is another. It's different in that it's not a government mandate. It's different in how it affects others.

So: Did you actually want to engage, or did you just want to give a plausible dismissal?