A growing number of European countries are requiring anyone going into public to be vaccinated. Switzerland, for example, prohibits the unvaccinated from eating in restaurants, attending concerts, or going to the gym. Austria will make vaccination mandatory on February 1. These measures have broad public support. The vaccinated majority sees the unvaccinated minority as an obstacle to putting the pandemic in the rear-view mirror.
Government officials are willing to do “whatever it takes” to end the pandemic. Germany’s new Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, “We will not allow a tiny minority of unhinged extremists to impose its will on our entire society.” Apparently, he believes that it’s okay for society to impose its will on a tiny minority, which is precisely what German society did in the 1930s when minority Jews were persecuted and murdered.
One college professor said, “[Some] people have a very twisted idea of what freedom is. They’re arguing it’s their individual right to harm others.” Nobody who truly understands individual rights would argue that they have a right to harm others. But for those who do not understand or value individual rights, the professor’s claim supports the erroneous view that the rights of individuals conflict.
If rights conflict, then the only issue open for discussion is whose rights will be protected and whose rights will be violated. And the predominant position is that the “rights” of the majority should prevail. “The will of the people” should guide policy. So, if the vaccinated majority supports mandating vaccination, government should impose such a requirement and do whatever it takes to enforce the mandate.
But the rights of individuals do not conflict. Rights pertain to freedom of action—the freedom to act as we judge best without physical intervention from others. This is not a license to act on any whim or desire. We must respect the freedom of others to act as they judge best.
Admittedly, the application of individual rights is not always clearcut. A pandemic is an obvious example. However, merely because the application of rights poses a challenge does not warrant discarding individual rights. Government should error on the side of liberty, and it should do whatever it takes to protect and defend individual rights.