Reason Magazine Senior Editor Robby Soave
A few people over at Reason have been head over heels for the experimental coronavirus vaccines, some of which are not even vaccines under the normal meaning of the term, being pushed incessantly by many people working in politics and media. But, you may have thought the libertarianish media organization with the slogan “free minds and free markets” would draw the line at posting at its website one of its senior editors endorsing government mandating people take the shots. If so, you thought wrong.
The advocacy at issue is in the fifth paragraph of Reason Senior Editor Robby Soave’s seven-paragraph Friday Reason article that deals with four teachers from Broward County, Florida, whose deaths Soave writes have been attributed to coronavirus:
The governor made vaccines available to all teachers in the state as far back as the beginning of March. But in addition to prohibiting mask requirements in schools, DeSantis has also made it very difficult for both government agencies and private businesses to require vaccination. That’s the aspect of this story for which DeSantis deserves criticism: His COVID-19 declarations get in the way of individual public schools or districts requiring teachers to get vaccinated as a condition of employment. Yet the mainstream media and many Democratic legislators often appear fixated on masks and mask mandates—even though vaccination is by far a more effective tool for fighting the pandemic.
Praising government requiring people to take experimental coronavirus vaccines shots does not sound libertarian. Indeed, it sounds straight up statist.
