No, It's Not Tyranny

 Sadly, I went to Facebook last night and saw someone I care about say that Biden's vaccine mandate is a form of tyranny.

Ugh.

No.

It's not.

Vaccine mandates are obviously legal. If you want to go to school? You have to have a bunch of vaccines. Want to join the military? You have to have a bunch of vaccines.

In 1904, the Supreme Court ruled in Jacobsen v Massachusetts that vaccine mandates with a clear public health purpose were not infringements on personal freedom. This ruling was upheld in 1922 by Zucht v King. Even Amy Coney Barrett upheld a vaccine requirement issues by the University of Indiana. While it's tempting fate to call anything "settled law" under the increasingly ideological Court, I guarantee four Justices will uphold Jacobsen and Zucht, and I feel pretty good about it being 7-2 or 8-1.

Now, the argument that the GOP Death Cult will embrace is that Jacobsen referred only to state mandates and MUH FEDERALSIM! However, the Court's opinion - written by one of my favorite justices, John Marshall Harlan - does not seem to distinguish between state and federal mandates. As Harlan wrote:

There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy.

That is a broad argument for common purpose regardless of which level of government institutes it.

The sticking point could be that Biden has used an unusual workaround: OSHA. By making this a workplace safety issue rather than trying to pass a law through our wretched Senate, he could conceivably open the door for some Federalist Society hack to invalidate it. However, I could also see those same hacks slow roll their opposition for months on end in order to actually let the increase in vaccination rates get us out of the pandemic.

Working against this, though, is that this really isn't a vaccine mandate. First off, it's restricted to firms of over 100 employees. While that covers school districts and major corporations, it leave off almost all small businesses. Secondly, if you refuse to get a vaccine, you have to be tested weekly. Frankly, I think bi-weekly would be sounder policy, but whatever. 

This "unprecedented power grab" is basically: If you work for a sufficiently large company, you either have to get the vaccine or by tested weekly. This is the clear recommendation from public health experts. Probably most important is guaranteeing sick days off if the vaccine knocks you on your ass for a day or two. Millions of Americans worried about this, now they don't have to.

Over 60% of Americans support this. We want our lives back and most of us realize that this comes from controlling the pandemic's spread. Vaccines and masks - combined with the millions of Americans who have already had it - is the way forward.

You know, I remember conservative voices a year ago confidently predicting that if Biden got elected, concerns from "Socialist Leftists" over the coronavirus would disappear. That it was all just a big plot to discredit Trump. Funny. I don't hear that now.