Have Democrats abandoned the 'my body, my choice' argument?

From your link:

""But George Washington’s decision to mandate that Continental Army soldiers be inoculated against smallpox wasn’t easy. There were no safe, widely tested vaccines like the ones used for the coronavirus today, and inoculation in the 18th century was controversial and risky. It required exposing healthy people to the smallpox virus by scratching it into their arm or having them inhale it through the nose, generally causing a mild infection that led to immunity but, also — occasionally — death.

Washington wrote that if his army got widely infected, “We should have more to dread from it, than from the Sword of the Enemy.”


How the right will now vilify Washington !!

 

The first 7 paragraphs deal with State Policing power, not Federal Enumerated powers. They further point out the same problem I did, not only does Biden not possess a State's broad policing power, but many states have used that power to forbid mandates. Therefore, Biden not only has to discover a federal power that has never been discovered before, but, it has to be powerful enough to override existing recognised power. Do you think any miss that this is a grand pretense driven by nothing more than a non-lawmaking branch who simply disagree with how States, and their elected lawmaking legislatures, are exercising their police power?

And this brings us to paragraph 8:

Actually it's quite simple, but they don't like the answer.

That's about as simple as it gets.

But, apparently they get paid by the word, so they continue:

Sure, and with flour, eggs and chocolate chips, you could make chocolate chip cookies, if only you had flour, eggs and chocolate chips. You have no such enabling legislation from Congress, and even if you did look at how timid this is compared to Biden's rash claim that with no congressional authorization, he has the power to force this mandate on some employers.

The question is not whether employers may impose mandates.

And the rest deal with State Power, not Federal power, and religious and philosophical objections, not Federal Power to impose mandates on employers.

Your source here is making my point, not yours.

Word salad. It's neither "scientific" nor "progress" for an elected representative to assert powers not granted to them.

It's not magic. Rules and regulations are drafted, and not out of thin air, rather they are based on enabling legislation.

As law is applied to past facts, tests are developed and so forth, but, unelected judges do not suddenly bestow new powers on the President.

Strawman. My point, and it is correct, is that the President does not exercise power that either is not granted to him via Article II of the Constitution or by Congress via legislation. I see no evidence that he currently has the power he is attempting to exercise, which isn't new for this clown. He has lost more court cases, faster, than any president in history, which is to be expected from a bumbling idiot being guided by a teleprompter, being populated by 30 somethings equally ignorant of the organizing principles of the society they live in. Let's see if they come up with anything better. This is a decent source you have provided and I appreciate it.

I think their point can be reasonably condensed to: "Their may be some things the Federal Government could do with enabling legislation that does not currently exist". And they limit that to interstate commerce not intrastate employment. And of course there would then be a big fight over whether Article 1 grants that power to Congress, but, we're miles from that and frankly, I don't think Congress would attempt to restrict interstate travel as that would promptly cost a hundred or so of them to lose their seats. Neither Manchin nor Sinema will vote for that, which sinks it in the Senate. And even that wouldn't grant Biden the power to reverse State prohibitions of mandates within states which is the power he is trying to assert.

 

The questioned thing there, was a mandate to the general population. What makes you think that this mandate is to the general population? I already told you that it is not geared towards citizens, but rather, employees.
Do you understand the word "analogy"? When I talked about scientific progress I was making an analogy, and indicated so ("this reminds me of...") etc. Then I said that just like science progresses and evolves, laws do, too.
Whether or not you think that these links make your point, these scholars are saying that they believe the mandate is legal and will be uphold by the courts. This is not making your point, so...
We'll see.

 

@Zorro By the way, you have engaged in selective quoting. You only quoted what helps your side. Yes, the issue is controversial. But there are ALSO several stretches in the links I provided that seem to support Biden's mandate.

 

One does not surrender civil rights before the Federal government simply by being a private sector employee.

I know, a rather poor one as I pointed out. Our system of Constitutional Liberal Democracy is the progress not some bumbling clown trying to arrogate dictatorial authority. It is Dictatorship that we progressed from, backsliding back into it would be regression, not progress.

 

Typo - I meant upheld, not uphold. Being proactive here. Sometimes I commit a typo and you go on and on about it...
Dictatorship??? Whoa! That's hyperbolic. Biden asked OSHA to draw regulations about Covid vaccines as a workplace safety issue. The Courts will look into it. If they uphold it, the mandate will take effect. If they don't, it won't. There's nothing dictatorial about it. The president is using some executive powers via OSHA, and the Courts will review it. Period. No need to go berserk about it.

 

I went through the first one, line by line. They made the same points I did:

• There is no precedence for the Federal Government doing this.
• This is within the Authority of the States many of which whose elected Legislatures have expressly passed laws forbidding what Biden is attempting to do WITHOUT enabling authority from the elected Federal Legislatures. So Biden not only has to show that the appointed members of the DOL have a power no one ever knew they had, but that it's so powerful that these appointed bureaucrats can override the duly passed acts of the elected State Legislatures, who actually have long recognized authority to mandate, or prohibit vaccine mandates.
• That maybe Congress could pass legislation that would enable the Federal Government to regulate interstate travel of the unvaccinated, but they don't even pretend that the Federal Government is authorized to impose this burden on private employment. That's the best they could suggest even with Congress passing enabling legislation, which hasn't happened and quite frankly will not happen.

 

It's most appropriate. Democracies, historically, have had a problem with devolving into Dictatorships with the Executive taking lawmaking power from the lawmaking assembly. Biden is now an Executive, not a Lawmaker. He no longer MAKES law, he IMPLEMENTS law. Law is made by our diverse law making assemblies elected from throughout the nation. 220 must be in agreement on every word and punctuation mark of the proposed law that will limit the future choices of The People, then 51 Senators, drawn from the 50 states must also be in agreement with the same and then it is sent to the president for him to concur as well. That's a long laborious process that takes a great deal of time and involves the complete agreement of 272 people drawn from throughout the nation. Absent that process and broad agreement, we remain free to exercise our own volition.

That's the difference between a Democracy and a Dictatorship where one person orders his appointees to impose a mandate on private employment without an enabling Legislative grant of authority. And why is Biden not asking for enabling legislation?

Because they will not give it to him. And when one man, who cannot get authorization instead attempts to impose it by DICTATE, he is attempting to be a Dictator and yes, it's every bit as offensive as you took it to be. It's very difficult for a man who has been in Federal Office for 20% of the nation's history to deploy the Idiot Defense. He is violating his oath of office, and not for the first time. He admitted before he attempted his unconstitutional extension of the Eviction Ban that he did not possess that authority and did it anyway with the expectation that it would be a long process before the Court slapped it down knowing that would keep an unconstitutional exercise of power in place for some period of time. The Court, of course, knew that, and heard the case in record time and forbid it, just as everyone with any knowledge of our system of government knew that they would.

And no, it is not "OK" for him to violate his oath of office because SCOTUS will later change his diaper. His antics are an affront to the oath that he swore before us and disrespect us, our nation, and our Constitution.

Are you ok with others knowingly encroaching on your rights because later after some duration of time, someone will make them stop?

For example: How about the neighbor letting the air out of your tires every night. Are you fine with that because at some point, measured likely in months, someone will finally make him stop? "Oh well, they are will make him stop later, no need to go bezerk about it!"

 

Just the first one? I linked to several, including, from Law School faculty.

 

Well, I think that it's all legal given that it goes through OSHA's mission of ensuring workplace safety. Being it all legal, it's no usurpation of authority. Like I said, we'll see what the Courts say. My (confessedly uninformed) guess is that the Courts will uphold it, regardless of the walls of text you've been issuing on the matter.

 

This one. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/current-constitutional-issues-related-to-vaccine-mandates

Accurately portrays the state of play.

The others looked like news sites. I didn't see the Law School faculty, I'll look it over.

 

I quoted at least two professors in law schools, this time. When I first posted about it (like I said, it's somewhere in my posting history) I posted the opinions of two other professors. This time:

Larry Gostin, faculty director at Georgetown University's O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law

And

William Araiza, a Stanley A. August Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School with an expertise in constitutional law

Other parts of my quotes mention experts in Health Law.

Sorry, many scholars believe that these mandates will stand once they are scrutinized by the courts. I posted about 4 but I've seen more. If one keeps googling it, one will find a significant number of legal scholars who believe that this will hold.

 

The OP mentioned Tucker Carlson... these two kids think their father died of Covid in part due to Tucker's lies about the vaccines. Blood in his hands.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/daughter-unvaccinated-man-died-covid-202321778.html

 

https://www.silive.com/news/2021/09...itutional-heres-what-a-legal-expert-says.html

I skipped over the business news one, this says it's written by a legal expert:
The question is whether the executive branch can impose a mandate/or testing at the employee expense on certain employers.

You sign away your rights when you join the military. That doesn't address the question.

That deals with city power and employer power, that's not the question.

State Power, and this isn't written by an expert, it's based on an interview of an expert, which is fine. If they get their facts right, I don't care who produces them.

Then 5 more paragraphs on a decision regarding STATE power, which isn't the question, but, does going to the fact that this case law isn't actually as supportive of State Law as it's often held up to be. It may be sufficient, but it's not a slam-dunk. It's a 115 year old law and it found that the State did NOT have the power to vaccinate Jacobson by force, though they could impose a one time fine ($150 in today money). Others, not you, have waved this about as if it proves that both State and Federal government can force an injection and this is simply not correct.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court observed, "If a person should deem it important that vaccination should not be performed in his case, and the authorities should think otherwise, it is not in their power to vaccinate him by force, and the worst that could happen to him under the statute would be the payment of the penalty of $5."

So, keep in mind that this is State not Federal.

In the end what the Massachusetts Court found was that failure to comply with the STATE mandate required the payment of a penalty not dissimilar to Chief Justice Roberts's saving construction in NFIB v. Sebelius. We are not mandated to purchase insurance; rather, if we fail to we must pay a tax, modest enough that it's not construed as a penalty.

Another 4 paragraphs on Jacobson, then another paragraph on Jacobson. Then a paragraph citing Schools requiring vaxx, which no one disputes. Then another Massachusetts state powers case in the next paragraph. Then in the next three paragraphs, finally the Federalism issue is addressed:

Exactly.

Then 4 more paragraphs affirming State and School power, which no one is disputing at the moment. And then a slight return to the subject at hand:

And he's right, and the elected Legislatures in several states have used their broad police powers to expressly state that they will NOT have a mandate.

Then two paragraphs on whether states can implement mask mandates, which isn't the question at hand.

Then five more paragraphs on State mandates. Then this doozy:

And why is that?

And Josh Blackman is exactly correct. He knows the law on this and figured Biden was smart enough not to try this, well, Blackman is apparently better at the law than he is at predicting Joe Biden. And the article closes with that. It was a good article and it accurately describes the state of play.

If you are enjoying this and you want a deeper dive, you'll have a difficult time topping Josh Blackman. He does a great job bringing the discussion up to date here: The history of Jacobson: What Rights are "Essential"? The 1st, 2nd, and 14th Amendments in the Time of Pandemic.

 

OK, but you keep skipping over the scholarly opinions that if it's done through OSHA it's legal. I suspect that you do, because it's Biden's strongest argument, and your weakest one.

Also, you talk about the state forcing the vaccination upon Jacobson... "it is not in their power to vaccinate him by force" - agreed; but this current mandate is NOT forcing the vaccination. The person can just quit the job. Or for those eligible for the opt-out testing, opt for that. Or exemptions. So it's a different situation. Like I've been saying, nobody is pinning down anybody and sticking a needle in the person's arm. It's a condition for employment. Don't want it? Quit.

Again, there are scholars saying it can be legally done through OSHA. The only arguments you had about that is that the OSH Act doesn't have the word vaccine in it - but does have workplace safety in it and an infectious disease spreading in the workplace is clearly a safety issue - then your other arguments are the fact that the law is old (who cares? The Constitution is old too and we uphold it), and the fact that it hasn't been done before, which like I said doesn't mean it can't be done. I don't think you have a LEGAL argument to counter this being done through OSHA. The scholars talking about it say that Congress has already empowered OSHA and added that OSHA has broad powers to regulate the workplace.

You say such regulations don't exist... yep, we know that, which is why the mandate hasn't started yet, pending OSHA drawing up the regulations. Once this is done, the Biden Administration may be in very solid legal grounds and the mandate may withstand Court scrutiny.

Like I said, we'll see. There are certainly other scholars who think like you. I never said it's not controversial. I merely said some scholars think it is sound, others don't, and the Courts will rule. I keep saying, we'll see. At this point, while this is interesting, I feel that we should put an end to this part of our exchanges, because you'll keep finding scholars who say it's not feasible, and I'll keep finding scholars who say it is, and all of us, including the scholars, will have to wait for the Courts' review, given that inevitably people will sue (I think it has started already). Answers will only be definitive once the judges have their say, and maybe even the SCOTUS. If the SCOTUS then rules that the President acted within his power and the mandate is legal, constitutional, and valid, then no amount of argumentation you may throw my way will change that, and the legal precedence will have been created.

Then your only remedy will be that you'll disagree with the SCOTUS. Well, it's 6-3 conservative. And you can disagree as much as you want but if the SCOTUS is for it, then it's a done deal and there is no other possibility of review. Look, arguments against Obamacare were all over the place and most conservatives were absolutely sure that the SCOTUS would strike it down... then it didn't. Obamacare is still in the books, isn't it? So, you may be surprised. This conservative SCOTUS has been ruling against conservatives in many topics, lately (not all topics, of course). Justice Barrett has just said that the SCOTUS is more apolitical than people think.

Look, I think it is perfectly possible that this mandate will be struck down by the Courts. I do acknowledge that. The problem is, the other way around is ALSO possible, that the Courts will uphold it, and that is apparently something you don't want to consider. I think you should, because it's clearly controversial (which is why we see two sets of opinions).

 

Neither of the two sources, I reviewed line by line even mentioned OSHA . Your claim that they did and I "skipped over it" is false.

I understand that, but, it is certainly burdening their right to exchange their labor for pay and in our system we do not illegitimately burden rights. Which brings us back to the question: Are Biden's appointees authorized to burden employment in this manner? Neither of your more scholarly sources could point to such authorization and both expressly stated that they did not possess it. One suggested a remedy, an act of Congress limited to interstate travel, which Congress has not passed and in my opinion will not pass.

It always has been and always will. The employer is empowered to put a mandate in place, if they choose to, the City, County and State may do so, and several of those entities have expressed their recognized power in this area by FORBIDDING a mandate. You falsely assume that OSHA has dictatorial power to mandate whatever they like and countermand these authorities with actual legitimate authority to impose or forbid mandates. It's your claim, support it.

The Supreme Court cares. They specifically told the Federal government that in order for them to exercise the power they were claiming to extend the eviction moratorium that they needed a specific and current authorization to do so. Biden/Pelosi tried to call their bluff and found out they weren't bluffing.

I get it. You want the mandate. You know full well that Congress won't pass it, so, we are all going to pretend that Congress snuck this incredible expansion of Federal power into a 51 year old law and see if you can get the Court to go along with this absurd claim.

You don't want to live in a Constitutional Liberal Democracy, you desire dictatorship while also assuming that your views will always prevail in the dictatorship. They won't. And while in a Representative Democracy you can respond by throwing them out, you cannot throw a dictatorship out with a ballot, it requires deadly force, which is why dictatorships always eventually end in bloodshed, and why I will not step on that path. I know where it leads.

We have the longest surviving government in existence today because it is more stable. The larger group of the governed do not need to overthrow government in order to regain sovereignty, because we already have sovereignty.

 

Oh they have, as well as respect for diverse opinions and free speech and thought.

JUST OUT: THE LARGEST COLLEGE FREE SPEECH POLL IN HISTORY, PLUS CAMPUS-SPECIFIC RANKINGS. "Where does your school rank in the 2021 College Free Speech Rankings? #1 or #154?"

"Some topline bad news: 61% of college students oppose allowing campus speakers who say COVID lockdowns infringed on our personal liberties. 1 in 4 might use violence to stop a speech."

61% support not allowing folks who have different point of view address them, and 25% would use violence to stop them from speaking.

These are not nice folks. These are mean intolerant folks, a sizeable portion of which are more than happy to use violence as a tool to bully.

The Terrorists of the Bourgeoisie

Sometimes Bullies pick the wrong "victim".



Better to always use only lawful force so as to not violate the rights of others. And no, using violence to stop someone from speaking is not a legitimate use of force.

 

The question:

So yes, you support the choice to kill a living human who has committed no crime nor has expressed any desire to die. Is your justification for this position because it makes another living human's life more convenient?

I assume that you'd be okay with someone else killing you for sake of convenience?

It doesn't appear that way to me. It appears to me as if you are condoning the act.

Murder is not a right.

Along the same lines as one would for any other form of murder.

 

For the sake of discussion, lets say abortion was banned and you now have unlimited resources to enforce abortion laws. How would you do it?

 

How are murder laws enforced?

 

Well, duh, first you need a body or a missing PERSON......

Now, you could look up the fetus's SSN but they don't have one because they aren't persons.

You have NO body, NO missing person.

NO person has died.

If one reports a murder one needs A. A body. B. a missing person.

WHERE IS IT?

 

I would love to discuss that and hope you invite me to that conversation. On this issue, abortion laws cannot be enforced and have no benefit to society. I gave you the benefit of being right and having unlimited resources. How would you get around medical tourism and abortion drugs?

 

You are putting words in my mouth.
I said several times that I'm against a mandate.
I'm merely saying that I think this one will hold. You can be against something, and also think that it will prevail.
This in not in doubt; in hundreds of posts here I have always said that I'm against mandates. Ask a poster like @557 with whom I discussed these issues and to whom I said over and over that I'm against mandates. My position on this is not new; it has been the same, forever. I always said I prefer educational campaigns and honey rather than vinegar.
And I said I think it will backfire, as people will be enraged, will dig their heels, and will be less amenable to a frank discussion that might make them change their minds about the vaccine.
What part of all of the above, which I said over and over, you don't understand, so that you claim that I want the mandate and want a dictatorship?
Frankly, your claims of dictatorship are hyperbolic. If the Courts found against this mandate, then it won't be enforced. No dictatorship involved.

 

Please kindly go back to post #273. I quoted 4 sources, not two. One of them says this, which I directly quoted there in post #273:

"The mandate on private employers will be cast as a regulation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has the authority to regulate workplace hazards. OSHA’s jurisdiction applies to employers with more than 10 workers; Biden may have set the bar at 100 workers or more to quell objections that the vaccination rule would impose undue hardship on small businesses. The administration says the rule will cover 80 million workers

OSHA will need time to assemble the evidence needed to craft a legally bulletproof emergency regulation, which OSHA spokespersons say will also require paid time off for employees to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects, and will require unvaccinated workers to undergo testing at least once a week.

Labor experts say that OSHA has more far-reaching power than it has customarily used, but a well-designed and -supported regulation aimed at protecting workplaces from the ravages of COVID-19 should pass muster."

What part of the above you don't understand? Is it false that you skipped over this? Obviously not. What is false, is your assertion that what I said about you skipping it, is false.

What are you doing, Zorro? Is this honest debating? I do link to a text, the link does talk about OSHA, I specifically quote it, you skip over it, I call you out on skipping over it, and you have the nerve to call my assertion FALSE??? Are you out of your mind???

PS, by the way, the link not only mentioned OSHA by acronym and by full name, but also mentioned this: "Biden is relying on the power of federal funding and federal workplace laws." Pray tell, what exactly do you think OSHA is??? An agency that enforces a federal workplace law, duh! So not only the link quoted OSHA directly, but indirectly too.

And yes, it's Biden's strongest argument, and I'm not surprised that you skipped over it, then pretended that you didn't.

 

Well, I just went through the entire LATimes piece, and it doesn't advance the ball one inch beyond where it was. This is State power.

What has you hot and bothered is this:

Meanwhile the legal expert they did cite wrote the following in quotes:

Then the clowns at the LA Times who you are so hot on wrote: "Those conditions would appear to be met by the Biden program."

This gives the impression that their source was confirming that this is a Federal power, which I knew was a pile of fake news crap, so I reviewed the article they pulled the quote from, you'll find it here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449224/

It reaffirms that vaccine mandates are not a Federal Power, they are a State Power, which is what all your informed sources, that you provided have affirmed. As for this assertion:

On what basis do they make that assertion? Based on their claim that OSHA has a vast yet unrevealed store of pixie dust that no one was aware of?

You have previously stated that you are a peer reviewer, I'm surprised that those same three questions didn't immediately come to your mind as well.

You have made great noise about how much your value peer review, well, the quote the LA TIMES pulled was from here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449224/ And that is a peer reviewed article worth your read if you truly want an expert opinion, as were the other two sources you provided that I also reviewed line by line and none support Biden's assertion that he has the authority to do this.