Property Rights Versus Human Rights

Many people are deploying the talking points that vaccine passports can be required by businesses, because something-something-something property rights. But the logic underpinning that assertion is not unassailable. For instance: Say, I’m a business owner. And say you walk onto my property. Do I get to saw off an arm if you’re in my hardware store? Do I get to liquidate every third child who crosses the threshold of my establishment? If an attractive woman comes in looking for framing nails, do I get to assault her? The answer to all of these questions is “No”. The fact that they’re on my property does not give me absolute power over them.

Human rights trump property rights. I do not get to permanently alter someone who enters my place of business, nor aggress upon them. It is not within my authority to demand that they change their DNA or to alter their genome so that they can purchase a hammer . . . any more than I impose rhinoplasty on them in order to buy a coil of copper wire, or purchase a screwdriver. So beware the casuistry of sophists who want you to ignore the Nuremberg laws (which unambiguously forbid human medical experimentation, and in addition outlaw the coercion of people to submit to human medical experimentation).