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The vast majority of people refusing to get vaccinated are doing so because a centralized top-down political machine told them to be against vaccination. This is about as un-libertarian as one can get.

As a libertarian that is actually concerned with freedom, the main thing the Trumpertantrum has accomplished is discrediting the concept. Back when it was a small subset of antivax nutters, causing at most an occasional localized outbreak, I had sympathy for people's right to make their own bad decisions. Now the political machine took up the banner and created a force majeure situation, so I'm just done.



Even your "good libertarian's" version of the small localized outbreak affects people that didn't make that choice.

My personal view (please don't be offended, libertarians -- it's my right to believe this!) is that individuality itself is a bit of a fiction, and this makes libertarianism essentially based on falsehood and break down. We're interconnected.

The best argument for individuality in politics and government, in my view, is that it gives "the average person" a fair shot, giving us good outcomes at the societal level even if many individuals do not get what they want.


Excessive vehemence fuels that machine, though. It's just too easy to take an authoritarian stance when we already agree with the stance and would stand to benefit, but that is counterproductive in the long run and just amplifies polarization.




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