In Boston, like many jurisdictions, officials continue to invoke the same "Emergency" powers first decreed in March 2020 to institute whatever measures they like. The Mayor's order this week imposing vaccine passports expressly cites her seemingly permanent "Emergency" authority
Boston "health" officials have declared that they reserve the right to modify the definition of "fully vaccinated" at any time, and thereby mandate additional injections. Even if you somehow support this, should such a sweeping measure really be instituted by "Emergency" decree?
While they claim "Omicron cases" have spurred this vaccine passport policy, it won't even come into effect till Jan 15, well past the time that we're told "Omicron" can be contained. It's therefore a long-term policy goal for city officials, enacted on phony "Emergency" grounds
So if you have doubts as to why 5-year-olds should be required to present proof of vaccination to enter public venues -- a provision coming into effect by March -- you're out of luck, because city officials have arrogated the power to impose this requirement by "Emergency" decree
Unless you read the fine print of executive orders across innumerable government jurisdictions, you'd have no idea that so many governors/mayors/etc. continue to claim Emergency powers on the basis of their March 2020 declarations. So... are these powers ever going to be curbed?
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Emerson College in Boston has issued a "stay in room directive" for returning students next month -- the same students already required to get "boosted" and tested twice a week. Sounds like fun
The individual issuing these "directives" is a "Vice President & Dean for Campus Life" who now gets to masquerade as some profound epidemiological authority thanks to his role in the COVID bureaucracy. Imagine being confined to your room on the orders of such an individual
This is why I keep banging on about the COVID bureaucracies, because they tend to be comprised of the last people on Earth that you'd ever voluntarily take direction from mtracey.substack.com/p/covid-bullsh…
As expected, Chicago's just-announced vaccine passport scheme -- supposedly prompted by "Omicron" -- also rests on claims of "emergency" authority. Nearly two years later, just constant circumvention of "normal" governance procedures all around the country
Is there any evidence whatsoever that vaccine passports "stop the spread" of "Omicron"? All evidence points to the contrary. But sorry -- no debate permitted, because these municipal officials continue to assert "emergency" powers to do whatever they like
And as usual, hardly a peep about any of this from the ACLU and like-minded organizations
Why I keep calling attention to COVID bureaucracies and the bullshit jobs they produce
If you read the article you'll discover that a few years ago, a particular "COVID Logistics" official I've interacted with was making Rap Battle videos on YouTube. That was their main professional output. Now they're implementing extremely serious "public health" regulations 🙄
A common defense of vaccine passports is that people find them surprisingly non-cumbersome. OK. But do they curtail the spread of the virus, which is supposedly the reason they were implemented in the first place? Because there's essentially no evidence for that at all
Here's the latest from Germany, where this individual was so heartened by the ease and convenience of vaccine passports thelocal.de/20211215/germa…
I've used "vaccine passports" in France, Canada, NYC and it's true that they're not the world's most debilitating inconvenience: but if they don't even achieve the objective they were allegedly supposed to achieve, it's bizarre that defenders just kind of casually glide over that
Twitch imposed an elaborate "Hateful Conduct" policy this year, which among other things declares: "Attempting to promote hateful viewpoints under the guise of education or comedy will lead to suspension of your account." Very interesting to see who's been banned as a consequence
The policy itself is insane. It seems like any human who's ever cracked a joke could be banned. Every Twitch user is defined as belonging to multiple "protected groups" -- about which "hateful slurs," even if "untargeted," result in bans twitch.tv/p/en/legal/com…
Have the prominent accounts who were just banned ever expressed skepticism of these types of ridiculously over-bearing speech regulation policies? Or, to the contrary, have they advocated for greater regulation of speech, in the name of punishing their perceived adversaries? 🤔
The entire U. of Washington men's basketball team is vaccinated, but apparently still pose enough of a threat that they must quarantine and cancel games. Why then are non-vaccinated state employees in Washington being fired, based on the unique threat *they* allegedly pose?
Was just on Seattle radio where the host told me about this. If vaccine does not prevent transmission, it makes no sense to punish "the un-vaccinated" on the ground that they allegedly pose some unique threat. This becomes apparent if you stop to think about it for two seconds
The whole premise behind why there was an ethical duty to get vaccinated was because you were "protecting others." If vaccine does not enable you to "protect others," the ethical duty argument is negated. Otherwise it's only about individual health, which was never the argument