Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Dumb Arguments Don't Help Good Causes

Because when those dumb arguments are noticed as being dumb arguments, your opponent can use that to discredit your cause among those who aren't interested in paying close attention to the whole issue.

So, here's Joe Concha at The Hill:

[P]erhaps no other job in the world affords more isolation, more self-quarantine, than that of trucker.

That is the dumbest argument imaginable (and this isn't the first time I've seen variants of it).

The average worker goes to an office, factory, etc. and spends the whole day working around the same people before coming home to the same family. Day after day, week after week.

A trucker works with loading and unloading crews at each end of journeys (often between varying end points from day to day) filled with stops that include encounters with total strangers at various spots across vast distances. Fuel stops. Food stops. Rest stops. Shower/bunk facilities at truck stops, or in some cases hotels or motels.

Truckers are ideal vectors for the spread of disease.

Does that fact justify vaccine mandates? No.

As a moral matter, my body, my choice.

As a practical matter:

  1. It's pretty well-established that the COVID-19 vaccines aren't especially effective at preventing transmission of the virus. You can still catch it, and you can still spread it. The "vaccines" are really more along the lines of pre-emptive treatment. They make it less likely that the virus will cause you to become seriously ill.
  2. All of those other people an un-vaccinated trucker comes into contact with are free to be vaccinated if they'd like to be vaccinated. It probably won't stop them from catching COVID-19 if they come into contact with someone who's carrying it, but they're less likely to end up hospitalized or dead. And the vaccine doesn't care whether the exposure comes from a vaccinated or un-vaccinated vector. In fact, if the figures I've seen are correct, the former is more likely, which makes sense -- the vaccinated vector is more likely to be out and about, while the un-vaccinated vector probably got sick enough to skip work.
This issue is important. So please, don't make the right side of it look bad by using dumb arguments.

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