Compensation for COVID – Of course, why not?

There has been much talk over the past few weeks about the concept of paying reparations to black Americans affected by the legacy of slavery.

But what about those who have suffered during the pandemic due to job losses, vaccine-related layoffs, and the long-term negative impact of social stigma associated with not blindly automatically following every COVID government mandate? Given how immoral, unethical, culturally disruptive, and patently wrong the response to the pandemic has been, shouldn’t this form of compensation be applied?

The ethical and, to some extent, legal grievances associated with any type of indemnity are varied, but they tend to focus on correcting past mistakes, sanctioned by the government, admitting the damage done, and promising never to do it again.

According to the Black Lives Movement (M4BL for short), redress rights are based on United Nations definitions, including this overarching statement: “Adequate, effective and prompt reparation should promote justice by redressing gross violations of international human rights law or serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

Digging into the potential process, M4BL again cites the UN and its roadmap, which starts with stopping abusive activity and then moves on to improvement actions: https://www.ohchr.org/en/transitional-justice/reparations

  • Restitutionwhich should return the victim to his original position before the offense was committed, for example, reinstatement at liberty, reinstatement at work, return of property, return to the place of residence.
  • Compensationwhich should be provided for any economically measurable damage, loss of earnings, loss of property, loss of economic opportunities, moral damage.
  • Rehabilitationwhich should include medical and psychological assistance, legal and social services.
  • Satisfactionwhich should include ending ongoing violations, establishing the truth, searching for the missing or their remains, recovery, reburial of the remains, public apologies, judicial and administrative sanctions, memorials and commemorations.

Roughly using these benchmarks, the California Indemnity Task Force, created by Gov. Gavin Newsom, recently released a massive report calling for—among many other things related to housing, education, business support, and more—direct payments. in the amount of about 223,000 US dollars each. for black Californians.

San Francisco went even further, saying the individual figure should be in the $5 million range, in addition to debt relief and the ability to pay $1 for current public housing units.

The cost of these proposals is staggering – for example, a program in San Francisco would cost about $200 billion, or about 14 times the city’s annual budget, or about $600,000 for a non-black family in the city. https://www.hoover.org/research/cost-san-franciscos-reparations-proposal-nearly-600000-household

So do these definitions apply to the response to the COVID pandemic? It can be seriously argued that this is indeed the case, and that some form of reparations may be appropriate.

Theoretically, the process begins with the cessation of problematic, infringing government activities. This point, of course, already differentiates damages from COVID, as various restrictions, laws, workplace rules, etc. remain in place across the country. Returning to California, the governor’s emergency order from nearly three years ago is effectively in place until the end of February.

Moving on to restitution, there is a special mention of “reinstatement of liberty and reinstatement” – which would mean that under any reparations program, anyone who was fired for refusing to take an experimental vaccine should be returned to work and, like “freedom” in America , at least for now, is rooted in the idea of ​​free speech, according to which anyone who is muzzled during the pandemic by a government agency or a private company acting on behalf of the government should receive some kind of compensation.

As for compensation, it is relatively simple, although some compensation in the form of loans and direct payments has already been offered, so this should be taken into account in any calculations. But this is only financial compensation – the guidelines also mention “moral damages”. In the case of a pandemic, this will mean ostracism, broken relationships, unscrupulous cuts in education, long-term developmental problems, increased substance abuse, etc. Calculating these losses in monetary terms is admittedly a difficult calculation.

Rehabilitation can include many aspects of the response to a pandemic. From actual drug rehabilitation to ongoing medical care for those who have been psychologically and physically traumatized by the pandemic, to anyone facing civil and/or criminal law issues, and finally reputational rehabilitation itself, all of these factors fall into this category. category.

Which brings us to satisfaction. More recently, a Norfolk group of physicians and scientists developed a blueprint for how the recommended efforts to “seek the truth” should proceed. This stage also involves public redress and, in effect, the dismissal of those who imposed the pandemic on the nation.

It is now clear that there are many differences between the evils of slavery and continued discrimination and the consequences of the COVID response. Slavery has been the scourge of civilization ever since civilization began. It would not be superfluous to say that almost every ethnic group at one time or another enslaved another, sometimes precisely because they belonged to a different ethnic group, or because they were captured in battle, or from any number of other “reasons” and assertion that two of them – slavery in any form and the response to a pandemic – are morally equivalent, are not intended.

Another difference is in complexity. Reparations to black Americans constitute an ethical, moral, and legal knot. Do wealthy descendants of slaves, who can rightly be said to have suffered less discrimination, deserve the same amount as others? Is it ethically acceptable for people who came to a country after—or much later—the end of slavery to be forced to pay for the sins of others? Is the very concept of intergenerational legal guilt ever relevant? Is a black San Francisco resident entitled, for example, to the proposed $5 million payment, when in fact his ancestors were one of the many black families who owned slaves themselves before the Civil War? Should old families in Boston and Atlanta pay more than a random person from Wyoming? The list is almost endless.

(It should be noted that the issue of reparations to black Americans is used for comparative purposes only, and this article is not intended to take any position, either for or against, with respect to their actual implementation.)

However, there may actually be a legal precedent for COVID reparations — the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II. In this case, the federal government issued a very belated apology to the internees and/or their families and a $20,000 cash settlement in early 1980s.

These refunds were based on a specific set of circumstances and provided for a specific and limited period of time. As well as the total nature and groundless reason for internment – pedigree – can be compared to the general nature of dictate, including aspects of blocking – in fact, home internment. Both situations more accurately reflect the circumstances of the pandemic than the issue of generational slavery and its consequences.

The pandemic has a definite (or soon will be) time frame. Surprisingly close to the commonly used “date of origin”. – perhaps even earlier – it became clear to those who in the government implemented restrictions, forced vaccines, and quarantine measures were not only highly inappropriate, but largely useless.

https://californiaglobe.com/articles/politics-and-public-health-agencies-behind-latest-round-of-covid-hysteria/

It is also becoming clearer every day that “vaccines” are not really vaccines in the sense that they have been defined since their introduction in 1796, that the technology behind them has not been properly tested, and that they cause quite serious, often fatal side effects. consequences. It is also clear that those in charge, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, were well aware of these issues, which held them responsible for the lies they continued to tell, lies that directly cost hundreds of thousands of Americans their livelihood.

The case of COVID reparations, although at first glance it may seem a little strange, can be considered quite convincing. At the very least, the idea of ​​creating a commission to find out what actually happened, what led to the abandonment of all previous pandemic response plans, how the virus came about, how all this wicked confusion can be avoided in the future, and how the changes in the current public health systems are critical to moving forward as a nation.

May justice prevail even if the sky falls – for the sake of all of us.

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