Guest on the Trey Gowdy Podcast To Talk About Vaccine Mandates

We covered everything from school-mandates to society-mandates.

For those who may be short on time, and can't make it through my 98-page article, I appeared on the Trey Gowdy podcast to talk about vaccine mandates. We had a wide-ranging discussion on all aspects of the topic, from Jacobson to the present.

Comments

[Don Nico]

"can't make it through my 98-page article"
Why would anyone even try?

[Orbital Mechanic]

Does he manage not to bring up Benghazi?

[Sebastian Cremmington]

To be fair Gowdy did say he would have investigated Trump over a very similar tragedy that happened in January 2020 when Al Qaida overran Kenyan security guards protecting an American outpost and slaughtered 3 Americans working for the government.

[Don Nico]

SC,
Are you really comparing an Al Qaeda raid with the debacle in Afghanistan? Just be glad that your daughter does not live there.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

This is Trump’s plan unfolding in Afghanistan…he made the worst deal in history with the Taliban.

[Don Nico]

SC,
Mr Biden repudiated a number of Trump's edicts during his first week in office. He claims to have an experience knowledgeable team in defense and foreign policy. I could have repudiated Trump's executive agreement on Day 1.
Your excuse for Biden does not hold water.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

You are an idiot. Trump INTENTIONALLY increased the strength of the Taliban while drawing down troops from 15K to 2500. So basically you want Biden to restart a war that the previous administration intentionally strengthened the enemy…did I mention you are an idiot??

[DaivdBehar]

There were 119,000 cases of paralytic polio in the United States and 6,600 deaths in 1953. Not much of a dispute about getting the vaccine for polio.

Against libertarian views, I support a COVID vaccine mandate. I do not support a mask mandate, that being quackery to force people to look like Democrat douche bags. The federal vaccine program can compensate the 1 in a million person with a severe long lasting side effect.

[M L]

Apparently the eradication of Polio was due to improved sanitation technology moreso than vaccines.

Then there are those that say it wasn't really eradicated, but is less severe and less common and known today as Guillain-Barre. On the other hand, some suggest FDR didn't actually have Polio, he had Guillain-Barre. https://www.webmd.com/women/news/20031031/fdr-didnt-have-polio

[Brett Bellmore]

Polio definitely wasn't eradicated, it's still a problem in some poorer nations. Both sanitation and the vaccine contributed to it becoming a negligible problem in developed countries. But sanitation is big, because the primary mode of transmission is via feces, and much less by the respiratory route.

We actually had to switch to a dead virus vaccine in the US a couple of decades ago, because as rare as polio from the live vaccine was, it had become most of the cases.

Like Covid, most cases of polio are asymptomatic, and most of the remainder are comparable to a bout of the flu. Only about 4% develop serious symptoms. But they can be pretty serious.

Covid is rather harder to suppress, due to the primarily respiratory transmission, and somewhat less effective vaccine. OTOH, the death rate is lower than polio, and it seems to be declining with each new variant. This is consistent with my original expectation that it would in time evolve into another cold virus, as several coronaviruses have previously.

[David Nieporent]

and it seems to be declining with each new variant.

I guess to the extent that "seems" is a subjective term, I can't dispute it. To the extent that this is an actual objective claim, however, it's of course wrong.

[Don Nico]

"it seems to be declining with each new variant. "
Brett that is not at all clear.
In countries without a robust and pervasive vaccine program, Delta and Lambda variants have shown a higher daily CFR than the original Wuhan strain. Even in the US the daily CFR is more than 2.25% percent; in india 2%. In contrast in the UK the daily CFR is now below 0.3%. In Peru where Lambda originated, and early peak last January of 30% has finally decreasEd to 2.5%; in Columbia it is ~1.7%.
In a couple of years your suspicion may prove correct, but right now that is a long way off.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't think CFR's are very reliable. The fatality rate is probably reasonably accurate, even taking into account the difference between dying "of" and "with" covid, but the case rates are a joke, because they're not doing random, or even consistent, testing. The case rate varies radically with the testing frequency and criteria.

I continue to be totally blown away by the failure to do widespread, random population testing in an effort to get an accurate picture of what's going on. We're not just flying blind, we're flying blindfolded, we seem to have made an affirmative decision to not have good data available.

[Don Nico]

Brett,
what you can do is plot trends for tens of countries and notice that for the past two months the CFRs in the US have risen considerably unlike in other countries. There also seem to be a couple of classes of countries: ones with a CFR that have gradually decreased to 0.5% and those like the US where the proxy daily CFRs have risen to the range of 2% to 4%.
In creating a proxy CFR one has to use temporally smoothed data because in many countries the daily deaths reported are very noisy; for example clear under-reporting on weekends.

As for your comment on population testing I agree with you.
The UK does 3x more testing per capita than the US and more vaccinations. Their daily CFR is about one tenth of the US value

[Sarcastr0]

Apparently the eradication of Polio was due to improved sanitation technology moreso than vaccines.

Where do you get that from?

[DaivdBehar]

I always learn here.

[David Nieporent]

You've never learned a day in your life.

[DaivdBehar]

Never from you. Join the other Muted Users.

[Kevin Smith]

There was also never a general mandate for the polio vaccine either. I don't think there has ever been a nationwide general mandate for any vaccine

[KCar]

1. Covid isnt a threat to me or anyone in my immediate family.
2. I have already had it.
3. You want the vax - go get and protect yourself.

Why would I be now submit to forced vax by a govt that has no authority? You can always find some clown lawyers to justify anything the govt does - Sad they are here at Reason.

[jb]

I mean, who's forcing you to get vaccinated? That's not a thing that's happening anywhere in the US, nor has it been proposed by anyone other than law professors dealing in hypotheticals.

[Kevin Smith]

It was just proposed by DavidBehar, to whom KCar was directly responding

[DaivdBehar]

Reaching 1500 calories a day has the biggest impact on mortality. Sanitation adds 5% to survival. Vaccines 1%. Still, low cost, low risk. big payoff is a good utilitarian calculation.

No one is holding anyone down and shooting anything into them. However, the vaccine requirement in crowded settings is rational. Babies in daycare are too young for vaccination. Thus, staff and older children who are not vaccinated can infect them. Most the babies there belong to mothers who have to work to pay their bills. The utilitarian calculation is easy.

[Kevin Smith]

Businesses requiring vaccination for employees, and even customers, is not quite the same as a "vaccine mandate" though

[Sebastian Cremmington]

And 3000 calories a day without exercise leads to health problems of luxury. So you get 2000 calories a day of house money…just play every day with the house money and don’t dip into your own money.

[IPLawyer]

Surely that must be your first DavidBehar post if you are seriously engaging with it

[DaivdBehar]

IP. Aren't you at work? Shouldn't you be crushing more innovation in your utterly failed law subject, the stupidest subject, and the most toxic of all.

[jb]

No one should directly respond to DavidBehar. That's a worse idea than anything to do with vaccines.

[Don Nico]

jb,
Some things are worse... responding to Mr Ed, the so-called Doctor

[DaivdBehar]

Volokh will never debate his indoctrination of intelligent, ethical students into sicko, supernatural doctrines from the catechism. He will never face me on this massive failure to see the violation of the Establishment Clause by the entire lawyer profession. Beyond the violation of the constitution, it is quackery. It explains the utter failure of every self stated goal of every law subject.

[M L]

It's always interesting, without fail, people here indignantly insist "nobody says this" about whatever authoritarian thing the politicians they support just said.

Biden said, "It's still a question whether the federal government can mandate the whole country," and suggested this was under consideration.

His CDC director said, "You know, that's something that I think the administration is looking into. It's something that I think we're looking to see approval from the vaccine. Overall, I think, in general, I am all for more vaccination. But I have nothing further to say on that, except that we're looking into those policies."

Fauci, "I have been of this opinion, and I remain of that opinion that I do believe at the local level, Jake, there should be more mandates. There really should be. We’re talking about [a] life-and-death situation. We’ve lost 600,000 Americans already, and we’re still losing more people.” Dr. Fauci also called for the Food and Drug Administration to approve the vaccine so “a lot more mandates” could be implemented.

[Don Nico]

" so 'a lot more mandates' could be implemented."
Don't be surprised when that happens

[M L]

Not at all. In another media headline, Fauci said to expect a "flood" of new vaccine mandates.

And when you talk about a "mandate," the question is "or else what?" It means nothing without that detail. A lot of the details get glossed over as far as who is doing the mandating, and what the consequences are for not complying. Perhaps that's understandable, as the distinction between government and ostensibly "private" activity becomes less and less perceptible.

So maybe, you can lose your job, you can't get another job, you can't have education, you can't get health care, perhaps you can't enter government buildings to obtain government services, retail stores to buy food, restaurants, entertainment venues, can't travel -- maybe even domestically interstate! --https://reason.com/2021/08/16/free-society-dwindles-as-permission-requirements-grow/ All of that and more can be done without any direct command in a straight line from the government to the individual. And some pretend that such a distinction is meaningful regardless of context. Of course there are many indirect controls, as the government owns and controls more and more of everything by the week, see Fed purchases for example, and all of this is done working hand in hand with the government.

My humble opinion, it may be obvious, is that government power and control is increasing and centralizing drastically, and this is something to oppose. Particularly centralization. Pharmaceutical companies, too, have a profit motive that can always be put first, even though many pharmaceutical inventions are wonderful. But it won't stop with vaccines, there's no end to the behaviors that can be controlled in response to the havoc that can be created and hyped to spur a demand for said controls, all for "safety" reasons and such.

Certainly all this and much more is the expressly stated goal of some WEF type overlords who see the global population as their livestock, and a good number as well who just seem to like the tune of their pipe.

[Don Nico]

"government power and control is increasing and centralizing drastically"
It is hard to argue with that

[Don Nico]

Not by the government except for its employees and with the usual exception that do not include previous infection.

[KCar]

I was responding to DB, but look around, there is no shortage of people that would LOVE to use the govt to force you to submit to vax. It is a pretty lame argument to say, well you arent technically forced to get vax, you just cant go to school, stores or travel.

[Don Nico]

KCar,
Don't be so smug. You are not invincible; neither is your family.
Vaccinated or previously infected, you can get COVID-19 and you could have a serious case. Anyone can

[Brett Bellmore]

He could also get hit by lightning. He's already had Covid, the odds of his dying of it in the future are comparable.

[Don Nico]

Yes, but that is not what he said, Brett. And neither you nor I actually know the odds of his or his family getting seriously sick or even dying,

[KCar]

I could also get hit by a bus. Same level of likelihood.

[Don Nico]

Yes, you could. Yet you boast that you are invincible.
Don't be so smug. Or just cross the street while talking on your cell phone or sending a text message