Lab rats and market rats

I sometimes think that the difference between liberals and conservatives is simply the difference between those accustomed to working in a lab and those accustomed to working in the real world.

Those in the lab have constraints but usually with some flex.  They are experimenting.  Not everything has to work the first time, desirable as that might be.  Consequences do not usually bear directly on the experimenters.  Undesirable trade-offs can be avoided by changing the experiment design.  Few individuals are involved outside the team so you don't need to deal with variant opinions or priorities.

In that environment, there is a tendency to expect things to work and not be too fussed when they don't.  It was engineered to work and it is reasonable to expect that it will work.

Conservatives on the other hand are the real-worlders.  They are always operating within constraints of time, money, other people's interests.  They bear personal consequences if plans don't work out.  They have to negotiate with other parties who have strongly variant interests.  Conservatives are far more alert to risks and far more expectant of deviation of outcomes from intentions.

Basically, Liberals anticipate things will go right and Conservatives anticipate that things can go wrong.

Nothing wrong with either position.  What you really want is a marriage of the two.  The optimism that it will work and the pragmatism to deal the likelihood that it won't.  

Whenever something new is proposed (UBI, Green Deal, pre-school education, universal mandatory vaccinations, vaccination passports), Liberals say "what could go wrong?" and Conservatives say "let me count the ways".  

Vaccine passports have been much discussed lately by Liberals as a means of keeping track of those who have been vaccinated (and therefore should theoretically be subject to fewer restrictions) and those who have not.  And it is logical, there is plenty of precedent, and who wants to keep people more restricted?

Conservatives on the other hand see this as an instrument of coercion.  If vaccination is a voluntary decisions, then passports become a mechanism for the government to discriminate among citizens, denying the unvaccinated their full citizen rights.  Scenario planning by Conservatives of what could go wrong can end up in some dark corners, including government making life-and-death decisions about citizens solely on their "voluntary" vaccination status.  Ridiculous say Liberals, that is pure malarky, no one would do that.

All this brought to mind by a number of accounts I have seen today related to a volcanic eruption on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean.  As an example, from After Volcano Erupts On Caribbean Island, PM Says Only Vaccinated Can Board Evacuation Ships, Others Sent To Safety Elsewhere by  Ian Haworth.  No one would make life and death decisions based on vaccination status?  Hold my beer says reality.

The island’s Prime Minister, Ralph Gonsalves, then sparked criticism by saying that those boarding cruise ships or seeking temporary refuge on nearby islands must be vaccinated against COVID-19. Those who have not yet been vaccinated — numbering in the thousands — will not be permitted to leave the island, and will be housed in local hotels in “safe zones,” according to the Prime Minister.

“Gonsalves said only vaccinated residents who have been checked and identified by Dr. Simone Keizer-Beache, the St. Vincent and the Grenadines chief medical officer, will be allowed to board the ships out of an abundance of caution,” reported ABC News.

In an interview on NBC Radio St. Vincent, the Prime Minister said that this decision was driven by the countries willing to accept evacuees, and their refusal to allow unvaccinated citizens to enter.

The World Health Organization reports that only 10,805 vaccine doses have been administered in St. Vincent, while the population is estimated to be at least 111,000 people.

According to the Washington Examiner, a spokesman for Carnival Cruises — who have sent “two ships, the Carnival Legend and the Carnival Paradise, which will each take 1,500 passengers to neighboring islands” — said that the company “has not made vaccines a requirement of this humanitarian mission.”

I strongly assume all this will work out, everyone who needs to be evacuated will be evacuated, and no one will die because they were unvaccinated.

But reality validates the Conservative view - ridiculous as the scenarios might be that they can come up with of what could go wrong,  it is impossible to overestimate just how stupid some ideologues can be.  

You say that no reasonable government person would ever make life-and-death decisions based on vaccine passports - Let me introduce you to the Prime Minister of St. Vincent who is fully committed to doing just that.  

I guess it comes down to Murphy's Law.  Liberals have never heard of it and Conservatives live by the creed that anything that can go wrong, will.