Reading comments about vaccine passports shows me just how many people don't mind, and even desire, to be ruled by a corporatist-government partnership.
Many people may not directly state that they want authoritarian government, but they reveal it in the way they talk about issues like this.
What would ordinarily be at least mildly surprising (although it's not given the current state of polarization and tribalism) is that many on the left have little concern for the shared control of power between government and corporate America.
Many on all sides (including some libertarians) have resorted to the tired "private businesses can do what they want" defense without probing the issue further to try to understand how a corporatist-government partnership will wield power.
The standard test that people ought to consider when empowering someone or something is whether you would mind your worst enemy having this same power? Would many on the left still want vaccine passports if they were proposed by Trump?
If the answer is different, then maybe we should step back and reconsider the grant of power in the first place. In the case of vaccine passports, I think the case is already obvious. But time will tell if this plays out along those lines.

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More from @theprez98

5 Apr
1/ The public freakout over Justice Thomas's suggestion that Internet companies might be subject to common carrier status is rich considering the entire premise of net neutrality was based upon the very same legal principle.
2/ It is true that net neutrality was focused on internet service providers and the current debate is on companies such as Facebook and Google and Twitter, but you should not be surprised when existing legal principles are advanced in ways you didn't anticipate.
3/ The extant case is a perfect example. If Twitter comments are a "public forum" that prevents public officials such as former President Trump from blocking users, then First Amendment law is already creeping into social media.
Read 6 tweets
3 Apr
It's notable, but not surprising, that the most vocal defenders of lockdowns, travel restrictions, vaccine passports, and other harsh measures are academics, public officials, and others safe in their jobs, who can work remotely, or aren't impacted by the measure they support.
Those who have been out of work without pay for months on end don't have the time to debate on Twitter the pros and cons of ending restrictions. They just want to be able to find a job and get back to work.
Politicians enact (illegal) eviction moratoriums as if landlords don't exist. They don't care that their policies to help some people are hurting others. And then when that problem becomes too difficult to hide, they'll propose something new to fix the problem they just created.
Read 6 tweets
26 Mar
1/ I was reading through a thread last night that debated the certainty of either Republicans or Democrats being "right" on any given position. Predictably, tribalism won out as those on their respective sides were more certain that they were "right."
2/ This seems to me to be a rather narrow prism to view the world or any given political issue. In reality, both major political parties have sought to wield the power of the state for their own partisan advantages.
3/ Republicans or Democrats may be marginally "better" on one particular issue or another (depending upon how you define "better"), but fundamentally these are both statist parties.
Read 9 tweets
25 Mar
1/ This is an insane waste of resources and disproportionately impacts minorities. eveningsun.com/story/news/202…
2/ According to the article, "State police figures show a 1% increase in the number of marijuana arrests between 2019 and 2020." That's also insane given that we were locked down for much of 2020.
3/ Even before decriminalization and legalization for recreational purposes, law enforcement and prosecutors should have been putting marijuana arrests at the very bottom of their priority lists.
Read 6 tweets
20 Mar
The most prominent portrait in President Biden's Oval Office is of a man who put 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry (including many who were US citizens) in concentration camps during WWII. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Some people object to calling the Japanese World War II experience in America as "concentration camps" but the Korematsu Institute prefers "American concentration camps" rather than government euphemisms such as "Assembly Centers" or Relocation Camps." korematsuinstitute.org/terminology-1
There is no evidence that I'm aware of that, before his death in 1945, FDR ever experienced any regret at what he did to those people during the war. And yet politicians of the left continue to lionize him.
Read 10 tweets
17 Mar
1/ Finally finished Season Six of Vikings. The second half of the season was better than the first half. On whole I thought the series did a nice job of mapping real-world history onto its characters. #Vikings
2/ Over 200 years of history and legends were compressed into two generations. That's entirely forgivable as it is not meant to be a documentary. #Vikings
3/ Like all historical fiction, if the series gets people more interested in history in addition to being entertaining, then that's a good thing. #Vikings
Read 5 tweets

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