Yes, but while technically true, the same thing can be said about not wearing clothing below one’s waist.
As with many other things there are no true choices.
This. You’d say something else, almost anything else if you didn’t want the person to sit there.
For someone sitting down, to me the phrase might imply neutrality, ambivalence or mild antipathy (depending on whether it is said with a shade of passive-aggression).
I haven’t heard “it’s a free country” if someone really likes what someone else is wearing.
It confuses me that the anti-vaxxers are often the same people who decry a women’s right to choose what she wants to do with her own body. Some of these folks also sometimes claim to be in favour of minimalist government.^
^I prefer smaller government to a limited extent. But not in all areas. Grown-up modern governments look after health, their citizens and consumers to some degree, and have a credible foreign policy, for example.
That’s a little different from the doing, saying or commenting on anything shitty or anti-social suggested in your OP, no?
I think neutrality/ambivalence/tolerance/disinterest too often get a bad rap.
I think “It’s a free country” is often interchangeable with, “Knock yourself out,” “You be you,” “Whatever turns your crank,” or a number of other other similar phrases.
Of course, there IS also the disapproving/assholish usage you suggest.
You are right. These things are not equivalent. I have no problem with neutrality and ambivalence, which make good sense in many situations.
When Walmart came to Canada, they had very enthusiastic greeters at the front of the store. Most Canadians found them kind of “over-the-top”, even though they liked having shopping carts. Now, at the (fewer) stores with greeters, they simply say “Hi” or similar brief phrases requiring little response.
I’m not sure that I knew (maybe I forgot?) that Mitch was a childhood polio survivor.
Excerpt:
Without naming Mr. Kennedy, Mr. McConnell suggested that the petition could jeopardize his confirmation to be health secretary in the incoming Trump administration.
“Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous,” he said. “Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/us/politics/mcconnell-polio-vaccine-rfk-jr.html
I remember that. Way too intrusive. Now they rarely even say « Hi », which is a great improvement over American glad-handing.
The first time we went to Wal-Mart in our town, we had a big shopping cart full of stuff. Got to the till and pulled out my debit card.
« I’m sorry, we don’t take debit, » the clerk said. « Credit card or cash. »
I’d heard that American stores were behind Canadian banks and stores in adopting debit, but couldn’t believe it.
We just left the cart full of goods with the clerk and went elsewhere. (For budget reasons, we didn’t like to use credit card for ordinary household purchases.)
Didn’t go back to the Wal-mart until we heard that they took debit.
Robert… Jowney… Frunior?
Let me expand a bit on what it would mean to ban polio vaccine for children. One thing to remember is that the chances of paralysis and death seem to rise as you get older. Another point is that polio is wildly contagious. That’s why almost everybody caught it before they were 6 months old in the bad old days.
Now imagine a population of kids who have been raised without any exposure to polio and then imagine one case comes in from Pakistan. Imagine the resultant horror.
unfortunately, the anti-vax trope has trickled down so childhood diseases like measles, and yes, even polio, has emerged
Hey, those companies were free to not do business with you. It’s a free country.
But yeah, in a truly free country, everyone really would have been forced to get the vaccine unless they had a specific medical reason that contraindicated it. Because everyone is free to not be infected by idiots.
except it was the federal government making that ruling, not the decision of the airlines
what a bizarre and muddled statement that is!
It’s the “double blind” part that gets me.
Do people not understand what that means? Withdrawing approval and then setting up a few years of deliberately exposing kids to polio without letting them or their parents know if they got the real vaccine or a placebo and then comparing the end result?
Do people not understand how truly monstrous and perverse that really is?
- Yes it was
- They’re not asking simply for mere testing for the polio vaccine - they’re asking for “double blind” testing, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish
- Even if somebody does not get terribly sick themselves, they absolutely can and do spread disease to other family members - like baby brother or sister or grandma and grandpa - who can be at much greater risk. See: recent measles and pertussis outbreaks
- If these diseases weren’t especially contagious, I’d say let people make their own (stupid) decisions. But the point is that vaccination programs, including COVID, have been shown to drastically reduce transmission where vaccine uptake is highest. Your decisions affect me and mine. And vice-versa. That’s why it’s a matter of public policy rather than personal freedom.
Do you think that people shouldn’t be free to stay healthy?
The classic freedom from vs. freedom to.
Or perhaps freedom by ommission vs. freedom by commission.
I mean…what does this even mean? It’s not (entirely) within human control. It’s like saying don’t you think people should be free to not get a heart attack.
During the height of the pandemic wandering around a crowded place unvaxxed was almost equivalent to wandering around the same place firing a gun at random.
I’m sure you agree it’s appropriate to stop the random shooter, despite the crimp that imposes on their freedom to shoot.
Same for the random virus-spewing unvaxxed cougher.
Which means that it’s all the more important to control those factors which are human-controllable.
I’m not disagreeing with you. If you want to argue that forcing everyone to have gotten the vaccine would have been a net benefit to society and a lawful exercise of government power, there is a real conversation to be had there. But that’s not what Chronos said. What he said, and what I think is simply an absurd statement untethered from any conventional understanding of what freedom is was “in a truly free country, everyone really would have been forced to get the vaccine”. That is doublespeak at its finest right there.
Yup, just like in a truly free society, the government prevents people from punching each other in the face. Freedom does not mean anarchy.