WHAT’S UP WITH PROTESTING MANDATES?

Over the past weekend (Oct. 9-10), over 2,000 flights were cancelled on Southwest Airlines. It was not a problem of weather. It was not a problem of mechanics. There was no computer hacking involved. Instead it was a case of pilots who simply did not show up. Why? Nor were they the only ones, lots of traffic controllers also did not show up. Why? They were protesting the mandates for covid vaccinations.

Now why would anyone object to the vaccinations? There are several reasons. 1) Some have medical conditions which prevent them from receiving the vaccine. 2) Some have religious views against it, 3) some are fearful of possible side-effects, 4) some (millions of people) are already are immune to covid having had covid, 5) as a matter of principle about government mandating medical procedures. [As a disclosure, I’m certainly not against the vaccination shot, as soon as the vaccine was made available, I got mine.]

The problem is mandating it. That’s because a mandate, as a command or order, is an authoritarian approach to managing behavior. In organizations it shows up as the old fashion and ineffective Command-and-Control approach. In government, mandates are usually injunctions against things. Most mandates are about what not to do. Do not steal, kill, defame, destroy, set fire, rape, rob, etc. The 10 Commandments is an example of moral mandates. Mandates occur also in every domain, for example, there are mandates about driving on streets and highways: do not speed, do not go through a red light, do not block emergency vehicles, etc.

In all of these mandates— there is a danger. What danger? The loss of freedom. When a mandate is issued, a person does not have the freedom or the option to do otherwise. Now in a represented government, as we elect people to represent us, we grant them the right to create laws (mandates). Yet there are many kinds of limitations to what can be mandated. For example, government cannot mandate what we are to think or believe. We are completely free to think and believe as we wish.

Generally, government also cannot mandate what we are to speak. While there are some exceptions, like shouting fire in a crowded gathering, the exceptions are few are few and refer to very restricted situations. In the recent exception in Canada where they prescribed gender language, Dr. Jordan Peterson arose as a defender of freedom against that mandate. He argued that in English law, no government had ever before prescribed language.

Given that mandates take away freedom, mandates should be made very carefully and infrequently. In part that’s because with mandates, government uses force, threats, and punishments to enforce the mandate. This goes against the basic approach of democracy. In a democracy rather than using force, we generally use persuasion to influence the minds and hearts

of people. In a democracy, we rely on education, information, healthy debate, respectful disagreements, science, and we appeal to moral consciousness.

When government relies on mandates instead of information to govern, it indicates that the government itself has become ineffective. “If I can’t convince you, I will force you.” In doing this, using mandates rather than persuasion also reveals a basic disrespect for the intelligence and understanding of people.

It is especially questionable to mandate a medical procedure. What we’re talking about here is the government forcing conformity to a medical procedure upon people— a highly questionable power, even for government. What other medical procedures is government allowed to impose on people?

It is even more questionable to threaten a person’s employment by those who refuse the mandate. That’s what’s happening today. Thousands of good people, healthy people, and skilled people are being tossed out of their jobs because they are exercising their freedom of choice. The science tells us that people under 60 who are healthy have a 99.2 percent chance of not being hospitalized or dying. Forcing them to get vaccinated not only is bad government, it not only goes against science, it goes against human psychology. Start ordering people around, and they will resist — on the principle of it.

While 67 million have not been vaccinated, millions of them are already immuned having gotten covid and recovered. Their immunity is said to be 11 times better than the vaccination shot. Mandating them is the epitome of stupidity as it the failure to count them as part of the immuned.

Here in “the land of the free and home of the brave” there is no freedom without bravery. It is the courage of the brave that makes freedom possible. And that’s what I see the pilots and traffic controllers doing— bravely standing up for their right to choose.