No Shirt, No Shoes? No Service

The conservative populists talk endlessly about the dangers of socialism (however poorly they grasp the term), but truthfully they’re happy with government mandates or prohibitions that advance their own preferences.

Some private employers want to require masks, and others want to require vaccinations, but these right-wing interventionists now screech that private businesses should not be allowed to impose workplace conditions within their own private property.

One would have thought that those for whom the customer policy of no shirt, no shoes, no service seems to have been designed would be familiar with lawful, private policies that restrict vulgar or unhealthful behavior to which businesses object.

What’s true for customers is true for workers, however hard it is for this band to accept.

As it turns out, even Republican Gov. Kristi Noem acknowledges the rights of employers, albeit obliquely:

Workers whose employers are mandating a vaccine for continued employment have the power to say no. Our robust economy and job market gives them the option to find a new employer that values personal choice and responsibility, and doesn’t force mandates on their employees.

She buries the principle in the middle, but there it is: if employees don’t like employer mandates, then they have “the option to find a new employer.”

Gov. Noem should be encouraging voluntary vaccinations, but at least she recognizes that employers and co-workers don’t have to endure anti-vaxxers.