\ud83c\udf0d\u00a0WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY<\/strong> \ud83c\udf0d<\/h2>\n\ud83d\udc89\ud83d\udc89\ud83d\udc89<\/p>\n
In Monday\u2019s C&C post, headlined \u201cPharmapocalypse<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d I discussed President Trump\u2019s historic Truth Social post questioning the covid shots \u2014 for the first time\u2014 and considered the potentially epic implications. Well, it only took\u00a0two days<\/em>. Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a story headlined, \u201cFlorida plans to become first state to eliminate all childhood vaccine mandates.<\/a><\/strong>\u201d Surgeon General Ladapo and Governor DeSantis didn\u2019t just push back against jabs; they re-framed the entire debate in moral terms instead of scientific jargon. The freakout was\u00a0stupendous<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/16ad4a88-c3d3-4747-8561-1a5ad9483484_1361x652-1024x490.webp\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\u201cFree States\u201d versus \u2026 remind me \u2026\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0kind of states?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nCLIP: Florida Surgeon General Joe Ladapo announces plan to end ALL state vaccine mandates (1:52).<\/a><\/p>\nThe biomedical authoritarians went crazier than sprayed roaches. You\u2019d think that Florida planned to ban\u00a0vaccines<\/em>\u00a0instead of mandates.\u00a0Eric Fingle-Dingle<\/a>\u00a0tweeted, \u201cFlorida is a now a\u00a0pro-child-death<\/em>\u00a0state.\u201d Stanford immunologist\u00a0Jake Scott<\/a>\u00a0said Florida is \u201cdestroying one of humanity\u2019s greatest public health triumphs for\u00a0no reason.<\/em>\u201d No reason! Urologist and\u00a0\u201csex med\u201d doctor Ashley Winter<\/a>\u00a0(155K followers) called the announcement\u00a0tragic<\/em>\u00a0and whined that\u00a0students should be forced to swear oaths to take vaccines<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe American Medical Association promptly\u00a0begged Florida to reconsider<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/b8d304b6-28e8-4100-8f4e-e87ba2320945_1361x347.webp\")
<\/p>\n
\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAnd so on, and on, and on,\u00a0ad nauseum<\/em>.<\/p>\nUntil yesterday, no other state government has been brave enough to tackle the left\u2019s most sacred of sacraments, its pinnacle public health \u2018achievement,\u2019 and its most rewarding profit center:\u00a0vaccine coercion<\/em>. And the reason they gave (yes, Jake, there was a\u00a0reason<\/em>) was rhetorical genius, a skilled lawyer\u2019s tool for making an\u00a0unloseable<\/em>\u00a0argument.<\/p>\nLet me teach you that technique.<\/p>\n
\n\n\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!K66l!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc4155c49-520c-46a1-8067-46392478378d_680x305.png\" "\\"image")
<\/picture>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\ud83d\udc89First, I\u2019ll steelman the pro-vaccine argument. In its most persuasive form, it goes something like this:<\/p>\n
\nNOTIONAL PHARMA SALESMAN: Vaccines are a simple and low-risk way to prevent some illnesses and deaths. But some people who want vaccines can\u2019t take them for one reason or another. So, to protect those folks, the rest of us should be coerced into taking them. True, the vaccines will also cause some deaths and disability, but fewer than the disease will. It\u2019s basic math.<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
That argument contains a sneaky trick. The trick is that it disguises something we call a\u00a0premise<\/em>, which is an unspoken assumption underpinning the argument. The hidden premise allows the real argument to be distracted and derailed onto favorable ground for the arguer.<\/p>\nThey hid the premise, but I won\u2019t. Boiled down to its essence, the hidden utilitarian premise in the pro-vaccine argument is:\u00a0it is morally permissible to kill one person if you can save two.<\/em><\/p>\nBecause they shroud that\u00a0premise<\/em>, the pro-vaccine folks get to shift the argument away from the thorny issue of\u00a0morality<\/em>\u00a0and plunge headlong into a bottomless black hole of jargon-rich scientific debate. In other words, they want to\u00a0trick us<\/em>\u00a0into arguing about\u00a0the numbers<\/em>\u2014 about whether vaccine injuries are actually rare.<\/p>\nThey\u00a0want<\/em>\u00a0us to say, \u201cyou guys are fudging the facts about how dangerous these jabs are, either alone or when taken together.\u201d Don\u2019t take the bait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!jmkI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feaee5929-3fe4-41eb-aca5-04462c896368_680x319.png\" "\\"image")
<\/picture>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThe prevalence of jab injuries is a fair and important debate. But it is an unwinnable\u00a0argument<\/em>. Resolving it involves deliberately hard-to-get data, vast amounts of propaganda, built-in biases, bewildering risk-reward ratios, impenetrable statistics, and fathomless expert opinions on all sides. Thanks to their obfuscation skills, that smoggy\u00a0scientific<\/em>\u00a0argument could last another hundred years, during which time they\u2019ll just roll out new medical technologies and claim to have \u201cfixed\u201d any problems that can finally be proven.<\/p>\nBut yesterday, Dr. Ladapo didn\u2019t blink. He didn\u2019t take the bait. Instead, he correctly challenged their\u00a0underlying premise.<\/em><\/p>\n\ud83d\udc89 Let\u2019s consider Dr. Ladapo\u2019s actual argument. Here\u2019s what he said:<\/p>\n
\nJOSEPH LADAPO: “Every last vaccine is wrong and drips with disdain and\u00a0slavery<\/em>! Who am I, or anyone else, to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and God. Pretty much every state has mandates, but it’s wrong.\u201d<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\nDr. Ladapo ripped out the hidden utilitarian premise and held it up to the light. He leapt right over the scientific jargon and even the legality of mandates, and grabbed the issue of\u00a0morality<\/em>\u00a0by the necktie. In essence, Ladapo argued\u00a0it is \u2018wrong\u2019 \u2014immoral\u2014 to coerce a human being into taking an injected substance that they don\u2019t want.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!9Ets!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F995ec231-ec44-4d42-be4d-4c0af190b90e_680x450.png\" "\\"image")
<\/picture>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nChallenging that basic utilitarian premise simplified and refined the argument to its essential core. The mistake would be to take the bait of arguing about relative rates of adverse events compared to risk ratios of preventable disease at population levels \u2026 and more academic-sounding word salad and scientific mumbo jumbo.<\/p>\n
In other words, this isn\u2019t a\u00a0scientific<\/em>\u00a0question at all. It\u2019s not even a\u00a0legal<\/em>\u00a0question. It\u2019s a basic question of\u00a0right and wrong<\/em>. In philosophical terms, it\u2019s the difference between deontological (rights-based) versus utilitarian (numbers-based) world views.<\/p>\nDeontologically, some things are just wrong\u00a0regardless<\/em>\u00a0of the numbers. Just like\u00a0owning people<\/em>, forcing injections on them \u2014as if you\u00a0did<\/em>\u00a0own them\u2014 violates an absolute right.<\/p>\nUtilitarians argue that some people are too dumb or incapable of caring for themselves, like cows, antivaxxers, or black Africans. Thus, masters are needed to ensure a proper social order. And the \u2018rightness\u2019 of a coercive act depends only on maximizing society\u2019s outcomes. Minority\u00a0autonomy<\/em>\u00a0(freedom) may legitimately be sacrificed for the greater good of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!u_AY!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F750b9795-d8fb-4600-95e6-8f696e30d4cd_698x271.png\" "\\"image")
<\/picture>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThe splendid rhetorical force behind Ladapo\u2019s moral argument was its framing the issue in terms of slavery.\u00a0People aren\u2019t herds of cows<\/em>. Mandates and slavery both rely on the unspoken premise that individuals are\u00a0instruments of society<\/em>\u00a0rather than sovereign beings.<\/p>\nToday\u2019s mandate crowd just swaps the plantation for \u201cpublic health.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udc89 Unsurprisingly, the Washington Post\u00a0ignored<\/em>\u00a0Ladapo\u2019s reference to slavery, even though they could have swooned in disbelief, feigned outrage, mercilessly mocked him, or ginned up some progressive fury about it.\u00a0How dare he? Racism!<\/em>\u00a0They could have demanded an explanation.\u00a0HOW are vaccines like slavery??<\/em><\/p>\nInstead, they just ignored it. And none of the other big platforms grappled with that reference, either\u2014 which proves it\u00a0terrifies<\/em>\u00a0them.<\/p>\nOn Monday,\u00a0in Pharmapocalypse<\/a>, I explained the surprising connection to slavery in detail. Let\u2019s dig further. George Washington was the pharma lobby\u2019s first attempt to bypass the morality debate. General Washington, we were often reminded, commanded his soldiers to take smallpox vaccines\u2014 and the nation was saved.<\/p>\nSo, the logic goes, if the morality of coerced jabs was good enough for\u00a0George Washington<\/em>, it should be good enough for\u00a0us<\/em>.<\/p>\nBut not so fast,\u00a0mon ami!<\/em>\u00a0Sure, George Washington was the Father of the Country, a Great Man, and he owned a surprising number of quite fabulous wigs, but he also owned\u00a0people,<\/em>\u00a0which suggests his moral understanding of bodily autonomy was, well,\u00a0complicated.<\/em>\u00a0(Nor, during the Revolutionary War, was there yet a Constitution, never mind a country or even a Supreme Court. But never mind.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!L7VR!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d79b56a-c55e-41b2-8b9d-a9022c9296c3_680x272.png\" "\\"image")
<\/picture>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nConsider the humble cow, Bessie. Farmers can vaccinate their cows as much as they want\u2014 since cows are\u00a0property.<\/em>\u00a0(That\u2019s where the term \u201cherd immunity\u201d comes from, by the way. It was a veterinary idiom.) Vaccinating cows isn\u2019t right or wrong, it\u2019s a morally neutral\u00a0commercial<\/em>\u00a0decision about safeguarding the farmer\u2019s investment.<\/p>\nSimilarly, George Washington could vaccinate his herds of\u00a0humans<\/em>\u00a0if he wanted, and the slaves had no say. He could hang cowbells on them. That choice was also morally neutral\u2014 so long as\u00a0slavery<\/em>\u00a0was morally neutral.<\/p>\nSo George Washington never actually resolved the moral dilemma. He sidestepped it. He could vaccinate his slaves the same way he vaccinated his cows, because his\u00a0premise<\/em>\u00a0was that both were his property. Lincoln fought a Civil War to end that premise; the mandate crowd wants to resurrect it in the form of syringes instead of shackles.<\/p>\nWhen the government mandates vaccines to protect the communal herd, the assumption is clear:\u00a0the state owns us.<\/em>\u00a0The state is just protecting its herd. Since cows are dumb (and they fart too much), they need owners (masters) to care for them and keep them out of trouble. We don\u2019t let cows decide what shots to take or refuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!zSMg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffbe24af7-7d5f-419c-bc62-abeca0a291ec_680x342.png\" "\\"image")
<\/picture>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAlways remember: pro-vaxxers don\u2019t\u00a0want<\/em>\u00a0to debate morality, because they\u2019ll lose. And they know it. Which is why we should jam the immorality of coerced medical treatments right down their sickening throats. (See also<\/em>, e.g., the Nuremberg Code.)<\/p>\n\ud83d\udc89 In his announcement yesterday, Dr. Ladapo correctly explained that the Department of Health can unilaterally end vaccine mandates\u00a0now<\/em>\u00a0by just removing all the vaccines from the state\u2019s school schedule, providing time for the Governor and Legislature to codify it into law in the upcoming legislative session.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s exactly how Florida handled\u00a0mask<\/em>\u00a0mandates. First, Ladapo\u2019s DOH made a rule allowing opt-outs for school mask mandates; later, the legislature passed a law outright banning compelled masking. Done and done. Rinse and repeat.<\/p>\nFlorida lawmakers, get ready: Pharma and its allies are about to unleash the biggest lobbying blitz you\u2019ve ever seen\u2014 money, media, \u201cexperts,\u201d hysteria, protests, crisis actors, and false flags. Don\u2019t take the bait. This fight isn\u2019t about\u00a0medicine<\/em>, it\u2019s about\u00a0mandates<\/em>. Vaccines will remain available. Parents who want them can still get them. Nobody\u2019s\u00a0banning vaccines.<\/em><\/p>\nWhat\u2019s at stake is whether the state recognizes children as citizens with inalienable rights, or as livestock in a managed herd. Hold the moral line: frame every question, every hearing, every floor debate around\u00a0right versus wrong<\/em>, and\u00a0coercion versus freedom<\/em>. If you let them drag you into arguing about \u201cscience,\u201d you\u2019ve already lost.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s irrelevant whether vaccines save lives. Either way, it\u2019s wrong to force them on people.<\/em><\/p>\nTaken together, Kennedy\u2019s HHS wrecking ball and Florida\u2019s declaration of medical independence signal that the age of \u201cherd management\u201d is ending. The federal government is re-orienting\u00a0from above<\/em>\u00a0(Kennedy), while Florida is ripping mandates out\u00a0from below<\/em>. Both fronts converge on the same Civil War battlefield: the moral legitimacy of coercion.<\/p>\n\ud83d\udc89 Some readers thought I stretched to call this vaccine dispute a new Civil War. But also yesterday,\u00a0the same day as Florida\u2019s announcement,<\/em>\u00a0the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story headlined, \u201cAs CDC declines, California will join West Coast public health alliance.<\/a><\/strong>\u201d In short, California, Oregon, and Washington have formally broken with the CDC, forming the \u201cWest Coast Health Alliance\u201d to issue their own vaccine guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!Zrx7!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F04ee0fba-a1a1-4ce0-a1a4-1e312c6bd2da_678x242.png\" "\\"image")
<\/picture>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThis isn\u2019t just policy\u2014it\u2019s two rival moral philosophies, finally colliding in the open. It represents an irresolvable moral binary. Blue states are hewing close to the utilitarian ethos (numbers > rights), while Florida is planting its flag in deontological soil (rights > numbers).<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t just another red\/blue squabble. It\u2019s a massive collision of moral universes. It\u2019s matter and antimatter.<\/p>\n
These two world views cannot peacefully be reconciled. They cannot coexist. They ask\u00a0different questions<\/em>. The utilitarian West Coast Alliance asks, \u201cwhat\u00a0result?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Florida\u2019s deontologists ask, \u201cwhat\u00a0right?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0To the utilitarian, refusing mandates is reckless disregard for public health. To the deontologist, imposing mandates is reckless disregard for freedom.<\/p>\nThis is the same kind of binary that split America over slavery: can you\u00a0ever<\/em>\u00a0treat people as means rather than ends? One side said yes, the other no. There\u2019s simply no middle ground where both can be \u201ca little bit right.\u201d There\u2019s no halfway position that both camps can live with. You can\u2019t \u201cslightly\u201d own a person, and you can\u2019t \u201csort of\u201d force shots into them. Compromise is becoming impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!pSGS!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e872a6d-a13e-4c08-9132-90aaed589ea6_680x268.png\" "\\"image")
<\/picture>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nLike America before 1850, we\u2019ve\u00a0tried<\/em>\u00a0negotiating a tenuous middle ground, with states offering various degrees of exemptions to mandates, from \u201cmedical only\u201d to liberal \u201ccheck the box\u201d exemption schemes like Florida\u2019s. This allowed just enough wiggle room to preserve a fractious peace, without openly admitting that deontological values were at stake.<\/p>\nHowever, the unsteady truce of exemptions was always philosophically incoherent. It was just a weak attempt at pragmatic compromise. Utilitarians got their herd coverage; dissenters got carve-outs. And just like the Mason-Dixon line, that compromise only held so long as both sides avoided pushing it to its logical extreme. Once either camp demands logically coherent maximalism \u2014all mandates or no mandates at all\u2014 the uneasy middle must collapse.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where we are now. It\u2019s 1850 again, and Kansas is bleeding. Florida has effectively said, \u201cNo more Missouri Compromise. Freedom is the law.\u201d Blue states, by forming their own vaccine alliances, are saying: \u201cWe\u2019re doubling down.\u201d The\u00a0Pax Vaccina<\/em>\u00a0has ended; the binary lay bare.<\/p>\nYou could even call this moment the Vaccine Secession Crisis.<\/p>\n
Assuming Florida\u2019s move sticks, and the states begin coalescing into two camps, the rhyme of history will intensify. One can easily imagine \u201cfugitive child laws\u201d to punish parents who move to red states to avoid mandates. Red states could counter with \u201csafe harbor\u201d statutes protecting families who flee mandate regimes. And so on,\u00a0just like last time.<\/em><\/p>\n\ud83d\udd25 Finally, we should not overlook the larger context. Dr. Ladapo\u2019s announcement yesterday occurred during a presser unveiling Florida\u2019s new\u00a0MAHA Commission<\/strong>, which\u00a0Governor DeSantis said<\/a> would \u201crecommend state-level integration of MAHA principles and expanded protections for parental choice regarding childhood vaccines:\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ac579917-f9b4-479c-b333-0c08b2730d35_1359x522-1024x394.webp\")
<\/p>\n
As far as I can tell, it\u2019s like an executive-branch lobbying arm aimed at assimilating MAHA into state law. Governor DeSantis is swinging for the political fences, having created a Florida DOGE, announced an initiative to outlaw homestead property taxes, surged Republican registrations, consigned Florida\u2019s Democrats into generational Hades, and has now fully embraced the MAHA medical freedom agenda.<\/p>\n
Lawyers like me who lived in courtrooms through the pandemic well remember the constant drumbeat of\u00a0Jacobson v. Massachusetts<\/em>\u00a0(1905), wherein the Supreme Court upheld the state\u2019s smallpox vaccine mandate (with only a $5 fine for noncompliance). But that annoying case is about to boomerang on them, because in it SCOTUS held that\u00a0states<\/em>\u00a0can set whatever vaccine policy they want, under their inherent police powers.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s funny how things work out sometimes. The precedent they leaned on\u00a0so hard<\/em>\u00a0now gives Florida a rock-solid shield to do exactly what it\u2019s doing.<\/p>\nAssisted by the pandemic, Governor DeSantis will be remembered as the most significant and influential governors the state has ever had. We should name buildings, highways, and airports after him. Suggestions welcome in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2615\ufe0f BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM \u2619 Thursday, September 4, 2025 \u2619 C&C NEWS \ud83e\udda0 DeSantis did it again. The Free State of Florida just fired the first shot in the vaccine Civil War, and three blue states formed a jabby … Continue reading
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>CLIP: Florida Surgeon General Joe Ladapo announces plan to end ALL state vaccine mandates (1:52).<\/a><\/p>\n The biomedical authoritarians went crazier than sprayed roaches. You\u2019d think that Florida planned to ban\u00a0vaccines<\/em>\u00a0instead of mandates.\u00a0Eric Fingle-Dingle<\/a>\u00a0tweeted, \u201cFlorida is a now a\u00a0pro-child-death<\/em>\u00a0state.\u201d Stanford immunologist\u00a0Jake Scott<\/a>\u00a0said Florida is \u201cdestroying one of humanity\u2019s greatest public health triumphs for\u00a0no reason.<\/em>\u201d No reason! Urologist and\u00a0\u201csex med\u201d doctor Ashley Winter<\/a>\u00a0(155K followers) called the announcement\u00a0tragic<\/em>\u00a0and whined that\u00a0students should be forced to swear oaths to take vaccines<\/a>.<\/p>\n The American Medical Association promptly\u00a0begged Florida to reconsider<\/a>:<\/p>\n And so on, and on, and on,\u00a0ad nauseum<\/em>.<\/p>\n Until yesterday, no other state government has been brave enough to tackle the left\u2019s most sacred of sacraments, its pinnacle public health \u2018achievement,\u2019 and its most rewarding profit center:\u00a0vaccine coercion<\/em>. And the reason they gave (yes, Jake, there was a\u00a0reason<\/em>) was rhetorical genius, a skilled lawyer\u2019s tool for making an\u00a0unloseable<\/em>\u00a0argument.<\/p>\n Let me teach you that technique.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc89First, I\u2019ll steelman the pro-vaccine argument. In its most persuasive form, it goes something like this:<\/p>\n That argument contains a sneaky trick. The trick is that it disguises something we call a\u00a0premise<\/em>, which is an unspoken assumption underpinning the argument. The hidden premise allows the real argument to be distracted and derailed onto favorable ground for the arguer.<\/p>\n They hid the premise, but I won\u2019t. Boiled down to its essence, the hidden utilitarian premise in the pro-vaccine argument is:\u00a0it is morally permissible to kill one person if you can save two.<\/em><\/p>\n Because they shroud that\u00a0premise<\/em>, the pro-vaccine folks get to shift the argument away from the thorny issue of\u00a0morality<\/em>\u00a0and plunge headlong into a bottomless black hole of jargon-rich scientific debate. In other words, they want to\u00a0trick us<\/em>\u00a0into arguing about\u00a0the numbers<\/em>\u2014 about whether vaccine injuries are actually rare.<\/p>\n They\u00a0want<\/em>\u00a0us to say, \u201cyou guys are fudging the facts about how dangerous these jabs are, either alone or when taken together.\u201d Don\u2019t take the bait.<\/p>\n The prevalence of jab injuries is a fair and important debate. But it is an unwinnable\u00a0argument<\/em>. Resolving it involves deliberately hard-to-get data, vast amounts of propaganda, built-in biases, bewildering risk-reward ratios, impenetrable statistics, and fathomless expert opinions on all sides. Thanks to their obfuscation skills, that smoggy\u00a0scientific<\/em>\u00a0argument could last another hundred years, during which time they\u2019ll just roll out new medical technologies and claim to have \u201cfixed\u201d any problems that can finally be proven.<\/p>\n But yesterday, Dr. Ladapo didn\u2019t blink. He didn\u2019t take the bait. Instead, he correctly challenged their\u00a0underlying premise.<\/em><\/p>\n \ud83d\udc89 Let\u2019s consider Dr. Ladapo\u2019s actual argument. Here\u2019s what he said:<\/p>\n Dr. Ladapo ripped out the hidden utilitarian premise and held it up to the light. He leapt right over the scientific jargon and even the legality of mandates, and grabbed the issue of\u00a0morality<\/em>\u00a0by the necktie. In essence, Ladapo argued\u00a0it is \u2018wrong\u2019 \u2014immoral\u2014 to coerce a human being into taking an injected substance that they don\u2019t want.<\/em><\/p>\n Challenging that basic utilitarian premise simplified and refined the argument to its essential core. The mistake would be to take the bait of arguing about relative rates of adverse events compared to risk ratios of preventable disease at population levels \u2026 and more academic-sounding word salad and scientific mumbo jumbo.<\/p>\n In other words, this isn\u2019t a\u00a0scientific<\/em>\u00a0question at all. It\u2019s not even a\u00a0legal<\/em>\u00a0question. It\u2019s a basic question of\u00a0right and wrong<\/em>. In philosophical terms, it\u2019s the difference between deontological (rights-based) versus utilitarian (numbers-based) world views.<\/p>\n Deontologically, some things are just wrong\u00a0regardless<\/em>\u00a0of the numbers. Just like\u00a0owning people<\/em>, forcing injections on them \u2014as if you\u00a0did<\/em>\u00a0own them\u2014 violates an absolute right.<\/p>\n Utilitarians argue that some people are too dumb or incapable of caring for themselves, like cows, antivaxxers, or black Africans. Thus, masters are needed to ensure a proper social order. And the \u2018rightness\u2019 of a coercive act depends only on maximizing society\u2019s outcomes. Minority\u00a0autonomy<\/em>\u00a0(freedom) may legitimately be sacrificed for the greater good of society.<\/p>\n The splendid rhetorical force behind Ladapo\u2019s moral argument was its framing the issue in terms of slavery.\u00a0People aren\u2019t herds of cows<\/em>. Mandates and slavery both rely on the unspoken premise that individuals are\u00a0instruments of society<\/em>\u00a0rather than sovereign beings.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s mandate crowd just swaps the plantation for \u201cpublic health.\u201d<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc89 Unsurprisingly, the Washington Post\u00a0ignored<\/em>\u00a0Ladapo\u2019s reference to slavery, even though they could have swooned in disbelief, feigned outrage, mercilessly mocked him, or ginned up some progressive fury about it.\u00a0How dare he? Racism!<\/em>\u00a0They could have demanded an explanation.\u00a0HOW are vaccines like slavery??<\/em><\/p>\n Instead, they just ignored it. And none of the other big platforms grappled with that reference, either\u2014 which proves it\u00a0terrifies<\/em>\u00a0them.<\/p>\n On Monday,\u00a0in Pharmapocalypse<\/a>, I explained the surprising connection to slavery in detail. Let\u2019s dig further. George Washington was the pharma lobby\u2019s first attempt to bypass the morality debate. General Washington, we were often reminded, commanded his soldiers to take smallpox vaccines\u2014 and the nation was saved.<\/p>\n So, the logic goes, if the morality of coerced jabs was good enough for\u00a0George Washington<\/em>, it should be good enough for\u00a0us<\/em>.<\/p>\n But not so fast,\u00a0mon ami!<\/em>\u00a0Sure, George Washington was the Father of the Country, a Great Man, and he owned a surprising number of quite fabulous wigs, but he also owned\u00a0people,<\/em>\u00a0which suggests his moral understanding of bodily autonomy was, well,\u00a0complicated.<\/em>\u00a0(Nor, during the Revolutionary War, was there yet a Constitution, never mind a country or even a Supreme Court. But never mind.)<\/p>\n Consider the humble cow, Bessie. Farmers can vaccinate their cows as much as they want\u2014 since cows are\u00a0property.<\/em>\u00a0(That\u2019s where the term \u201cherd immunity\u201d comes from, by the way. It was a veterinary idiom.) Vaccinating cows isn\u2019t right or wrong, it\u2019s a morally neutral\u00a0commercial<\/em>\u00a0decision about safeguarding the farmer\u2019s investment.<\/p>\n Similarly, George Washington could vaccinate his herds of\u00a0humans<\/em>\u00a0if he wanted, and the slaves had no say. He could hang cowbells on them. That choice was also morally neutral\u2014 so long as\u00a0slavery<\/em>\u00a0was morally neutral.<\/p>\n So George Washington never actually resolved the moral dilemma. He sidestepped it. He could vaccinate his slaves the same way he vaccinated his cows, because his\u00a0premise<\/em>\u00a0was that both were his property. Lincoln fought a Civil War to end that premise; the mandate crowd wants to resurrect it in the form of syringes instead of shackles.<\/p>\n When the government mandates vaccines to protect the communal herd, the assumption is clear:\u00a0the state owns us.<\/em>\u00a0The state is just protecting its herd. Since cows are dumb (and they fart too much), they need owners (masters) to care for them and keep them out of trouble. We don\u2019t let cows decide what shots to take or refuse.<\/p>\n Always remember: pro-vaxxers don\u2019t\u00a0want<\/em>\u00a0to debate morality, because they\u2019ll lose. And they know it. Which is why we should jam the immorality of coerced medical treatments right down their sickening throats. (See also<\/em>, e.g., the Nuremberg Code.)<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc89 In his announcement yesterday, Dr. Ladapo correctly explained that the Department of Health can unilaterally end vaccine mandates\u00a0now<\/em>\u00a0by just removing all the vaccines from the state\u2019s school schedule, providing time for the Governor and Legislature to codify it into law in the upcoming legislative session.<\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly how Florida handled\u00a0mask<\/em>\u00a0mandates. First, Ladapo\u2019s DOH made a rule allowing opt-outs for school mask mandates; later, the legislature passed a law outright banning compelled masking. Done and done. Rinse and repeat.<\/p>\n Florida lawmakers, get ready: Pharma and its allies are about to unleash the biggest lobbying blitz you\u2019ve ever seen\u2014 money, media, \u201cexperts,\u201d hysteria, protests, crisis actors, and false flags. Don\u2019t take the bait. This fight isn\u2019t about\u00a0medicine<\/em>, it\u2019s about\u00a0mandates<\/em>. Vaccines will remain available. Parents who want them can still get them. Nobody\u2019s\u00a0banning vaccines.<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s at stake is whether the state recognizes children as citizens with inalienable rights, or as livestock in a managed herd. Hold the moral line: frame every question, every hearing, every floor debate around\u00a0right versus wrong<\/em>, and\u00a0coercion versus freedom<\/em>. If you let them drag you into arguing about \u201cscience,\u201d you\u2019ve already lost.<\/p>\n It\u2019s irrelevant whether vaccines save lives. Either way, it\u2019s wrong to force them on people.<\/em><\/p>\n Taken together, Kennedy\u2019s HHS wrecking ball and Florida\u2019s declaration of medical independence signal that the age of \u201cherd management\u201d is ending. The federal government is re-orienting\u00a0from above<\/em>\u00a0(Kennedy), while Florida is ripping mandates out\u00a0from below<\/em>. Both fronts converge on the same Civil War battlefield: the moral legitimacy of coercion.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc89 Some readers thought I stretched to call this vaccine dispute a new Civil War. But also yesterday,\u00a0the same day as Florida\u2019s announcement,<\/em>\u00a0the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story headlined, \u201cAs CDC declines, California will join West Coast public health alliance.<\/a><\/strong>\u201d In short, California, Oregon, and Washington have formally broken with the CDC, forming the \u201cWest Coast Health Alliance\u201d to issue their own vaccine guidance.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t just policy\u2014it\u2019s two rival moral philosophies, finally colliding in the open. It represents an irresolvable moral binary. Blue states are hewing close to the utilitarian ethos (numbers > rights), while Florida is planting its flag in deontological soil (rights > numbers).<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t just another red\/blue squabble. It\u2019s a massive collision of moral universes. It\u2019s matter and antimatter.<\/p>\n These two world views cannot peacefully be reconciled. They cannot coexist. They ask\u00a0different questions<\/em>. The utilitarian West Coast Alliance asks, \u201cwhat\u00a0result?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Florida\u2019s deontologists ask, \u201cwhat\u00a0right?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0To the utilitarian, refusing mandates is reckless disregard for public health. To the deontologist, imposing mandates is reckless disregard for freedom.<\/p>\n This is the same kind of binary that split America over slavery: can you\u00a0ever<\/em>\u00a0treat people as means rather than ends? One side said yes, the other no. There\u2019s simply no middle ground where both can be \u201ca little bit right.\u201d There\u2019s no halfway position that both camps can live with. You can\u2019t \u201cslightly\u201d own a person, and you can\u2019t \u201csort of\u201d force shots into them. Compromise is becoming impossible.<\/p>\n Like America before 1850, we\u2019ve\u00a0tried<\/em>\u00a0negotiating a tenuous middle ground, with states offering various degrees of exemptions to mandates, from \u201cmedical only\u201d to liberal \u201ccheck the box\u201d exemption schemes like Florida\u2019s. This allowed just enough wiggle room to preserve a fractious peace, without openly admitting that deontological values were at stake.<\/p>\n However, the unsteady truce of exemptions was always philosophically incoherent. It was just a weak attempt at pragmatic compromise. Utilitarians got their herd coverage; dissenters got carve-outs. And just like the Mason-Dixon line, that compromise only held so long as both sides avoided pushing it to its logical extreme. Once either camp demands logically coherent maximalism \u2014all mandates or no mandates at all\u2014 the uneasy middle must collapse.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where we are now. It\u2019s 1850 again, and Kansas is bleeding. Florida has effectively said, \u201cNo more Missouri Compromise. Freedom is the law.\u201d Blue states, by forming their own vaccine alliances, are saying: \u201cWe\u2019re doubling down.\u201d The\u00a0Pax Vaccina<\/em>\u00a0has ended; the binary lay bare.<\/p>\n You could even call this moment the Vaccine Secession Crisis.<\/p>\n Assuming Florida\u2019s move sticks, and the states begin coalescing into two camps, the rhyme of history will intensify. One can easily imagine \u201cfugitive child laws\u201d to punish parents who move to red states to avoid mandates. Red states could counter with \u201csafe harbor\u201d statutes protecting families who flee mandate regimes. And so on,\u00a0just like last time.<\/em><\/p>\n \ud83d\udd25 Finally, we should not overlook the larger context. Dr. Ladapo\u2019s announcement yesterday occurred during a presser unveiling Florida\u2019s new\u00a0MAHA Commission<\/strong>, which\u00a0Governor DeSantis said<\/a> would \u201crecommend state-level integration of MAHA principles and expanded protections for parental choice regarding childhood vaccines:\u201d<\/p>\n As far as I can tell, it\u2019s like an executive-branch lobbying arm aimed at assimilating MAHA into state law. Governor DeSantis is swinging for the political fences, having created a Florida DOGE, announced an initiative to outlaw homestead property taxes, surged Republican registrations, consigned Florida\u2019s Democrats into generational Hades, and has now fully embraced the MAHA medical freedom agenda.<\/p>\n Lawyers like me who lived in courtrooms through the pandemic well remember the constant drumbeat of\u00a0Jacobson v. Massachusetts<\/em>\u00a0(1905), wherein the Supreme Court upheld the state\u2019s smallpox vaccine mandate (with only a $5 fine for noncompliance). But that annoying case is about to boomerang on them, because in it SCOTUS held that\u00a0states<\/em>\u00a0can set whatever vaccine policy they want, under their inherent police powers.<\/p>\n It\u2019s funny how things work out sometimes. The precedent they leaned on\u00a0so hard<\/em>\u00a0now gives Florida a rock-solid shield to do exactly what it\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n Assisted by the pandemic, Governor DeSantis will be remembered as the most significant and influential governors the state has ever had. We should name buildings, highways, and airports after him. Suggestions welcome in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2615\ufe0f BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM \u2619 Thursday, September 4, 2025 \u2619 C&C NEWS \ud83e\udda0 DeSantis did it again. The Free State of Florida just fired the first shot in the vaccine Civil War, and three blue states formed a jabby … Continue reading
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NOTIONAL PHARMA SALESMAN: Vaccines are a simple and low-risk way to prevent some illnesses and deaths. But some people who want vaccines can\u2019t take them for one reason or another. So, to protect those folks, the rest of us should be coerced into taking them. True, the vaccines will also cause some deaths and disability, but fewer than the disease will. It\u2019s basic math.<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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JOSEPH LADAPO: “Every last vaccine is wrong and drips with disdain and\u00a0slavery<\/em>! Who am I, or anyone else, to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and God. Pretty much every state has mandates, but it’s wrong.\u201d<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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