The illiberalism of Pro-Vaxxer 'Liberals'

Then there are the vaccine mandates, the "passports". Not just for international travel, but for a pint at the local. In Germany, already, you have to have had a negative test to go to certain retail shops. Substitute "vaccine" for "test" – they amount to the same thing, really – and you have embedded totalitarianism in every village, town and city in the nation. They have been termed, not unreasonably, "vaccine apartheid". They disproportionately target the poor. They force people to risk getting sick in order to avoid a virus that probably will not make them sick. They will cause anxiety for those who suffer allergies to all manner of drugs. They force people to divulge private medical information. There is absolutely no guarantee they will not be used permanently, widely and creepily. They are driven by technologies that can be used by the state and by corporations for surveillance. A first cousin of the Chinese Communist Party's infamous social credit regime. They discriminate against pro-life people of conscience. Vaccine mandates are evil and they crush freedom. I am astonished that liberals don't get this. The libertarian American Institute for Economic Research, the very home of the Greater Barrington Declaration, has juxtaposed vaccine passports with "freedom itself".

Governments are delighting in having third parties doing the implementation of this nasty policy. That should tell us plenty. And aren't they all quiet about its introduction. Then there are the euphemisms, noted above.

The pro-vaxxer "liberals" also often equate the opposition to compulsory vaccines as being only about risk and fear. Hilariously, this has been referred to as "reckless caution", surely the phrase of the year. The fear of side effects is utterly reasonable, despite the irrelevant claims of pro-vaxxers that the risks posed by vaccines are slight. But fear of the side effects of the Covid vaccine is by no means the only reason for wishing not to be forced to submit to them.

All power to those of courage and clear, liberal thinking – like Craig Kelly – who recognise and highlight publicly the fact that the reasons we should oppose compulsory vaccines are precisely the reasons we opposed lockdowns. Liberals should not be muddying the waters, or abandoning their commitment to real freedom. To think that imposing vaccines on people somehow equates with enhancing their freedom is, not to put too fine a point on it, quite crazy. Indeed, it is diabolical.

CS Lewis said, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies." We shouldn't ever forget this. With vaccine mandates, the direction of travel can only be towards digital totalitarianism. The accepted vaccine narrative is merely one element of Covid fascism.

Memo to all liberals. Freedoms are not for trading. Even if – especially if – the threats look to some like minor infractions. God help us all when the American Civil Liberties Union can see threats to freedom that some liberals cannot. Like I said. The Year of Strange Bedfellows.