If your child is not vaccinated, they should be barred from attending public school

[Strike For The South]

I am a firm believer that people need to be protected from themselves sometimes. This is one of those times

[Seamus Fermanagh]

But there is a chance that your child will die or become autistic should they take the vaccine!

Actually, I think the number of unvaccinated children harmed by perfectly preventable diseases exceeds the number who might die of an allergic reaction to taking the vaccine -- and the autism thing has ZERO statistically valid support -- but some folks try not to let themselves get confused by pesky facts.

[a completely inoffensive name]

This subject makes me really mad, so I am just going to thank the OP and leave it at that.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Nope. I believe that people have a right to control what is forcibly injected into their bodies. Do I take vaccination? Oh heck yea, for certain illnesses you might be crazy not to. Should the uneducated public be voting on what is forced on other people? Hell no.

An intelligent and decent parent vaccinates their children. There is no link between vaccination and autism. Unvaccinated children do not often enough become horribly I'll and die to mandate this, though. We are talking here about mandating an HPV vaccination for people.... Not something to prevent hemmorhagic fever. It always comes back to force. Are you guys that completely out of tricks?

[HoreTore]

But there is a chance that your child will die or become autistic should they take the vaccine!

Relevant link explaining how vaccines causes autism. (http://howdovaccinescauseautism.com/)

Anyway, the child should not be banned from school. Rather, we should do what we do with that kooky Christian sect who refuses blood transfers - temporarily remove custody from the parents, give it to the state, inject vacines, hand kids back to parents.

[ICantSpellDawg]

BTW, this is the kind of moronic consensus I vote for representatives to go to Congress to block.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Considering HPV is rampant in the US, can cause Cervical Cancer, and is one of the few STDs that a condom is less effective against, I'd say mandating that particular vaccination would be a great boon for public health. There are cities in America where as many as 1/4 of sexually active women have HPV. The stats are probably similar for dudes, but because of certain annual medical procedures that men don't have to worry about the stats are much more reliable for women. So I wouldn't use that as an example, its actually a pretty big problem. :shrug:

Really that's kind of the point, in the end. This isn't about the health of the children that aren't being vaccinated, its about the children around them. Unvaccinated kids give viruses a place to hang out and mutate and come into contact with other people over time. Total and wide-spread vaccination can make some diseases completely extinct, but a few stubborn fools can ruin it for everyone.

"We demand to inject you - for the greater good."

[HoreTore]

Considering HPV is rampant in the US, can cause Cervical Cancer, and is one of the few STDs that a condom is less effective against, I'd say mandating that particular vaccination would be a great boon for public health. There are cities in America where as many as 1/4 of sexually active women have HPV. The stats are probably similar for dudes, but because of certain annual medical procedures that men don't have to worry about the stats are much more reliable for women. So I wouldn't use that as an example, its actually a pretty big problem. :shrug:

Really that's kind of the point, in the end. This isn't about the health of the children that aren't being vaccinated, its about the children around them. Unvaccinated kids give viruses a place to hang out and mutate and come into contact with other people over time. Total and wide-spread vaccination can make some diseases completely extinct, but a few stubborn fools can ruin it for everyone.

One in four? Nah man, it's more like 3 in 4 (http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/stdfact-hpv.htm). HPV is one of those viruses we 'all' have - except nuns. It doesn't really affect us, apart from getting stuff to grow inside bewbs.


"We demand to inject you - for the greater good."

We will also take your baby away if you refuse to give it nutrition.

I see no difference.

[Fragony]

Absolutily agree.

[ICantSpellDawg]

A child needs food to live. If you deprive it of food you are unduly endangering your child.

It doesn't need vaccines. Doesn't mean you shouldn't get your kids vaccinated.

[HoreTore]

A child needs food to live. If you deprive it of food you are unduly endangering your child.

It doesn't need vaccines. Doesn't mean you shouldn't get your kids vaccinated.

Here's the thing; a child does need vaccines in order to survive. Just like they need food to survive.

Deprive them of either, and yes, you are in danger of killing your offspring.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Here's the thing; a child does need vaccines in order to survive. Just like they need food to survive.

Deprive them of either, and yes, you are in danger of killing your offspring.

Nonsense. What you've just said is untrue.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I agree that parents who don't do the research about vaccines are possibly doing their children a disservice. But there are risks to vaccines. More for some than others. More for certain children than others. People should never be forced to be vaccinated against their will.

They should be encouraged to do the due diligence and come to the correct conclusion. They should be informed by medical professionals what that conclusion is most likely to be. If thr vaccination is in the public interest, it can even be made affordable or free. But you lose me at compulsion with penalties

[HoreTore]

Nonsense. What you've just said is untrue.

Yeah, go ahead and ask the 19th century mother of 9 who watched two of her offspring reach adulthood what she thinks of it.

Or go to Africa.


I agree that parents who don't do the research about vaccines are possibly doing their children a disservice. But there are risks to vaccines. More for some than others. People should never be forced to be vaccinated against their will.

Again, I refer you to my previously posted link. (http://howdovaccinescauseautism.com/)

There's risk involved in eating as well. Huge risk, in fact. You can get a ton of diseases from eating. I say we stop doing it.


Any 18-year old or above airhead should be free to be as stupid as they want with their own bodies. They do not, however, have the right to be equally stupid with the bodies of other individuals. Having managed to squirt some semen in the correct place at one point in time does not make you the master of life and death.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Yeah, go ahead and ask the 19th century mother of 9 who watched two of her offspring reach adulthood what she thinks of it.

Or go to Africa.



Again, I refer you to my previously posted link. (http://howdovaccinescauseautism.com/)

There's risk involved in eating as well. Huge risk, in fact. You can get a ton of diseases from eating. I say we stop doing it.

Vaccines have inarguably been beneficial to humanity. Advancements in sanitation and nutrition have contributed to the reduction of child mortality to a much greater extent than vaccines, however.

You are wrong to support the forcible injection of people against their will. You would be right to strongly encourage vaccination.

[HoreTore]

Vaccines have inarguably been beneficial to humanity. Nutritional advancements have arguably contributed to the reduction of child mortality to a much greater extent than vaccines, however.

You are wrong to support the forcible injection of people against their will. You would be right to strongly encourage vaccination.

Infant mortality, no. Child mortality, yes.

I support the forcible injection of food, water, education, vaccines, blood transfusions and probably a few others I forget about. I am indeed Hitler in disguise.

[ICantSpellDawg]

You guys hate free action almost as a rule. Rates of acute disease have dropped dramatically over the past 100 years. You make it seem like we are staring down the abyss because some parents are making controversial decisions about their children's healthcare. The second someone doesn't listen to your arguments, the world is on the brink and they must be forced to comply. Your positions are ludicrous and your political opinions are dangerous and abusive of the rights of others.

[Beskar]

I am required to take far more vaccination injections and a greater variety than the general public due to working in health/hospitals. If I didn't, I would be a total idiot and would be negligence on part of myself and my employers.

Vaccinations work and do a ton of good, especially for a lot of dreadful diseases. The 'moronic' solution would not to take vaccines so when there is a need for mass-scale vaccination, it should be compulsory. As for HPV, don't get started on the idiocy where those oppose assume their children would never have sexual contact in their lives.


You make it seem like we are staring down the abyss because some parents are making controversial decisions about their children's healthcare.

Break-down of Herd immunity is actually evident with the resurgence of many illnesses, because of highly misinformed parents who don't know what is for the best.

[HoreTore]

You guys hate free action almost as a rule. Rates of acute disease have dropped dramatically over the past 100 years. You make it seem like we are staring down the abyss because some parents are making controversial decisions about their children's healthcare. The second someone doesn't listen to your arguments, the world is on the brink and they must be forced. Your positions are ludicrous and your political opinions are dangerous and abusive.

Yes, I have already said I'm Hitler in disguise.

The thing is, you're not arguing in favour of an individuals right to choose for themselves. You are arguing in favour of an individuals right to force others to do as they want.

I do not recognize that right. The cost for the individual choosing is nil. The cost for the individual who is forced to accept the choice is, ultimately, death.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I am required to take far more vaccination injections and a greater variety than the general public due to working in health/hospitals. If I didn't, I would be a total idiot and would be negligence on part of myself and my employers.

Vaccinations work and do a ton of good, especially for a lot of dreadful diseases. The 'moronic' solution would not to take vaccines so when there is a need for mass-scale vaccination, it should be compulsory. As for HPV, don't get started on the idiocy where those oppose assume their children would never have sexual contact in their lives.

I'm not 100% against vaccinations for certain types of employment, mostly because that employment isn't compelled. For nearly every american, public education is compelled. You effectively have no choice unless you are wealthy enough to put your kids in private school.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Yes, I have already said I'm Hitler in disguise.

The thing is, you're not arguing in favour of an individuals right to choose for themselves. You are arguing in favour of an individuals right to force others to do as they want.

I do not recognize that right. The cost for the individual choosing is nil. The cost for the individual who is forced to accept the choice is, ultimately, death.

Never said anything about Hitler.

Its just that nearly every argument you co e up with includes compulsion of others actions

[HoreTore]

Never said anything about Hitler.

Its just that nearly every argument you co e up with includes compulsion of others actions

Just like I will force people to educate their kids.

[Pannonian]

Vaccines have inarguably been beneficial to humanity. Nutritional advancements have arguably contributed to the reduction of child mortality to a much greater extent than vaccines, however.


QE1 nearly died from a disease that has now been eradicated from the wild thanks to vaccination programmes. Said disease is probably the biggest killer in history. And that's just one of a number of lethal diseases that vaccination treats.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Are you trying to convince me that vaccines are a great advancement in medical science. I'm convinced

Are you trying to convince me that it is of the utmost importance to FORCE other peoples children to get vaccinated? No, I do not accept

[HoreTore]

QE1 nearly died from a disease that has now been eradicated from the wild thanks to vaccination programmes. Said disease is probably the biggest killer in history. And that's just one of a number of lethal diseases that vaccination treats.

George Washington as well, IIRC.

Obviously a poorly fed man.

[HoreTore]

Are you trying to convince me that vaccines are a great advancement in medical science. I'm convinced

Are you trying to convince me that it is of the utmost importance to FORCE other peoples children to get vaccinated? No, I do not accept

But somehow, you fully support peoples 'right' to FORCE me not to get vaccinated.

How on earth can other people be given the right to make decisions that will ultimately kill me?

[ICantSpellDawg]

But somehow, you fully support peoples 'right' to FORCE me not to get vaccinated.


What? Although you are able to be vaccinated, thus reducing the likelihood that you will not contract disease x - the decision of another not to get vaccinated is the equivalent of FORCING you not to get vaccinated?

My issue with modern political arguments is that they are not really arguments for good ideas - they are arguments for the forcible compulsion of those good ideas on others.

This is exacly why the GOP voters have sent defensive linemen into Congress. We need to ensure that you go nowhere with the ball.

Focus your energy on helpful encouragement and the spread of good ideas through fair play and you will have a supporter.

[Beskar]

Are you trying to convince me that it is of the utmost importance to FORCE other peoples children to get vaccinated? No, I do not accept

Just to put it out there, if your own children ended up getting ill because a strain mutated in a bunch of kids whose parents refused to get them vaccinated, causing them to start sweating with a fever, red-eyes, showing a rash, one of them even showing signs of encephalitis, would you still be holding your position?

After all, this only came about because of those refusing free vaccinations at their school, complete negligence by the parents involved. It would be like opposing compulsory wearing of seat-belts, a similar-style of law in place to protect drivers and passengers.

[HoreTore]

What?

You want to give my parents the right to force me not to get vaccinated.

I would rather give the state the right to force me to get vaccinated.

[Pannonian]

Are you trying to convince me that vaccines are a great advancement in medical science. I'm convinced

Are you trying to convince me that it is of the utmost importance to FORCE other peoples children to get vaccinated? No, I do not accept

Smallpox was eradicated through mandatory vaccination, including banning the less effective inoculation even where the resident people preferred this to the more unfamiliar vaccination. I wouldn't want to see that running around again, in the name of freedom of choice.

[ICantSpellDawg]

They probably wouldn't, because I would get them vaccinated. I have only ever turned down yellow fever vaccination.

This gets me personally. I go in for a medical procedure every year as I am plagued with many odd diseases (in spite of having received every suggested vaccination anyway). Every year the Dr and his medical students try to convince me to allow them to take non-therapeutic biopsies for "the greater good". I advise that they are free to take all biopsies that are taken for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes which benefit me, the patient, and use it for their study. This is not good enough for them so they don't do that. I have enough diseases that if I consented to every study I would be out of flesh. As they are New Yorkers, it's only a matter of time before my body is to them merely a specimen for the use of the greater good. I'm surprised that they don't already require organ donation. I'm sure that you are for those things as well - you know because of the greater good.

Come back to me when infant mortality rates stop decreasing or morbidity rates start going up. THen we can ramp up the public campaign for vaccinations (hey, that's not a bad idea!, Why don't we try that first before commandeering people's children and threatening parents with a loss of rights over something so dumb.)

[Beskar]

I'm surprised that they don't already require organ donation. I'm sure that you are for those things as well - you know because of the greater good.

On death, yes. It is in my will and I have it noted in my medical records.

When you die, you won't be needing them anymore, and if you expect in life to receive an organ transplant, it would be very hypocritical not to return the same courtesy.

[ICantSpellDawg]

On death, yes. It is in my will and I have it noted in my medical records.

When you die, you won't be needing them anymore, and if you expect in life to receive an organ transplant, it would be very hypocritical not to return the same courtesy.

Yep, totally sensible and good faith to donate organs at end of life. My suggestion is, yet again, not that it is a bad thing but that the compulsion is wrongheaded. And that's even concerning dead people and their families!

[HoreTore]

Come back to me when infant mortality rates stop decreasing or morbidity rates start going up. THen we can ramp up the public campaign for vaccinations (hey, that's not a bad idea!, Why don't we try that first before commandeering people's children and threatening parents with a loss of rights over something so dumb.)

Yes, let's kill off a few million innocents before we figure out that our original idea was the best solution after all.

What a splendid idea!!

[Beskar]

Yep, totally sensible and good faith to donate organs at end of life. My suggestion is, yet again, not that it is a bad thing but that the compulsion is wrongheaded. And that's even concerning dead people and their families!

I think it should be 'opt-out' rather than 'opt-in' though. There is a shortage of organs and on many occasions, the wishes of the departed are not known and grieving family can be... very awkward situation. Maybe stretch the same for vaccination too if it not in place as the current situation.

Whilst it is not direct-force that compulsory implies, those who are rather ignorant have the choice made for them for the best interest of the children and all those involved with the decision making.

[HoreTore]

I think it should be 'opt-out' rather than 'opt-in' though. There is a shortage of organs and on many occasions, the wishes of the departed are not known and grieving family can be... very awkward situation.

Vastly preferable to the current situation.

[Beskar]

Vastly preferable to the current situation.

Naturally, you would assume people have the best interests at heart, so any regulation is not required at all based on this assumption.

Unfortunately, reality shows that this is not the case.

Whilst I can sympathise with Dawg's position that in an ideal world, such things wouldn't be needed, the logistics and reality argue strongly in favour of having to implement these policies because it isn't an ideal world.

[HoreTore]

Naturally, you would assume people have the best interests at heart, so any regulation is not required at all based on this assumption.

Unfortunately, reality shows that this is not the case.

Well, the bureaucracy probably stops a few; I know it's stopped me. I have no clue where to sign up or what to do, to be honest. And I'm quite sure I'm not the only one, though it probably doesn't help that I avoid the doctors office like a plague...

My family knows to chop me up and burn what remains, however.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I think it should be 'opt-out' rather than 'opt-in' though.

I might not disagree with this. In fact, if you really wanted to you might even do the same thing with vaccinations.

This would not be compulsion - merely direction, with override from families and individuals. Now you're cooking with gas.

[Kadagar_AV]

People not taking vaccine not only risk themselves, but also put others at risk.

I don't believe it a human right to risk the life of ones kids, nor do I believe it's right to risk others.

I've got a tetanus shot yesterday, stupid parkour...

[ICantSpellDawg]

It is my impression that Europeans do not believe in the free action of individuals - made better by good stewardship. It is a shame.

[HoreTore]

It is my impression that Europeans do not believe in the free action of individuals - made better by good stewardship. It is a shame.

I have made a grand total of zero statements in this thread restricting the free action of individuals.

I have only restricted the individuals ability to force other individuals to adhere to their beliefs.

In other words, I care not for a second if some adult decides not to get vaccinated. I hope they die sooner, rather than later. But someone taking away a child's right to grow up without a zillion life-threatening diseases? No way.



It seems like your focus on governmental tyranny has made you blind to the tyranny coming from elsewhere.



John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty for the death penalty for parents who did not choose correctly for their children.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I have made a grand total of zero statements in this thread restricting the free action of individuals.

I have only restricted the individuals ability to force other individuals to adhere to their beliefs.

In other words, I care not for a second if some adult decides not to get vaccinated. I hope they die sooner, rather than later. But someone taking away a child's right to grow up without a zillion life-threatening diseases? No way.



It seems like your focus on governmental tyranny has made you blind to the tyranny coming from elsewhere.

Surely, adults are at risk of disease. Isn't their failure to inoculate a direct threat to you as well?

Also, you are clearly attempting to force things into peoples bodies irrespective of what they or their guardians say. Do you mean to tell me that if a child is against it then it won't be forced?
If in your brain you have glossed over that part, I would forgive you for it, but don't miss the crux of your own argument.

This website (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/vaccine-decision/side-effects.html) has a reasonable approach, while yours is an unreasonable and heavy handed one, as always.

[HoreTore]

Surely, adults are at risk of disease as well. Isn't their failure to inoculate a direct threat to you?

Sure, and they should get vaccinated as well.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Compulsory should or sensibly should?

[HoreTore]

Compulsory should or sensibly should?

I don't advocate compulsory vaccination of adults. Only their children.

(Excluding international travel, of course)

[ICantSpellDawg]

Countries can require vaccinations as requisite for entry. That's up to them.
No way on the kid compulsion. You are way off on that.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Cannot make it compulsory, it is the parent's decision. CAN make it a requirement for attending government schools unless a majority of the polity in question refuses to sanction such a regulation. Should do so, to encourage any wafflers.

You don't want vaccinations for your children? Find a private school that will accept them or teach them at home.


I agree that not providing vaccinations for your children does not constitute negligence in the sense that leaving them to bake in the backseat of your car or failing to feed them does. However, I believe that NOT taking the vaccination opportunities available is a poor parenting choice and does a disservice to your kidlings.

Infant mortality in the pre-vaccine/pre-Semmelweis era was ghastly (http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ENG-THAMESWATERMEN/2004-01/1073943950).

Both my children have received the full series, including the optional varivax.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Cannot make it compulsory, it is the parent's decision.

Why not? We do so routinely for non-life threatening situations, nobody starts wringing hands about the freedom to make a dishonest choice which the child will be the victim of. Child labour is banned. Minimum education is mandatory. Children may be taken away and placed into care if abuse is discovered.

We do that precisely to limit the damage that may be wrought by irresponsible, incompetent or uncaring parents.

We go on to do much the same to competent adults.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I will most likely have my children vaccinated with the full series as well. I also have no intention of having them go to public school, which will be difficult.

[Kadagar_AV]

It is my impression that Europeans do not believe in the free action of individuals - made better by good stewardship. It is a shame.

It is my impression that some USAnians take free will so far that it includes "Free will to be absolutely ******* uneducated and somewhat retarded"...

You should never be allowed to risk your children, nor others.

[ICantSpellDawg]

It is my impression that some USAnians take free will so far that it includes "Free will to be absolutely ******* uneducated and somewhat retarded"...


I most certainly believe that this is the case.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/27/kindergartener-pulls-down-pants-forced-t

[Kadagar_AV]

I most certainly believe that this is the case.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/27/kindergartener-pulls-down-pants-forced-t

I'm honestly lost for words... That's just wrong on so many levels...

[HoreTore]

Countries can require vaccinations as requisite for entry. That's up to them.
No way on the kid compulsion. You are way off on that.

So you do not consider the child an individual? 'Individuals choice' covers more individuals than just your own person?

Where is the logic in that?

I can waive the mandatory organ donation because, even though I consider them ridiculous, the arguments of sacred bodies and such religious stuff is of some merit. The arguments against vaccination? Complete bollox and not worthy of a second of consideration.

It is not your right to make retarded decisions on behalf of your children. Sorry.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Having children is a pretty retarded decision made on behalf of your kids for most people.
I don't hold a high bar for other parents. As long as they are feeding them and not abusing them beyond a certain minimal extent, fair play.

What are you going to do, take a kid away from a half-way decent parent who refuses the vaccine and can't afford private school, and put them into a foster home? That'll sure fix the problem.


You guys have made the most compelling argument why I might not want to get kids vaccinated, which I didn't think was possible because it is pretty open and shut.
Drug laws make me want drugs so bad, Gun laws make me want guns so bad. I freaking despise laws and coercion. I have instinctively always told people to take a flying leap when they express any bullshit authority over me. You guys are idiots. Maybe some people respect authority, but I doubt that those are the people you are trying to force into doing things.

I still likely will, not because of what you think or the law thinks, but because of what I think - and smart people who are capable of believing in something and evangelizing it without forcing it on others.

[Ironside]

Come back to me when infant mortality rates stop decreasing or morbidity rates start going up. THen we can ramp up the public campaign for vaccinations (hey, that's not a bad idea!, Why don't we try that first before commandeering people's children and threatening parents with a loss of rights over something so dumb.)

There are epidemics showing up in the US among the unvaccinated population today. Still small numbers, but increasing. So it's an actual problem nowadays.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I didn't get the whooping cough vaccine as a child, and sure enough I got whooping cough. Same is true for my youngest brother.

Didn't get the meningitis vaccine either but hopefully I will be spared from meningitis.

I don't honestly know about how legitimate the concerns about any risks are, but I'm pretty paranoid when it comes to taking medication myself and I don't think this is something that should be forced upon children and their parents.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I didn't get the whooping cough vaccine as a child, and sure enough I got whooping cough. Same is true for my youngest brother.

Didn't get the meningitis vaccine either but hopefully I will be spared from meningitis.

I don't honestly know about how legitimate the concerns about any risks are, but I'm pretty paranoid when it comes to taking medication myself and I don't think this is something that should be forced upon children and their parents.

If you didn't just spend 3 days dismissing evolution as science, this post would have been great.
These people are effectively saying that parents who would allow you to run a greater risk of whooping cough than take the vaccine are bad parents and should have their kids taken away if they feel strongly enough about it.

Let's face it, if they don't let it happen and they don't have the money for homeschooling or private school (like most people), their kid is not allowed to go to school. If their kid doesn't go to school, CPS takes them and the parents can be punished legally. This is the creepy and serious side of the things that people push for frivolously when they, time and time again call for compulsion. Take a concern that is popular right now in the media, get afraid, demand action by force to overcome opposition that they don't understand or accept. It is like a broken record of dumb and abusive policy. Many diseases have been wiped nearly off of the face of the earth by better nutrition, better sanitation, and vaccination. This has happened not through compulsion, but through public campaigns to inform people of the risk of disease vs the risk of vaccination. For most of the common vaccinations and most people, the risk to not having them is overwhelmingly greater than the risk of doing so - if you cant sell that idea, maybe the person that you are angry at isn't the moron in the room.

Ryf, will you get your kid the whooping flight vaccine knowing that they will likely contract the illness if you don't?

[HoreTore]

What are you going to do, take a kid away from a half-way decent parent who refuses the vaccine and can't afford private school, and put them into a foster home? That'll sure fix the problem.

As I have said already: do what we do to the cooky christian sect who refuses blood transfusion. Give temporary custody to the state, inject vaccines, give kids back. Kid vaccinated, no harm done.

[ICantSpellDawg]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/measles-cases-are-spreading-despite-high-vaccination-rates-whats-going-on/2014/06/23/38c86884-ea97-11e3-93d2-edd4be1f5d9e_story.html

Articles like this would probably would compel people to get certain vaccinations. I would recommend publishing it in NY Times and translating it Into to Spanish and integrating it into the dumbest telenovela with the grossest sausage-in-spandex actresses you can find. The rates will boost without compulsion.

[HoreTore]

....because it's mainly hispanics who refuse vaccination...?

[ICantSpellDawg]

In the US? I would say so, without data driven evidence. It tends to be 3 kinds of people, from what I've read - people with reduced access to preventative healthcare, white baptists who think that the world is a couple thousand years old, and white liberals who think that they understand herd immunity and love organic foods.

Based on where these "epidemics" are popping up, the populations are overwhelmingly black and hispanic. The "blame black people for all of the horrible nonsense they are responsible for" bone in my body has been overworked, so I left them out of my bigoted prior post.

I would blame greasy Italians as well, but I can't think of how they might be responsible.

[HoreTore]

Ah, just remembered that you silly yanks pay for your healthcare, and that this probably extends to vaccination as well...

If ever there was something society should pay for, it's vaccination. The main benefit of vaccinations are to society, not the individual. Thus, society should pay.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Ah, just remembered that you silly yanks pay for your healthcare, and that this probably extends to vaccination as well...

If ever there was something society should pay for, it's vaccination. The main benefit of vaccinations are to society, not the individual. Thus, society should pay.

Correct. The main benefit of vaccination is to society. And yet, all known and unknown risks are born by individuals. So it is probably sensible and just to have a more conscientious and constructive argument than "you must".

[HoreTore]

Correct. The main benefit of vaccination is to society. And yet, all known and unknown risks are born by individuals. So it is probably sensible and just to have a more conscientious and constructive argument than "you must".

Since there is no credible counter-argument, I see no reason to bother coming up with an argument in favour.

In fact, engaging with them can actually validate their concerns.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Since there is no credible counter-argument, I see no reason to bother coming up with an argument in favour.

In fact, engaging with them can actually validate their concerns.

Classic leftist. "Close off debate - enact by force else we run the risk of potentially legitimate/illegitimate dialogue - the individual is subordinate to the State"

[HoreTore]

Classic leftist. "Close off debate - enact by force else we run the risk of potentially legitimate/illegitimate dialogue - the individual is subordinate to the State"

I'm not going to debate holocaust denial. I'm not going to debate NWO conspiracies. I'm not going to debate homeopathy. I'm not going to debate anti-vaccination.

I will of course make fun of the loonies.

EDIT: This is, of course, in reference to their children, not the adults. The children should not have to suffer because their parents are idiots, that's a no-go. I can happily spread propaganda to convince the adults as well.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I'm not going to debate holocaust denial. I'm not going to debate NWO conspiracies. I'm not going to debate homeopathy. I'm not going to debate anti-vaccination.

I will of course make fun of the loonies.

Are you equating holocaust denial with people who prefer not to use vaccines or have things injected into their bodies as a matter of principle? Will you soon force people to eat gm foods because they are not proven to be more harmful than organics, but have the major advantage of not wasting as many land resources? THUS ORGANIC FOODS ARE HARMING THE GREATER GOOD.

It is preference. When nobody around you or that you have ever met contracts the measles, it might not be senseless to forego vaccination. Should we all be vaccinated against yellow fever?

[HopAlongBunny]

Another vote for mandatory.
At least until the age of 18, and any person engaged in public service and/or employed/residing in a public facility.
The herd is all :whip:

[ICantSpellDawg]

Another vote for mandatory.
At least until the age of 18, and any person engaged in public service and/or employed/residing in a public facility.
The herd is all :whip:

"I vote for others to not have a vote"
I'd say fine, but is it?

[HoreTore]

Are you equating holocaust denial with people who prefer not to use vaccines or have things injected into their bodies as a matter of principle? Will you soon force people to eat gm foods because they are not proven to be more harmful than organics, but have the major advantage of not wasting as many land resources? THUS ORGANIC FOODS ARE HARMING THE GREATER GOOD

It's not about their bodies. That's the point. They can make whatever decision they want to their own bodies. I will not have them make those decisions for others.

And yes, I am equating the validity of anti-vaccination arguments with the validity of holocaust denial arguments. The insanity level is the same.

The anti-GMO arguments are mostly the same, but fortunately the government doesn't pay much attention to them and GMO foods doesn't have a lot of restrictions. Organic foods are ridiculous, but on the same level as, say, driving a very fuel-inefficient car.

[ICantSpellDawg]

It's not about their bodies. That's the point. They can make whatever decision they want to their own bodies. I will not have them make those decisions for others.

And yes, I am equating the validity of anti-vaccination arguments with the validity of holocaust denial arguments. The insanity level is the same.

The anti-GMO arguments are mostly the same, but fortunately the government doesn't pay much attention to them and GMO foods doesn't have a lot of restrictions. Organic foods are ridiculous, but on the same level as, say, driving a very fuel-inefficient car.

We will see, people love the idea of compulsion lately. I'd rather lose on this issue than on gun control or something,

With enough caving in the idea of "force other people to do the things that we think are a good idea", my only hope is that one day, things that you like and think are a good idea are banned and the things that you hate compelled. That was a modern curse

[HoreTore]

We will see, people love the idea of compulsion lately. I'd rather lose on this issue than on gun control or something,

With enough caving in the idea of "force other people to do the things that we think are a good idea", my only hope is that one day, things that you like and think are a good idea are banned and the things that you hate compelled. That was a modern curse

Compulsion? I am not arguing in favour of compulsion. I am arguing in favour of not allowing people to decide over others. I can see that this is an issue you do not wish to engage with, but I'll try one last time:

Could you explain why a child should have no rights if given stupid parents? Why do you want to take away this individuals right to get vaccinated?

[Kadagar_AV]

I don't think the state should be able to order people to do stuff... That's a very slippery slope, and we know governments haven't exactly been 100% trustworthy historically speaking.

However, parents should be educated about vaccine.

What says that the state makes better decisions than parents, even stupid ones?

Say there came a vaccine with the unfortunate, and not predicted, side effect that you can't have children... Then it would be pretty good to have those Christian loons around, wouldn't it. To save the human race and all...

I'm not saying vaccines will lead to infertility, I am saying that the state should in no way be able to dictate what goes into your body, or your childrens bodies.

EDUCATION is the answer, not forceful measures.

But by all means, disallow unvaccinated kids to go to public schools, I have no problems with that. Heck, unvaccinated kids are probably those with christian loons as parents, and as teacher I am more than happy to not have to deal with them on a professional basis. :sweatdrop:

[Greyblades]

You know if a vaccine could hide symptoms of infertility from the exhaustive testing phases health systems conduct, which are specifically designed to detect such side effects, I think extinction would be inevitable regardless of abstainers. I say this only because the existence of such an insidious chemical would stand as proof that god is not only real but actively trying to kill us in the most inefficient yet ironic manner possible.

[Kadagar_AV]

You know if a vaccine could hide symptoms of infertility from the exhaustive testing phases each nations health systems conduct, that specifically designed to detect such side effects, I think extinction would be inevitable regardless of abstainers. I say this only because the existence of such an insidious chemical would stand as proof that god is both real and actively trying to kill us.

Hey, if God can create plenty of species just to lure us...

Anyway, vaccines don't get tested over, say, 10 years... Right? So a vaccine leading to infertility later on might go under the radar.

Or if it had a negative impact on... Whatever (brain functions)?

The state has done mistakes before, they will do it again, people are more than in their right to say NO to what the state wants them to do. You know, the state should serve the population, the population shouldnt serve the state and all that.

I take my vaccines, and I'd be glad to get rid of overly christian people at work... so for me it's a win-win.

It's about the principle, the state should never be able to force things on people.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Compulsion? I am not arguing in favour of compulsion. I am arguing in favour of not allowing people to decide over others. I can see that this is an issue you do not wish to engage with, but I'll try one last time:

Could you explain why a child should have no rights if given stupid parents? Why do you want to take away this individuals right to get vaccinated?

Not at all, if the child wished over the objections of the parents to inoculation then by all means. The law could absolutely say that, no qualms.

I understand what you are arguing, but I am arguing that the parents have right of refusal. You are saying that neither the parent or child has the choice, you are clearly arguing for compulsion.

[Kadagar_AV]

Let's be frank about where we are, as the human race.

We think spacecraft is strapping several tons of explosives on ones back, to jump to... The moon. That's what we know about the universe.

We think handling our bodys waste is done by using paper made of trees to smear up the worst of the... You know what.

We still have no answer to several life threatening or terminal diseases, and we only just now start to get a very vague grasp of what the human body and brain really is.


Should I in this era trust the state to enforce random things on me? Naaaaaah... They are elected by the majority... I find the average person extremely stupid, and let's remember that 50% are even more stupid than that.

I agree vaccinations should be opt-out, not opt-in, though.

I also believe the state should be able to dictate what goes for public schools, as it's what the majority wants.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Let's be frank about where we are, as the human race.

We think spacecraft is strapping several tons of explosives on ones back, to jump to... The moon. That's what we know about the universe.

We think handling our bodys waste is done by using paper made of trees to smear up the worst of the... You know what.

We still have no answer to several life threatening or terminal diseases, and we only just now start to get a very vague grasp of what the human body and brain really is.


Should I in this era trust the state to enforce random things on me? Naaaaaah... They are elected by the majority... I find the average person extremely stupid, and let's remember that 50% are even more stupid than that.

I agree vaccinations should be opt-out, not opt-in, though.

I also believe the state should be able to dictate what goes for public schools, as it's what the majority wants.

Good heavens, are you posting while sober?!? You're making reasonable sense and I agree.

[Kadagar_AV]

Good heavens, are you posting while sober?!? You're making reasonable sense and I agree.

I'm working on correcting it... :barrel:

[Montmorency]

I am a firm believer that people need to be protected from themselves sometimes.

Coercive paternalism is really the only legitimate political ideology out there.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Let's be frank about where we are, as the human race.

We think spacecraft is strapping several tons of explosives on ones back, to jump to... The moon. That's what we know about the universe.

We think handling our bodys waste is done by using paper made of trees to smear up the worst of the... You know what.

We still have no answer to several life threatening or terminal diseases, and we only just now start to get a very vague grasp of what the human body and brain really is.


Should I in this era trust the state to enforce random things on me? Naaaaaah... They are elected by the majority... I find the average person extremely stupid, and let's remember that 50% are even more stupid than that.

I agree vaccinations should be opt-out, not opt-in, though.

I also believe the state should be able to dictate what goes for public schools, as it's what the majority wants.

Kadagar is crushing it with the sense making lately.

[Montmorency]

"Enforce random things"? Like criminalization of murder?

[Kadagar_AV]

"Enforce random things"? Like criminalization of murder?

Oh come on... You know that that isn't what I mean, as well as you know that that's another issue completely. I think you will find more or less 100% support for criminalization of murder. No? Let's keep the debate in the sensible sphere, shall we?

[Montmorency]

I think you will find more or less 100% support for criminalization of murder.

And?


Let's keep the debate in the sensible sphere, shall we?

Wow.

[Kadagar_AV]

And?

Lemon.


Wow.

Lamp.


Why are we doing random words all of a sudden? Use your words...

[Kadagar_AV]

Think of it like this: Every unvaccinated person is potentially a breeding ground for diseases that otherwise would have been eradicated. Every preventable death from diseases like Measles, or Mumps, or Polio, or Whooping Cough, or whatever that could have been prevented by enforced vaccination is a death that supports equating it with murder, in the public health sense (though obviously not the legal sense. Obviously).

Hey, I have never said people can't make the WRONG choice.

I am saying that the wrong choice might be the right choice, in those weird instances when modern science and politicians simply are in the wrong. In the long run.

Let's allow those people to be around, for the better of humanity at large.

If we all were the same, a virus could easily wipe us out.

If some people go off the expected path, we as a race have a chance to survive.

I for one celebrate diversity, and I think diversity is the best way forward. Someone mentioned something along "the 10th view", if 9 people agree on something the tenth should do everything and anything to prove them wrong, and plan thereafter.

Government might be right in 99,99999999999 of the cases... But it only takes one mistake towards nature to **** us up completely. Pretty damn good in those situations to have people around with tin foil hats, or whatever.

And as we all know, nature is a pretty damn powerful force. I for one try not to mess around with it too much.

[Kadagar_AV]

Its not the un-vaccinated people that I worry about, its everyone else. One person with the wrong virus and no vaccinations, mixed with a fortuitous bit of viral evolution within our lone and un-vaccinated hero, could spark a pandemic (though highly unlikely). slightly more likely is the possibility that our lone anti-vaxxer spawns a slightly upgraded virus that kills or harms a few people, because their vaccinations are out of date--thanks to home-slice and his anti-vaxxing beliefs. This is why it is a public health issue: because its not protecting one person's right to be stupid, its protecting everyone else from that person's right to be stupid.

Well...

First of all I think we are both out on thin ice here... I am no medical expert.

But from what I have understood, nature has a way to bypass or go around whatever shields we put up.

I don't know about other countries, but Sweden try their best to not give anti-whatever stuff (unless REALLY needed)... Just because the more you give the more nature finds a way around it.

Until our scientists are more comfortable in battling viruses and bacteria and stuff, I would be hesitant to pick a fight with nature at large.

I think Swedens principle is right. If anyone can source why it wouldn't be though, I am eager to listen.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hey, I have never said people can't make the WRONG choice.

I am saying that the wrong choice might be the right choice, in those weird instances when modern science and politicians simply are in the wrong. In the long run.

Let's allow those people to be around, for the better of humanity at large.

If we all were the same, a virus could easily wipe us out.

If some people go off the expected path, we as a race have a chance to survive.

I for one celebrate diversity, and I think diversity is the best way forward. Someone mentioned something along "the 10th view", if 9 people agree on something the tenth should do everything and anything to prove them wrong, and plan thereafter.

Government might be right in 99,99999999999 of the cases... But it only takes one mistake towards nature to **** us up completely. Pretty damn good in those situations to have people around with tin foil hats, or whatever.

And as we all know, nature is a pretty damn powerful force. I for one try not to mess around with it too much.

Nobody asks for experimental medicine to be mandated. We ask for what is more or less settled science. The measles vaccine is pretty damn well understood by now. No it does not cause autism. No it won't kill you. No it won't leave you infertile. What might leave you infertile as an adult male is the actual disease (measles) itself.

Us all taking a vaccine means that specific (cocktail) of pathogen strains is dealt with. It means those viruses will not be doing the wiping out. It does not make us all the same, and the risk of a hypothetical new virus doing us in remains the same as it ever was. In fact, the risk of a virus in general wiping us all out is reduced by taking out the threat of those pathogens. That's the whole point of (mandatory) vaccination!

If some people go "off the expected path" in this case, some people now actually reintroduce the risk of that cocktail of viruses wiping us out. That is all they accomplish: to risk the lives of others. Now since we're not dealing with population wide epidemics or pandemics we can afford to be relaxed about this and say it's their own decision to expose themselves to disease and us to a lesser degree to that risk as well.

But why on earth that should be a carte blanche for parents to do the same to their children (or indeed, for anyone to do it to anyone else) still escapes me.

To round off a post full of misunderstanding you apply classic scope insensitivity: failure to multiply. If there is a chance of only 10^-11 that the decision for mandatory vaccination is catastrophic, then based on the total human population which ever will exist (estimated to be < 10^10) we should go with the 10^-11 chance of error over the demonstrably vastly more likely alternative which is already causing minor epidemics in a well funded, highly vaccinated population today (USA!) -- simply because the herd immunity is no longer as powerful as it once was.

In simple terms: the numbers don't add up to admit any kind of utilitarian argument for allowing parents not to get their children vaccinated. There is simply no fringe benefit to be had outweighing the primary benefits from vaccination on a national or global scale.

[Kadagar_AV]

Well you're right about being on thin ice. I don't know much about medical science beyond what you would consider common knowledge (like the differences between Viruses and Bacteria, and perhaps more importantly the differences between how one or the other becomes immune to what we're putting out there). There's surely merit to the idea that ignoring nature's ebbs and flows is a recipe for disaster, however what you're talking about is almost certainly anti-biotics, not vaccinations. Very different.

Good post :)

Bacteria of course don't act in the same way as viruses, and my previous point was directed towards the latter. Brain slip of mine, I attest.

Remember the thing I said about working on it :barrel:

However:

1. I heard you should treat bacteria with some respect regardless... Not because of immunity, but because work-arounds. It's on the same evolvement cycle as we are (but granted not on the scale of viruses). Did I get this wrong?

2. This has absolutely nothing to do with my main point, that we barely know what what we are doing around these key issues, and it would be unwise to put all eggs in one basket...

My points is "all eggs in one basket being unwise"... Do you think that perspective is wrong?

[Kadagar_AV]

Nobody asks for experimental medicine to be mandated. We ask for what is more or less settled science. The measles vaccine is pretty damn well understood by now. No it does not cause autism. No it won't kill you. No it won't leave you infertile. What might leave you infertile as an adult male is the actual disease (measles) itself.

Us all taking a vaccine means that specific (cocktail) of pathogen strains is dealt with. It means those viruses will not be doing the wiping out. It does not make us all the same, and the risk of a hypothetical new virus doing us in remains the same as it ever was. In fact, the risk of a virus in general wiping us all out is reduced by taking out the threat of those pathogens. That's the whole point of (mandatory) vaccination!

If some people go "off the expected path" in this case, some people now actually reintroduce the risk of that cocktail of viruses wiping us out. That is all they accomplish: to risk the lives of others. Now since we're not dealing with population wide epidemics or pandemics we can afford to be relaxed about this and say it's their own decision to expose themselves to disease and us to a lesser degree to that risk as well.

But why on earth that should be a carte blanche for parents to do the same to their children (or indeed, for anyone to do it to anyone else) still escapes me.

To round off a post full of misunderstanding you apply classic scope insensitivity: failure to multiply. If there is a chance of only 10^-11 that the decision for mandatory vaccination is catastrophic, then based on the total human population which ever will exist (estimated to be 10^10) we should go with the 10^-11 chance of error over the demonstrably vastly more likely alternative which is already causing minor epidemics in a well funded, highly vaccinated population today (USA!) -- simply because the herd immunity is no longer as powerful as it once was.

In simple terms: the numbers don't add up to admit any kind of utilitarian argument for allowing parents not to get their children vaccinated. There is simply no fringe benefit to be had outweighing the primary benefits from vaccination on a national or global scale.

Sorry mate, it's late and this isn't the answer your post deserved. I hope others can pick up the gauntlet, otherwise I'll try to find time tomorrow.

Regardless, in short:

1. Viruses have a tendency to come back and bite us. We should thread more carefully around that issue than "all eggs in one basket". Same reply as to GC.

2. Settled science isn't always as settled as you think.

3. (this is important) I take all vaccines and stuff, so don't make me out as being some loon...

My sole points is that we, as a human race, should never, ever, ever, ever think we master nature, and we should never bet everything on one set of cards.

Diversity is absolutely GRAND when it comes to survival as a species, if we speak about the picture at large.

Hope i have made myself more comprehensible now :)

[Kadagar_AV]

Vaccines, on the other hand, are totally different. Its not reactive care, its preventative care, and it relies on over-saturation. We need it for them to work. :shrug:

Yes, but every time we alter nature, nature has the chance to snap back, and often with a vengeance.

What closes one loophole might open up another.

My point is (yet again) that all eggs in one basket is just a very stupid way to make a race move forwards in an age when we have very little clue as to what we are actually doing.

[Kadagar_AV]

Sometimes you have no choice but to put all your eggs in one basket. While I appreciate your philosophical sentiment (its one I actually agree with), there's simply no alternative to good vaccination practices if you really want to wipe out the majority of diseases out there.

Well, that philosophical sentiment might, just might, be what saves us as a species.

I'm not saying it will, I am just asking if you are ready to bet that it wont?

Diversity is key for survival, it's just as simple as that.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Sorry mate, it's late and this isn't the answer your post deserved. I hope others can pick up the gauntlet, otherwise I'll try to find time tomorrow.

Regardless, in short:

1. Viruses have a tendency to come back and bite us. We should thread more carefully around that issue than "all eggs in one basket". Same reply as to GC.


First of all, I wrote the post in a to rebut not just your more narrow argument against 'settled science' but also to rebut the simple fact that it is a cogent argument at all in the context of the topic of this thread. That's also intended for the other proponents of allowing parents to decide for their children on vaccination. I see it as a mixture of simply being misinformed/clueless on the topic and also being irrelevant as demonstrated before and below. So, yeah, I took it point by point and tore it down somewhat viciously. I'm afraid there's more to follow below. Please don't read this as aimed solely at a fictitious lunatic you; if it's to be addressed to lunatics allow me to try and (perhaps unwisely) take on the full asylum:

Viruses that die out due to herd immunity will not come back as before. While they remain we're by and large immune, that's the definition of herd immunity. When they're gone, we're fully immune precisely because they're gone. Note, also, that the only way for them to 'bite' when you are vaccinated is to mutate into something that your vaccination does not help to protect you against. Note that in order to mutate, they need to infect successfully and make their offspring mutants need to make it out of the host 'alive'. Precisely what vaccination helps us to prevent by teaching our immune system some much needed self defence course against those viruses, and by extension their mutant offspring, too.

There is the potential of viruses being frozen and reawakened in, say, permafrost that melts. As long as we keep vaccinating, though, all that will do is merely move us back to the herd immunity stage and we'll have as good a chance as we do now. Vaccination therefore continues to remain a very good idea (tm).



2. Settled science isn't always as settled as you think. Indeed. Meanwhile the benefits of vaccination are clear, whereas the benefits of doing nothing... are not. So unless you have radical new information and facts that fundamentally alter the picture you are arguing the extremely unlikely. You need to demonstrate a correspondingly huge benefit, something big enough to outweigh both the costs of not vaccinating (i.e. the people who do die of measles, the victims of rubella during pregancy, and so on and so forth) and the benefits of vaccinating (though you may deduct the costs of vaccinating, of course). Settled science 'is not' does not make a cogent argument in the context of the thread. You need to demonstrate far more than that for the position that people should be allowed to opt someone else out of the demonstrably beneficent vaccine programme.



3. (this is important) I take all vaccines and stuff, so don't make me out as being some loon...
I don't make you out as anything. If you feel ridiculed by a sharp, on point answer to your posts I respectfully suggest that the ridicule is in being associated with the answered posts.

In any case, I invite you not to continue to defend an untenable position which so far only defies logic, nature, facts, reason and math. Don't try to make a fallacious argument about some off chance Hollywood scenario about a heroic individual who doesn't get vaccinated as that also defies logic, nature, facts, reason and math like Hollywood scenario's tend to do. No, if you really want to argue why parents should be allowed to decide this for their children, please address the question: why should they?



My sole points is that we, as a human race, should never, ever, ever, ever think we master nature, and we should never bet everything on one set of cards.

Diversity is absolutely GRAND when it comes to survival as a species, if we speak about the picture at large.

Hope i have made myself more comprehensible now :)

You keep repeating something about eggs in one basket. I don't think that means what you think it means, or perhaps you simply do not understand the context. Allow me:

Here's what not vaccinating is: it's putting all of our eggs (all of us) in the basket of "we know these diseases exist, we know what they do to us, let's do nothing: what could possibly go wrong?" That is a hand me down basket which is so battered and broken by now that even risking one egg to it is simply stupid. That was already apparent in 10th century China if Wikipedia's history on inoculation is to be believed. Risking an egg that isn't you, is therefore also clearly wrong in my opinion.

By contrast to not vaccinating, here's what vaccinating is: let's give us all improvement in our chances of surviving free from X diseases, by eliminating X vectors (strains) through X vaccines. That's not one basket. That's as many baskets as there are strains in all the vaccines combined. As you seem to intuitively understand with eggs, that is still the sensible thing to do with humans.

Given the way herd immunity works, the choice not to vaccinate cannot be admitted as simply one more albeit a very bad egg basket among the many vaccinated ones. In a way, one is rotting away as we speak and this rot is already starting to affect the other baskets (see: outbreaks of measles in the USA).

Again, let's side step the arguments of utility since it's not really a debate in which you can constructively argue against mandatory vaccination. Unless you happen to have radical new information and facts which completely alters the picture; which I'm inferring you do not based on your misconception of viruses that 'come back' to 'bite' but only if we vaccinate.

Please simply address the question: why should someone's personal mistaken beliefs about vaccination allow them to decided for others that they must not be vaccinated, given the abundantly clear argument for vaccination and the lack of serious arguments against? Why should that person be allowed to endanger not only others by his own inaction, but also endanger others by preventing someone else not to be vaccinated?

I'm genuinely curious. Thus far, I've seen exactly zero arguments which do address that most basic question. I've seen a lot of grandstanding about freedom of choice, but nothing with any meat to it that actually makes the case for parents deciding for their children in this manner. I've already provided ample examples of similar decisions which we take out of the hands of parents as a matter of course, so do please explain to me why we would not this in the case of vaccination. The best way to make a proper argument, I think would be to formulate a coherent response to those questions.

[Ironside]

1. Viruses have a tendency to come back and bite us. We should thread more carefully around that issue than "all eggs in one basket". Same reply as to GC.

Herd immunity actually reduces the risk for a virus to mutate enough to "bypass" a vaccine (basically it would make it less effective). Think of everyone having the disease as a mutation chamber. The less people having it, the less trials made. The vaccine itself does not make a trial, since it's not the full disease.

Antibiotics works that everytime it's used, you have a resistance trial.


2. Settled science isn't always as settled as you think.

For the old vaccines? They're very much thoroughly tested. And it's those we talk about here. It'll be those and possibly the extreme cases that would end up manditory.

Newer ones might have. I'm sure you know about the narcolepsy incident. For those who don't, one of the boosters in the swine flu vaccine (not the vaccine itself) increased the risk of getting narcolepsy in children about 20 times (going from extemely rare to very rare). The flu vaccine has a certain production procedure, so any severe cases of side effect won't happen.

The extreme cases are if something like the bubonic plague version super 3.0 shows up. 90+% lethality, expected to infect 10-50+% of the total population. That's kind of an all bets are off situation and any vaccine could probably have lethal side effects and still be accepted. But that's a doomed if you do and doomed if you don't scenario.

[Papewaio]

Your body makes a random set of antibodies and with each exposure it makes (attempts to make) a set of antibodies to fight off the current disease and keeps these in the armory for future events. Identical twins immune systems are not identical due to the essentially random creation and exposure of antibodies.

Vaccinations give your body a preview of the disease and hence your body produces the antibodies and has access to them to fight off the disease in the future. It doesn't reduce the other antibodies in your body or the ability of your body to make new ones. It just adds a template to fight disease version 1.0

Those of us who do not get a vaccination might already be immune or we get infected with diesese v1.0 and get ill and suffer the short or long term consequences. Each diseased person has a chance for the disease to mutate into another version. If the version mutates enough it will not be countered by the antibodies for disease v1.0. The new disease v2.0 will then infect everyone who doesn't happen to have a natural immunity.

So by reducing the number of potential disease v1.0 victims you not only benefit the individual you also benefit the group. Enough vaccinated individuals form a moat of protection for the unvaccinated greatly reducing their chance of getting the disease in the first place as all the vectors get removed.

So vaccination of disease 1.0 does not decrease human immune system nor our ability to combat future diseases.

The more that get vaccinated the more effective it is. If it reaches 100% it might even be wiped out. Vaccinations also make it safer for the non-vaccinated. On the flip side unvaccinated people make life more dangerous for everyone from children too young to vaccinate (immediate danger) to the long term health of everyone (vaccinated or not) due to disease mutation.

[Fisherking]

I see this as one of those left/right hypocrite issues.

This is the abortion issue in reverse.

Are people free to control their bodies and make decisions for their families or are they subjects of the government to be dictated to and controlled for their own good (the good of the government).

The benefit doesn’t matter. It is simply an either or proposition. Free or subject.

Who would decide differently on those grounds?

[Papewaio]

I see this as one of those left/right hypocrite issues.

This is the abortion issue in reverse.

Are people free to control their bodies and make decisions for their families or are they subjects of the government to be dictated to and controlled for their own good (the good of the government).

The benefit doesn’t matter. It is simply an either or proposition. Free or subject.

Who would decide differently on those grounds?

Not equivalent bordering on a straw man argument in its fallacy.

Not vaccinating has closer merits with some lazy twat deciding to post natal abort someone else using Russian roulette.

[Fisherking]

Not equivalent bordering on a straw man argument in its fallacy.

Not vaccinating has closer merits with some lazy twat deciding to post natal abort someone else using Russian roulette.

Please do explain the fallacy.

It is either people have the right to be as stupid as they like or the government has the right to tell you what to do with your body.

Sometimes is something that never works.

The right of society to exclude you for that stupidity is valid. Your choice. But the right to compel you to put or not put substances into your body is far more intrusive.

[Papewaio]

Please do explain the fallacy.

It is either people have the right to be as stupid as they like or the government has the right to tell you what to do with your body.

Sometimes is something that never works.

The right of society to exclude you for that stupidity is valid. Your choice. But the right to compel you to put or not put substances into your body is far more intrusive.

There is a difference between choosing self harm and harming others.

Not vaccinating is in the same vein as shouting fire in a theatre. It's action can cause harm and death to innocents around you.

Young children cannot get vaccinated against whooping cough. Adults can. But if an unvaccinated adult gets whooping cough they can infect the child. Whilst in an adult whooping cough is annoying and nasty, in a child it can cause death.

So this is about other people choosing detrimental outcomes to you. It is about other people impacting on the health and safety of others.

Unvaccinated people are no different to people screaming fire in a theatre, or speeding vastly above the speed limit, or doing other dangerous activities that impact more then just themselves. In most instances these activities if done result in custodial sentences. Not immunizing is treated pretty lightly considering the harm it does to society.

[Fisherking]

There is a difference between choosing self harm and harming others.

Not vaccinating is in the same vein as shouting fire in a theatre. It's action can cause harm and death to innocents around you.

Young children cannot get vaccinated against whooping cough. Adults can. But if an unvaccinated adult gets whooping cough they can infect the child. Whilst in an adult whooping cough is annoying and nasty, in a child it can cause death.

So this is about other people choosing detrimental outcomes to you. It is about other people impacting on the health and safety of others.

Unvaccinated people are no different to people screaming fire in a theatre, or speeding vastly above the speed limit, or doing other dangerous activities that impact more then just themselves. In most instances these activities if done result in custodial sentences. Not immunizing is treated pretty lightly considering the harm it does to society.

Yours is the fallacy.

You are rationalizing a position for government intervention into the most private area of human existence. Your own body and what you can do with it.

If the government has a right to tell you what you can put into it for any reason then you are property of the government.

If they cannot then there is some degree of individual freedoms the government cannot take from you.

Which is it?

[Fisherking]

Its not that hard a concept. By choosing to take a moral stand on vaccination, you actually endanger people. That's not in dispute, is it?

No, there is risk. But it goes beyond that single risk.

It is not vaccination or any other single issue.

A right is something the government cannot take from you under any conditions what so ever.

It is not subject to the will of the government or the wellbeing of others.

Personal ownership is the foundation of all other rights. If you give up that right you have de facto given up all the others.

You can’t simply have a right sometimes and sometimes not.

[Fisherking]

This may seem like a simple no brain issue of the wellbeing of others vs. the will of a few malcontents but it is the foundation of all rights and liberties.

It is the ultimate in the battle of security vs. liberty.

Understanding that is the most important part of deciding the issue. Vaccines reduce the risk of contracting an illness but do not always work. You gain some measure of security from them but you have given up your most basic and personal right to get that security.

Is it truly worth it?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Don't we already violate that right with prohibition of any drug? The government literally tells us what we can and can't do with our body all the time, and I don't think anyone will lament the fact that the government controls us in that that we are not allowed to inject heroin into our bodies if we so choose.

[Fisherking]

Don't we already violate that right with prohibition of any drug? The government literally tells us what we can and can't do with our body all the time, and I don't think anyone will lament the fact that the government controls us in that that we are not allowed to inject heroin into our bodies if we so choose.

Yep, same thing in a way. But the government controls the substance which is not the same. Now testing an individual for having used those drugs does infringe on that personal right. So it does have an impact.

[HoreTore]

Blinded by ideology.

This is like the stand against those evil seatbelt laws.

[Fisherking]

Blinded by ideology.

This is like the stand against those evil seatbelt laws.

Either you believe people have right or that you just have the privileges government grants you.

I know you are on the side of privilege. You are always ready to tell others what to think and how to act. You are authoritarian and don’t cover it much.

This is just for people who think that others have rights or liberties and don’t think others have the right to tell them how to live.

[Greyblades]

Good god, at this point I wouldnt be surprised if it turns out fisherking is in reality sean hannity.

[Fisherking]

Good god, at this point I wouldnt be surprised if it turns out fisherking is in reality sean hannity.


LOL

Not a chance. This is just basic political philosophy.

Should people have recognized rights the government can’t effect or should they just be managed for the wellbeing of the state.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I swear, its almost as if compulsion is the preference of a few on this board. It seems to me they lurk in waiting for issues which could be compelled on others. "Do you have a solution that could make large positive gains? If it isn't though compulsion, we don't want to hear it." It is super creepy.

[Greyblades]

I swear, its almost as if compulsion is the preference of a few on this board. It seems to me they lurk in waiting for issues which could be compelled on others. "Do you have a solution that could make large positive gains? If it isn't though compulsion, we don't want to hear it." It is super creepy.

But of course, the nature of the solutions we discuss on these forums is that they require universal and absolute cooperation, or they would fail and as the GOP have proven at every turn: if there wasnt compulsion through government action or otherwise there is a large percentage of people who refuse or actively fight against taking any action that would make large positive gains.

It doesnt help that most of the time the most vocal reasons that people refuse for are either ignorance or flimsy covers for petty or irrational concerns.

Also I would like to point out that you almost never present a solution that could make large positive gains without compulsion, merely naiive platitudes and assertations that people will allways work for thier best interests and dont need compulsion which is wrong, as has been repeatedly shown throughout history.

[ICantSpellDawg]

But of course, the nature of the solutions we discuss on these forums is that they require universal and absolute cooperation, or they would fail and as the GOP have proven at every turn: if there wasnt compulsion through government action or otherwise there is a large percentage of people who refuse or actively fight against taking any action that would make large positive gains.

It doesnt help that most of the time the most vocal reasons that people refuse for are either ignorance or flimsy covers for petty or irrational concerns.

Also I would like to point out that you almost never present a solution that could make large positive gains without compulsion, merely naiive platitudes and assertations that people will allways work for thier best interests and dont need compulsion which is wrong, as has been repeatedly shown throughout history.

I've accepted the idea of steering action through opt-out methods. Also, if a child wants the vaccination that is strongly recommended over the objections of the parents, then this should take preference over parental objection. There are ways of directing that are not through compulsion and those should always be preferable.

[Sir Moody]

honestly I worry about you two...

This isnt a Personal Freedom issue - its a decision that literally effects the Health of ALL humans.

If you are unvaccinated you are a potential epidemic waiting to happen - it affects EVERYONE you come into contact with - and anyone THEY come into contact with.

Where does Personal Freedom end? When the decision you make affects more than just you.

Just look at the History books - some of the Worlds biggest killers have been stopped in their tracks by Vaccination campaigns - do you really want us to return to a past where Measles killed millions a year? (it still kills around 100,000 a year right now...)

[Greyblades]

I've accepted the idea of steering action through opt-out methods. As has been shown time and again, there are enough people in the world who would opt out, regardless of it being in thier interest, that they would provide a large enough breeding ground for the otherwise extinct diseases to produce a mutation that would make entire vaccination efforts moot.


Also, if a child wants the vaccination that is strongly recommended over the objections of the parents, then this should take preference over parental objection. This relies on the child's desires. Children are universally deemed incapable of making informed decisions about sexual conduct. I see no reason to think that children should be able to make the same informed decision about vaccinations that children are incapable of making about sex.

Besides, children gain most of thier viewpoints by imitating the parents, even if we believe that a child was capable of making an unbiased choice about it; the parents influence would undeniably make them less likely to agree to vaccinations.


There are ways of directing that are not through compulsion and those should always be preferable.
Name one, in this issue for instance, that wont be screwed by 5-10% or so of the population refusing to cooperate.

[HopAlongBunny]

The mind boggles.
That rights are privileges should be clear from the bizarre enactment of the Patriot Act and the existence of the NSA; hugely expensive (and restrictive) programs that infringe on rights in all sorts of ways, largely to protect against the fantasy of Armageddon.
Vaccination is a reasonable infringement to provide real protection from a real threat.
That "It hasn't happened in my lifetime..." is testament to just how well it has worked, and is a further argument for mandatory vaccination.

[Fisherking]

It is important to ask your self, what is the role of government and where does the individual fit into it.

Is the individual a policy instrument compelled to follow government wishes and execute its wishes or is the role of government to provide the necessary security so individuals can lead their lives without too much hindrance to safety?

It is a nice situation when it is your wish for security being taken care of but what if it is you being compelled?

Can you see no situation where the best plan is to take the risk and not leave it to government power to compel?

How real is the threat? How do you know the answer? Because government tells you so! You are afraid of the risk. Because you are told you are at risk. And how strong is the protection against that risk?

Of course none of you would ever think of questioning the findings or verifying any of it. Too much trouble. Questing authority only leads to nasty difficulties. You were taught that in government schools weren’t you.

Might the real reason be hind it all be that the politicians involved are deeply invested in pharmaceuticals?


:laugh4:

[Sir Moody]

how real is the threat?

We had a Measles epidemic in Wales last year - it is a real threat.

[Fisherking]

Right! And no one was vaccinated? We have had those vaccines since I was a kid. All my kids were required by law to have them to attend school also. I had all of them. Sure worked great.

Every year with everyone vaccinated there was a measles outbreak. Two of the three had measles, all three had rubella more than once, two had chickenpox. Two had mumps. None of them died, nor any classmates etc. I think it is a good idea for women who want to get pregnant to have those vaccines but I do question the effectiveness of them. None had small pox which has now been discontinued. We won’t go to flue vaccines that are a crap shoot from the start. But it is oh so important for government to take a role in keeping us safe. After all it is for the children.

Meantime, government has the power to compel your compliance just because they say so. It doesn’t matter if it works or if there is a benefit to it.

Do you really think they should?

[Sir Moody]

The Epidemic happened because there was a significant section of the population who were NOT immunised (which is why there was a rush on immunising with queues a mile long...)

Outbreaks will still happen (immunisation provides a resistance not immunity) however in a properly immunised community an outbreak will be tightly contained and should not become an Epidemic.

[Pannonian]

It is important to ask your self, what is the role of government and where does the individual fit into it.

Is the individual a policy instrument compelled to follow government wishes and execute its wishes or is the role of government to provide the necessary security so individuals can lead their lives without too much hindrance to safety?

It is a nice situation when it is your wish for security being taken care of but what if it is you being compelled?

Can you see no situation where the best plan is to take the risk and not leave it to government power to compel?

How real is the threat? How do you know the answer? Because government tells you so! You are afraid of the risk. Because you are told you are at risk. And how strong is the protection against that risk?

Of course none of you would ever think of questioning the findings or verifying any of it. Too much trouble. Questing authority only leads to nasty difficulties. You were taught that in government schools weren’t you.

Might the real reason be hind it all be that the politicians involved are deeply invested in pharmaceuticals?


:laugh4:

In the most notable case where it was wrong to compel compliance with a pharmaceutical standard, it turned out that the individual holding out against said standard was actually doing her job according to the industry standard, and that it was the pharmaceutical company who were cutting corners in the cause of making money. The scientists were right and the capitalists were wrong, in other words. And similarly in every other case I know of where there has been a general consensus among the scientific community.

[Fisherking]

The Epidemic happened because there was a significant section of the population who were NOT immunised (which is why there was a rush on immunising with queues a mile long...)

Outbreaks will still happen (immunisation provides a resistance not immunity) however in a properly immunised community an outbreak will be tightly contained and should not become an Epidemic.

I see. So you place security above all human rights. Beyond this point there is no argument for liberty. Personal ownership is a myth and all are subject to the government will. Humans are just like any other farm animal.

[Fisherking]

In the most notable case where it was wrong to compel compliance with a pharmaceutical standard, it turned out that the individual holding out against said standard was actually doing her job according to the industry standard, and that it was the pharmaceutical company who were cutting corners in the cause of making money. The scientists were right and the capitalists were wrong, in other words. And similarly in every other case I know of where there has been a general consensus among the scientific community.

It is not a scientific argument. It is a philosophical argument. Personal ownership is the foundation of all human rights and liberties.

[Sir Moody]

I see. So you place security above all human rights. Beyond this point there is no argument for liberty. Personal ownership is a myth and all are subject to the government will. Humans are just like any other farm animal.

I put Community safety over individual rights - that most definitely isnt ALL human rights.

If someone is doing something which endangers others then yes I expect the Government who we give power to help regulate and protect the community to step in and stop them.

If they are only endangering themselves then fine - they can do what they want...

[Fisherking]

I put Community safety over individual rights - that most definitely isnt ALL human rights.

If someone is doing something which endangers others then yes I expect the Government who we give power to help regulate and protect the community to step in and stop them.

If they are only endangering themselves then fine - they can do what they want...

Well, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that doesn’t fly. Check article 3.

Besides there are no collective rights. If individuals have no rights or are trumped by the group, then no one has any rights. They are also not a danger. They only present a risk. A possibility that they may fall ill and if not contained in some manner might effect others or pose some greater risk.

Your thoughts go with the Benthamite notion of utilitarianism. That is a concept but is not codified in law.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I swear, its almost as if compulsion is the preference of a few on this board. It seems to me they lurk in waiting for issues which could be compelled on others. "Do you have a solution that could make large positive gains? If it isn't though compulsion, we don't want to hear it." It is super creepy.

Meh. Not vaccinating yourself is stupid, endangering others and so on and so forth but we are by and large still agreed it's your choice to be stupid, irresponsible and we'll overlook how you are endangering others in the process.

That is not really at issue. The 'red' line is where it concerns bodies that are not your own.

Thus far you lot are continuing blithely with the freedom grandstanding but still avoid answering my simple question: why should you be free to decide against vaccinating your children, or anyone else, too?

[Fisherking]

Meh. Not vaccinating yourself is stupid, endangering others and so on and so forth but we are by and large still agreed it's your choice to be stupid, irresponsible and we'll overlook how you are endangering others in the process.

That is not really at issue. The 'red' line is where it concerns bodies that are not your own.

Thus far you lot are continuing blithely with the freedom grandstanding but still avoid answering my simple question: why should you be free to decide against vaccinating your children, or anyone else, too?

The concept in parental rights have the same root as individual right. Children are the property of the parent until they reach the age of majority, to care for and to keep safe.

The concept at issue is if they are under the care of the parents or at the direction of the state.

It is still a question of fundamental human rights.

[drone]

Maybe set aside a school in the district for kids not vaccinated by choice. If they don't want to contribute to the herd immunity, they shouldn't benefit from it as well.

[HoreTore]

Well, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that doesn’t fly. Check article 3.

lolwut?

You should take a human rights course. Mandatory vaccination against article 3? That's an argument from loonieland.

Instead, you should check out article 25a, and remember that children are counted as humans.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Children are the property of the parent until they reach the age of majority, to care for and to keep safe.

Two issues: children are not property, and what if either care or safe keeping is lacking? See this earlier post of mine in the thread:


Why not? We do so routinely for non-life threatening situations, nobody starts wringing hands about the freedom to make a dishonest choice which the child will be the victim of. Child labour is banned. Minimum education is mandatory. Children may be taken away and placed into care if abuse is discovered.

We do that precisely to limit the damage that may be wrought by irresponsible, incompetent or uncaring parents.

We go on to do much the same to competent adults.

What in particular makes the decision to deny your children vaccination fundamentally different from the decision to rent them out as cheap labour? Or to deny them their education?

From a strict individual's property rights point of view, both cases are quite equivalent: your property, your decision to make. Except, of course that we don't accept your decision in some cases and take matters out of your hands (child labour). Why then, should we not do the same with vaccination given what we know namely that to deny vaccination is tantamount to abusing your positing as a parent and failing in your duty of care?

[Fisherking]

Two issues: children are not property, and what if either care or safe keeping is lacking? See this earlier post of mine in the thread:



What in particular makes the decision to deny your children vaccination fundamentally different from the decision to rent them out as cheap labour? Or to deny them their education?

From a strict individual's property rights point of view, both cases are quite equivalent: your property, your decision to make. Except, of course that we don't accept your decision in some cases and take matters out of your hands (child labour). Why then, should we not do the same with vaccination given what we know namely that to deny vaccination is tantamount to abusing your positing as a parent and failing in your duty of care?

Ownership is just the terminology. Like self ownership. You cannot sell your self or your children into slavery any more but it is still deemed as ownership. It is just a part of parental rights.

Rights are very incontinent things. They don’t allow us to tell others how they should behave or to see the sense of our arguments. We either trust people to do what they believe is best or we remove rights and make it a function of the state.

The state will never object to your surrendering your rights unless they accrue some financial obligation in the transaction. They are most happy to tell you what to do with your self and your children, just not pay for the undesired outcome.

[Fisherking]

lolwut?

You should take a human rights course. Mandatory vaccination against article 3? That's an argument from loonieland.

Instead, you should check out article 25a, and remember that children are counted as humans.

Sorry I missed your post. Personal ownership. An individual's right to them self.

[HoreTore]

Sorry I missed your post. Personal ownership. An individual's right to them self.

Article 3 does not prohibit mandatory vaccination.

Instead, article 25 is in favour of it.

[Fisherking]

Article 3 does not prohibit mandatory vaccination.

Instead, article 25 is in favour of it.



Articles 1 and 2 also represent the same principal. Either a person is entitled to personal control over their body and the bodies of any dependant children or they are not free. They have no rights at all.

It denies that humans are born free or endowed with reason. Article 25 says they have the right to the service, it doesn’t compel them to take advantage of it. They have the liberty to make that decision themselves.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Ownership is just the terminology.

Property simply means that what may be bought and sold and what may be exploited for your own benefit. I'm fully aware there are degrees of ownership, for example the difference between cattle and spanners. Cattle imply a duty of care towards them (indeed, failure to do so means they may be taken away from you), spanners can be left to rust away without a second thought.

However, property rights don't apply to human beings in your care not even if they are your children because humans are not property.

The way you phrase it, it seems you are trying to build an argument from notions of property rights that were widely considered abhorrent even in the 18th century!

Could you please explain yourself more fully, taking the time to actually engage with my question? Could you explain why the state mandating vaccination of children would be wrong (again, given what we know about the consequences of not vaccinating) whereas it's completely fine for it to ban child labour or mandate minimum education?

I simply fail to see the appeal of a 'pure' rights argument on this issue, given the world we live in. I think it is wholly divorced from reality, and harkens back to outmoded views of rights which if anything were very much a minority view and never established and enshrined in the way you seem to imagine they were.

[Xiahou]

An HPV vaccine is a bad example, imo. Kids aren't supposed to be having sex in school- so you don't need to mandate that particularly vaccine for school attendance. I believe the OP said something about the government protecting people from themselves- that's not it at all. It's protecting us from them.

I support their right to be stupid and think vaccines cause autism or whatever. But, the health and well-being of my children depends on their getting their children vaccinated against certain contagious diseases before coming to school. (see Herd Immunity) If they were only putting themselves at risk, I'd have no issue with it. But the more people who don't get vaccinated, the greater the risk to us who do get vaccinated.

Therefore yes, certain vaccines need to be compulsory for school attendance. :yes:

[Don Corleone]

It doesn't stop with immunization. If what you're arguing is that if the state has the right to control behavior whenever individual choice introduces risk on a larger scale, you've opened a really nasty can of worms.

Using the very justifications for forced immunization introduced in this thread (and mind you, my kids are immunized) shouldn't we ban alcohol and tobacco? Other people are injured by drunk drivers, and other people do get impacted by second hand smoke.

[Pannonian]

It doesn't stop with immunization. If what you're arguing is that if the state has the right to control behavior whenever individual choice introduces risk on a larger scale, you've opened a really nasty can of worms.

Using the very justifications for forced immunization introduced in this thread (and mind you, my kids are immunized) shouldn't we ban alcohol and tobacco? Other people are injured by drunk drivers, and other people do get impacted by second hand smoke.

Drink driving is one of the bigger no-nos among drivers here, with designated drivers on nights out (who refrains from alcohol for the night) and smoking has to be done in the open. Alcohol and tobacco has also been a politically risk-free source of added tax revenue with every budget.

[Greyblades]

It doesn't stop with immunization. If what you're arguing is that if the state has the right to control behavior whenever individual choice introduces risk on a larger scale, you've opened a really nasty can of worms.

Using the very justifications for forced immunization introduced in this thread (and mind you, my kids are immunized) shouldn't we ban alcohol and tobacco? Other people are injured by drunk drivers, and other people do get impacted by second hand smoke.

Sometimes I wonder why americans keep using the slippery slope argument in these cases considering that can of worms has been open since the patriot act. Even the liberals dont want to put the lid back on pandora's box. Seems like you might as well make the most of it.

[Don Corleone]

Sure, it's a big no-no here as well. It's very expensive and you can lose your driving priveleges for substantial periods of time. Yet drink-driving accidents and fatalities happen all the time (significantly more than firearms fatalities/injuries).

My point wasn't any particular risky behavior, more to show how broad the issue can grow pretty quickly. "State having a vested interest" gets into a LOT of rights-trampling before you can say "Kelo v. New London" (http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/property/property-law-keyed-to-dukeminier/eminent-domain-and-the-problem-of-regulatory-takings/kelo-v-city-of-new-london/).

Interesting side note: The corporate interest that asked the local government to seize and demolish the housing through emminent domain changed their mind and de-invested in the area. The area is now an abandoned rat's nest littered with construction debris. I raise this point to make the case that Government most certainly does NOT always know what's best.

[Don Corleone]

I honestly dont understand why americans keeps using the slippery slope argument in this case considering that can of worms has been open since the patriot act. Even the liberals dont want to put the lid back on pandora's box, so you might as well make the most of it.

Cynic of the century award goes to.....

That's your position? Because of the Patriot Act we should just go ahead and cede all our liberties? Let me guess, you work for an MP, doncha? :yes:

[Greyblades]

Cynic of the century award goes to.....

That's your position? Because of the Patriot Act we should just go ahead and cede all our liberties? Let me guess, you work for an MP, doncha? :yes:

No, I'm saying because of the patriot act you allready have ceded your liberties and as a nation you havent actually done a damn thing about it beyond moaning on message boards and comment sections. Frankly, if it means so little to you I wish you would stop bitching alltogether and save us all the pain of hearing your hollow "liberty" spiel.

[Don Corleone]

I wasn't really bitching, more concerned about government overreach. I appear to have touched a nerve and if I came off as snarky, I apologize

[Strike For The South]

I'm not saying what you may or may not do, I'll cede that point even if I think think argument is bogus considering the American government has been telling us what we can and can not do since 1789

I'm merely saying you shouldn't be allowed in public school

[Greyblades]

I wasn't really bitching, more concerned about government overreach. I appear to have touched a nerve and if I came off as snarky, I apologize

*sigh* Apology accepted and I apologize if it came off as personal, but I am just so sick of hearing "we must uphold ther personal liberities" from the same people who upon seeing thier liberties recided only shrug and keep obliviously preaching.

[a completely inoffensive name]

You people are such wannabe demagogues, except for Gelatinous Cube. Rights have never been 100% absolute and have always had their restrictions as long as the reason is deemed reasonable. Vaccines are not abortion which is not appropriation of private property which is not the Patriot Act.

This is not rocket science. The Patriot Act is a law, not a Commandment handed down from God. It will have its time and eventually will be repealed when the climate is different. It's almost as if the idea that society has a fluid and ever changing standard of what is "reasonable and necessary" is alien to you people.

Vaccines are backed up by solid science and good results. That's more than you can say about the Patriot Act even on the best of days, so why are people acting as if mandatory vaccines are just the natural conclusion of a society broken upon the intrusions of national security laws?

I love having these discussions guys, I really do, but it gets very tiring when even Donald Sterling becomes the subject of the ultimate battle between left and right, between liberty and statism, freedom and tyranny.

EDIT: By the way, nice to see Don back in here.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Perhaps the "clear and present danger" concept used in limitation of free speech could serve as a benchmark.

Our default -- at least here in the USA under our Constitution -- must be in favor of individual choice.

If you choose to avoid vaccination, government should not be allowed to force you to comply unless it clearly presents a danger to the public at large, but (with the consent of its voters) should be able to impose reasonable limitations for health and safety, public education, food preparation, and the like. The basic concepts of public health codes in restaurants etc. is what is being applied here. If you choose to dine at a private home, or a private "supper club" you take your chances with the health practices of those preparing the food etc. Public licensure is made available to organizations who agree to abide by government standards for sanitary arrangements etc.

Only when someone knowingly continues to threaten public health or well-being should drastic measures be taken on behalf of the polity. Example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary)

[Strike For The South]

Our default -- at least here in the USA under our Constitution -- must be in favor of individual choice.


An empty, meaningless phrase used to conjure a boogeyman and prod the votes.

disgusting.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I put Community safety over individual rights .

Then you are a fool who deserves the government that you will get.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

An empty, meaningless phrase used to conjure a boogeyman and prod the votes.

disgusting.

And NOT, by me, designed to be snipped out and used as some kind of stand-alone sound bite, sir. Are you stooping to journalism now?

[ICantSpellDawg]

Thus far you lot are continuing blithely with the freedom grandstanding but still avoid answering my simple question: why should you be free to decide against vaccinating your children, or anyone else, too?

Why should you be free from what chemicals the government demands that you inject into your body due to the endless and insatiable fears of others.... Hmm, let me think about that for a while and get back to you.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Drink driving is one of the bigger no-nos among drivers here, with designated drivers on nights out (who refrains from alcohol for the night) and smoking has to be done in the open. Alcohol and tobacco has also been a politically risk-free source of added tax revenue with every budget.

Drunk driving is a great example of reasonable curtailments of liberty. The requirement that you find other means of transportation if you decide to drink instead of driving under your own power.

It is very different from saying that you must be injected with a growing list of chemicals at our discretion, period. Unless you can pay 10k per year to opt out by going to parochial school, or quit your job to homeschooling.

[Greyblades]

Edit: you know what, the pot doesnt need more stirring from me, comment retracted.

[Montmorency]

Nice to see that Dawg thinks children should be counted the extensions of their parents bodies, yet fervently denies the righteousness of paternalism by the state...

[ICantSpellDawg]

I'm not saying what you may or may not do, I'll cede that point even if I think think argument is bogus considering the American government has been telling us what we can and can not do since 1789

I'm merely saying you shouldn't be allowed in public school

You are not "merely saying" that. The overwhelming majority do not have anywhere near the means to make that choice. You are requiring that everyone but the rich and well off be forced to be injected with chemicals at the whim of majority dictate.

Not driving your vehicle while loaded and being required to either stay home, get a ride, take public transport, etc present a very different and low/no cost set of options.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I will admit, if it came to a vote, I would not vote for mandatory injections. But seriously, if you don't vaccinate, I would want you as far away from my kids as possible.

[Montmorency]

present a very different and low/no cost set of options.

stay home, get a ride, take public transport, etc

What rubbish.

[a completely inoffensive name]

You are not "merely saying" that. The overwhelming majority do not have anywhere near the means to make that choice. You are requiring that everyone but the rich and well off be forced to be injected with chemicals at the whim of majority dictate.

Not driving your vehicle while loaded and being required to either stay home, get a ride, take public transport, etc present a very different and low/no cost set of options.


"Chemicals" is a loaded word. Just admit that your position is untenable unless on some level you think the government is going to do some bait and switch on a scale that makes 9/11 "chem trails" look easy.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Nice to see that Dawg thinks children should be counted the extensions of their parents bodies, yet fervently denies the righteousness of paternalism by the state...

I've already ceded the point that children's voices over their parents objections when in the interest of the state should be the deciding factor. This is important in rebuking your assertion that I believe that a ward is an extension of self.

[Strike For The South]

And NOT, by me, designed to be snipped out and used as some kind of stand-alone sound bite, sir. Are you stooping to journalism now?

Good sir Ill have you know I dove way below journalism and hit rock bottom as a law intern. I have yet to begun to defile myself.

Vaccines are safer than mothers milk for 99,99% of the population and are tens of dollars even in our broken system. It makes me seethe to know that the ones who will pay for this are only children. Measles, mumps and, rubella kill children, they kill children in brutal ways.

We should not have our judgement clouded by the same idea that's used to jack me up for memorial day blow out at the Toyota dealership. Children will die and the same snake who was whispering all those sweet nothings about freedom in your ear will raid your 401k, dupe you into buying gold, and get you to reverse mortgage your house.

That kind of horsedung needed to end yesterday

[Greyblades]

I've already ceded the point that children's voices over their parents objections when in the interest of the state should be the deciding factor. This is important in rebuking your assertion that I believe that a ward is an extension of self.

I think I said something about this a while back, what was it... Oh yeah:
Children are universally deemed incapable of making informed decisions about sexual conduct. I see no reason to think that children should be able to make the same informed decision about vaccinations that children are incapable of making about sex.

Besides, children gain most of thier viewpoints by imitating the parents, even if we believe that a child was capable of making an unbiased choice about it; the parents influence would undeniably make them less likely to agree to vaccinations.

[Montmorency]

I said it because you take the position implicitly, leading to hypocrisy. You keep saying that a person should not be forced to 'have chemicals injected into their bodies' - never mind that a hospital will not wait for you to give consent in an emergency - when the issue at hand is vaccination of children. You are not a child, I think.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I think I said something about this a while back, what was it... Oh yeah:

Yes, you have said that children are merely extensions of the State and that nobody gets in the middle of a State and its children.

[Greyblades]

Easy response: So did you when you voted republican.

[Strike For The South]

You are not "merely saying" that. The overwhelming majority do not have anywhere near the means to make that choice. You are requiring that everyone but the rich and well off be forced to be injected with chemicals at the whim of majority dictate.

Perhaps the church could help? That's the point where we are at in this conversation right? Someone says something about wealth inequality and them some mouthbreathing dickbag invokes the gold plated, all mighty, church as the solution to all of our problems.

The state of Texas requires I do many of things, some of which restrict my sweet sweet freedom 10x than what vaccines do. Such a strange topic to make a stand on.

[Papewaio]

Liberty is not 1:1 equivalent to freedom.

Liberty is the freedom within be confines of the social contract which is normally spelled out at the worst case scenario as law and further in towards the normal daily life as politeness. Part of the social contract is that you give up some freedoms to the government for instance the government can lawfully detain someone, an individual doing the same might face kidnapping charges.

Rights also come with responsibilty, best summed up with the catchphrase "Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Most rights are based on all being treated equally under the law & that ones personal freedoms become curtailed when they impact on others.

So this leads to vaccination which is applied equally to all regardless of race, creed or wealth. The unvaccinated impact the health and well being of those around them.

This is no different to having a speed limit applying to all and to the danger when someone recklessly exceeds it and becomes a danger to others on the road. Does anyone think that it is okay for people to endanger others because they want to drive at 150 drunk and that any damage done to other people is the price of freedom?

IMDHO the damage done to the vaccination program in Pakistan due to the use of it to get hard data on OBL is going to cause more long term harm and deaths then 9/11. This comes down to most people only being able to see spectacular dangers and not the slow burn ie hippopotamus kill more people the lions and bees are more deadly then sharks.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Perhaps the church could help? That's the point where we are at in this conversation right? Someone says something about wealth inequality and them some mouthbreathing dickbag invokes the gold plated, all mighty, church as the solution to all of our problems.

The state of Texas requires I do many of things, some of which restrict my sweet sweet freedom 10x than what vaccines do. Such a strange topic to make a stand on.

Yes, I am notorious for bringing the Church up in my political arguments. Especially arguments concerning science and vaccines.

Anyway, this isn't about religious freedom, so I'm not sure why you are bringing it up.

I do generally support the paternalism of the parent over that of the state, except when it concerns acts malum in se. I view an accountable and proximate government as favorable to one that is neither.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Some local private schools made news recently in announcing that all students will be subjected to periodic drug tests.

Administrators say it’s to counter the rapid rise in heroin use by teens and get help for those who may be addicted.

But some question whether the mandatory testing is truly beneficial.

The issue sparked a spirited debate on WCPN’s daily call-in talk show The Sound of Ideas.

Tom Stuber has a bird’s eye view as CEO of Lorain County’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services. He said the rate of overdose deaths in Ohio rose 300 percent over the last three years.

“The overdose deaths among the state overall, has continued to rise and surpass auto fatalities three years ago,” said Stuber. “And the leading cause of accidental overdose. And the problem is, that individuals…young people…are getting addicted from beginning experimental use, or even prescribed use, of narcotics.”

St. Edward, St. Ignatius, and Gilmour Academy—all Catholic high schools in Cuyahoga County—came to the conclusion that they need to be more proactive.

By plucking a single hair, school officials can learn if a student is using drugs and that’s what they plan to start doing this fall.

Brother Robert Lavelle, Head of Gilmour Academy, explains why he supports the initiative.

“We really want to have kids grow up and be in a very safe environment and you want to be able to help them move through adolescence in a way if they can, merge through that, addictive free, we want to be a part of that resource for them,” said Lavelle.

“And so I think doing this effort allows a youngster who’s starting on that path, to perhaps get the help he or she may need.”

A number of parents at the schools have indicated their support for the drug testing policy but others complain that they weren’t consulted first.

Some say it teaches kids the wrong lesson – that you’re guilty till proven innocent.

One of the show’s callers, Paul, said as a St. Ignatius alum he’s outraged by the school’s policy.

“In fact I got a letter yesterday from Ignatius asking for more money, and I give them money every year…but I’m really doubting it now,” he said. “Y’know, why should I pay for this? Y’know, parents are responsive. And they can do their own drug testing, I think.”

So what do people think of this? All you have to do is pluck a single hair, way less intrusive than a vaccine. We could do this in every school in the country and expel from normal schools all the students who repeatedly fail the drug test.

[ICantSpellDawg]

So what do people think of this? All you have to do is pluck a single hair, way less intrusive than a vaccine. We could do this in every school in the country and expel from normal schools all the students who repeatedly fail the drug test.

Finally, a more legitimate analogy. That is a tough one. I could argue that, as a result of the test being noninvasive it is of a less serious nature and acceptable. Although, I want to see all drugs legalized, kids in possession of them is a large concern, as is slavish dependency at all ages. Hmm

[HopAlongBunny]

The goal is not expulsion but assistance; unless my reading comprehension has totally gone to pot :wink:

[Strike For The South]

Fine.

Public schools already do this with drug dogs, any hint of residue or paraphernalia and the most lenient punishment at the 8th largest school district in the State of Texas is school replacement.

You don't even have ever had to try the stuff. Also these kids are not guilty until proven innocent. They are being tested for drug use at a private and if they test positive they will be coddled.

Here in Texas they kick your ass to the curb

[Xiahou]

It doesn't stop with immunization. If what you're arguing is that if the state has the right to control behavior whenever individual choice introduces risk on a larger scale, you've opened a really nasty can of worms.

Using the very justifications for forced immunization introduced in this thread (and mind you, my kids are immunized) shouldn't we ban alcohol and tobacco? Other people are injured by drunk drivers, and other people do get impacted by second hand smoke.
Most minors are already prohibited from using alcohol and tobacco..... not that it does much good....

Further, vaccines shouldn't be mandated by penalty of law- only as precondition of attending school. If they don't want vaccinated.... home schooling is always an option. Good luck attending any university (http://studentaffairs.psu.edu/health/immunizations/) without vaccines though.


So what do people think of this? All you have to do is pluck a single hair, way less intrusive than a vaccine. We could do this in every school in the country and expel from normal schools all the students who repeatedly fail the drug test.Nah. Possession or use of drugs on school property or at school events should be and is punishable. Use outside the jurisdiction of the school should be beyond the realm of their control

[ICantSpellDawg]

Partial like - due to the drugs/alcohol bit, but not the unreasonable compulsion.

[Pannonian]

Sure, it's a big no-no here as well. It's very expensive and you can lose your driving priveleges for substantial periods of time. Yet drink-driving accidents and fatalities happen all the time (significantly more than firearms fatalities/injuries).

My point wasn't any particular risky behavior, more to show how broad the issue can grow pretty quickly. "State having a vested interest" gets into a LOT of rights-trampling before you can say "Kelo v. New London" (http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/property/property-law-keyed-to-dukeminier/eminent-domain-and-the-problem-of-regulatory-takings/kelo-v-city-of-new-london/).

Interesting side note: The corporate interest that asked the local government to seize and demolish the housing through emminent domain changed their mind and de-invested in the area. The area is now an abandoned rat's nest littered with construction debris. I raise this point to make the case that Government most certainly does NOT always know what's best.

Over here, the most powerful lobby group pushing for restrictions of individual liberties is mothers. Pretty much a single monolithic interest in key areas, politically impossible to deny, and very keen on ensuring that their kids will never face any kind of risk or discomfort whatsoever. Even if the government doesn't want to impose restrictions, once the mothers' lobby wants them, they'll get them.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Over here, the most powerful lobby group pushing for restrictions of individual liberties is mothers. Pretty much a single monolithic interest in key areas, politically impossible to deny, and very keen on ensuring that their kids will never face any kind of risk or discomfort whatsoever. Even if the government doesn't want to impose restrictions, once the mothers' lobby wants them, they'll get them.

Isn't that the rub. It's not so much paternalism as maternalism. That's why they call it the nanny state.

[drone]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RybNI0KB1bg

Poor analogy. A schoolkid mainlining the smack endangers only him/herself.

[HoreTore]

Articles 1 and 2 also represent the same principal.

Seriously, take a human rights course, because you do not understand what they mean.

Article 1 and 2 define what the rest of the document addresses. They are not rights as such, they are the right to the document.

[Kadagar_AV]

So what do people think of this? All you have to do is pluck a single hair, way less intrusive than a vaccine. We could do this in every school in the country and expel from normal schools all the students who repeatedly fail the drug test.

Yeah, don't HELP them... Instead mark them as failed and hope it makes the addiction go away... Because everyone know that if it's something that makes addicts less addictive, is to make them feel like a failure, banned from society and normal life.

Dude, you need to check that moral compass of yours...

[a completely inoffensive name]

So what do people think of this? All you have to do is pluck a single hair, way less intrusive than a vaccine. We could do this in every school in the country and expel from normal schools all the students who repeatedly fail the drug test.

**** I am not in the best of states to argue this properly. But you must agree with me that there is a difference between a policy enforcing vaccine law in which there is science behind the vaccine and everyone is proven to be unprotected until a recorded vaccination and a policy of enforcing drug laws in which you cannot prove anything and you are really just prodding into people's lives for the sake of figuring out what they are up to.

[Fisherking]

Seriously, take a human rights course, because you do not understand what they mean.

Article 1 and 2 define what the rest of the document addresses. They are not rights as such, they are the right to the document.

Seriously, if you took a course on human right and you disagree, you must have slept through it.

It is the foundation of the rest of the document. Self ownership is the foundation of all human rights.

You do get that part, right?

_____________________________

The concept of rights comes to us from natural law from ancient times to the present but the idea of individualism came mostly from the 17th century.

The foremost right is the right to self.

Rights are seen to be beyond government control and attempts to control them are illegitimate. Parents have the right to make decisions for their children until they reach the age of majority or are otherwise emancipated.

The argument here that society has a right to protect its self comes from utilitarianism, the theory of Jeremy Bentham in the 19th century. He didn’t believe in natural rights, believing that all rights should be civil but in the doctrine of greatest happiness was to be the moral guiding principal.

This doctrine is usually applied when government wants to violate natural rights and treat them as civil rights, which my be suspended.

It is also important to understand that government can not grant these rights because anything granted by government can also be taken away by them.

These right are also included in the US Constitution. The right to self or self ownership is not stated but a forgone conclusion and covered under the 9th amendment.

Nowhere in any legal code or philosophy is there a right to be free of risk.

The vaccines being required are known to be highly ineffective with outbreaks occurring where 95% of cases are among the vaccinated population. Clearly this is hardly any risk mitigation.

The diseases vaccinated against rarely require hospitalization and even more rarely are fatal.

This may be the ultimate in sacrificing liberties for security but done so in the name of science and for the children.

The major fallacy to the whole argument is that by vaccinating your own children and your self you have mitigated your own risks to the fullest possible extent. But not being happy with that you wish to compel others to do what you have done.

The compelling of individuals to take substances into their bodies or surrender parts of themselves (blood, hair, or DNA) are violations of this principal. If these things can be compelled there is nothing that can not be compelled.

Exactly what is it about people that they believe themselves to have the right to compel others to do what they have done?

[Greyblades]

Exactly what is it about people that they believe themselves to have the right to compel others to do what they have done?
What part of "if they don't take this harmless injection children will die in horrific ways" don't you understand?

[Papewaio]

In Victorian times 40% of children died by age five. From the start of last century to its end life expectancies doubled due to medical advances.

Polio was almost wiped out by vaccination not chiropractors who are a vested group in having patients.

Whooping cough kills over 1% of children hospitalized who have got it.

The 95% figure is pure hogwash until a link is added. Making up facts does not a case make.

[Fisherking]

In Victorian times 40% of children died by age five. From the start of last century to its end life expectancies doubled due to medical advances.

Polio was almost wiped out by vaccination not chiropractors who are a vested group in having patients.

Whooping cough kills over 1% of children hospitalized who have got it.

The 95% figure is pure hogwash until a link is added. Making up facts does not a case make.

You know you misunderstand the whole premise of the argument.

It is not to discourage people from taking advantage of vaccines and protecting themselves as much as possible.

The argument is the right to chose not to and not be compelled by government to do so.

By what right do you have to dictate to the rest of the world what choices to make?

From where do you derive the authority to do so?

Statistics have little or no place in the argument. Statistically I am sure it is possible to single out a group and say they propose some risk to the rest of the population and should be excluded from the rest of the world. This, among other reasons, is what you open your self up to by dictatorial compulsion of individuals to comply against their wishes.

It really doesn’t matter how big a flakes they are or how non-mainstream their ideas are. Their rights are to be as protected as anyone else’s. If they eliminate themselves due to increased risk it is not your business.

We simply do not have a right to protect others against themselves.

[Papewaio]

Statistics from the recent Welsh measles outbreak:
"In the outbreak children who were unvaccinated had a chance of catching measles of around 1 in 18 (6,812/371), children who were partly vaccinated had a chance of catching measles of around 1 in 750 (14,219/19) and children who were fully vaccinated had a chance of catching measles of around 1 in 2,200 (68,825/31). This shows that 2 doses of MMR were over 99% effective in protecting against measles and 1 dose of MMR was over 97% effective in protecting against measles."

http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/888/FINAL%20MEASLES%20OCT%20REPORT.doc

1400 measles notifications, 88 people were hospitalized and one died.

So the 95% number is the wrong way round and even with modern medicine and fast responses in a first world country a relatively small outbreak can be fatal.

[Fisherking]

Pap, I am not anti-vaccine. What I am is pro-liberty. If a person wishes to opt out they should have the right to do so. I did not post a link because the cited material could be classed as ant-vaccine and I could not locate the cited CDC figures for verification.

But in the defense of those who would opt out, after the government assuring us that those not wishing to be vaccinated are all just crazies and all the vaccines are safe, they did pass a little piece of legislation, The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The act exempt pharmaceutical manufactures and the healthcare industry from damage claims for vaccine related conditions. Further, the FDA, CDC and vaccine makers openly state that often the number of human subjects used in pre-licensing studies are too small to detect rarer adverse events, making post-marketing surveillance of new vaccines a de facto scientific experiment. In this regard, the ethical principle of informed consent to vaccination attains even greater importance


The remedy for injury is to sue the federal government in federal court before a federal judge, and that can take years once you have received standing to sue, and after you prove your case the government then has a second court adjudicate the compensation.

Of the cases won in court two out of three still receive no compensation. But even after all of those high hurdles have been cleared there has been approximately $3 billion awarded. Obviously there is real and genuine reason for concern.

The law also is to provide parents with vaccine benefit and risk information before their children are vaccinated, but I have been unable to find any real data or analyses published by the government or anyone else other than anti-vaccine sites.

But perhaps you can do better.

If I recall correctly, when my children were vaccinated minutes before the procedure I was handed a paper about 3 inches wide and 3 and a half feet long, printed on both sides in print so fine a magnifying glass was required to read it, which may have contained that information, but not in any usable form.

If that is not enough to raise a healthy skepticism in most everyone, I don’t know what would.

[HoreTore]

Seriously, if you took a course on human right and you disagree, you must have slept through it.

It is the foundation of the rest of the document. Self ownership is the foundation of all human rights.

You do get that part, right?

Articles 1 and 2 are not 'rights'. Article 3 does not prohibit mandatory vaccination, and article 25 supports it.

The UDHR does not mean whatever you think it should mean. It means whatever the UN thinks it should mean, and the UN runs several mandatory vaccination programs.


Argue for 'liberty' all you want, but do not think the UDHR supports your position.

[Fisherking]

Articles 1 and 2 are not 'rights'. Article 3 does not prohibit mandatory vaccination, and article 25 supports it.

The UDHR does not mean whatever you think it should mean. It means whatever the UN thinks it should mean, and the UN runs several mandatory vaccination programs.


Argue for 'liberty' all you want, but do not think the UDHR supports your position.

Article 25 says healthcare is a right. Article 3 is the first right. The first two set the stage as to what a right is. If a person has a right, the government can not infringe upon it.

Therefore no where in those two Rights does it give government the latitude to require people to do as they say.

You are reading what is not there. Having a right to care doesn’t mean against ones will. This limits government. It does not extend its control over the lives and bodies of the public.


edit: When government has the ability to force compliance with medical procedures this is what you get:http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3209305.shtml?cat=500#.U7P14UBRx9N

You don’t have a right sometimes and other times not. If the government can make you take a vaccine they can make you take an anal probe.

[Husar]

By what right do you have to dictate to the rest of the world what choices to make?

Choices? Which choices? (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?146358-The-Blind-Brain-Theory-of-Consciousness-and-the-Consequences-of-Eliminativism&p=2053601120&viewfull=1#post2053601120)

[Fisherking]

Then everyone is hard wired to either conform or not. In that case I suppose the group will eliminate the dissenters in the same way it always dose. With violence and we are nothing but violent animals that will never change. So all of you who believe that can just off your self before you do something you regret.

[HopAlongBunny]

Perhaps it is because I am a socialist Canadian; I see no problem with a compulsion where it is a matter of Public Health.
The individuals Right to be a public menace/danger to others is trumped by the public's right to be protected from known dangers.
Nor does it overcome the public cost associated with viral mutation and propagation; all the individual mandate accomplishes is endangerment and unnecessary expense.

[Papewaio]

Pap, I am not anti-vaccine. What I am is pro-liberty. If a person wishes to opt out they should have the right to do so. I did not post a link because the cited material could be classed as ant-vaccine and I could not locate the cited CDC figures for verification.

But in the defense of those who would opt out, after the government assuring us that those not wishing to be vaccinated are all just crazies and all the vaccines are safe, they did pass a little piece of legislation, The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The act exempt pharmaceutical manufactures and the healthcare industry from damage claims for vaccine related conditions. Further, the FDA, CDC and vaccine makers openly state that often the number of human subjects used in pre-licensing studies are too small to detect rarer adverse events, making post-marketing surveillance of new vaccines a de facto scientific experiment. In this regard, the ethical principle of informed consent to vaccination attains even greater importance


The remedy for injury is to sue the federal government in federal court before a federal judge, and that can take years once you have received standing to sue, and after you prove your case the government then has a second court adjudicate the compensation.

Of the cases won in court two out of three still receive no compensation. But even after all of those high hurdles have been cleared there has been approximately $3 billion awarded. Obviously there is real and genuine reason for concern.

The law also is to provide parents with vaccine benefit and risk information before their children are vaccinated, but I have been unable to find any real data or analyses published by the government or anyone else other than anti-vaccine sites.

But perhaps you can do better.

If I recall correctly, when my children were vaccinated minutes before the procedure I was handed a paper about 3 inches wide and 3 and a half feet long, printed on both sides in print so fine a magnifying glass was required to read it, which may have contained that information, but not in any usable form.

If that is not enough to raise a healthy skepticism in most everyone, I don’t know what would.

I have a healthy skepticism and I also do not believe in absolute solutions. I do believe vaccines will improve over time.

But to me vaccines are not just an individuals health it is community health.

I'm not pro people's choice to the put they endanger the community. That applies both to people born and incorporated.

At least in Aus scheduled vaccines are free. Most companies will pay for flu shots (I don't bother with those)

[Fisherking]

I have a healthy skepticism and I also do not believe in absolute solutions. I do believe vaccines will improve over time.

But to me vaccines are not just an individuals health it is community health.

I'm not pro people's choice to the put they endanger the community. That applies both to people born and incorporated.

At least in Aus scheduled vaccines are free. Most companies will pay for flu shots (I don't bother with those)

Oh yes, I am sure you are right. Individual human rights are bad for the group. We should work for the greater good of all humanity and eliminate those dissenting voices. We must take to heart those lessons given us by the governments who championed this ethic and their great leaders; Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and others.

Oh my, on second thought you can travel with that crew but I don’t choose to.

The forced compliance of such mandates is not the hallmark of a free people or a government that represents them.

It may suite you to live in an authoritarian state where the government tells you what is best and what to believe but I will fight against it as long as I can.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Oh yes, I am sure you are right. Individual human rights are bad for the group. We should work for the greater good of all humanity and eliminate those dissenting voices. We must take to heart those lessons given us by the governments who championed this ethic and their great leaders; Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and others.

Oh my, on second thought you can travel with that crew but I don’t choose to.

The forced compliance of such mandates is not the hallmark of a free people or a government that represents them.

It may suite you to live in an authoritarian state where the government tells you what is best and what to believe but I will fight against it as long as I can.

The original proposition was that unvaccinated children should not be allowed to attend State Schools.

To understand why - consider the following case of two mothers in a City in the US, let's say NYC.

Mother #1 has three children aged 10, 6, and six months. The two older children have had the MMR, the youngest will hav it as soon as she is old enough.

Mother #2 has two children aged 8 and 10, she doesn't believe in vaccinations, so they haven't had the MMR.

The two 10-year olds are friends, Mother #2's child contracts Measles, and invites Mother #1's child around to play after school - at this point he is a-symptomatic. When Mother #1 comes to pick the child up later she brings the baby, and she has now been exposed to the virus. The 6-moth-old baby contracts Measles and ends up hospitalised.

Best case scenario now is that Mother #1 gets hit with hospital bills because America lacks a modern healthcare system, worst case scenario the child develops acute Measles and dies.

Now - take a Look at the CDC report for 2008:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5733a1.htm

"Washington. On April 28, 2008, the Washington State Department of Health received a report of several suspected measles cases in a Grant County household. The index patient had rash onset on April 12. During April 18--21, the other seven children in the household became ill with fever and rash. Three of the children developed pneumonia and were evaluated by a health-care provider who suspected measles; all three tested positive for measles-specific IgM antibody. Rash onset occurred during April 13--May 30 in 11 additional cases identified in Grant County. All of the 19 cases were linked epidemiologically, and all but one occurred in children and adolescents aged 9 months to 18 years. The 19 cases included 16 in school-aged children, among whom 11 were home schooled. Because of their parents' philosophical or religious beliefs, none of the 16 children had received measles-containing vaccine. Specimens from eight patients were submitted for virologic testing, and all contained genotype D5, which had been circulating in Japan and parts of Europe. A possible source of the outbreak was a church conference, held March 25--29 in King County, Washington, that was attended by four of the patients, including the index patient. The conference was attended by approximately 3,000 persons, primarily students from junior high through university age from 18 states, DC, and several foreign countries. None of these countries or states has since reported confirmed cases of measles among persons who attended this conference."

[HoreTore]

Article 25 says healthcare is a right. Article 3 is the first right. The first two set the stage as to what a right is. If a person has a right, the government can not infringe upon it.

Therefore no where in those two Rights does it give government the latitude to require people to do as they say.

They certainly give the government the power to order parents. The UDHR mandates education for all, and so states are bound to mandate education regardless of the parents wishes. The same applies to healthcare, it is the governments responsibility to ensure healthcare for all, regardless of the parents wishes. The government has, according to the UDHR, the explicit responsibility to provide healthcare for children. Note that the article on education includes a note on parents' choice; the healthcare one does not.

Children's rights are further developed in their own convention, the convention on the rights of the child (http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Survival_Development.pdf). Now, what does this one state? It states clearly that the government should ensure that children develop healthily. It's not "parents", and it's not "provide". It's the government's responsibility, and they should ensure it. Clarly, if a given vaccine is deemed necessary for the health of a child, it is the governments responsibility to ensure that the child recieves it. Parents have no authority to challenge the human rights of their children.

Feel free to argue for your version of liberty all you want, but refrain from bringing up the UDHR. It does not support your views, and it has an interpretation of liberty which differs from yours. The UN sees national governments, with the UN as arbiter, as the providers of the freedoms listed in the UDHR.

[Pannonian]

The original proposition was that unvaccinated children should not be allowed to attend State Schools.

To understand why - consider the following case of two mothers in a City in the US, let's say NYC.

Mother #1 has three children aged 10, 6, and six months. The two older children have had the MMR, the youngest will hav it as soon as she is old enough.

Mother #2 has two children aged 8 and 10, she doesn't believe in vaccinations, so they haven't had the MMR.

The two 10-year olds are friends, Mother #2's child contracts Measles, and invites Mother #1's child around to play after school - at this point he is a-symptomatic. When Mother #1 comes to pick the child up later she brings the baby, and she has now been exposed to the virus. The 6-moth-old baby contracts Measles and ends up hospitalised.

Best case scenario now is that Mother #1 gets hit with hospital bills because America lacks a modern healthcare system, worst case scenario the child develops acute Measles and dies.

Now - take a Look at the CDC report for 2008:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5733a1.htm

"Washington. On April 28, 2008, the Washington State Department of Health received a report of several suspected measles cases in a Grant County household. The index patient had rash onset on April 12. During April 18--21, the other seven children in the household became ill with fever and rash. Three of the children developed pneumonia and were evaluated by a health-care provider who suspected measles; all three tested positive for measles-specific IgM antibody. Rash onset occurred during April 13--May 30 in 11 additional cases identified in Grant County. All of the 19 cases were linked epidemiologically, and all but one occurred in children and adolescents aged 9 months to 18 years. The 19 cases included 16 in school-aged children, among whom 11 were home schooled. Because of their parents' philosophical or religious beliefs, none of the 16 children had received measles-containing vaccine. Specimens from eight patients were submitted for virologic testing, and all contained genotype D5, which had been circulating in Japan and parts of Europe. A possible source of the outbreak was a church conference, held March 25--29 in King County, Washington, that was attended by four of the patients, including the index patient. The conference was attended by approximately 3,000 persons, primarily students from junior high through university age from 18 states, DC, and several foreign countries. None of these countries or states has since reported confirmed cases of measles among persons who attended this conference."

I don't understand. Why do these viruses continue transmitting by taking advantage of people's belief in liberty and the right to choose? Do micro-organisms hate freedom?

[Fisherking]

They certainly give the government the power to order parents. The UDHR mandates education for all, and so states are bound to mandate education regardless of the parents wishes. The same applies to healthcare, it is the governments responsibility to ensure healthcare for all, regardless of the parents wishes. The government has, according to the UDHR, the explicit responsibility to provide healthcare for children. Note that the article on education includes a note on parents' choice; the healthcare one does not.

Children's rights are further developed in their own convention, the convention on the rights of the child (http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Survival_Development.pdf). Now, what does this one state? It states clearly that the government should ensure that children develop healthily. It's not "parents", and it's not "provide". It's the government's responsibility, and they should ensure it. Clarly, if a given vaccine is deemed necessary for the health of a child, it is the governments responsibility to ensure that the child recieves it. Parents have no authority to challenge the human rights of their children.

Feel free to argue for your version of liberty all you want, but refrain from bringing up the UDHR. It does not support your views, and it has an interpretation of liberty which differs from yours. The UN sees national governments, with the UN as arbiter, as the providers of the freedoms listed in the UDHR.

Maybe it is a basic misunderstanding as to what a Right is. Rights are outside government control. It is endowed to you by your basic humanity. Government can not take away or regulate rights. They may only assure that they do not violate them and see that services are available. Therefore a right to health care does not mean the government has a say in what procedures you choose or decline. Just like a right to education does not mean every child must be indoctrinated in a government school to a particular political ideology. Some may choose alternatives.

If the government offers health care and a woman chooses to have an abortion, it is not the same as government forced abortion or sterilization programs. But by your definition those are only extensions of healthcare.

.

[Fisherking]

The original proposition was that unvaccinated children should not be allowed to attend State Schools.

To understand why - consider the following case of two mothers in a City in the US, let's say NYC.

Mother #1 has three children aged 10, 6, and six months. The two older children have had the MMR, the youngest will hav it as soon as she is old enough.

Mother #2 has two children aged 8 and 10, she doesn't believe in vaccinations, so they haven't had the MMR.

The two 10-year olds are friends, Mother #2's child contracts Measles, and invites Mother #1's child around to play after school - at this point he is a-symptomatic. When Mother #1 comes to pick the child up later she brings the baby, and she has now been exposed to the virus. The 6-moth-old baby contracts Measles and ends up hospitalised.

Best case scenario now is that Mother #1 gets hit with hospital bills because America lacks a modern healthcare system, worst case scenario the child develops acute Measles and dies.

Now - take a Look at the CDC report for 2008:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5733a1.htm

"Washington. On April 28, 2008, the Washington State Department of Health received a report of several suspected measles cases in a Grant County household. The index patient had rash onset on April 12. During April 18--21, the other seven children in the household became ill with fever and rash. Three of the children developed pneumonia and were evaluated by a health-care provider who suspected measles; all three tested positive for measles-specific IgM antibody. Rash onset occurred during April 13--May 30 in 11 additional cases identified in Grant County. All of the 19 cases were linked epidemiologically, and all but one occurred in children and adolescents aged 9 months to 18 years. The 19 cases included 16 in school-aged children, among whom 11 were home schooled. Because of their parents' philosophical or religious beliefs, none of the 16 children had received measles-containing vaccine. Specimens from eight patients were submitted for virologic testing, and all contained genotype D5, which had been circulating in Japan and parts of Europe. A possible source of the outbreak was a church conference, held March 25--29 in King County, Washington, that was attended by four of the patients, including the index patient. The conference was attended by approximately 3,000 persons, primarily students from junior high through university age from 18 states, DC, and several foreign countries. None of these countries or states has since reported confirmed cases of measles among persons who attended this conference."

I have never said society has no recourse. Quarantine or exclusion are reasonable. There are alternatives or alternatives can be provided.



I don't understand. Why do these viruses continue transmitting by taking advantage of people's belief in liberty and the right to choose? Do micro-organisms hate freedom?

Talk to Monty, they have no free will, they had to do it.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Maybe it is a basic misunderstanding as to what a Right is. Rights are outside government control. It is endowed to you by your basic humanity. Government can not take away or regulate rights.

This interpretation of "Rights" appeals to the concept of "Natural Law" as developed by Thomas Aquinas from rational Muslim thought (yeah, I'm serious) and while it's a valid argument it can't be applied to the situation in the majority of the developed world, including the United States, because it is incompatible with a "secular" Constitution.

What HoreTore is referring to is the "Social Contract" whereby the citizens of the State agree to be regulated by the state - something with only works when you live in a democracy.


They may only assure that they do not violate them and see that services are available. Therefore a right to health care does not mean the government has a say in what procedures you choose or decline. Just like a right to education does not mean every child must be indoctrinated in a government school to a particular political ideology. Some may choose alternatives.

If the government offers health care and a woman chooses to have an abortion, it is not the same as government forced abortion or sterilization programs. But by your definition those are only extensions of healthcare.

This is a debatable point - it hinges on your definition of "healthcare". I would argue that abortions and family planning are exempt because, fundamentally, being pregnant is not an illness.


I have never said society has no recourse. Quarantine or exclusion are reasonable. There are alternatives or alternatives can be provided.

OK - so you quarantine the child once he develops symptoms - that's after he's already infectious. Note the real-life case I posted. By the time patient Zero was suspected of having Measles they had already infected their siblings.

Vaccinating the older children prevents they babies from being infected - fact. Failure to vaccinate has been shown to result in the virus spreading to children too young to vaccinate - also a fact - see the CDC report.

By allowing unvaccinated children to congregate in a government-owned institution the government is promoting the spread of infectious diseases which are fatal or debilitating in infants. It is therefore reasonable to mandate uptake of vaccinations as a prerequisite of attendance at said institution. Conversely, it is the responsibility to provide universal access, without cost, to these vaccinations.

[Fisherking]

Actually natural rights go back at least to ancient Greece. It was a stream in English thought and philosophy and it gained more religious backing through Thomas Aquinas and others until the 19th century.

But the hard question is, do you want and trust the government to be able to use force when they deem a medical procedure is required?

Remember once the government has a power they are the ones who decide who what when and how. It needn’t have anything at all to do with vaccines or life saving procedures.

Obviously you also missed the part about incomplete trials which basically use the public as their lab rats.

It is also one thing to put faith in science and another to put faith in pharmaceutical corporations exempt from liabilities for their products.

[HoreTore]

Maybe it is a basic misunderstanding as to what a Right is.

If you intend to use the UDHR to support your position, you must also follow its definition of what a right is. Needless to say, you do not have the same understanding of what a right is.

Therefore, I have asked you not to bring up the UDHR, as it does not support your claims.

[HoreTore]

As to government being able to force you leading to authoritarian regimes...

My own government took away my freedom of movement, my freedom of employment and my freedom of expression for 11 months and 8 days. I had done no wrong, aside from being born in this country. They forced me, under threat of jail, to move from my home and into a six-man room hundreds of miles away. They dictated when I got up in the morning, what clothes I wore, and what type of food I ate. I was given some time of my own, but it was always at the whims of the government; they could take it away as they pleased, without any justification or prior warning. I had to do whatever job the government told me to do, no matter how I felt about it. Work hours ranged from 6 to 24. Refusal meant withdrawal of benefits, fines or ultimately jail. Sometimes, they decided not to give me any food or sleep at all, while working for days on end.


Aside from it all being extremely boring, I can't see that it hurt me much. And Norway still isn't a totalitarian dictatorship....

I don't think we'll become one with mandatory vaccination programs either.

[Papewaio]

Oh yes, I am sure you are right. Individual human rights are bad for the group. We should work for the greater good of all humanity and eliminate those dissenting voices. We must take to heart those lessons given us by the governments who championed this ethic and their great leaders; Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and others.

Oh my, on second thought you can travel with that crew but I don’t choose to.

The forced compliance of such mandates is not the hallmark of a free people or a government that represents them.

It may suite you to live in an authoritarian state where the government tells you what is best and what to believe but I will fight against it as long as I can.

Yes Australia is an authoritarian state you finally found out our dirty little secret.

For AU:
The federal government isn't mandating vaccines. It gives people free access to them.

What the state government schools and independent schools don't want to be is liable for spreading preventable diseases. So they mandate that to attend you need to have your vaccination schedule up to date.

As a lot of school children have younger sibilings to young to get injections it seems a sensible precaution when schools act as incubators to all sorts of illnesses. For instance hear in NSW the public school teachers get twenty paid sick days per annum because of the amount of bugs they get from the children. A more macroscopic version is the spread of nits and lice. Not all parents provide equal care to their children, but communicable diseases and pestilence don't care once they get kids sitting in a warm humid room shoulder to shoulder.

[a completely inoffensive name]

But the hard question is, do you want and trust the government to be able to use force when they deem a medical procedure is required?

Do you want and trust soccer moms to be able to stop the spread of measles, yellow fever and polio in between their daily session of Dr. Oz and crossfit?

[Ironside]

Do you want and trust soccer moms to be able to stop the spread of measles, yellow fever and polio in between their daily session of Dr. Oz and crossfit?

Maybe. The school work the child will miss in that case is massive though. They have to stay home for a long time every time you got a patient zero to prevent epidemics. And if there's an epidemic, the home stay will be longer.

Having contact with friends during this time? Big nono.

Quarantine sucks. It works, but it sucks.

[Fisherking]

You know, I would be perfectly happy if you all could surrender your rights without it impacting me.

You love it when government cares for you so much.

Forced vaccinations, The War on Terror, The War on Drugs, and other things done in your name are all just fine. Taking the rights of others for the greater good is fine and dandy.

Rights are distant and never anything you concern your self with. Rights are for other people to worry about. You never use them anyway.

Well, rights are something you don’t miss until you don’t have them. And by the way, then it is too late.

The level of your wisdom and comprehension is just beyond belief.

I am sure you will take that as a compliment.

[Pannonian]

You know, I would be perfectly happy if you all could surrender your rights without it impacting me.

You love it when government cares for you so much.

Forced vaccinations, The War on Terror, The War on Drugs, and other things done in your name are all just fine. Taking the rights of others for the greater good is fine and dandy.

Rights are distant and never anything you concern your self with. Rights are for other people to worry about. You never use them anyway.

Well, rights are something you don’t miss until you don’t have them. And by the way, then it is too late.

The level of your wisdom and comprehension is just beyond belief.

I am sure you will take that as a compliment.

What if others demand the right for their children not to be exposed to unvaccinated children? Which right prevails? As PVC has illustrated, this isn't a theoretical right from argument, but one which has real life applications and examples.

[Fisherking]

What if others demand the right for their children not to be exposed to unvaccinated children? Which right prevails? As PVC has illustrated, this isn't a theoretical right from argument, but one which has real life applications and examples.

What if I demand the right to your property? I can show a plan by which I can make better use of it and provide more benefit to the community. Should that entitle me to it? It is all for the betterment of the group you understand.

There is not right to be free of risks. This is what the public is demanding. There is also no right to force another to do your will.

The taking of rights are always cited for a good reason. But once taken government sees no reason to limit what it can do.

However, the issue is reason for concern which require compromise. There must be a balance and alternatives to forced compliance.

[HoreTore]

What if I demand the right to your property? I can show a plan by which I can make better use of it and provide more benefit to the community. Should that entitle me to it? It is all for the betterment of the group you understand.

There is not right to be free of risks. This is what the public is demanding. There is also no right to force another to do your will.

The taking of rights are always cited for a good reason. But once taken government sees no reason to limit what it can do.

However, the issue is reason for concern which require compromise. There must be a balance and alternatives to forced compliance.

Do you disagree with mandatory education?

[Kadagar_AV]

What if others demand the right for their children not to be exposed to unvaccinated children? Which right prevails? As PVC has illustrated, this isn't a theoretical right from argument, but one which has real life applications and examples.

Easy, unvaccinated kids could be marked as such. Possibly with a yellow star or something :creep:

This debate is about public schools... If you don't want your kids to hang out with unvaccinated kids, send them to public school. If you don't mind them being around unvaccinated kids, send them to private christian schools.

I don't see the issue?

[Pannonian]

What if I demand the right to your property? I can show a plan by which I can make better use of it and provide more benefit to the community. Should that entitle me to it? It is all for the betterment of the group you understand.

There is not right to be free of risks. This is what the public is demanding. There is also no right to force another to do your will.

The taking of rights are always cited for a good reason. But once taken government sees no reason to limit what it can do.

However, the issue is reason for concern which require compromise. There must be a balance and alternatives to forced compliance.

I see it as something akin to a deadlier version of playing horrendously loud music at ungodly hours. You're not allowed to play music at innard-shaking volumes at 1 in the morning, as it's disturbing your neighbours, and you do not have sole ownership of the area affected by your music. But loud music doesn't threaten life. Sending your unvaccinated kid, because you don't believe in vaccinations, into a school where there are other kids who are too young to be vaccinated, does threaten the lives of those other kids. You're not just making the choice for your kid, you're making the choice for those other kids too, at a stage when they're most vulnerable to the choice you're making. What gives you the right to make the choice for them?

[HoreTore]

What? Although you are able to be vaccinated, thus reducing the likelihood that you will not contract disease x - the decision of another not to get vaccinated is the equivalent of FORCING you not to get vaccinated?

No, the children of parents who does not want vaccination are not able to get vaccinated.

Once again, I am talking of children while you are trying to build the strawman that we are talking about adults...

[Papewaio]

What if I demand the right to your property? I can show a plan by which I can make better use of it and provide more benefit to the community. Should that entitle me to it? It is all for the betterment of the group you understand.

There is not right to be free of risks. This is what the public is demanding. There is also no right to force another to do your will.

The taking of rights are always cited for a good reason. But once taken government sees no reason to limit what it can do.

However, the issue is reason for concern which require compromise. There must be a balance and alternatives to forced compliance.

Most people don't own their property. Real Estate is really only a long term lease. Just see what happens when you don't pay your mortgage or a wider road needs to be put through your property or a miner finds valuables beneath the topsoil.

[Fisherking]

Most people don't own their property. Real Estate is really only a long term lease. Just see what happens when you don't pay your mortgage or a wider road needs to be put through your property or a miner finds valuables beneath the topsoil.


Yes, government and you. Just how is this supposed to be a good thing?

[Greyblades]

Becuase the alternative is worse? Seriously rage against the government all you want, they're still the closest thing in america to an entity that's both out to defend your interests and powerful enough to be successful. The government wants to evict you they at least give lipservice to rights and tries to pay you off, a coporation would just kick you out.

[Papewaio]

Yes, government and you. Just how is this supposed to be a good thing?

Government is the collective you.

Government is the collective allowing the I to do more. Educate, build infrastructure, protect and serve. Ideally the government is a positive force multiplier for its citizens.

Corporations supposedly are only there to profit their shareholders. If that is their only mandate then they do need to have limits placed on them by the collective you.

Democracy/Republicanism are currently the best fit. Got a better system I'm all ears.

[Fisherking]

Becuase the alternative is worse? Seriously rage against the government all you want, they're still the closest thing in america to an entity that's both out to defend your interests and powerful enough to be successful. The government wants to evict you they at least give lipservice to rights and tries to pay you off, a coporation would just kick you out.

Brilliant! Who gave your property to a corporation? Was it the government and the twisting of laws? Who created corporations and gave them rights? What protects them or gives the supremacy over you?

The state has a monopoly on violence and coercion.


Most of you are narrowly focused on this one thing and believe it will go no further and never think of unintended consequence. You willingly sacrifice your rights and the rights of others for a good cause and never suspect that it could ever be used to harm you.

I am sure you are bored by all this because you have heard it all before. I will just bore you a bit more with a couple of quotes.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

George Washington


"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that."

Lord Acton

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I... But loud music doesn't threaten life....?

Are you so sure (http://metro.co.uk/2009/12/09/loud-bass-music-killed-student-tom-reid-622944/)?

[Greyblades]

Brilliant! Who gave your property to a corporation? Was it the government and the twisting of laws? Who created corporations and gave them rights? What protects them or gives the supremacy over you?
Firstly, dont ignore papewaio just because you find my posts easier to refute.
Secondly I have no idea what you are talking about with giving property to a corporation, instead lets go to your earlier post:

What if I demand the right to your property? I can show a plan by which I can make better use of it and provide more benefit to the community. Should that entitle me to it? It is all for the betterment of the group you understand.
If it was proved that if I dont people will die, and that by giving up property you mean having to put up a fire alarm... the equivilence isn't exactly air tight is what I'm saying.


There is not right to be free of risks. This is what the public is demanding. There is also no right to force another to do your will.
In most nations the rights to self defense you have the right to manhandle, detain or even kill those who's actions pose an clear immediate risk of maiming or even killing yourself or another person. In this case thier action is putting any infants they come in contact with at risk of dying a most horrible death, if we are going by the literal interpritation of the law injecting them with a vaccine is the least I have the right to do.


The taking of rights are always cited for a good reason. But once taken government sees no reason to limit what it can do.
Ok, I can get behind this sentiment, academically at least. Only once again Imust express my furtstration that while the patriot act/the NSA making your rights as worthless as the paper they're written on, americans are making a stand for the right to refuse measle vaccines.


However, the issue is reason for concern which require compromise. There must be a balance and alternatives to forced compliance.As it has been said over and over again on this thread, if vaccines arent adopted by 100% of the population thier effects will be eventually be undone by mutation amoung the infected minority, and in the mean time the continued existance of the viruses will steadly kill those too young for vaccinations. It has to be 100% and has been shown multiple times there are enough crazies in the world that would refuse whatever is said or done. ergoThere are enough stupid people in the world that there is literaly no other option save for force.


The state has a monopoly on violence and coercion.In the age of Private Millitary Companies and scientology I am inclined to disagree: companies can do those too and the only thing keeping them from doing it uninhibited is the state.

[Fisherking]

Pointless really. No one is going to change the mind of someone who thinks they are right.

This applies equally to both parties.

I see both sides of the issue. The desire for security overcomes you and you submit to the arguments of the state. While the other side seeks to maintain exception for their own reasons.

I simply oppose the use of coercion and ultimately, violence to compel other to my will.

[drone]

Let's go with a car analogy here:

You have the right to drink alcohol beverages, you cannot drive on public roads while doing so as you become a threat to others. You have the right to refuse vaccines for your children, why should you be allowed to endanger other children in a public school setting?

[HoreTore]

Pointless really. No one is going to change the mind of someone who thinks they are right.

This applies equally to both parties.

I see both sides of the issue. The desire for security overcomes you and you submit to the arguments of the state. While the other side seeks to maintain exception for their own reasons.

I simply oppose the use of coercion and ultimately, violence to compel other to my will.

When one sides argument is bonkers, there is no middle ground. (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy)

They have no reason for their actions, and so we can safely ignore them. This in no way turns into a 'slippery slope' and starts affecting situations where there are real arguments.


I'd say the arguments against compulsory education are far stronger than anti-vaxxers - but we cheerfully ignore those and force their kids to school.

[Fisherking]

When one sides argument is bonkers, there is no middle ground. (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy)

They have no reason for their actions, and so we can safely ignore them. This in no way turns into a 'slippery slope' and starts affecting situations where there are real arguments.


I'd say the arguments against compulsory education are far stronger than anti-vaxxers - but we cheerfully ignore those and force their kids to school.


My objection is ethical but you all seem to see the issue as only religious retards trying to avoid it.

Other have their own reasons not to comply.

http://www.nvic.org/nvic-vaccine-news/august-2011/the-health-liberty-revolution---forced-vaccination.aspx

[HoreTore]

My objection is ethical but you all seem to see the issue as only religious retards trying to avoid it.

Other have their own reasons not to comply.

http://www.nvic.org/nvic-vaccine-news/august-2011/the-health-liberty-revolution---forced-vaccination.aspx

I am not mainly speaking of people refusing on religious grounds, I am mainly speaking of those idiots you linked to. They have no arguments of merit, and can be safely ignored as the loonies they are.

[Fisherking]

I am not mainly speaking of people refusing on religious grounds, I am mainly speaking of those idiots you linked to. They have no arguments of merit, and can be safely ignored as the loonies they are.


Whether their fears are real or imagined makes no fundamental difference. Parents in the US are alarmed at the unexplained rise in autism. They feel the risk to their children is greater than the benefits offered by the vaccines. Science has not explained the rise and there is a seeming coloration between certain vaccines and the malady.

If you don’t understand the position, especially when they have a child with it, then you have no understanding of human nature, and obviously no children of your own.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Whether their fears are real or imagined makes no fundamental difference.

It does when balance needs to be struck between the imagined and disproven on the one hand, and the proven and demonstrably disastrous on the other...


Parents in the US are alarmed at the unexplained rise in autism. They feel the risk to their children is greater than the benefits offered by the vaccines. Science has not explained the rise and there is a seeming coloration between certain vaccines and the malady.

Except that there isn't.


If you don’t understand the position, especially when they have a child with it, then you have no understanding of human nature, and obviously no children of your own.

Actually that very same argument applies to denying the unvaccinated access to public space. We've gone full circle and are back to Lemur's original thread about this.

[HoreTore]

Whether their fears are real or imagined makes no fundamental difference. Parents in the US are alarmed at the unexplained rise in autism. They feel the risk to their children is greater than the benefits offered by the vaccines. Science has not explained the rise and there is a seeming coloration between certain vaccines and the malady.

If you don’t understand the position, especially when they have a child with it, then you have no understanding of human nature, and obviously no children of your own.

These are the kind of non-arguments we can safely ignore.

The link between autism and vaccination is non-existent, and any parent who believes so deserves a slap in the face and a vaccine shot in their kids. It is precisely because of idiotic arguments like these that I support mandatory vaccination of children.

Children should not be forced to face certain danger because of their parents irrational fears over non-existent threats.

[Papewaio]

I thought the link to increased autism was likely to be increased age of parenthood, less children and more diagnosis.

Now that is a hypothesis and not a fact and if I was to make life or death decisions based on an untested idea then that would be wrong.

Not all ideas have equal merit. Nor do all ways of life have equal outcomes.

[Fisherking]

These are the kind of non-arguments we can safely ignore.

The link between autism and vaccination is non-existent, and any parent who believes so deserves a slap in the face and a vaccine shot in their kids. It is precisely because of idiotic arguments like these that I support mandatory vaccination of children.

Children should not be forced to face certain danger because of their parents irrational fears over non-existent threats.It is not that simple and it is not proven. When the top agencies say “there’s probably no relationship between autism and vaccines”. That does not rise to the level of proof. There are also many other side effects that are known.

The MMR vaccine has been mostly cleared but there is also an issue with the chemical thimeroal which is a form of mercury suspected of causing autism. It has been removed from most but not all vaccines.

Researched will not unequivocally say there is no link, and that is understandable. Scientific method proceeds by constantly modifying theories rather than accumulating “proofs”. But some in the public will not see it that way.







I thought the link to increased autism was likely to be increased age of parenthood, less children and more diagnosis.

Now that is a hypothesis and not a fact and if I was to make life or death decisions based on an untested idea then that would be wrong.

Not all ideas have equal merit. Nor do all ways of life have equal outcomes.

That is all essentially true. But the part I still don’t agree with is that you would lock these people up and take their children as wards of the state because they don’t see things in the same light as you.

To me that seems terribly draconian without exhausting all other alternatives.

[Papewaio]

No I would simple exclude unvaccinated children from state run schools.

They can be home schooled, or form a user pays unvaccinated school.

[HoreTore]

It is not that simple and it is not proven.

Wrong.

It is that simple, and it is proven. There has never been found any link whatsoever between autism and vaccines, that was a complete lie from Andrew Wakefield.

There are known side effects (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Anti-vaccination#Known_side_effects) to vaccines, but thy are minor and irrelevant. You might end up with a fever or a headache. An insignificant price to pay for something that will save your life. The MMR vaccine (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#mmr) gives a serious allergic reaction in 1 of 1.000.000 injections. Contrast that with measles death rate of 2 in 1000.

The HPV vaccine has no side effects worse than a headache.


you would lock these people up and take their children as wards of the state because they don’t see things in the same light as you.

As I said at the start of this thread, it is a simple matter of handing custody temporarily to the state, inject the kids, then hand them back to the parents. Noone gets hurt and the child gets vaccinated.

[Sir Moody]

It is that simple, and it is proven. There has never been found any link whatsoever between autism and vaccines, that was a complete lie from Andrew Wakefield.


It wasn't just a lie - that understates it too much - it was Fraud.

Wakefield was attempting to bring down the combined Vaccine so he could sell a single vaccine which he had just patented (ie instead of one jab the kids would get 3 and Wakefield would profit from it).

This was all exposed decades ago - Wakefield was disbarred and it should have ended there - the fact that it is still is brought up shows just how much damage he did... all in the name of "profit"...

[a completely inoffensive name]

The MMR vaccine has been mostly cleared but there is also an issue with the chemical thimeroal which is a form of mercury suspected of causing autism. It has been removed from most but not all vaccines.

Well common sense would tell you that reducing the exposure of this potentially autism triggering chemical would at least produce a reduction in autism rates. And yet, we still seem to be in the midst of the autism "epidemic". Maybe chemistry is more complicated than mercury = bad.

[Papewaio]

I also believe the government should have a standard education credit that goes with each child and is applied regardless of school (public/private/independent/home).

Extra credits should be handled for poverty cases, but these should have two clauses.
(I) If you are living below the poverty line and are claiming government assistance then you would have to prove that your kids education is superior and that the child's future isn't being squandered. No proof required if you aren't asking for assistance, but I would suggest that community support such as a nurse checking the kids health at a minimum.
(II) Education aim is to create independent adults. Indoctrination to violent/cult mindsets should be minimized and certainly should not be government subsidized.

[Beskar]

I have to admit, I saw this the other day, and it clearly sends out the wrong message.
https://i.imgur.com/k8UEVJh.jpg

It boils down to "Lets give those idiots a lethal an anti-'anti-vaccine' injection! Hurrah! One less idiot in the world". The moral of their story ends up being "They are idiots, so label something as a vaccine which is intended to kill them" ... I just find the whole idea preposterous and doesn't help in the slightest, considering the criticism is the concerns that a vaccine would do this to them.

[Beskar]

Now this comic is done better. It takes viewpoints of individual responsibility and show how it can be horribly abused.
https://i.imgur.com/exPIqj5.jpg

[HopAlongBunny]

Science!? Who cares!
Its all about culture baby!

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/are-the-people-who-refuse-to-accept-climate-change-ill-informed/

[Papewaio]

Science!? Who cares!
Its all about culture baby!

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/are-the-people-who-refuse-to-accept-climate-change-ill-informed/

Ninja'd me. Just read the article.

[Montmorency]

I've read only this last page since my last visit to the thread.

Hey autism paranoiacs: autism is congenital. Christ.

[Fisherking]

Settled science backed up by data.

Well, they lied.



http://www.translationalneurodegeneration.com/content/3/1/16

[HoreTore]

They did not lie.

Your first link is about public knowledge. Why you believe science is affected by public knowledge is beyond me. Irrelevant article.

The second is a failed attempt to show that MMR-vaccines cause autism. It has been conclusively proven that it does not. Second link is also irrelevant.

[Beskar]

The second is a failed attempt to show that MMR-vaccines cause autism. It has been conclusively proven that it does not. Second link is also irrelevant.

The second link is actually far more specific, as the research itself says, it doesn't in the general population, but it does in a subset of the 'Afro-American' population show signs when only done at the earliest age bracket. But! There is the whole 'correlation versus causation' as the 'Afro-American' population has been well documented for misapplied for learning difficulties the highest numbers undiagnosed and being misdiagnosed due to racist views.

What is interesting is that the second link is suggestion neural degeneration in this subset, which is surprising as I haven't actually heard of a cases like this existing before how unexplained degeneration causes autism. Google is only showing this in the same journal. I am only more familiar with Multiple sclerosis, ASL, Strokes and others.

The reasons for this showing could be done to experimental factors as well, but the hypothesis that age has a factor as a whole was proven to be null, they simply found what seems to be an exception to the rule. The report is this year, and I do not know the reliability of the journal in question or the actual scientific attention it has received. But all it does is open the door for exploration, it doesn't actually counter current science.

But I definitely agree that posting the first link of "science is part of a cultural warfare" not really to say anything.

[Fisherking]

That fist link was in error, too many open tabs. I will remove it.

These links should be helpful for more in-depth information.



http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/cdc-whistleblower-cdc-covered-up-mmr-vaccine-link-to-autism-in-african-american-boys/


http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/-1939179.htm

[HoreTore]

3 irrelevant links, complete with paranoia and hysteria, but 'curiously' lacking in any kind of substance. Settled science, as has been said. That the homeopathy and crystal-pushing community is up in arms is nothing to worry about. They have the collective wits of a slightly handicapped stone.

[Beskar]

That fist link was in error, too many open tabs. I will remove it.

These links should be helpful for more in-depth information.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/cdc-whistleblower-cdc-covered-up-mmr-vaccine-link-to-autism-in-african-american-boys/
http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/-1939179.htm

Thanks, Fisherking. Looks like I read your study correctly. I am interested to know what exactly in the vaccine is causing it though. I am not aware of anything which gives that effect described and I am unsure if it isn't down to other errors or simply a one-off.

I would like a different study with a similar premises but covering 2000 onwards, that is a definite, I would have more confidence within the data since the data being used is over 20 years old and you would be able to accurately test to 2013 with the conclusions given.

And if there is a retake, I would like an in depth analysis of the patients before and after to see if there is any neurodegeneration effects.

The single report in itself doesn't show much, there are many things I am not satisfied within it. The fact the journal is 'opensource' like Wikipedia is also a concern for me due to professional integrity. Since my own reports have to be done to Journal standards, they are exceptionally nitpicky in making sure all the t's are crossed correctly and that you are not making any errors. Difference between volunteer review versus paid review.

[Fisherking]

3 irrelevant links, complete with paranoia and hysteria, but 'curiously' lacking in any kind of substance. Settled science, as has been said. That the homeopathy and crystal-pushing community is up in arms is nothing to worry about. They have the collective wits of a slightly handicapped stone.


What is most irrelevant is your opinion. Obviously you might have had enough time to read part of them or click on them but not to evaluate it. Not watch any of the interviews or video.

Your bias is showing! Your mind is made but on the bases of your own notions of what is the truth of the matter and facts be damned.

[HoreTore]

What is most irrelevant is your opinion. Obviously you might have had enough time to read part of them or click on them but not to evaluate it. Not watch any of the interviews or video.

Your bias is showing! Your mind is made but on the bases of your own notions of what is the truth of the matter and facts be damned.

I skimmed through all 3 looking for any reference to solid evidence. I found none. If there is such a thing in them, please point it out.

I also found time to go through your links looking for signs of alternative 'medicine' bullshit. I was not disappointed. (http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/detox-your-liver-with-homemade-lemon-water/)

EDIT: But no, I did not watch any of the videos. I never will either. If something isn't in writing, it's not worth my time. Video is for suckers.

[Fisherking]

Thanks, Fisherking. Looks like I read your study correctly. I am interested to know what exactly in the vaccine is causing it though. I am not aware of anything which gives that effect described and I am unsure if it isn't down to other errors or simply a one-off.

I would like a different study with a similar premises but covering 2000 onwards, that is a definite, I would have more confidence within the data since the data being used is over 20 years old and you would be able to accurately test to 2013 with the conclusions given.

And if there is a retake, I would like an in depth analysis of the patients before and after to see if there is any neurodegeneration effects.

The single report in itself doesn't show much, there are many things I am not satisfied within it. The fact the journal is 'opensource' like Wikipedia is also a concern for me due to professional integrity. Since my own reports have to be done to Journal standards, they are exceptionally nitpicky in making sure all the t's are crossed correctly and that you are not making any errors. Difference between volunteer review versus paid review.

If you are looking for other studies, chances are you would have to look in other countries, likely not English speaking ones, and even that might be doubtful.

With the proclamation that it is settled science anyone wishing to do such a study would bump against the CDC conclusion and getting funding would be very difficult.

Medical studies are also notoriously problematic. A very high percentage are withdrawn or proven wrong.

There was increased risk for all males and particularly African-American males at the earliest age category. While it could point to other factors in further analyses, the most important fact is that the CDC tried to hide it.

Isn’t science supposed to be open and unbiased?

[Beskar]

There was increased risk for all males and particularly African-American males at the earliest age category. While it could point to other factors in further analyses, the most important fact is that the CDC tried to hide it.


Problem with this, that males being more at risk with autism is actually a general trend. Look at the numbers for autism based on gender and it is significantly higher for males. The age of the data involved I am not happy with either.

Now, don't misunderstand me. Because I think there are some flaws with the report doesn't mean there should be any 'cover-ups' or fraudulently changing data. Tampering with the data like that only holds back Science and it is the wrong way to go about it.

There is also socio-economics at play, where middle-class families are more likely to have their kids diagnosed and more likely to have the injection than someone from a poor background who doesn't get diagnosed ("stupid poor person") and doesn't get the injection (economics/other factors).

[Fisherking]

I skimmed through all 3 looking for any reference to solid evidence. I found none. If there is such a thing in them, please point it out.

I also found time to go through your links looking for signs of alternative 'medicine' bullshit. I was not disappointed. (http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/detox-your-liver-with-homemade-lemon-water/)

EDIT: But no, I did not watch any of the videos. I never will either. If something isn't in writing, it's not worth my time. Video is for suckers.

Well, in that case modern western medicine is irreparably compromised. It greatest promoter was John. D. Rockefeller who only used homeopathy during his lifetime.

[Montmorency]

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biomedcentral.com%2Fcontent%2Fpdf%2F2047-9158-3-16.pdf

This is presumably the paper behind Fisherking's links.

Problems:

1. Autism has already been found to have strong, if not determinate, congenital basis.

2. Almost nothing in the paper there is statistically significant, and the highest reported risk, 3.36 for black males receiving vaccine before 36 months, is actually trivial and sensational. If eating X food is reported to be associated with increased risk of cancer diagnosis of 300%, then that is similarly meaningless. Relative risk =/= absolute risk.

3. Boys are more likely to be diagnosed with autism across the board.

4. Children under the age of 3 at the time of testing for autism were excluded from analysis. The entire cohort was children born between 1986 and 1993. The testing was done in 1996, which is around the time that certain advances in diagnosis and changes in criteria made it so that the majority of diagnoses began to be made between 2-4 years-of-age, and the cut-off for autism diagnosis became something like age 10. Why would the author(s) of this paper want to exclude this key age-group? Moreover, why did the authors select a data series where most of those tested for autism would be relatively old for such screening? Interestingly, this would predetermine the analysis to ignore any cases in which autism was diagnosed before administration of the vaccine...

5. 18 vs. 24 vs. 36 months cutoffs for black males and the Relative Risks reported would indicate strongest association of autism diagnosis with vaccination between ages 24 and 36 months in black males. As far as I know, the anti-vaccine crowd claims that earlier vaccination will be associated with autism diagnosis. The paper does not address that concentration.

6. Small sample size in a restricted location.


This is about as legit as the (also purely statistical-analysis) paper Kad linked a while ago (also open-access) that tried to indicate genetic differences between whites and blacks that would purportedly generate an intelligence gap. Crap like this gives open-access a bad rep, which is unfortunate as the movement overall is a nice thing.

[HoreTore]

Well, in that case modern western medicine is irreparably compromised. It greatest promoter was John. D. Rockefeller who only used homeopathy during his lifetime.

The greatest promoter of modern western medicine were western states. A small European state like Norway, for example, funds modern medicine with ~60 billion USD a year. Rockefellers contributions are tiny in comparison.

Further, any and all statements by Rockefeller on medicine are completely irrelevant. You linked to "research"/statements by a crank site.