Ep44 – Just Get the Shot Already: The Supreme Court and Vaccine Mandates with Patrick MacFarlane

There’s a lot of talk about President Joe Biden’s announced COVID-19 vaccination requirements for employees of private businesses but there’s been little talk of whether he has the authority to do so. In this episode of Mentally Unscripted, Paul and Scott welcome Patrick MacFarlane of Liberty Weekly and the Libertarian Institute to discuss the legal issues of Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Resources 

1. Liberty Weekly 

2. Liberty Weekly at the Libertarian Institute 

3. The Libertarian Institute 

4. Antiwar.com 

5. The Propaganda Report 

6. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) 

7. Mentally Unscripted Ep40 – Anarchy, Chaos, and Emergent Order with Jamie Cain

8. Popular sovereignty 

9. What Does ‘Constitutional Interpretation’ Mean, Anyway? 

10. Informed consent 

11. Jerry W. Canterbury, Appellant, v. William Thornton Spence and the Washington Hospital Center, a Body Corporate, Appellees, 464 F.2d 772 (D.C. Cir. 1963)

12. FOIA'd CDC Emails: Our Definition of Vaccine is "Problematic", from ZeroHedge 

13. COVID-19: Wisconsin Deaths shows 4 deaths in the 0-19 age groups (checked on 11/15/2021)

14. Trading in Congress: The Most Popular Stocks Owned by Congress 

15. Tenth Amendment Center 

16. Fully Informed Jury Association 

17. The Scott Horton Show 

18. Conflicts of Interest 

19. Around the Empire

Mental Models 

1. False Consensus Effect: Our tendency to overestimate how much others share our opinions.

2. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail

3. Base rates

4. Panic/fear states

5. Illusion of control

6. Inertia

7. Define your terms

8. Cost/benefit analysis

9. Chilling effect

10. Institutional capture

11. Cognitive dissonance

Top Takeaways

1. Claims that the Jacobson v. Massachusetts case establishes a legal precedent for compulsory COVID-19 vaccine are incorrect.

2. In a truly deadly situation, compulsory vaccination wouldn’t be necessary because people would voluntarily take it.

3. The theory of popular sovereignty, or the idea that government is based on the consent of the people, means that the government has only the powers granted to it by the Constitution.

4. A doctor who performs a procedure without obtaining your informed consent is committing battery against the patient.

5. Our legal system proceeds on the presumption of constitutionality.

6. It’s problematic when we don’t or can’t ask what reasonable assessments have been done to warrant compulsory vaccinations. How much does the law take this question into account when deciding the legality of mandating vaccines?

Engage with Scott and Paul on the Twitter thought control machine. 

We’re also on Odysee (full episodes and clips). 

Follow Scott at Strength and Reason and on DESO. 

How to have thrilling conversations on blistering hot topics without fighting… 

It’s easier than you think. 

Download How to Never Argue Again (Unless you Want To) at Mentally Unscripted and discover the secret “Go Meta” approach that makes any topic fair game. 

It’s totally free (for now) and worth hundreds in therapy.  

Cheers!