Golden Jubilee
Posts: 5192
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm
Location: Lyman, IA
Freedom of Choice
It is a phase we hear a lot today on both side of the boarder. We have and I fully support the freedom to choose. We don’t have armed people pulling us from our houses to make us do something. There are a few exceptions, very few.
What people who claim their right to choose is being infringed, are upset about is not the freedom to choose, but the desire to not to face the consequences from their own choice.
I am free to get drunk as a skunk, but not free to choose if I get a hangover from that choice.
When my action affects only myself, I have the freedom to choose, when my choice also effects others, there are consequences for my choice.
If I get drunk at home, it is my choice to do so, but if I then get in an automobile, my choice to get drunk and have bad effects on others. I can choose to still do so, but I can’t choose not to be arrested and held accountable.
Early on in this pandemic I continued to truck, people were depending on what I delivered. There was no “antidote” to covid and the best we could do is mask-up and stay apart. I lived through the “no place to eat’ “no place to shower” no restrooms only “porta potties, no human contact time. I also avoided visiting family who were in declining health, not for my sake but for theirs. I lost time with my father I will never have the chance to get back. I appreciate those that also put themselves at risk to feed me while on the road, Some Ma and Pa places stayed open (within the guidance of local law) to provide for those that provide for them. I don’t think either of us really made money, but what we did was needed. Many placed profit over service and took gov handouts and closed their doors.
The rules in place on either side of the boarder don’t force people to get a vaccine, only that if you partake in some activities that you be vaccinated. Your choice! You can choose you course of action but not the consequences of your choice. I hear reports that 90% of trucker in Canada are vaccinated, much better in all accounts than truckers or even the general population of the US. I can understand why they want to keep it out north of the boarder.
We have people down here who are upset that being non-vaccinated bumps you from the transplant list. Again, choices made freely, accept the consequence of that choice.
There are people for medical reasons that can not be vaccinated, I have no beef with them, and for them, those of us that can, owe it to get vaccinated.
We also have people suing hospitals to get the treatment protocols against medical advice. If you think you know better, check yourself out of the hospital (and free up staff and rooms) and go seek your treatment elsewhere. The truth is these people have put themselves in the position they are in with their choices but want others to bare the burden of their choices. We all make dumb choices, and I don’t want to limit care because someone made a bad choice. However, if you choose to go to the hospital, you do so to seek their expertise, and as such either accept it or leave. Too often it isn’t a question of they want a treatment, but they want in the hospital and covered by insurance even as said treatment hasn’t been accepted as safe and effective. Again their choice is to push the burden on the rest of us for their choice. It isn’t that they aren’t allowed to choose but they aren’t allowed to make the rest of us to pay for their choice.
You can choose not to be vaccinated or to mask up and still fly, just not on a commercial airliner where your choices effect everyone else.
Canada on the whole, has done a much better job with Covid than the US. I can see why they don’t want to bring our results north of the boarder, afterall it is their (collectively) choice to make.
We have enough time in to know the very low risks involved with vaccination, their safety is beyond question. If people behaved this way with small pox and polio, they would still be with us. Thank god they are not.
By all means, make you own choice, but take the responsibility for what comes with that choice.