# Make the Conservative Case for Overriding Various COVID restrictions **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2021, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289 "2021-08-09T11:45:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/41 "2021-08-09T17:37:41Z")
> [@Kimera757](#): > > Let the idiots die. Darwin in action.” > > Now that the vaccine is out (and has been for several months) this is a potentially valid rule. No, since young kids and a few other people can’t get vaccinated. Not to mention even delta isn’t that lethal, so all the covidiots and maskholes do is plug up the Intensive care units. > [@UltraVires](#): > > That’s not physically forcing food in your body, it is a regulation on the sale of food. No one is being "physically forced’ to get the shot. Yes, if you do not, certain privileges are not available in some states. > [@UltraVires](#): > > That list is based on individuals who the government has reason to suspect could present a danger to an airplane. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/42 "2021-08-09T17:40:55Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > But I’m having a hard time coming up with any conservative principle that would justify a state prohibiting a local school district from requiring masks. The citizens who live in that school district and voted in those board members are being stripped of their autonomy and right to self-govern by the state, in order to protect the “right” of the state’s citizens not to wear a mask. Which I’m not sure is a right that exists, any more than the right not to wear pants. First, why is it a conservative or a liberal position to make a distinction between statewide and local control of schools or other government functions? Some states give a lot of power to localities while others direct most things to be uniform at the state level. The struggle between the federal government and state governments pit the conservatives on the side of more state control, but I’ve not seen nor hear of any conservative principle of local control. Also, I agree that there is no “right to not wear a mask” but I don’t know that anyone is arguing that from any side. Perhaps some. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/43 "2021-08-09T17:43:48Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No one is being "physically forced’ to get the shot. Yes, if you do not, certain privileges are not available in some states. Tomato-tomahto. If you tell people that they have to starve to death because they can’t shop at the grocery store without a vaccine, then you are, in effect, using force to compel them to get a vaccine just as if you fine or imprison them. Living in a society is not a “privilege.” > [@DrDeth](#): > > Cite? I wish I hadn’t brought it up. The No Fly List is imperfect and probably terrible, but the idea is that it attempts to select individuals based on evidence that they might be dangerous to fly…in contrast to Covid in which we say that everyone just might be carrying it and apply restrictions indiscriminately. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/44 "2021-08-09T17:49:26Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > First, why is it a conservative or a liberal position to make a distinction between statewide and local control of schools or other government functions? Some states give a lot of power to localities while others direct most things to be uniform at the state level. The struggle between the federal government and state governments pit the conservatives on the side of more state control, but I’ve not seen nor hear of any conservative principle of local control. You said “First” and then only made one point. It’s a fair point – maybe there’s no explicit conservative principle that prohibits a state from tromping a local government (I might argue otherwise, but I think that’s a detour), but is there a conservative principle that IS prompting those states to want to tromp local governments? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/45 "2021-08-09T17:49:44Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > If you tell people that they have to starve to death because they can’t shop at the grocery store without a vaccine, then you are, in effect, using force to compel them to get a vaccine just as if you fine or imprison them. Living in a society is not a “privilege.” I know you’re not arguing your own position, but this seems strawmanny to me – I haven’t seen any place require vaccines to do routine stuff – maybe mask mandates, but not vaccines. I have seen vaccine mandates for cruise lines (that I mention in the OP), concerts, Broadway shows, and other non-essential things. I agree that a vaccine mandate to go shopping would be way over the line. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/46 "2021-08-09T18:21:43Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > If you tell people that they have to starve to death because they can’t shop at the grocery store without a vaccine, then you are, in effect, using force to compel them to get a vaccine just as if you fine or imprison them. Grocery delivery services, or having a friend shop for them. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/47 "2021-08-09T18:25:49Z")
I’m hoping this thread doesn’t go down the path of arguing for vaccine mandates for everyday stuff, since no one is calling for that. Mask mandates, maybe, but not vaccine mandates. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/48 "2021-08-09T18:59:31Z")
I think it’s possible to make a broader and more straightforward conservative case. You start with one individual person, and their individual liberties, and you treat the imposition of requirements and restrictions on those liberties with skepticism. From that starting point it’s not that hard to understand how people can look at the result and say “they shouldn’t be able to make me do that!” It’s probably universally accepted that you make public policy decisions using a kind of general balancing framework: is there something that is so important that we should make an exception to the rule “people can do what they want.” Like you look at the dangers presented by _not_ having a minimum drinking age, and you ask whether that’s enough for the government to get involved. Most people agree it is, and then you quibble about what age and whether there should be exceptions, etc. With mask and vaccine requirements, the imposition is definitely attenuated by the fact that it’s private business doing the requiring, and it’s attenuated even further by the fact that these are laws actually restricting the restrictions. So it’s not not just that you’re asking the government not to restrict your rights, you’re demanding that they restrict somebody else’s rights for you. But it still can be placed in the same general model, and there already are some examples of things the government says businesses _can’t_ require. It’s not like the idea that the government would ever interfere in that kind of private affair is totally new and wild. So it’s a judgment call about whether the imposition on my liberty, in the form of [allowing private businesses to require me to wear a mask] is justified by the dangers being prevented. And then another judgment call about whether that imposition is so bad that it needs to be remedied by the government prohibiting private businesses from doing it. Obviously this all gets politicized, and you have to be somewhat flexible about which private rights are important and which ones are not in this context in order to arrive at the conclusion. But if you’re convinced that the danger of the pandemic is low, that the danger of private businesses being influenced by [some malign forces that are putting pressure on people to exaggerate the pandemic] is high, and that the danger of laws prohibiting mask/vaccine requirements is relatively low, you can imagine arriving at the conclusion that in these specific weird circumstances, a law that says you can’t force someone to wear a mask or be vaccinated to engage in commerce makes sense. Just as a sort of thought exercise, if I personally believed that there was some kind of HIV hysteria, and businesses were going way overboard about HIV prevention for PR or some other irrational reason, I suppose I wouldn’t care if some jurisdiction made a law that said businesses can’t say customers need a (hypothetical) vaccine or to wear a mask to come in the store. So, as long as you can come to terms with the fact that lots of people really do believe this is just a flu, or something less serious, you can pretty easily see how they arrive at this conservative case. Their priors are not the same as mine, but I, even as a relatively very authoritarian person when it comes to this sort of thing, can at least recognize the process. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/49 "2021-08-09T19:34:26Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > The argument would be “no” that the state could no more do that than to force you to eat healthy or exercise. What I eat doesn’t insert itself into somebody else’s body. In order to stay on topic I’ll restrict the analogy and just point out that covid does. The genuinely conservative argument that I can see for overriding covid restrictions is close to a libertarian one: that fewer regulations are as a matter of principle better than more regulations, and that therefore one regulation that bans a whole lot of other regulations is preferable. That pretty much needs to be combined with a claim that the percentage of people who die or get lifetime damage from covid is small enough that a smaller harm done to many individuals by regulations that require masks outweighs the larger harm done to fewer individuals who contract serious covid cases. Personally, while I have a bit of sympathy for the first part of that combo, I think the second part of it is false. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/50 "2021-08-09T19:43:58Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > …that fewer regulations are as a matter of principle better than more regulations, and that therefore one regulation that bans a whole lot of other regulations is preferable. Right, but in the case of the regulation against checking COVID status to go on a cruise, it’s not banning other government regulations, and I would think that libertarians would prefer not to have the regulation on the business in the first place. (For the overriding local ordinances, your argument makes more sense) ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/51 "2021-08-09T19:53:27Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The genuinely conservative argument that I can see for overriding covid restrictions is close to a libertarian one: that fewer regulations are as a matter of principle better than more regulations, and that therefore one regulation that bans a whole lot of other regulations is preferable. I mean, this is the proper conservative case, but it would only properly be applied to restricting the ability of lower levels of governments from imposing restrictions. The canonical conservative “regulations are bad” viewpoint only applies to government regulations. Private actors can do whatever they want. So, if the OP were asking about Florida banning school districts from imposing mask mandates, this would be a proper conservative case for that. But Norwegian Cruise Lines, last I checked, was not a government. The proper conservative anti-regulation position is to allow businesses to do whatever they like. If a business misbehaves, let market forces provide the correction. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/52 "2021-08-09T20:02:20Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > in the case of the regulation against checking COVID status to go on a cruise, it’s not banning other government regulations, > [@Gorsnak](#): > > But Norwegian Cruise Lines, last I checked, was not a government. The proper conservative anti-regulation position is to allow businesses to do whatever they like. If a business misbehaves, let market forces provide the correction. That does make sense; I was thinking of mandates by municipal governments, public schools, public transport: that sort of thing (the OP does also mention local ordinances.) One would think that the response to a cruise line would be to get another cruise line to advertise and hold cruises with no restrictions. Of course, I’m also trying to put myself in someone else’s head; since we seem to be lacking in people coming into the thread to defend this from the inside. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/53 "2021-08-09T20:02:22Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The genuinely conservative argument that I can see for overriding covid restrictions is close to a libertarian one: that fewer regulations are as a matter of principle better than more regulations, and that therefore one regulation that bans a whole lot of other regulations is preferable. This feels like… I’m not sure what it is exactly. It might be a means to an end, but it doesn’t feel like a principle in and of itself. Consider the fact that I’m not allowed to keep chickens in my yard due to a local ordinance. Conservatives often cite laws like this as a reason to move out into a rural area, where the government can’t tell them what to do. But I live in a red state and at no point has the state legislature proposed overriding local ordinances against chickens, or any of the 1000 other regulations my city has for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/54 "2021-08-09T20:04:22Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Of course, I’m also trying to put myself in someone else’s head; since we seem to be lacking in people coming into the thread to defend this from the inside. Yes, definitely understood. This is like the mother of all Devil’s Advocate threads and I really appreciate the way everyone is treating it that way as well. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/55 "2021-08-09T20:40:12Z")
[Here’s the proclamation](https://www.flgov.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/EO-21-81.pdf) from the State of Florida. It appears to be a pdf of an image, so I can’t seem to copy portions of the text; but it does give some reasons. Closest thing I can rapidly come up with for a statement from the inside. I expect some favoring it have made additional public statements. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/56 "2021-08-09T21:33:19Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Lol. Of course they are. They took on themselves the mantle of being ‘conservative’ and conservative voters agreed with their votes. There are a fair number of conservatives who hate Trump, most of the intelligent ones. And even Trump isn’t against the vaccine, he is just afraid of losing the Yahoos who voted for him and who he convinced Covid was no big deal to avoid having to deal with it. The best thing about this is that it is splitting the conservative ranks a bit and showing who all the panderers are. I used to be a conservative, and this is a classic example of your right to swing your arm ends at my nose. Your right (generic you, of course) to be infected ends when you can spread it to innocent children. I wonder if the stand your ground laws conservatives love can extend to blowing away an unmasked, unvaxxed person who insists on getting close. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/57 "2021-08-10T01:05:30Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > There is no case. This is a trap of their own making. Trump thought he could blame the Chinese and this would all go away quickly without damaging the economy, and when the Democrats began sounding the horn about how serious this was and began taking steps to mitigate it the Republicans were stuck. Now they have to let it play out. The reasons advanced are all rationalizations and spurious justifications at best. Yes, I guess there is a conservative argument there. If you accept the premise that the conservatives are generally right and liberals are generally wrong, then it would follow that a reasonable person should support the conservatives and oppose the liberals. And part of that support/opposition would be to maintain your usual pattern even if those rare cases where the liberals somehow stumbled on to the correct answer and the conservatives made a rare mistake and got something wrong. You could convince yourself that the damage caused by anti-vaccination efforts was less than the damage that that would be caused by the liberals winning on a political issue and leveraging that into gaining political power. This reminds me of the kind of tortured reasoning communists had to go through when they tried to justify some excess by Stalin or Mao. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2021, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/58 "2021-08-15T01:59:54Z")
There really isn’t much of a conservative case for overriding private decisions with state mandates. Certainly not one I’d be willing to defend. There is, however, a progressive and perhaps even legal one: Disparate Impact. My understanding is that US civil rights laws are based in part on disparate impact: that if you can show that an action negatively impacts a protected group more than others, it is prima facie evidence of a civil rights violation. This is also the rubrik used by the left to show ‘systemic racism’. In this case, less than 30% of black people are vaccinated, while about 70% of white people are. This means that any company that imposes a vaccine mandate as a condition of entry is excluding 2/3 of black people but only 1/3 of white,people. That’s some pretty serious disparate impact. A vaccine passport world will be a lot whiter than one without. Is everyone okay with that? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2021, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/59 "2021-08-15T02:28:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > There really isn’t much of a conservative case for overriding private decisions with state mandates. Certainly not one I’d be willing to defend. “Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.” That’s the conservative case, Sam. It’s not that difficult. Similarly, your right not to protect yourself from COVID ends at my nose. Ergo, given this is a deadly, mutating, airborne disease, you have no right to be both (a) unvaccinated and (b) maskless as that ‘hits’ my nose. See? Wasn’t that hard, was it? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2021, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289/60 "2021-08-15T03:45:19Z")
Hi from Florida. Self proclaimed conservative here, (you all know me 🙂 ) Overriding local ordinances or private business practices is a high bar. You won’t hear a thorough defense of Mr. DeSantis pass from my lips - I support mandatory vaccinations provided doctors can grant exceptions. The only thing I will say is, vaccination card rollout in Florida sucked and it is unjust to hold it against elderly citizens and healthcare workers, who were vaccinated back in January/February before the state got it’s s\*\*\* together. I have previously written that I filled out most of my card on my own. The attitude back then was that the cards were literally appointment cards so you don’t forget the second shot. It is a mistake to require them as de facto proof of vaccination and I support the state’s decision to prohibit companies from discriminating against people whose cards were thrown out, or who may have never been filled in correctly. If there is a public need to identify who is or is not vaccinated it is incumbent on the state to provide a better system. (I am not familiar with the details of the Norwegian Cruise case, however - whether they required cards or how they determine who has been vaccinated) ~Max [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-conservative-case-for-overriding-various-covid-restrictions/948289.md?page=4)