Information
Opinion
In March 2021 the letter copied below was printed in the Howick and Pakuranga Times. Now let that sink in. The letter you read was penned almost a year ago! Long before the current protests taking place in Wellington! Also, consider that the letter was copied widely – including to the NZ Herald and some members of parliament… but, apparently, it wasn’t of sufficient public interest for the matter to be addressed.
Vaccine Options
I will be having a vaccine shot – and I am compassionate for those people who may be hesitant to take the vaccine, possibly for personal, religious, or other reasons.
We need to protect society – but how can we do so without compromising those people’s civil liberties and beliefs – their rights?
One strategy is to review those potential behaviours, remedies or prophylactics that can provide a ‘doorstop’ until such time as ‘herd immunity’ is achieved. At such a time then if someone is vaccinated or not is moot.
This brings me to my point of concern: why is there so little conversation about these people’s rights and the strategies to manage this?
There should be a public conversation about alternative therapies and tactics to ‘hold the fort’ until NZ achieves herd immunity while also protecting all people’s rights.
Considering NZ’s unique situation, of both isolation and low infection rates, now would seem an apt time to publicly “consider all the options” for all NZers.
Over the past year, nothing has been done by the current government OR the ‘Opposition’, such as it is, or even outsiders of influence like ACT leader David Seymour.
However, now we know the attitude of our hierarchy by their actions: indifference or even open contempt. If ever there were an argument for the existence of a group who hold themselves ‘Elite’, those somehow better than us, those not having to come down to earth and even talk with us, those who hold their own closed-door meetings and then deliver to us from ‘On Beehive High’ – or via a pandering (and well remunerated) MSM presentation – then a case is now certainly being made.
All this comes from a government that promised to be ‘transparent’, that promised ‘fairness and kindness’ and openly stated that the well-being of all New Zealanders was their primary concern. That well-being includes the unvaccinated.
And what has been done or is being done regarding those who are now naturally immune (because they have had Covid and survived)? Their natural immunity is much stronger than a vaccine and, if they are young, the vaccine could present a greater risk to them (e.g., myocarditis, particularly for males) than Covid – from which they have proven recovery.
And where is the NZ Medical Association on all this? The standard-bearers of the precautionary principle of ‘first do no harm’? Where is their enlightenment and a conversation regarding the potential side-effects of vaccines? Where is the scholarly to and fro of debating the best strategies? I am not hearing a lot – instead, there are those ‘limited few’ who decide our medical destinies without feeling the need to make their thinking known; that is not ‘informed consent’.
It is a very short bow to consider (making another prediction) how, when this Covid-kafuffle is all over, the Elites will have a clandestine strategy waiting in the wings for the “existential threat” (yawn) of global warming?
Does anyone remember carless days? Carless days were introduced on 30 July 1979. Every owner of a petrol-powered, private vehicle under 4,400 lb (2000 kg) (apart from motorbikes) had to nominate one day of every week when they would not drive that vehicle on the road. The day was indicated by a coloured sticker on the windscreen – effectively ‘carless passports’. People who did not comply were fined or even arrested.
In this repeat future scenario some people, e.g., television presenters and parliamentarians, will be identified as ‘essential workers’ and not be subject to the same restrictions – does any of that sound familiar? And of course, these people will all sing from the same ‘choir sheet’ about the necessity for the restrictions they themselves are not subject to. Some will even, probably, receive special dispensations to travel vast distances, overseas (incurring massive carbon footprints) to tell the tales, at environmental conferences, of how well New Zealand is doing with their restrictions.
And will car licences be granted equitably, or will certain members of the New Zealand community be provided greater leniency than other New Zealanders? Will these disparities be based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, politics, or status? Also, carless days are not an inconvenience if you have two cars – who does that help? Certainly not the poor! (However, at least this Labour government is consistent in its ‘goodwill’ to ‘cosmopolitan’ voters.)
Based on now established precedents I am inclined to believe that the strategising will occur behind closed doors and we’ll simply ‘be informed’ of what we now need to sacrifice. ‘Carless days’ will be only the start; further restrictions and a deliberate reduction in freedoms can easily be introduced – to save the planet and for our own good. All this boils down to what is currently happening in Wellington and what we may see happening again all too soon. An apt quote for these circumstances comes from C S Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/526469-of-all-tyrannies-a-tyranny-sincerely-exercised-for-the-good
