[Neurons] 2021 Neurons #68 WHAT'S UP WITH PROTESTING MANDATES?

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2021 Neurons #68

October 15, 2021

 

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.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., Executive Director 

Neuro-Semantics 

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

132607 NeuroSemantics Executive Learning Front Cover

 

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