“You can’t invoke bodily autonomy while simultaneously rejecting freedom of association.”
I’ve been seeing this argument a lot on social media, from people who support government lockdowns, health passports, and vaccine mandates.
It usually arises in response to an unvaccinated person rightfully complaining about all the ways their lives have been disrupted by government mandates.
“But you can’t have it both ways!” the lockdowners shriek. “You can’t demand the freedom to choose not to get vaccinated while denying others the freedom to choose not to associate with you!”
On the surface and out of context, this argument makes perfect sense. In fact, the principle of freedom of association is a natural extension of the principle of bodily autonomy: if you own your body, then you get to choose what other people you place your body in proximity to, and other individuals get to make that decision about their own bodies, as well. In a world where everyone understood the definitions of the terms they used, this would be a fine argument for freedom and fairness under the law. Unfortunately, we do not live in that world, and the people using this argument are not pleading for freedom, but against it.
There probably aren’t many folks of that particular political stripe among my subscribers, but in case you are one of them, I have some difficult news for you. You may want to sit down. And keep that unsubscribe button handy.
Here goes:
This is a very, very bad argument.
The people using this argument fail to understand the meaning of “freedom of association.” (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. It’s more likely they do understand the term but are playing dumb in an attempt to manipulate. But let’s just assume, for a moment, that they’re genuinely confused.)
Freedom of association means individuals, businesses, and other voluntary organizations choosing who to associate with.
It does NOT mean government decreeing who people may associate with.
It certainly does not mean requiring businesses to enforce the government’s arbitrary matrix of association rules.
By the principle of free association, if an individual does not wish to associate with the unvaccinated, they have the authority to make that decision for themselves, but not for other individuals. If a business owner thinks that firing unvaccinated staff and excluding unvaccinated customers is the most prudent course of action, they have the authority to make that decision for their business, but not for individuals or other businesses. And if politicians want to make rules about who individuals and businesses can and can’t associate with, we should all tell them to go kick rocks.
In essence, this argument is an attempt (perhaps an unwitting one, though it serves the authoritarian agenda nonetheless) to corrupt thought by meddling with language. In the New Normal™️, freedom of association will no longer mean individuals choosing who to associate with; it will mean the government choosing who you may associate with (for your own good, of course.) In such a way, many terms have been repackaged into unrecognizable, mutant versions of themselves, often to convey the precise opposite of what the term initially intended.
The poor fools taken in by this complex mangling of language may have no clue that their ability to think about the relevant concepts has been hobbled, though I believe many of them are aware on some level that they are using different definitions than the rest of us.
On some level, they know their argument is not in defense of freedom. They believe it is in defense of the “public health”, which is a whole quagmire of flimsy thinking in and of itself. But in fact, they have been deceived.
We can debate whether or not COVID vaccines are beneficial, and for whom. But as far as vaccine passports, lockdowns, and all manner of pandemic mandates are concerned, the data is in. They do not promote health and they do not prevent sickness or death in the aggregate. They are not about health in any way, shape, or form. They merely use “the public health” as cover for their true purpose: to assert dominance over individuals, which is the opposite of freedom and has nothing whatsoever to do with health.
In writing this newsletter, I’ve danced around this present form of organized domination a bit. I have alluded to it, provided historical metaphors for it, and written fiction to follow this sweeping global movement of domination over the individual to its logical conclusion. But I have avoided facing the problem head on, as it exists, in the here and now.
I guess I didn’t want to be seen as a crazy conspiracy theorist or a fearmonger. But the fact is, there is a conspiracy and it is not theoretical. It is out in the open, proudly proclaiming its end goals, playing havoc in each of our lives and daring us to resist. The fact is, there is much to fear.
There is also hope, so long as we have the courage to see the conspiracy, to accurately name and describe it, and to stand together against it.
In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about how acceptance of tyranny can be acculturated into a population over time. Just as an abusive parent can make a child believe that the hell in which they live is normal and necessary—“I only beat you because I love you”—so entire cultures can be convinced, through repeated violations of individual autonomy, through corruption of language, and through appeals to noble-sounding concepts like “the public health”, that it is natural and good to cede all choice and control over to a tyrant.
But it doesn’t have to be all Stockholm Syndrome and trauma bonding. Other traits can be acculturated into populations, too. Traits like love of freedom, respect for the individual, the value of consent, and courage to resist anything that threatens them.
We seem to be spiraling toward a bleak, dystopian future, and I’m kind of obsessed with describing it. That obsession isn’t purposeless. I’m not just dispassionately reporting on the fall of humanity. I have an ulterior motive: I want to help turn it around.
We don’t have to continue spiraling. We can, in fact, de-spiral.
It starts with the individual. It starts with me, and you. And it starts in the mind.
As I wrote in the very first edition of this newsletter:
Here’s a little secret that the classic science fiction dystopias might not have made clear: no tyrant, no totalitarian state, no repressive regime—no matter how evil, how strong, or how depraved—can ever retain power over a mentally free people. It’s just not possible.
So don’t give in to corrupted language and paper-thin justifications for abuse by tyrants. Be vigilant in your thinking, bold in your responses, and use your freedom of association (the real kind, not the definitionally-challenged kind) to reach out and connect with others who are of like mind.
Joined together in principle and purpose, our mental freedom will prove the downfall of organized domination. And besides, we will need each other before all is said and done.
Thank you for reading!
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Another issue is the freedom to autonomy has to include a freedom of privacy especially where medical or health issues are concerned. Somehow I doubt that those who care about public health would advocate for the revocation of driver’s license from anyone with a clinical history of mental illness.