Let me be clear. Allowing ones' children to become obese is as much a form of abuse as systematic beatings and sexual molestation. I am a smoker but I do not smoke around my grandchildren.
In the matter of the court order you wrote of, the fact is that the mother was rendered vulnerable by a pre-existing condition that prevented her being safely vaccinated. If the child was attending a school which did not follow strict COVID protocols, then there was a substantial risk to the mother. A risk the judge chose to mitigate, as is his duty.
I am not, and do not pretend to be, a liberal of any kind. I have the conviction that key industries (public transport, utilities, housing, healthcare) should be publicly-owned, and that the private sector should be firmly regulated to prevent monopolies and excessive profit. I am against discrimination on grounds of race, gender identity, and sexuality. I am anti-religion and am of the opinion that religious groups should not be given a public platform on political or social issues, but that the way to remove religion is via education. I am in favour of the death penalty for certain offences and where the evidence of guilt is clear and unimpeachable.
But I am also old enough and experienced enough to be a total cynic about people. Which is why I contend that vaccination, where safe, should be mandatory, that mask-wearing and social distancing in public indoor spaces should be legally required and rigorously enforced, that work should be done remotely wherever possible and that schools should have robust policies in place to minimise the risk of children carrying the virus home to vulnerable family members. These measures, and their enforcement, are necessary because a large minority, if not an actual majority, of people are simply too stupid, too careless, too selfish, too immature or too positively malicious to take sensible decisions in their own interest, much less that of those around them. They must be made to do things for their own good.
Look, if you line ten people up in front of the only door out of a burning building and tell them to push, what will happen? Two will push, two will pull, two will complain about their bad backs, two will say "What?" and two will say "You can't tell me what to do!". If you want to get the door opened before everyone burns to death, you have to point a gun at them and say "Push or else!". People are stupid. If they weren't, we wouldn't need governments.
