I just responded to a post asking for rational and reasonable explanations for mandating vaccines. Given the current data available, there are some very rational reasons for vaccine mandates depending on your goals and purposes. Let me explain:
There has been very little about the pandemic.response that has been rational and reasonable if you compare the stated goals with the outcomes of the measures put in place - but there are different goals and different aims where those measures make perfect rational sense. Mandates are just another example.
What is the purpose of mandating those who have natural immunity to get the vaccine - if the goal is to stop the spread of the virus through immunity? What is the rationality of ignoring reasonable and prudent treatment protocols that pose little risk and may hold out a promise of great reward if you really want to save lives? And not just ignoring them, but actively fighting against them and actually changing "the science" and the definitions of clearly established words like, "vaccine" along the way?
There may, indeed, be some reasonable and rational reason for mandates. But reason and rationality always exist in some cognitive framework. It is reasonable and rational that if you seek to filter a population and segment out those who have a tendency to not follow orders and will not easily be controlled from those who will simply do as they are told, a mandate makes sense. If you are seeking to create chaos and turn citizens against one another and foment hate and fear among your population, a mandate makes sense. If you are seeking to create a "new normal", massively disrupt the economy and create conditions for the implosion of a civilization, mandates like this can be an excellent tool!
If you are seeking to control people, mandates make sense.
In the case of vaccine mandates related to the current pandemic:. If you are seeking to create asymptomatic and subsymptomatic carriers with high viral loads and make people actually unaware that they have the virus and are likely to spread it to others (especially to the more vulnerable Unvaccinated!), mandating vaccines that only control symptoms but actually create the conditions for a person to become a superspreader make sense.
If you are actually trying to control the spread of the virus, save lives, and move toward "herd immunity," then mandating previously recovered people get a vaccine where protection is only against serious complications and protection against catching and spreading it wanes rapidly in relation to natural immunity .makes no sense. Also, if protecting as many as possible from the disease and saving lives is the aim, giving and potentially mandating booster shots for millions of high income westerners while vaccination rates in 3rd world countries remain less than 10% makes no sense. Further, mandating a redefinition of the practice of medicine, ignoring and rejecting promising therapeutics in favor of a "jab everyone with a new science experiment" makes no sense.
So, when we ask about what is rational and reasonable, we need to consider the end goal. There are many scenarios where mandates make sense. The challenge is that the presumed scenario of getting back to pre-pandemic "normal" and keeping the population healthy and productive and maintaining the way of life that we have come to value and treasure as Westerners and specifically the democratic freedoms associated with the American system of government are all utterly incompatible with the ends that will be achieved with the implementation of mandates.
The more disquieting concern is the fact that's either those in positions to make these decisions and implement these things are truly so ignorant and irrational that they cannot see the destructiveness of their policies and the clear and present danger posed by their implementation, OR, they do actually see and know what they are doing and are doing it intentionally! No doubt, it is some combination of the two, but since the conclusion of "two weeks to flatten the curve" it has become apparent that coping with the virus and minimizing societal disruption has not been the goal and aim of the enterprise of the last 20 months --- which is why all rationality and reasonableness has seemingly gone out the window.
