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"Republicans favor freedom association and strong property rights when it allows them to discriminate against people they don’t like. They oppose freedom of association and strong property rights when it allows others to discriminate against them."

And the pathetic thing is, there are actually interesting and necessary arguments to be had about the tradeoffs between freedom, fairness, equity, security/safety, use and enjoyment of property etc.

But we can't have those arguments in a good-faith way when a large bloc of the populace is soaking in malignant self-regard and grievance fetishism.

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Apr 1, 2021Liked by Will Wilkinson

Thank you. This was beautifully written. It also makes me hate republicans more than I already do.

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Apr 1, 2021Liked by Will Wilkinson

And the award for most convoluted, incomprehensible headline goes to....

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author

It's an honor just to be nominated!

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If they could ban the issuing of vaccine passports, they would effectively ban Americans from international travel, because most other countries will start to require them for entry.

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i'm interested in seeing how this plays out. we're talking and talking but the real data will come in a few months' time when republicans will certainly, quietly, get the vaccine so they can get back to yelling and screaming from the inside of the outback. they'll yell and scream that the government has forced them to act against their will, and they'll bemoan anyone pointing out any hypocrisy at all.

you're very, sadly, right about the otherism that conservatives/evangelicals invoke all the time, because they know the yelling is the point and the outrage is profitable!

great piece.

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The Civil Right Act of 1964 was based on the Commerce Clause. If businesses, unarguably had ties to interstate commerce, then the Federal Government could force them to "integrate' arguing that discrimination based on race negatively affected commerce. So restaurants, hotels, gasoline stations, 5&10 stores, etc. However, this was a narrowing of the rights of Freedom of Association and even Freedom of religion under the First Amendment, not an elimination of such rights as to race. Private clubs generally remained segregated racially and gender wise. The Master Golf Club did not admit its first African American member till 1990. The first women were admitted in 2012. Eleven years after Tiger Wood first win there.

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Look, the very concept of a vaccine is to protect the TAKER, no one else. It prevents (theoretically), the recipient from being sick after exposure to a virus. THIS current shot DOESN'T prevent infection OR transmission so what is it's benefit? Only to lower SYMPTOMS. That's it. To think in any way that this shot protects others is completely wrong. It's a lie. It is an experimental medical procedure with NO long term studies. To date, 2300 deaths and 8000 serious adverse reactions have been reported. These numbers are low since the dead don't often report their deaths. I will boycott any business that requires others to submit to proof that they were coerced into taking an experimental injection that instructs your own cells to become manufacturers of spike proteins and calling that a vaccine.

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Sorry, you misunderstand the point. We want to ELIMINATE the virus, like we've done with small pox and are on our way to doing with polio, etc. THIS vaccine DOES prevent infection AND transmission, so that is it's benefit.

You are lying here, STOP spreading Disinformation.

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This shit never gets old - has it ever been anyone's experience that very intelligent people are so insecure that they continually boast about being very intelligent? "I have the biggest brain and the highest IQ."

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They're bothering you because you're mistaken about the subject of the debate - it's not about facts but about values. They have a right to not take reasonable precautions to not spread a contagious disease during a pandemic because other people don't count.

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