If the public wants a return to normal, they must realise the introduction of vaccine passes is anything but reasonable.
The cries of “freedom to choose”, “bodily integrity” and “my body, my choice” were common refrains heard in the media up until two years ago, when politicians doubled down on their freedom and equality rhetoric at a time it was in vogue and trendy.
Now that large sections of the public have other priorities, such as exiting lockdown, those same politicians appear ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater and trample over many aspects of real freedom and equality by creating a two-tier society in which those who say no to a Covid-19 vaccine will be treated as inferior, squalid and potentially dangerous beings who the rest of society deserves protection from.
The reality however is that, in conceding the principle of equal rights in favour of perceived safety, we are letting our leaders create the “structural” and “systemic” discrimination they so often lament in society, where modern-day lepers will be precluded from certain “privileges” that were always considered rights because they refuse a vaccine.
The idiocy of our ruling class is on full display for those who wish to see it, particularly now that we know the vaccinated can still transmit Covid-19 to all and sundry.
That fact makes a nonsense of the claim repeated by people like Simon Harris that vaccinated travellers should be exempt from the similarly insane idea of hotel quarantines for everyone but the “elite” and “essential”.
We are now ruled by people with little accountability or oversight, given the wildly obsequious attitude of most mainstream media outlets to what, in any other situation, would be deemed a dereliction of the political duty to see justice done.
The widespread conformity on the issue among media groups might be explained by the Covid-19/HSE advertising revenue they’ve enjoyed throughout a full year of fear-mongering.
If variants come into the country, they will attach as easily to “elite athletes”, northern border-crossers, or even Simon Coveney after another essential diplomatic trip, as they would to the rest of us less than equal plebs who must quarantine.
The lockdown measures taken so far have only wrought economic devastation for the Exchequer, meaning we the taxpayer will foot the enormous cost of chronic leadership once again.
It has more tragically caused the loss of lives through suicide and cancelled health appointments, with countries like Sweden proving lockdowns were never necessary to begin with.
The Swedes had a lower number of excess deaths in 2020 than most European countries, indicating that there is no correlation between lives saved and lockdowns or quarantines.
The inmates running Ireland’s asylum are now turning the screw however. Two fully vaccinated people are now generously allowed to meet indoors, and next up is the proposal to open hairdressers, salons and gyms to the vaccinated using a digital vaccine certificate. No dogs or unvaccinated need apply.
One of the leading authorities on Covid-19 in Ireland, Dr. Sam McConkey, audaciously informed us yesterday that we can expect several more years of restrictions.
I wonder if people’s tolerance for this continuous shifting of the goalposts will last for much longer, but in the meantime the dystopian reality of having to prove you are ritually pure and healthy in order to avail of human rights is upon us.
Thankfully hundreds of Irish businesses have put their names on the record as being unwillingly to implement this type of discrimination, declaring that their doors will be open to all when the restrictions ease.
The much-maligned “conspiracy theorists” who predicted vaccine passes last year are now being proved right however, and no one in the political chain of command from Dublin to Brussels is willing to say “enough”. They just keep nodding.