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I dislike the antivax movement but mandatory state injections would be a huge violation of liberties in my opinion. Just because most vaccines are safe and wort

by kypro 8y ago

I dislike the antivax movement but mandatory state injections would be a huge violation of liberties in my opinion. Just because most vaccines are safe and worth while getting don't mean they all are, or always will be.

krapp 8y ago
>I dislike the antivax movement but mandatory state injections would be a huge violation of liberties in my opinion. That's true, but if we consider any violation of personal liberty to be harmful, then we're left with primitivist anarchy. We've decided, collectively (albeit not individually and not always voluntarily) that it is beneficial in some cases to abridge the rights of the individual for the sake of society. We invented systems of laws and courts because we consider a fixed set of common laws and a controlled system to adjudicate them to be more just and fair on average than retributory violence and clan based tribalism, despite the existence of the state and its monopoly on violence being an abridgement of personal liberty. We've also decided that, while scientific inquiry has its faults, it is preferable to assume that the premises of science (specifically, epidemiology and the utility of vaccines) hold sound, given the evidence, despite this amounting to an appeal to authority for most people, who aren't likely to be willing or able to do the work of personally validating all of the claims ever made by a particular scientific field. In the case of vaccines, we have ample historical evidence of the effect of epidemics and a lack of preventative measures on human populations, and of the improvements made to society as a result of vaccination and preventative measures. The choice here is not between potentially harmful vaccines versus a healthy life in their absence, rather, between between an abstract threat (vaccines) and a concrete threat (disease.) So, yes. Mandatory vaccines are a violation of liberty. We didn't spend the last several millennia laying a foundation of civilization and scientific progress just to subject ourselves to the blind malice of nature for the sake of a few people who don't like the government telling them they're not allowed to catch polio if they want to.
- swarnie_ 8y ago
  > a huge violation of liberties in my opinion Usually when your actions (or inactions) endanger others in an unreasonable way we write laws to force the individual to act a certain way for the greater good of society. I don't see how this is any different to drink driving laws.
- formerentourage 8y ago
  > Mandatory vaccines are a violation of liberty. They are not. Not vaccinating is a means of harming and killing people around you, which is not within boundaries of personal liberty. Theoretically, if you spent whole your life in wilderness far from other people, you could risk all diseases you want. I strongly dislike this normalizing language of giving up some liberty "for greater good". All things that superficially look like this should be really either a defense of liberty or autonomy of others, or an exercise of collective political liberty of the people to shape the world around them. The latter is subject to political change if people change their minds, and still has to respect personal liberty as the primary aim of free society. We should not equate progress with imposing more and more restrictions that are supposedly objectively "good" in some abstract way, as determined by some people. This loosens the principles at best. Some people can reject them, but we should be clear when they do that.
- gowld 8y ago
  The US government has an admitted history of running fake vaccine programs and intentionally cultivating syphillus in non-consenting vulnerable populations. The US government lost its vaccine-mandate legitimacy through its own crimes against humanity.
  - cloverich 8y ago
    That's universally condemned in the medical world as unethical.
    - gowld 8y ago
      Which is why the US government cannot be trusted on the matter
      - lolc 8y ago
        You mean that government is still doing it?
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Appeal to liberty is almost always the lowest and weakest answer when applied to most questions. Even in context of the great patriots of Massachusetts in the American revolution, throwing off the yoke of imperial Britain brought the less than enlightened governance of the legislative process, which was arguably less respectful of liberty... impressing sailors, levying goods, etc, In the US we instituted a supreme Federal government because of the failure of the initial, “liberty” focused government that enabled petty local interests over the overall good.
- raxxorrax 8y ago
  But we reached vaccination quotas above 95% without being mandatory, so that argument evidently does not apply.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    It totally applies because (a) the threshold needs to be 98% according to the math that governs such things, (b) we're not sure to stay at 98% (or even 95%) in the face of disinformation campaigns such as the one you're a part of, and (c) it really is important to be sure because the consequences of allowing outbreaks to continue are actually severe. Making other people suffer the burdens of illness could be seen as a violation of their rights, and is impossible to address via litigation after the fact, so prevention is necessary. You've already claimed that measles doesn't cause serious harm, and been proven wrong. Multiple times. You've claimed that this outbreak isn't serious, despite the facts that are known about how disease spreads and how infectious measles in particular is. Why do you persist in pushing this anti-vax narrative?
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I don't want to do the whole "think of the children!" thing here, but: It's children we're talking about. Forced immunisations in adults is absolutely a violation of civil liberties. They are an adult and they can decide whether they consent to being immunised or not after making a choice on the matter. But children have none of those rights or responsibilities. Why should a child suffer and/or die from a disease preventable by immunisation because of the actively harmful choices of their parents? It's literally child abuse. Refusing to immunise your child on some completely false belief that it will harm them is no different from letting your child play on a busy road.
- kypro 8y ago
  Sure, I completely understand where you're coming from because I share your concern, but if you truly believed a vaccine wasn't safe and that it had a significant chance of side effects, wouldn't you feel differently? You seem to be making the assumption that researchers always get things right or that there isn't sometimes unexpected consequences. I'm saying this as someone who is extremely happy my parents vaccinated me and wouldn't hesitate to vaccinate my own children, but that doesn't mean I can get on board with forcing parents to inject their children with something they feel could be dangerous. Just look at the state of the opioid epidemic, or the medication of conditions like depression. Medical professionals don't always know what's best for every individual, and arguably if you live in a rural area and home school your children, it's not so important to vaccinate your child. I believe strongly that children are the responsibly of their parents, not the state. I really dislike how the state is becoming the defacto parental figure in most childrens lives.
raxxorrax 8y ago
Exactly. Plus, it would be unnecessary. Vaccination quotas are still high and got as high as 98% in the past. Without mandated vaccinations in many cases. So it is possible to get there without decreasing liberties any further. We are on this course of decreasing liberties for decades now and it ruined trust in government and societies. Guess what? If that happens, we see more esoteric fringe groups. Geniuses...

by kypro 8y ago

krapp 8y ago

>I dislike the antivax movement but mandatory state injections would be a huge violation of liberties in my opinion. That's true, but if we consider any violation of personal liberty to be harmful, then we're left with primitivist anarchy. We've decided, collectively (albeit not individually and not always voluntarily) that it is beneficial in some cases to abridge the rights of the individual for the sake of society. We invented systems of laws and courts because we consider a fixed set of common laws and a controlled system to adjudicate them to be more just and fair on average than retributory violence and clan based tribalism, despite the existence of the state and its monopoly on violence being an abridgement of personal liberty. We've also decided that, while scientific inquiry has its faults, it is preferable to assume that the premises of science (specifically, epidemiology and the utility of vaccines) hold sound, given the evidence, despite this amounting to an appeal to authority for most people, who aren't likely to be willing or able to do the work of personally validating all of the claims ever made by a particular scientific field. In the case of vaccines, we have ample historical evidence of the effect of epidemics and a lack of preventative measures on human populations, and of the improvements made to society as a result of vaccination and preventative measures. The choice here is not between potentially harmful vaccines versus a healthy life in their absence, rather, between between an abstract threat (vaccines) and a concrete threat (disease.) So, yes. Mandatory vaccines are a violation of liberty. We didn't spend the last several millennia laying a foundation of civilization and scientific progress just to subject ourselves to the blind malice of nature for the sake of a few people who don't like the government telling them they're not allowed to catch polio if they want to.

swarnie_ 8y ago
> a huge violation of liberties in my opinion Usually when your actions (or inactions) endanger others in an unreasonable way we write laws to force the individual to act a certain way for the greater good of society. I don't see how this is any different to drink driving laws.
formerentourage 8y ago
> Mandatory vaccines are a violation of liberty. They are not. Not vaccinating is a means of harming and killing people around you, which is not within boundaries of personal liberty. Theoretically, if you spent whole your life in wilderness far from other people, you could risk all diseases you want. I strongly dislike this normalizing language of giving up some liberty "for greater good". All things that superficially look like this should be really either a defense of liberty or autonomy of others, or an exercise of collective political liberty of the people to shape the world around them. The latter is subject to political change if people change their minds, and still has to respect personal liberty as the primary aim of free society. We should not equate progress with imposing more and more restrictions that are supposedly objectively "good" in some abstract way, as determined by some people. This loosens the principles at best. Some people can reject them, but we should be clear when they do that.
gowld 8y ago
The US government has an admitted history of running fake vaccine programs and intentionally cultivating syphillus in non-consenting vulnerable populations. The US government lost its vaccine-mandate legitimacy through its own crimes against humanity.
- cloverich 8y ago
  That's universally condemned in the medical world as unethical.
  - gowld 8y ago
    Which is why the US government cannot be trusted on the matter
    - lolc 8y ago
      You mean that government is still doing it?
Spooky23 8y ago
Appeal to liberty is almost always the lowest and weakest answer when applied to most questions. Even in context of the great patriots of Massachusetts in the American revolution, throwing off the yoke of imperial Britain brought the less than enlightened governance of the legislative process, which was arguably less respectful of liberty... impressing sailors, levying goods, etc, In the US we instituted a supreme Federal government because of the failure of the initial, “liberty” focused government that enabled petty local interests over the overall good.
raxxorrax 8y ago
But we reached vaccination quotas above 95% without being mandatory, so that argument evidently does not apply.
- notacoward 8y ago
  It totally applies because (a) the threshold needs to be 98% according to the math that governs such things, (b) we're not sure to stay at 98% (or even 95%) in the face of disinformation campaigns such as the one you're a part of, and (c) it really is important to be sure because the consequences of allowing outbreaks to continue are actually severe. Making other people suffer the burdens of illness could be seen as a violation of their rights, and is impossible to address via litigation after the fact, so prevention is necessary. You've already claimed that measles doesn't cause serious harm, and been proven wrong. Multiple times. You've claimed that this outbreak isn't serious, despite the facts that are known about how disease spreads and how infectious measles in particular is. Why do you persist in pushing this anti-vax narrative?

toomanybeersies 8y ago

I don't want to do the whole "think of the children!" thing here, but: It's children we're talking about. Forced immunisations in adults is absolutely a violation of civil liberties. They are an adult and they can decide whether they consent to being immunised or not after making a choice on the matter. But children have none of those rights or responsibilities. Why should a child suffer and/or die from a disease preventable by immunisation because of the actively harmful choices of their parents? It's literally child abuse. Refusing to immunise your child on some completely false belief that it will harm them is no different from letting your child play on a busy road.

kypro 8y ago
Sure, I completely understand where you're coming from because I share your concern, but if you truly believed a vaccine wasn't safe and that it had a significant chance of side effects, wouldn't you feel differently? You seem to be making the assumption that researchers always get things right or that there isn't sometimes unexpected consequences. I'm saying this as someone who is extremely happy my parents vaccinated me and wouldn't hesitate to vaccinate my own children, but that doesn't mean I can get on board with forcing parents to inject their children with something they feel could be dangerous. Just look at the state of the opioid epidemic, or the medication of conditions like depression. Medical professionals don't always know what's best for every individual, and arguably if you live in a rural area and home school your children, it's not so important to vaccinate your child. I believe strongly that children are the responsibly of their parents, not the state. I really dislike how the state is becoming the defacto parental figure in most childrens lives.

raxxorrax 8y ago

Exactly. Plus, it would be unnecessary. Vaccination quotas are still high and got as high as 98% in the past. Without mandated vaccinations in many cases. So it is possible to get there without decreasing liberties any further. We are on this course of decreasing liberties for decades now and it ruined trust in government and societies. Guess what? If that happens, we see more esoteric fringe groups. Geniuses...