Israel is almost completely opened for business. But to participate in the post-coronavirus bustle, you need a Green Pass, a government-sanctioned document that says the carrier has been vaccinated.
And that’s troubling, to say the least.
This post-coronavirus world is more and more moving to be all about the collective, zero about the individual.
According to a report in The New York Times, individuals who show a Green Pass — the government’s downloadable special OK for the vaccinated — can stay in hotels, dine inside restaurants, attend events of mass gatherings, to include religious services and sports’ games, visit places of tourism and cultural significance, gather for weddings and funerals, work out in fitness centers, swim in swimming pools, vacation in crowded places and more.
Those without the pass?
Maybe not.
Maybe they have to stay home.
This is troubling on several counts.
One line, from The Times: “[W]hen you book a table at a restaurant, they ask, Do you have a Green Pass? Are you vaccinated?”
Waiters have become the gate guards for individuals’ personal health choices. Waitresses have become watch guards for the government’s vaccination program.
“Achinoam Nini, a prominent singer-songwriter who goes by the stage name Not, announced a performance for Green Pass holders only, at a venerable auditorium in Tel Aviv,” another line from The Times reported.
Celebrity singers have become the proving point for good health.
That’s bad policy by itself — allowing businesses to discriminate based on perceived health risks of their customers. Would the same fly for AIDS patients? How about for those with the flu? And if not — why not?
But worse is the cultural shift toward collectivism, at the expense of individualism. Worse is the societal change that governs by fear.
When confronted with her discriminatory “Green Pass-holders Only” concert plans, Nini wrote on Facebook: It’s for the common good.
That, and the logic that has become increasingly, worrisomely part and parcel of the entire coronavirus vaccination discussion: “I also oppose a forced vaccine, but I encourage a vaccine and believe in it,” she posted.
In other words, you can choose not to take the shot. But the consequences of not taking the shot is to cede all other freedoms. In the end, how is that a choice?
This is the language of dictators.
This is the viewpoint of the Biden White House.
This is how freedom crumbles.
The oligarchy of the coronavirus world is coming on strong. And for those who choose not to obey — well, get ready. Prepare. Stand firm. In this rapidly emerging Orwellian world, that’s one and the same as choosing to rebel against government. Depending on government’s move, it could get very ugly out there.
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