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There are many issues worthy of serious debate in a civilised society. There are ethical questions and moral dilemmas for which we have no clear cut solutions; Euthanasia, abortion, welfare, foreign aid. It is perfectly acceptable to be on either side of such debates.
But there are other areas of morality and ethics which are settled. The clear cut answers exist and ought to be understood by the majority in any decent society.
Over the past year, we have found ourselves debating such issues. They've been presented as difficult moral problems.
New conundrums never faced or considered previously:

Is it ethical to intentionally let one group of people die because you have a vague hunch it might let another group of people live?

Is the life of an 85 year old worth saving as much as the life of a five year old?
Are we all collectively responsible for the spread of respiratory viruses in the population?

Should the young be expected to sacrifice everything to protect the very old?

Does the government have the right to prevent families from being together?
Should teachers be permitted to psychologically abuse the children in their care because they feel irrationally and ignorantly afraid for their own safety?

Should healthy people be conditioned to view themselves as sick and potentially deadly to others until proven otherwise?
Is it ok to force people to prove that they have taken part in an unnecessary medical experiment before they can participate in free society?

Is it ethical to stoke up division and hatred on the grounds of people's health status?
The answer to all of these questions is no. Previous generations of human beings all knew it was no. None of these questions should require any head scratching or complicated moral philosophising. And yet for the past twelve months, we have been bombarded by a mainstream media
trying to make us view them as 'unimaginably difficult scenarios' or 'impossible choices'. Thousands of words have been written on how ministers & healthcare professionals are wrestling with these unprecedented circumstances.
The few people who have sought to point out the fact
that these aren't new or difficult questions have been shouted down as conspiratorial nutcases and selfish contrarians.
A society which begins debating these issues seriously & legitimising attitudes which have long been viewed as disgustingly wrong is a very sick one indeed.
In truth, thirteen months ago we opened our doors to evil and said,
"Come on in, make yourself comfortable. Stay as long as you like."
And now we are pathetically trying to justify our decision by presenting it as debatable.

It's not.

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More from @bobscartoons

19 Mar
I have no problem with people trying to argue that lockdown was entirely justified. It's important that we have this debate to establish whether we should ever do it again.
But what you can't do is claim that the justification for lockdown is the '130,000' people who have died.
We are not at the beginning of this, debating whether or not to lockdown. We've been doing it for a whole year. We have had stricter measures, for a longer period of time, than almost any other country on Earth. And still, you claim, 130,000 people died from the virus.
This does not help your argument. It helps ours. What you need to be questioning, establishing and the asserting is how many lives have been SAVED by what we've done.
You then need to question, establish and assert how many people have been KILLED by these measures and will be
Read 5 tweets
2 Mar
A lot of people are still confused about the difference between Sars-CoV-2 (the virus) and COVID-19 (the disease), and why it matters.
Several have suggested it's just semantics. I don't think it is and I will try to explain why. (thread)
H1N1 is a respiratory virus. If you contract that virus, you will likely have mild symptoms. We refer to this as a COLD.

In rarer cases, H1N1 can lead to a more severe collection of symptoms, characterising a disease we call INFLUENZA.
SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus. If you contract that virus, you will likely have mild symptoms. We refer to this as a COLD.

In rarer cases, SARS-CoV-2 can lead to a more severe collection of symptoms, characterising a disease we call COVID-19.
Read 6 tweets
24 Feb
If a government chooses not to act in response to a naturally occurring virus which spreads around the country and kills people, it should not be held accountable for those deaths. In the same way that there are many actions the government could take every year to dramatically
reduce cancer deaths but they do not. Ministers are not then blamed for all the people who have died of cancer. This principle is even more relevant when the severity of said virus is uncertain and the proposed measures are unproven. And still more relevant when it quickly
becomes clear that the measures are not having the intended effect on the virus.

However, if a government TAKES ACTION - implements policies, introduces guidance, changes the law - which they know will kill people, we are talking about murder.
According to the government's own
Read 8 tweets
21 Feb
There is currently a lot of media attention on @jowhiley and the fact that her sister is in hospital with Covid-19.
I would firstly like to make clear that I hope Frances makes a full recovery. I understand very well what it is like to have a disabled family member fighting for
their life in hospital. My daughter's seizures are triggered by her having a cold and so all respiratory infections represent a real risk of death.
However, I felt that some of Jo Whiley's comments on @AndrewMarr9 today were quite misleading and I worry about them causing
unnecessary anxiety for disabled people and their families.
Jo Whiley stated that all people with a learning disability are at increased risk from Sars-CoV-2. This is not at all true.
There are many disabled people, like Frances and my daughter, with complex health conditions
Read 9 tweets
10 Feb
I understand how desperately people want to believe that all of this was necessary.

For all of the misery, heartache, sacrifice and anger to have meant something. To have saved lives. Protected the health service. Helped us deal with a dangerous new pathogen.

But it's not true.
Lockdowns are immoral and disproportionate. They kill more people and those people are younger. They wreck economies. They change societies. They alter people's psychology in dangerous ways. They are undemocratic.

And once you have set a precedent for their implementation, you
will be forever living under the threat of your government stripping you of your rights without warning or justification.

But even if they did none of those things, they don't actually do the thing they are intended to do. They do not prevent hospitalisations and deaths from
Read 8 tweets
4 Feb
Mr Blair, thank you for joining us.

I would like to ask you about the greatest crisis you faced as Prime Minister.

Indeed, the greatest crisis we have faced as a nation since the Second World War.

In the winter of 1999/2000 a huge number of people were tragically killed.
They died from a totally out of control influenza virus, letting rip across the country. The end result was a level of all-cause mortality which absolutely towers over what we saw during 2020's 'deadly pandemic'.

I can only imagine how stressful it must have been for you.
Obviously, it goes without saying that you considered a national lockdown - I mean, it's so obvious that they hashtag save lives.
And obviously, you considered mandatory face masks. I mean, the science is clear. They just work.
Read 6 tweets

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