On March 29, 2021, the Libertarian Part of Kentucky sent outthe following tweet.

“Are the vaccine passports going to be yellow, shaped like a star, and sewn on our clothes?”

The LP of Kentucky later sent out a clarification tweet saying, “If the Star of David tweet didn’t make it clear, The Libertarian Party of Kentucky is against #Vaccinespassports as they are a complete and total violation of human liberty.  This is the stuff of totalitarian dictatorships.”

In the original tweet, the LP of Kentucky is comparing the idea of vaccine passports to Hitler and Nazi Germany.  Instead of being tagged as Jewish, people would be tagged as unvaccinated.  And, of a course, unless you deny that the Holocaust happened, we know that millions of Jewish people were slaughtered in the early 1940s.

If there was one thing wrong with the tweet, it was that it got things a little backwards (which was later admitted).  The vaccine passports won’t be the equivalent of the Star of David. It will be people who are not vaccinated who will have the equivalent of the Star of David.  It will be the people not vaccinated and without “passports” who will be the mark.

This original tweet stirred up a big response.  There was a lot of backlash and support.

I think most of the people condemning the tweet are being hypocrites.  If someone says it is not an apt comparison, then that is one thing, and it can be debated.  The problem is that most of the critics are calling it insensitive or worse because it is comparing taking a vaccine to killing millions of Jews.

But that’s not what the tweet is doing, as I will discuss shortly.

Most of the people chiming in are hypocrites because they themselves use Hitler/ Nazi analogies for the things they hate.  At the very least, they don’t flip out and call it insensitive when others make an analogy for the people or things they hate.

Do you know how many times Trump was called a Nazi?  Did these same people speak out saying that it is insensitive or repulsive to compare Trump to Hitler or the Nazis because it compares Trump’s policies to killing millions of people?

I’m sure there may be a few consistent people out there, but not many who were attacking this tweet.

I can understand if a libertarian is criticizing it because he doesn’t want it coming from an organization with the “libertarian” name in it.  But even here, if they aren’t being hypocrites, I still think they are wrong.

When it comes down to it, most of the people criticizing this tweet aren’t criticizing it because it invoked the Holocaust.  They are criticizing it because they favor pushing the vaccines and are not opposed to the idea of vaccine passports.

It’s an Analogy

An analogy is an analogy.  Ayn Rand, call your office.  A is A.

An analogy doesn’t mean that we will literally have yellow-shaped stars sewn on our clothes if we don’t get vaccinated.  It also doesn’t mean that we will be marched off to concentration camps. It is an analogy, and it is a warning.

The comparison is also not referencing the same period of time as the actual Holocaust.  This is the point.  The Holocaust didn’t just happen.  The German officials didn’t just wake up one morning and decide they would march Jews off to concentration camps.  There was a groundwork laid down, and this tweet was a warning of groundwork being laid for something worse to come.  It doesn’t mean that all unvaccinated people will be taken to concentration camps and killed.  It was a warning against laying the groundwork for tyranny.

Hitler came to power in 1933.  The Nazi regime had to stir up a lot of propaganda and hate against the Jews.  There had to be a lot of groundwork laid down. Most of them were probably not even doing it with the ultimate intention of slaughtering millions of people.

So for all of the people who think that tweet is insensitive, repulsive, offensive, etc., I say you need to understand analogies.

Maybe it was over the top, but I am not even sure about that.  Again, it wasn’t comparing vaccine passports to the Holocaust. It was comparing vaccine passports to what was happening before the Holocaust.

And is it really so crazy that libertarians are making these comparisons after what has happened over the last year?  When people were talking about the possibility of vaccine passports less than a year ago, they were called crazy conspiracy theorists.  So what is supposed to be said now that vaccine passports are being publicly discussed and widely advocated by people with power?

In the last year, across America, people have been told to stay at home.  They have been told to wear masks and keep their distance from others.  Businesses deemed “non-essential” by government were forced to shut down.  People were told they couldn’t have weddings and funerals. People were told they shouldn’t see their loved ones on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And now we’re being told that we might need a vaccine passport to just carry on with a normal life.

Tyranny has already arrived.  It doesn’t mean we have concentration camps and mass murder.  But if the above doesn’t qualify as some form of tyranny, I’m not sure what would.

What do the so-called libertarians who criticized this tweet think should be said at this point? Should we all be polite and say, “These vaccine passports may not be a good idea.  They could lead to an infringement on our civil liberties.”

There is a time and place for politeness, and I don’t think this is one of them.  It’s not to say that you shouldn’t be polite to others, but I don’t think we should be polite in the sense of holding back the truth because we are afraid to offend others.

I don’t know if using a Hitler/ Nazi analogy works in convincing others on the dangers of vaccine passports or anything else.  But I do know that libertarians who hold back the truth because they are afraid to offend others are mostly irrelevant and ineffective, at best.

Some people need to be figuratively hit over the head with a sledgehammer.  They need the bold truth thrown in their face.

I believe the LP of Kentucky did nothing wrong here (other than getting the original wording backwards), as they are fighting for liberty and trying to be bold about it. The tweet was not insensitive towards Jewish people or minimizing the Holocaust in any way.  It was a warning that we don’t even want to begin to go down any similar path in any way here.

This idea of vaccine passports is a dangerous idea and antithetical to liberty.  If only there were more people and organizations that would realize just how dangerous this whole idea is.