(Akiit.com) In a July tweet poll that – given its mere 5,248 respondents – was almost certainly massively suppressed by Twitter, Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie asked the following question: “Legalities aside, which is more immoral? (1) Subjugating people to second-class status because they haven’t been vaccinated, or (2) carrying a fake vaccine card to subvert the subjugation? Which is more unethical?”
Given Massie’s conservative and libertarian audience, it’s no surprise that 91.5% of those respondents felt that the first option was more unethical than the second. However, several who disagreed with Massie’s premise were quick to express their thoughts in the comments. Here are three comments that adequately sum up the various viewpoints:
Lying to a private business or organization that requires vaccination is fraud.
Enforcing a passport is immoral but I also won’t let the government make a liar out of me.
This nation’s history taught us that civil disobedience must be open, public and conscientious. Otherwise, it’s indistinguishable from lawlessness.
Let’s address these issues one by one:
Lying to a private business or organization that requires vaccination is fraud.
First, it should be stressed that yes, forging a vaccine card is illegal at both the state and federal level, and in no way am I recommending it to others or admitting that I would ever even contemplate doing such a thing myself. However, there is also a tremendous difference between legality and morality or ethics. Not everything that is technically illegal is immoral or even unethical, nor is everything immoral and/or unethical illegal. If you didn’t already understand this, consider that there are thousands upon thousands of pages of laws and regulations on the federal register, more than anyone can possibly know about or begin to keep up with. While many are obviously needed to protect society, others seem designed for no other purpose than to selectively ensnare enemies of the powers-that-be into the legal system.\
Add to that President Joe Biden’s nonsensical, unscientific, tyrannical OSHA vaccine mandate, a monstrous Frankenstein many thought mercifully dead but recently inexplicably given new life by a three-judge panel on the supposedly Republican-leaning 6th Circuit. There are few things more immoral – and downright evil – than vaccine mandates, for the reasons I explained in this column and more. Consequently, I believe that ANY kind of nonviolent pushback against vaccine mandates, even if technically illegal, are at best both moral and ethical and at worst not immoral or unethical.
Now granted, laws against forging a document like a vaccine card may seem, on the surface at least, to be needed measures. We can’t have people walking around with fake vaccine cards, can we? Well, I suppose that depends on whether you want to lend legitimacy to a system that allows a vaccine card to be required to participate in aspects of society in the first place. I, for one, do not find any such system credible in the least.
These ‘vaccines’ do not stop contraction or spread. At best, they provide some protection against serious illness and death from Covid-19 for a few months. At worst, they are killing and permanently harming people by the tens of thousands. As I have stated numerous times, a credible argument for mandates could at least be made IF the vaccines were reasonably sterile (i.e. severely curbed contraction and spread), had a better side-effect profile proven by the years of testing other vaccines go through, and if Covid-19 were a more serious illness that didn’t mainly ‘kill’ already super-old and super-sick people. I would disagree, but an argument could be made. However, none of those factors are even remotely present here.
Enforcing a passport is immoral but I also won’t let the government make a liar out of me.
It’s sad that so many good people have been forced to consider outright deception in order to maintain their bodily autonomy. But when they do so, are they ‘sinning’? Is it ever ethical or moral to tell an untruth? As this Gospel Coalition article by Sam Storms explains after citing several Biblical passages where protagonists lied to their credit, the question isn’t nearly as ‘black and white’ for Christians as one might think.
Writes Storms: “It appears, then, that there are occasions when deception is ethically permissible. But note: not all falsehoods are lies. A lie is an intentional falsehood that violates someone’s right to know the truth. But there are cases in which people forfeit their right to know the truth. So the question is not whether it is ever morally permissible to lie, but “What is a lie?” A lie is the intentional declaration or communication of a falsehood designed to deceive someone who has a moral and legal right to know the truth. A lie is telling an untruth to someone to whom you are morally and legally obligated to speak the truth. There are, however, certain occasions in which you are not under obligation to tell someone the truth (e.g., in times of war, criminal assault, and so on.).”
Does the government have a “moral and legal right to know the truth” about whether you’ve injected a particular substance into your body? Obviously, the answer is a resounding “hell no.”
This nation’s history taught us that civil disobedience must be open, public and conscientious. Otherwise, it’s indistinguishable from lawlessness.
It’s no surprise that plenty of people have chosen to buck the system by faking a vaccine card and/or wearing a ‘fake’ face mask in mandated situations. And while I can certainly respect such measures when there are no other reasonable options available, there is also an argument to be made – like the last cited comment to Massie’s tweet – that deception really isn’t ‘fighting back’ in any meaningful way.
Sure, a fake face mask will let you breathe, and there’s plenty of value in that alone, but the system, as we know, is all about compliance, not stopping a virus. Meaning that in the end, as long as something is over your face and everyone around you knows you are ‘complying,’ they don’t really care all that much. Similarly, if you present your fake ‘vaccine card’ to get into a New York City restaurant, sure, you get to eat, but you are also, as far as everyone around you at the time is concerned, inadvertently lending legitimacy to the system our evil overlords have created.
The change we desperately need will only happen when enough people openly say “NO!” to these mandates and make our overlords feel pain – both economically and at the ballot box – for initiating them in the first place. Given this, it does seem best, when at all possible (and with zero moral judgment if it’s not possible), to resist openly and brazenly, not following or even pretending to follow any of their absurd, unscientific, tyrannical dictates.
Columnist; Scott Morefield
Official website; https://twitter.com/SKMorefield